gone before we taste it, and the foam of the cup has subsided into unpalatable mediocrity. And the loss is not for a moment but for all time, inasmuch as each experience is a fore-runner, and prepares the way for that which is to come.

The glory of this search for truth is that there is a recompense immediate and continual. Just when the way seems darkest comes the heavenly illumination to remind us that we are not toiling alone: that within the shadows God is watching still, and that when we least expect it, he is pleased to make us the channel through which he pours his truth into the world. Then the patient, passive will, finds glorious compensation for its receptivity; for those thoughts which we recognize as truths come from we know not whence, a sudden illumination, a thrill of delight, a burst of song, that uplift us on strong, free wings, plumed for celestial flights.

As we begin, at first with timid hand and trembling touch, to lift the curtains of our inner lives, we find our souls, bound down with bands of sin and sinful thoughts, that hold us in an ever-tightening grip; with bonds of habit, that dull and blunt our sensibilities; and breathing a murky atmosphere of discontent, that withers all our powers, and colors the sunbeams of God's truth, with strange fantastic hues. Each strong impulse of good, each noble thought, that but for a moment sways us, breaks one fetter more, and we are so much nearer moral freedom. When good thoughts and holy aspirations so outnumber the evil ones, that our souls are purified thereby, new and glorious paths in life open wide to us their welcoming portals, and we walk therein with the firm tread of immortals. Only to the pure in heart do the gods whisper their secrets; only such an one can hold the great, strong pulsebeat of the universe, till his own pulse keeps time with it, as when friends clasp each other hand in hand.

He who treads thus the high places of thought, can measure with long strides the inequalities of common life, bridging the depths of despair, and restraining the currents of joy, with a miraculous calm that makes him a demi-god in the sight of struggling mortals.

He carries with him an atmosphere that refreshes and inspires us, while the holy calm of his soul transforms us for the time into beings somewhat like himself.

Not until we know that in the world of mind as in the world of matter we are never beyond the protection of God's love, and that whatsoever comes to us is well, shall we be fearless to seek and to know the truth. The truth can never make us free until we trust ourselves upon the current of our thoughts, as the swimmer trusts himself to the waters, feeling that our thoughts are of God, and that he holds us as in the hollow of his hand. We are timid at first, as the great waves of passion surge about us, but we find that by the working of his unchangeable laws, we are sustained and buoyed up, until we gain a new power of our own, and strike out with slow, strong, steady strokes, delighted with our own success.

"The truth shall make you free." How rich a promise! Through it you shall throw off the iron yoke that passion like another Vulcan forges for your neck; the canker selfishness that gnaws your vitals; the cunning web that false pride weaves before your eyes, hiding the realities of life. Then shall the lips made dumb by craven fear, be free to speak the whisperings of love, of which God makes us all the messengers; hands that once were tied by idle habit be ready for all humanizing work; and the regenerate heart be free to love all things and find an endless compensation in the loving.

the

Our preachers bid us look within ourselves; we hear the admonition every day, yet how many of us dare

to study our own hearts; the law of God written theron, we have re-written and crossed with scribblings of our own, until the original has become as meaningless to us as hieroglyphs of Egypt. Who shall help us now to decipher them? The doctors of divinity cannot help us, nor the doctors of metaphysics, but if with painstaking care, we scratch out our own interlinings, God himself who wrote the precepts on our infant hearts will teach us the alphabet of their significance. Our life-work may seem lost to us-but not so. We send our children many years to school. They labor with the zeal of youth to accomplish certain tasks; year in, year out, the completion of these is the absorbing business of life.

By

and by they become men and women and find sterner employments, and one by one forget the acquirements of those early years. Yet we count it not a loss, if the discipline of youth has taught them to acquire the wider knowledge of life, and the accomplishment of forgotten tasks has been a training-school for manlier effort.

Life should not be a succession of leaps, but a steady progress; each new experience a stepping-stone to that beyond; each sorrow a preparation for more enduring joy. So when God drops the plummet of his truth far in the hidden waters of our souls, to try the currents and the countercurrents there, beneath the rippled surface he shall find still depths of purity and peace unfathomable.

O

NE argument frequently used in

favor of sectarianism is, that its votaries are better people and form better society than the non-sectarians. Admitting the premises, it proves nothing more than that the religious portion of a community is better than the irreligious; for a large number of religiously concerned persons unite with some of the sects, and they are subject to the same law of cause and effect as others, they that fear God and work righteousness are accepted of him. As compared with those who neither fear God nor regard man, it would be strange indeed if they who are honestly concerned to act up to their convictions of truth and duty, were not the better people, notwithstanding they may be tenacious of puerile rites and degrading superstitions. Such are good not because of their sectarianism, but in spite of

it.

