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In every living church, in every living nation, there must be freedom, and there must be progress.

"The old order changeth, giving place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." St. Cyprian was very wise when he formulated the maxim“ Salvo jure communionis diversa sentire.”

2. Another ground of Christian unity is the command of Christ-Christ's new commandment-the commandment on which hangs all the law and the prophets; the commandment so often repeated on the lips of Christians, so often belied in their actions“Love one another." What has been the sphere in which disunion has chiefly and most dangerously worked? Has it not been in matters of organization, in matters of ceremonial, and in matters of minor and non-essential opinion? But the discoveries of every year are demonstrating to us more decisively that on these matters the widest latitude was left to the Apostolic church. As to ceremonial, St. Paul's one sufficient rubric: "Let all things be done decently and in good order." As to organization, our Lord said, Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, that there may be not “ one fold" -which, perhaps, there never will be, or was meant to be-but that there may be "one flock, one shepherd." As regards the minor opinions which separate Christians into so many sub-dichotomies of petty schisms, we may conjecture how the great Apostle of the Gentiles would have dealt with them when we read how he dealt with so serious an error as a denial of the Resurrection. He dealt with it not by anathema, not by punishment, still less by excommunication, but only by a solemn question and by a glorious argument. Sects and parties have been fond of hurling at each other the name of "heretic;" but in the New Testament the word hairesis means not the aberration of opinion, but the recklessness of faction. The word hairetikos has no other meaning than that of a vehement partisan. The worst of all heresies in any Christian, and the heresy which Christ holds as most inexcusable, however commonly and however bitterly it betray itself in our controversies, is the heresy of hatred, is that odium which, to the eternal shame of our apostasy from the tender forbearance of our Lord, has acquired the distinctive name of theologicum." If a man be animated by that spirit— be he the most dreaded champion of his shibboleth, the foremost fugleman of his party-if he be guilty of that heresy, his Christianity is heathenism, his orthodoxy a cloak for error. "If a man love not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"

3. A third ground of Christian unity is that faith which, in its highest sense, had to St. Paul no other meaning than oneness with Christ.

Theologians may write huge folios of interminable dogmatics, they may enlarge to infinity the ever widening ergo from the narrow aperture of single texts, and so may foist into our temples their own idols of the forum, of the theater, and of the cave; nevertheless, it remains certain that the great, eternal, essential truths of Christianity are few and simple; so few and so simple that they may be written

upon the palm of the hand. "They ask me for secrets of salvation," said St. Francis de Sales. "For myself I know no secrets but this-to love God with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves."

The terms of our fellowship of love should be catholic, as the church of God. The railing restrictions which fence in with razors and pitchforks the narrow wicket of parties, and would fain make the portal of the church bristle with anathemas, are unevangelic, unapostolic, unchristian. The more we are Christians the more will our faith "be broad with the breath of the charity of Almighty God, and narrow only with the narrowness of his righteousness." To those who tried at Corinth to foster party spirit, and draw party distinctions, St. Paul address the indignant question, memeristai ho Christos: "Has Christ been parceled into fragment?" Will you dare to inscribe his name on the ignoble fluttering pennons of party, and claim them as the eternal semper eadem of the church of God? Wise was the answer of the old Christian bishop, when he was asked to what party he belonged. Christianus mihi nomen est Catholicus cognomen." Partisans are ever ready to say with the Sons of Thunder "We forbade him because he followed not after us;" but Christ's answer was, "Forbid him not." Fatal will it be to any church to prefer the Elijah spirit which calls down fire from heaven to the Christ spirit which forbears and forgives. The brother whom we are tempted to misrepresent, to embitter, to dislike, and to denounce, is he not one with us in the law of duty, one in the aim of life, one in the earnestness of prayer, one in the grace of the holy sacraments, one in the great ancient creeds of the Gospel? Our differences are but the varying ripples of the sea, our unity as the ocean's unseen bed. It is the unity of one body and one spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in us all. In these lies the unity of Christian love. The politician of the party, the Goliath of the faction, the controversialist of the sect, delight to exacerbate minor differences; but the soul which is calm and strong, and joyful in God,

