into popery for all consistent theists. That this is not meant as pleasantry, but is written in downright earnestness, we quote the conclusion of his lecture on _A Study of Religion_, and preface it by saying that the language with which he urges his definition of religion on his hearers finds in every word an echo in the hearts of all sincere and instructed Catholics, and receives their full endorsement. “I speak now,” he says, “as one who _believes_ in religion, thus conceived, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, without apology either for the name or the thing, and without the smallest concession to the prejudice that assails either the one or the other. To-day I speak only to the large in heart and broad in mind—to those who must accept science and would fain accept religion too. To these I say that science itself would lose its fearless love of truth, were it not that religion fed its secret springs; that social reform would lose its motive and inspiration, literature and art their beauty, and all human life its sweetest and tenderest grace, did not religion evermore create the insatiable hunger after perfection in the soul of man. Bright, cheerful, ennobling, stimulating, emancipating, religion is the greatest friend of humanity, ever guiding it upward and onward to the right and the true; ay, and to all we yearn for, if, as we believe, the right and the true are indeed the pathway to God.” But not all free-religionists are gifted with so deep, intelligent, and healthy an appreciation of the essence of religion as Francis E. Abbot, who leaves nothing at present to be desired but the courage of his convictions—_proficiat!_ There is, however, in the _Christian Inquirer_ a revelation made by William Ellery Channing, a distinguished nephew of the celebrated Dr. Channing, which tells quite another story. It appears by this article that the president of the Free Religious Association, O. B. Frothingham, had attributed to Mr. Channing, one of the speakers in the tenth annual assembly, a “poetic Christianity,” a “religion in the air,” an “up-in-a-balloon” religion, and in reply to this accusation he draws from nature the following unattractive personal portraits: