CO-OPERATION.

At a recent meeting of the Friends of Progress, Mr. Edward Dieren, in the course of some remarks criticising the action of the Circle, made some practical suggestions on the subject of co-operation in the purchase of family supplies. He said:

For a successful Co-operative Association, we require five hundred members, each of whom will pay $10 into a common fund as a working capital. Our Friends of Progress number now 100 or more members; I hope every one will sign $10 for the purpose of establishing a co-operative store. When we have secured 250 subscribers to the stock, the money will be called for and a store established.

My estimate is that with a working capital of about $5,000, a yearly trade of from $50,000 to $60,000 can be reached, and after deducting expenses, the company will make a profit of about $5000.

Mr. Dieren here made a calculation concerning the future accumulation of capital, which could hardly be realized. He intimated that if it doubled the first year it might continue to increase in the same ratio! A very hopeful calculation, to say the least. He continued:

When we will consider that we have the second year a working capital of $10,000, properly invested, we may hope that as our capital increases, and our industry advances, we shall soon be on the road to Independence. Our working class will not be required to beg for work from the capitalists. We, the Friends of Progress, will then employ the Friends ourselves; we will then have our own schools, and give the masses an education. Organization makes strong and independent, and we all will then be an organized force against the oppression of capital.

Friends, I wish you would commence the work at once, and I assure you, we will be successful. Our Order will be spread quickly over the whole United States; our cooperative stores established everywhere, we will then work as a body, and in time those who sympathize with us will govern cities and States for the good of humanity, and will pass laws, not for the rich man, but for the poorer classes, and will give in general an impulse to the advance

ment of the race.

A. C. Stowe remarked that stores on the co-operative plan have been thoroughly tried, and proved failures. He believes in co-operation, but not in that form. Mr. Pierson could see no reason why co-operative stores conducted by honest men should not be successful. Mrs. Smith explained the method adopted by the Sovereigns of Industry, which has been highly successful at the East. They do not establish stores of their own, but combine to throw their trade into one channel, then make arrangements with dealers to furnish goods at a discount. In this way a great saving has been effected. After further discussion a committee was appointed to examine the subject of co-operation, obtain statistics, and report their conclusions to the Circle.

[As the United Order Friends of Progress is a secret society, we do not feel at liberty to publish the remarks entire, especially those of Mr. Dieren, which were appropriate at the time and place, but not for publication.-ED.]

Mr.Parkes, a London phortographer, has developed the power to take pictures of invisible spirits at night by the use of the magnesium light.

RADICAL TALK-THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

The Society for Self Culture on the 14th inst. discussed the question: Is the present mode of managing mining stock defensible? Among the speakers was Pat J. Healy, a radical thinker, who spoke in substance as follows :

It is no more reprehensible to flood the community with watered mining stock than to flood it with shoddy made in mills where children under eight years have to work eleven hours a day under the cruel eye of a Massachusetts slave driver; and it is quite as moral as to flood the market with cove oysters 11 ounces to the pound. In fact we have no standard of morality except success in accumulating the "coin of the realm." Unfair dealing in mining stock is the logical outgrowth of the false system of society under which we exist, and which we are responsible for, in so far as we recognize the evil, and do not seek to mitigate it.

As long as the people of this country allow the Government to dispose of the public domain as if it were in a hurry to get rid of it, so long will we have corruption from one end of the land to the other. Why do people invest in mines, and seek other risky means of making a livelihood? It is because society is so constructed that there is no guarantee that the efforts of the individual will be rewarded with commensurate results. There is no just correspondence between honest efforts for existence and the product enjoyed. These adventurers recognize this fact, more or less clearly, and consequently seek to obtain an amount of intrinsic value without giving therefore the usual equivalent in time. Society makes the precious metals a medium of exchange, and of intrinsic value-valuable independent of the manner of their production or of the function they perform-and this value is mainly attached to them from the fact that society allows its individual members to alienate from themselves the essential conditions of life for a certain consideration of these precious metals. It allows one. individual to extend his personality over the elements of another individual's existence. Nearly all the evils that result from grinding monopolies are directly traceable to this fatal principle of individual ownership of land; in as much as he who controls the land controls the water upon its surface, as well as the atmosphere that bathes it with its recuperating zephyrs; and J. S. Mill never uttered a more profound sentence, that "He who controls my the many evils which this evil system may be justly charged physical subsistence controls my moral nature." Among with are the following: The insecurity of life and personal property; the necessity of a constantly increasing multitude of laws and their interpreters, which alienate men from productive industry, and render exorbitant taxation a necessity; unnatural competition, which destroys itself periodically by over-production, thence idleness and periodic famine by which whole districts are liable to starve or live on the charity of others; the destruction of moral and physical integrity, by which the present state of things is intensified, and the destruction of the family and all the associations of home. These are a few of the evils that are the result of the system of private ownership of the soil, a system which is gradually making our government a government of the few over the many for the benefit of the few; and I claim that Sharon, Ralston, and others of that ilk, are not a whit worse than we are ; but on the contrary they are "building wiser than they know;" they are unconsciously bringing about a state of affairs which will render a change imperative, and are thus helping on the car of progress. Our duty lies in striving to root out the cause or causes of our present condition of society, so that the grandest possibility ever given to man for enjoying a free and pure government may not result in failure.

