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M

THE

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

OF THS

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION.

VOLUME V.

BOSTON: AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION,

21 BI^OMFIELD STREET. 1858.

r-r- • • ■: " • ■•••

jt.

.r.\:^H

oahbbidoe: ifbtoalf and company, printers to the university.

CONTENTS.

No. I.

PAGB

Historical and Artistic Illastratioiis of the Trinity ... 1

The Brahmas 12

Limitations of Evil 18

The Cambridge Divinity School 27

Paris. By Rev. William Moontford 44

Fund for Liberal Christianity 62

A Well-grounded Hope, and not Infallible Certainty, the Object

aimed at by Divine Revelation. By Archbishop Whately 69

Our Fifth Volume 75

Se«niid Quarterly Heport of Home Missionary ... 79

V/iliiam Parsons Lunt 89

Antioch College 92

Extracts from Letters 110

Meetings of the Executive Committee 142

Notices of Books 144

Record of Events and General Intelligence . . . . 150

Acknowledgments 153

No. 11.

The Unitarian Denomination. By Rev. C. H. Brighain . .157

Politics of the New Testament 183

Lyons. By Rev. William Mountford 199

Revision of the English Bible 224

The Unitarians of Transylvania . . . . . , 234

Professors Baur and Lechler 242

Fourth Half-Yearly Report to the Calcutta Society . . . 244

Extracts from Letters 260

Home Missionary Report 268

Meetings of the Executive Committee . ' . . . . 276

Notices of Books 279

Record of Events and (General Intelligence .... 284

Acknowledgments 287

CCXTENTS.

No. III.

PAGE

d to our Friends 289

in Salvation 292

an Ignorance 294

Meade's Virginia 302

land. By Rev. William Mountford . . . .323

1 Leisure 348

Dostles' Creed 353

js of the Executive Committee 354

:s from Letters 358

Quarterly Report of the Home Missionary . . 387

•ies 391

of Books 395

of Events and General Intelligence .... 402

vledgments 405

No. IV.

rsian Doctrine of a Future Life : its Connection with Ju-

1 and Christianity ' 409

from Abroad. By Rev. William Mountford . . 437 lirty-third Anniversary of the American Unitarian Asso-

►n 457

Grangooly 548

ugustus R. Pope 550

5s of the Executive Committee ...... 558

of Books 563

of Events and General Intelligence 566

vledgments 569

OFFICERS

ICAN [TNIT^ilUAN ASSOCIATION

EracnrivE committke.

I. StU'IIEN FAtROAKKe, >

. HcNDT A. 3fiLEs, D.Dt Sxtrttars* Mis W- C-LJinx, Esq, Tnaiurer. .. Albert Peab<*.*o. . FiiKbRdtc H. HKbun, D.I>.

WiLLUK E. Ai.BEIl. V U. RpnBiis, Esq. fiN P. 'Mfjupri.B, Esq. . Hewbv W. Bm.»^iia, D.D.

OijoiwB W. Hoa-MKii, DJD.

Cakkcau pMjFiiEr, D.D.

"WiLuiAH G. Eliot. D.D.

■•The Oinco of the Association i« at 91 Brom-

I ' Sireet, Boslon. Tlir Summary will naual^

I Tf i.'icry dttj- from 13 to 2 ti'cloclt.

■■■linrioii- for Prt-rvtii'T-i may be made io tlio

HIP placp. Thi- oflif:fi

ill tbe RtHXiu of Uuj

[ inoin-y nmy Ik' made

,■, j-ifPiVL-iJ fur iho Q,«or-

.t»iiii.iil, — jifii.i: i>iil^ line Joliai p4!r umuut.

'^iiiiiiu'ij Uniuiriaii bookd fuc sole. Fu- pirioeil

■ mml page of cover.

THE

QUARTERLY JOURNAL.

Vol.. V. BOSTON, OCTOBER 1, 1857. No. 1.

HISTORICAL AND ARTISTIC ILLUSTRATIONS

OF THE TRINITY.

The time cannot be for distant for a re-discussion of tlie ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity. This is invited by modifications of opinion on the part both of the defenders and opposers of this doctrine. The Trinitarianisni that is most advocated at the present day falls far short of that Tritheism which was formerly preached ; while Unitarian- ism dwells more than it did a few years ago upon those higher relations of the Son of God which made him in one sense one with the Father. As we recede, also, farther and &rther from the times of a sharp and embittered controversy, we are able to approach a new survey of this subject with better temper, and candid minds on both sides may attain to a greater harmony of view.

Meanwhile there is one phenomenon which will arrest the attention of the Christian scholar of every name, — the wide- spread prevalence of Trinitarianism throughout Christciulom, and in all past ages. How is this fact to be explained ?

VOL. V. NO. T. 1

2 HISTOBICAL AND ABTISTIG

Was this a lawless aberration of the human mind ? Was this dogma a sheU, protecting ideas essentially true ? Have the forms in which it has been set forth been only the technical language of scholastics, while the real belief of the body of the Church has always conformed to primitive Unitarian sim- pHcity ? Or was the force of superstition so great in the pre-existing heathen mind as to occasion, unavoidably, and irresistibly, an erroneous deflection in the stream of Christian thought, which has lasted many centuries, and from which the ever-flowing current is now but just recovering ?

This last is the opinion of Dr. Beard, whose book * has eiven a title to this article. He finds two means of explor- ing liij i',\ i — iii i>ry and Art, By their aid he shows when t-io uoctriijc of the Trinity came' into the Church, points ou: I ho .- access ive stages of the growth of the dogma, tells us when it reached its culminating point, and enumer- ates the proofs of its gradual disappearance from the page of Christian history.

Perhaps the most valuable part of this work is the first fifty pages, which bring together the proofs that some notions of a triune Divinity had universally taken possession of the heathen mind prior to the birth of Christ. A brief survey of the literature of the Greeks, Bomans, Persians, Babylonians, and Egyptians develops the evidences of this truth with an extent of learning, and with a clearness and force, which we have not found in any other book. We are not ignorant that this fact has sometimes been used by Trinitarians as a proof of a providential preparation of the human mind to receive the alleged peculiar doctrine of the Gospel, — a use

* Historical and Artistic Illustrations of the Trinity ; showing the Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Doctrine. With Elucidatory En- gravings. By the Rev. J. R. Beard, D. D. 1 vol. Svo. 200 pages. For sale by the American Unitarian Association.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TRINITY. 8

which might have some plausibility if the Grospel gave the least countenance " to Grods many and Lords many," and did not give all its strength to reaffirm the ancient He- brew monotheism. It is a species of bold legerdemain which, after one has read of the Grecian ^ three-shaped goddess Diana"; of the Indian Brahma, Yishnoo, and Siva; of the Persian Mithras, Mithra, and Ormuzd ; of the Babylonian Tauthe, Apason, and Aoymis; of the Egyptian Amoun, Mout, and Chons, — can hold these up as more inspired sug- gestions of the essential nature of the Godhead than fell from the lips of him who said, ^^ Hear, O Israel ! the Lord thy God is one Grod." Of the successive steps by which these pagan conceptions of Grod came into the Church, infected the thought of the Church, and shaped the terminology of the Church, Dr. Beard gives fuU and interesting information. He says in his Preface : " The worth of this argument the writer must leave others to determine. To himself it ap- pears decisive. The Trinity sprang up in a hesCthen soiL It was imported into the Christian Church by men who had been heathen philosophers. It led in process of time to very great aberrations from the simple and strict monothe- ism of the primitive Church. If, as this volume professes to show, these are facts, then the Trinity was Christian neither in its origin nor in its effects. Such is the writer's con- viction ; a conviction carefully formed ; firmly yet humbly beheved ; and now set forth, with some array of evidence, under a deep sense of responsibility. "

But History is not the only method of exploring the past. In the case before us we have another aid. It is Art. This brings us to far the most curious part of this book. The prevailing ideas of the personality of God have been ex- pressed in every age by rude etchings, in the Catacombs, on monuments, on illuminated parchments, and on the windows

4 HISTORICAL AND ABTISTIC

of churches. Dr. Beard gives us copies of a large number of these representations, some of them dating as far back as the third century. And what interesting and instructive remains of past ages they are ! We see the process by which the idea of God was materialized, and the glory of the Creator given to others, just as clearly as we can read the age of the world by strata of earth ; and the idea of all forgery and mistake is equally precluded.

Now that our author has gone into this subject so fully, and has presented us so many curious details, we only won- der that he has been the first to reap this rich field. To give an icica of the light which Art here sheds upon the sub- ject of the Trinity, we shall now quote a few of the con- cluding pages of this book, referring our readers to the book itself, where they will find the engravings by which the fol- lowing remarks are illustrated.

