erary, will be demonstrable in time. That, simply because we have never as yet been able to see a certain point, or been able to invent a certain machine, or to perfect a certain power, is no reason why the human mind will not compass that in some future time. When we consider the vast advance that has been made in every department of art and science, in material wealth and production and the tremendous strides that are being made in education and in the direction of universal brotherhood, how in charitable institutions the strong are taking care of the weak; when we look at all this mighty progress it seems to me that he is very rash who will tell us that immortality is incapable of scientific demonstration and practical proof. I hold that to be the next great step in religion, because the step which has already been taken from the old to the new faith has had the effect of removing the nightmare of the old theology; it has removed the terrible curse which has rested on past generations, and has brought us up to the standard of intelligent, hopeful agnosticism. It seems to me that we want to add positive knowledge in regard to the infinite, and the spiritual future of humanity, in order to get a religion which can stand. I feel that progressive liberalism lacks that single stone, that keystone of the whole structure which is to hold it together,-knowledge of the infinite, personal life; and I think that will be scientifically demonstrated, and that when that is done it will lift our Progressive religion into a new and clear atmosphere, and take away from our minds this still lingering clog of fear about the future. MR. HENRY S. KENT:-I have been interested in what my friend Pennock has been saying. He has an eye that some of us do not seem to have, an internal eye; he gets evidence that some of us cannot get; but I think sometimes that this lack of knowledge about the future is a wise providence. I am not sure that if all this bitterness and tears were taken away that we should take good care of ourselves here. I am a little afraid of that. The law of self-preservation is a mighty law; we shrink from destruction, and this seems to be a law implanted in our very nature; the child shrinks from it; every animal shrinks from it; all living things shrink from it, and I think that it was one of the beautiful orders of Providence that we should so love life, that we take care of it, that we cling to it. Now, I do not know, that when all the bitterness is taken out of the parting, we would take good care of our positions here, whether we would preserve this temple of the Holy Ghost to do its work, whether if I knew to-day as I do not know, that when I pass away from this life that would be the utter end of me,-if I believed that, that then I would think this heaven here was quite worth struggling for? I might make to-morrow pay for everything I could do to-day, and the next day pay for all I could do in the two days previous. There is a heaven here on earth for all of us, and I do not feel at all discouraged if annihilation is a fact, but if there is a future we can have it. As Burns sings, "If there is a heaven beyond we will live in bliss, And if there is not, we will make the best of this." I believe what Whittier says: "I cannot get away from the Divine care." There is no trouble about that; I know I will not be lost, but I am a little afraid of opening everything in the future, that is, I am not afraid of it, but I have wondered if we could get at that knowledge of the future, whether it would be for any good. MR. F. M. PENNOCK-It has occurred to me while Friend Kent was raising this objection to discovery in regard to the future, that if that same line of argument had been followed by the teachers and sermonisers of the past, all would have been utter darkness. Had Columbus followed that line of argument, had he held back for fear of light and knowledge. he would not have discovered America. And when our brother Kent says that it is likely a little more light and truth would make us discontented with our present lot,—I am assuming now that there is something beyond that we know,-I think he has taken the ground that ignorance is better than knowledge, and I claim that is a false argument, and just the argument that has always been used in the past against any progress whatever. MR. FORBES:-I have been greatly interested in what our friend Pennock has said, and I hope that nothing I have uttered this afternoon has led you to suppose that I look away from eternal progress, but it seems to me very true that whatever the future may hold in store for us we fit ourselves for it by the lives we are living to-day, and I would rather that the breath I draw here, the atmosphere that I breathe here should be the only atmosphere open to me than that I should go out into a broader life and have written on my forehead no record of a good life here in this world. We should never look away from the present as a place in which we are undergoing a certain discipline that by and by we may reap a certain reward, but should fill every day full of high thought and noble service for our kind; that is the true life, and that it is that makes life worth the living. It is the class of people who are so dwarfed and so narrow in their ideas, with prejudices so deeply fixed that they cannot take hold of present duty, and round out this life, it is that class of people who are always crying out for relief, always shedding bitter tears. We need to be, my dear friends, dead in earnest about something. A man said in. my hearing not many years ago, "Next to Servetus who was willing to be burned for his principles, I would rather be Calvin who was willing to burn him;" and that holds true in our lives. We must be dead in earnest in this life about what is true and best, and the future will take care of itself. I have moments in my experience when I am just as firmly convinced of a higher and better life as I am that I live and move in this universe. But when I dogmatically affirm that life and all its conditions to you, I am taking ground that I am not justified in taking, and turning your thoughts away from that which is vital to you. MR. HINCKLEY:-After all, friends, is it not a safe and sat isfactory way to answer all these questions of doubt by saying "We do not know ?" Isn't that the highest position in all this matter of religion that we can possibly reach? We cannot answer these questions, however much we may try to answer them. So I say the highest conclusion to reach, if we can be so fortunate as to reach it, is, that we live in a universe in which in the long run everything works for the best; that whatever may be the temporary struggle, whatever may be the hard, knotty problems, which if anything is plain it is plain we cannot solve to-day, it is forever true, as Pope has written, that "All Nature is but Art unknown to thee; All chance, direction which thou canst not see; All partial evil, universal good; And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear-Whatever is, is right." If we can only reach that conclusion, if we can only cherish that trust in the great universal order which we cannot intellectually understand, but whose children we are, then it seems to me we have got religion; we do not need to worry ourselves about creeds or about the speculative problems; we have laid fast hold of the "Rock of Ages." After singing by Mrs. Mendenhall-"Judge Not"--the afternoon session adjourned. SIXTH-DAY MORNING. Singing by Mrs. Mendenhall, "Hymn to the Angels." The Chairman: We are to consider to-day the "Rights and Wrongs of the Indian." About two hundred and fifty years ago, when Roger Williams first came to the State of Rhode Island, among other heretical doctrines which he was considered to have preached, was a proposition that the King's patent was worth nothing as against the right of the Indians to the land which they already occupied. The cry of "Treason" was raised against him, and that among other things which he preached resulted in his being banished from the Massachu setts colony as a dangerous fellow. The same sort of thought, as you all know, came to this State through the person and influence of William Penn, and it is among the satisfactions of this time that the voice of Pennsylvania and the voice of Massachusetts and the voices of some other of the States, so far as they represent the best moral sentiment of the times, is for the same principle which William Penn and Roger Williams upheld. We do not quite believe to-day that it was a good thing for some of our forefathers to come here as they did and take possession regardless of the rights of the men already here. The Indian is a man, with all the rights of a man. The voice we are to hear now from Massachusetts, I have no doubt will be pitched to that key note. I have the pleasure of introducing to you Miss Eastman who will speak to you of the Indian, his rights and his wrongs. MISS EASTMAN. The Indian problem, my friends, is only one of the problems which we have been considering ever since our forefathers got a little ahead of the fact, or what they were ready to make fact, in their work in the United States. You know how boldly, and how loyally they declared "That all men are born equal," and directly they had done that added all men but, and it was all but one, and all but another; it was all but black men or negroes, it was all but Indians, and it was all but women, so that after all the declaration is something ideal still, although we had fully incorporated it into the platform on which we were to build. The people of this body have, perhaps, as much as any other, done their share in the combat which has released the conscience of the Nation as well as the limbs of the black man from burden. It certainly is most fitting that this people should take up seriatim the various questions which grow out of this derilection of first principles; it matters not in what form the question of liberty appeals to you, the question of the hour must be met, and today I am not sure but it is the Indian's hour. We have a little saying, you know, "After the negro the woman," but I rather think the Indian comes first and I guess |