with an axe. As they went they discoursed upon the theology of Odin, and especially about his birth.

The priest said, "The peacock hath a scurvy voice." 'Well, I don't know whether it has or not," said the virtuous person, "but great is truth, and it will prevail." The old rover said nothing. By and by they came to a fence, and thereon sat a peacock, and he sang divinely. The priest was very much disturbed. "This upsets all my theology," he said. "It does not matter," said the virtuous person; "great is truth, and it will prevail."

They went on a little farther, and came to where there was a fakir, who was working miracles. Said the priest, "This is the foundation of our faith"; and just then the cards fell out of the fakir's sleeve, and the priest was very much disturbed. The virtuous person said, "Don't let that trouble you; that does not trouble me at all. Great is the truth, and it will prevail." "Well, if you are quite sure." "Yes, I am sure."

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So they went on a little farther, and they met a man running, who said, "The devil has triumphed, heaven will be captured, and Odin will be killed.” "All up," said the priest ; and this time the virtuous person agreed with him. And the virtuous person said, "Do you think it is too late to make it up with the devil?" Oh, I hope not," said the priest. So they started back to make it up with the devil; and as they went they met the old rover coming with his axe over his shoulder. And they said, "What, haven't you heard the news?" "Certainly I have," he said. "Where are you going?" they asked. He replied, "I am off to die with Odin." That is all there is to it. Which was the faith? Have you any doubt about it?

What is faith to-day? What is the heroic type of faith in any day? Is it the kind of faith that says, "There is a God who is holding it all in the hollow of His hand like the dust in the balance; all I have to do is to trust Him and He will bring it out all right"? No, that is a comfortable, lazy state of mind. The kind of faith that counts, the kind of faith that Theodore Parker had, the kind of faith that Abraham Lincoln had, the kind of faith that Luther had, the

kind of faith that John Huss had, and that the great army of world-helpers throughout the ages had, was the faith which said, "This world is capable of being made better than it is; I am going to make it better if I can, and if I cannot I will die trying." [Applause.]

Thus, it seems to me, to come down to the practical point in this matter, we are wasting our time when we either quarrel about theologies or agree to differ about them. [Applause.] Theologies are of absolutely no consequence in this matter. What are we here for in this Free Religious Association? What are we here for in the world at all, as religious people? If we are to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven, let us look about and see how far it has failed to come. And I think that you will not have to look very far before you discover that the sore place, that place which people would a little bit rather we would n't talk about, is the social and economic world. "Ah, be careful," some one will say; "for heaven's sake don't talk about the family; and don't say anything that might be construed as a word that sounds like socialism. Don't say it; 'sh! keep quiet, be careful, or you will get into trouble."

However, all I have to say about it to-day is this: that if you want to look for the seat of present-day wrongs, for the things which have made some hearts, even here, to ache, and some of them are aching at this moment, how many, it would be sad to know, you would have to go, first, to the place which accounts for family relations ruined, or for lives ruined, because the boys and girls were brought up in ignorance of what their sex means; an ignorance which would be so outrageously criminal if applied to anything else that we cannot conceive of its being permitted. Yet everybody is afraid to talk about this; everybody is afraid to say that the standard orthodox inherited conception of sexual purity is in need of immediate, absolute, radical revision. The so-called Christian ideal of it, I believe, is emphatically not true. Not Christ's ideal, mind you, but the traditional Christian attitude toward these world - old matters.

Secondly, for the economic problem. If there exists that God of universal wisdom and love of whom we talk so much, He knows that I do not know what the solution of this problem is. But He knows also that I do know that until the Christian church and every other church, for that matter bravely faces this economic question, and asks itself gravely and quietly, and with serious study, whether an economic order which means that one man's success is another man's ruin is an order which is compatible with any reasonable interpretation of the Kingdom of Heaven, the problem will meet no solution. If that is the Kingdom of Heaven, then I am perfectly sure that if I get into it I will try to get out. [Applause.]

With these things in my mind — though perhaps I have already talked too long I would simply add one thing which needs to be said; and that is, that the education of the Christian minister for the church of to-day has got to be something radically different from what it is. If you will teach him a little less church history and theology and liturgics, and a little bit more of economics and of social and rational history; and if, above all other things, you put him where his torch can be lighted at the lighted torch of some other man, some great personality, somebody that loves mankind, and get him also to love mankind, and then train his brain so that he will know a fact when he meets it in the street, perhaps you will have a ministry. I will not call it a Christian ministry, because I love and honor Jesus Christ too much to believe that he would want any ministry to be narrowed by his name. I will call it the ministry of humanity.

When you get that ministry of humanity, it may be there will be no churches, it may be there will be no "services." It certainly will be that there will be no "dignitaries" in it. But it will lead you to that "City of God, broad and fair,” of which we all dream. [Applause.]

THE CHAIRMAN. - I am sure if I did not believe that the Kingdom of Heaven on earth means a social family, an industrial family, a political family, an ethical family, a spiritual family, in which the same fundamental principle is everywhere triumphant, I should not have the courage to preach. Without that conviction I should never have had the desire to preach. But when I studied economics I found that the only truth was ethical truth, and not the shameful kind of "truth that is often taught as economics. When I studied social conditions, I found that success and progress for society mean the triumph of the ethical principles and spiritual principles for which the religion of love stands; that we are really brothers and sisters in the social family; and that we are punished by failure as individuals, as States, as Nations, and as civilizations just in proportion as we sin against these great truths. If it had not been for that, I never should have dared to lift up my voice, feeble as it is, in behalf of religion as the rule of life.

Mr. Cox spoke of his theological ancestry, direct and collateral, and he expressed a great veneration and affection for it. I always share that feeling with regard to mine. It is not my theological ancestors, that give me trouble; it is my contemporary theological ancestors that trouble me [Laughter]; and I meet them very often.

I think it is about time to redeem my promise to bring greetings to you from the East and the North and the South and the West, all points of the compass, by calling on one conspicuous point of the compass to speak for itself. The Free Religious Association has a good friend who has done many things that I should like to do besides those that I have done; and I may very likely yet try to follow in his steps and write and publish and teach and print and do everything else that is good and educational. I hope we may have the pleasure now of hearing from Mr. James H. West. [Applause.]

POEM BY JAMES H. WEST,

OF BOSTON.

Mr. Chairman, and Friends of the Free Religious Association:

When the President kindly invited me to add to the festivity of this occasion, he evinced in his letter, I think, even more than usual of that keen psychological instinct which we have come to expect from him in his choice of speakers for our annual Festival.

MR. WEST. Apparently recognizing, in his letter, the two main proclivities of the person to whom he was writing, he said that what I should offer this afternoon might be, as I should choose, either a song or a sermon. But he then added the somewhat enigmatic phrase, "Whichever it is, it will be all the same"! [Laughter.] This at once, as it were, poised me in the air above the two horns of a somewhat perplexing dilemma. Did the President mean that my song (if it should be a song) would be "preachy"? or that my sermon (if it should be a sermon) would in reality prove a triumphant song?

THE CHAIRMAN. That was it.

MR. WEST.—I concluded, sir, to lower myself on that second horn of the dilemma. I then also happened to remember that so noble a poet as our own James Russell Lowell confessed all his life long that even his highest flights of poesy somehow always possessed the characteristics of preaching. If such fine outbursts as "The Cathedral" and "Under the Willows" and "Appledore" and "The Vision of Sir Launfal" were disguised preaching, I might fall however heavily on even the first horn of the dilemma, and there repose very comfortably. So I replied to the letter that my offering would be