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8 NEW YORK HERALD, MONDAY, MARCH 20, 187 PREACHERS’ — TOHIS Dr. Bellows Says:—*If There Was No Provi- dence Life Would Be a Lottery.” FROTHINGHAM ON CREED AND CONDUCT If a Man Trusts in Providence for All Things He Is Insane. God Permits Pickpockets in the Hippodrome, Dr, Morgan Dix on the Evidences of a Spirit World, MR. BEECHER ON “THE GOSPEL OF GUSH.” MASONIC TEMPLE. “CBEED AND CONDUCT”’—SERMON bY THE REY, ©. B, FROTHINGHAM, There was a large attendance at Masonic Temple yes- terday morning to listen to the pastor of the Indepen- dent Liberal church on the connection existing be- tween “Creed and Conduct.” He said that creed is the faith of the intellegt and conduct the faith of the | will. The former is the faith the mind entertains and the latter the {fnith the conscience entertaims, They ire suggestive each of the other, but at times they War ono against the other and work demoralization. reed and conduct should go side by side, should | narch shoulder to shoulder, and he who does not thus treat them lives intwo worlds and his life is separated and torn asunder; his head is in the clouds and his feet on the carth. Those who preach one thing and practice another are like a man in a boat with sails set to catch the breeze while he with bis oars is rowing im the other direction. Such men are between heaven and earth, and they are good for nothing. This is the divorce between thought and Imagination, 1n practical life this divorce is seldom | pbserved, as men generally bring thetr belief within | the compass of possibility; beyond matters may be very beautiful, but a solid working basis is preferred, The divorce between belief and practice, between Yhought and will, so seldom noticed in practical lite, is {requent in tho religious world. The majority of re- ligious men live in a world which imagination only van reach. The three cardinal ideas—beliet in Provi- dence, contentment without riches and forgiveness of tnemies—ire worthy of attention, Is there any im. | weination that can bridge the gulf in modern society | between these three points’ If a man in society irusts impheitly in Providence for everything th man called insane. God doesn’t deal with us jhat way. Docs He open the doors Hippodrome? Does He raise the money necessary tarry on that place, or does He preside in the inquiry rooms? Thousands of dollars have been spent in this Work; tens of thousands will be before it is over. The windows must be open as are the doors at a certain time Wo give the Holy Ghost a chance, and if the pickpocket yets into the building the Lord does not turn him out, (Laughter. ) Thore are wicked mon who believe in the day ofjudg- ment because itis written that it will come and the books be opened. But such men go on and CHRAT AND STEAL all the same, because their iunagination 1s not Brong enough to draw this conception close enough to them. The great white throne is foo lar away; punishment to be effective must be sure and switt If it could be made absolutely certain that every inurderer would be hanged and death Would come to him like a stroke of lightning, there would be no more murder. Why, while Moody is preaching the terrors of the day of judgment the pick- pocket will take the money out of a policeman’s pocket, (Langhter.) Which is most effective—ereed irom life, or ite trom creed? Some creeds have no lite. All the dogmas about the Trinity, the inspiration of Christ, and so on, never had reference to life. They were spoken by mon who really never lived; they were epectres by persons who were shut up in’ convents, who knew nothing of humansty, and never mingied with the world. They had nothing else to do but spin these webs of idle fiction, If we could put ourselves in the heart of the Middle Ages—say the ninth or tenth century—wo could readily understand why the dogma of the total depravity of man and the necessity of an expiator existed, The state of that period, its utter. imbecility and terrible helplessurss, was eloquently depicted by the pastor, and it was then believed that the world must come to an end because \t wasn’t worth saving. But after ten centuries there is no excitement, no ripple of caro upon the faces of Those now living} all fear and anguish are gone, What ts now being preached at the Hippodrome is nothing ‘@ than the betiets of the Middle Ages, and are kept e and haunted by the spectres of that time. ‘These wlar creeds, suppose they were invented to-day, there is not a man living who would say they are the exponents of the religion of this time. The beliet of | totar depravity, the belef of an expator and that of | endiess torment, would not have one supporter if such ‘were the case. A great deal of the moral turpitude of this generation \s due to creed and conduct. It seemed to the speaker Sbat conduct was easy and creed difficult, To know What is true taxes to the utmost the greatest intellects, fo know what is right any child can understand. In- tinct will tell and guide us todo mght. Leta man be sincere at hoart and an educated instinct will tell him «hat is right and what is wrong. The instinet of recti- tude is by no means a broad highway, but sinuous, although clear enough if your eye is upon it Walk in At cireumspectly, and oy and by it widens and becomes the path of he speaker had on Satur- day attended the funeral of a woman who had never uttered the words Providence or God, and who had never attended church; but the testimony of those who were her friends show that she was a pure woman and Jed a blameless life, Her’s was a creed good to live by, good to love by and good to die by. ¢ porrety ALL SOULS’ CHURCH, “EHH YAITH OF REASON-—SERMON BY THE REV. DR. BELLOWS. Dr. Bellows preached in All Souls’ church yesterday morning to a large and fasbionabie audience. His ser- mon, Which was in his happiest vein, was a disquisi- tion upon the three universal tenets of Christianity, 4 was based upon the text, Romans, i, 20—“For the Invisible things of him from the creation of the world | are clearly seen, being understood by the things that tre made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” It is joo often assumed, he began, that faith is | founded upon things which seem contradictory to common senso and experience, instead of boing a result of thought, Now, what are the things which are necessary to believe 1m order that wo may be wiltmmg to live, and, finally, to die? Wh tre the things which we woukt wish to Ui [i we very few when compared with the n tes which we are ed to receive, What we wantto feel is, that there isa benevolent Providence, that our wuls ‘are immortal, and that our conscience is the ipecial voice of God, suggesting A LAW OF LIFR. These articles embrace all our needs, and it their opposite misbeliefs that have been | trushing burden to the world in their tendency to sell-abandonment, If there were no I dence life would be a lottery, and the red Indi oicisin would be the best philosophy, Again, | death has ever stood an awful shadow in the path of humanity, and the only way in whieh it could be over- tome was by forgetting it tn present pleasures or in joorning it. This gruu enemy, for so ib seemed, has | rovabiy been the greatest p ter pf man’s moral rowth in foreing hun to sober thought im order to tape its triumphant r. For none can eiliciently eve in immortality unless they have practised their iritual eyesight unl they have deseried the opposite | Shore. It wasa faith simiiar to this in Columbus that gained for ve our country. But worse than death is the effect of sin, If there were « ruling Being why did He Jet evil rage and tear while virtue suficred and Just men boro ———the whips and seorns of tinn Tho oppressor’s wrong, the prowd im: iv y But what except this problem has kept our min apon the question of Providence? od hides Hien: in chou. s that His ebildrea may strengthen thotr Nes in His search, It is in accordance with this that We do not believe virtue to be virtue becanse it pre- | vatle, but because we have acquited grace to sco that | We ought te triumph. Does the universe show overruling chee, or does it not? What are the order of the and the adaptation