THERE is nothing so revolutionary, because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive to society, as the strain to keep things fixed, when all the world is, by the very law of its creation, in eternal progress; and the cause of all the evils of the world may be traced to that natural but most deadly error of human indolence and corruption, that our business is to preserve and not to improve. It is the ruin of all alike-individuals, schools and nations.

Dr. Arnold.

I WOULD say to all who cherish the associations that gather around the offices and duties of sectarian religion, stay in the church just as long as the church does you good. When you outgrow the relation, change your position and give to free thought and humanity the benefit of your growth and emancipation.

WE are each of us inspired according to our capacity and desire; and when we think this inspiration is nothing to us, and that we can as well do without it, we are unconsciously trifling with the most priceless treasure which it is ever given to human beings to enjoy. No we cannot do without this inspiration of God.

My abhorrence of conservatism is not because it checks liberty,—in an established democracy it would favor liberty, but because it checks the growth of mankind in wisdom, goodness and happiness, by straining to maintain institutions which are of necessity temporary, and thus never hindering change, but often depriving the change of half its value.

Dr. Arnold.

PROGRESS is inevitable, but on human effort depends its speedy attainment.

REPENTANCE of sin is progression out of sin.

ALL the holy attributes of God are implanted in the spirit of man; these will work out the will of their Creator, when not prevented by the individuality of the possessor. By the perverseness of man,-by his outer education, they are often kept as it were in a state of idleness, but they ever live, and will eventually overrule all his actions.

INSTEAD of investigating and obeying the moral laws of our nature, the violation of which causes all the inharmony, the inequality in social condition, and the consequent suffering with which earth is overflowing, men have been busy in the endeavor to discover or invent and propagate systems of religion, by which they hope to escape, in a future life, the consequences of a violation of the Creator's laws in this.

Geo. Combe.

IF your conception seems to you most consistent with the nature of our Father in Heaven and the tenor of His word,—if it gives you joy and peace in believing, restrains you from evil, impels you to good, sustains you in adversity, and comforts you in sorrow, far be it from me to seek its displacement. I would make no proselyte to any theological opinion I hold, unless I hoped thereby to make him two fold more the child of heaven than he previously was.

INDIVIDUAL investigation and experience can alone determine for each individual what spiritualism is, in its deepest, divinest essence, when applied to the mind, the heart and life. It can no more become embodied in a creed, form or church, than can the air or the sunlight of heaven.

Look not mournfully into the past,-it comes not back again; wisely improve the present, it is thine; go forth and meet the dim and shadowy future without fear, and with a manly heart.

CONSCIENCE in the general or rather in the idealogical sense of the word means the knowledge which each man has of his own acts. Thus we say that the soul is conscious of its thoughts, of the acts of its will, and of its sensations; so that the word conscience taken in this sense expresses a perception of what we do and feel. Applied to the moral order, this word signifies the judgments which we ourselves form of our actions as good or evil. Thus when we are about to perform an action, conscience points it out to be as good or bad, and consequently lawful or unlawful; and it thus directs our conduct. The action being performed, it tells us whether we have done well or ill, it excuses or condemns, it rewards us with peace of mind, or punishes us with remorse. Public conscience is nothing but the judgment formed of their actions by the generality of men. It results from this that, like private conscience, the public conscience may be right or wrong, strict or relaxed; and that there must be differences on this point among societies of men, the same as there are among individuals, that is to say, that, as in the same society, we find men whose consciences are more or less right or wrong, more or less strict or relaxed, we must also find societies superior to others, in the justice of the judgments which they form on actions, and in the delicacy of their moral appreciation.

Balme.

By the supernatural is meant, the operation of those higher and more recondite laws of God, with which, being yet but most superficially acquainted, we either denominate their effects miraculous, or, shutting our eyes firmly, deny their existence altogether.

William Howitt.

NEITHER in this life nor in the life to come can I hope a forgiveness of any sin not repented of; and no sin is repented of, the habit of which is not changed.

As the soul is large by nature and education, so large can its inspiration be. Perfect inspiration could be received only by perfect beings fulfilling absolutely all the laws of mind and morals. In man there must always remain somewhat merely human, personal, fallible. The light which comes pure from the Sun of Truth is refracted as it enters the atmosphere of our thoughts, and receives from it colors of all kinds; doubly refracted, when it is reproduced in human language. There is somewhat of divine and somewhat of human, in the noblest thoughts and words of man. As God aids him morally by His grace, and yet never makes him impeccable; so He aids him intellectually by inspiration, yet never makes him infallible.

Frances Cobbe.

IN discussing questions wherein actual demonstration cannot be had, analogy is the next best criterion, and all rational persons are bound to receive that theory which presents the fewest rational objections, and most in keeping with analogy.

When knowledge is obviously incomplete, belief should be provisional, and judgment trained to hold itself in the prudent suspense of philosophic doubt.

THE virtue of an act consists in its being in harmony with the dictates of all the faculties acting in harmonious combination and duly enlightened. The dictates of the animal, moral and intellectual powers, which constitute rules of conduct are the collective dictates of the best endowed and best balanced minds, illuminated by the greatest knowledge.

Geo. Combe.

VIRTUE consists in doing our duty in the several relations that we sustain in respect to ourselves, and to our fellow men, and to God, as known from our reason, conscience and revelation.

THERE is nothing worse for man than uncertainty and indecision; nothing that weakens, and tends more to make him useless. Indecision is to the will, what skepticism is to the mind. Give a man a definite object, and if he will devote himself to it, he will attain it. Let him hesitate between two different ways without a fixed rule to guide his conduct; let him not know whither he is going; let him be ignorant of his intentions, and you will find his energy relax, and his strength diminish, and he will stop.

Do you know by what secret great minds govern the world? Do you know what renders them capable of heroic action? And how all those who surround them are rendered so? It is that they have a fixed object both for themselves and for others; it is that they see that object clearly, desire it ardently, strive after it directly, with firm hope and lively faith, without showing any hesitation in themselves or others. Unity of thought and fixity of plan gives superiority over other men.

Balme.

I MUST cease to believe in human nature ere I can cease to believe in prayer. There is not on earth a more unnatural man than the prayerless man. Want, fear and love urge men as naturally to the Heavenly Parent, as they do children to the earthly parent. Emphatically and beautifully natural was Cornelius who "prayed to God always." There is nothing in the bringing about of which men have or can have an agency for which they should not at all times be ready to pray.

Prayer for or against rain is as irrational as would be prayer for or against an eclipse. Prayer for a safe voyage is rational. It is among other things prayer for self possession, wisdom, skill on the part of the navigator.

Gerrit Smith.