"COME TO JESUS."

The success which that Reverend mountebank, Hammond, is meeting in California is not creditable to the good sense of our people. He travels about from place to place, telling the same stories, in precisily the same way, and bringing to bear the same theatrical appliances to aid him in producing a temporary impression on his hearers, called "conversion." The influence of "revivals" is essentially evil, especially on children, who are the main objects of Hammond's efforts. Revival preaching gives them false ideas of their own position, and worth, inculcates false notions as to their duty, and cheats them with the hope of obtaining good by other means than the cultivation of their own character; it narrows their souls, dwarfs their intellect, and makes them little bundles of self-complacency, unchildlike and unnatural. It is most pernicious in its effects. Of the "children of an older growth" who are converted more than half of them, when the psychological effect sinners" than before; and of the other half a large proportion, ashamed to "backslide," become hypocrites, while the very few sincere are those who are natually inclined to piety, and would have been in every respect better, more liberal, more charitable and truly religious, if they had never been roped into a church during a revival excitement.

passes away, are worse

We are indebted to a Sacramento friend for the Record's

report of the debate on Sunday last, in Pioneer Hall, at

a regular meeting of the Educational Association.

* * *

Josiah Johnson said that in view of the religious excitement, it would be well to direct the dicussion into the religious channel. He believes that the business of life should be the development of the faculties-education, mentally, morally and physically. This is what it is "to be saved," but those who ask the question, "what shall we do to be saved?" are told by our religious teachers "Come to Jesus." If by this they mean to do justice, to act rightly, to be obedient to all moral and physical law, then the free thinker is with them. But when they are asked what is meant by coming to Jesus, no intelligent answer is given. The naturalist says that nature does everything, and that there is nothing outside of nature there is no need of going outside of nature to account for anything that is or is done. The scientist refers everything to energy, for energy fully accounts for all that is, and is fully competent to perform all that is done in the universe. Another class hold to the idea of spirit all pervading, acting upon matter-that spirit is ultimate force. Another class resolves that there is one God-Jehovah-of sufficient power to perform all the creative acts we see done. In their final analysis these things are all alike. In the first place, it is nature; in the next it is energy; in the next, the Spirit of God. Can you assume anything outside of nature? Can you think of anything not done by energy? Can you think of anything done outside of the spirit? Can you conceive of anything outside of God? It will be perceived that the use of different terms to designate the same thing has produced superficial and intangible differences. In a fundamental sense there is a unity in these truths-all amount to the same thing. Paul says, "God is the Father of us all, over all and through all." Then nature, science, law, the emotional nature of man and his reason, are all prophets of God. Our religious friends are undoubtedly doing the best they can, and we

* * *

ought to say "God speed you," and we ought to help them to a better understanding of things, so that they may the more easily gain the results they seek. An ordinary mind does not understand this "coming to Jesus," while the more intelligent mind only understands it to mean an application of the laws which govern this life and which application of the laws which govern this life and which govern the growth of the soul, to the actions of men. They might say, "It means you must be merciful, just, and live to be good and do good," but to the masses, this is entirely blank-they can see nothing in it. Of this "coming to Jesus," they know nothing of the philosophy or the use.

