complish something. Still another advantage that may be derived from the organization is revealed in Prof. Bolton's idea of its furnishing accommodations in a single building for all the libraries of the societies and for such other libraries of scientific works as may seek a domicile there; each library to be kept distinct, but accessible alike to all the societies, and one supplementing the others. For this and other purposes of the Alliance a building will be necessary, and a plea in behalf of this was made by Prof. N. L. Britton.
Another view of the advantages that may be derived from this movoitient is afforded by the advances which are being made in all departments of enterprise in which scientific research is the original and most important factor. "The practical men," said the lion. Addison Brown, basing his remark on the confession to him of an electrical expert who had made several very interesting and important inventions, "do not work at random, but upon the basis of what scientific research and publication have previously put within their grasp." Capitalists and corporations have derived immense wealth and power from the fruits of this work; and yet science, which has furnished them the instruments of their success, has received the most niggardly treatment from them, and has been spnrned and scorned by them as unpractical. A society that will serve as a center for its scattered forces and give it a voice by which it can assert itself and emphasize its claim for recognition can not fail to help it greatly in commanding the homage of its debtors.
MORAL EVOLUTION.
The recent articles of Prof. St. George Mivart on Happiness in Hell, in spite of what must seem to many their fanciful character, may reasonably be regarded as an encouraging sign of the progress the modern world is making in the direction of reasonable views and humane sentiments. Mr. Mivart states at the outset that "not a few persons have abandoned Christianity" on account of the popular doctrine of a hell involving unending torture for untold multitudes of human beings, and that this doctrine now "constitutes the very greatest difficulty for many who desire to obtain a rational religious belief and to accept the Church's teaching." The object which he has in view is to show that the absurd and cruel ideas which have gathered round the conception of hell are no essential or authoritative part of Christian doctrine. Whether he has succeeded in doing so, we must leave to the professional theologians to discuss and, if possible, decide; but, meantime, some of the writer's utterances deserve to be put on record as evidences of the moral evolution which theology itself is undergoing.
"To think," says Prof. Mivart, "that God could punish men however slightly, still less could damn them for all eternity, for anything which they had not full power to avoid, or for any act the nature or consequences of which they did not fully understand, is a doctrine so monstrous and revolting that stark atheism is plainly a preferable belief." The writer of these words could evidently not subscribe to the Westminster Confession, nor to the views of those Congregationalists who have lately been so much exercised over the daring theory advanced by some of their brethren that fairly decent heathen may perchance escape hell without any aid from missionaries. A Catholic authority whom Mr. Mivart quotes says that "if there is one thing certain it is this—that no one will ever be punished with the positive punishments of the life to come who has not with full knowledge, complete consciousness, and full consent turned his back upon Almighty God." The same authority farther says that "the God
