their backs, a task in which both the men and women shared. No one in the vil lage owned a horse, and the only beasts of burden, aside from the human ones, were two donkeys. Even for them the task of bringing the "turf" down from the mountain was considered too severe, the path was so steep and rugged, and they were chiefly used to take to town for some messages."

A good deal of smoke drifted out into the room, and the woman explained that the chimney was bad, "but some days we haven't a bit of smoke, and other days we have a good dale. It's as the wind turns." The woman had two sons and a daughter living with her, as she told me with a fervent "thank God." "And I had another son who wint to Australia, and for two years I heard from him regular and he sint me money, but I have had no account since, and I suppose he is dead, God help it, sir. And I had a daughter, too, that wint to America, to Worcester, it was, sir, and her name it was Mrs. John Dwyer; but I have had no account from her aither this long time, and I suppose she is dead too, sir."

The family kept a cow, and had a yearling and a calf and nine or ten sheep. The sheep were grazing on the mountain at this season, but in the winter they kept them in the walled fields near the house. "We sells the wool," the woman said, "but it brings no price at all now-it do

not, sir."

Few pigs are kept in the hamlet, but there are geese and chickens, as I realized when the woman stepped outside for a moment and left the half-door open.

Almost at once a bedraggled rooster skulked in and stood with his head well down between his shoulders and his tail drooping to let the water run off. He did not look very attractive, but a hen who seemed to think his company desirable came with a startling flutter and cackle from a nest in a room corner, lit near the rooster, and began looking about the floor for something to eat. Then a bevy of geese came in from the wet outer world. The place was getting pretty populous, but just then the woman returned and shooed these two-legged friends all out into the yard with a "Begone, you thieves,

you !"

She had scarcely shut the half-door

when one more of the creatures of the place appeared, in the form of a cat, which leaped up from the outside and poised on the door edge, looking at me in alarm and not daring to come further.

The woman's sons were at work for one of the gentry in the valley, so that the family was not dependent on the little farm. Because of this income from without they ate the eggs their hens laid, instead of selling them, as they would have to do if they were badly off." They made a little butter now and then for home use, and they raised a few cabbages, and in a good season enough potatoes to last through the year. "But if it is wet or the blight do come too soon, the p'tatics do not last, and thin we eats bread."

They bought oaten meal, and occasionally fish and bacon, and the old woman said they fared much better than when she was a "gaffer" (a girl of ten or twelve). "Thin the times was tight, and we lived on p'taties altogither. Sometimes we ate thim with only salt, and sometimes we ate thim with milk. We niver had bread ixcipt at Christmas, and very little mate

at all."

For the cows they raised hay and oats, "And we might have plinty, by the will of God, if it was not for the deer comin' here from the forest. There do be ony

amount of thim back here on the mountains. They gets into the corn and spoils it on us. Every night now when the stalks gets big the deer come and do be atin' thim so the corn will not be worth the cuttin'. They feed on our grass, too, when it gets strong. We have dogs in the village to chase the deer away, but the crathurs are soon back on us again. It is a cold, wet place, this. The sun-the fine time is the best for us here-'tis thin, sir. It is not good to-day. But to-morrow might be fine, sir, with the help of God."

On Sunday everybody on the mountain. goes to mass at Killarney, four miles distant. Winter or summer, it makes little difference-" all the people around go, sir, except it may be those who are too old or feeble."

I inquired the name of the village, and the daughter and mother both pronounced it for me, but I could make nothing of its guttural syllables. Then the daughter spelled it slowly, and I wrote it downG-o-r-t-r-g-u-l-l-i-n-e.

R

ELIGION is here represented as consisting of two elements. One of them is Charity, which sends a person out into the world to minister to and help it; the other is Purity, which guides a person through the world, and guards and protects him from it. The first brings him into touch and sympathy with man, and makes him thus the incarnation of the Human; the second brings him into touch and sympathy with God, and makes him thus the incarnation of the Divine; and both together constitute that true religious sphere in which he finds and lives on earth his largest possible life.

And that suggests the subject to which I ask your attention; namely, What is Religion, and what does it do for us?

And first I remark that religion of some sort is a universal fact in the history of the world. It is, indeed, to a great extent the history of the world. Everywhere we see it, in every age, in every land, in every social condition, among civilized peoples and savage, enlightened and unenlightened. It is, as Professor Britton remarks, the one and only trait in man by which he is qualitatively separated from the other animals. They have a kind of They have a kind of language, as we have, or the power, at least, of communicating with one another by sounds. They have their governments and their arts. Never do we see anywhere among them this notion of religion, or the faintest suggestion of it. It is a distinctively human trait, and a distinctively human trait which in our human life on earth universally appears. Many different theories have been at times put forth in explanation of it. Some have traced its origin to a primitive belief in ghosts; some to the worship of ancestors; some, again, to the prevalence of a superstitious fear, which, from the earliest time even until now, a priestly caste has traded in for the benefit of itself; while others still there are who look upon religion as some

But whatever be the attempted expla nation of it, or the origin of it, here at least it is, here it always has been. Judging human nature in the future by the past and proverbially there is no better way to judge it—here it always will be: Religion, the one great fact that stares us in the face in the story of mankind. Scorned and mocked and derided and perverted and abused, and yet persisting still; cast down, but not destroyed, and conquering even those, as has been truly said, who think they have conquered it.

For while at times they may doubt it, and seem thus to discard it, they will doubt again their doubt, not openly before the world perhaps, but secretly at times in themselves, and with that doubting of their doubt Religion will come back again, and still be on their hands.

