Howard Deane walked to the village post office that evening with no other thought than of receiving his papers and returning home.  While there, he met Hugh Wyman, who requested him, as it was on his way, to take a magazine to Miss Evans.  He did not hesitate to grant the request of his friend.  Reaching her home he found her alone, and common courtesies led them into conversation.  This at first touched only upon daily events, but soon it led into deeper channels, and their individual thoughts were brought out upon religious subjects, each receiving suggestions from the standpoint of the other.

“I am impatient, I know,” said Miss Evans, as the subject warmed and brightened under the glow of words, “to see the day when my long cherished ideas will be wrought into actual life.  Will it not be grand when religion shall no longer be an abstract, soulless science, a musty theology, but a living, vital truth, lived and acted, not merely professed and preached; when the human family shall be united in one bond, and man love to do his brother good; when he who is strong, shall care for him who is weak; when daily deeds of kindness shall be accepted as true worship; when the golden rule shall be the only creed of mankind, and woman shall throw upon her erring sisters the blessed veil of charity.  The world is full of need to-day.  It never so much needed the labor of every earnest man and woman as now.  All can work for its advancement; some speak, some write, others act, and thus unitedly aid in ushering in the millenium of humanity.  Religion is to me only a daily life of goodness.  The church has little but form.  We want vital christianity flowing from heart to heart; and prayers, not at stated times, but when souls mount heavenward, whether in words or deeds, to be recognized as true worship.  When our churches shall be adorned by art; when the theatre, now so little understood, is employed as a lever of moral power, equal if not greater than the church, for reaching the heart, and enriching the intellect; when these two forces approach each other, then shall we have a real church and true worship.  Art in every form must be acknowledged as the great mediator between God and man, and when this is done we shall have a completeness in our worship, which is little dreamed of now.  To my mind, the drama appears as the great instructor of the coming time—­ greater than the church, more potent, hence more effectual, and will, I think, at some day occupy its place.  I have talked long, but the fullness of the theme must be my excuse.”

“I am but too glad to hear expressions of such thoughts from any one.  I have been for a long time reaching for something more satisfactory than I have received.  The forms of worship have long been dull and void of life to me.”