Would there not have been more reason and reli- | upon society without which the world would have gion in changing the day of meeting to one more sunk into social and moral degradation. suitable and agreeable to the members, than by trying in vain for nearly two centuries to require them to do what they did not believe duty demanded of

them!

This is a subject that we will have to meet in the near future, and I would be willing to have it brought before the next yearly meeting to be disposed of as best wisdom may direct. S. S.

THE QUESTION OF THE DAY.*

"Once to every man and Nation

Comes the moment to decide

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood,
For the good or evil side."

At no time in the history of our country has this moment of decision more loudly proclaimed itself than the present, and never has there been a more important question to decide than this which confronts us now.

Twenty-five years ago our fathers battled bravely for freedom—the removal of Negro Slavery-and, after a severe and desperate struggle, they succeeded in forever removing from this "Land of the Free" that deep stain upon the nation.

To-day there exists a greater evil, a far more destructive and universal slavery.

The license system, both high and low, has been tried and found wanting, because it is in opposition to the laws of God. If liquor selling is wrong, no price that men may put upon it can ever make it right. A young man ruined in a saloon, the proprietor of which paid $500 as a license fee, is none the less ruined than if only $25 were paid.

High license, instead of reducing intemperance, is an active agent in its production, because it gives to vice an appearance of respectability, and is all the more likely to lead the unwary astray.

Many persons seeing plainly that compromise with sin is in opposition to their religion, and also that it is always equal to defeat, have sought for a plan to prohibit the use of intoxicants.

Prohibition is a law consistent with both God and

man. Thou shalt not kill, is a prohibitory law; thou shalt not steal, is a prohibitory law; and should not a traffic which is the great cause of all the violations of law and holiness be itself prohibited? Nations have recognized the illgality and sin of the traffic in human flesh; how long will they admit the right to deal in that which destroys the soul?

To fell a great oak we must cut at the root; so, to hibit the manufacture, sale and importation of all banish intemperance from the land, we must prointoxicating drinks.

The Liquor Traffic is the cruel master, and the poor inebriate, the miserable slave. Not a home in the land but feels its dark shadow, near or remote; no bright youth in all this great and free republic that is wholly safe from the snares that chain the in-active labor, that good is wrought. tellect and deaden all the fine influences of home, so long as on every street corner allurements to vice remain. And until we arise in our strength, and sub

In this great work each has a part to do, each an influence to exert, however small, and it is demanded of us, for we are our brothers' keepers. It is not by quiet acquiescence in right, but by

due this evil, we are still a nation of slaves.

It is the liquor traffic that fills our almshouses, prisons, and insane asylums, that costs this country more than $900,000,000 annually, and robs the nation of thousands of her children every year.

And who is responsible for this national outrage? Who exercises the right of power in this republic, instituted for the freedom and happiness of all? The people; and upon them rests the guilt of the rum

seller.

Fully recognizing this stain upon our country, the question should arise in every mind, What can I do towards wiping out this great sin, and lifting the dense cloud of shame and sorrow which hovers over our land, and is crushing out all life and gladness in so many homes.

The dogma of Moderation must be thrown aside, as it always acts as a snare for the young.

Total Abstinence is the only true and safe remedy for intemperance.

Let us not be content in freeing ourselves from this all-oppressing foe, but labor diligently for the

relief and saving of others.

It is in moral suasion and temperance education of the young that woman has proved her unequaled abilities. She has exerted those great influences

* Essay read at the closing exercises of Friends' Central School, Fifteenth and Race streets, Philadelphia, Sixth month 19th, 1885, by one of the graduates.

Let us, then, be alive to the subject before us; let us labor earnestly for the right, and the time will soon come when this soul-destroying traffic will be ing cries proceed from homes cursed by intemperdriven from the land, and no longer will heartrendance, but peace and happiness will reign supreme.

WILLIAM C. COLES.

THE INDWELLING GOD.