"It is a very significant fact, and in complete agreement with the general doctrine of this essay, that no trace of a pictorial rep- resentation of the Trinity is found in the purer ages of the Church. There does not exist a complete group of the Trinity, in the most ancient remains of Christian art. You may frequently see Jesus, but alone, or accompanied by the dove, representing the Holy Spirit You also behold a hand, intended to be that of the Father, which holds a crown over the head of his Son, but in the absence of his Spirit. Crosses and lambs, which symbolize the Son ; hands, which reveal the Father ; doves, which set forth the Holy Spirit, are often seen, painted in fresco, or sculptured in marble. But these symbols are almost always insulated, rarely united in the same place, or on the same monument ; never grouped together. Not before the fourth century do we find an artistic representation of the Trinity, when one appeared, executed in mosaic work, in the church of St. Felix, built at Nola, by its bishop, Paulinus. These lines were made by Paulinus to explain the images : —

Pleno coroscat Trinitas mysterio. Stat Christus agno, vox Patris ccelo tonat, Et per columbam spiritos sanctus flnit.

ILLUSTRATIONS OP THB TBINITT. 0

Whence we learn, that a lamh represented Jesns, a voice thunder- ing in the heavens the Father, and a dove the Holy Spirit ; but in v^hat way the voice was made an object of sight, we are not in- formed. Similar emblems of the Trinity are found in the ensuing centuries. In a less ancient type of the Trinity, the Father ap- pears as an old man ; the Son is represented by a cross, and the Holy Ghost by a cock. With the lapse of time, Christian art be- came more bold and florid. Two chief sources furnished images, — the human form, and geometrical figures. Anthropomorphism, which would have revolted the primitive Christians, and which could not have failed to call up the idea of paganism in their minds, found little resistance in the darker periods of the Middle Ages. The Eternal Father, of whom men had ventured to exhibit only a hand, or, at most, the bust, was now seen in a full-length figure. Frequently, however, he took not a special form, but bor- rowed that of his Son, whence it is sometimes difficult to distin- guish the one from the other. The Son himself continued to appear under the figure of a tall man, with a beauty and gravity of expression, whose age was from thirty to five-and-thirty years. The Holy Spirit quitted his veil of a dove, in order to take the human form. As the * true faith ' declared that the three were equal, so the artist preserved a similarity, an equality between the three persons. St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 908, has lefl a manuscript in which the three are figured under the human form. The Father and the Son, attired as kings, with crowns on their heads, and sceptres in their hands, have the ap- pearance of being about thirty-four years old. The Spirit is younger, not exceeding eighteen years. In this way his proces- sion from the Father and Son was denoted. This difierence soon disappears, and the three become exactly alike. Such is the case in a figure of the Trinity taken from a manuscript of the twelfth century, in which the three are identical.

" We have already referred to the triangle as an emblem of the Trinity ; the circle also was employed for the same end, as appears by this representation of the Trinity, copied from a French minia- ture of the thirteenth century, in which the doctrine is set forth under the form of three intersecting circles.

1*

> HISTORICAL AND ABTISTIO

** In the next illustration Anthropomorphism unites itself with jeometry in order to symbolize the Trinity. The cut, showing a ;riangle inscribed in a circle, which comprises the form of a vener- aible human figure, is introduced to depict the unity in trinity, and ^inity in unity, of Athanasianism. The original is a German en- D^raving of the sixteenth century.

'•*' The application of mathematical figures, and other visible em- blems, in order to indicate the supposed perfections of deity, is ilustrated in the cut, in which Yishnoo, with three arms on each side, is depicted as so inscribed in two squares, as to occupy at the same time four triangles.

*' Aided by Roman, idolatry, which represented the personifica- tion of time as having two faces (Janus bifrons). Christian artists set forth the Trinity as one body with three countenances, making a Christian Janus, who is celebrating the new year with good sheer. The cut is from a French miniature of the fourteenth Bentury.

'* Our next illustration shows the three divine heads attached to )ne body, trinity in unity. It is taken from an Italian engraving 9f the fifteenth century.

** The fullest representation of the Trinity is that which ensues, n which three similar and united heads are seen on one body, a ;ype which began to appear in the ninth, but was not brought to jerfection till the sixteenth century, which. is the date of our figure.

** Here the representation is complete. Besides the triple vis- ige, and the complex triangle, a motto declares the doctrine, which, f read from the comers towards the centre, runs thus : * The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God ' ; but if re^d from comer to corner, states : * The Father is not the Son, ;he Father is not the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not the Son.'

" In some instances the artists, with especial theological aim, studied to exhibit either the equality of the persons, or the dis- inctions which were supposed to exist between them. If equality s intended to be set forth, the persons are depicted in every respect ;he same. If diversity, then the Spirit is made younger, the Father older, and the Son of a medium age ; or the Spirit has a

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THB TBINITY. 7

book, to denote intelligence ; the Son a cross, to denote benevo- lent sufl^ring ; the Father a globe, to denote dominion. The im- perial, or papal crown, distinguishes the Father ; the crown of thorns, the Son ; the absence of a crown, the Holy Spirit. In the engraving, (from an -old French miniature of the sixteenth century,) unity and diversity seem to be equally well attained.

'' Sometimes action is attempted to be described in images of the Trinity, as in this, of the thirteenth century, in which the Father is beheld communicating the Holy Spirit to the Son.

'' The contemplation of the human mind furnished an illustra- tion of the Trinity. Its power represented the Father, its goodness the Son, its wisdom the Holy Ghost. But the mind, may be bad as well as good. Nay, in consequence of the fall of man, the mind was more inclined to evil than to good. Hence it became the emblem of wickedness, and of wickedness in the highest de- gree. As, however, when regarded as good, it appeared under three aspects, so its evil presented itself most fully when depicted in a triple form. If the fulness of good required for its complete exhibition a triune figure, equally was such a figure necessary in order to set before men's eyes the thorough heinousness of sin.. Thus the Trinity, with the necessary modifications in each case, became the symbol of absolute evil as well as of absolute good. And as trinal figures were the established and recognized means for exhibiting God • in all his perfections, so they came into use, also, for setting forth the great principle of evil. The following exhibits Satan invested with trinitarian attributes, which, in order to depict the magnitude and terror of sin, surpass in number and intensity those which are commonly ascribed to the Almighty. He has three heads on the lower parts of the body, three or four on his chest, and three on his shoulders, the last being surmounted by three long spiny horns. He bears in his left hand a sceptre, crowned with three monstrous heads. As the sceptre points out the prince of the powers of darkness, so the fetters by which he is fastened to his throne indicate that limits are set to his power, by one mightier than he. This cut is copied from a French miniature of the fifteenth century.

8 HISTORICAL AND ARTISTIC

'< In this case, also, the corrupters of Christianity had pagan luthority. Geryon, fabled to have been king of the southwestern mrt of Spain, and, on account of a triple army, three sons, and hree islands, termed by the poets three-fold^ three-headed, and three- wdied, who, after his death, was changed into Cerberus, the dog jf^ith three heads that watched at the gates of the Infernal Regions, a described by Ovid (Heroides, Ep. ix. 91 - 94) as a threefold prodigy, yet one in three :

* Prodigiumque triplex, armenti dives Iberi, Geryones : quamvis in tribus units erat.^

'* How near Christendom was to having a quaternity, may be learnt from the cut, in which the Virgin is represented as a con- stituent member of the Godhead. This curious relic is copied from an engraving given in Dibdin's * Northern Tour,' from a rep- resentation of the Trinity, on stamed glass, in the church of St. Trinity, at York (Vol. I. pp. 203, 204).

** The imminence of the danger is shown by the Old Chapter Seal of the Durham Cathedral, in which Father, Son, and Holy Grhost, together with the host of heaven, are described as combin- ing to pay the highest honors to the Virgin.

" From Burnet,* it appears that the Virgin was made a part of ;he Deity, and that religious worship was offered to images of the Trinity, even so late as the period immediately preceding the Refor- nation. His words are : * There were in the Churches some im- iges of so strange a nature, that it could not be denied that they iiad been abused. Such was the image of the blessed Trinity, ivhich was to be censed on the day of the Innocents, by him that nras made the Bishop of the Children. This shows that it was used on other days, in which it is like it was censed by the Bishop ivhen he was present. How this image was made, can only be fathered from the prints that were of it at that time ; in which the Father is represented sitting on the one hand as «Ln old man with a triple crown and rays about him, the Son on the other hand as a young man with a crown and rays, and the blessed Virgin be- tween them, and the emblem of the Holy Ghost, a Dove spread

* History of the Reformation, Part ii. B. 1.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TBINITY. 9

over her head. So it is represented in a fair book of the Hours according to the use of Sarum, printed Anno 1596. The impiety of this did raise horror in most men's minds, virhen that inconceiv- able mystery was so grossly expressed. Besides, the taking of the Virgin into it v^as done in pursuance of what had been said by some blasphemous Friars, of her being assumed into the Trini- ty. In another edition of these it is represented by three faces formed in one Head.'