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Remembering our dear Lord who died for all,
And musing on the little lives of men,

And how they mar that little by there feuds," will feel that a cup of cold water, a grasp of friendship, a word of sympathy given in Christ's name to one of Christ's disciples who followeth not after us, is better than a barren assent to the whole Summa Theologiæ, and that what the Lord requires of us is not sacrifice but mercy: that it is to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.

4. The last ground of Christian unity on which I will touch is that it is essential to the prosperity of the Church of Christ. While we are disputing and wranging-often about the uncertain, often about the infinitely little—the enemy is at our gates.

" What is a town at war

To manage private and domestic quarrels?
'Tis monstrous "

What injures the cause of Christ is not in the least the existence of differences, whether in practice or in

opinion, respectiug that which is perfectly revealed, but the mismanagement of those differences; not the inevitable divergences in minor matters of opinion, but (what Melancthon was glad to die that he might escape) "the rage of theologians" respecting them. Our perils are from within. What neither Atheism will ever achieve, nor Agnosticism, nor direct assault, may be fatally accomplished by our internal dissensions and want of mutual charity. They may subdue that

Quod neque Tydides, nea Larissaus Achilles,
Non anni domuere decem, non mille carinæ."

St. Paul warned us of this long ago. "But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another."

The best and truest Christians have long ago learnt, at least in practice, the force of these truths. Within those limits of eternal truths

"Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum,” no human being could haves differed more widely than the stern Governor Bradford or the saintly missionary Eliot and the saintly Jesuit, Dreuillettes; yet the Jesuit was the honored guest of the Puritan governor, and the saintly apostle of the Indians pressed him to spend a whole winter in his humble home. When Dr. Channing died the members of all religious denominations alike mourned for him.

Let me end with one or two brief testimonies from men whose religious views were wide as the poles asunder. "Summa nostra religionis Pax est," said Erasmus. "In necessariis Unitas, in dubiis Libertas, in omnibus Caritas," said the obscure German divine of the seventeenth century, Rupertus Meldenias; and by that sentence alone he lives. "The meek, the just, the pious, the devout," said the founder of Pennsylvania, "are all of one religion; and they shall meet and recognize each other when their various masks and liveries are stripped away." "Where a church inscribes on its portals," said Abraham Lincoln, "the two great commandments of the Law and the Gospel, and makes obedience to them the test of membership, to that church will I belong." "Where there is the love of God," said the great and eloquent Lacordaire, "there is Jesus Christ: and where there is Jesus Christ, there is the church with him."

"The true religion sprung from God above,
Is like its fountain, full of charity :
Embracing all things with a tender love,
Full of good will, and meek expectancy,
Full of true justice, and sure verity,

In voice and heart free, large, ev'n infinite;
Not wedged in straight particularity.
But grasping all things in her free, active spirit.
Bright lamp of God! Oh! that all men could joy
In thy pure light!"

"The law which licenses the sale of ardent spirits is an impediment of the temperance reformation. Whenever public opinion and the moral sense of our community shall be so far corrected and matured as to regard them in their true light, dram shops will be indictable at common law as public nuisances."Judge Platt, of New York in 1832.

A MOTHER'S PRAYER.

A

LITTLE hand, within my own
I hold,

More precious 'tis than silver, gems,
Or gold.

White, dimpled, soft, it nestles
'Neath my arm,

As if once sheltered there, 'twere safe,
From harm.

Oh darling little hand, that clings
To mine,

Oh, loving, trustful eyes, that
Softly shine.

You look to me for all that love
Can give,

Will look to me so long as both
Shall live.

I feel my great unfitness for
The task;

More patience, Lord, more gentleness,
I ask.