And so it is, my friends, on our hands to-day. And the question we have to consider with reference to religion, it seems to me, is this-not the question of whether religion will hereafter be an influential and controlling force in the world. No, that is not the question; it is threshing o'd straw to consider that; that question is settled-human history, human experience, human nature, has settled it. But what sort of religion is to be a controlling force and factor in the world? What is religion? The religion that will prove itself to be both good and true, by giving to us here and now the best and truest things and enabling us thus to live on earth our largest possible life? What is religion; that is the question. That is the question to which this age is addressing itself. That is the question which, with a great searchingness of inquiry, searching all credentials, sifting, testing, examining all theories and all claims, no matter how vast and hoary and venerable they may be, this present age is asking-What is religion? And to that question, my friends, that present and pressing question, which,

with an importunity perhaps never before Ditsurpassed, is forcing itself to-day upon the intelligent thought and conscience of mankind, I find an answer given. It is an old answer, in an old Book, but it is a D. Food Book, generally so regarded, whatever our particular theories concerning it may be; and it is a good answer, which says that religion is this: Is it now about o make some great and wonderful anouncement to us? Is it now about to isclose some great and wonderful mysery to us, lying behind the veil which ve have long been seeking to penetrate Te vain? No, no, not now, not yet.

Religion, it says, is this: It is first of l charity. And charity, what is charity? or that, too, needs an interpreting word, erhaps. Is it simply something in us, s is so commonly supposed, an amiable bomething in us, which always makes us the lind, as with a bandage on our eyes, to uman faults and sins, to human misdeneanors, to human misbehaviors; so that when we have occasion to speak of people whom we meet, we shall always speak of hem as good people even when they are ot good people? No, that is not charity, hat is mendacity, or something very like it, for that is saying what is not true. Neither, again, is charity simply something in

us, an impulsive something in us, which always disposes us to do for people with a free and open hand whatever people ask, simply because they ask it and we can afford to do it or we can afford to give it, without regard to whether it will be of real and permanent value to them. No, that is not charity, that is inequity; for that is doing what is not right. Charity means to give, not merely a kind word-charity sometimes gives a sharp and severe word; nor merely a liberal dole-charity sometimes withholds and refuses the liberal dole. Charity means to give ourselves in human service and in ministry to others. And how and where in human service and ministry to others? Not merely in benevolent spheres, in eleemosynary spheres, but in all spheres, social, industrial, commercial, political, as well as what is called the philanthropic sphere running our railroads, managing our banks, practicing our professions, pursuing our various callings whatever they may be, wherever they may be, in the home, in the market-place, in the forum and in the shop, making human

service the inspiration of them and the controlling motive in them.

That is charity: great, big, robust thing. That is how it appears. Not merely in those gracious ones who go forth into the world to clothe the naked and to feed the hungry and to perform their sweet and beautiful acts of ministration to the poor, to the afflicted and the sick. Oh, it is something much more comprehensive than that; and in other persons appears. In the lawyer who does his work in the world, not chiefly for his retainer, but chiefly for human service. In the physician who does his work in the world, not chiefly for his fee, but chiefly for human service. In the clergyman who does his work in the world, not chiefly for his salary, his emolument, his name, his reputation, but chiefly for human service. In the journalist, the capitalist, the professional man, the artisan, the artist, in every one who tries to do his proper work in life, not only for himself, not chiefly for himself, but chiefly for human service, making that the spring and the mainspring of his activity in it. That is charity, and that is how and where it is made to appear. Appearing thus, it would not change in outward form the great economic activities of the world to-day; it would simply put a soul, a great human soul, into those activities, so that men would find, not as now so often, their soul's destruction in them, their soul's enfeeblement in them, but their soul's enlargement, their soul's redemption, in them. And, giving thus themselves, through their respective callings, just what they are doing now and will do all week long, in ministry to others, making human service the inspiration of them and the controlling motive in them; not narrowed would they be, broadened would they be; not poorer would they be in any sense of the term, but richer would they be in every sense of the term, material, moral, and spiritual, with a richer human feeling and human experience in them. More and more would they thus become, with the growing image in them of a Son of man on earth, the incarnation of the Human. Then would there be seen charity in the world, pervading, permeating, controlling the world. Then would there be seen religion in the world. For charity is religion.

There is another element. Serving the

DUR

URING a recent tour in various parts of Russia I saw nothing which more astonished and instructed me than that part of the great Pan-Russian Exhibition at Nijni-Novgo rod which was devoted to an enormous display of Siberian products. I found also that few visitors to Russia were prepared for the wonderful revelation thus afforded. It was evident to every thoughtful spectator that not only was the Russian Empire easily capable of supporting itself, if at any time totally cut off from all the rest of the world, but that her Asiatic territories would be her finest resource. Not only natural but artificial products were shown in almost inexhaust ible profusion, all from Siberia. That vast region is, in fact, an epitome of the whole earth. It seems, somewhere or other

in its magnificent stretch across the whole of the largest of the continents, to be able to supply everything that any other country can produce. Too many writers, in estimating the possibilities of Russia, make the mistake of regarding her too exclusively as a European Power. They constantly leave out of consideration the great fact of the future, that Siberia is the greatest country in the world, and that this huge territory is one vast repository of incalculable and undeveloped treasures, all of which are to be at the service of the Czars. And this marvelous Eastern empire is to be peopled by the Muscovite. Russians will soon inundate the immense plains, and in years to come millions of the children now living in European Russia will dwell in countless mirs, or village communes, which will dot the limitless