'' The reader is not to imagine that these illustrations of the Trinity relate exclusively to past ages. One effect of the Refor- mation in this country was to destroy the painted and sculptured appeals which had been made to the senses, on behalf of what was thought Christian doctrines; but though the Reformation greatly diminished, it did not wholly remove, these sensible images and symbols ; and in Catholic countries, that is to say, in the greater part of Christendom, they abound at the present day. We mention, as an exemplification, the most recent instance that we have met with in our reading. ' At Mdhocs (in Hungary) I came upon a company of people, doing homage before a group of im- ages, designed to represent the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, mounted on three gilded Corinthian columns. At the next comer of the street was an equally sacred and grotesque statue of the Virgin, clad in a gaudy gilt petticoat and winter shawl, with a baby in her arms, all overspread with a huge umbrella.' *

'^ As might be expected, and as is still the case in the popular theology, the Son, from the position which orthodoxy makes him hold, is frequently found to displace the Father in the monuments of Christian art. A crowd of these, which represent the creation, and other scenes of the Bible, in which the Father is made by the Scriptures the sole actor, exhibit, not the Father, but the Son, who is recognized, if not by his name, graven or painted, yet by attri- butes which are peculiar to him. In the ensuing, from a fresco of the ninth century, Jesus, with his name, appears creating Adam, who is known by the inscription seen under the tree, which de- scribes him as ' the first made.'

* Travels by the Rev. J. OUn, D. D., Vol. II. p. 475.

10 HISTOBICAL AND ABTISTIC

Indeed, the Father seems to have heen almost lost from view. Panselinos undertook to teach painters how, among other things, they should represent Moses before the burning bush. These are his instructions : — * Moses unfastening his sandal ; around him flocks. Before Moses is the burning bush, on the middle and summit of which shines the Virgin and her child. Near Mary, an angel looks towards Moses. On another side of the bush, Moses again standing erect, with one hand extended, and the other bearing a staff.' Thus, not only was Jesus substituted in place of the Father, but Mary, also, was introduced into a subject which referred to a period fourteen hundred years before her birth.

*' Among the Greeks, at the bottom of the great cupolas that cover the centre of the churches, there appears a gigantic figure of the Almighty, or (6 iravTOKpar&p) the Pantocrator, as they des- ignate him, painted on a ground of gold in fresco. This being blesses believers from the height of this heaven of art, with his right hand, while in his left he holds a book. Who this being is intended to represent, remains without a doubt, for, to say nothing of a certain appearance, too young for * the Ancient of days,' let- ters above his shoulders set forth that it is Jesus Christ (IC XC, lrj(rovs Xpiaros) ; and on the page of the book which he holds in his hand, you read his own words, — * I am the light of the world.' We subjoin the figure of Jesus Christ, represented as the Al- mighty, from a fresco painting at Salamis, of the eighteenth cen- tury. Other instances, drawn from much earlier periods of Chris- tian art, might be given.

" To the same effect honors are shown to the Son in prefer- ence to the Father. In position, the left, the lower, and the cir- cumference are less honorable than the right, the top, and the centre. The places of honor are often conceded to Jesus Christ. This is strikingly exemplified in the ornamental parts of the na- tional church of France, Notre-Dame de Paris. On this point Didron (1689) remarks: * Notre-Dame de Paris shows little re- spect to the Eternal Father ; but, on the contrary, it has a thou- sand marks of tenderness for Jesus Christ : his are all the honors, his the triumph.' The same writer adds : ' When God the Father is brought forward, he is frequently presented in eccentric, gross.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TRINITY. 11

odious, and even cruel light. Thus, on a capital of Notre-Dame du Pont, at Clermont, you see him inflicting blows with his fist on the guilty Adam, whose beard an angel is seizing and tearing away. In a Latip manuscript belonging to the Royal Library, God himself is represented as driving Adam and Eve out of Paradise, by shooting arrows at them, just as Apollo in the Iliad pursues the Greeks. In a Psalter, in the same library, of the end of the twelfth century, God is many times described as holding in his hands a bow, arrows, a spear, and a sword. Art made Jehovah formidable, in order to draw aside the mystic souls of the Mid- dle Ages, and direct them entirely to Jesus Christ, the God of love.' The author sums up the results of his researches on this point in these words : * Either God the Father is entirely absent on the figured monuments ; or, if he is present, you see only an in- considerable portion. As to the portion itself, it is not always placed honorably ; or it performs an unbecoming part. The Son, on the contrary, is always present, even when not expected ; he is always represented in a worthy manner, always in an honor- able place.' "

• We must not close- our notice of this book without adding that it contains elaborate criticisms upon all the leading Trin- itarian proof texts. Nor is Dr. Beard a mere critic or his- torian. The following suggestive passage will show that he is also a philosopher and theologian : —

" Great and lamentable, too, as w6re the corruptions of Atha- nasianism, they had a more logical basis, and were arrived at by a more logical process than could be employed in behalf of Ari- anism. The Scriptural doctrine of the Logos is compatible with the humanity of Christ ; his pre-existence is not. The doctrine of the God-man is legitimate, though an extravagant deduction from the materials supplied by Scripture ; but whatever he was, Jesus Christ was certainly not an angel, nor the chief of angels, for, beyond a question, he was a man. Trinitarianism is only the divine element carried to an excess. True that excess in- volves absurdity. The argument for the Trinity is in its last result a theological reductio ad absurdum ; but the absurdity

12 THE BBAHMAS.

comes not out till the last; whereas Arianism implies the ab- surdity at the very beginning, for in no way can it be made out that a pre-existent spirit is a man. A pre-existent personality sat- isfies, indeed, neither of the conditions required in the Scriptural account of Jesus, who there appears as a man who had the Spirit of God without measure."

THE BRAHMAS.

Evidences of interest in higher and more generous ^iews of religion are not confined to the Christian world. From the lands of Eastern Paganism, cheering signs reach lis of a new coming of Christ. The religious aspect of [ndia is peculiarly interesting. After remaining dormant ibr ages, it has caught the quickening breath of a new civil- zation. The old systems of idolatry no longer command mplicit belief. With the influx of new ideas from the Western world and the diffusion of knowledge, the tena- cious hold of superstition has been broken, and the scepti- ;ism premonitory of its downfall has already appeared. The spirit of inquiry has been awakened, and a new impulse jommunicated to the native mind.

With regard to religion, this change in the mental habits )f the people is manifested in two ways. The younger por- ion of the community, whose minds have not been deeply mbued with the national faith, perceiving its statements to )e at variance with the facts of modem science, in which hey have been initiated, abandon it altogether, and boldly Lvow their disbelief in every form of faith. Rejoicing in heir newly found freedom, they will be slow to appreciate

V

THE BBAHMAS. 13

the higher liberty wherewith Christ maketh his disciples fiee. Bat the more moderate of the progressive part of the people, reluctant to relinquish their time-honored religion, yet perceiving that it must either be reformed or abandoned, endeavor to effect such changes in it as will adapt it to the growing wants of the mind.

The earliest to perceive the necessity of this change was the celebrated Rammohun Boy. Long before he became a Christian, it had been a favorite project with him to reform the EQndoo religion. And for several years he endeavored to disentangle what was true and divine in it from the accre- tions of error which it had gathered in the lapse of ages. He made it a main object of his life to establish in his na- tive country a sect, the keystone of whose faith should be the pure doctrine, taught alike, he contended, by Manu and by Moses, by Jesus Christ and by Mohammed, — the doc- trine of the unity of the Deity. He found means to enHst in this enterprise some of the most intelligent and respecta- ble of his countrymen ; and in order to give a public ex- pression of their opinions, and to promote the reforms which they had commenced, they established in Calcutta, in the year 1828, a regularly organized society, which they denom- inated the Brahm Sumaj, or an assemblage of the wor- shippers of Brahm, the Supreme God. Their numbers were not large, but their intelligence and respectability, and the novelty of their sentiments, excited considerable atten- tion. In the year following their organization, they erected a chapel " for the worship and adoration of the eternal, un- searchable, and immutable Being, who is the author and preserver of the universe." Not long subsequent to the establishment of this institution, Rammohun Roy, partly in nilfihnent of a purpose to travel in Europe which he had long cherished, and partly for the transaction of official busi- VOL. V. NO. I. 2

14 THE BRAHMA S.

ness, left India, and, after a sojourn of two or three years in England and in France, died in the former country in 1838. After his departure, the memhers of the Brahm Sumaj lost their interest in the objects for which it was organized. It gradually declined, and for several years nothing more was heard of it.