of the earth to its inbabi. | ptoot of this? We find in it wisdom, power, But Providence does not mean interfer There are probably only universal laws, Thus im summer cach flower does not receive a separate suubeam and special breeges, but tne sun | shynes with one ali-embracing warmth, and the winds vers ail togeth Aud so man is but a unit fn an in We admire a just judge, and yet we | expect the Great Judge to be partial, fhe religion of Christ and the teachmgs of Nature are essentially the | same. It ts their separation which caases the nataral- 1st 10 have a iferent from some churebme ‘Trees in winter seem to die, 8o the soul seems to die “with the body; but newher do. vo the second, bat only makes it easy of botief, It | not as wondoriul thes we will live again os that we Bave lived at all. To be continued is not so wondertul ‘a5 to have been begun. Wien GREAT SOULS LIRR JESUS tell us We are immortal they but echo tho voree of Nature, What do Nature and the visible world say? Nature saya, aller oguywsions 1 bays come oul produc: 4 | fication, disappointment and afflictions on all hands? | our human jud; | moro'casy to bear when you have the encouragement | | of the Father with you, and eo hard when you bear it | called the “Gospel of Gush.” | within the sphere of our observation and expert | jous news; | ever Paul thoug ‘The first does not | g tive and beautiful; and society is setting its face more and wore against evil, Ethics and good governments are stantly fighting against it, On this groundwork the Gospel erects its beautiful house, warmed and lighted by Jesus Christ. But God, although our Father, is yet our God. He is both known and u known, Nature tells a part indirectly, and Jesus te! another part, and they do not contradict, byt illumine each otber, CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES. REY. GEORGE H. HEPWORTH ON THE MEANING OF AFFLICTIONS. Rev. George H. Hepworth preached to bis flock yes- terday morning from Jobn, xvi., 33—‘These things I have spoken unto you, that in mo ye might bave peace, In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” The juxtaposition of two startling clauses tn this verse has, said Mr. Hepworth, often attracted my at- tention. ‘‘In the world ye shall have tribulation” and “im me peace.” Ithink that is the experience of every one, brethren. The world keeps no promise; God keeps oll promises. The world is deceitful; God truthful, The world isa heavy hand on a man’s head, bearing him down; God is an everlasting arm beneath, lifting one up. Why are there so many tribulations in this world? youask, Why are we subjected to morti- There are two events in the history of the universe which account for the presence of evil— events so startling in their nature that we cannot think of either of them without amazement and wonder—two events which make a sharp and abrupt contrast when compared with the gentleness of our Father's will First, the rebellion mght around the throne of God—a rebellion that was crushed by the wrath of the Lamb, which ended in utter and com- plete dismay and defeat to all engaged in it, but which Bevertholess left bebind it A ULACK STAIN ON THE BLUE PIRMAMENT of heaven, And next the fall of man, for the same cause and with the same result. It was an act Prompted by personal prido and personal conceit Those are the only two acts of disobedience to be found | on the historic pages of God's dealings with His uni- Verse, the only two instances of actual open rebellion against the commands of the Almighty, From their consequences (whether we recognize the fact or not), you and I are suflering at this moment. We are in: Volyed in the defeat, we are among the captives, we are in that great number against whom the condemnation bas been uttered, and we are looking round about us to find ‘if there be some exit, if itbe possible for us to make our peace with the conqueror, possible to be released from cuptivity, possible to get rid of the cianking chains of sin that we are dragging at every step. Now, brethren, in consequence of this, man presents to us a double ‘na- ture. He Js twofold in his ambitions and longings and desires. From one side of him you can sec the face of God reilected, Iv is the side that is gentle and lovely and faithful and kind, No man has the image of God entirely obliterated. Some men are like a piece of French plate glass, in which the Father's face is almost pertectly reflected. There are very few flaws in the strtace of the glass. Some of us, on tho other hand, may nearly resemble that glass ‘of poorer and cheaper manutacture, that is so full of detects that the face of him that looks into it 1s distorted and de- formed; aud yet the glass is there, and God looks in aud sees Himself, H2 1s able to discover His own fea- tures in every human soul, however marred and detiled on the other hand, every man has aside in | which Satan looks and sees tim Some men’s liv are so wholly given to his service than when he looks he can seo himself perfectly, and other men have, as it were, drawn a curtain between them and Satan, and when he looks tis with great bat unavaitng envy. When tnis short lite shall be ended we shall stand at the bar of God, and our eternal destiny will depend upon the way in which we have yielded or reristed upon the triumph or defeat which by the help of God or THE ALLUREMENTS OF SATAN we have either won or lost, And so God is acting all the time on your hfe and mind ina variety of ways, Sometiines He reveals himself in light; sometimes He shuts himself mm darkness; sometimes He is like a day in winter, cold and freezing; sometimes He comes likean August day, which falls shining on our path, God acts according to His own wisdom and not accord- ing to our desire, Itis utterly impossible always to understand why He acts, and His blessings are scat- tered with such strange and apparent confusion that to nent oftentimes they have no mean- ing. A blessing comes where it is uot deserved, ana a curse lights upon # saint’s head, The ways of God are not to be discovered by us, "and that is the reason that faith is enjoined in this blessed Book ; we are to submit to whatever fortune may attend our way. Let us find out what the Bible says in this matter, In the first place, the universality of sorrow and trou- bie is open to ali ot us; we see it everywhere. Job “Unto God L mit my cause, tor he wouna- eth and bindeth up;’’ ond in Lamentations we find the prophet of God sayimg “That he doth not offend will- ingly.” It is not then for any purpose of His own, Dut for some disciplinary object He has in view. No matter what your sorrow is, it isthen that youcan find | Ths face, Avery great griet is a groat opportunity, and some men learn more of spiritual life irom their wars than they would learn by their smiles, God comes nearer to us in our trouble than He appears to como at least in our successes, It is for our good that we are afliicted; it is for our development that the trials — are sent, and it is these alone that bring us near to | God. Our own experience corroborates this, When a man has all he wants here it 1s to have nothing in the other world, and the one alarming tendency of human success les just there. Leta man BUILD UP A FORTUNE and everything go right with him, and he lives as | though he were to live forever; he never casts his eye beyond the present. The worst thing that can happen to'a man is uninterrupted success, On the other hand, when afliietions come two things come with them. First, the conscrousness of a de- | pendence upon a higher power—a sense of our absolute elplessness—and instead of trasting ourselves we aro constantly looking ap and trusting in a higher power; | faith is born when self dies, God saves a man’s soul | sometimes by crowding it inte the dust. We are to | feel that we must submit and be resigned, and it is the hardest lesson we have to learn, Affliction jis the cradle in which God rocks salvation; this isthe mill that grinds slowly and ex- ceeding small, There is one thing only to be dono. It js this:—Don’t suffer alone with a rebellious heart and spirit, but suffer with your jace toward Ged. Ivis ailnlone by yourself. The