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But his continued prayerfulness did not prevent him from ap. proaching the presence of the Father at all special seasons. He prayed at his baptism while in the flowing streams of Jordan.. Praying, "the heavens opened, and the Spirit descended upon him." And from that day, whenever the Christlike man prays, the heavens open and the Spirit descends. And then, after his baptism, the Spirit led him into the wilderness, there to fast and pray and prepare himself for his ministry. Can there be true preparation for the solemn work of life and death without prayer? And when, by his severe, long-continued prayer of forty days, he was blessed with the approbation of God and the angels as to his future mission, he came down to the field of work. But he could not work alone. to be his fellow-laborers? And "so he went out to to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. it was day, he called unto him his disciples; and of them he chose twelve, whom he also named apostles." His apostles, predestined like himself in the eternal purposes of God, called and elected, were pointed out to him in long solitary prayer; and he had only to name and adopt them. While about to engage himself in the arduous responsibilities of his ministry, whether it was to heal the sin-struck and sorrowful, or to feed the multitude with the bread of life, or to raise the dead and inert from the grave of spiritual ruin, did he not go "into the wilderness and pray?" Did he not "lift up his eyes to heaven," "sigh to God," and "give thanks?"

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Aye, his great miracles of cure, precept, and reform, were first wrought in himself through the holy mystery of sympathy and prayer, and then manifested by him to the world as testimonies of the grace and power which the Father had committed into his hands. And, with the generous, self-humiliating impulse of his strange love, he promised that "greater works than these shall ye do, because I go to my Father." Thus praying, laboring, and teaching, when the three short years expired, and the last melancholy evening of his public ministry came, after he had performed the sad ceremony of offering unto his apostles the last sacrament, washed their feet with his own hands, taught them, warned them, consoled them,-once more

"he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come, glorify thy son." That is a long, marvellous prayer,the seventeenth chapter of John; and deeply does it describe the relations which in all previous prayers he had laid down between himself and his God on the one hand, between himself and his apostles on the other. If prayer means unity with the spirit of God and the power over all flesh, if prayer means unity with the kindred spirits of God's children, to whom we are brought to fulfill his purposes, surely this was the prayer of prayers. And I need only refer to his marvellous prayers of forgiveness and self-consecration on the cross, to prove that Jesus lived and died in prayer.

NEW LIFE.

BY CLARA GREGORY ORTON.

New life is swelling in the sod,
New life is throbbing in the air,
It stirs, it wakes in every clod,
It bursteth into blossom fair.

The brook rejoiceth to be free,
With song it steals along its way:
No blade of grass, no flower, no tree,
But wakes beneath the sun's warm ray.

Life rich and full! life manifold!

How swarms the air, how stir the leaves;
Mid Nature's myriad forms untold
Nought sighs or suffers, pines or grieves.

O heart of mine, doth joy not thrill
Through all thy embers as of yore?
Doth there not kindle in thee still
A hope that bids despair no more?

How canst thou when the air breathes life
Grope darkly amid vanished joys?

Ah, turn from thoughts of gloom and strife;
For sorrow wastes and wrath destroys.

Awake! Arise! for lo, the earth,
So ancient, hath renewed her youth.
Thou shalt out-live her last re-birth,
When all hath passed away but truth.

When earth lies cold beneath the sun,
When sun has faded dim and blear,
Then is thy spring-time just begun,
Then is thy time of blossom near.

THE HIGHER DOMESTIC.