But the causes which led to its original institution contin- ued to operate with redoubled force, and in 1839 it was revived, or rather a new society was formed under a new name, the Tattwabadhini Sabha, embracing its main objects, and based upon a more perfect organization. Their avowed object was the propagation of their opinions. For this pur- pose they formed branch societies, and established schools in several large cities. They collected a library of relig- ious works in Sanscrit, Bengali, and English. They pro- cured a printing-press, and issued a journal defending the tenets of their body, and urging the Hindoos to accept them. They have also published many religious works, in Sanscrit, Bengali, and English. Though retaining several of the main features of Hinduism, it has been their object to re- fine upon it, and to form as consistent a system as possible. But they have been embarrassed by their inability to deter- mine what to reject and what to retain. In 1850, they issued a work containing a declaration of their principles, together with the formulary of faith subscribed by the mem- bers of their society. In this they say : " The doctrines of the Brahmas, or spiritual worshippers of God, are founded upon a broader and more unexceptionable basis than the Scriptures of any single religious denomination on the earth. The volume of nature is open to all, and that volume con- tains a revelation clearly teaching, in strong and legible characters, the great truths of religion and morality, giving as much knowledge of our state after death as is necessary

THB BRAHMAS. 15

for tlie attaininent of fxitnre blessedness ; yet adapted to the present state of our mental faculties. Now, as the Hindu religion contains notions of God and of human duty which coincide with that revelation, we have availed ourselves of extracts from works which are the great depositories of the national faith, and which have the advantage of national association on their side, for disseminating the principles of pure religion among our countrymen."

In some respects they appear to have departed from the principles of their founder. In others, they manifest a less liberal and enlightened spirit.

1. The institution of caste is still retained by them, though not made prominent in the published expositions of their principles. In their intercourse among themselves and with others, they carefully conform to its requirements ; and they have zealously opposed those who have favored the abolition of the restrictions to social intercourse it imposes. It is not strange that they should cling to an institution incorporated with their entire social and religious system, and identified with all their habits of thought. Its complete removal, ear- nestly hoped for in some quarters as the result of the recent insurrections in India, would be equivalent to the subversion of their existing state of society, which is the outgrowth of it, and to the introduction of new and Christianized thought. The errors of this artificial separation of men into inflexible orders cannot at once be entirely obliterated from the Indian mind. Meanwhile, the disabilities imposed will constitute, as long as they last, an almost invincible barrier to the rapid extension of Christianity.

2. The Brahmas retain the doctrine of the transmigra- tion of souls in their system of reformed theology. Those who are not prepared at death for eternal felicity, must be subjected to successive births on earth, until they are fitted

16 THE BBAHMAS.

for the enjoyments of the heavenly state. Concerning this subject, they say : '< The man who is ignorant and impure is not admitted to the presence of Brahm at death, but returns to the world. The wise man, having gained that dignity, is bom no more. The man who in this world is able to know God, accomplishes the object of his birth ; having perceived Grod, he is removed entirely from this world, and dies no more."

3. They believe in gods of an inferior order, correspond- mg in some degree to the Christian idea of angels, but ren- der them no worship. The great advance which they have made upon their countrymen is their rejection of idolatry. The Brahmas are entirely distinct from the Brahmins, who are, without exception, polytheists. They are solemnly pledged to maintain the absolute unity and spirituality of the Deity.

Their religious principles, as published in the authorized exponent of their system, are the following : —

1. Before the production of this world, there existed only the Supreme Brahm ; nothing else existed whatsoever ; He created all things.

2. He is wisdom, eternity, joy, and goodness, personified ; the everlasting ruler of all ; all-wise ; without form ; one )nly, without a second ; most wonderful in power.

3. From his worship alone is happiness produced, both iiere and hereafter.

4. That worship consists in loving him, and performing ictions which give him pleasure.

Their simple form of initiation consists in subscribing to he following declaration of their principles.

"1. This day, the day of the month of , in the

^ear ^ I adopt the religion of the worshippers of

Brahm.

THB BRAHMAS. 17

<< 2. I will live devoted to the worship of that Supreme Brahm, who is the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer of the universe ; the cause of deliverance ; all-wise ; all-per- vading; fiill of joy; the good; and without form. I will worship him with love, and by doing what will give him pleasure.

"3. I will worship no created thing as the Supreme Brahm, the Creator of all.

" 4. Except on days of sickness or calamity, I will every day, when my mind shall be at rest, in faith and love fix my thoughts on the Supreme. " 5. I will live earnest in the practice of good deeds. " 6. I will endeavor to live free from evil deeds. " 7. If, overcome by temptation, I perchance do anything evil, I will surely desire to be freed from it, and be careful for the future.

" 8. Every year, and in all worldly prosperity, I will offer gifts to the Brahm Sumaj.

" O God, grant unto me strength, that I may entirely ob- serve this excellent religion."

Since the time of Rammohun Roy, there have arisen twenty-four societies of this order, ten or twelve of which still survive. The average number of members has some- what exceeded five hundred yearly. These societies hold a regular weekly meeting. Two or three hundred persons usually assemble. No discussion is allowed in the place of worship ; but their meetings are open to all, whether mem- bers of their society or not. Their service consists of read- ing monotheistic sentences selected from the Veds. A few of these are chanted by a portion of the congregation. Once in about two months a sermon or lecture is delivered by their leader, or by some person of his selection. The service is concluded with a hymn, sung by a hired singer

2*

18 LOaTATIONS OF BVIL.

in the peculiar Oriental style, accompanied by Bengali in- struments of music

The existence of this body of monotheists is significant of the change which has been wrought in the mind of India during the last quarter of a century. "Whatever influence we may think them likely to exert, one thing, at least, is certain : the bonds of the old superstition have been burst ; the incubus of thirty centuries has been liiled from the pant- ing bosom of that mighty country. The reformation in the- ology which Rammohun Roy inaugurated, and of which the Brahmas have been the advanced pioneers since his time, has been opposed with the malignant hatred of a supersti- tion which perceived itself to be slipping from its ancient foothold. But, in spite of all opposition, it has steadily ad- vanced, and, with the diffusion of liberal ideas, the leading minds have become impressed with the necessity of reform. And though they may but feebly apprehend the wants of their age, and their resources be inadequate to meet them, yet they are building wiser than they know, and we hail their efforts as auspicious omens of that brighter day, when the nations of the world shall become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ.

A.

LIMITATIONS OF EVIL.

Laws and restrictions, checks and balances, are imposed on all created things. Opposite tendencies, counteracting each other, and rendering all things safe from ruinous ex- tremes, everywhere exist. We stand by the angry ocean.

LIMITATIONS OF EVIL. 19

The waves beat and break against the shore, rising higher and higher for a considerable length of time, and threaten- ing to overflow and inundate the land. But we look again, and all cause for fear is removed. The waves recede. The swelling tide rolls back, leaving rocks, and sands, and islands bare, and threatening now to abandon its old domain. Thus the ocean has its bounds, which it cannot pass. God has said to it : '^ Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further ; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." These are not the effects of chance, but such as result from the operation of immu- table principles and eternal laws. And so it is through uni- versal nature. So it is in the moral and spiritual world, as well as in that of matter.

Opposite forces, instead of tending to destroy, serve to bind the universe together, and to preserve order and har- mony throughout the whole. Opposite forces guide the planets in their orbits, and direct and control the motions of every sun and system. Sometimes one of these forces be- comes predominant, and sometimes the other. Hence the elliptical paths of the planets, the acceleration and the retar- dation, by turns, of the planetary motions, and the extremes of light and heat, and of darkness and cold, to which they are alternately subjected. If but one of these forces existed, the tendency of all things would be to inevitable destruction. Take away, for instance, the force of projection, and all the planets belonging to the system would fall at once upon the sun, and all the systems in the universe would rush together, producing confusion more intricate than the primeval chaos. Take away that of attraction, and all would be inmiediately dispersed, wandering for ever through the blackness and emptiness of space. Both, acting together, may produce inequalities, but they render all things secure. They may cause the orbs of heaven sometimes to approach each other,

20 LIMITATIONS OF EYIL.

and sometimes to recede ; but they also fiz< the bounds be- yond which they cannot go, and within which they cannot stop. " Thus far, and no farther," is the fiat of the all-con- trolling Mind, and that fiat must be obeyed.