History furnishes innumerable instances (perhaps as many among the Romanists as any other sect) of individuals, who by dev.ion to such light as they had, were instrumental in carrying forward the work of reformation and human progress, not only in their own, but in distant lands. But their sectarianism instead of being a help, was an immense drawback upon their otherwise benevolent efforts. In their missionary labors, instead of appealing to the internal sense of those for whom they labored, they sought to root up one set of traditions and substitute another less congenial to the subject than those they would eradicate. When they preached trinity to the Musselman, he told them they that believed in more Gods than one, were oxen and asses. When they expounded their mysteries to the Hindoo, he told them that the sublime mysteries of

should Jesus of Nazareth appear in the same character which he lived out in Judea, bearing the same fearless and lofty testimony against spiritual wickedness in high places, there is not a sect in christendom that would tolerate him as a member. He and his followers would as surely be cast out of the synagogue now, as they were in the days of his appearing. The reason is obvious, all the sects have their creeds or fixed forms to separate their members from the rest of God's children. They have also their rulers or head men who occupy the chief seats in the synagogue, church, or meeting-house, and are called of men Reverend, Priest, Deacon, Minister, or Elder; an aristocratic order strong in the support of present customs, which would

never tolerate the man who was hand in glove with publicans and sinners. They would appeal to the civil authority to protect them against this disorderly character, this disturber of their religious meetings, and though in his punishment, fine and imprisonment would be substituted for crucifixion, it would not be because sectarianism has changed its character, but because an advancing civilization has limited its power.

That which was said of Socrates and the Athenians is true of Jesus and the sectarians: "Him whom they could not endure as a man they were willing to worship as a God;" and we may say that the converse is now equally true, that him whom they are willing to worship as a God, they would not endure as a man.

G. M. F.

July, 1867.

L.

THE

HE report in the last number of the FRIEND of the interview between John J. Merritt and the New York monthly meeting's committee, would perhaps have been better understood by those having no previous knowledge of the case, if some information as to the position of the parties had briefly prefaced the dialogue. We shall now endeavor to supply the deficiency.

Some years since there was a pretty active and interesting appearance of lay preachers in Friends' meetings on Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, and the house was not unfrequently crowded by the growing attendance upon these meetings. The preaching was mostly of a very simple and unpretentious character, destitute of all theological embellishments, and generally having more reference to present influences than to ancient dogmas. The speakers however exhibited great individuality of thought, and were extremely independent in their method.

These peculiarities were early felt by the Elders (the spiritual guardians of the meeting) to need their attention and restraining care. These were vigorously extended, and this condition of things soon changed under the exercise of such guardianship. One of the speakers removed to another meeting, another died, another resigned his right of membership in the society, another gradually quieted down into permanent silence, and with some encouraging exceptions, though so rare as scarcely to awaken expectation, the general public services of the meeting became restricted to the settled minister.

The attendance has greatly diminished, and the meetings now give earnest promise of becoming as free from the incumbrance of all carnal

bodies as their silent preaching is destitute of vocal sound. During most of this period there have been persistent attempts to place an extinguisher upon John J. Merritt. These attempts have been partially successful and are still in hopeful progress, for John disclaims all desire ever to address those who are unwilling to hear him; and meetings may be so engineered as to leave his opponents in a majority, in which case he would desire to withdraw. There has been one specific charge brought against him to which he pleads guilty, being this: In violation of the accustomed order method of the society of Friends, though in compliance with requests which had been made of him, he was in the habit of giving public notice when he felt premonitions of having service to perform in his own meetings, and thus attempted to secure no other than expectant or willing auditors. This was construed into an offence, and in the spring of 1865 he was required by the Minister and Elders of Brooklyn meeting to discontinue such notices, and also to be silent.

or

His letter under date of 3d month, 18th, 1865, with which we close this explanation, gives his response to these requirements, and to some extent the ground of his allegations to the committee, that the requirements of discipline had not been conformed to in the inception of the case.

The reception of this letter by Brooklyn Elders was shortly followed by information communicated to him, that they had been released by their fellow members from all further service in the matter, and the April number of the FRIEND furnishes the next link in the connection.