persuade the world that God will not destroy the future happiness of a honest heart for an intellectual error, than in any other way to sap the foundations of a long-established Creed,—a more hopeful undertaking, for example, to bring discredit on the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Symbol, than to overthrow the Doctrine of the Trinity. If we could remove the idea that, where there is sincerity and love in the heart, salvation depends upon opinions, the terrible basis on which many a fierce error is sustained would be taken away, and Truth and falsehood meet together in their own strength.

Instead of this we have confused ourselves with the Sects in our eager advocacy of Dogmas, and we have suffered the world to acquire a settled impression that the great Controversy between us and other Christians is about the relative weight of textual evidence for the Unity or the tri-personality of God,whereas we ought to have maintained our great Controversy upon the terms of Christian Fellowship. Even controversially this would have been our wisest course, for if it can be established that by the love and service of God, as he is shown in Christ, a soul may be saved, it is not too much to say that few will gratuitously believe the Incarnation of God, or an Atonement effected by the death of a divine Being, or the Eternity of future Punishments. It is, doubtless, often our duty to meet special errors and to contend for special views, but it is our first duty to strike down that artificial basis of terror which upholds so much unexamined Theology, under the fear that to remove a Dogma may be to forfeit salvation.

Again, though it is true that the fathers of Unitarianism in this country were men of deep and earnest piety, yet the adoption of a dogmatic, rather than of a Catholic, Christianity to be maintained and defended, as the work assigned to them on earth, naturally led them to place their hopes of success, more in the relative strength of the conflicting Doctrines, when fairly exhibited by Controversy, than in the power of that simple faith of Jesus, as the Son of Man and the Son of God, which apart from all Controversy has yet to establish the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth. We have therefore worked long and unprofitably in directly assailing the errors of religious minds,— in contending with the prejudices or the convictions of those who already had a religion of their own, with which they were content. We hold that there is no more hopeless task, and that there ought to be no more hopeless task, than by direct assault to disturb religious convictions, so long as they minister to the piety and life of the hearts that entertain them. The only way to shake the belief of such minds is to exhibit

the presence and outward fruits of a Piety, Holiness, and Goodness, the loveliness of which they had not heretofore conceived, and which their own Faith will not produce. But so long as men are moved by no spiritual desires which their own faith does not supply, they are not ripe for change. The first preparation for conversion is in the stirring of a deeper religious life within the heart, and he who can excite that want, and kindle that love, will obtain a hearing for the faith that feeds it. No doubt the truth of certain views of God may be debated on grounds quite independent of such considerations, but no popular interest will wait upon the discussion. Now with

us this new interest in the fruits of our Faith has never been excited, nor have we always commenced our attempts at conversion by offering a diviner image to the heart. The world knows that we assail the Trinity, but it does not know that we have planted in its heart Christ's view of the Kingdom of God. The argument has been maintained on grounds external to the spirit of Religion,-grounds of criticism, interpretation, philology, history, philosophy. It is not by these argumentative demonstrations that any revival of the primitive spirit of Christianity is to be effected, any birth of spiritual impulses that, overlooking Doctrines and Forms, will unite men in the great affections which are the seminal principles of all grandeur of Thought, and nobleness of Life. We confess that we look for such a new birth of the original impulses of Religion in this Country,-and when it comes it will ally itself to that form of Christianity which is most real, practical, and simple, and which seeks the inspirations of God nearest to the fountain head,—and then not only will that Faith to which this new movement allies itself have a sudden spread and extension, but itself will take a purer leaven into its bosom, and break forth into more earnest and original forms:-and when we say original, we mean that originality which comes from the inspiration of the heart and the moral feelings, not akin to the discoveries of the Intellect, but to the impulses of Genius. It has always been that the regeneration of the world has come, not from any thing naturally expected to proceed out of its existing instruments, but from some fresh movement of the spirit of God,-but though from God, yet only to an age that is ripe for it, and in the fulness of Time.