Disturbing influences arise from these causes ; planet act- ing upon planet, and system upon system, and changing the forms of their orbits, and the times of their revolution. Some of these effects are very observable, and may be dis- cerned at short intervals. Some of them are slight, and can only be detected after the lapse of centuries. It was from data of this nature, that Leverrier, sitting down in his study, predicted the existence of a planet beyond the orbit of Uranus, calculated its distance and dimensions, and gave directions to observers in different places where they must point their telescopes in order to find it. The prediction was wonderfully verified.

By a series of observations, it had been found, that, in consequence of these disturbing influences, the orbits of sev- eral of the planets were slowly diminishing. It therefore became evident, that, if this process of diminution were to go on without interruption, they must eventually become stationary at the centre. Some astronomers set themselves at work to calculate the length of time that must elapse be- fore the system would thus be destroyed. Other astrono- mers, however, wiser than they, succeeded in demonstrating the fact, that the same causes which were operating at one time to contract the orbits of the planets, would operate at another time to enlarge them ; that these changes would always occur at regular intervals, and that, after a sufficient lapse of time, everything would return to its original form and place. Thus all fear of such a catastrophe was for ever removed. And here, again, we find that the same law was imposed upon other worlds as upon our own. God said to

LIBIITATIONS OF EVIL. 21

them, also, even as he said to the waves of the deep, ^ Thus far, and no farther."

There are analogies and correspondences between the out- ward, visible, and the inward, spiritual worlds ; and the same law of opposite tendencies and forces, of changes, and checks, and compensations, extends to both. There are disturb- ances and irregularities belonging to one as well as to the other. There are influences which operate upon the soul to draw it aside from the path of virtue, and to hasten or retard its progress, causing it sometimes to approach, and some- times to recede from the great central Sun about which it revolves, " the Father of lights, with whom there is no varia- bleness nor shadow of turning." But these also have their bounds, which they cannot pass. Here, also, we find that universal law, " Thus far, and no farther " ; and thus the moral universe is rendered secure.

The two forces which act in this manner upon the soul, affecting the condition of individuals, society, and the world, are represented in the Scriptures under the names of " the flesh " and " the spirit," " the law in the members, and the law of the mind." And it is written : " The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh ; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." It is also written : " To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not.

I find, then, a law, that when I would do good, evil

is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man ; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."

By the terms " flesh " and " the law in the members," as thus employed by the Apostle Paul, are obviously intended the lower animal instincts and propensities. They are such

22 LIMITATIONS OF EVIL.

as belong to man, in common with the whole brute creation ; as, the natural appetites, anger, pride, jealousy, combative- ness, and things of a like nature. These all tend to impel the soul in one direction ; to bring it under the control of sense; to concentrate all things in self; to draw it down- ward, and bind it to the earth. By the term ^^ spirit" is meant everything pertaining to the higher spiritual nature, as rea- son, conscience, the love of the true and the good, the desire for the holy and pure ; all things, in short, which serve to elevate the nature of man above that of the brute. The tendency of these things is to lift the soul heavenward, and to bear it onward in the path of everlasting progress.

These two opposite tendencies are both necessary, in order to enable man to accomplish the purposes of his crea- tion, and to fulfil the destiny which awaits him. It seems to be most evident, that God would never have created man with a constitution unsuited to the ends for which it was bestowed, and to the circumstances of his condition. He would never have implanted within the breast of man in- stincts and propensities which are sinful in themselves, or which it would be wrong in all cases, and in any degree, to indulge. He would not have conferred upon us either nat- ural or moral endowments intended for no use, or for no other purpose than to do us harm. Thus we might reason from the nature and character of God, and the argument would seem entirely conclusive. But let us look at the mat- ter in a different light. Let us take a view of the facts themselves.

What is the true state of the case in reality ? Are there no important purposes to be answered by these animal in- stincts and passions? Is there a single one of them all, which was not intended for some good end ? All of them are to be found in the lower orders of the animal creation, —

LIMITATIONS OF EYIL. 23

in natures that are incapable of moral action. Can they be regarded as sinful in them ? No one can well deny that, in all such cases, at least, they were bestowed for some wise and benevolent purpose. But man is an animal, no less than a spiritual being, and therefore requires the same nat- ural endowments. Are not the animal appetites essential, not only to the enjoyment, but to the very preservation, of animal life ? Were not the passions intended for anything good ? Is it not possible, in accordance with the precept of the Apostle, to " be angry and sin not " ? May there not be occasions when anger is not merely excusable, but perfectly justifiable ? If not, how is the fact that Jesus, upon one occasion, is said to have looked about upon his unbelieving countrymen ^ with anger," to be reconciled with the perfect sinlessness of his character ? And so we may inquire with reference to all other animal instincts. It is not the posses- sion of them, and it is not the legitimate action of them, but rather the unrestrained indulgence of them, that constitutes sin.

What would the efifect be, if no such tendencies existed, and no such influences were exerted ? We might be fitted for a purely spiritual existence ; but we should be extremely ill fitted to live in this gross, material world. And what would be the consequence, if none but these animal instincts belonged to us ? We might be as well adapted, perhaps, to this mere earthly, sensuous life, as other animals are ; but not to a higher and better. In neither case should we be fitted for the stations we occupy ; nor to remain just such beings as we are. Our animal nature or our spiritual na- ture would become extinct. Both tendencies operating to- gether, although in antagonistic relations, combine their effects, and qualify us for the position which we occupy, and its intimate connection with both worlds.

24 LIMITATIONS OF EVIL.

But now we observe the disorderly effects produced by the influence of earthly upon the spiritual ; — the disturbing pow- er of animal propensities over the higher aspirations of the soul ; — " the law in the members warring against the law of the mind." In the material world, we call these temporary and partial derangements, produced by the action of planet upon planet, as one or another is deflected from its course, perturbations, or periodic and secular variations. In the moral world, we call the corresponding disturbances and irregularities by the more common and intelligible names, error and sin.

Moral evils, like the physical disarrangements to which reference has been made, have also their periodicity. They rise, and culminate, and decline. They disappear for a time, as if they had finally passed away; then revive, and all come round again in the same order as before. At this day many strange opinions are afloat, and many erroneous doc- trines are inculcated. But a very small proportion of these, however, are really new, in whatever manner they may be regarded, either by their advocates or opposers. They are merely old errors reappearing, — old speculations starting up afresh. The modem Millerism, in all its essential features, dates back almost or quite to the origin of Christianity, and has often, within that period, been embraced as a new dis- covery, and inculcated as a "new doctrine." The same may be said of Deism, Pantheism, Atheism, and many of the peculiar tenets received among Christians, and regarded as things of modern invention. So, likewise, vices, and all the grosser forms of wickedness, whether considered with reference to individuals or communities, usually go on in- creasing, till they reach their climax, and then they begin to diminish and subside. Like the disturbances in the plan- 3tary systems, they ultimately correct themselves. Evil

LIMITATIONS OP EVIL. 25

principles and evil practices must necessarily result in evil consequences. Otherwise, there would be no adequate rea- son for regarding them as evil. • These consequences are the penalties, not vindictive, but disciplinary and corrective, which Grod has affixed to the violation of his laws. When men have suffered from them enough,, they will learn to avoid them, by^ avoiding the causes which produce them. The law of the spirit prevails for a time over the law in the members, and holds these evil propensities in check. But by and by the temptations again return, and the animal nature yields ; the law of the flesh obtains the ascendency, and sin once more reigns. Thus the orbit becomes complete. The same results are witnessed in communities and na- tions, as in the case of individuals. They begin with pro- clivities to social wrongs and vices. They continue on, corrupting themselves more and more, until the evil has reached the highest point of endurance ; then the opposing influences obtain control, and gradually work a change for the better. " Old things pass away," and " all things be- come new." The old civilization ends, and a new civiliza- tion begins. Thus Egypt and Greece, where learning was first nurtured, and where the light of science first dawned, relapsed once more into a state of barbarism, from which they are now but just emerging. Thus our Christian civil- ization, which at first shone out with so great a degree of brightness, was rendered dim and obscure in the night of the Dark Ages, and is now regaining its original lustr^. Sometimes these changes are effected in comparatively brief intervals, and sometimes they require the lapse of many centuries in order to complete the circuit. But there is one thing that is rendered very evident from facts of this nature. Evil in the moral world, as well as in the material, has its limits, which it cannot transcend. God has said to it, as he

VOL. V. NO. I. 3

26 LIMITATIONS OP EVIL.

said to the surging sea, '^ Hitherto shalt thoa come, but no further ; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed."

