statesman, not less than the saint and the martyr, endure, as seeing God. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.
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Religion Among Immigrants—See Immigration.
Religion and Dying—See Death, The Christian's.
Religion and Parents—See Parents as Teachers of Religion.
RELIGION AND POETRY
When will the true prophet, priest, poet,
preacher come to us? For we are continually
reminded that it is by the voice of
the poet only that a nation is permitted to
survive. Jerusalem has been permitted to
come down to us forever glorified; she
cherished the poets; but where is Babylon,
who cast the prophets in the lion's den?
Nineveh was a city of three days' journey;
Nineveh would not hear; and where is Nineveh
now? But, Jerusalem, city of poetry
and song! A little place; you can cover
it with a pin's head on the maps of the
world; and yet she covers more space in
history, sacred and profane, than all the
other cities of the world together. And this
is simply because she had faith and hope;
and so had her poets, and did not despise
them, and her poets made her immortal.
The cloven foot of the golden calf is
stamping out every page of this great,
neglected book. So great is the wealth of
the leading families of our cities that almost
every hearthstone might be paved with gold.
Yet Socrates died for want of money
enough to pay a fine. True or false, the
Greeks had gods, even the unknown God
of which Paul spoke, and they believed.
They had faith and hope. And so their
poets sang, sang in marble. Song is music,
song is the eternal melody of beauty, and
their country lives.—Joaquin Miller, Belford's Magazine.
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Religion Demanded—See Influence, Personal.
RELIGION DIFFUSED
Three hundred years ago there was but
one Bible in a parish in England, and that
was chained to a column in the church; and
there was but one man to read it—the priest.
And the people did not understand it then,
and it was a part of official duty to go from
house to house on the theory that the
average parent did not know enough to
teach the children the first principles of
morality and of religion. Go to-day over
the same community, and on the Sabbath
morning you shall see the girls and the
young men with Bibles under their arms,
themselves teachers, going down to mission-*schools,
going down to instruct their inferiors.
The profession has distributed its
functions among the common people. Has
it destroyed the profession? It never was
stronger, never was as strong as it is to-day.—Henry Ward Beecher.
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RELIGION, EARLY
The following letter was written by the late Prof. Borden P. Bowne, of Boston University, when he was a boy in Pennington Seminary. It foreshadows his long life of Christian service:
Pennington, October 10.
Dear :
His name is still Jesus, for He saves His people from their sins. By His grace I have kept the faith, and have not denied His name. On Sunday night we had service in the chapel of the institution. I told of the power of Jesus' blood to cleanse from all sin. There seemed to be none that believed my report; at least none gave in such a testimony. I felt rather deprest in spirit; but after service was over, as I was talking to some other brother, I heard a noise in one of the rooms; proceeding thither, we found that a young man had just been blest. We rejoiced with him and we held an impromptu prayer-meeting, and then God was pleased to make Himself known in power to four or five more; and together we glorified the God of Israel. Glory to Jesus! I was comforted and blest. The tempter whispered to me sweetly that I had best not mention the matter of sanctification any more. But by God's grace I shall hold up the standard of holiness to the Lord. There are one or two who profess it here, but they don't seem to say much about it. , it is my ambition to be one of the best of men. I want to be able to look at the promise alone; and because God has said it I believe it. I have instituted family worship with my room-mate; morning and evening I endeavor to call upon God with him. He is not religious; he is a young boy fifteen or sixteen years old, a very nice young fellow. May the Lord lead him to Himself. Amen and amen.
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