As an injunction which would strengthen the will in right-doing, nothing could be better, at the dismissal of a congregation, than for the priest to say :—

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest.

As an admonition against laxity of thought and deed, this advice would be helpful :

:

Remember these two things, and thou shalt never fall into sin within thyself is an ever-seeing eye, and in the tissues of thy being are recorded thine every thought and deed.

That the congregation may bear in mind that they cannot live without exercising an influence for good or evil, it would not be amiss to close the meeting occasionally by saying :—

Or

Every life is a profession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent influence.

When we appear before men as seekers after good, so that they say among themselves, "These men are a living religion," thinkest thou that our teaching will not be heard?

The meaning of the Church service could not be brought out more clearly than would be done by summing it up in the words :

We dedicate our lives to the Law of Duty, which is our deepest memory, our widest vision, our most fervent hope, our bravest purpose, our tenderest pity, and our purest love.

The upward progress of the Church would be furthered every time this declaration from Emerson was repeated:

There will be a new church, founded on moral science; at first cold and naked, a babe in a manger again; the algebra and mathematics of ethical law; the church of men to come, without shawms or psaltery or sackbut, but it will have heaven and earth for its beams and rafters, science for symbol and illustration; it will fast enough gather beauty, music, picture, poetry.

Sweet consolation would come to weary and restless souls from the message :— This is peace :

To conquer love of self and lust of life,
To tear deep-rooted passion from the breast,
To still the inward strife;

To lay up lasting treasure
Of perfect service rendered, duties done
In charity, soft speech and stainless days;
These riches shall not fade away in life,
death dispraise.

Nor any

Two passages which would also prove to be veritable benedictions, despite their variance from the accepted form, I cannot resist the temptation of citing :

Bring your doctrines, your priesthoods, your precepts, yea, even the inner devotion of your souls, before the tribunal of Conscience. She is no man's and no god's vicar, but the supreme judge of men and of gods.

Where the anchors that faith has cast

Are dragging in the gale,

We are quietly holding fast

To the things that cannot fail.

I would likewise commend three stanzas from Swinburne's "Songs before Sunrise," each of which for two special reasons it would be expedient and wise to use, either as the opening or closing sentence of a religious service. The first reason is their imaginative beauty of expression,

which puts them on a level with any of the most exalted passages in the Old or New Testament. The second is that in these stanzas some outside being or power is addressed, as is customary in all forms of prayer and supplication; yet, as is well known, it was not the infinite Creator of the universe to whom the poet appealed, but the Ideal Republic, the visioned society that is to be. The first of the three to which I allude is this:

Mother of man's time-travelling generations,
Breath of his nostrils, heart-blood of his heart,
God above all gods worshipped of all nations,

Light beyond light, law beyond law, thou art.

The second lifts the soul still higher, and with even steadier poise :

Thy face is as a sword smiting in sunder

Shadows and chains and dreams and iron things;
The sea is dumb before thy face, the thunder

Silent, the skies are narrower than thy wings.

The third, if not so sublime, is more intimate and tender:

All old grey histories hiding thy clear features,
O secret spirit and sovereign, all men's tales,
Creeds woven of men, thy children and thy creatures,
They have woven for vestures of thee and for veils.

The same high level of inspiration is attained in this stanza from Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty":

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;

Nor know we anything so fair

As is the smile upon thy face;
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,

And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and

strong.

And also in these other lines from the same poem :

Oh, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;

The confidence of reason give;

And in the light of Truth thy bondman let me live.

More daring in assertion, but equally reverent in intent, are the words put by Browning into the mouth of Paracelsus :

Make no more giants, God,

But elevate the race at once! We ask

To put forth just our strength, our human strength,
All starting fairly, all equipped alike,

Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted—
See if we cannot beat thine angels yet!

Again, in Shelley's "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" is immortally expressed the reverence of religious devotion. I give the opening stanza, with the parts grouped rhythmically, and not according to metrical form, because here the rhythm is more vital than the metre, and in order the better to bring out the meaning :

The awful shadow of some unseen Power floats though
unseen amongst us,

Visiting this various world with as inconstant wing as
summer winds that creep from flower to flower.
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,
it visits with inconstant glance each human heart and

countenance ;

Like hues and harmonies of evening,-like clouds in starlight widely spread,-like memory of music fled, -like aught that for its grace may be dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

And what finer benediction could end a church

service than Shelley's closing invocation of this same visitant?

Let thy power, which like the truth
Of nature on my passive youth
Descended, to my onward life supply
Its calm to one who worships thee,
And every form containing thee;
Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind
To fear himself, and love all human kind.

As a last suggestion, I offer these lines from Mr Zangwill's poem entitled "At the Worst," which give

the eternal answer of conscience to the doubts of scepticism

God lives as much as in the days of yore,

In fires of human love and work and song,
In wells of human tears that pitying throng,
In thunder-clouds of human wrath at wrong.

The burning bush doth not the more consume,
New branches shoot where old no more illume,
Eternal splendour flames upon the gloom.

Perchance, O ye that toil on, though forlorn,
By your souls' travail, your own noble scorn,
The very God ye crave is being born.