life; and that, by his life and death of perfect self-sacrifice, by his words of inspired wisdom, by his purely disinterested deeds, in the joy of oneness with God and man and nature, he had the glory of founding upon the new commandment, love, the kingdom of Heaven on earth.

I believe,

IV. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

1. That the reign of Him, who alone is good, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, shall be universal, and shall organize the now warring and scattered nations into one holy society, where justice, wisdom, joy, shall harmonize the external world, and crowd it with countless varieties of beautiful productions;

2. That the central power of this kingdom of Heaven is holiness, the indwelling spirit of God, which ever more brightly reveals its presence in the growing spirituality and humanity of the free, brave, and generous tribes, whom Providence appointed to diffuse this life; ever more visibly organizes their policies and legislations, their philosophies and ethics, their literatures and arts, their modes of social and private action; and is now hastening to mould mankind into communities of devout and loving, wise and earnest, healthful and happy beings, where the ideal of heavenly order may be worthily imaged, and God shall be all in all;

3. That, in the establishment of this heavenly order upon earth, the churches of Christendom have been instrumental as depositories, amid an unreconciled world, of the gospel of peace, as professors and partial prac. tisers of godliness, as imperfect symbols of that society, truly one, holy, and universal, which, in God's own time and way, shall be visibly organized; but that they have all, in various degrees, been guilty of the great heresy of giving preference to what is of only secondary importance, of substituting speculations for faith, human fallibility for heavenly inspira. tion, a priesthood of man's ordination for the ministry of God's anointing, creeds for charity, prayers for self-sacrifice, rituals for rectitude, and a service of days, places, and forms, for the perpetual worship of souls, becoming united to God, their fellow-spirits, and the universe, through goodness, wisdom, and beauty, continually received and diffused;

4. That the schisms and infidelities, which have resulted as necessary reactions against this heresy, the divisions between church and state, science and revelation, piety and industry, duty and joy, ending as they do in hypocritical asceticism and worldly materialism, and augmenting, as they have and will, the jealousies between man and man, class and class, nation and nation, will never cease till Christians abandon sophistical polemics and sentimental or formal piety, and manifest, in practical affairs, their faith by their works; till, acknowledging God as sovereign and his law of goodness as supreme, they reform their constitutions and treaties, their intercourse and trade, their modes of producing and distributing wealth, their plans of education, their rewards and privileges, their means of elevation and pleasure, their homes and all relations, their characters and lives, after the models of divine righteousness.

V. THE UNITED STATES A MEMBER OF CHRISTENDOM.

I believe,

1. That, as a member of the confederacy of Christendom, these United States have peculiar opportunities and duties; that consecrated by the de

vout faithfulness of forefathers, whom Providence led to this new-found land-planted at the very season when the vital elements of Europe, Christian love and German freedom, were casting off the oppressions of outgrown usages, and prompting men to seek a more earnest piety and a purer virtue-guided onward through a discipline of toil and poverty and simple habits, through unexampled experiences in social government, and the gradual growth of untried institutions-forced by necessities of condition, by slow-formed convictions, and the tendencies of a whole age, to a declaration of principles, which is the clearest announcement of universal rights, though, unfortunately, not of universal duties, ever made by any people-permitted to expand through an unobstructed, unexhausted, healthful, fertile, and most beautiful country-wondrously composed of representatives from every European state, who bring hither the varied. experiences, convictions, manners, tastes, of the whole civilized world, to fuse and blend anew-this nation is manifestly summoned to prove the reality of human brotherhood, and of a worship of the heavenly Father, varied as the relations, grand as the destinies of present existence;

2. That, acknowledging, as we do, our providential mission to fulfil the law of love, and professing, as we do, to encourage each and every member of our communities in the exercise of their inalienable rights, we stand before the face of God and fellow-nations, as guilty of hypocrisy and of a breach of trust;

3. That we deserve the retributions, losses, disgraces, which our savage robberies of the Indians, our cruel and wanton oppressions of the Africans, our unjust habits of white serfdom, our grasping national ambition, our eagerness for wealth, our deceitful modes of external and internal trade, our jealous competitions between different professions and callings, our aping of aristocratic distinctions, our licentiousness and sensuality, our profligate expenditures, public and private, have brought, and will continue to bring upon us;

4. That it behoves our religious bodies, our political parties, our statesmen and philosophers, our scholars and patriots, and all who desire a growing life for themselves or their race, to put aside questions of minor importance, and concentrate their energies upon measures which may remove inhumanity utterly from our land;

5. That our duties will not be done, our ideal will not be fulfilled, till we solve the problem of UNITED INTERESTS, now pressing upon all Christendom; till, within our own borders, we secure for every individual man, woman, child, full culture, under healthy, pure, and holy influences ; free exercise of their faculties, for the glory of God and the good of man ; recompense for all services that shall be just; such stations of honorable usefulness as their virtues merit, and access to all sources of refinement and happiness which our communities can command-till, in intercourse with other lands, we strive honestly and bountifully to share the blessings which the universal Father gives, and so aid to reunite all nations in one family of the children of God, where his will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven.