The man who finds not God in his own heart will

find him nowhere, and he who finds him there will find him everywhere. The reason why men are so often bewildered and disappointed in their search for God is that they do not look for him first of all where he should chiefly be sought, in the manifestations he makes of himself in their own minds and hearts. They suffer the noises of the world to drown them for wrong-doing, and never ceases to plead with "the still, small voice" that never fails to rebuke That voice, whose utterances never fail, is the voice them to keep in the path of righteousness and peace. of God in the human soul, the primary revelation of the divine will, without which all written revelations

would be vain. Before man can know or intelli

gently believe that God has spoken to others, he has spoken to himself. By the message to himself, he instinctively and necessarily tries all other messages purporting to be divine, to determine whether they are so or not. If he misinterprets, as he may, the revelation of God to himself, that blunder must be

must at least have some dim consciousness that he

corrected before he can rightly interpret any other revelation. "If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!"

The immanence of God in man is a truth which theologians too often overlook or utterly forget.. Hence the confusion and contradiction in which they become involved. Man is regarded not merely as a wanderer from God, but as one forsaken by him, and to be redeemed, not through the operation of forces and influences provided for in his original constitution, but by some miraculous after thought. We referred recently to an editorial article in a prominent religious journal, in which an attempt was made to show that man has not in himself any power of moral recuperation, and that, if it were not for the objective atonement" provided by Christ, he would be hopelessly lost. The writer of the article seems to rejoice in expelling God from humanity for the mere pleasure of bringing him back again by the device of the atonement.

that we feel ourselves to be the entire Yearly Meeting, as appears in our opening minute. I regret to find this repeated year after year, and to feel my self to be one of the number who issues it.

It has long felt to me to carry with it the appearance of an unbecoming assumption on the part of men Friends, and once, in the Yearly Meeting I suggested simply the inserting of the word men in the opening minute, so that it would read, "At the Yearly Meeting of men Friends," etc., remarking that there was at that time the other part of the Yearly Meeting in session (the women's Yearly Meeting) in the other end of the house; and that they— with commendable modesty and propriety-insert the word women in their opening minutes; and it appears also in their Extracts from their minutes. Reading on, we find in the second paragraph, that "At the Yearly Meeting of Friends, held in Philadelphia, Representatives were present ex

cept six,” etc.

"Representa

But, on page 54, we read, tives were all present except ten," etc., both of which, no doubt, were true. But if the men Friends were answering for the whole Yearly Meeting, our minute is untrue.

I understand fully, that when these preliminary minutes are made, women Friends are acting for the women's branch of the Yearly meeting, and the men for their part only; then why not have it stated correctly at the start?

This matter of the three letters (men) appears to me of sufficient importance to claim a little space in the columns of the INTELLIGENCER AND Journal, for consideration, and is submitted by

EMMOR COMLY.

If by this it were only meant that man can do nothing of himself, but lives and moves and has his being in God, we should readily yield our assent. The recuperative forces of the body are provided of God, and attest his presence and power; and we maintain that the forces he employs for the recuperation of the soul wounded by sin are equally a part of the human constitution, not separate from it. Divine influences work upon the hearts of men by a natural and inflexible law. The sinner is never forsaken of God, who stands ready to forgive upon the first sign of penitence and reformation. The law of moral recuperation is as constant as the physical, and both are alike divine. The doctrine of an "objective atonement" is only a disturbance in the operation of natural laws, inducing false hopes and putting men in artificial relations with God and with one another. That God dwells in men is a truth alike funda- APPARENT TRUTH OR ABSOLUTE TRUTH: WHICH? mental and consoling. That he is ever "working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure," warning Recent articles in the INTELLIGENCER AND JOURus from evil and drawing us ever to himself, inviting NAL, the proceedings of the late Yearly Meeting, in us perpetually to a feast of love and spiritual delight Philadelphia, and the disbanding of the Committee in his presence, is a truth to which every right-on Deficiencies (implying that its work is done) minded soul will bear joyful witness. And, as God justify the inference that the decline in the Society is mightier than man, truth more powerful than error, of Friends has been arrested, that the dead-point has and holiness more to be desired than sin, we must been passed, and that henceforth, with the renewed believe that, in the course of time, either in this or interest awakened, the watchword is onward. some other world, through the corrective discipline of spiritual and moral law every sinner will be reclaimed.-Christian Register.

