AN EXTRACT FROM "BIBLIA."

The author of the Second Epistle of Clement, who employed other Gospel material besides the canonical Gospels, says: "For the Lord Himself, being asked by some one when His kingdom. should come, said, When the two shall be one, and the outside as the inside, and the male with the female neither male nor female." The newly discovered fragment says: "His disciples say unto Him, When wilt Thou be manifest to us, and when shall we see Thee? He saith, When ye shall be stripped and not be ashamed."

The expression is a mystical reference to the verse in Genesis, "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed." The discoverers of the Lost Gospel regard the meaning as identical with that in the Gospel to the Egyptians and the Clementine Epistle-that Christ's kingdom on earth would not be manifested until man had returned to the state of innocence which existed before the fall, in which of course, the idea of sex had no place.

"The occurrence," they say, "of another version of the story is an important additional piece of evidence in defence of the view that it contains at least some elements of genuineness. All this lends fresh value to what is, on account of the farreaching problems connected with it, one of the most important and remarkable, and, since the discovery of No. 3, one of the better attested, of the sayings ascribed to our Lord outside the New Testament.”

The last verse in the fragment is: "He said, The key of knowledge ye hid; ye entered not in yourselves, and to them that were entering in ye opened not."

This is Christ's denunciation of the lawyers; but Luke's version is, "Ye entered not in yourselves and them that were entering in ye hindered." The difference between "ye opened not" and "ye hindered" may be held to have a spiritual significance.

AN EPISTLE OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA.

We copy the following letter from "Prabuddha Bharata," written by the well known Swami Vivekananda, as we think it will be of general interest to our readers.

"O wad some power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad fra monie a blunder free us

And foolish notion."

Chicago, June 23rd 1894.

Your Highness,

Sri Narayana bless you and yours. Through your Highness' kind help, it has been possible for me to come to this country. Since then I have become well-known here and the hospitable people of this country have supplied all my wants. It is a wonderful country and this is a wonderful nation in many respects. No other nation applies so much machinery in their everyday work as do the people of this country. Everything is machine. Then again they are only one-twentieth of the whole population of the world. Yet they have fully one-sixth of the wealth of the world. There is no limit to their wealth and luxuries. Yet everything here is so dear. The wages of labor are the highest in the world; yet the fight between labor and capital is constant.

Nowhere on earth women have so many privileges as in America. They are slowly taking everything into their hands, and, strange to say, the number of cultured women is much greater than that of cultured men. Of course the higher geniuses are mostly from the rank of males. With all the criticism of the Westerners against our caste, they have a worse one-that of money. The almighty dollar, as the Americans say, can do anything here.

Your Highness cannot realize without seeing, how eagerly they take in any little bit of the grand thought of the holy Vedas which can resist and harmonize with the terrible onslaughts of modern science. The theories of creation out of nothing, of a created soul, and of the big tyrant of a God sitting on a throne in a place called heaven, and of the eternal hell fires have disgusted all the educated, and the noble thoughts of the Vedas about the eternity of creation and of the soul and about the God in our own soul, they are imbibing fast in one shape or other. Within fifty years the educated of the world would come to believe in the eternity of both soul and creation and in God as our highest and perfect nature as taught in our holy Vedas. Even now their learned priests are interpreting the Bible that way. My conclusion is, that they require more spiritual civilization and we more material.

The one thing that is at the root of all evils in India is the condition of the poor. The only service to be done for our lower classes is to give them education, to develop their lost individuality. That is the great task between our people and princes. Up to now nothing has been done in that direction. Priest power and foreign conquest have trodden them down for centuries and at last the poor of India have forgotten that they are human beings. They are to be given ideas; their eyes are to be opened to what is going on in the world around them, and then they will work their own salvation. Every nation, every man, every woman, must work one's own salvation. Give them ideas-that is the only help they require and then the rest must follow as the effect. Ours is to put the chemicals together, the crystallization comes in the law of nature. Our duty is to put ideas into their heads, they will do the rest. This is what is to be done in India. It was this idea that had been in my mind for a long time. I could not accomplish it in India and that was the reason of my coming to this country. The great difficulty in the way of educating the poor is this. Supposing even your Highness opens a

free school in every village, still it would do no good, for the poverty in India is such that the poor boys would rather go to help their fathers in the field or otherwise try to make a living than come to the school. Now, if the mountain does not come to Mohomet, Mohomet must go to the mountain. If the poor boy cannot come to education, education must go to him. There are thousands of single-minded, self-sacrificing Sannyasis in our own country, going from village to village, teaching religion. If a part of them can be organized as teachers also of secular things, they will go from place to place, from door to door, not only preaching but teaching also. Suppose two of these men go to a village in the evening with a camera, a globe, some maps, etc. They can teach a great deal of astronomy and geography to the ignorant. By telling stories about different nations they can give the poor a hundred times more information through the ear than they can get in a lifetime through books. This requires an organization which again means money. It is greatly difficult to set a wheel in motion but when once set, it goes on with increasing velocity. After seeking help in my own country and failing to get any sympathy from the rich, I came over to this country through your Highness' aid. The Americans do not care a bit whether the poor of India die or live. And why should they, when our own people never think of anything but their own selfishness? My noble prince, this life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive. One such high, noble-minded and royal son of India as your Highness can do much towards raising India on her feet again and thus leave a name to posterity which shall be worshipped. May the Lord make your noble heart feel intensely for the suffering millions of India sunk in ignorance is the prayer of

To the Maharaja of.

Vivekananda.

WILLING, LOVING, SERVERS.

By Enoch Penn.

As I lay upon my bed musing of that other world just beyond the veil, my surroundings grew fainter to my consciousness, and that world on which my thoughts were fixed grew very distinct, and I realized that I had gradually, by imperceptible degrees, passed through the veil which separates the two worlds. There were beings there, glorified men and women they seemed, living in that peaceful light. As I looked about me I saw a radiant light and I realized it to be a mind, a spirit, one who, in so far as I could perceive, had passed beyond form.

As I approached that brilliant being desiring to know, if possible, the thoughts of such a mind, these words took form in my consciousness as though spoken within me, "Come with me," and I entered that effulgent light. Directly I had entered I heard away in the far distance the voice of some one in an agony of distress crying, "O my God, help me!" As the lightning flashes from one end of heaven to the other, or as a sunbeam through space, so that spirit moved to the relief of the one who had sent up that cry; speaking comforting words and giving of his strength and peace, bringing consolation to that struggling soul. Gradually the spirit world faded from my consciousness, and, still lying upon my bed, I found that I had returned through the veil to my place in this dark world.

As I thought upon what I had seen, and heard, and felt, I said: "This seraph has shown me how I may enter upon a great work, and I will try to do the same thing myself." I soon found, however, that my little egotistic mind, in its tendency always to