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Where even Hope itself hath fled,

Sweet Charity will go

To soothe the heart, and rear the head, And dry the tears that flow.

The moral yet is clearer still:

'Tis thus where darkness lowers
'Round the tried soul, and doubting ill
Benumbs her nobler powers,

That Faith new born will point above,
And peace serene bestow,
Speaking of coming life and love,
Though all around be snow,
Eternal Source of all that's bright,
And pure, and fair, and brings
Thy nobler, holier truth to light,

By means of humbler things!
Oh, teach my heart to see Thy love,
Instruct my soul to know
Thy hand alike in stars above,
And violets in the snow!

And as I pass life's vale along,

Oh, lend me still Thy light;
Still give me grace to flee the wrong,
And aye pursue the right;

To read some lesson in each flower,
Each scene where'er I go;

In every leaf that decks the bower,
And violets in the snow!

Long years have passed since then away,
And joy and grief been mine;
I've seen life's fairest flowers decay,
Youth's warm, bright sun decline;
I've wandered on with weary foot,

Through toil, and pain, and woe;
I've loved and lost, but ne'er forgot
That violet in the snow!

INDIVIDUALITY IN RELIGION.

THE Gospel was never designed to be unBibled and made into lettered catalogues of musts and must nots. "The letter killeth-the spirit giveth life." The restraints of religion do not lie along the Christian's pathway as so many roseless thorns to pierce and pain us at every step. Christianity does not require us to be forever looking after the faults and failures of others, in order that we may know exactly what things not to do. It is not a list of uneasy negatives. It is not a system arranged to push or drive by rearward forces. No man, since grace and truth were revealed in Jesus Christ, was ever scolded or scared any nearer heaven. The thunder of Sinai threatened and made men tremble; but there is another mount, though not so high and dark and awful, whose summit held a cross, and He who was lifted up thereon draws all men unto Him! The blood of Calvary is greater than the lightning of Sinai. Henceforth love is mightier than precept. Henceforth religious life is not so much a form as a service-a service which is the highest liberty, because it is emancipation in Christ Jesus who makes his followers free indeed.

We are not obliged to pass on in our discipleship with book in hand, or mortal confessor in sight, reading a ceremony, or listening to a sound, or ruminating on the published sins of other people, else we should commit new ones ourselves so rapidly and unexpectedly that the most orthodox creed-arranger would become bewildered in the attempt to classify them. The religion of Christ does not annoy us with

mere formal technicalities. There are no chronometer-guaged exactions to goad us to duty as a miserly creditor's constables dun a poor debtor for dues. No books of faith and service outside the Bible are worthy the permanence of stereotype plates to be printed from. No true man who recognizes his own individual accountability for deeds done in the body (not for words pronounced or unpronounced from the creed)—no true man can live in these grand republican years with any ecclesiasticism ahold of him, drilling and driving as a machine. The Scriptures of divine truth do not require that my soul's worship shall be a strict duplicate of the worship of somebody else's soul. Neither is my work to be estimated by the number of chips and shavings at the bench of the robuster brother who has double the muscle that God has given to me.

Christianity gets deeper into a man than his clothes or his skin. It does a nobler thing to a man than bow and bend, and halt and turn, and shove him hither and thither in the crooked grooves of some blunderer who lived in the dim ages long before the wood of the cross began to grow. It has a grander mission than merely to take charge of the seen and heard of a man; it lodges deep in the inmost soul, and works out from that center, until the world not only sees and hears, but knows and feels, that he "has been with Jesus and learned of Him."

I may subscribe to a system of rules, and be as exact in my observance of them as a clock is in ticking its swinging monotonies all day long and all night through; and, just like the clock, be only running down the while. The Gospel is a marvel in its freedom from all nonessential sectarianisms which any mimic of a man might observe to the very shadow of a letter without being a spark the brighter or a degree the better for his trouble. It is time the Church had grown out of the childhood ages of the world--time that she waked up in the new morning this side the long night of ritualistic shades and symbols to the light and liberty of the Saviour come and risen. The Christian system, simple but sublime, infused by the impulses of the promised Spirit of all Truth, lifts men out of deep-worn channels, and places them on elevations of light and glory from whence vast and beautiful horizons sweep around, and glowing with living workers for God and man. There is growth from minority to manhood in the Gospel, and equal suffrage for all and forever.

