The transfiguration is taking place to-day, no less than it did eighteen hundred years ago. It is taking place in our own consciousness, if so be that, with eyes open to behold its illuminated meaning, we discern in the Christ therein revealed the Jesus who is revealing to us the only perfect, complete sense of manhood and womanhood. Thus it is, that the transfiguration becomes a revelation, an unfolding of the spiritual creation.

THE TWO OFFERINGS.

The following, said to be an early, unpublished poem by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, seems one of his most spirited and spiritual productions.

HE day was Easter, like a dying God in pain,

THE

The organ groaned aloud;

The while the sunlight, chastened by the window's stain,

Fell on a motley crowd;

On lord and peasant, prince and pariah, who bore,

As down the aisle they trod,

As they had prospered, each according to his store,
An Easter gift to God.

Among them walked a lordly prince of lineage fair,
With lip of scornful curl,

Who laid upon the Altar with a lofty air,

A priceless Indian pearl.

There also came a woman, in whose face were seen
Shame, Sin and Sorrow blent;

A woman of the town, a second Magdalen,

A harlot penitent,

Who seemed the figure of incarnate sin and vice,
As down the aisle she reeled,

And laid upon the Altar, beside the pearl of price,

A Lily of the field.

The priest blessed him who gave the pearl, said mass an hour,
That God his soul might save;

But, with contemptuous hand, swept to the ground the flower
The outcast harlot gave.

His piety was praised by bishop, lord and churl;

'Twas God alone could tell,

That while he unto Him gave nothing but the pearl,
She gave her heart as well.

LUNACY.

S. J. HANNA.

Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. - MATTHEW xvii. 15.

'HE word lunacy, or lunatic, is one still in common use.

THE

It is derived from the Latin Luna, the moon; and persons afflicted with the disease called lunacy, are supposed to be affected by the changes of the moon.

The literal rendition of the word, as given in the Concordance, is moonstruck. In its more general sense it is insanity, madness. It is a recognized legal term; and Inquisitions of Lunacy are yet common occurrences in our courts. Juries are called to pass upon the question of the lunacy of persons suspected of being thus afflicted.

Persons who adopt and adhere to religious views which are out of the ordinary and "authorized" lines, are not infrequently accounted lunatic. Only recently we have seen the Second Adventists charged with being lunatics, by one of their religious antagonists of the Methodist persuasion. The Second Adventists are charged with lunacy by their Methodist brother, because they believe in the second coming of Christ in personal form. He thus refers to them: "The Second Adventists have come and gone, and come again and gone, and we exclaim cui bono!' what good? They have turned men's heads and women's heads until they have left their business and have become tramps and beggars. . . . Some have brought up in the poor house, and others in the insane asylum," etc. He then proceeds to point out in glowing terms the great benefits which have accrued to mankind as the result of the more practical religion of which he is an exponent. So we see one religious sect sitting, as it were, as an Inquisition of Lunacy upon another religious sect, and pronouncing judgment of lunacy upon it, and condemning it to the insane asylum.

As Christian Scientists we differ in many respects from both parties to this controversy; and while we shall not constitute ourselves an Inquisition of Lunacy, or undertake to assign either one to the poor house or to the insane asylum, may we not be pardoned if we submit a few inquiries which seem pertinent to the subject.

We suppose we are safe in assuming that the arraignment of the Second Adventists is made from the peculiar religious or doctrinal standpoint of Methodism. This being true, it will not be amiss for us to inquire into the tenets of the latter. The judgment of the Methodist Inquisition of Lunacy, as we understand, is based upon that phase of Second Adventist lunacy which holds to the belief that Jesus Christ shall again appear on earth in human form, substantially as he first appeared. Let us ask our good Methodist friends if this is any farther-fetched construction of Scripture than that doctrine of their church which is thus stated in their Articles of Faith: “There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom and goodness, the maker and preserver of all things, visible and invisible." Now thus far this definitional statement of God seems consistent, and not at variance with the Christian Science conception of God; but they proceed as follows: "And in unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Here we have a bodiless, infinite power, wisdom and goodness, by most abrupt and extraordinary linguistic metamorphosis, welded into the form and shape, not of one person only, -but of three persons; these three persons, by the next turn of verbal gymnastics, being restored to one person. we have in a doctrinal statement consisting of only fifty-three words: first, a bodiless God; second, a unity of three persons in one, constituting the Godhead; and third, one person constructed by some mysterious process out of a bodiless Being on the one hand, and three persons on the other.