I do not know that there is one thought or expression in this statement of belief that is original or new; on the contrary, I hope that it may be found an approximation, though necessarily partial and imperfect, to the universal faith of the present. I have studied in many schools, ancient and modern, and have sat at the feet of many teachers, among whom,

with especial gratitude, I would mention Coleridge, Fenelon, Herder, Lessing, Carlyle, Cousin, Leroux, Swedenborg, and Fourier. I might add thanks to writers of our own land, more than one, were they not too near to name with praise. To my own mind, this creed, which in future essays I hope to explain and illustrate, casts light upon the controversies long agitated, still continued, between the Spiritualists and Materialists, the Theists and Pantheists, the Trinitarians and Unitarians, the Supernaturalists and Naturalists, the advocates of the visible and those of the invisible Church, and connects religious faith and duty, vitally and intimately, with the actual experience of our age and land. But I cannot reasonably hope that these views will seem equally satisfactory to other minds; nor should I desire it. The doctrines of this statement which have been most interesting to me are-the unity of the human race-the threefold life of man-Jesus Christ as the divine type of glorified humanity -the kingdom of Heaven on earth--the duty of this nation to establish united interests. May this confession be a means of inciting others, whose results would be truly valuable, to like frankness. Errors even,

sincerely exposed, are instructive. In these times of division, we may well call to one another, "Watchman, what of the night?" Let all declare, as they best can, the signs of promise. "Beautiful" to-day, as for ever, shall be “ upon the mountains the feet of those who bring glad tidings, who publish peace."

W. H. C.

THE REMEMBERED HOME.

BY LYDIA MARIA CHILD.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar;

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home.-Wordsworth.

A CHILD lay sleeping by the sea-shore. The tide was coming in so fast, that the foam of the great waves already dashed near the feet of the sleeping one. A white gull came riding thither on the top of a huge wave. He flew high up in the air, and screamed as he flew.

Whereat the sleeper awoke, and looked around him. The place was wild and lonely; but the red, round sun was rising up out of the ocean, and as the sea-nymphs danced up to meet him, the points of their dia. mond crowns glittered among the green billows.

"Where am I?" said the child. He rubbed his eyes, and looked all around with wonder. "How came I here ?" he said: "This is not my home!"

Suddenly, he heard soft, sweet voices. They came from above his head, and the caves of the rocks echoed them.

Then he remembered that he was a King's son, and had once lived in a glorious palace. How had he wandered thence? Had gipsies stolen him, as he slept in his golden cradle? Those soft, sweet voices sounded like old times. "I heard them in my Father's house," said he; “oh, I wish they would sing to me again."

In the simplicity of his little heart, he thought some one among the rocks sung in reply to the voices in the air. He crept into a cave, and asked, "Where is my home? Ye that sing here so sweetly the song of my Father's house, can ye tell me where is my home?"

The waves dashed loud against the rocks, but there was no other sound; only, as he ceased to speak, echo, with hollow tones, answered, "Home."

"Where is my home ?" he cried with passionate eagerness;-and echo again answered, "Home."

Afraid of the loneliness, and of the mocking sounds, the child crept out of the cave, and came into the morning sunshine.

He walked on and on, and it seemed to him as if the smooth, hard beach would have no end. The great waves, as they came tumbling and roaring to his feet, seemed to speak into his heart, with a deep loud voice, "Home! Home!"

Then the tears rolled down his cheeks; for he felt as if he were wandering alone in a strange place.

As he went along, crying bitterly, he met a lame old woman, who said to him sharply, "Well, John, where have you been? A fine piece of work is this, for you to walk in your sleep, and so be whimpering by the sea-shore at break of day! I must tie you to the bedstead; and then all the walking you do, you must do in your dreams."

The boy looked timidly at her, as she took him by the hand; and he wondered within himself if she were the gipsey that had stolen him. Then he remembered the melodious voices. and the echoes in the cave, and how the great thundering waves seem to speak into his heart.

"Why don't you talk?" said the old woman; "I should think you would be glad to go home."

The boy answered, "It sometimes seems to me as if I once lived in a beautiful palace, and as if the hut where we are going were not my home."

"That comes of walking in your sleep," said the old woman : "These are dreams. Come home, and go to work; for dreaming will get you no breakfast."

So the little boy went to her hut; and when he had milked the cow, and drawn the water, and split wood for the oven, she made ready for him a nice breakfast. She was very good to him, according to her ways; and when he had done his work, she was always willing he should run in the fields to play with other children.

Gradually he forgot the voices in the air, and the echoes in the cave, until it seemed to him as if he had always lived in the old woman's hut. But, a long, long time after, it chanced that the cow rambled from her pasture, and John was sent to find her.

He wandered far, into a deep, thick wood; and there, by the side of a running brook, in the midst of white shining birch stems, that stood thick around, like slender columns of silver, the old cow was lying on the grass, with her feet folded under her, peacefully chewing her cud. The full, clear moon shone on the brook, and as the waters went rippling along over the stones, it seemed as if the moon were broken in pieces, and every little wavelet were scampering off with a silver fragment.

The thoughtful lad looked at the moon, fast tending to the West; he looked at her image in the brook; and he listened to the deep silence of the woods. The same sweet voices, that he had heard before, seemed to come from the brook; and the notes they sung were like snatches of an old familiar tune. Again, he remembered, but more dimly than before, that he had once lived in a glorious palace, full of light and music.

He stood leaning against a birch tree, and looked with earnest thoughtful love at a pale evening primrose, which grew by the brink of a rivulet. By degrees, the flower raised itself, and assumed the look of a tall, graceful girl, playfully dipping her feet in the water. Then the heart of the youth was right joyful! He sprang forward, exclaiming, "Oh, it is long, long years since we parted. Do you remember how I tried to kiss your image in the great crystal mirror in my father's palace? and how provoked I was that ever, as I tried to kiss your image, I kissed myself? How glad I am to see you again! Will you lead me to our home?"

The tall primrose waved her yellow blossoms in the evening air, and made no answer. The youth stood amazed. Where had the maiden vanished? Whence did she come? What meant these recollections of a far-off home?

In the deep solitude around, it seemed as if all things tried to tell him, if he could but understand their language.

Slowly and sadly, he returned to his hut, driving the cow before him. The night was beautiful, but solemn; for all was dusky light, and starstillness. The lone traveller gazed at the silent sky with earnest glances,