Mr. C. W. Hoit referred to the "awakening," and characterized it as a misdirected educational effort. It is an attempt to educate the public mind in theological myths not founded upon fact or proceeding in any line of special utility. What is it to "come to Jesus?" Stripped of all its glittering generalities, it is to come to the ideals and conceptions of those who bid us "come" in that name. All religions have their high ideal, their standard which they hold aloft and bid men come to them. The "Come to Jesus" of the Christian is simply another form of the To come to our Jesus expression, "Receive my doctrine. is to come to us, to be molded by us, to be fashioned in our theological and spiritual likeness. Whatever of differences may exist between Christian sects, the one shibboleth, "Come to Jesus," answers for them all. It must, therefore, be understood to mean the embodiment of the theology of him that uses it. Sects not Christian have its equivalent, and in all cases it must be understood to mean, "Accept my faith-believe my doctrine-come to my ideal -be like me."

ing in active mentally to one single idea, they produce a mental force which overcomes the will of negative persons. This power is exerted in bringing the few to the ideas of the mass. The operation is very simple, and its successful management involves no question of tact or skill. Produce the conditions and the force sets to work itself. With grown people, this requires a strong mental effort on the part of those intent on producing a conversion. As to children, the operation is quite easy. The tender mind of a child is highly susceptible to the influences surrounding it. Men in the audience could take that little boy (pointing to a child) and make him completely subject to their will. When once under that will, the child, of course, would reflect the opinions of its magnetizer. Under this mesmeric state, let the magnetizer question it as to what it feels and believes, and its answer will be in accordance with its desires. Íts will has been supplanted by his. In the revivals, these things are taken for the uncontrolled and orginal experiences of the child, while, in fact, they are but the reflection of the prevailing mind about him. It is the mind of the adult speaking through the child. This is all there is of infant conversion. Referring still to the religious meeting he spoke in a spirit of tolerance and commendation. There are many men living lives not the best to whom a conversion is fraught with promise of good. Conversion to them would produce a change of motive and bring them into new relations, giving hope of reformation. But there is a class of full grown minds to whom this conversion has no significance. They have grown beyond it many have come up through that road-and these could no more go back to the orthodox faith than a full grown chicken could go back to the shell from which it was hatched.

Whenever a large number of people are together, hold

Mr. Alfred Taylor spoke briefly as to the part the cl Church has taken in the education of the world, and said that it has given to mankind many grand truths which will live forever.

TRAINING CHILDREN.

Children who are unsympathetically treated become relatively unsympathetic; whereas treating them with due fellow feeling is a means of cultivating their fellow-feeling. With familly governments, as with political ones, a harsh despotism itself generates a great part of the crimes it has to repress; while conversely a mild and liberal rule not only avoids many causes of discussion, but so ameliorates the tone of feeling as to diminish the tendency to transgression. As John Locke long since remarked, "Great severity of punishment does but very little good, nay great harm in education; and I believe it will be found that, cæteris paribus, those children who have been most chastised, seldom make the best of men. * * Do not expect from a child any great amount of moral goodness. Not only is it unwise to set up a high standard for juvenile good conduct, but it is even unwise to use very urgent incitements to such good conduct. Already most people recognize the detrimental results of intellectual precocity; but there remains to be recognized the truth that there is a moral precocity which is also detrimental. Our higher moral faculties, like our higher intellectual ones, are comparatively complex. By consequence they are both comparatively late in their evolution. And with the one as the other, a very early activitly produced by stimulation will be at the expense of the future character. Thence the not uncommon fact that those who during childhood were instanced as models of juvenile goodness, by-and-by undergo some disastrous and seemingly inexplicable change and end by being not above but below par; while relatively exemplary men are often the issue of childhood by no means so promising. Be content, therefore, with moderate measures and moderate results. Constantly bear in mind the fact that a higher morality, like a higher intelligence, must be reached by a slow growth; and you will then have more patience with those imperfections of nature which your child hourly displays. You will be less prone to that constant scolding, and threatening, and forbidding, by which many parents induce a chronic domestic irritation, in the foolish hope that they will thus make their children what they should be. Satisfy yourself with seeing that your child always suffers the natural consequences of his actions, and you will avoid that excess of control in which so many parents err. Leave him, whenever you can, to the discipline of experience, and you will so save him from that hot-house virtue which over-regulation produces in yielding natures, or that demoralizing antagonism which it produces in independent ones."-Herbert Spencer

on Education.

