Schopenhauer despises the spendthrift. According to his idea, happiness, as an inner state, is due to a surplus of intellectual power left over after the will has had its share. In order that this may be turned to those activities which make for happiness, leisure is necessary. To secure this he urges people "to be careful to preserve what they have earned or inherited." Schopenhauer closes the chapter with the observation that wife and children have not been included among man's possessions as "he is rather in their possession."

In the third division of the work, Schopenhauer treats of Position, or a man's place in the estimation of others. He speaks here of reputation, pride, rank, honor, and fame. His distinctions are not always valuable, though they remind us of conversations of Kant that Stirling has collected. And Schopenhauer claimed to be the only phi losopher since Kant.

The praise and good-will of our fellows are no more essential to happiness than are great possessions; but by a peculiar weakness of our nature this truth

is very generally overlooked. To lay great value upon what other people say of us is to pay them altogether too much honor. 66 Every man's chief and real existence is in his own skin, and not in other people's opinions." To acquire gives more pleasure than to possess (rest possessing), and "to know" more than "to be known to know," notwithstanding the fact that so many tacitly hold as their creed the words of Persius, "Knowledge is no use unless others know that you have it." This is to make the picture we present to the world of more importance than we are ourselves. Of Pride, our author regards national pride as the cheapest sort, for it argues that a man has no individual qualities of which to be proud. Moreover such pride forbids that the praise be both loud and honest, inasmuch as national character is composed of the worst as well as of the best of mankind.

Rank is purely a "conventional value"; "strictly speaking, it is a sham, a mere farce." But inasmuch as the

masses soon forget a benefit, it is well that public benefactors should have the ear notched, or be labelled with a dagger, or asterisk, that should proclaim to all, "This man is not like you; he has done something."

Honor may be looked at from twosides. It is "other people's opinion of what we are worth," or "it is the respect we pay this opinion." Honor once lost is lost forever. Fame cannot be lost, it is built to stay upon what one has actually accomplished. Honor is passive. Fame is active. Honor is the possession of all men and can be lost. Fame is the possession of the few and must be won. Under "Honor" Schopenhauer gives an extended criticism of chivalry and card playing, valuable mainly for its history, and intensely interesting because it bristles throughout with wit and sarcasm.

The discussion of Fame is especially interesting and suggestive, though it is impossible always to assent to the author's conclusions. Achievements that bring fame are of two kinds, there are great battles and inventions, there are immortal books. Fame in the former is transient, while "a great and beautiful book has a permanent character, as being of universal significance, and springs from the intellect, which rises, like a perfume, above the faults and follies of the world of will." "Fame follows merit as surely as the body casts a shadow; sometimes falling in front and sometimes behind." Fame is often slow in coming because the more a man belongs to posterity, the more of a stranger he is to his contemporaries. It was Lessing who said, "Some people obtain fame and others deserve it." It is the deserving rather than the possessing that gives the purest happiness. "It is not fame that makes a man happy, but that which brings fame."

It is seen by his discussion of property and position that Schopenhauer regards them as very weak factors in the production of happiness, except in so far as they are made a part of the environment of personality, or what a man is. That which creates happiness is the personality, all else is secondary

hope. It is full of the inspiration of progress. It is the very dawning of the kingdom of God. We do not know what lies beyond the veil of mortality, but we feel sure that spiritual laws do not change, and that there will be growth, progress, increase in knowledge, life and blessedness, transcending the power of imagination to picture.

And we have the conviction that instead of being a Godless creature, man is essentially a God-seeking one; that he is profoundly religious; that he feels the presence of the Eternal Power and worships it the best he knows. And so all the religions of the world become to us the honest attempts of the human heart to "feel after God, if haply it might find him." As such they are kindred, born of the same finite aspiration and the same infinite inspiration. We have sympathy with all worshipers. They are our brothers, children of the same Father, looking up in common adoration and love, and we can join with Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, in reverencing that Eternal to whom all hearts are drawn, and who fills all with the fulness of his blessing. This universality and unity of religion among all mankind is a necessary result of the unity of human nature, and of that religious instinct which in every age and country lifts all hearts into grand common worship.

Of this religious instinct there have been great exponents who have left the impress of their divine souls upon humanity. Of these Jesus seems to us chiefest. He was supremely the prophet of the soul. Lowly born, with little of what we call culture and knowledge, he had the keenest conscience, the largest practical wisdom, the strongest moral and religious sense, and the clearest spiritual insight. He had a profound feeling of truth and right and God. These made him the great teacher of life and duty and religion. His was a divine soul, the divinest of history. The humanity in him was so large and true that it was a wonderful revelation of what God meant by humanity. And through this large humanity he became a prophet and leader, not only for his

own time, but for all time. Not his birth but his character attests his right to the foremost place among the world's martyrs and saviors.