We are accustomed to lament the introduction into the world of what we denominate evil ; but doubtless, so far as . depends upon the plans and purposes of an all-wise Creator, things are best as they are. It is not probable that man would be able to improve them, even if he should try. Those disturbing causes which astronomers observe in the heavens, and the effects of which they are able to calculate and predict with so much accuracy and precision, do not in- terrupt in the least the general order and harmony of the universe. And so those irregularities and perturbations . which occur in the moral world do not interfere in the least with the general plan of the Divine government. Evil is not evil, except in its pailial relations, but is doubtless in- tended, in a way which we may not be able to comprehend, to conduce to a greater ultimate good. The centrifugal force, even when the strongest, can never detach a single planet from the sun. However far it may wander away, it must eventually return. The force of attraction will inevi- tably bring it back. And so, it may be inferred, the sinful propensities of human nature may not be able to detach per- . manently a single soul from God. However erratic may be a person's course, it will be impossible for him to pass be- yond the attraction of the Divine love. And however far he may be borne away by the " law of the flesh," the higher law of the spirit may at length prevail, and hasten his return. God is the source and the centre of all created intelligences. All souls have their orbits about God.

This is a consoling view of Divine Providence, and of man's nature and destiny. " Thou art my hope in the day of evil," was the pious ejaculation of the prophet ; and happy are they who can adopt it as their own. The day of evil

THB OAMBBmaE DIYINITT SCHOOL. 27

will not always last. This hope remains for all, even in life's darkest hours. God has ordered all things well, and all things will work for good to them that love him. This is a truth which will afford "strong consolation" amid all earthly vicissitudes. '

" All natnre is bat art anknown to thee, All chance, direction which thou canst not see, All discord, harmony not understood, All partial evil, uniyersal good."

This is a thought that is well fitted to afford comfort and support) amid all the strifes and convulsions, the sufferings and wrongs, which mortals upon earth are compelled to wit- ness or endure. w.

THE CAMBRIDGE DIVINITY SCHOOL.

The recent inauguration of two new Professors is a sig- nal event in the history of this institution. Although, in consequence of causes which have affected all theological seminaries alike, the number of students in divinity is small, yet this does not abridge the ground to be surveyed, nor di- minish the labors of the Professors. They have the same round of duty with thirty pupils that they would have with ninety. In estimating their labors, we are to look to the number of branches of instruction. And these branches are too many for the two Professors who have so long been connected with the School. Year after year had attention been called to this deficiency. The number of teachers in other institutions was fi'equently alluded to. That some of tlie most important departments of theological study should

28 THE OAMBRmGE DIVINITY SCHOOL.

receive only such chance attention as might be voluntarily given to them by Professors overworked in other lines of instruction, was a reproach to the institution and its friends. Yet so often had all this been said, that we had come to ex- pect its annual reiteration as a matter of course.

Thanks to the wisdom and executive ability of one of our most honored clergymen, this reproach no longer exists. Last winter he suggested a plan of temporary professorships, to be supported by the churches, under the general manage- ment of the " Society for Promoting Theological Education " ; and it is through his energy and perseverance that this plan has now been carried out. Among those who are to be es- pecially congratulated, we may name the two elder Profes- sors already referred to. We know the strong desire they have expressed for the consummation of this plan, and the ready aid they have given to help it on. Men who occupy the high positions which they hold, who possess either the rare critical ability of the Professor of Sacred Literature, or the singular fulness of information and genial catholicity of the Professor of the Pastoral Care, are above any praise which we can bestow upon them ; but it is no more than just to say, that, in forming an estimate of the value of their services, the infelicity of a position of manifold and crowded labor must not be overlooked. We are glad that they may now enjoy a partial relief, and henceforth give themselves more exclusively to their appointed tasks.

The Inaugural Addresses of the new Professors were so instructive and interesting, that either one of them would have made the 14th of July a day to be remembered by the alumni of .the School. We regret that the Ad- dress of" the Professor of Ecclesiastical History has not been printed. Urgent solicitation has been declined, on the ground that it is introductory to a course of lectures to the

t-

THB CAMBB1D6E DIYINITT SCHOOL. 29

successive classes in the institution. The general subject was the operations of the H0I7 Spirit, as seen in the history of the Church. The very terms in which it is stated will sug- gest that the Professor found something more in the past than a record of error and folly. Even in those ecclesiastical dogmas and practices which we would most unhesitatingly reject, there was something which commended them to faith and respect, something in them which God'a Spirit made the vehicle of a healing grace. It is the true office of the stu- dent ifiot to turn over the pages of the past with contemptu- ous criticisms and scornful incredulity, but with tender af- fection and hopeful reverence, as well as with enlightened reason. We need not say anything of the stores of learn- ing from which abundant illustrations were drawn, nor of the rich and noble diction in which they were set forth. As an evidence of the spirit of reverence and faith which is to preside over this branch of instruction, the Address gave the highest satisfaction.

The Address of the Professor of Systematic Theology has been published. We do not know how extensively it has been circulated ; but we feel certain that a large proportion of our readers will be grateful for the copious extracts which we shall give. It is devoted to two topics, — first, a his- tory of the connection of the Divinity School with the Col- lege ; and secondly, a view of the meaning and aim, the con- ditions and limitations, of systematic theology.

Referring to the origin of the School, forty years ago, the aim of the institution is set forth in the following words : —

" The religious opinions, the doctrinal views, the creed, of many of the ministers and prominent laymen of this Commonwealth, had been undergoing a fundamental process of change from that of their fathers. Whether for good or for evil, whether in the inter- ests of truth or of error, the change had reached a result, and had

3*

8(f THE CAMBRIDGE DIVINITY SCHOOL.

made a manifestation of itself. The majority of the members of both the governing Boards of the College, of its Faculty, and of its most influential and active friends, were subjects of that change, or parties to it. No fraud, no underhand or politic schemes or management, were availed of. Open as the day was all their work. They did indeed refuse to yield to an inquisitorial challenge of their Christian liberty, or to subject themselves to the dictation of those who were at best but their peers in faith and piety. They had acceded, unpledged, — except as Christian men are always pledged to God and conscience, — they had acceded, unpledged, to certain trusts. Unpledged they administered and transmitted them. They did not turn this College into a Unitarian institution. It is not a Unitarian institution now. Even this School was not founded as a Unitarian institution, nor devoted to any sectarian object. Not a dollar of its funds, not a statute on its books, not a rule for its conduct, not a vote of its Faculty, recog- nizes or patronizes Unitarianism. Its Professors were expected to be familiarly acquainted with the distinguishing views of all the great divisions prevailing among those who profess themselves Christians, and were to be required to set them forth as thoroughly and as candidly to the students as it is possible for men to do who cherish convictions of their own. When the School was first pro- posed, the present sharp lines of sectarian alienation had not been drawn in the Congregational body. The distinct and rigid defini- tions of creeds, parties, and terms of communion or separation, had not been established. Ministers whose creeds were quite at vari- ance held pleasant social, fraternal, and professional intercourse. Much of the private correspondence between friendly dissentients in those days has since seen the light, and it reveals a beautiful testimony to the charity which can unite where speculation divides. I will try to convey — it will be most inadequately — the noble, the generous, the Christian idea and object of the founders of this School.

"They thought that amid these retired and bookish scenes, where antiquity had begun to gather the calm and soberness of true wis- dom, its old lessons of conflict might be studied for new and diviner uses. Just as when yonder dome was reared over our Observa-

THE CAUBBIDGB DIVINITY SCHOOL. 81

tory a few years ago, its munificent patrons conceived that the old heavens might reveal new secrets to wise and patient gazers, — or at least help them to verify and arrange in apter forms and in more correct details the knowledge and science already possessed by the world, — so too thought our founders that their School of Divinity might be free and hopeful in the search for truth. That Observatory was not reared under the vain delusion that the boldest instruments would secularize the sky, or subvert the order of the spheres, or diminish or increase the wonders which God had wrought there. But still that dome would never have been built nor pierced by the inquisitive tubes and lenses of a progressive science, had the dull persuasion been received that the old world and the old instruments had read out all the heavens, or imposed the condition that henceforward the upper realms of God should be studied by the human chart, and not from the divine original. The old charts, whether of earth or of the heavens, are put to the best service when the student is using them, not only as author- ities, but as guides onward. So thought the Christian men who aimed to connect with this University a schsol for the study of Christian doctrine and history. They had a religious experi- ence of their own. They had spent years of life's youthful and mature zeal upon the records and the traditions of the Gospel. They were familiar with the range which controversy covered, and thought they apprehended limitations upon its materials, and had felt a check upon its embittering spirit. They cherished a convic- tion which has cheered and quickened many earnest minds, that there is a fellowship between believers which is not a fellowship in a creed. They conceived of a result from various types of expe- rience and from different methods of speculation, which would har- monize, if only in love and reverence for truth, all who were seek- ing for it in the large, free fields which God had opened for them. They knew that, as all the great circles of a sphere must twice cross each other in their sweep, so there would be points of contact and of identity between the disciples of the Divine Science. Such men, believing all this, and inexpressibly cheered by the belief, are to be found now in all communions of the Christian Church. They have never yet prevailed in their own fellowships against the power

32 THE CAMBBIDGE DIVINITY SCHOOL.

of tradition and the limitations of sectarian authority. Heretofore they have always been withstood when they have sought to put their views in the way of being recognized. But every time they are discomfited, their defeat multiplies their number and prepares for the day that is to be.