More love, with which to teach thy
Love divine;

Less faith in my own strength, much more
In thine.

More courage, faith, and hope to point
The road,

That narrow road. and straight, which leads
To God.

-HATTIE TREMAINE TERRY, in Good Housekeeping.

THE

VALUATION.

HE old Squire said, as he stood by his gate, And his neighbor, the Deacon, went by; "In spite of my bank stock, and real estate

You are better off, Deacon, than I.

We're both growing old, and the end's drawing near,
You have less of this world to resign,
But in Heaven's appraisal, your assets, I fear
Will reckon up greater than mine.
They say I am rich, but I'm feeling so poor,
I wish I could swap with you even-
The pounds I have lived for and laid up in store,
For the shillings and pence you have given."
"Well, Squire, said the Deacon, with shrewd com-
mon sense,

While his eye had a twinkle of fun,

Let your pounds take the way of my shillings and pence

And the thing can be easily done!""

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-At Miami Monthly Meeting held at Waynesville, O., Tenth month, 21st, testimonies were borne by three Friends, reminding us that there is balm in Gilead, and a great Physician there to whom we should go to know our condition. Representatives to the Quarterly Meeting were appointed, and Matilda Underwood acknowledged as a minister, having received the previous approval of the Quarterly Meeting of Ministers and Elders. Several persons desired to resign their membership, which was granted. (This Monthly Meeting embraces in its membership what used to be three monthly meetings and the overseers in looking up their membership, find some who never remember to have attended a Friends' meeting; some have joined other Societies, and some removed out of the reach of meetings.) M.

-The General Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, to visit subordinate meetines, etc., held a meeting at 15th and Race streets, on the 30th ultimo, about two-thirds of the committee being present. The sub-committees that have been working in the different quarterly meetings made reports, and were all continued to labor farther, as they might find way to open. Other sub-committees were set apart for attention to Philadelphia, Burlington, and Haddonfield quarters. Appointments for Salem and Southern were passed over for the present, the committee finding itself unable to designate members for those fields. The consideration of the reports made drew out many expressions of encouragement, and a number of facts were stated, indicating the awakening of a fresh and real interest in our Society.

-Horsham Monthly Meeting, (Penna.), has decided to hold its business meetings in joint session.

-The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Educational Committee met on the 31st ult. There was a fair attendance of the members. An interesting report was read showing the work which is being done to pro mote the cause of better education among Friends. It was decided to have one or more conferences similar to those which were so fully appreciated last winter, and a sub-committee to make arrangements therefor, was appointed.

-The temperance conference, under the care of Friends, held at Plumstead meeting house on the 18th inst., was well attended by persons in that vicinity. An encouraging feature of the occasion was the large number of young men and boys who were present, for it is upon the education of these that the success of the temperance work in a great measure depends. The meeting was opened by an address

from Samuel Swain, followed by the reading of an essay by Emma D. Eyre. Sallie J. Reeder read a selection, and Anna Atkinson also gave a reading, after which Joseph Flowers explained the chart now much in use in our public schools, comparing the nation's annual drink and tobacco bill with the expenditure for the necessaries of life. Remarks were made by Oliver H. Holcomb, Dr. Jeremiah Hayhurst and Barclay Eyre. Samuel Swain then closed the meeting.— Bucks Co. Intelligencer.

-James H. Atkinson having desired to be released, Robert M. Janney has been made superintendent of the youth's meeting, held on Third-day evenings (7.45 o'clock) at Friends' mission, Fairmount and Beach streets, (Philadelphia). It has also been decided to make the exercises more of a literary cast, the boys to be in small classes under the direction of teachers who will select reading having a beneficial tendency. Funds will be needed to secure proper literature, which may be handed to any of the workers, who would very much like to have the assistance of Friends either regularly or periodically, as last year a number of lads were refused for want of teachers to take charge of them. The neighborhood is one in which there is ample field for labor.

-Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting was held on the 3d inst., at the usual hour and place, though the hour was not as well observed as the occasion calls for.

The attendance was large, and the utterances of those who very fully occupied the time of the meeting for worship were marked by earnestness and fervor. Watson Tomlinson, David Newport and others from neighboring quarterly meetings, were present and took part in the public offerings. There was little to claim the attention of the business meeting, after the three queries usual at this quarter were read and answered. In the women's branch much excellent and pertinent thought was expressed. The presence of many of the younger portion of the meeting was an encouraging feature.

-Our friend Thomas Foulke, of New York, attended meeting at Merion, near this city, on Firstday afternoon, the 1st inst., and spoke at length. The venerable old house was well filled, many others than Friends being present.

-A letter from Richmond, Ind., Tenth month 19th, says: J. J. Cornell, of Mendon Centre, N. Y., attended our First-day morning meeting here, yesterday, and was much favored to hand forth the gospel. In the afternoon he attended a small meeting in the country, where a few families of Friends reside, and meeting is held every four weeks. His text was: "What makes a Christian?" and he showed us that we must follow Christ and be obedient to his teachings. Richmond meeting has a member, attending regularly, who is probably one of the oldest on record-Bethiah Hancock. She has passed her ninety-ninth birthday. She informed the writer that she had attended eighty yearly meetings. She does her own housework, and canned up enough fruit for the coming year. She can see to write and read, and her mental faculties are good. The visits of her friends she enjoys very much.

SWARTHMORE.

THE lecture on the evening of the 27th ult., by William Blaikie, of New York, on "Sound Bodies for All," was voted a very interesting discourse by the students, and had the effect of considerably stimulating the inclination toward open air exercise and athletic sports,-a very desirable thing, within proper limits. The foot-ball players have been much encouraged, and several games with students of Haverford and other colleges have been arranged.

On the evening of last Seventh-day, Aaron M. Powell, of New York, delivered his lecture on Wendell Phillips at the college. It was a very graphic delineation of the career of the great "agitator, reformer, and orator," and brought out strongly his devotion, at the sacrifice of his early prospects of an ambitious career, to the promotion of the anti-slavery cause. On the following morning, in the usual Firstday gathering in the meeting, Aaron spoke, very acceptably.

Some further subscriptions to the Observatory fund have been received, but the amount desired is not yet completed. It has been hoped that some building preparations, such as the placing of the stone piers, might be made this Fall, and the order also be given to the builders of the telescope anp transit instruments, so that they could be constructed during the winter, and be ready for mounting when Spring opened.

"THE PRECOCIOUS BABY."

SOME occult law of heredity may be answerable

for his extraordinary endowments as for the startling loveliness of the queen of the zinnias. His mother's note-book, mental or written, records that, at an age when other babies are phlegmatic lumps of adipose tissue, he "sits up and takes notice" of all that passes in his little world. He is more apt to talk than walk early, has a capricious appetite, and gets along with less sleep than do his brothers and sisters. His eager questions nonplus mamma before he can run alone, and his amazing activity of mind so far overcomes her purpose not to push him forward" that she does not interfere when he picks up his letters somehow," makes a poor feint of regret that he "devours every book he can lay his hands upon " by the time he is three years old.

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The entire family connection is immensely proud of him and elate with prophecies of his future greatness. Each hamlet has one "coming man " of tender years. He is usually singularly attractive in appearance. If not pretty, he has an "intellectual" look. His eyes tell the story of mental gifts when other features are discreet. Mother and aunts rave over his "spirituelle " expression, and, if he be thin and pale, add “ethereal” to their working capital of descriptive adjectives. His clever speeches are neighborhood bon-mots and irrigate the else dusty waste of "Children's Sayings" in the family newspaper. He is trotted out for the entertainment of visitors before he can use his corporeal members in that exercise, and is the show-boy of Sabbath-school concerts and infant-school anniversaries..