significance ot suffering is | Heaven, when afflictions come then you can teel | you are’ suffering with Christ and His arm is beneath | you and He will surely hold you ap, I know itishard, | and yet neither you nor I would dare look up to and cry, “O Lord! stop now; I bave all | can ? Tt is “Lord! give mo strength to bear it,” and the answer come: ‘As thy day 1s so shall thy strongth be.” ‘That is the promise of the dear Lord, PLYMOUTH CHURCH MR. BEECBER DEFENDING THE ” “GOSPEL OF GUSH. Mr. Beecher’s sermon yesterday was devoted toa defence of the gospel he preaches, in which there is no scent of brimstone and which has been irreverently | The text from which ho | preached was taken from the second chapter of | Romans—“Or despiseth thou tho riches of his good- ness,” &¢, This, said the preacher, is one of the noblest epitomes of natural revelation or the religion of nature, if you include in this word “nature” a divine nature and homan nature. It $s true that thore tsa sense in which theology has employed the word “nature” reproachtully, and there ts a strong prejudice | against what is called natural religion, or that rehgion | whieh ts derived from the contemplation of the physical world unaided by any divine revelation. Now, so fa? as natural religion goes, it is true that any religion which is derived from the nature of things as they Iie | tare goodness, beauty of holiness? Is there any way by which ou «shall present both oft them, so that He shall be the God of terrible- ness and the God of Jove and beauty at the same time? And in the practical administration of truth—in teach- dng wm the family and preaching from the pulpit—what is the aspect that should be presented nature? I shall discuss this subject this morning 1m view of the criticisms that are being made of what is called ‘lax preaching,” “sentimental preaching” and “the weakening and eftemmate doctrine of divine love.”” As if God did not. care to punish evil acts or as if Ho looked with great leniency upon wicked men and wicked deeds. Men say that it is the bringing down of the doctrine of fear as admin- istered in the government of God that is the occasion of so much misbelief going on im the world, It 1s on this account, we are told, that men in the highest places steal, that vice is so rampant, that men are so wild in worldly speculations; and also, 1t 1s supposed, that newspapers are edited by Mephistophelean editors all over the world, All this is eharged to such a pre- sentation of the divine nature and government a8 re- Jaxes all principle of fear, as takes off taxation {rom the conscience, as leaves men toact with strong attractions toward evil and no strong attraction toward good, The vulgar call it “THE GOSPEL OF GUSH,” and others the gospel of kind feeling—the gospel of goodness, The most infamous of sins, according to the vulgar men, must bave been the sin of the angels in the advent when they filled the air with songs of “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good ‘will to meu.’ They would say, “Ob, gushing angels, shut up!” Men don't like such messages, now- adays, and they are the contempt of the saints of the bewspapers and the saints of the theological chairs. It 4s a God of fury, whose anger burns men to the low- est hell, that men want to hear of. We have here the declaration of the apostle, which is pertinent to this subject:—‘The riches of his goodness and forbearance and lapg suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee tO repentance. But after thy hard- ness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the Tighteous judgment of God.” Now here are both sides of the divine nature—the beautiful and the terrible. Here is the attractive and rewarding view and the alternative and punitive view, and he who emasculates the divine government by taking out of it the pain and penalty, and by taking out of it the attributes of the divine mind: which en- gender pains and penaltics, violates not only the Scriptures, but the experience of mankind, There ts no pretending that there } divine mind which 1s al- ys lenient toward transgression, It needed no ul to tell the World that it is a woeful thing to sin and that whosoever sinned should die, The whole creation has travailed in pain until now because men break Jaws, The question is which one of these views of the dhyinity Js the c tistic or ideal one. Here js a man who dweils in his house in the plentitude of goodness and refinement, admired and beloved by children, servants and neighbors, and yet there is not a burglar that attempts to break into his house who | does not meet that man with a pistol in his hand. To the burglar he is an object of terror. Wouid it be right to take the idea of that man's character from tho burglar? { Mr. Beecher illustrated this point at some length | and went on to show that ELEMENTS IN WIKCH GOD DELIGHTE had deseribed Himseit by to Moses, was jong suflering, kindness, goodness and mercy. ‘This by no means cleared the guilty; but, after all, the por- traiture, the preacher said, lay in goodness, ' The mis- take of men was to think that it is incompatible with kindness and goodness to inflict pain, God, according to the Apostle, appealed to men through love and kind- ness, but when that failed pain and wrath followed, Pain that tended to soften hard hearts and turn a back from wrong ways; pain, nut for the sake pain, but for ‘the sake of reformation. Because these traits which led Him to punish were tn God, it had been hold that He must be presented to men in that terrible shape. ‘First present the awful in the Lord,” men had sald, ‘and then present the beautiful atterward in Jesus Christ.’’ Paul's theory, Mr, Beecher thought, was that the goodness of God was to be presented to men as His ebaracteristic; but, then, if men lyed so low down in the moral scale as not to be affected by | it they were to be met with such moral influences as. they Were capable ofexpericncing. The Ten Comman ments might be read to a fractious mule without mak- ing him budge, but the spur would make him start—- he could feel that, Therefore an edneator must begin With such influences as his puptls are susceptible of; but because he begins with that he is not to take that for the best influence, The child 1s begun with in that way, but the object of its education was to lift it up to be influenced by higher motives. It is in the same sense, said the preacher, that Wwe carry a mau up just as fast as we can out of the range of physical chastise- ment and deprivations, In the economy of human life, if you cannot reach a man by love of God, you must reach down all the way to where he can tuke hold, and when you have reached him it 1s not to go on forever plying him with things that are low and course. We must bring him up. So that a world of undeveloped and so of: comparatively speaking, ani- mal creatures, the love of divine worth will hold a pre- dominant place, The soul that sinneth—it js the go: pel of nature—shall die. If such men are evil there must be an administration of force and fear to picrce them; but that is intended to be no more than a be- ginning, an alternative. In the divine economy Mr. Beecher contended one man will use one class of influences and another a different class One man will put the terrors of the law belore the congregation and thereby lose many who cannot bear such preaching. There cannot be a combination in one mind of a doctrine that will take everybody, Men of one temperament take ove way, and those differ- ently constituted another way. Ptopie praised tho doctrine of tear use it had developed the Puritan character; but the Puritan, while admirable in man; respects, was not a lovely character. Truc, he said, fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but | Itake it litoraily, It $s only the beginning. The love of God is the end of wisdom, the perfection of it, A perfect love casts out fear, That is, it has hfted men into such a@ realm that it no longer needs these things. Mr. Beecher illustrated this by describing the i in the West of a man sick with fever in the days he lived there. The patient waa first treated to sic | Violent medicines—ecalomel gnd all its train—and