zed his feelings. He is as untheological as ever;
but he would subscribe money to build a church, and he esteems no man
more than an honest clergyman.

If anything can be predicated of the future with certainty, it is,
that the American people will never give up that portion of their
heritage from the past which we call Sunday, but will always devote
its hours to resting the body and improving the soul. All our
theologies will pass away, but this will remain. Nor less certain is
it, that there will always be a class of men who will do,
professionally and as their settled vocation, the work now done by the
clergy. That work can never be dispensed with, either in civilized or
in barbarous communities. The great problem of civilization is, how to
bring the higher intelligence of the community, and its better moral
feeling, to bear upon the mass of people, so that the lowest grade of
intelligence and morals shall be always approaching the higher, and
the higher still rising. A church purified of superstition solves part
of this problem, and a good school system does the rest.

All things improve in this world very much in the same way. The
improvement originates in one man's mind, and, being carried into
effect with evident good results, it is copied by others. We are all
apt lazily to run in the groove in which we find ourselves; we are
creatures of habit, and slaves of tradition. Now and then, however, in
every profession and sphere, if they are untrammelled by law, an
individual appears who is discontented with the ancient methods, or
sceptical of the old traditions, or both, and he invents better ways,
or arrives at more rational opinions. Other men look on and approve
the improved process, or listen and imbibe the advanced belief.

Now, there appears to be a man upon Brooklyn Heights who has found out
a more excellent way of conducting a church than has been previously
known. He does not waste the best hours of every day in writing
sermons, but employs those hours in absorbing the knowledge and
experience which should be the matter of sermons. He does not fritter
away the time of a public instructor in "pastoral visits," and other
useless visitations. His mode of conducting a public ceremonial
reaches the finish of high art, which it resembles also in its
sincerity and simplicity. He has known how to banish from his church
everything that savors of cant and sanctimoniousness,--so loathsome to
honest minds. Without f