Spirits, though not mortals, are yet human beings, who continue to possess, for a greater or less time after their transition, all their desires, habits of thonght, virtues and vices, in force and activity. The gay and sedate, the cheerful and morose, the kind and unkind, the loving and malignant, the benevolent and miserly, all retain those traits and characteristics which together constituted their earthly personality, and nothing is lost in the change by death but the physical body, the outer covering which has served as the medium through which the purposes of the real man-the spirit-could be effected in the extenal life. Of the truths that have been revealed through Spiritualism, this is perhaps one of the most difficult to realize, so strong and enduring are the bonds of education; and yet no truth in Spiritualism is more evident, and nearly all the evils that proceed from spiritual intercourse arise from ignorance of, or failure to appreciate, its importance.

BRIEF EXTRACTS.

There are men and women who can never rise to the idea of serving God for nought, and whose devotion and pious observances are little less than a sagacious and safe investment.-W. R. Greg.

Things are either possible or impossible-you can easily determine which in any given state of human science; if impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it, if possible, try it.-Ruskin.

Woman is not exclusively made for man, or man for woman; sexual harmony is impossible until each is conceded to be an individual exponent of truth, and that real union results only from mutual and constant deference to Essential Right.

No being can have been destined to live merely for the good of man. All that lives has an equal right to exist, and it is merely the right of might which permits man to subject or to kill other living beings. There are no ends which nature had in view to favor a privileged being. Nature is an end in itself.-Buchner's "Force and Matter.

The time is not distant when the pressure of public opinion will not tolerate any idle class living by the sweat of others and affecting to look down on all who have to gain their bread. Every man will have to work regularly and steadily in some way or other, as a duty to societyand when all work, the false shame which the industrious now feel in the presence of the idle, will disappear forever. -Thomas Wright.

The Christian world teaches that labor was cursed; that God cursed man for sin, and its penalty was that he should go out and labor-that he should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. This is a most pernicious doctrine. Only imagine the effect upon mankind of such a feeling towards labor-labor, without which nothing is or can be done. Christianity would do well to eliminate from its teachings this idea, and teach something more in consonance with nature. Our motto should be " Work and be saved-be idle and be damned."-Josiah Johnson.

Trade Unionism, we are told, tends invariably to the self-emancipation, and, therefore, to the advance of the Yet at Kidderminster the carpet-weavers working classes. have resisted with all the means at their disposal the employment of women in their trade. Who have the truest notions of progress, they who fetter or they who enlarge Is it endurable that, the scope of woman's activity? while the door is being opened for the refining influences of education to reach the hearts and homes of our work

ing women, their husbands and brothers should be denying them the elementary right of earning a living? It is miserable to find the jealousy of one sex seeking to exclude the other from the means of livelihood.-Capital and

Labor.

For the Government to issue paper, as it now does, to banks on the purchase with gold and silver of interestbearing bonds, the Government paying interest on the bonds deposited with it, at the same time it issues notes to the value of the bonds to the banks upon which they can do business and draw another rate of interest out of the people, is a financial outrage upon industry, and ought to damn any government that will tolerate such a thing. It is a management to at once bankrupt the Government, break down industry, and impoverish the masses of the people, while it makes wealth King, and offers a premium for speculation at the expense of industry.-California Agriculturist.

LIBERTY.

BY JOHN HAY.

What man is there so bold that he should say,
"Thus and thus only would I have the sea ?”
For whether lying calm and beautiful,
Clasping the earth in love, and throwing back
The smile of heaven from waves of amethyst;
Or whether, freshened by the busy winds,

It bears the trade and navies of the world

To ends of use or stern activity;

Or whether, lashed by tempests, it gives way

To elemental fury, howls and roars

At all its rocky barriers, in wild lust

Of ruin drinks the blood of living things,

And strews its wrecks o'er leagues of desolate shore;Always it is the sea, and all bow down

Before its vast and varied majesty.

And so in vain will timorous men essay
To set the metes and bounds of Liberty.
For Freedom is its own eternal law.

It makes its own conditions, and in storm
or calm alike fulfils the eternal Will.
Let us not then despise it when it lies
Still as a sleeping lion, while a swarm

Of gnat-like evils hover round its head;

Nor doubt it when in mad, disjointed times

It shakes the torch of terror, and its cry

Shrills o'er the quaking earth, and in the flame

Of riot and war we see its awful form

Rise by the scaffold, where the crimson axe

Rings down its grooves the knell of shuddering kings.

