scattered pettinesses and selfishnesses of men, bring them together into a gigantic power before which many of us are trembling. Many of the best, the wisest, the clearest headed men stand aghast before that power. What is the need of to-day? It is the need of bringing together the men and women who believe essentially in the moral and the spiritual life, of making them feel their community of interests, that they are one not merely sentimentally, but that they may be welded into one great power, and that power for good. The intellectual enfranchisement that the world has made has been making such a union possible. Liberalism is not the denial of effective organization; it is simply the realization, which that effective organization must take into account, of our personal freedom. The struggle for intellectual freedom, moral sincerity, that was the struggle of the past generation. The problem for us, the problem for the next generation, is whether this freedom of ours can survive, whether it can reproduce itself, whether it can actually do the work of the world. If it cannot do the work of the world, if it cannot hold its own, then of course it must be but a beautiful memory. I think it can do the work.

But I believe, as every one who has spoken to-day believes, that our churches and our personal individual thinking must have a change of method and must adapt themselves to the new practical demands of our own age. As Dr. Hale has said, there is something almost grotesque in much of the ecclesiasticism of the world. But we must remember the meaning of that word itself. "The ecclesia" was the name for a popular assembly. It was "a great meeting." The church represents the idea of spiritual solidarity. I never like to speak on such an occasion as this and have the emphasis upon mere liberalism. I like the richer and greater historic word, the word

catholicity," the catholic tendency, the inclusive, brotherly, effective tendency. Christianity attempted a synthesis, a Catholic organization of religion. That Catholic organization has failed because of its lack of real catholicity, because it has not taken in all the forces which actually exist. That is a poor kind of catholicity that would not take in, for instance, in the

fullest, the completest fellowship one who spoke to us this morning from the great historic Jewish church.

We are slowly working out, I believe, a catholic religion. We have not yet come to a point where we can call it by any name. We can be prophets of that time, and we can personally enter in in completest fellowship with those who are working for it. It is an organization of the spiritual life of humanity, just that kind of organization which the founders of this Free Religious Association, whose names come to us, all had in mind when they founded this society - the bringing together in actual loving fellowship, in effective and eventually in highly organized co-operation, all the forces which in the human heart are working for good.

We look back over forty years and we are glad and proud of those who from afar saw that bright day, and I believe that we can say with all humility yet with gladness that we are forty years nearer the realization of that ideal, and that many things which forty years ago were merely ideals are almost within our reach; that it is possible for us everywhere throughout this country to begin practically a working organization of free and spiritual religion, and that people are coming, more and more, to see that only through the method of freedom can the effective organization of religion be realized. [Applause.]

THE PRESIDENT.—I said at the beginning that the most impressive speech which I had read in the records of the Association was the great speech of Wendell Phillips in 1868, at the second meeting of the Association. The thing upon which Wendell Phillips laid emphasis was co-operation; that was the word put into italics when it was printed co-operation not merely in the religious life, but also in social and industrial reconstruction. How is perfect freedom to be made compatible with efficient co-operation? I rejoice that we have heard as the closing word of this commemorative occasion this new emphasis upon this commanding thought.

The Festival.

The Annual Festival was held in Parker Fraternity Hall, Friday afternoon, May 31, luncheon being served at 1.30 o'clock. The tables were prettily decorated with flowers.

At the close of the luncheon Rev. Paul R. Frothingham, the Chairman of the afternoon, called the company to order in readiness for the speaking.

OPENING REMARKS BY THE CHAIRMAN, REV. PAUL R. FROTHINGHAM, BOSTON, MASS.

Ladies and Gentlemen, - Members of the Free Religious Association of America, and Guests: —

For some unknown reason at these Festivals each year the President of this Association is thrust down from his throne of greatness and some one is substituted to preside in his place. I do not know whether that is because of the necessity for levity at this meeting here in this lower hall, but at any rate this custom has prevailed for many years and still is followed; and so far as I know it is the only instance in which the Free Religious Association holds on to a useless and unnecessary tradition. [Laughter.] I think that you will all agree with me that Mr. Mead as President is a much more fitting person than I am to preside on this occasion. One reason, perhaps, for this custom is that this Association is not afraid of the strenuous life so far as addresses and listening to addresses are concerned, and I have always had a feeling akin to pity for those people who listened all the morning to addresses-and

the better the addresses are, oftentimes the more the tax is upon one's mental faculties - and then came down to another series in the afternoon. But there is a great distinction, and these Festival speeches are, I suppose, to take a somewhat different line. You may remember the story of the individual who lost a somewhat distant relative, and who, on going down the street in the morning, was accosted by a friend who said to him, "I understand your cousin So-and-so has died." "Yes, poor fellow, he has died." The other man asked, “What was the matter with him?" And the man stopped for a moment, and looked puzzled, and then said, "Why, what was the matter with him? I can't seem to think, but it was nothing serious." [Laughter.] And so, I have the feeling that this occasion, though that rule is not to be applied with any degree of absoluteness, is not expected to be a very serious occasion.

We have celebrated within the last few months several anniversaries. We had the centennial occasion of the birth of one of our greatest poets, and only the other day we celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the birth of our greatest man of science, Louis Agassiz. And so you and I have come together to celebrate our fortieth anniversary, a somewhat brief span of years. It is needless, perhaps, to say that I did not assist at the birth of this Association. At that period in my existence I did not know very much about freedom, and nothing about religion, and certainly nothing about free religion. The first meeting of this Association that I can recall was, I think, the twentieth annual meeting; and I can still remember certain things that were said at that time by the presiding officer. As always happens on such occasions, account was taken of stock, and I remember the officer in the chair reminding his hearers that twenty years, after all, was a very short period of time in which to hope to convert the entire world. Any one, he said, who has stood in the great cathedrals of Europe and has seen burning there, and swinging as it burned, one of those old cathedral lamps whose flame has lived for hundreds of years, realizes that in the course of religious history and development twenty years is no great period of time. And we can say practically the same in regard to forty years.

It has been my happy privilege to stand in somewhat close relationship to two of the Presidents of this Association; very closely to the first of your Presidents, and it is a particular regret to me that Colonel Higginson found it impossible to be here this afternoon, as it was his intention to speak to you in regard to him. Many of you no doubt recall him, and it is more fitting that another rather than myself should speak of his dignity and power and grace and eloquence. It was my good fortune also to be closely associated with the third of your Presidents, and no one, I think, who ever knew William Potter could possibly forget his gentleness, his simplicity, his earnestness, together with his great devotion to high ideals. [Applause.] And yet Mr. Potter, for all his Quaker origin, perhaps because of his Quaker origin, — had to a degree that perhaps many of you did not appreciate, the lion in him, and when he was aroused, as I have often seen and heard him when aroused in the old pulpit in New Bedford, he could speak as few men have ever spoken in regard to the abuses and the evils and the narrownesses that prevailed.

To-day, as I have said, we come together for our fortieth anniversary. Now, it may be complained, and it often is complained, that this Association of ours has not done anything. And by that it is meant that it has not built any churches, that it has not organized any institutions, has not gathered together any great number of devoted followers. Yet, it was Wendell Phillips who once said that some men are great not so much because of what they produce themselves as because of what they enable others to produce. He said, I remember, that the great Lord Bacon, as he takes his proud march down the centuries, might lay one hand upon the steamboat and the other upon the telegraph, and say, "These are mine, for I taught you to invent." The Puritan, too, wherever he finds free thought and free speech, may say, "These are mine, for I taught you the beauty of true liberty." And so, at the present time, wherever we see true freedom of religious thinking, wherever we find true fraternity among differences of belief, we may say, "These things belong to us, for the Free Religious Association helped to teach them to the world."