By drinking at the mighty springs of power
Which throb around us as our natural dower.
The mighty presence which involves us all
Each human soul, each whirling, skyey ball;
Which thrills through all, and lifts from crude to fair;
The mystery unsolved, yet which doth bear
In its deep bosom balm for all our strife;
The fountain and the ocean - of our life:
We never nearer than to-day may reach
To grasp its secret for our futile speech,
But ever deeper, Man shall enter in
To use it, and its grace of being win.

Be this enough! it is our heaven of hope,
And Life Eternal is to climb its slope.
But Man himself must gain the sunlit height,
And share with every soul its air and light.

VI.

Is this the Church's work?

I do not know!

But 't is the only way the world shall grow.
If still the Church upon man's side would be,
It needs but open clearer eyes and see.

The Church may do it, or may fail to do,

But Man shall do it helped by me and you.
O happy opportunity! to share

In making life thus beautiful and fair!
You men and women of this race divine,
Your light amid dispersing gloom let shine!
Let not the Past's unwisdom shape to-day,
Rebuke the thought which in the gloom would stay.
Whatever gods may be beyond our ken

Are highest served by highest serving men;

Whatever demons people lowest hell

Are fastest chained by human doing well.

Be ours to smile, to sing, to work for good, To know that Justice cannot be withstood, To know that Right shall yet illume the earthIF WE OURSELVES BUT GIVE IT GLORIOUS BIRTH.

VII.

Sing, voices of all birds that trill in June!
Your dear delight

Is symbol of the high ecstatic tune,
The radiance bright,

Which shall encompass Man full soon full soon!

Shine, rays of myriad suns that gleam on high!
Your glorious flame

Is prophecy of lumined earthly sky,
Known now in name,

And shortly to be made sweet verity!

Rise, human hearts! too long, too long opprest
By forces crude!

The shackles spurn which leave you still unblest
Though born to good,

And after ages' weeping, enter rest!

THE CHAIRMAN. — I think perhaps you would like to know how much of this banquet there is left. It has already been intimated to you that we have one more poet. I should not dare give you too much optimism, too much poetry, too many roses all in one bouquet; or, to stick to the banquet simile, I should not like to give you quite that extremely rich sequence of courses. My purpose, therefore, is that you in conclusion should treat Mr. Wendte as a sandwich between two poems,

Mr. Foss to come after Mr. Wendte. You can tell Mr. Wendte, after the meeting, that earlier in the afternoon, among the very first of our speakers, we called upon him; that at that time, when I was fresh and vigorous, I poured forth a most imposing eulogy upon him; that I said he was to take the place, for international purposes, of our friend from

Dundee, Dr. Walsh, who ran away too early to get caught; and that I also said that, in all our number here, there is no one to whom liberal religion is under a greater present debt than to our friend, our very modest friend, Mr. Wendte. [Applause.] He has done really an immense service; and he has been peculiarly fitted to do it by virtue of his knowledge of other countries and of other tongues, and by the broad, catholic sympathy which has enabled him to bring together people of widely different views. His international service to the cause of liberal religion can hardly be overvalued. I therefore take great pleasure in concluding the introduction which. I started earlier in the afternoon, by presenting Mr. Wendte, the Secretary of the International Congress of Religious Liberals. [Applause.]

REMARKS BY REV. CHARLES W. WENDTE, OF BOSTON

I thank the Chairman very heartily for his kind introduction. I feel in rising to face this exhausted audience, which has listened to such a long series of speakers, very much in the condition of the Mormon wife, who was the eighth in the happy congeries of conjugal felicities or infelicities, and who sat on the steps of her house weeping because her husband was dying in the upper chamber and she had been thrust forth from it. Just then the doctor came down-stairs, and she said to him, "Doctor, don't you think it is the duty of a good wife to be by the side of her husband when he is expiring?" He replied, "Why, certainly, madam; but if that be your intention you would better hurry up-the best places have already been taken."

I will simply, then, this afternoon, sum up in a single thought the impression produced upon me by this series of meetings to-day, so far as I have been able to attend them: - the permanence and the power and blessing of the church

on earth.

I believe in the permanence and blessing of the church, because I believe in religion itself - because I believe that so long as a human mind faces the immensities and eternities of the world-order, the marvels and mysteries of the universe; so long as a human being feels the pressure of fear and hope, of love and longing, of sorrow and of joy; so long as the human soul feels dawning upon it the vision of righteousness, and acknowledges duty as the supreme control of its life; so long as the spirit of man cherishes the hope of immortality, and believes that amid all the wrecks of matter, the vicissitudes of history, and the decays of time, the spirit of man shall nevertheless endure and go on from strength to strength and from grace to grace in the eternities of God — and is not that saying so long as a human being exists on the face of the earth? religion will manifest itself, will be the chief inspiration and comfort and joy of the human soul. [Applause.] Therefore, also, I believe that just as in art the vision of beauty produces song and picture and poem and statue, so religion, like every other of the higher emotions of humanity, must fly to expression in symbol, in sacrament, in liturgy, in prayer, in sermon. In forms of some kind, or expression of some kind, the religious spirit will free itself. And since man is a social being he will unite with others in the expression of that worship; as he does in everything else in life. That is, he will have social worship; he will have a church.

The church of to-morrow may not be the church of to-day. It may not be the houses of prayer we have inherited from our ancestors, and which often stand silent and cold during so many days of the week; which so frequently are not sufficient to minister to the varied activities of the human spirit and of the religious life to-day. But that some kind of church edifice, some kind of religious association, some kind of worship will endure hereafter, one must believe who has studied the history of man in the past, and upon it builds his inferences and his hopes for the future.

Yes, men will always have a church of some kind, and some kind of a ministry. It may not be the professional ministry to which I belong to-day. It may be that priesthood of all

believers for which the early Christians were so earnest, and which Martin Luther proclaimed as one of the great doctrines of his Reformation, in which the laymen, in which consecrated spirits of every kind and station in life, shall be the heralds, exponents, and leaders. And human service may be a still higher form of worship. But whatever form it may take there will always be, I believe, a vision of some kind; there will always be a church; and there will always be the minister, that is, the servant of religion. I believe, therefore, with Tolstoi, as expressed in a glorious sentence in one of his books, which I will venture to quote to end this splendid symposium to which we have listened to-day concerning the church, its opportunity, and its work in human life :—

"The church," says Tolstoi, "composed of men united not by selfish hopes, promises, or sacraments, but by deeds of truth and love, has lived always and will live forever. Now, as eighteen hundred years ago, this church is made up not of those who say, 'Lord, Lord,' and bring forth iniquity, but of those who hear the words of truth and reveal them in their lives. The members of this church practice the commandments of Jesus and thereby teach them to others. Whether

this church be in numbers great or little, it is nevertheless the church that shall finally unite within its bounds the hearts of all mankind." [Applause.]

THE CHAIRMAN. - We are greatly indebted to Mr. Wendte. I am very glad indeed that he did not allow his theory in regard to the exhaustion of this audience to prevail over his benevolent purposes.

We must stick to the banquet idea and remember that we keep something very fine for the last; and, with that understanding, I have great pleasure in presenting to you our con