For always in thine eyes, O Liberty

Shines that high light whereby the world is saved;
And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee!

THE MEADOW LARK.

BY B. P. AVERY.

Thrill, happy lark, thy brief, sweet lay,
From out a breast as brown

As were the hills in Autumn day
Before the rains came down.

The beaming sun, the dripping showers,
Are in thy simple notes;

Earth smiles to hear in grass and flowers, And bright the cloudlet floats

On Alameda's mountain line
The violet's tender hue,

With dappled spots of shade and shine,
Is painted 'gainst the blue.

The meadows slope to meet the bay,
The gulls in flocks uprise,
And far above the waters gray,
Soars purple Tamalpais.

Beyond is ocean's wide expanse,

Where, through the Golden Gate,

The ships with snowy canvas dance,

Or on the breezes wait.

Fair day, bright scene! The hill, the tree,

The poppy's running flame,

The silver cloud, the sunny sea,
Spring's coming all proclaim.

But sweeter, dearer far, than all,

I love the liquid sound

That from the sky the lark lets fall,
Whene'er he spurns the ground.

Though all too short, its cadence gives
Back to my heart once more

The thoughtless joy that used to live
In happy days of yore.

Beecher must be tired of "acting a part" so constantly as he has been doing for a year past. Even in his prayers he is insincere-telling the Lord how happy he is, and thanking him for the blessings he enjoys. In a late sermon he told the story of his deepest sorrow. It was when his aunt Chandler sent him down town to buy snuff, and he returned to learn that his father had gone hunting without him! Terrible disappointment! The boy's heart was nearly broken. No sorrow of after years could compare with grief like this; and so some of his tender hearted hearers must have felt, for the papers say many were affected, even to tears. Beecher is evidently whistling his way through the grave-yard. It is still very dark. He is not half through yet, and the ghost may rise any moment with terrible voice and aspect of horror. The ghost's name is public opinion.

THE PEOPLE'S ADVENT.

BY GERALD MASSEY,

"Tis coming up the steep of Time,

And this old world is growing brighter!

We may not see its dawn sublime,

Yet high hopes make the heart throb lighter!

Our dust may slumber in the ground
When it awakes the world in wonder;

But we have felt it gathering round-
We have heard its voice of living thunder !
"Tis coming! yes, 'tis coming!

"Tis coming now, the glorious time
Foretold by seers and sung in story,

For which, when thinking was a crime,

Souls leaped to heaven from scaffolds gory! They passed. But see the work they have wrought, Now the crowned hopes of centuries blossom! How the live lightning of their thought

Is flashing through us, brain and bosom !
"Tis coming! yes, 'tis coming!

Creeds, empires, systems, rot with age,
But the great people's ever youthful!
And it shall write the Future's page,
To our humanity more truthful;
The gnarliest heart hath tender chords
To waken at the name of "Brother!"
"Tis coming when these scorpion words
We shall not speak to sting each other!
"Tis coming! yes, 'tis coming!

Out of the light, ye Priests, nor fling
Your dark, cold shadows on us longer!
Aside, thou world-wide curse, called King!
The people's step is quicker, stronger!
There's a divinity within

That makes men great whene'er they will it;
God works with all who dare to win,
And the time cometh to reveal it.
"Tis coming! yes, 'tis coming!

Freedom! the tyrants kill thy braves,
Yet in our memories live the sleepers;
And, though doomed millions feed the graves
Dug by Death's fierce, red-handed reapers,
The world will not forever bow

To things that mock God's own endeavor! "Tis nearer than we wot of now,

When flowers shall wreathe the sword forever! "Tis coming! yes, 'tis coming!

Fraternity! Love's other name !

Dear, heaven-connecting link of being!
Then shall we grasp thy golden dream,
As souls, full statured, grow far seeing!
Thou shalt unfold our better part,

And in our life-cup yield more honey-
Light up with joy the poor man's heart,
And Love's own world with smiles more sunny!
'Tis coming! yes, 'tis coming!

Ay, it must come ! The Tyrant's throne
Is crumbling, with our hot tears rusted;
The Sword earth's mighty have leant on

Is cankered, with our best blood crusted!
Room for the men of Mind! Make way,
Ye Robber Rulers! pause no longer!
Ye cannot stay the opening day!
The world rolls on-the light grows stronger-
The People's Advent's coming!

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