hurch has no
message to the heart, no comfort for the emotions, no solace to the
deeply tried and afflicted. A Church which preaches the
imperishability of every good deed, the final and decisive victory of
the good; which reveals to us not only mind, but beneficence, as the
character of the supreme Power in the universe; which bids us remember
that as that Power is, so are we, moral beings to our heart's core,
and, in consequence, to take the place which belongs to us at the side
of the infinite righteousness for the furtherance of the good--such a
Church, such a religion is not destitute of enthusiasm and inspiration.
A philosophy such as this, a religion such as this, will one day sweep
the English-speaking countries in a tempest of enthusiasm. It will be
welcomed as the final settlement of the conflicting claims of mind and
heart in man, the reconciliation of the feud too long existing between
religion and science. Everything points to its immense future. Within
the churches its principles are tacitly accepted as irrefutable. We
claim such men as Stanley, Maurice and Jowett as preachers of the
ethical Church, and their numbers are increasing every year among the
cultured members of the Anglican clergy. Leading men of science are no
longer committed to a purely negative philosophy, while one and all
would be prepared to admit that if religion we are to have it must be
one in complete harmony with the moral sentiment in the best men; in
other words, a Church founded on moral science, the ideal of the
saintly Jesus, and of all the prophets of the race.

NOTE.--"I can conceive the existence of a Church in which, week by
week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of abstract
propositions in theology, but to the setting before men's minds of an
ideal of true, just and pure living: a place in which those who are
weary of the burden of daily cares should find a moment's rest in the
contemplation of the higher life which is possible for all, though
attained by so few; a place in which the man of strife and of business
should have time to think how small after all are the rewards he covets
compared with peace and charity. _Depend upon it, if such a Church
existed, no one would seek to disestablish it._"--HUXLEY. I know not
what better words could be chosen wherewith to describe the ethical
Church.

II

ETHICS AND SCIENCE.

Since the era of the re-birth of learning, each successive century ha