man.

"I cannot close this hasty and inadequate, yet fervent and hearty, tribute without recalling to your memory the reverent spirit in which he pursued his scientific labors. Nearly forty years ago, in his first great work on fossil fishes, in developing his principle of classification he wrote, 'An invisible thread in all ages runs through this immense diversity, exhibiting as a general result the fact that there is a continual progress in development ending in The four classes of vertebrates present the intermediate steps and the invertebrates a constant accessory accompaniment. Have we not here an immense mind, as powerful as prolific, the acts of an intelligence as sublime as provident, the marks of a goodness as infinite as wise, the most palpable demonstration of the existance of a personal God, the author of all things, ruler of the universe, and dispenser of all good? This at least is what I read in the works of creation.' But it is what he ever read and read with profound awe and admiration. To this exalted faith he was invincibly loyal. The laws of nature were to him the eternal word of God. His repugnance to Darwinism grew in a great part from his apprehension of its atheistical tendency; an apprehension which at best I cannot share, for I forget not that those theories now in the ascendent are adopted by not a few determined Christian men; and while they seem to me not only unproved but unprovable, I could deem them truth without parting with one iota of my faith in God and Christ. Yet I can best sympathize most heartily with him in the spirit with which he resisted what seemed to him to lessen the majesty of the Master and supporter of the universe. Nor was his a mere theoretical faith. His whole life, in its pervading spirit of service, in its fidelity to arduous duties, in its simplicity and truthfulness, bespoke one who was sincerely fulfilling a mission from God to his fellow men.

"We mourn his departure as an irreparable loss, yet is there. not ground for thankfulness that he was taken from us while we could lament his removal? That he was spared the slow decay in living death which added years might have brought? That with merciful suddenness, in the fair bloom of his life, he was translated to a higher sphere of action? God comfort and help those whose homes and hearts he has left desolate, and grant them that nearer fellowship with the vast gathering company of kindred in heaven, in which alone they can find consolation and peace. 'The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; man cometh forth as a flower and is

cut down; he withereth as the grass, but the word of God shall stand forever.' All that is wrought for truth shall endure, and they who have wrought for the truth if they die, shall yet live. They that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars forever and ever.

II. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

In the Church of the Disciples Rev. Edward E. Hale gave a Lecture on the Church, in which he maintained that while Christ maintained a new order of social life, the Christian Commonwealth, he established no specific church order.

"He did say, as he was bidding his apostles good-by, what would always be the test of man's discipleship, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.' That test is a perfect type of his system as it is a perfect key to it. People cannot get away from it if they try. No one man makes a language. So long as he goes on loving his fellow-men, comforting their sorrows, feeding their hunger, and teaching their ignorance, men will know that he is a disciple of Jesus Christ and will be very apt to say so. I believe I may without impropriety allude to the great heretic of Brooklyn. If he perseveres in doing unto others as his Saviour would have done, if when he is reviled he reviles not again, if when an old friend turns against him he has no word of anger for that friend, if he relies on his own character to sustain itself, and refuses to prosecute anybody else by way of saving his own repute, if he can live in love with the churches around him, and people who abuse him—why, men will know he is a disciple of Jesus Christ, and they will know it with a certainty which no decision of council nor the verdict of any conclave would give them; for by this shall men know ye as my disciples-if ye love one another.' The plan of Christ relied on the union of his disciples. This union was a union of affection, not of selfishness; it was as we say - a matter of heart and not of the head. It is not a mere code of behavior, so much washing of hands and so much fringe on the clothes. It is a system of living together. It is this common life, this union in faith, union in prayer, union in effort, which makes half a dozen women sewing on worn-out tunics for the poor people in Joppa a stronger power than Philo lecturing

on philosophy in Alexandria. The women were together; Philo was alone.

“And if any man ask me, Why as a matter of fact I am enrolled among the Independent Congregationalists of New England? I say it is because there I have the best chance to speak, and the best place to work, for the coming of the kingdom and the building up of the commonwealth of Christ. The best chance to speak; as it happens my business, in a measure, is to speak. Well, I can say what I choose, and no synod, no consociation, or bishop or vicar holds me to account for what I say. If any man wants to reply, he may reply. But in the open order of Unitarian Congregationalists there is no ecclesiastical power which can censure. The best chance to work. For nobody bids me 'Go here,' 'Go there,''Meet here,' 'Try this,' or 'Try that.' But the eternal Vicar speaking at the moment day opens upon me in the morning, and speaking still when sleep closes my eyes as night comes on, bids me put my hand to the duty taught me, and as God's child do that duty well. In the fellowship of these churches of ours your daily duty is your daily ritual. And I claim for our fellowship that in this perfect freedom you come closest to God and hear his whisper most distinctly because we do not have to construe it from the canon of this council, or the decision of that assembly. I claim that you come nearer to man because you have no disguise of uniform or armor, of rank or of sect; and I claim that those who see God thus, and see man thus, live most simply and easily in the spiritual life, know and trust more readily in the law of our infinite heaven. I claim that the simple order of a church without a creed gives a man the best chance for faith and love and hope.

III. THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS.

The third sermon of which a report is given in "The Advertiser" was preached in the West Church (Rev. Dr. Bartol), on the Landing of the Pilgrims, by the Rev. Frederic H. Hedge, D.D.

"He said that the annals of the year 1620 contained among other items the brief statement of this event, which attracted no attention outside of the circle specially concerned. The first weekly newspaper in England was not printed until two years after,

but had there been any newspapers they would have regarded this as of no import, though it was the greatest event of the seventeenth century. Europe was at the time convulsed by the conflict between the Roman and the Protestant religions. In Germany the thirty years' war was raging. This year had witnessed the first successes of the Catholic arms, and a few days before the landing at Plymouth occurred the battle of Prague, when the Catholic powers recovered the land where the light of the Reformation first dawned. The battle of Prague appeared then to be the most important event of the century, but the landing of the Pilgrims was far greater; it was a triumph of Protestantism, and the beginning of a long series of triumphs. The beginning of an nation's history is always a topic of curious interest. Such is history, sowed in weakness, raised in glory; beginning in private enterprise, culminating in a nation. A ship's company tossed by a wilderness of waters to a wilderness of land, how often has this story been told! We step from ship to ship, from Noah's ark to the Mayflower, but none in weight and extent of results can be compared to that perilous voyage, where they carried the kingdom of God in their hearts and these United States in their loins. This is a subject too sumblime for poetry. Of all ships which have ever given their prows to the surge on any terrestrial sea, that crazy barque Mayflower was the most richly laden since the mythical one stranded on Ararat. All the religious freedom of these United States was in the invoice of that ship. All the qualities which have made New England famous came in the Mayflower's bosom. Carlyle speaks of the ship which, with its cargo of Saxons, came from the mouth of the Elbe to the mouth of the Thames. The Pilgrim ship brought the same qualities brought by this Saxon barque, matured by one thousand years' discipline, civil liberty, ecclesiastical independence and spiritual insight. They landed wide of their destination.

"The Puritans brought liberty and also law and self-command and obedience. Another thing which they brought was the family. This was an exceptional case in the founding of colonies. Singularly, the same year, cargoes of young woman were sent to the elder colony of Jamestown to be sold as wives to the settlers. From such conditions as these Virginia society grew. But the family was from the first the keystone of New England society. The Puritans brought a deeply religious spirit. Others brought religious uses and convictions. This was not the first attempt to colonize New Eng

land. But in a year Popham's colony, at the mouth of the Kennebec, returned to England like scared children to their mother. The reason of this failure was the motive which formed the colony. But the Pilgrims at Plymouth remained with hunger and cold before them. Not one went back who had set his hand to this plowing. Such was the difference between enterprise founded in faith and natural gain. The charge of bigotry which had been brought against the Puritans the preacher did not refute. He would rejoice in it. They were bigots. Bigotry means strength, endurance, final perserverance. They were bigots; but what would ye have,- spiritual indifference, philosophical dilettanteism, what we call 'free religion?' On such foundations no church can be founded. But Puritanism was not all bigotry. It developed religious independence, and from it sprang the liberal faith of our communion. The old Puritan churches were unhampered by creeds, and they are now the Unitaritan churches of New England Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, has just vindicated its right to its name by resenting the interference of other churches-interference which tends directly to Rome. The analogy of history forbids us to suppose that the Puritan stock will quite subdue the world. Nature permits no monopoly of her methods. Education involves many methods, and the mission of Puritanism in America is not final. cipation was the gift of the Puritans to the race. emancipation is to follow remains to be seen. That great problem is to be solved not like other great problems, not by force, but by growth; not by revolution, but by evolution. many members. This is the paradigm set for us. mation long foretold and long postponed, when there shall be suffrage neither male nor female, but all parts shall act in harmony, one with the other. This is the only satisfactory account of the end of

man.

Political emanWhether social

One body and This is the sum

At present we know it only as a dream, but the dreams of philanthropy are the oracles of God."

"THE pure white hand of faith lifts the curtain of night, and shows our feeble vision a golden glowing morn."