If now it be asked when may this time be looked for, and what are the signs of its coming,-we believe that it will come whenever a fresh ground is prepared, and Christianity is sown again in a virgin soil,-whenever again the Poor crave the Gospel,-when the great popular mind becomes religious, as it

one day will,-when the people, especially the intelligent and educated part of them, feel the necessity for a Faith, a solemn and grand Trust to uphold the struggle of Existence, and yield them contentment and elevation in their places. Hitherto the people, justly dissatisfied with their social condition, but not educated into clear-sightedness, have been blindly casting about for some means of happier and better life:-Socialism,-Chartism,-Co-operative Institutions,-Political redemption, have all been looked to,-all of them proceeding partly from a right spirit, but essentially wanting in a religious element and the principle of a righteous self-government,-and all of them failures. This last the heart of the people is discovering that they cannot do without. When, the burden and oppression of the times will suffer this feeling to ripen into fruit, we dare not predict, but assuredly he knows little of the great Operative class, who doubts that they are in quest of some sentiment to give dignity to their life, self-respect and reverence for their own being and destinies,-to explain their condition to themselves,and whenever their cravings strongly set in a religious direction, they will not combine with that religion which has kept silence over their sufferings and wrongs, which in alliance with the supreme power opens not its mouth against the sins and burdens of Wars, Monopolies, and unequal Laws,-nor yet with that religion which with mystical metaphysics encounters the great facts of God, and the urgent wants of the tasked and yearning heart,-but will be drawn towards that faith, wherever it may be found, which brings the Life on earth into the closest practical connection with the love and care of God. have we not a Religion suited to the wants of men beginning to feel the spiritual requirements of their life,—and in whose existence there is nothing artificial to withdraw them from the realities of God? Have we not a religion to lift up sunken man, to make straight in the desert a highway for our God, to calm with great and gentle thoughts a brother's heart struggling against the inequalities of life? Certain it is, that our Faith has never yet been sown in this virgin soil. We have cast it amidst thorns of theology, already in possession of the ground, that have grown up and choked it. It is our especial duty now to be watching for this new spiritual soil which God is preparing, and to impregnate it with principles of life before it is wrested from us by more zealous hands. In this way, with this view, our faith has never yet been preached. The time is ripening,and we are waiting for our prophet. He will come in God's good time,-the Agent who is to give an impulse to this work. Meanwhile it is our glory to prepare for him, and be his fore

And

runners. The Ministry to the Poor, and the Education of the People, will make straight the way of the Lord.

And for ourselves, whilst our Liberty runs into no licentiousness, into no wantonness of thought, into no rash and irreverent haste in speaking of religious things, yet must we remember that Liberty is given to be used, in ever new approach to Light and God, and that he is not free but dead, who grows not in truth and power. It is a responsibility, which we do not feel enough, that, if we are right in our views of the Catholic nature of Christ's Church, the fates of the Gospel are, in some respects, committed to our hands,-not indeed that they depend upon us, but that God elects us to this service. To talk for Unitarianism, and in our lives brings disgrace on Christ, is the most direct way in which it is possible, in this age, to obstruct the truth and peace of the Gospel,-to betray the Son of Man with a kiss. Would to God that we were, at least, moved by the desire to realize some image of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, some works of Children of the Highest, and Brothers of Mankind, that would prove Faith by Love, and hasten the reign of righteousness and peace!

ART. II.-LOGIC, REASON, AND REVELATION.

A. So you have just finished the Memoir of Henry Martyn a second time. I am really surprised! That book contains so much of cant, or mysticism, or enthusiasm or-I do not know how to call it that I did not believe you would endure even one perusal.

B. I do not deny that the book in question contains sentiments and views which I entirely disapprove, and, to say the truth, are really painful to me-views and sentiments indeed, which some years ago would have completely disgusted me, and probably increased the many harrassing doubts on Christianity which, as you and all my friends know, have more or less existed in my mind since I re-embraced the Gospel upon my own conviction. But my faith (to use a Scripture phrase) is perfected in weakness.

A. What you also using cant! !

B. What! you who know me so intimately-can you believe your own charge or suspicion?

A. Well, that is exactly what bewilders me. I know you to be incapable of attempting deception. I hear you speak on theological subjects with a boldness which, in any other person, would be a sure indication of unbelief; and yet when I am hourly expecting to learn from yourself that you have shed the second slough, and stand on the square with the mass of thinking men in Europe, you baulk me with a strain of devotion which startles me. I rub my eyes, fearing that I have dreamt of you while talking with an evangelical old lady.—But do not be angry.

B. Far from it. You ought to recollect what I have often told you that my mind keeps a store of almost every thing, which affords a denomination to religious parties of the most opposite descriptions. Were it possible for any one to see that intellectual repository-and observe with how much care and attention fragments of every system are kept there, I should be strongly suspected of being nothing but a kind of religious antiquarian-a CURIOSO as the Spaniards denominate all collectors. No wonder, therefore, if I now and then bring out some shreds of evangelicism, as you call it. Indeed there is this essential difference between the Curiosos and myself-that they keep their collections for amusement; I keep mine for use.

A. Do you mean that your religious opinions and sentiments are taken from systems opposed to each other?

B. Unquestionably.

A. Are you in earnest ?