Finally, we cherish the idea that solid character is the supreme good of life, and that to win it is the highest success of every human being. We discredit all manifestations of religion which do not result in character. We believe that honesty and integrity are the foundation of everything that is divine, and that without righteousness no man can see God. We lay our chief emphasis upon personal righteousness, believing that it has the "promise of the life that now is as well as of "that which is to come." Personal righteousness is personal salvation. Nothing can take the place thereof,-no faith, no sentiment, no charity. It cannot be imputed. It cannot be transmitted. must be won by personal endeavor, and when won it is the pearl of great price, the rock which no storms can shake. T. B. FORBUSH.

Chicago.

TO ONE WHO DISLIKES EVOLUTION A PART OF A LETTER TO A FRIEND.

You remark that our faith as Unita

rians seems to hinge pretty closely upon the theory of Evolution, and that you have never entertained any liking for that theory. Not necessarily, I think, does our faith depend upon any theory of creation. Evolution does not profess to account for the existence of things, but merely to give some account of the methods of life. And I quite agree with Mr. Ruskin when he says that "it is man's chief duty to know what he is and not to think of the protoplasm which he was, or the skeleton which he shall be." What we are; the sense of dependence which we feel; the voice of conscience which speaks within us; the indisputable experiences which have come to us as individuals and as a race; the convictions which are pressed upon us through consciousness and experience; these constitute our data, and are valid, whatever the method of creation. However, it is the strength of rational religion that it corresponds to, and is

largely confirmed by, the discoveries of science. Not that the truths of religion can be proved by science. Religion transcends the methods and limitations of science, as thought and feeling transcend matter. But this is certainly true: -that while physical science is destroying all faith in a six day's creation and in miracles of every sort, and while the science of criticism is working the same havoc with the pretensions of infallibility made in behalf of the Bible, science can never disprove our faith-the belief in God from the rational stand-point must always command the respectful consideration of the scientist. The greatest scientific men of the age come to a point beyond which they admit they can go no further. They cannot account for the beginnings of life, and all their elaborate explanation of the processes of life from one form to another, can only postpone but can never eliminate the final stubborn questions: How did it all begin? Where is the First Cause for all the phenomena of life? And here they stand reverently before a Power they can neither fathom nor deny.

And concerning Immortality, they can only say that science can neither prove nor disprove it. The very conditions of the problem seem to remove it from the realm of strict demonstration. And yet it may be added that in the many psychic phenomena of the age, such as thought transference, clairvoyance, etc., which seem to show the mind's power to receive outside impressions by some means independent of the bodily senses, there is a wonderful hint of immortality. And now, for the sake of its theological bearing, one brief word in an swer to your objections to the theory of Evolution. You say it has always been very distasteful to you. You say that you "like to think of the men and women who lived in the days when the world was young' as creatures of perfect vigor both of mind and bodyphysically, mentally, morally perfectin every way superior to the race of today."

Of course you will grant that what we would like to believe is one thing;

what is true, and hence worthy our belief, may be a very different thing. But, to consider merely the palatableness of Evolution:-Do you think it more creditable to human nature, for mankind to have been placed first upon an eminence of perfection from which to fall, like Milton's hosts of wicked angels, " thick as autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa," into an estate of hopeless sin and eternal misery; than to think that from first far off rude beginnings this race of ours has been ever climbing, climbing, guided upward by a divine instinct, making even of mistakes and defeats stepping stones which bring them ever nearer and nearer to the God who created them, and who, through his voice speaking in their souls, is ever calling them toward him? Which view makes creation an abject failure? Which view, rightly comprehended, makes it an endless grand upward march from lower to higher, from higher to highest; from the clod, the brute, the savage,-up to the pure in the heart, the peace-makers, and all the sons of God?

Kalamazoo, Mich.

CARRIE J. BARTLETT.

THE PROGRESS OF RELIGION IN TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.

The following is a part of a sermon preached in Lynn, Mass., a few weeks ago, by the Rev. Samuel B. Stewart, on the occasion of the twenty fifth anniversary of his settlement with the Unitarian society. It is an excellent portrayal of the religious progress of the twenty-five years past. Said Mr. Stowart:

The past quarter century has been distinguished for what is known as the scientific study of religion. The scientific spirit has pervaded the field of religion, and it has been a period for more critical investigation of the sources and development of our beliefs.

For my own part, I very early caught the spirit of Transcendentalism, and chafed a little under the ancient phrases and long established creeds. The utterances of Emerson were an inspiration to me. The bold and aggressive ministry of Theodore Parker gave me a thrill. I never heard him preach; but