then gradually brought up with tonics, till he could take beef. But is would be a preposterous thing to attempt to keep him on calomel when he got better, Men who clamored to have “the whole of the divine teaching presented to the people” the speaker compared to one who should insist upon a druggist administering every- thing in his sbop to his patients in the course of a year. “It isa mistake,” said he, * to suppose that sadeeay knows the whole round of truth through the ages. He who claimns to do so 1s an imposter. The ages laugh at him and tread him under foot, If teaching and preach- ing are tothe mind what medicmes are to the body they are adapted to the wants of men. I have never sworn, said Mr. Beecher, to say my prayers toa xys- tem, 1 havo never sworn allegiance to a confession of faith. My vow is I wilt be true to my fellow men, LT have sworn to God to be true to Him, eo far Iknow Him. 1 have sworn to Him | that, so far as His children come under my care, 1 will do for them what Ho would like to do tor them so farasTcan.”” It isthe duty of every genera- tion, the preacher continued, to htt itself a litte higher than the previous one, Are’ we to find nothing m all | the boundless range of God's providence, he asked, that will enable us to be be better than those that pre- ceded us? And after an experience of 1,800 years are we not to be any wiser than if we had bad no such ex- perience’ It 48 to calla mana fool to say that he knows no more than his ancestors. The result of the preaching of the doctrine of love, Mr. Beecher said, could be seen in his own congrega- tion, which he took oceasion to pratse for its charity and wondertul unity. He appealed to them to go on growing in gri ul Hot to fear when the twilight of death comes that they would meet demons and gibber- ing sprites thick through the populous air, “When the veil drops,” said he, “there will be no darkness, The grave 18 hot ankie ceep. Break through it, for just beyond is the glory of the unsetting sun of eter- nity, and there no forms of cruelty are.’? CHURCH OF THE PILGRIMS, SERMON BY THE REY, RICHARD 8 STORRS— “YOR @E KNEW WHAT WAS IN MAN,” The biting air that mocked the sunshine yesterday and caused the Worshippers to hasten on their way to the churches did not diminish percepsibly the several congregations, At the Church of the Pilgrims, in Brooklyn, the morning service was conducted by the pastor, the Rev. Richard 8. Storrs, who selected for the textof his sermon the latter portion of the twenty- ce is | a true religion, and the divine manifestation makes it | clearer, not truer, because truth caunot be any more | than true, but clearer. And as divino revelation | always acts through the experience of tho individual | revealing, it is only the super-imposition upon alower | nature ofa higher good that is called revealed religion, | and ft is still nature. Using the term ‘‘naturo,’? then, | as it applies to the lowest conditions of material life, | there is just reason for the prejudice against the re- | ligion which takes no other foundation than experience oi that life, But if you angment the meaning of your term “nature” then ALL RIGHT RELIGION 48 natural religion. It comes within the bounds of that rulo which, spring- ing from God, ts nature, Here then we find the apostie from whose lips have passed the most magnificent cu- logies upon obedience, and upon the lite above, and tho justification by faith and upon salvation througa | the merits of the Lord Jesas Christ—we find him, with- | out fear of misinterpretation, declaring that salvation depends upon the endeavor of men to hive right, *to | those who, by patient continuance in weil doing, seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal Itfe.”? | For | ‘suppose there were no theologians in | those days, and no theological seminaries and no relig- apers, and, therefore, Paul dared to say wh . ‘“Butunto them that are conten. | tious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrigtoous. | ness, God will give indignation and wrath,” So that after all, the essential duty of man and end of life is the building up within one’s self of the divine nature; for this 18 the most comprehensive senso of well doin to make ourselves ralvable by lite im Christ, by faith in God, by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, by every | means and method; but the thing to be dono is to» rebailt ‘in man or build anew the condition of immortality, —greatsouledn hood in Christ Jesus, and to those that seek that, honor and immortality im eternal life shall be theirs; while to those that do not, destruction shall be theirs, There stands between theso two a question of itomense importance—namely, What view of God shall best tend to imepire in men this love ot well doing and | thas shape spiritual character? Ought the divine chara: and government to be presented to men predomi- ily on the side of fear and retribution, or ts the characteristic presentation of she diving ua. fifth verse of the second chapter of the Gospel accord. ing to St, John—“For he knew what was in man.’ | In illustrating the knowledge and love held by tho Saviour, the preacher said that Jobn, while writing this book near the close of his life, many years after the events narrated therein had taken place, was taking & bird’s-oye view of the life of Christ. In the chapter referred to Jobn speaks of what he had him- sel discerned, that which he felt as a certain impres- sion made on his own mind, that Christ “knew what was in man,"’ He had seen the power of Jesus to read the thoughts and impuises of others when the peuttent approached Him; he had seen it when the Pharisee came, when under the outward religions ex pression Josus perceived the anger and scorn that had struck through the onter shell cle teneath. He saw it when the young urging that bis worldly work should Judas when He beheld the wind which was so'soon to explode and destroy His earthly life. He saw it in the answer of Jesus to Pilate, and when upon the cross He committed His mother to the caro of His disciple, He felt that the Master knew every man to tno centre. This power became. more ovident to the mind of the apostle in later years. Greater than queiling the storm with words is the power to know what is in man. e do not know our+ selves perfectly, nor the forces which may be veloped in us in the great crisis, the crisis may develop in us new and powers. never know how much of resistance or yielding there is in him, How impossible it 1s to pierce beneath the reserve of ihe stranger who comes among us and to know if he isa saint ora raMan, a sappheant for charity or the spy of a burglar, To one man the siranger may appeur to be the meanest and MOST AMNITIONS DESIGNER, while to another he may appear pure aud upright, Tt is not in the power of man to know the thoughts held secretly in the hoarts of others The ¢! genius of Shakespeare consists in his power of projecting the ideal man ia various shapes; but Christ saw and read the meaning of the actual man, ‘Think ofa mind that could tale into it the minds of the people in this Congregation! Think of one that could take inte tt the tinds of all of the people in the city, the country, the world, the universe! It was the mind of Christ, How much sorrow there must baye been im itl In lijgrature dangerous the divine | The temptation and | Until a man is tempted and tried he can | ry of the | we shun the records of war and pass by the pages that shrick and seream with cruelty and oppression. But to know the secret forces that are working bebind us; that the delicate and dainty woman whom the world | loves is to destraction into households or empires , | that the child at the font is to be #n assassin; that the man, outwardly so tranquil, has a killing pain | within; that every secretgrief and care in all the world is known to one mind—Low unbearable it is, Nothing 80 drags down a pastor as for him to try, as he must | frequently, to take another’s sorrow and bear it up. Do you wonder at the sorrow that overhung the life of Christ? He bore our sins, He carried our sorrows in His own mind, for He knew what was in man, When you think of the vastness of that