For The Intelligencer and Journal.

OUR "EXTRACTS," 1885.

As heretofore, the first line contains what I consider an error, by the omission of the word men, in the opening minute.

If the "Yearly Meeting of Friends," held in Philadelphia, were composed of men Friends only, then the opening minute as it now stands would be cor

rect.

My view is, men Friends alone do not constitute the whole of the Yearly Meeting, they are only a part; women Friends are another important part. Recognizing this, it is a matter of surprise that our men Friends will adhere to an expression implying

Bristol, Seventh mo. 7th, 1885.

For The Intelligencer and Journal.

Will it not be well and wise for Friends to consider calmly whether this is the absolute truth, or is it only an apparent truth? We do not wish to deceive ourselves nor do we wish to be deceived. If it is an absolute truth, then it follows that a new religious life has been awakened among us, that leaving the husks of tradition and the dregs of worldliness, we have come to our meetings asking bread from the Father's house. It follows that our subordinate meetings, the fountains of society are gaining new religious zeal. They are tributary to the main body and unless the water of life flows forth from them, the body will not be replenished. This water of life is to be had now as ever for the asking, for the declaration of Jesus, the Christ, to the woman of Samaria is a perpetual truth: "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water."

It is our high privilege to live in an age that is not | rauch that we becloud our own work. Each has an satisfied with apparent truth, and if our younger individual mission to perform. There are not two members, with their keener perceptions, should dis- blades of grass alike, two leaves of the same tree, nor cover that the real decline in the Society has not anything that God has created; and surely there is been arrested, that our meetings are still cold and nothing perfect but what He has created. If we test formal and dead, that the table which is spread is all things, and accept only that which is in harmony not laden with rich food from the spiritual kingdom, with the divine law, and if we look within and act prepared by the Master's hand as milk for babes and without, each generation will progress beyond the strong meat for men, the reaction will not only equal preceding. Let us rely on the ever-true and loving the action but exceed it. influence of God's power, which is manifested not only in ourselves, but in everything around. The tiny flower speaks His love, and all the mighty universe reveals it. Should not we, who are capable of great action, use all our powers to demonstrate it? Science and all the other studies for the mind ought not to distract our attention from Him, but widen our faculties for receiving His divine light; and then we should use these strengthened abilities to discover some undiscovered truth. We will find Him everywhere if we seek aright. The harmony of the world speaks loud enough to tell us that He is CL unchanged, through time's all-devastating flight." May He not teach us all that we need to know, and inspire us with new and rich treasures for the cultivation and development of ourselves? A. D. ANDREWS. Baltimore, Md.

If the Society of Friends has been declining for a half century or more (and we think no well-informed person will deny it), has the brief investigation instituted in our branch of the Society revealed the causes of this decline, and are these causes in the process of removal? Has it even been determined whether the disease is functional or organic?

This seems to the writer to be important, for if it is merely a functional derangement, tonics and mild remedies will answer; but if it is an organic disease, then the treatment must be radical, or it will not be effectual. Without indicating at present our view upon this point, we would ask that we may all consider thoughtfully whether the Divine Life seems to circulate freely through the body, vitalizing it from head to foot, rendering our older members nursing fathers and nursing mothers in the church; the mature ones, strong men and strong women in the Lord, ready for action in the militant church, while the children and the babes are drawing their spiritual nourishment from the breasts of the Society. If this is not our condition then the Society is not healthy, and its want of tone and vigor will be both seen and felt in the want of life in the official members and the consequent want of interest in the non-official

ones.

It is not the part of wise men to shut our eyes to the truth, to cling to the traditions of the past, or to court our ease, saying to those who would disturb our death-like rest," Let us alone, we are the descendants of Friends and bear their honored name.”

