and reverence its false gods? If all who are reformers at heart would assert their individuality, we should soon see the good time that we hope for. Don't go ducking and bowing, cringing and crawling, through the world; believing in Nature, and sacrificing to Jehovah; believing in individuality, and yet paying priests, and building their "joss-houses!" We can do infinitely better. Our God is Nature-father, mother. As near to thy child, hard-handed mechanic, and thy child as dear to God, as the infant Jesus was when he lay on the breast of Mary. On his broad bosom we shall be borne beyond death to the glorious world of the hereafter, life there a continuance of life here, a spiritual blossoming of what this life has been but the bud. We can make no compromise with orthodoxy henceforth and forever. Ours is a new religion, a new God, a new heaven, and a gospel which is destined to make a new earth. We do not blame the people who have accepted the old (they probably did the best they could); but these old skeletons shall not reach their bony hands out of their mouldy sepulchres, and drag us in to chatter with them. Ours the living present; ours the sunshine and the song of birds, the sound of purling brooks, the joy of the living world ripening in God's smile, the vestibule of heaven. WHAT IS RIGHT? Ir is Friday, the Mussulman's holy day. The cry of the muezzin has stirred the sultry air, and thousands are flowing through the streets to the stately mosque. Let us follow. The swelling dome is over our heads, the marble pavement beneath our feet, and around us a host of bended worshippers, their hands clasped in the fervor of devotion. Listen to the voice of this kneeling supplicant by our side: "O Allah! I am weak, but thou art all-strong; strengthen me to do the right, that I may enjoy hereafter the bliss of Paradise." As he rises from his knees, we accost him, and say, Friend, you have been praying to Allah, or God, to strengthen you to do right: will you please to tell us what you mean by right?"-" Certainly," replies the Mussulman, with a look of sorrow for our ignorance of so simple yet important a subject. "There is one God, and Mohammed is his prophet. This God has graciously revealed his will to us, by his prophet, in his holy word the Koran, a book superior to every other book in the world. To obey the commands of 183 God, as given in this book, is to do right; and to disobey them is to do wrong. Cast away this precious volume, and we have no guiding star by which to regulate our wanderings: we cannot tell what is right, or what is wrong, and are the slaves of ignorance and vice." It is Saturday, the Jewish holy day. There stands the gorgeous temple, little less beautiful than the pride of Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, so silently erected in the days of Solomon. In the pulpit behold the venerable rabbi, his white beard resting upon his breast. Around him are the sons of Israel, and above in the gallery the daughters, assembled to worship the God of their fathers. From the ark he has taken the sacred parchment; and, reverentially unrolling it, he reads a portion of the law of Moses, and then addresses the assembled congregation: "Men and brethren, children of our father Jacob, I beseech you, do right; then shall ye be blessed in your basket and in your store, in your going-out, and in your coming-in. Do right at all times, and the blessing of Jehovah out of Zion will descend and rest upon you.” As the aged rabbi descends from the pulpit, we accost him, "You have been advising your brethren to do right: will you please to tell us what you mean by right?"—" Certainly, my son," replies the rabbi. "The Almighty God, who made the heavens and the earth, has revealed himself to mankind by his servant Moses, and the prophets: they have written his holy law; and that law is contained in a book that Christians call the Old Testament (the New Testa ment is but a record of fables, and unworthy of cre |