'' These patrons of sacred learning and of Christian studies thought it possible for them to furnish for the use of free, earnest minds the appliances of thorough knowledge for the intelligent and devout interpretation of the Scriptures, without having in view the patronage or the discomfiture of any sect or party. They believed that materials and helps might be gathered here for that high pur- pose ; that the circumstances of time and past experience had pre- pared the way for a favorable trial of their plan, and that this community would furnish those glad to avail themselves of it in the noble spirit in which it was offered, without being hindered by public sentiment or sectarian hostility. They were weary of the old religious strifes, and were expecting a new era. They reject- ed the sectarian labels which Christians have always been too willing to wear. Their aim was to break up parties, not to form a new party. They were by no means associated together by a belief of a particular set or system of doctynal tenets, but enter- tained a variety of speculations, and ascribed different degrees of importance to speculation in religion. Their zeal was in the di- rection of charity ; their hope was for reconciliation of strifes. They wished to offer to serious and high-minded Christian scholara all the means of free, thorough, and generous culture ; to put in their hands an abused Bible, with the best dictionaries and the best commentaries ; to educate them in the languages which would , help to its interpretation ; to instruct them in the history of the Christian Church, and in the lives and opinions of its more re- markable disciples, and to leave the result to time and truth.

" The highest aim of the founders of this School would have been met, they could not have complained, they would not have complained, if each class of its Alumni had furnished one or more oainisters to the several Protestant sects, drawn to their respective communions by affinities, temperament, or aptitude, by sympathies 3f education, culture, or affection, but carrying with them a large,

THB OAMBBIDGB DIYINITT SCHOOL. 83'

geDerous tone of thought, a catholic spirit, for harmoniziog and binding the disciples of all creeds. Thus would have been real- ized the Apostle's prophetic wisdom, — that the one Spirit would manifest itself through a diversity of gifts and operations. These Liberal Christians, as they were called, had learned to recognize this truth as abundantly proved and illustrated, — that two ingredi- ents enter into our forms and dispensations of religion : first, the essential, substantial Grospel doctrine, the truth of Christ in life and heart; and, second, the prepossessions or proclivities or pref- erences which are to be referred to taste or temperament or sen- sibility, to the. varying compass or demands of the intellect, the force of habit, association, education, or sympathy. The aim was a noble one. Those who cherished it believed that the in- fluences which had brought them to entertain it would extend over the Commonwealth, modifying opinion, repressing contro- versy, strengthening their cause, and allowing it a steady, unchal- lenged progress. It was a noble aim, a noble hope. Whatever long results shall be realized from it, whatever final sentence shall , be passed upon the wisdom or the practicability of their plan, those who do justice to its founders will recognize the generosity and largeness of their spirit If I could call them back from their cherished resting-places, and see them as I speak, filling these Beats, I would express to them the grateful homage of one who has profited by their labors, and who appreciates the noble gener- (ftity of their Christian design.

" A score of hurried years burdened with changes, pressing cares that confuse while they engage the mind, may have impaired the freshness of my own remembrances of what this School seem- ed to me when I was a member of it But its privileges I have ®^er since been appreciating. Those who were then its instructors ^ love to remember, for affection and honor connect themselves ^ith their names, their features, their mind and faithful discipline. The elder Ware, that venerable, good old man, whose steps had hegun to totter, and whose head had long trembled on its withering tTunk, comes back to me whenever I come here. How candid ^Jid gentle and true he was; moderate, slow even, but not dull; * Pawionless, but still earnest ; the embodiment of all that was win-

f

'34: THE GAMBBIBQE DIYIKITT SCHOOL.

ning and persuasive in a religious guide of youDg men ! * And his son, the junior Professor, — the inventor and proposer of every good work in our brotherhood, devout, fervent in spirit, whose eye and voice and heart and life all preached, and preached the same doctrine, because in the same spirit of Christian love ! I may not name him who yet lives, beloved by all his pupils be- cause he was so true to them, as he has ever been true in other great trusts to God and man, to his country, to humanity, to righteousness. Such was the aim of this School ; such the men to whom it was intrusted.*'

In this closing sentence Professor Ellis referred to John Gorham Palfrey, D. D., LL. D., who for many years ably filled the ofl&ce of Professor of Sacred Criticism. We feel sure that many beside ourselves responded to the words of affectionate respect with which he was here alluded to. It will be observed that it was the speaker's purpose to make mention only of those teachers who belonged to the School while he " was a member of it." Some of us who were pu- pils in that institution at an earlier period were reminded of Professors whom we then knew, Andrews Norton, Sidney Willard, Charles Follen, whose names may be fittingly re- peated, as showing still further the faithful, wise, and honored men by whom the School has been sustained.

Of the results of this School, of the men it has trained up for the service of the churches, the Address thus speaks : —

**Not in complete failure, certainly, but only in moderate and qualified success, does the practical working of the purpose de- signed in this School present itself to our questionings. Allow- ing for what some would pronounce upon as the impracticable character of the scheme itself, and for the embarrassments inciden- tal and inseparable connected with it; taking into account also the jealousies and animosities which attach to all our religious pro- jects ; and last, but not least, having in view the revolutionary and chaotic crisis through which our theology has been passing,

THE CAMBBIDGE DIYIKITY SCHOOL. 35

we may conclude that this School has serred to good ends. Schol- ars and teachers, preachers and pastors, wise and good men, have been trained here, who have here learned to love truth, righteous- ness, humanity, and in the spirit of Christ, and after the method of his Gospel, to minister in his Church where Providence gave them a place. I see before me now a large company of those who have given to this holy work the dew of their youth, the strength of their manhood, the persevering fidelity of their age ; and who caught from these cherished scenes and from beloved teachers the inspiration of their rewarding toil. Of those whose labor is not yet finished I will not speak in praise. But of the dead, — Mr. President and Brethren of the Alumni of this School, — whom we have followed through their finished work to their long repose, and transferred in spirit to the communion above, — we have loved them, and may we not praise them ? The scenes of their ministry have borne witness to them. Over each of them in death the commemorative tribute was offered. Their memo- rials are precious with us. Only as the roll of their starry names passes through our minds, and answering features rise to renew the mortal presence of each of them, are we made to realize how many they have been, and how cherished for their sakes, as for our own, should be this School of their professional training."

This paragraph in Professor Ellis's Address has led us to cast our eye over the Catalogue of the Cambridge Divinity School. We find it has graduated 317 pupils in 41 classes, averaging nearly 8 to each class. We do not know how sanguine were the expectations of the projectors of this institution ; but we think that, if they could have foreseen what a list of names it would «nroll before its first semi-cen- tennial celebration, they would feel that their labors had not ended in failure. We should like to give the names of fifteen or twenty graduates from this institution, as suggest- ing the eminence, as preachers and scholars, to which they have attained. The semi-centennial anniversary of a Theo- logical Seminary, founded a few years prior to that at Cam-

86 THB OAMBBIBGB DIVIKITT SOHOOL.

bridge, will soon be celebrated. Andover will commemorate her fiftieth anniversary in 1858. We have not a word to say in disparagement of that institution. . We are grateful for the pious charity which established it, for the contribu- tions it has made to the cause of Biblical learning, and for the services it has rendered to the churches in supplying them with a ministry " furnished unto good works." Indeed, we feel particularly indebted to it for the training it has given to some who are now honored preachers in our own connection ; and we know that on its larger Catalogue of graduates there are names of many who have left their strong and pure mark upon the community in which they have lived. We only say, that we believe that, in propor- tion to numbers, the position and infiuence of the graduates at Cambridge will not suffer in comparison with those of Andover, or of any other similar institution. There is one point of view in which a survey of the Cambridge Catalogue gives us some surprise. It is the number of graduates who have been diverted from the clerical profession into other callings in life. We have instituted no comparison with the graduates of other theological schools, many of whom, as we all know, finding the pulpit not their proper sphere of influence, become teachers, or agents of benevolent associa- tions. Still we have the impression that the number prao- • tioally lost to the churches is greater with us than with oth^ denominations ; though we feel, at the same time, that the effects of a liberal and thorough course of theological study may beneficially reappear in various walks in life, and that it is a further reason to value the Cambridge School, that she has sent out influences which are felt in the statesmen, apd historians, and editors, and teachers of the country.