knowledge think of the sorrow of it, Christ knows itall. Nothing buta divine soul can enter into and take up that load of sin withoct being overwhelmed. Observe the perfect adaptation of the Gospel to the human soul. — If we want light, itis there; if we want comfort, it is there; if we look for knowledge, it is there, always there, Jt is pertect in its fitness to every son!, and it goes through- ‘out the earth, to the poet in his palace and to the hod- carrier ip his hovel. It takes the highest intelligence and the lowest, and from the child in the Sunday school to the oldest man all may accept it for the au- thor, “What was in n Observe the magnificent eulogy on human nature, that Christ, who knew what was in man, did so much for bim, What are we that the eternal Lord of Glory should co: on earth and suffer so for ust What is m us tbat we should receive | so much? If an angel bad come tiluminating the heavens with his celestial tread, it would have been wonderful; bat the Lord of Glory came. You do pot know what isin you. How great the diflerence be- | tween the boy playing on the nursery floor and the soldier sitting securely on the battle field and lnunching squadron after squadron until the enemy is vanquished, No government has ever given such a eulogy to man as Christ has given for the sake of the soulin youand me, He tells us how much He values the human sou! when Ie shows us what He is willing to do for it. When we have trouble we want to tell it to some one who will sympathize with us; but if that one does not undorstand us, treats our trouble lightly, or, perhaps, laughs at us, we do not go to that one again. There is the terrible, unsatisiied hanger of the heart for some one to speak to; 1t does us no good to shout it in the wilderness, we must have some one to speak to. We can come to Christ tn all certainty that | He knows our wants, our cares aud sorrows, and is in | perfect accord with us, Christ is the King of the | world, for He knows what is in man. CLINTON AVENUE CHURCH “LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION” —A SERMON BY REY. IVES BUDINGTON, D. D, Ciinton avenue Congregational church, Brooklyn, | was well filled yesterday, the expectation being that | Dr. Budington would speak with special reference to the deliverances of the late Advisory Council called py Plymouth church. e An interesting and somewhat peculiar feature of the services preliminary to the sermon, in a Congrega- tional church, was the reading of the lessons of the day, the people making the responses as in the Epis- copal Church, and the music by the choir and organ, which was not so severely simple as is common in the other churches of the Congregational denomination. On rising to preach Dr. Budington quoted the sec- tion of the Lord’s Prayer—* Lead us not into tempta- tion.’ Ho said that to be tempted was not to be sinful. Eve, in the Garden of Eden, listened to the serpent Satan, and, obeying, fell. Not so, however, was it woen Jesus was tempted by the devil. The Saviour simply said to the tempter, “Get thee behind me, Satan,”? and the temptation failed, ‘The preacher then passed to an enumeration of various forms of temptation, and 6.—TRIPLE SHEET. Mary, and owing to his great pu and sanctity he was chosen her jan thr out her es: earcer. Chrisuans must admire the devotion, respect, tenderness and fidelity with which he acquitted himsolf in regard to his double charge—the education of the Saviour and the guardianship of His blessed mother, Jn conclusion, he urged the congregation to imitate his mm ple and his virtues, Sehmitz, the organist, was No. rendered with fine effect, Just previous to the sermon Mme. Unger sang Handel’s “Veni Creator,” and at the offertory Mme. Bredelli, a highly cultivated artist, whose abilities seem equal to a proper interpretation of the most difficult church music, and Mme. Unger, a contralto of excetlent attainments, sang the duet, “Quis es Homo,” from Rossini’s “Stabat Mater,” with greatsweetness and iinish, Tho “Credo” was also given with characteristic precision, as, indeed, were all the numbers of the mass, TRINITY CHURCH. DR. MORGAN DIX ON THE EXISTENCE OF SPIRITS. At Trinity church yesterday morning Dr. Dix, the rector, preacbed the sermon, chosing for text Ephe- sians, {i., part of second verse—The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,” The Holy Scriptures, said the Doctor, of both the Old and New Testaments, give REY. | a history of the human race from the beginning of tho world, and besides furnish an account of events that are to occur to the end of time. The great Hebrew writer has collected the ancient history of the earlier peoples and noted their traditions, The aposties fur- nish ug with an account of the times in whioh they lived. The Holy Seriptures, taken with previous doc- trines, present a clear picture, that men formerly beiieved, and still believe, as a part of a universal faith in the existence of a spiritual world and in the peopling of those realms with other beings, This is a part of the faith of man- kind. the beginning until now, Angels and devils appear at the beginning of Genesis, So in the Gospel of St. John ure they described as active beings. Angels are spoken of all through the Bible, Inthe line of witnesses ap- pears the greatest of ali—He who can neither deceive or be deceived. Our Lord and Saviour describes ‘atan as the chicf of tho powers of darkness. The words of this witness are taken up by tho Apostles, and we haye the writings of the others, who set forth beyond a doubt the existence of an invisible spiritual world, There are always materialisis who Bible in this regard unreliable, Our Lord spoke constapuy of Satan, If we say there is no Satan, what shall we say of Christ? The faithful, however, neod not vex tl ‘ouls about this, Our actual knowledge is notlo serve as the total of all that may be known, That you have not seen a spirit does not prove that there are no such thmga What a solemn view of life this conveys. How greatly must a man’s expand when he takes this in mind, NOT SUPERSTITION, BUT SOBER REASON. ideas Ie is The text says, “The prince of the power of the air.”” | This region 18 peopled by the power of the torces of the air, They are people who on the one hand who are to defend us on the earth, and, on the other, flends who about seeking whom they can devour. These jast are governed by a restless being called Satan, Again, in considering about this invisible realm, we must think of the mysterious mystery attaching to dreams. We have heard of dreams, ‘signs and omens as they Were viewed in olden times, We hear, too, of com- Munion with spirits of departed friends warning us of danger, We have all heard of strange signs and sounds in vacant houses where a crime has been committed, The records of the spirituahstic operations in our day show, too, that there fs subject for deep consideration. while showing that all Positions in lite are subject to it he declared that the higher a man rises in either the Church or the State the more greatly is he tempted to sin; and, if one in sucha position yields to tempta- | tion, Le finds himself in the gutter becanse he did not | Tesist temptation, even as the Saviour resisted it. He | reierred to the boasting Poter, who, almost while boasting of his faithfulness to Christ, | turned and denied bis Master; und to Judas, | who bs ‘ed Christ for thirty pieces of silver, and from these and other examples he drew the conclasion that all, however exalted, in either Church or State, should fervently and often give heartfelt expression | to the petition, ‘Lead us not into temptation. ’? } Atter the sermon a HeraLp reporter asked Dr. Bud- ington if the report was true that he would withdraw from the Congregational Charch should the conclusions of the late Advicory Council be accepted by a majority of the associated churches, He said that he had no intention, at present, to change his ministerial reia- pions. CHURCH OF THE HOLY APOSTLES. THE RACK NOT ALWAYS TO THE SWIFT NOR THE BATTLE TO THE STRONG—SERMON BY REY. E. BRADY BACKUS, At the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles, corner of Ninth ayonue and Twenty-cighth