The pity of it! Oh, the pity of it, my sisters! Where is the horticulturist so dull that he does not see to it that his rose slips are rooted before he lets them bloom, and who does not hold back young trees from bearing? Where the stock-breeder who would put a yearling colt on the race course?-Babyhood.

THE SHAMROCK.-The Shamrock, which is the emblem of Ireland, is not known by its flowers, but by its leaves. It is a little trefoil, as is clover, but is very rare in England and not common in Ireland. Bentham, in his "British Flora," says that Oxalis acetosella, or wood sorrel, is the original shamrock. It has a pale pink, almost white, flower, which is said to be very plentiful in woods in April. He also states that the purple Dutch clover (Trifolium repens), which we all know so well, is now accepted as the shamrock. The tradition runs that St. Patrick, when preaching in Erin, gathered a shamrock, and used it to illustrate the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. From this circumstance the trefoil has become accepted as the national emblem of the Emerald Isle; and, on the 17th of March, every Irishman who can obtain a few leaves thereof wears them in his button-hole, and many little boxes, containing a tiny root, arrive by post addressed to Irishwomen living in England.— The Quiver.

MEN are sometimes so completely unlike in their make, that it seems as if the mind of the one must remain forever closed to that of the other. It is true that such men are strangers to each other in the deepest sense; but that is no reason why they should stand apart. The apostolic writer said: "Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Showing love to men whose ways are not our ways, whose thoughts are not like our thoughts, whose denominational connections are different from our own-who are, in all these things, strangers to us and ours, we may find that the writer of Hebrews was right, and that he whom we received as only a stranger is, in reality, a blessed messenger of the Most High God.

NEVER doubt as to the perfect goodness and justice of God hereafter. Distinguish here between doubt as to creeds and doubt of God. The former are only the records of men's assertions; the latter has sole relation to your own hopes and your own ideal. And yet how miserably the two things are mixed up, even when they are opposed! Sometimes our trust in God may itself be a reason for doubting the creeds about him. Wherefore, then, did you doubt God, because you doubted the creeds? It makes one sad to think how heavy-leaden and sorrowful people have been before " the dread mystery of death,” and the more dreaded mystery of our eternal destiny. Why cannot we all trust our wise, almighty, and merciful Creator, our Father? Trust him with your children, and your poor neighbors, your own souls, the world. You will sink down, if you doubt. Cling, for very life, to your trust.-John Page Hopps.

TRUTH never lost ground by inquiry; because she is of all most reasonable.-William Penn.

NEWS AND OTHER GLEANINGS.

-A knitting mill, at Bethlehem, turned out over half a million stockings last year.

-The oldest house in Oregon City was built in 1842, and still stands.

—The grape yield in Ulster county, N. Y., this year, has been enormous. Not a few growers cut as high as 150 tons from their vines. Many tons have been placed in cold storage to be kept till Christmas.

—The Druggists' Journal reports a case of poisoning from postage stamps. It seems that the gum on the back is capable, under certain conditions, of absorbing foreign matters floating in the air.

-The Congo chimpanzee lately added to the Paris Jardin des Plantes has died of cold only a week after its arrival. Another precious tropical visitor, the Sumatra orang-outang, is dying in the garden from the same cause. -Many public institutions in London and other cities of England are now using various American systems of electric lighting.

-The International Literary and Artistic Congress at Antwerp has ratified the following proposition: "The author's right in his work constitutes an inherent right of property. The law does not create, but merely regulates it."

—The steamer Oregon, on a voyage from Portland, Oregon, to San Francisco early this month, encountered an immense whale and struck it with such force that the big vessel shook from stem to stern. In some unaccountable way the monster's head then became wedged in between the rod of the rudder and the vessel, and in that way the whale was carried along with the steamer for several hours.