So

Now, while our Methodist friends are on the subject of ridiculous and impossible things, may we not with much propriety ask them to explain to us this strange and incompre

hensible group of words; so that at least we may be able to determine what sort of a God they really believe in,— whether bodiless or in body, whether personal or impersonal, whether one or three? A God as muddled as this language would seem to convey, would certainly not be a God who moves by immutable laws; who is "the same yesterday, to-day and forever." May we not further suggest that it is possible that this conception of God is what has led our Methodist friends, together with many others, to the conclusion that God does work in irregular fashion instead of regular; that He does suspend His laws now and again to accomplish some particular purpose in human affairs; that He does make the law of Good to-day, and the law of evil to-morrow as an offset to the law of Good; that He does make the law of sickness to-day, and the law of medicine and other material remedies to-morrow, to act as a counter irritant to the law of sickness?

May we not further inquire of our Methodist friends whether the second personal coming of Jesus is less Scriptural, less mysterious, less incomprehensible, less inconsistent and less ridiculous than their doctrine of the Trinity? May we not further be permitted to inquire, in a spirit of the utmost kindness, whether it is becoming to commence so vigorous an onslaught upon the Second Adventist eye, so long as there is so large an apparent beam in the Methodistic eye? Finally upon this point, let us ask which of these two forms of lunacy, from the stand-point of ordinary human vision, would seem to be the more aggravated: that phase which believes it can see the second personal coming of the Saviour; or that which believes it sees a bodiless God, first in three persons, and then again in one person? Which should have the longer term in the lunatic asylum, if either must go there?

Now we ask our Second Adventist friends, if it might not be well for them to consider whether the second coming of Christ is not the receiving of the Christ-Principle, the ChristIdea, the Christ-Love into human consciousness, instead of the personal coming of the man Jesus; if this reception of

him is not his second coming and the only second coming there ever shall be; and if this is not a much more important coming than his reappearing in the fleshly form; also if the time of all religionists would not be much more profitably spent by living the Christ-life, obeying his teachings, following his divine example, than by speculating and wrangling over the question as to his second personal coming. Is it not better to live Love as he taught it, than to speculate about the personality of him who taught it? Is it not better to act Christ, than to await in wonderment the personal reappearing of his fleshly body? Are we presumptuous if we suggest to our Second Adventist friends the idea of searching the Scriptures more diligently to learn of the Christ, and less to learn of the personal Jesus? Let it be understood, however, that notwithstanding the suggestion, we accord to the personal Jesus the fullest, grandest and most glorious place in the world's history; we yield to him immaculacy of conception, and divinity of nature, in the broadest possible Biblical sense.

Let us again, in a spirit of profound respect, ask our Second Adventist friends, if Jesus should reappear in the world in substantially the manner indicated by the Scriptures as they construe them, how many would actually believe him to be the Christ? How many would leave all and follow him? How many would refrain from crying, "Crucify him crucify him! He is a pestilent fellow, a stirrer up of iniquity"? Is it not better to construe the repeated statements of his coming with reference to his spiritual, rather than his personal coming?

For purposes of illustration, let us take the 27th and 28th verses of Matthew 16th, and commend to you the Spiritual interpretation thereof as we conceive it to be: "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds. Verily I say unto you, there be some among them that stand here, which shall in nowise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." The Son of man is the impersonal Christ the Christ-Truth;

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