sfreot, yesterday morning, the rector elect, Rev. E. Brady Backus, formally entered upon his work in the parish and occupied the pulpit, The text was taken fromthe ninth chapter of Ecclesiastes, eleventh verse—‘'The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong.” These words, said the preacher, set be- fore us a truth clearly contrary to the world’s opinion, In the wisdom of men the race 1s to the swift andthe battle to the strong. Looking here and there about us, in business, in private and in public hfe, we see | men acting largely upon this principle, the converse of the text. The dosire of rising, advancing, achieving, 1s common, and one that chiefly looks to physical forces and human agencies for success. The young man spends years in fitting himselt to be a swift runner | in the race of life, in some clegant pursuit, in some trade or profession. And why? Because he would out- strip all competitors and seize the garland of wealth | and ot fame for himself, because, like the Grecian | athlete, be js confident that the race is to the swift. Many of the world’s statesmen, its martial heroes aiso, have not underestimated the forces: within thew reach, They have even s@ught to intla- | ence and control them to advance their own ends and aims. Does it not seem strange, then, that our text aflirms that to be a truth which is opposed so largely to our own observation, to the wider range of tho | world’s history! At Orst thought it would so appear, | In the flush of youth, inthe pride of temporal pros- perity, it is, indeed, a diflicult matter for us to change our Views in regard to that principle upon which we have so long acted. Yet time and age often produce this very result, Where self-aggrandizement has beey, our aim, where our hopes have been placed upon the riches, Pleasures and applause of this world, there has at lagi come to many, perhaps im failure and disap- pointment, the growing conviction that possibly, after all, the Trace 1s not to the “swift nor the | battle = to the — strong.’” But upon the authority of the Word of God we may surely beheve | that our text establishes for us a truth which holds good atevery period of life and under all circum- stances—yos, and through eternity, Althongh human | wisdom may judgo differently, this wisdom is by nature | contrary to many other truths of God’s words, ‘Yet herein is revealed to us the fact that in point of the truest and most permanent success in that which is pure, noble and spiritual, in that which outlives the lapse of time, “the race $s not slways to the swift nor the battle the strong.” The preacher said the | words of the text were not always to be taken literal, that honest endeavor and earnest work in the cat Christ wore necessary te complete success. The apostle said » IT can do all things through Corist, which | strengtheneth me.”’ Likewise we also, having gamed j the one thing needtul, the faith and fear of God through a Saviour crucified, having found the love of | Jesus so tender and watchtul and forgiving, having | } | 1 yy | of heard and heeded the voice of the Holy Spirit pleadicg with our spirit, who shall say, | then, that we shall not’ be swift in the Though friends forsake us, though we be stripped of | Christ. Doubtless many of the so-called manilestations are but pure nonsense and transparent frauds; bat is it not wiser to beheve that there are things happening impossible to explain ex- cept under the doctrine of the supernatural? Is it not better to accept the viow that there are spirits sent by God to this world for good pur} and again, that fiends are despatched by Satan to torment us? We have in the story of our Lord’s temptation a pin auerative, of the existence ot these evil spirits. he man who can sweep that away would return toa system of signs and empty metaphor. We bow in rev- érence before the scenes of the forty days. The exist- ence of a personal spirit of evil explains the existence ofsome kind of men and their acts. In the sacred mysteries of Christianity are set up perfect barriers against the Prince of Darkness; and when we hear God say there 1s danger Jet us heed and not turn away be- cause some friend tells us thore is none, 80 shail wo walk sately along the highway of life. JANE STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. SERMON RY THE REY. ROBERT SCOTT—HOW WE MAY BE SAVED. At the Jane street United Presbyterian church the sermon was preached yesterday morning by the pas- tor, Rev. Robert Soott, who took his text from II Corinthians, iii, 21, When we look at sin and its consequences it 18 of great mnportance that wo should understand our relations to God in His wiping out of our sims, Christ took upon Himself our burdens, our sins being placed upon Him by God, and He then began. His part of the work as our Redeemer. Man has nothing to do with this | work; he is the subject only. Paul says not a word of what man has to do tn this, All the sin is on Jesus and is removed from man. But what have we to do with sin, then? We have simply to believe God when Ifo tells us Christ has upon Him our burden, and to accept this that we may be acceptubio. We can ourselves de nothing but be reconciled. We havo pluced uo sin upon Christ, no curse upon Him; it was God who placed jt there. Christ took it up, and we have only to believe in the part done by God and by Our salvation does not come trom ourselves, but from God. Butit we are away from Cobriet the belief that belongs to us cannot exist in us, and we can have no part in the reconciliation that God mtended, If by our faith we do our share then what can inter- fere with our salvation? Still we may and do desire to bad yas 4 and to this end we must abide in Christ; out of Christ there ts no sanctification. Are you, then, willing to accept Jesus? What must we do to be saved? God has given the answer, which is to believe and be accepted. This is tho simple, comprehensive, true Gospel, which leads to salvation. BROOKLYN TABERNACLE. SERMON BY REY. T. DE WITT TALMAGE ON WOMEN’S RIGHTS, At the morning service Rey. T. De Witt Talmago announced before commencing the sermon that the Presbyterian General Assembly of the United States would be held in the Tabernacle, commencing May 17. The delegates will number about 500 clergymen, Tho Presbytery will continue in session for fifteon days. He requested the people of the congregation to make suitable preparations for entertaining the delogates at their houses during their stay in Brooklyn. Mr. Tal- mage took for his text:—*So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; male and fomale created he them’’—Genesis, 1, 27. God made man and woman for specific work and to move in particular spheres—man to be tin his reaim, woman to be dominant in hers, boundary line between Italy and Switzerland, between England and Scotland, is not. more thoroughly marked than this «1 viding line between the empire masculine and the em- pire femimine. So entirely dissimilar are the fields in which God calls them that you can no more compare them than you can oxygen and hydrogen, water aud grass, trees and stars. All this tatk about the superi- ority of one sex to the other sex 18 an everlasting wasie of ink andspeech, I deny to man the throne intellec- tual, I deny to womdn the throne affectional. No pursuit of good, and strong jn the battle with evil, | haman phraseology will ever define the spheres, while there 18 an intuition by which we know when a man is all our carthly possessions, yet, with God’s help, we fi Christ Jesus, Finally, we shad need to be patient and prayertul. We may sow and water, but it is God that gives the increase. We can do nothing without Him. As He is so patient toward despair if His chariot wheels tarry alive, if His tn- voring hand seems withheld for a time, Surely, as Ho promised, after we have suffered a while He will make us perfoct—cstablish, strengthen, settle us, To His throno also we shali often need to hasten, to lay be- fore Him these our common anxioties and regards, praying the Lord of the harvest to grant anto us an Incrense of grace, to bear the burden and heat of the day, to multiply, pertect and gather into His spiritual garner the fruits