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knowledge were sealed. Philosophy became a quagmire and religion a pathless wild.

The world was then a prison-house guarded by priestly sentinels who "thrust their ungainly forms" between their victims and the free air and cheery sunlight. How changed! We may now look up to the heavens and smile. We may gather unbidden the fruits of scientific research; nor deem the craving to pry into the secrets of star and rock and leaf, and the social and domestic laws and habits of insect life, "a vain and curious desire." And who would change the present for the past? Are not the people of to-day as wise, as good and as happy as were the people of the middle ages? True, theology and philosophy are compelled to a crucial test, but the refining process is a purifying one. True that inquiry generates doubt; but doubt is the harbinger of discovery.

Why does the Catholic Church above all other churches tremble because the spirit of the age impels all classes to think, and, thinking, to judge? If its superstructure rest on the foundation rock of eternal truth the winds of skepticism can never topple it. Or is there a fear that the lambs of its fold may be seduced by the prowling wolves of error into leaving their secure abode? True those lambs do sometimes seek for pastures green a little beyond their own enclosure; but we see not that any harm has come to them.

This dread of mental freedom is akin to that of the hen, standing on the shore, in the agony of maternal solicitude, uttering her persuasive "cluck, cluck, cluck," while her young ducklings swim, and dive and disport themselves in the water, from which, to the great amaze of their fostermother, they emerge, all the cleaner and better for their bath.

But a few years ago all forms of religion save the Hebrew and Christian were considered as unmitigated curses—as

wholly evil in conception and precept. Modern research has dispelled this delusion. Not only has it proved that there is a kinship between the languages but also between the religions of nations. The learned Max Müller has done much in this direction, and as the result of a research almost unparalleled. says, that "he who knows one religion knows none." The same author observes that, according to Buddha, the motive of all our actions should be pity or love to our neighbors. From Buddha's sayings we cull the following

"As the bee collects honey and departs without injuring the flower, so let the sage dwell on the earth.

"These sons belong to me and this wealth belongs to me.' With such thoughts a fool is tormented. He himself does not belong to himself; how much less sons and wealth!

"Let no man think lightly of evil, saying in his heart, 'it will not come nigh unto me.' Let no man think lightly of good, saying in his heart, 'it will not benefit me.' Even by the falling of water-drops a water-pot is filled."

"Let a man overcome anger by love, evil by good, the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth."

The tombs and monuments of ancient Egypt have unsealed to us some of the mysteries of religious belief as it existed anterior to what is termed the "Noachian deluge." Here is the conception of the Great Being as entertained by the ancient Egyptians.

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'Every one glorifies thy goodness. Mild is thy love towards us: thy tenderness surrounds our hearts. Great is thy love in all the souls of men.

"Let not thy face be turned away from us: the joy of our hearts is to contemplate thee. Chase all anguish from our hearts. He wipes tears from off all faces.

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Hail to thee, Ra, Lord of all truth; who listeneth to the poor in his distress; gentle of heart when we cry to thee;

deliverer of the timid man from the violent; judging the poor and the oppressed, sovereign of life, health and strength.

"The heart of man is no secret to him that made it. He is present with thee though thou be alone."

“There has recently been brought to light, from the ruins of that old civilization (the Egyptian), almost a complete work, called the maxims of Ptahhotep, which dates from the age of the Pyramids, and which even then refers to the authority of ancient time. It is the most ancient book in the world as far as is known. Rénouf, the great French Egyptian scholar, says that 'they inculcate the study of wisdom, the duty to parents and superiors, respect for property, the advantages of charitableness, peaceableness and content, of liberality, humility, chastity and sobriety, of truthfulness and justice.' M. Chabas, who first gave the book to the world, says: 'None of the Christian virtues is forgotten in it: piety, charity, gentleness, self-command in word and action, chastity, the protection of the weak, benevolence toward the humble, deference to superiors, respect for property in its minutest details all is expressed there, and in extremely clear language'" ("Beliefs about the Bible," pp. 160-61).

Is not this clear cut perception of the difference between right and wrong, a proof that even "heathen" nations who had neither the Jewish nor Christian "rule" had yet a standard of judgment with which to test the morality of actions, faultless in its beauty and perfect in its fullness? Contrast their pure teachings with the doctrine of hate and the commands of unrelenting persecution as disclosed in the Old Testament Scriptures, and say which has the best right to the claim of divine inspiration?

Should we regret that by unveiling the secrets of past generations we are compelled to a higher estimate of their virtue, their intelligence and the purity of their religious conceptions,

Should we not rather

than we have hitherto entertained? rejoice that in the morning of his being man was not left without the light of conscience; nor without a safe standard with which to determine right from wrong?

We will not be estopped from admiring wherever found, whether in human character or human institutions; whether in ages past or in present time; whether in religions which have germinated spontaneously in the human breast or been revealed from the skies. Names and pretense amount to little; substance to everything. To us, all that is noble, good or true is divine, and as such we will pay it the homage of our hearts. Says Renan: "Because we do not attach ourselves to any of the forms which captivate human adoration, we do not renounce the enjoyment of all that is good and beautiful in them. No passing vision exhausts divinity; God was revealed before Jesus, God will be revealed after him. Widely unequal and so much the more divine, as they are the greater and more spontaneous, the manifestations of the God concealed in the depths of the human conscience are all of the same order. Jesus cannot, therefore, belong exclusively to those who call themselves his disciples. He is the common honor of all who bear a human heart. His glory consists, not in being banished from history; we render him. a truer worship by showing that all history is incomprehensible without him."

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The age of dogma is fast passing away. Fear is becoming less and less a controlling power with the intelligent and deFree thought has possessed the thinking minds of the laity and has even invaded the pulpit. Dogmas which have been frozen into the brain have been thawed into a more humane consistence by the warm pulsations of the heart. Doctrines which we heard in our infancy are no longer proclaimed in their rigid, forbidding aspects. Tears of love and

pity have quenched the fires of hell. Scientific facts are accepted without regard to a possible conflict between them and Scriptural exegesis. In short, the minds of men are being disenthralled from the bondage of superstition, and are beginning to rejoice in that liberty which is the life of the soul and the light of the world.

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