To a great extent the domestic life of the present day has become a nightmare. It is a phase of life to which the words. of the prophet are again emphatically applicable: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Truly the Esoteric teachings stand as a light in a dark place, and we are glad to see so many periodicals taking up, and shedding light upon, this important subject of the sex life in the higher generation. The woman's-rights movement, which is now so wide-spread over the world, has grown out of the ignorance and the abuses of man in the marital relations; and such organizations are the strongest indication that the time has come for a step higher in the order of the race. In the old order men and women knew nothing of the sex life further than that marriage meant a license for unlimited indulgence. The love life between the sexes and the passion life are so inseparably connected that, as soon as passion is surfeited, love is destroyed. It is because of this fact that so much inharmony exists in marriage relations,

Men and women too-should be taught from childhood that, if they preserve the life forces, the life forces will preserve them; it is from these forces that the powers of mind, magnetic energy, vitality, youthful beauty, and all the joys of life are maintained. If those who desire a family would marry and use the sex forces for the exclusive object of procreation, their lives would be one song of delight; and the chil dren of such parents would be born without that terrible scortatory passion which now curses the race, dwarfs it mentally and physically, and fills the earth with disease.

Here and there a child is born under propitious conditions, and such an individual becomes a blessing to the race. With what pleasure we look into the face of a young woman who is overflowing with life in all its purity and chastity! such an one fills a household with delight, the very emanations of her life make joy and vivacity around her; whereas a woman born of parents who are inclined to over indulgence of the sex, is always weak in the reproductive functions, delicate in health,

morbid in mentality, bringing a gloom over the surroundings. Young men born under similar circumstances are found to be early indulging in that heinous practice of self-abuse, or else they are seeking to take advantage of the girls with whom they associate. The very atmosphere of these people is immoral and physically unwholesome, and there is not one such person living who is not suffering from disease in some form. This picture as it stands is a most horrible one, but it has another side that is yet worse,- -no one can associate with the people to whom we have just referred without partaking of their vitiated life qualities, and much of the disease of fine and sensitive natures arises from this very class of persons.

We bring ourselves to speak of these disgusting conditions. because they are so common in the world, and because they are growing upon the race with such rapidity as to make us feel that it is high time that every lover of morality, of good society as well as of good government, take up these principles and go to work on them in earnest; for only radical action in this direction can prevent our race from descending to the level of old China and Hindostan. The apostle says, "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled" (Heb. XIII. 4), which is true when men live in harmony with the laws of nature, even as much so as the beasts below them.

Those who have thought upon these subjects readily see that the race must take up these principles and incorporate them into their lives. It is well known that the civilized world is now dependent for its population upon the men and women of the working classes; that is, the "higher classes" are not producing their kind in sufficient numbers to effect an increase of the population. It is those whose whole mind, and almost whose whole vitality, are employed in the labor of earning an exist ence, who are virtually without mind and who live much like animals, upon whom we are now dependent for the population of our earth; and, under such circumstances, can we expect any thing but degeneracy? What are our teachers, our philanthropists, the lovers of our homes and our nation, doing to stop this downward current? All thinking physicians know these things, but they fear to give voice to the prevailing conditions lest they lose their practice. Of course parrot-like physicians, those who think and know merely what they have read, will oppose ideas.

such as we have been expressing, but such men are mere fossils, dead weights upon the public mind.

From past experience we know that any husband or wife whose home is discordant and unhappy, can in a single year transform that home into a paradise if they will control the passions, using them only when they wish a child.

HEARTS AND HOME.*

MARTHA SHEPARD LIPPINCOTT.

Home is where the heart is

Ah, how true these words!
"Tis the message whispered
E'en by little birds.
Nature whispers daily

Such sweet words as these;
Home is where the heart is—

That's the place to please.

Plant your flowers there, love,
Say your sweet words, too,
Then in home and loved ones,
Paradise you'll view.

Then as little birds will
Hasten home at night,
So will be your pleasure
And your fond delight.

Happy smiles will greet you,
Fond embraces, too,

Loving, tender welcomes

From the hearts so true.

Voices of dear children,

Making music sweet,

Will make home seem like the

Paradise complete.

Joyous hearts together,

Make a happy home,

And from out its shelter
Hearts are loath to roam.

"Tis the heart and love, dear,
That make home so bright,
And the loving kindness
Making all things right.

*Our contributor suggests the home as it may be when the doctrines promulgated by "Practical Methods" have laid hold of the hearts and lives of the people; for we feel that the time is at hand when great and wondrous changes are coming to the domestic life of this our planet.-[Ed.

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