of our labor, st. Patrick's Gvrmepran. FEAST OF ST, JOSEPH—SERMON BY REV. THER DUCET, & J. 4 Tho Cathedral was crowded yesterday by a devout congregation, The officiating clergyman was the Rev, Fathor Hogan, and at the conclusion of the first gospet asermon was proached by the Rey, Father Ducet, 8, J., Who took his toxt from St. Matthew, 1., 18-25, describing the birth of Jesus Christ, ‘The reverend genleman dilated at length on the life and character of Sti. Joseph, whose feast the Catholic Church that day celebrated all over the universe, It was only occasionally they heard of St. Joseph, the spouse of the Virgin Mary, seurity. Church and its prerogatives were founded upon that which belonged to their faith, They bad only to read | the g oi the day in order to ascertain that St. yosepl Was the spouse of the Virgin Mary, and he was her protector and guide while on earth. The Virgin Mary was a privileged being—privileged in her immuc- ulate conception, Sho wax destined from all eternity to be the mother ot the Creator. The paternity of St. Joseph was given tohim by the Holy Ghost, and the | Chured applied to him words whieh she apphed oniy to those who were in glory. There was no sunt to be compared with him; hence ft was right for the Church to give htm untversal recognition aud show coniidence in him, ‘hey must enter ito the spirit of the Church and show toward St. Joseph all that veneration which was due to him, They must apply to him and recom~ | mend to bim their temporal and spiritual wellare, and | expecially the latter, The reverend gentleman then | proceeded to comment on the grand example tven by St. soseph throughout his entire life, the hrs- a y of Which had not beou written by men but by tho Holy Ghost bimseif, God inveusted him with the edu- eation of His Bivine Son, tod the flesh, it was with this view he was espoused tq the Virgin FA- shall be more than conquerors; We shall fight the good | ht; we shall attain wato the prize of our high calling | bungling 8, why should we | He lived ana died in ob- | But tho Spirit of God always governed His | in his realm, and when a woman 1s in her realm, when ae ed them fs at Legislature ought to attempt to make definition or to this is the line and that is the line. My th fs that ifa woman | wants to vote she ought to vote, ana that if a man wants to embroider and keep a house he ought to be allowed to embroider and keop a house, (Laughter,) There ! are masculine women and effeminate men. You have | no right to interfere with any one’s doing anything | that is righteons, The question of capacity will scttle | finally the whote question—this whole satject. When a Wotnan is prepared to preach sho will preavh, and | neither conference nor presbytery can hinder her. | When awoman 1s prepared to move in the highest commercial spheres she will bave great inuence on exchange, and no boards of trade can hinder her. Hoart and brain can overtly any barrier that politieans con set up, and nothing can keep her back or keep he down butthe question of incapacity, There are wo- men, I know, of most undesirable nature, | who wander ‘up and down the country, | having no homes of their own or forsaking their own homes, talking abont their mghts, and we know very well that they themselves are fit neither to voto nor to keep house, Their mission seems to be | to humiliate the two sexes at the thought of what any one of us might become. No one would want to live under the laws that such women would enact, or to have cast upon society the children that such women would raise. The rights that woman ean bave the: | already have iy their possession. Her position in this country is not one of commiseration, but of con- gratulation. She sits to-day ona throne so bigh that all the thrones on carth piled on top of each other would not make for her a footstool. Away down below | this platform on which she stands aro the ballot bo: congregational astemblagos and logislative halls, Women vote, How many there have been in high political station who would have been insuilicieht to stand the test to whic: their moral principle was put had it not been tor a ‘wife's voice Uhat encouraged them to do right and a | wile’s prayer that sounded louder than the clamor of | partisanship. The grand absorbing right that WOMAN HAS IS TO MAK® HOME HAPPY. That realm no one has ever disputed with her. Oh, woman! thank God that you have a home, that Hotter there ‘than wear t right does woman want The eagles of ‘Compared for God rk of ou may be happy in tt | Vietoria’s coronet, | than to be queen m such a realm? | heaven cannot tly across that dominion. | with this work of training kings and queet and eternity how meignificant seems all this voting for Alaermen, Common Councilmen, Sheritis, | Mayors, constables and Presidents, To make a trio noble woman such as! have described in the Christian home sphere bow many thousand would you want of those people who go in the round of godiess- hess, fashion. ‘and. dissipation, distorting their body until in their monstrosity they seem to outdo tho dromedary and 4.4 YT going 80 far toward disgraceful apparel rosin su as dare go 80 a8 Mot to be ar. potions thale SOTO ke Aho vis what is taugtt us in the holy book from | caricature of the victous, and an insalt te son Conye: J oe temporal an with the lightuings of your soul strike at your feet all these alluroments to dissipation and to fashion, Your immortal soul cannot be fed on garbage. God calls you upto an empire and a do- minion. Will you ave it ? ri give to God your heart, your best energies, your culture. your refinement; give yourself to Him for this world and the next. MOODY AND SANKEY. There were three meetings at tho Hippodrome yes- terday—one at eight o'clock A. M., one at three P. M. and another at eight P, M, At each of these moetingt Messrs. Moody and Sankey were present. At the morning meeting there wero seven thousand people Present, most of them men, who listened to Mr. Moody tell the story of Jacob, His discourse was good, but did not seem to be as well ag the sermon of the Sunday previous, when he spoke of Daniel in the lion's den, The assemblage sung to- gether those two hymns now so well kno: “hota The morning ser- the Fort’? and ‘Jesus Loves Me.”” vices lasted till a quarter past nine, and then in- quiry rooms wi opened and were kept open nearly all day. The number of young converts nade exceeded that of any day since the revival com: At the three o’clock meeting 1m the afternoon there wag another tremendous crowd; not @ ssat in the vast hail was vacant, and nine-tenths of the occupants were women. The services opened with the singing of. the sixth hymn, ‘There were ninety and nine that safely lay in the shelter of the told’? ‘This, as usual, was sung by Mr. Sankey, solo. After the singing Mr, Moody spoke on the text, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all things shall be added unto you. e said that if Christ was to come on earth to-day such was the spirit of worldliness aud money getting that pervaded the people that some one would ask Him to be made a Secretary of War and another Secretary of State. Ho had no doubt but there wonld a man who would ask to be the Seeret of the Treasury of Heaven. His sermon was explicit and to the point. He showed ets the path into which the country was running thro us irreligion aud unbelief, and made an earnest pope to his immense congregation to come under the ner of Jesus, After one of his most impassioned outbursta he said, ‘Is there any one here who wishes to find the kingdom of Christ’ Ti there ts let him stand up.” Away in the rear part of the halia colored man stood up and said “Tam here.” fe was followed by a number of other men, colored and white, in quick succession ‘until about 150 were on the floor, Mr. Moody, calling out meanwhile, “Is there another?” ‘Is there auother!”’ Nearly all those who rose were, apparently, men who earned their living hard, and were earnest in what they. were doing. The services closed with the singing ot the soventy-second hymn, “Take the name of Jesus with you. ‘The same sermon was repeated in the evening before even a Jarger audience, for there was not even stand- ing room in the Madison Avenue Hall. The platforms were filled with Indies, who assisted Mr. Sankey in the singing with a great deal of enthusiasm. When Mr, Moody came to that part of his sermon where he ny any one who wished to be prayed for to stand up, one by one in all parts of the bail, ground floor, galleries and lobbies, persons kept rising, till about 500 were on the floor. Then he made an appeal to all present to pray to God that His blessings would flow down on this mis- sion and tbat all who asked His help might have strength enough to stand up bring others to Christ, When the general meeti ‘was over there was a young men’s meeting held in t} Fourth Avenue Hall, anda boys’ meeting, in which about 300 lads from twelve to sixteen years of age, were present in room 1), Mr. Moody announced that the meeting for ministers would be held on the 29th and 80th of this month, to which all the clergymen in tl country were invited, and that he and his Gi ital Mr. Sankey would leave New York on the 20th of May, ° THE PULPIT AND THE STAGE. The love of novelty in entertainment must have been the motive which lured a few hundred curious people to the Cooper Institute last evening to listen toa ‘lec- ture” on “The Pulpit and the Stage,” by the Rev. Henry Morgan. Tho speaker, or lecturer, as he calls himself, first complained to his hearers of the neglect of the newspapers to notice his zealous efforts for the reformation of existing abuses, and charged one of the Hxraup’s contempora. Ties with lying six times in a twenty-four tine notic of one of his previous discourses, After dwelling to a tiresome length upon the topic Mr. Morgan came finally to the advertised subject of his talk. Tho public fil the theatres nightly, he said, while the churches are deserted. If ‘actors were as lifeless as preachers this would not be as it ja Religion, to be attractive, the speaker added, must be sensational, Leaving religion again for the stage of the present day, he said it was wholly devoted to tho representation of weak tri More heart and foree were wanted, The great stage force now, he said, 18 leg foree, The more legs there are the more dollars. Trivial amusements are the rule; forcible moral plays the exception. Jumping back again to the pulpit Mr. Morgan abused the Methodists as a money-loving a 2 sect and condemned ‘Trinity church for “play- | ing second fiddie to the theatres” by em- ploying theatrical devices in its form of worship and for receiving a large revenue from rum shi He gavo a feeble imitation of John B. Gough’s description of the dainty aud the vigorous preacher, « which his efforts at mimicry and his ladicrous essavi at humor, when not absolutely paintul, wore the sao ject of much more amusement than the pictures he 1m tended to present ot others, It any staid, churcli- going poople were among Mz. Morgan’s auditors Inst evening, it is {air to surmise that they will be moro than ever contented with the style of preaching he presumes to eritici: os OUR AUTHORS, SWINTON ON A CENTURY OF AMERICAN I{TERA~ TURE. Last night Mr. John Swinton lectured to a tolerably large aucience in Turn Hall on “One Hundred Years of American Literature." Tho lecture was given under the auspices of the German Freidenker Bund (Freethinkers’ Society), At the outset the lecturer professed his inability to deal properly with the subject in one hour. He woald, then, bis from mountain peak to mountau peak of the matter in hand, briefly sketching the Scenery as it appeared. American literature was, he ed, generally short lived, and the namos in it des- tined to last were few. To state the case fairly, we had really only had fifty years of literature. He would ask what we had contributed daring that period to the world’s literature and what was the yaluo of it? Do we make a good or even 4 fair show among the other nations of the earth? One of a nation’s highest glories is the greatness of ita literature. We have not hada Shakespeare, a Homer, Ja Goethe, a Dante, a Voltaire or a Victor Hugo. The reason tor this is sim No man of the highest gepius has ever been duplicated. We have had three periods of literature—the pre-| . the Revo: utionary until 1820, ms that 1820 to the resent time, rst produced 4 theological spp alin an almost exclusively reat and solitary figare of which ts Jonathan | Kawarda, This literature was the outgrowth of the ! Puritanical feeling imported into this country from England, where a mighty religious upheaval was going forward when the Purtucns left her shores, It 18 now entirely forgotten, The Kevolutionary period was re. markable for a great and powerful political literature, Among the mass of writers who contributed to form it three figures stand out prominently—Benjamin Frank. Jin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Of these PRANKLIN WAS MATERIALISTIC IN TENDENCY} Jefferson a deep and astute thinker and a senolar im the best sense of the word. Paine was the most widely read, the most energetic and the greaiest of all tae Revolutionary authors, His Lamas | has been wronged by the people whom he served. Of the poets of the Revolution it was, said the lecturer, hardly necessary to speak—they had all been forgotten, as they richly deserved to be. ( The interval between 1780 and 1820 was singularly barren, It was the period from the iatter date to the present time which had given us our place in the | world’s Nterature, such as itis, The lecturer thought that position a very notable one. In that period we have had two literary generations, In the first, we have the genial, manly figures of Washington Irving | pnd Fenimore Cooper—Irving, America’s foremos literary son, antil bis death im }; Cooper, who gave the first impulse to flamboyant literature, and who hag had a swarm of imitators, In the same period wo have had a group of pocts, inent among whom are the ag Bryant and fellow. The former contributed the first noble poem that American literature ever saw in his “Thanatopsis.” Longfellow’s most remarkable poetical work ts his “Hiawatha.” Re | longing to the second period we have Lowell, Holmet | and Bayard Taylor. In the same ported we have a grony | of historians—Bancraft, Prescott, Motley; of natu iWiman, Maury, Bowditch and Agassiz, The dis- by of these writers were briefly 4 sharply deiined, The lecturer next | stated that in speculative philosophy we showed in this period to great disadvantage as compared with the rest of the work Gur humorous literature was tolorably wiae in ite range and peculiarly American in | character. The groat representatives of this class were Artemus Ward, Mark Twain and Bret Harte, | It was a very singular thing that during the whole of | this period we bad produced one great political writer. Ol woman's ™ our literature there was not | mneh to say, except thidt women had produced novels the thousand. Thesiraima was another weak point new Iiterary panop!, duced a single great review those writers tnasmuch as we had not pro- drama, Next were passed in mn the speaker termed unique— rf Allan Poe, Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson | ana Walt Whitman. It would be ditficntt to exnggerata the meeNY petare of Emerson drawn by Mr, 3° | ton, Walt itman fared quite as well at his hands, | alent he began bis oritique of him by saying that | Some thought the poet an imbeciio and others a cloud- compelling genins. By far the largest measure of nouce was given in the lecture|to the two last mentioned | authors, and it was a real treat to listen to the | skiliul and beautifnl delineation of their characters, | Purposes and iniluence. The Je turer concluded with | the following firm statement:—“We have eontribated | no first clas ve Ww Tought on existing mothod Fiven us atything novel or original in we have prodaved no scientitic writer of the hi and none has istorical law; constructive order; we hay: equal to some elsewhere | We bave had no great dramat ; Woo bas given us any sin | recognized as such by the | low the highest, we can, ture, make an excellent man can overlook without not el ore find,” had no writer of fiction that might be peopel had no ist; we work rid; but at a point in very fer rts apa hme ere, sn