No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him he gives him for mankind.  The different degrees of consciousness are really what make the different degrees of greatness in men.

While Odd-Fellowship does not claim to be a religious institution, yet so closely is it allied to Christianity that we deem it proper to discuss these questions.  I quote from Dr. Lyman Abbott’s lecture on “Christianity and Orientalism,” as follows:  “Religion as a thought has four questions to answer:  First, What is God?  Second, What is man?  Third, What is the relation between God and man?  Fourth, What is the life which man is to live when he understands and enters into that relation?  There is no other question; there is nothing left.  What is God?  What is man?  And how are men to live when they have entered into that relationship?  Now, Christianity has its answer to each one of those four questions.  God—­one true, righteous, loving, helpful Father of the whole human race.  God—­love.  And love, what is that?  Such a life as Jesus Christ lived on the earth.  What is man?  Man is in the image of God.  If he is not, if he fails in that, he fails being a man.  He is in the image of God, and not until he has come to be in the image, of God will he be a man.  What is a statue?  I can see a nose, a mouth, appearing out of the marble block.  No, it is not a statue, it is a half-done statue.  Wait until the sculptor is through, then you will see the statue.  Not till God is done will you see a man, and you never saw one except as you saw him in Jesus of Nazareth.  And what is the relation between this God and this man?  It is the relationship of the most intimate fellowship that the human soul can conceive; one life dwelling in the other life, and filling the other life full of His own fullness.  You can not get any closer relationship to God than that.  When this fullness has been realized, when you and I have the fullness of God in us, when God has finished, the man life will result.  Just such a life as Christ lived, with all the splendor of self-sacrifice, with all the glory of service, with all the magnificent heroism, with all the enduring patience.”

BROTHER UNDERWOOD’S DREAM.

Being invited some time since to deliver an address before a benevolent institution, and being pressed amid the daily business cares which surrounded, I was fearful I should not be able to command sufficient time for preparation of the task.  Returning home, I retired to my bed, my thoughts still keeping themselves in active motion in their endeavor to “think out” what I should say.  In this state of mind I fell asleep, and soon was in dreamland.  I dreamed that death had taken place, and as I approached the gates of the unseen world, I was met by an angel, who kindly tendered his services in escorting me through