ALEXANDER CLARK.

SMILES.-Nothing on earth can simile but human beings. Gems may flash reflected light; but what is a diamond flash compared with an eye-flash and mirth-flash! A face that can not smile is like a bud that can not blossom. Laughter is day, and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, and is more bewitching than either. It is possible for us all to wear a smile or a frown, at our own option. Either becomes habitual from frequent repetition.

LOVE.

LOVE, transcendent and divine,
Gleams sweetly in the bread and wine,
That speak of Christ the crucified,
Who once for wretched sinners died!
Love, born of God, eternal, true,
Stands sweetly forth to wondrous view,
In God the Spirit's work of grace,
To cleanse, exalt, and save our race!

Love, higher still, beyond degree,
In God the Father we may see,
Who gave his Son and Spirit too,
Rebellious sinners to renew!

Love kindles in the Christian heart,
And takes a brother's kindly part,
In every time of sorest need,
His soul to soothe, his form to feed.
Love, like the gently beaming sun,
Imparts his grace to every one,
Producing life and beauty, where,
Else, all were death and blank despair.

Love bridges o'er the stream of death,
And makes its passage but a breath,
To which succeed the choral lays,
Of bliss on bliss through endless days.

Love shall ascend with Christ the Lord,
Takes His exceeding great reward;
For saints redeemed, a crown of light,
Celestial brilliant, dazzling bright.

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THIS Countenance is indicative of unusual temperamental intensity. The sharp, nervous features are, to be sure, a little modified by their association with | the broad cheek-bones and strong jaw of the Hungarian physique, but the extreme delicacy of organization and the fineness of the brain quality are marked. He is in the highest respect sensitive and susceptible to the influences of feeling and emotion. The high and ample forehead denotes intellectual discernment; the ca pacious top-head exhibits moral and religious strength; the side-head, so far as it can be seen, shows a deep sense of the beautiful and awful; and the social ten dencies, apparently, are by no means deficient. If the great breadth of the forehead, just over the superciliary ridge, evinces anything, it certainly shows Tune very large, and developed backward and upward toward Constructiveness and Ideality.

Spirituality is well marked by the broad arch of the top-head. This organ has doubtless exercised a most potent influence on his life,—an influence seemingly antagonistie to the great longings of his ambitious musical and ideal nature;

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and by it may be explained many of his extraordinary acts.

The mouth is an impressive feature in our portrait, indicating force of will and earnestness of purpose, while the symmetrical nose evinces unusual fullness of cerebral development. The Abbé must be a genial, winning priest as he is a fascinating musician.

BIOGRAPHY.

Though the Abbé Liszt now lives in the gloom and solitude of a Roman cloister, his genius still pervades the world, and his influence upon the musical life of the present day is probably as great as that of any other living master. "A his strange star shone on birth," says a German biographer, "the comet, which in that year of the world attracted all eyes upward," and disappeared. And such has been Franz Liszt's life. Like a resplendent meteor, he passed on his triumphal musical career, and to-day, as if tired of the world's applause, he seeks the retirement of a monk.

He was born on the 22d of October, 1811, at the little village of Raiding, near Oedenburg, Hungary, a few hours' ride from the Austrian capi

tal of Vienna. At the age of five years he manifested a remarkable aptitude for music, and his father, who was a musician of some repute, carefully instructed his son on the pianoforte. In his ninth year he was taken to play at a public concert in Presburg, where his astonishing musical talent attracted the notice of some Hungarian noblemen, who procured for him the instructions of Karl Czerny and Salieri. For nearly two years he studied very earnestly under these distinguished tutors, and then again made his appearance before a public audience. A German journal thus describes this occasion:

"Franz Liszt was only eleven years of age when, in 1822, his father introduced him, a slender, blonde-haired boy, into one of the most brilliant circles in Vienna, already acquainted with a Mozart. Karl Czerny and Salieri were there; they sat with the boy's father, Adam Liszt, the friend of Haydn, in the neighborhood of the piano-forte, and watched the boy's graceful movements with deepest interest. From the farthest corner of the great hall a lady watched the young