That name and whatever fame is due it are fruits of the consecration of the Fathers to the will of God wrought out in a baptism of suffering and self-denial, and if we would wear their crown we must be willing to bear their cross.

For The Intelligencer and Journal.
PROGRESS.

J. S. W.

Let us progress. There is nothing that will lead us nearer to God than noble actions and sincere devotion, which is an earnest desire to come more and more closely to the truth. Each of us is capable of receiving this power, if he seek it. It has been proven an actual fact by those who have sought, that "if we seek, we shall find; if we knock, it shall be opened unto us; if we ask, it shall be given us." We do not understand by this, that if we knock awhile, it shall be opened unto us, and then closed; or if we ask awhile, it shall be given us until we have a certain amount and no more; but as long as we seek we shall find; therefore each time we are prepared to receive more than the preceding time, and consequently are sure of progress. We should not depend upon ancient writings and teachings so

For The Intelligencer and Journal.
THE SECRETS OF THE HILLS.

Come with me to the mountains, not where rocks
Soar harsh above the troops of hurrying pines,
But where the generous hills

Left a green isle betwixt the sky and plain
To keep some Old World things aloof from change.
Here, too, 'tis hill and hollow: new-born streams
With sweet enforcement, joyously compelled,
Like laughing children, hurry down the steeps,
And make a dimpled chase athwart the stones;
Pine woods are black upon the heights, the slopes
Are green with pasture, and the bearded corn
Fringes the blue above the sudden ridge;
A little world whose round horizon cuts
This isle of hills with heaven for a sea."

Our whole journey up the fair valley of the Shenandoah was of great interest, for there are many localities where the memories of the aboriginal dwellers in this region linger. We have with us a

History of the Valley of Virginia, by one Samuel Kercheval, an old inhabitant of this region, whose memory reached back to the rude, early days of the primitive life beyond the barriers of the hills; to the times of Dunmore's war against the Indians in 1774; to the war of the Revolution, and the war of 1812.

I scanned its pages as we sped on our way and found that this annalist, who was a man of no depth of learning, was a person who appreciated simple justice and righteousness, and mourned the wrongs done to the Indian. He calls attention to remains of the mound builders which yet exist upon the Shenandoah and its branches. He speaks of such remains on the Hawksbill creek, a few miles above Luray, on the west side of the river. says: "There are three large Indian graves, ranged nearly side by side, thirty or forty feet in length, twelve or fourteen feet wide, and five or six feet high; around them, in circular form, are a number

He

of single graves. The whole covers an area of little | Shenandoah Valley line at Waynesboro Junction, less than a quarter of an acre. They are covered where, after a time of waiting and meditation, we over with a heavy growth of forest trees, and are are taken up by a train of the Chesapeake and Óhio very ancient in appearance." road, which bears us over a most picturesque and varied country to the very heart of the Piedmont region. This portion of Virginia is that which lies between the low lands of tidewater Virginia and the summit of the Blue Ridge mountains. It has a rich soil, noble timber, mineral wealth of vast extent, and here we find, for the first time on the Atlantic coast, the primordial granite rock. Springs of valuable mineral and medicinal qualities occur in many localities.

The author, whose book was published at Winchester, by Samuel H. Davis, in 1833, speaks of having had the curiosity to open several of these Indian graves" as he considered them, and found a pipe of unknown form, made of hard black stone and painted with a substance of a reddish cast. In all the graves he examined, the bones were found in a state of advanced decay except the teeth.

It did not seem to be known to Samuel Kercheval that the mound-building race to which these remains are attributable were displaced by the Indians, who encountered the Anglo-Saxon only to perish before him. He cites the righteous example set by the Society of Friends, of whom a goodly number of families settled at an early day in the valley of the Shenandoah. These adopted measures to provide for the purchase of the lands on which they settled. But no particular tribe could be found who claimed to hold any sort of proprietorship of the soil. It was considered the common hunting-ground of many tribes. He also cites a serious letter of godly counsel from Thomas Chalkley, of blessed memory, to the "Friends inhabiting Shenandoah and Opequon." In the year 1738, Chalkley being heavy in body and advanced in years, felt physically unable to go personally to his brethren beyond the mountains, and directed a pastoral letter to the Monthly Meeting of Opequon, exhorting that Friends keep up a friendly correspondence with the Indians, and refrain from taking their lands without their consent," following the good example of the worthy and honorable William Penn.' We may hope that these pioneer Friends did justly so far as in them lay, and that they escaped the woe that befell so many who disregarded the golden rule in their dealing with the red men.

