But why not let the Hindoo have his lotus prayer and the Christian his hymn? We have no objection: if they cannot do without them, they are welcome to them. In our opinion there has never been a religion, however crude or primitive, but has helped some struggling soul; there has not been an idol, however wooden, but has answered some prayers; not a fetish, however cheap, but has inspired some believer. It is with religions as it is with houses: The poorest hut or shanty protects some little ones from the cold, the most rickety roof shields from the storm some shivering child of want--even the hole in the ground into which the savage creeps to escape the ravages of the elements is a refuge. But true as all this is, it still remains as the most religions duty of man to try to replace these primitive shelters by building, as Oliver Wendel Holmes suggests, "more stately mansions" for his soul. Even as liberty with little is better than slavery with prosperity, and as justice is more precious than peace, truth is better than all the consolations which such financial exclamations as _O the glorious jewel of the lotus_, or _Nearer, My God, to Thee_, can afford. "We thank Thee, O God, for the gift of tears; we thank Thee for the ministrations of pain," prayed the reverend comforter. Pain and tears are certainly among man's teachers, but they have not been an unmixed good. Pain has crushed, perhaps, as many souls as it has educated. How many have come and gone to whom pain was simply pain, and who derived no benefit from it whatever? A dispatch from Port Arthur states that "the inmates of the hospitals complain bitterly of the heartlessness of the doctors and sisters of charity, who have become so accustomed to human suffering during the long siege that they have lost all sympathy with their patients." Pain, then, can make people callous as well as sensitive; it can break the spring of the heart as well as sting the will into action. But it is not our purpose, at present, to question the wisdom of being specially and officially "grateful for the ministrations of pain"; our object is to inquire what the officiating clergyman meant when he said, "We _thank_ Thee, O Father, etc." Did he mean it was good of the Deity to visit us, now and then, with such catastrophes as the Iroquois theatre fire? or, did he mean that it was quite considerate of him to make us feel the horror of that event sufficiently as to bring tears from our eyes? In thanking the Lord for pain as a gift, are we to understand that we owe it solely to his loving kindness that we can suffer, and not to any merit on our part? To thank anybody for anything implies the receiving of a favor, and is it this clergyman's idea that in send-ing pain and suffering--earthquakes and floods and terrible fires which in one black hour destroys the lives of dearest children with their helpless parents or guardians--the Deity is doing us a favor?