PORTRAIT OF ABBÉ FRANZ LISZT.

musician eagerly as he now advanced to the instrument, and a sad smile flitted over her pale face as she heard the first notes vibrating through the hall. It was a concert piece of Hummel's, wonderfully spirited and vigorously executed; the player was not confused by the brilliant company, but appeared as calm and self-possessed as a pilot on a troubled sea. Not so the lady. She heard the rapturous applause which was given to the young pianist; she noticed the smile that settled upon his countenance as he rested for a moment by his father's side, and felt a conscious pride as she heard the admiration of the audience. * * * Again the boy advanced to the piano; a short childlike bow, and the slender fingers glided in Hummel's H minor concert; the audience was delighted; and that womanly countenance became suffused with a deep blush of joy. For the last time he took his place for a free fantasia. The great hall was as still as a church during prayer, and one scarcely dared even to breathe. The themes were from Mozart and Beethoven, and his fingers moved in a magical, wondrous manner. Over Salieri's

countenance reigned now a proud smile; but the head of the blonde lady had sunk upon her breast, the hot tear-drops rolled down her cheeks, and she wished that no one might see her; her hands were clasped, and a silent, fervent prayer went up from that pure and pious soul for the young musician. So absorbed was she that she did not hear the voice which now startled her: "Madam, your son has played bravely. I am satisfied with him. You will live to delight in him, and may well feel proud of your boy. We will go to him!" The mother of Franz Liszt, for she it was, now arose, placed her hand in the arm of the gloomy-looking man who stood before her, and both walked toward the piano. The assembled people everywhere gave place to them; they did not speak; but every now and then the mother raised her tearful eyes to her conductor in wonder and almost in fear. Finally they came to the young musician.

"Mamma! you really here-Beethoven!' cried he, blushing and agitated. A moment later the star of the evening' was hanging upon the neck of his mother; and the friendly smile of Ludwig van Beethoven was the first genuine laurel which the young musician ever gained." This was Liszt's first real success. His first musical excursion was made in the following year, accompanied by both his parents. They gave concerts in many of the principal cities of Germany; and in Munich young Franz was greeted as "a second Mozart." These were the words, too, that greeted the slender, boyish form in the gilded salons of the aristocracy of Paris. There he was the subject of the most flattering attention. The Parisian press, without exception, were loud in their praise and prophecies. The concerts which Adam Liszt gave ended in a perfect ovation. But the boy did not become intoxicated by the overwhelming applause; his pious-hearted mother was his constant guardian. The élite of Paris could not draw from Franz Lizst his full powers; it was only when he was in his own room, with his own loved mother, that he was seen to perfection. Then his cheeks would glow, his eyes be lit up with joy, the hour and the time would be forgotten, until at last his fingers would drop tired and helpless, and his burning forehead would lay soothed on the shoulders of his mother. She was his idol, and he poured

out his young soul to her. The sudden illness of an only sister called the mother away, and father and son now traveled in the Departments, and crossed over to England, where Franz received the greatest attention.

In 1825 we meet Liszt again in Paris. A short opera, " Don Sancho," was being represented in the theater of the Royal Academy, and met with the greatest applause. The audience cried out the name of the composer, and Franz Liszt, scarcely fifteen years of age, was led forward to make his acknowledgments at the public tribunal.

Soon after this performance new sentiments were awakened; he became gloomy, melancholy, and solitary; he plunged deeply into religious books; the lives of the martyrs and the Confessions of St. Augustine were his constant study. But he still had one friend to whom he wrote out his scruples, his doubts, and his reveries, and she thanked the Lord for such an early transformation, and felt that her prayers were answered when she saw her beloved son resting in the deep shade of a religious establishment.

But even this silent life soon grew irksome, as it did also to her who had first wished it. His still life was suddenly broken. Paganini, the violin-king, was to give his first concert in Paris (1831), and at his first performance young Liszt sat in the far corner of the hall, drinking in the inspiration that he felt; and he returned home with the fixed idea of becoming the Paganini of the piano-forte. Day and night he never wearied in his endeavor to attain his goal.