Among the Friends' families who early established homes here were the Neils, Walkers, Bransons, McKays, Hackneys, Beesons, Luptons, Barretts, Dillons, etc., and it appears that theirs is an honorable record from the earliest days, but doubtless they had less success than the Moravians in convincing the Indians of Christian principle and inducing them to adopt the Christian profession. The United Brethren, with great zeal and earnestness, have worked early and late to lead men really to adopt the peaceable spirit and wisdom of Jesus, and to live according to the gracious pattern of the blessed Nazarene. But both in Pennsylvania and Virginia the popular professed Christianity was not of this complexion. The crime of the Paxton boys in Pennsylvania and the yet more affecting murder of the Moravian Indians in the Shenandoah valley are the evidences of this. The cruelty of the "Christian" was seen to be greater than that of the uninstructed son of the forest-many of these showing by their works of what fold they were. The future sufferings of the pioneers of the Valley from Indian warfare was doubtless the mournful consequent of the injustice and cruelty of the earlier day, for it must remain forever true that man reaps what he has sown.

Later in the afternoon we reach the end of the

It is claimed that the climate is temperate throughout the year, and as healthy as any in the world. Near nightfall we pause at Millboro Station, which is the nearest point on the railroad from which the warm springs of Bath county can be reached. The fifteen miles' ride over the mountain the next day is another delight, for the way is rich and fragrant. with flowers. The wild rose was in its noonday splendor, the orange-colored asclepia gave a tropic splendor to the wayside, while the rhododendron, in full flower, seemed to surpass itself in glory.

e are just in the very centre of old Virginia as, at length, our carriage pauses on the summit of the road that zigzags down into the charming and wellremembered valley of the Warm Springs. It seems like a happy home coming in this noon of summer.

As we drive up to the hotel, it seems as if a renewal of the freshness of youth had come to the venerable and famous hostelrie which has had for its summer guests some of the most famed of the statesmen and other eminent citizens of the Republic a generation or more ago. An air of neatness and taste, smoothly shaven lawns, clearly defined borders, blooming roses and hollyhocks, rustic vases, terraced flower beds, prettily painted cottages for the encouragement of an amiable hermit life amid the birds and green grass and under the shadows of noble trees, attracted immediate attention. The two large hotels were also newly painted and in complete order, and the entertainers were full of kind solicitude for the good and the comfort of every one of their great family. There are accommodations here for at least 500 guests in the season, and so great are the improvements that I think it but just to say that they ought to satisfy reasonable people.

We are nestled among the everlasting hills which environ the sweet valley of healing and look down upon us with a protecting tenderness and a wondrous beauty, for these Appalachian ridges are green and rich to their summits, heavily timbered and watered by generous springs and rivulets. The very structure of the land insures its protection from rough storm winds and chilling blasts of the mountains, while the elevation secures sufficient coolness to satisfy restful souls who want a surcease from strong endeavor.

The valley is about 2,400 feet above the level of the sea; the gap in the mountain, where the road crosses, is 2,800 feet, and the flag rock on the summit of the Warm Springs, Mountain is 3,375 feet. These statistics assure us of sufficient elevation for sanitary conditions. Yet the gentle showers come like the "quality of mercy," and the soft airs are

like a caress in this basin scooped out of the moun- were added, that the work of perfecting Christian tains. The soil is rich and the intense luxuriance of character and developing the Christian virtues might the growth of trees, shrubbery and grass is marked be more fully and successfully conducted. by every one.

INTELLIGENCER AND JOURNAL. Society of Friends, but who are not clear as to how