healing and of self-improvement through mental operation a tacit, though qualified and perhaps unconscious, acquiescence in Christian Science as announced in 'Science and Health.' I see in much of the expressed religious, scientific, and philosophical thought of the day such correction, elucidation, and support of 'Science and Health' as the book requires.

"All systems are yet far short of perfection. Christ in his fulness has not yet come. But honest praying, honest speaking and writing, honest acting, honest, pure living, kindness and love toward our fellow-men, and the consequential concomitant spiritual growth will bring the Christ. I say 'will bring,' but mean that he is here and always here, but our houses are not yet fitly prepared for his reception.

"Pending his coming, neither any human being nor any organization should be allowed to mold for you and me a little, sacred world within whose illiberal and contracted boundary the Christ conscience, or its expression, should be confined. The God consciousness should have untrammeled growth. The spiritual idea of being should illimitably expand until it becomes for you and me that 'mind . . . which was also in Christ Jesus.'"

The body of Judge Clarkson's brochure contains three chapters, in which he gives for the benefit of his readers talks he has had with himself—a full statement of those things which make him believe in what he calls "Scientific Christianity," and why he so believes. His reasonings rest upon and are bulwarked at every point by numerous passages from the Bible. The arguments, if one accepts the premises, are strong, and the reasoning is clear and lucid. It is a heart message from an earnest man fully assured of the truth of his premises and of the correctness of his conclusions. Toward the close of his work we find these suggestions offered by the author, which may prove helpful to the reader while serving to illustrate in a measure Judge Clarkson's method of presenting his message:

"As, in summer time, well screened doors and windows bid defiance to insect pests of every kind, so God kept in your consciousness is a mental, spiritual wall, impregnable against, insurmountable by, any evils, any enemies. As you drop off to sleep at night, think, the last thing, of God as Spirit, tender Love, Life, all about you. Think of yourself as the spiritual child of God, joint heir with Christ of God. Think of yourself as eternal in God. Think of your fellow-men as like you, you and they having your fatherhood and motherhood in God. Think of God, and that God has made as being all that there really is, and know that God never made anything unlike Himself; so that in making you and your fellow-men, He did

not make you the sick, sinful, suffering, unhappy, restless creatures you seem to be, but made you in His image and likeness-the image and likeness of Good-Harmony, Perfection, Spirit. If you wake up during the night, instead of worrying over sleeplessness or over any of your mortal cares, think of God as with you, about you, keeping you, loving you, sheltering and clothing you, healing you, cleansing you. And so, too, in the hours of the day, know that you live in God, move in God, have your being in God; that all your intelligence is from Him, all your strength and courage are from Him, all your eternal peace and joy are in Him. Make Him your companion, and you will find Him preferable to any other. Select from the Bible a line or verse that appeals to you, that seems to meet your need, that seems to be the medicine for your case, and know that what seems to meet your case is for you. Then learn the line or verse, and think upon it, say it over and over to yourself. Treat it as from God, feel that it is God talking to you, that it is God's word, meant for you, to-day, just as it was meant hundreds of years ago for men to whom it came, and who have handed it on to you. You need not struggle in your attempts to keep God in your consciousness. Simply know that He is all-present, all-protecting, just as you know that the air is about you, just as you know that the sun shines, just as you know that your heart beats, just as you know that you breathe; just as you know anything which you have learned through your physical senses, so know God through your spiritual senses."

A profound faith in God and in the Bible characterizes the book, which, with transparent sincerity and candor everywhere evinced, makes a work refreshingly unique among theological discussions at the present time, and one that cannot fail to exert a wholesome influence on the mind of any one who is open minded and seriously interested in the thought presented.

TRUE peace is the fruit of spirituality; therefore, it is an inflow from the ocean-fulness of God. The world cannot give it; a man cannot give it to himself, nor win it by mere resolution. In right conditions, it comes, like heavenly-mindedness, of which it is a part.-Charles G. Ames.

ENVY nobody; covet nothing worldly; go quietly about your work, and believe that a man may work at an anvil and be as religious as if it were his office to stand at the altar.-William Mountford.

THE GOSPEL OF FEDERATION.

BY W. J. COLVILLE.

With the birth of the new century Australia proclaimed itself a Commonwealth. The word "federation" has filled the air ever since the chiming bells from many a tower and steeple proclaimed the departure of the nineteenth and advent of the twentieth century of modern history. Not only for Australia but for the whole world this term has surely an illimitable meaning. To all students of anthropology the ringing words of Tesla, the electrician, on human solidarity-words that glorified the pages of a popular magazine less than a year ago --must have been welcome as heaven's own sunshine, affording as they did another proof of the perfect harmony existing between the purest religious and the highest scientific thought.

We are all members of a wondrous unity; this is the burden of the federation anthem now resounding over all the earth. Australia is a nation for the first time in that great island's strange and checkered history. Six large colonies, including the island of Tasmania, have been transformed into States, so that the United States of Australia is an appropriate title for the newly-fledged commonwealth. Socially and industrially, federation means the abolition of many barriers in the way of free intercourse between the inhabitants of different sections of one great country, and in every way greater facilities for transportation. Ethically it signifies nothing less than the burial of old feuds, the suppression of jealousies, and a combination of forces all working together to produce a long, strong, forward pull up the hill of progress, whose ascent can never be readily accomplished unless fellow-travelers march upward as if they composed but a single, united man. Federated interests cannot in any sense obliterate the natural

distinctions between individuals which are ineradicably inherent in the social organism, but they can so harmonize the thoughts of men and women concerning the part that each must play in the unity of the whole that in place of strife or jar there will soon be witnessed the evolution of a glorious human symphony.

Australia is indeed a wonderful country-a land of boundless resources but little understood and but very partially utilized. In a tract of country capable of sustaining at least twenty times the number, there are only about five millions of people, and these are not so much scattered over a wide expanse of territory as strangers would be likely to suppose, but are for the most part condensed into a few large centers of which Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, and Perth are the most important. Two cities (Sydney and Melbourne) possess together a population of considerably over one million, or more than one-fifth of the population of an island nearly as large as Europe.

Australia suggests the present condition of humanity in a most forcible manner. Boundless capabilities undiscovered and unworked are in evidence on every side, with only here and there a solitary individual endowed with sufficient insight to catch glimpses of these mighty potentialities. The climate of Australia is in many respects delightful at least nine months in every twelve, and the soil is in many places richly productive. Mineral resources seem inestimable, and natural scenery is romantic and sublime. Yet Australia knows its difficulties and depressions; people are out of work there as well as in England and America, but certainly over-population cannot, in that thinly populated land, be the cause of the problem of the unemployed, which, alas! besets us everywhere. The great philanthropist Tolstoi, who is at present so much discussed from all points of view, has told the inhabitants of Russia times without number that the salvation of the people can proceed only from a return to Nature and from life lived in harmony with

the grandest moral precepts ever submitted for humanity's acceptance and esteem. Tolstoi has made himself singularly unpopular of late, so much so that a relentless church has excommunicated him and civil authorities have forbidden the circulation of his portrait. As one of the foremost thinkers and writers of the age, Tolstoi has to be reckoned with, even though some of his views may be extreme and in some directions conservatives may think he goes extravagantly far; yet the underlying spirit of his message is what all the world needs to heed.

Work is divine-a privilege, a blessing, a delight: such is the burden of every genuine prophet's message to the masses. But what constitutes work, and wherein is it distinct from toil or grinding labor? is an ever-pressing question. The early traditions of Egypt and Israel abound with references to the harmony which long existed between the pastoral Hebrews and the Egyptian manufacturers and merchantmen. Two widely different races can live in a country coöperating but not necessarily amalgamating. Coöperation is not necessarily amalgamation; this is a point that needs to be kept clearly before the mind's eye of every earnest teacher and reformer. When States are blended into unity they do not surrender their distinctive local colorings; and no more can the inhabitants of districts change at once their peculiar characteristics than the physical distinctiveness of a special neighborhood can be annihilated by act of parliament. The fauna and flora of certain districts will continue to vary one from the other after an act of federation has been accomplished, even as they differed previously, but one district can supply the wants of another by mutual interchange. It is a most encouraging symptom of our day to find that the most successful and highly gifted physical scientists and practical inventors are bold and persistent in setting forth those mighty truths concerning human brotherhood which ill-informed persons are apt to regard as only the sentimental gush of religious fanaticism.