When he again made his appearance in Paris, it was in a far different style from his former performances. Instead of the aristocratic salon, it was now merely a parlor. But it was graced by the ornament of bright intellects. By her own fireside sat the charming Madame Aurora Dudevant (George Sand); in the flickering light could also be seen Alfred de Musset, Jules Sandeau, Alfred de Vigny, the talented painter Delacroix, and sometimes even Victor Hugo was there.

In the company of Madame Dudevant and Adolph Pictet, Liszt, in the following year, spent the most delightful and untroubled portion of his life. Without plan or object they wandered wherever fancy led them, and were everywhere enthusiastically received. Of this period George Sand has written her charming Letters of Travel, and Pictet's Journey to Chamounix is simply an apotheosis of Liszt. Liszt himself has related the impressions of these treasured hours in his Years of Pilgrimage. In the cathedral of Freiburg, the most beautiful women and intellectual men listened to the world-renowned organ controlled by his master hand.

Thalberg appeared in Paris, and broke up the entrancing "dolce far niente" of Liszt, who felt jealous of the new rival whose concerts excited the wonder and praise of all Paris, Liszt presented himself before a public audience, and the éclat with which the Parisians received

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him, showed that his long absence had not diminished their enthusiasm over his music. Mendelsohn himself went to hear him, and wrote: "I have never seen a musician who has the musical sense so entirely at his finger's ends as Liszt has. * * He possesses a through-and-through musical feeling, the like of which is nowhere to be found." The judgment of the Paris world between the elegant Thalberg and the brilliant Liszt was charmingly expressed by a lady, who, when asked which was the greatest man, said, "Thalberg is the first, but Liszt is the only one."

It was ever a strange feature in Liszt's character that the moment the storm of rapturous applause began to ring about him, his soul would ardently long for solitude. He loved then to disappear suddenly from the theater of his success, and bury himself for months in unbroken stillness. This is the reason that we find him, in 1837, wandering through Italy, to Venice, Genoa, Florence, Rome, and Naples, without any definite object. It was only in the following year that he again appeared in public, at Vienna, when he gave a series of concerts in aid of the sufferers by the great inundation at Pesth. No wonder that his Hungarian countrymen could sing: "Franz Liszt, the people are proud of thee." In the same year he received a deputation of Hungarian noblemen, who invited him to Pesth, where he was a received with extraordinary enthusiasm, and presented by the inhabitants with the sword of honor and the right of citizenship. The next few years was a succession of fresh triumphs, and probably no musician in the same space of time received so warm and flattering a welcome wherever he went; and nowhere was his reception warmer than to his own native village of Raiding, whose every inhabitant turned out to greet their "son" for Franz Liszt never forgot the home of his childhood.

This wandering and apparently restless life may appear strange to us; but in that land of music, the poorest itinerant can travel from one end of the continent to the other with both ease and pleasure, giving his rude concerts at every little village. In a higher degree was this life of Liszt's. The language of Bach, of Handel, of Beethoven could be understood in every land; and it had never found a more eloquent expositor. Franz Liszt gave concerts in Vienna and Prague in 1840, and in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Riga, in Russia, in the same year. In the summer of 1841 he visited England, returned through Holland and Belgium to Berlin, where he was received as "only his own fatherland" could receive him.

The following year he wandered over nearly the whole of Europe-Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany. In August, 1845, in company with Spohr, he directed the Beethoven Festival, held in Bonn, on the occasion of the inauguration of a monument to the great master. He visited also Hungary,

Transylvania, Moldavia, Wallachia, Constantinople, and Odessa, and tired of glory, volu tarily closed his career as a performer in the zenith of his fame. Then he commenced the second great mission of his life, that of directe: and composer, and in 1848, accepted an invita tion from the Duke of Weimar to assume the conduct of the court concerts there. Hence forth Weimar became the chief musical center for all Europe.

"Who has ever seen Liszt as a conductor must have noticed the enthusiastic power with which he rules the whole orchestral strength as a totality. The accompanying orchestra is an animated body which he permeates and inflames with the inspiration of his own soul," said a critic who had seen him at Weimar. From 1848 to 1861 Weimar was continualy crowded during the season by the nobility and talent of Europe. Many took up their residence there permanently. He was the means of bringing many promising young composers to public notice. Richard Wagner owes the success of his chief operas to Liszt's friendship. He taught many young and promising pianists gratuitously, for whose benefit he gave private performances. Here he wrote, in 1852, his "work of love"-a biography of Chopin, the famed Polish pianist and compo ser (born, 1810, at Zelazowa, near Warsaw; died at Paris, Oct. 14, 1849); the “Gipsies and their Music,” in 1859; and contributed many articles on the operas of Wagner and other subjects in the "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik." His compositions, transcriptions, paraphrases, symphonies, organ and piano-forte pieces, sonatas, fantasias, capriccios, reminis cences, concertos, etc., mostly belong to this period of his life, and are very numerous. His most genial beauties are probably found in his | “Hungarian Rhapsodies," in the melodies of his home, the songs, the dances and the marches of the Hungarians and the gipsies. The joys and sorrows of his own people, all their feelings and emotions, find echo therein.

Yet Franz Liszt was never happy even amid his most glorious successes. The early impressions fostered by his mother had taken deep root. She was in Paris, but their cor respondence was as constant and loving as

ever.

Great was the sorrow when, in 1861, Franz Liszt departed from the theater of his grandest success and took his course toward the "Eter nal City," to re-enter the cloister.

Four years later, on the 26th of April, 1865, was consecrated, in the chapel of the Vatican, Abbé Liszt. His compositions now partook more of his religious character. He had in earlier years composed several smaller hymns, psalms, and sacred piano-forte and organ pieces. In the summer of 1862 he finished his celebrated opera of the "Holy Elizabeth." Under the roof of the Vatican he completed his opera of "Christ," which was first per formed in the service of the mass there. His 'Holy Elizabeth" has been performed in most of the chief cities of Europe; and at the Lu

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ther Festival in the Wartburg, in 1867, the composer himself was present as the conductor. That was a grand day for the German musical world.

This was the last appearance of Liszt outside of Rome in his professional capacity. In 1864, he had visited Weimar and Munich, and his own mother in Paris. This was his last visit to her; she died in 1866. Liszt lives now in the cloister of Monte Mario, which he chose as his residence soon after his entry into Rome. Before we close this sketch, let us take a glimpse at the life of the great musician there.

"Forty-four years (1866) have flown since Franz Liszt, the blonde-haired boy, began his brilliant career in Vienna. Again is a concert given by Franz Liszt; again we see him seated at the piano-forte. But instead of a crowded hall, this time there is only a single hearer, an aged countenance-Pio Nono, the Pope of Rome. In an apartment of the Vatican the Abbé Liszt plays before the Pope, and the melancholy eyes of the aged man brighten at the sounds which the earnest man in the dark robes evokes from the strings. *** In general, Liszt still lives in the cloister of Monte Mario. His intercourse is confined to a few friends, chiefly the high dignitaries of the Church. A near relationship binds him foremost to Cardinal Hohenlohe, with whom he lived, after his consecration, for nearly a year in the Vatican. The Pope himself has shown him many fatherly favors and numerous distinctions, which in former years were mostly given to him only by worldly princes, and as a mark of his highest grace added the brilliancy of his own order to the dark priestly robes of the musician. Sometimes he also visits him in his solitude, in order to listen to the charming productions of his genius, and Liszt usually remains then a long while in the presence of the Pope, who calls him 'his true son,' 'his Palestrina.''

"HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY."

THIS old saying, repeated so often by good people, and gaining thereby a kind of sanctity, is, nevertheless, a mischievous one to be floating so freely through the world.

That honesty and policy can have any connection whatever, can hardly be thought of by a right-minded, true-hearted person; and it seems to me a misfortune that the two words were ever linked together. The moment one stops to think of policy before doing what seems to him a duty, that moment his honesty becomes of a doubtful character.

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day I heard a minister say to his people, "Follow the course I have marked out to you, and you will not only gain much in this world, but eternal life in the next."

It was policy for the child to put on the appearance of goodness, and he understood it. Many may have thought it policy to be Christians when such inducements were offered.

