affirmed without doubt or debate. With the growing demands and maturity
of her civilization she reiterates them as her loftiest and most sacred
privileges, subject to no vicissitudes. With these primitive traits
eternally vital, thought is quick, and intellectual enthusiasm spreads
rapidly. Boston is always stirring with "new ideas" and with the passion
for a broader ethical and religious development. The character and
repute which she acquired in former days for literary taste, clerical
influence, and the administration of religion are to-day influencing
surrounding secularity and the hurrying concerns of daily life. They are
animating every institution and ordinance, every supreme and exquisite
medium of feeling, every revelation of truth and hope in the human mind.
In this exhaustless tide of thought and aspiration, which we may accept
as Boston's native product, it is easy to interest the people and to
unite them in any attempt for the good of mankind under the sanction of
culture, benevolence, or religion.

But religion is felt to be Boston's greatest need and glory. In this
city of philosophy and poetry, art and business energy, religious faith
and life have their proper place, and are invested with power and
dignity. Fixed habit and traditional thought contribute, without doubt,
to the need and sacredness of religion; yet its transcendent results are
due to the permanent disposition of the people. They are the appropriate
manifestation of a religious culture and spirit that are fitted for all
time, the logic of truths born of religious intuitions working out in
the most practical results. However universally certain religious
beliefs are ignored, there is no disposition to put culture or
philanthropy above the gospel, the school above the church, or to make
the schoolmaster, the literary autocrat, or the princes of wealth take
precedence of the preacher. The spirit of conventionalism reigns more or
less in Boston's religious life; yet religion makes an irresistible
appeal to the understanding, the conscience, and the heart. Everything
is compelled to bow to its influence and to feel its inspiration.
Although our churches present various theological tendencies, from the
stiffest orthodoxy to the freest rationalism and pantheism, and with
creeds yet confessedly nowhere settled, reason never pronounces religion
absurd; to it homage is accorded. It is still the deepest and holiest
interest of man. We all have an elev