-The Post-office Department has issued a modified circular of instructions to postmasters concerning the special delivery service. The new circular includes postal cards and sealed packages in the matter entitled to special delivery if properly stamped. Postmasters are required to report monthly instead of weekly, and where the business is so limited as to preclude the employment of regular messengers the postmasters are directed to make other arrangements for deliveries, having regard to the provision of law that forbids the payment of more than eight cents for the delivery of each letter.

Postmasters are also directed to place a notice upon the face of registered packages containing special delivery letters, informing the postmasters at points of delivery of the nature of their contents, so that the packages may be opened immediately and the matter delivered.

-It is understood that the details for the establishment of an industrial and mechanical training school in Rochester are being satisfactorily arranged, and that the institution will soon be in working order.

-Dr. Gayton, an English physician who is believed to have had wider experience in smallpox than any living authority, has published his analysis of 10,403 cases which have come under his observation. Among patients showing perfect marks of vaccination the mortality was but 2.97 per cent. Among those whose marks were imperfect the mortality rose to 9.37, the patients whose marks of vaccination had entirely disappeared suffering to the extent of 27.18; while of the unvaccinated no less than 43.70 died. -Farmer Hendershot, who lives within seven miles of Newton, Sussex County, N. J., has always been kind to the game on his place, and now has two bevies of quail so tame that they come into the barnyard whenever the

chickens are fed and contend with them for a share of the screenings which are scattered with a liberal hand by his daughter. One or two of the quails are so tame that they will take wheat from her hand. The hens peck at the little intruder, but they do not seem to mind it much and merely dodge away.

-In his address on "Manhood," Canon Farrar said the other day that self-possession, self-devotion, independence and courage were the necessary qualities for manhood, but were only to be considered as foundation stones. Said he: We must begin with self-possession, proceed with courage, and exercise them with independence. In closing let me give you a line from one of your own poets. Mr. Emerson says:

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man,

When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.

CURRENT EVENTS.

THE vote of Ohio, last month, on the proposed constitutional amendments was enormously in their favor. That making the State election hereafter in the Eleventh month, instead of the Tenth, was carried by a majority of 537,000. The other makes the terms of township officers three years, instead of one year.

GEN. GEO. B. MCCLELLAN died at Orange, N. J., on the 29th ult., aged 59. His remains were interred at Trenton, on the 2d inst.

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND has designated the 26th inst. as Thanksgiving Day.

SENATOR STANFORD, of California, has given orders for the deeding of his three great ranches, Vina, Gridley and Palo Alta, for the endowment of a university and schools about to be erected at the latter place. The three ranches compromise 85,000 acres, and are together valued at $3,500,

000.

A GREAT STORM raged on Second-day, (2nd inst.) along the New England coast. Much damage was done to vessels in Boston and other harbors by dragging of anchors and collisions, and in towns near the sea, buildings were unroofed, etc.

THE hog cholera continues in Champaign county, Illinois, and is worse than it has been there for several years. Within a few weeks more than 1000 animals have died in the southern part of Crittenden township alone, and the disease is rapidly spreading.

ELECTIONS took place on the 3d inst. in a number of States. In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Iowa the Republicans elected their State officers; New York, Virginia, and Mississippi went Democratic.

NEWS has been received at Ottawa of the total wreck of the Hudson Bay Company's vessel Princess Royals, at Moose Factory, in Hudson Bay. She had on board a cargo of furs valued at $1,000,000. The crew were saved.

THE public debt statement for last month shows a reduction of $13,276,774. The reduction for the first four months of the present fiscal year, has been $37,576,581.

SMALL-POX continues in Montreal. There were 33 deaths on the 1st inst. The total number of deaths, last month, was 1630. At St. Paul, Minnesota, cases of smallpox continue to appear, causing fear that the disease may become epidemic during the winter. The health authorities are doing what they can, "vaccination is going on every day, but at a rate that will require several years to insure the city against disease.”

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