Dangerous teachers are they, whether mothers or ministers, who teach those under their charge to look out for the gain, the result, of whatever they do. Is it right? is followed too often by that other question, "Is it expedient ?" betraying an entire want of confidence in the providence of a loving Father who will ask nothing of His child that is not best for him to do-setting up weak human judgment against His all-wise and just demands. We can not know what is expedient, for the greatest seeming failure has often proved to be the most glorious success. But we can know what is right; at least we can know our highest conviction of right, and following that we shall be true, and a true man is to be honored, though he come far short of absolute truth, for he proves that he is striving after it, and is on the right road toward it.

Oh, mothers, do not offer rewards to your children for being hypocrites! Childhood should be glad and bright and beautiful, and it can never be when so unnatural.

Give to them, abundantly, tender words of sympathy and encouragement. Place in their hands gifts of love and appreciation, but never teach them to think that right doing deserves reward; for they will soon learn to value it according to the pay they get. Let goodness and truth be as natural to them as fragrance is to the flower, just as it ought to be. Do not send them out into the world with such miserable, unreliable guides as "Honesty is the best policy," "The safest way is to do right;" but rather teach them to cast policy away altogether, to forget reward, to feel that

"'Tis perdition to be safe,
When for the truth we ought to die."

"Is it right?" My brother and my sister, when this question comes to you, for it often comes to all, and what is truest and best in you anwers, "It is," let no forebodings of the result, no whispers of policy, detain you from obeying unhesitatingly this command of God. Though sacrifice and pain be the result, it will only show that they are needed.

"Is it truth?" If from the deepest consciousness of your soul the decision come, too plain to be misunderstood, that it is truth, then accept and advocate it, though it bear you into places new and strange, though it lead you into the most unpopular church and party, though it take from you friends and bring you enemies; though reproach and poverty and pain come upon you, still be true for the truth's sake, and like the noble Luther be too brave to "speak or act against your conscience."

HOPE ARLINGTON.

IN VAIN.

O'ER the golden prime of morning time,
To brood in sullen sorrow;
From coward fears of future years,
A stream of trouble borrow,
When the sunny shine of present time
Foretells a bright to-morrow.

The speeding noon comes all too soon
To those whose hearts are lightest;
Soon follow cares, and silver hairs

O'er heads that now are brightest;
But youth well sped, rich blessings shed,
When bright locks change to whitest.
In vain to sigh for days gone by;

Youth's mantle fits the wearer;
But work and pray that ev'ry day
May be to you the bearer
Of something good of mental food,
To make the soul grow fairer.
For all the harms of winter sterns,

If we're prepared to greet them
With strength of nerve that does not swerve,
But bravely, boldly meet them,
Will strengthen roots to bear the fruits,
And he who works shall eat them.
Then look aloft, and see the soft.
Gray light of dawn is nearing,
And gleaming through the ether blue,
The promised land appearing,
When days of youth return in truth,

In triple brightness cheering.
For God is just, and you may trust,
Though ne'er his law divining,
That though dark clouds the sunlight shrouds,
Each has its silver lining,

And 'round the wreath of cypress leaf
The amaranth is twining.

SCIENCE AND SKEPTICISM.-The revelations of science may, and in the nature of things must, often be at variance with popular preconceptions; but variances of this kind need not give rise to hostility, nor preclude conviction. Theologians may be startled by new discoveries in science, just as their predecessors were by the assertions of astronomy; but they are not on that account entitled to accuse men of science of skepticism and infidelity; nor, on the other hand, have men of science any right to retort on theologians the charge of dogmatism and bigotry, because they are not prepared all at once to accept the new deductions. The skeptic and infidel is he who refuses facts and rejects the conclusions of enlightened reason; the dogmatist and bigot is he who, overestimating his own opinions, undervalues those of others and obstinately resists all conviction. What may be accepted by one mind under the bias of early training, may be insufficient to induce belief in another differentiy trained but equally earnest to arrive at the truth. "To faith," says Bunsen, "it is immaterial whether science discover truth in a spirit of skepticism or belief; and truth has been really found by both courses, but never by dishonesty or sloth." Arguments may prevail; abuse never wins over converts. Bad words never make good arguments; and we may rest assured that he who is in the habit of using them is by no means in a fitting spirit to enter as a worshiper into the great temple of truth. -Man: Where, Whence, and Whither?

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