One result to which the Cambridge School has contrib- uted is thus stated by Professor Ellis, in terms the strength

THE OAMBBIDGE DIVINITT SCHOOL. . 87

of which has been objected to, but from which, understand- ing them to relate to the neighborhood of which he is speak- ing, we see no cause to make any 'abatement.

'' But to one great and propitious result, this School, through its whole spirit and influence, has largely contributed, — that is, the breaking of the bonds of the old * Orthodoxy.' As surely as the light of day is now shining upon us, the incubus of the old Calvinistic system has been lifled from the most vigorous religious thought of our age. This statement may be denied with the pos- itiveness of old dogmatism, or with the bitterness of a disappointed bigotry. But it is true. No plea, no boldness, no feigned calm- ness of assertion, can disguise this truth from those who acquaint themselves from the first sources with the influences which are now working in the deeper channels of religious thought and in- quiry. No subtlety in the use of language, no equivocal play with the old theological formulas, can conceal the fact that the * Orthodox ' of our day do not hold honestly, loyally, or substan- tially the doctrinal creed of the fathers of New England, or of the Puritans of Old England. It would be in vain to argue the point with one who should challenge this assertion ; for he would shel- ter himself behind a rampart of phrases, and throw words for his weapons. But words are no longer charged with the issue of the remaining strife. I have a calm and unwavering conviction that the ' Liberal Theology ' has been preparing, though it has not fully completed, the ark of refuge into which even the descendants of its traditionary foes will be glad to seek shelter, when at last the storm long gathering and darkening in the horizon of faith shall break upon the old, decayed hulks of * Orthodoxy.' "

In regard to the second topic of this Address, we must give place to the paragraph in which the Professor defines the subject assigned to him, and we shall carefully quote his own language, as we have a word or two of criticism to oflTer.

" What is meant by Systematic Theology ? What is aimed after by it? How far, and under what conditions and limitations, VOL. V. NO. I. 4

38 . THE GAMBBmaE DIYIKITY SCHOOL.

is the object proposed by it attainable ? AdcI what are the charac- teristicT features of success or failure in all the attempts which have been made to develop it ? These are questions too long for our exhaustive treatment We can but touch them with super- ficial attention. Systematic Theology is a taking of the Gospel apart as it comes to us, and a putting it together again in a form supposed to be better suited to our understanding and use of it. It attempts to resolve revelation into its elements, and then to set them forth in a system. In this, Systematic Theology shows analogies with the method used in many of the physical and demonstrative sci- ences, and in intellectual and moral philosophy. The anatomist takes a human body, and, after dissecting it, asks a chemist to help him to analyze its solid and fluid elements. Muscle and bone, tis- sue and nerve, vein and artery, and the several humors and mem- branes, are distinguished and separated. The parts yield to the analysis, and may be set down in their proportions of chemical composition, bulk, and substance, in a scientific table. Meanwhile the principle of life, hunted afler everywhere, eludes the search, and is more subtle than the analysis. That principle of life is the object, the end, the purpose, the result of the whole organization, but it keeps its own secret.

*' The theologian has an analogous object. His aim is to develop the system of. Christian truth, so far as it has or is a system ; to distinguish and classify its doctrines, fundamental and organic; and to set forth its cardinal truths, with the grounds of their au- thority, whether that authority be primary and dogmatic, or be submitted to the trial and ratification of our own faculties. The theologian seeks thus to penetrate to the inner essence, the life- throb of the Gospel. The anatomist begins his work upon a sub- ject already lifeless ; too often has the theologian killed his in the process."

Now the words we have italicized have suggested the two following queries. First, if it be true that the object aimed at by systematic theology be to find a form of the Gospel supposed to be better suited to our understanding and use of it ? Rather it would seem that the true object

THE OAMBSIDGE DIYINITT SCHOOL. 89

is to find the actual form in which it comes to us, we being assured that that form is the best, and no improvement is possible ; just as it is the object of the dissections of the anatomist to ascertain the actual form of the human bodj, and not to contrive some improved form. Secondly, if the phraseology here used does not admit the existence of the thing which other parts of the Address imply can- not be found, — namely, a complete System of truth ? For when we speak of taking a thing apart, as the dissector takes apart the human body, this language admits it must have had some pre-existing form and system, and that origi- nal, dirine form and system is the thing we are in search of. In short, the position taken here is either not so clearly right, or not so well expressed, as is common with this writer. We do not find a distinct statement of what the professor- ship should seek. All the analogy of the illustrations, and the logic of the argument, require the admission of a system of divine truth ; that what Gk>d reveals to us, he revests in harmony with the nature of the human mind. Of the false, prejudiced, and lifeless forms in which systems have been made, the Address utters truthful words ; but we fail to feel that here is any reason why we should not hope to find a true, full-circled, and vital system, if we seek for it in the free, generous, and noble spirit which is here enjoined. As to the supposed risks of seeking it in that spirit, the Profes- sor has some words which constitute the most eloquent and weighty portions of this Address, and a page or two on this head we cannot refrain from quoting.

*' The risks which excite the anxiety even of the friends of this School are, Ihs/t this perfect, unfettered freedom of study and speculation, with no moorings and no dictation, may result only in unsettled minds, and may imperil the traditionary and conven- tional opinions and institutions wrought in with the great Chris-

40 THE CAMBRIDGE DIVINITY SCHOOL.

tian structure. Brief as has been the term of years covered by the existence of this School, its friends have had their love for it chilled, and their hopes from it darkened into apprehensions. The transient excitements which successively agitate our religious cen- tres take their impulse from extreme causes, and urge in opposite directions. At times it has seemed necessary to plead here for perfect freedom in religious speculation, as for a right distrusted or denied. And there have been exigencies when we have seemed to dread the fruits of this freedom, and have been almost moved to build again the things which we once destroyed, to restore both impositions and limitations, and to squeeze the essence of the old Inquisition into a certificate withheld or granted in the shape of a clean bill of doctrinal health addressed to the churches. It was feared that the School might educate its pupils out of any good use of the very education which it gives them. Happily, what- ever occasion there was for such a fear, and whatever expression or indulgence of it there may have been, it has not as yet reached any demonstration that has proved the risks of scepticism to be peculiar to the methods or influences prevailing here.

''And yet there must be some safeguard, some restraining, some directing agency, implied or exerted in connection with this free- dom of theological study. Common sense, sound reason, the pro- prieties of the case, all suggest to us, that, as this is a Christian School, its pupils should be Christians, and its graduates should be Christians. Therefore some conditions should be imposed £>r the enjoyment of its scholarly privileges, and of its funds of con- secrated charity, while the method and influences of the School should help directly to foster faith and piety in its members. This is not an academic grove of philosophy, nor a nestling-place of scholastic speculation. Its training ought in no single case to result either in the barrenness or the ingenuities of scepticism. Beginning with the Bible, bedewed and consecrated by the rever- ent faith of ages, and giving to its pupils the means for the better understanding of its contents, and of the most effective way for making its truths quick and powerful as addressed to the living heart of humanity. It surely ought not to end — with nothing. The appeal which first established this School came from Chris-

THE CAMBBIDGB DIYHnTT 80H00L. 41

tians, and was addressed to Christians, and pleaded for a Christian institution. Every book in its library, every gift to its treasury, was bestowed for a Christian purpose. It fulfils that purpose only when it educates able and faithful and devoted ministers for Chris- tian pulpits. The idiosyncrasies and peculiarities of mental con- stitution drawn out or indulged here, may naturally result, at times, in proving that some pupils will not be available for the Church. They may lose their belief and piety, — supposing those qualities to have been once possessed. They may become eccentric in opinion, impracticable in their aims, ineffective for influencing others for good. If the School should produce many such, the simple consequence — is it an unreasonable one ? — will be, that churches as churches, generous benefactors such as it has had, will feel no interest in it. Friends will then fail it, or, at least, it will have to undertake that hazardous and seldom successful task of changing friends, by finding new ones.

'*And what shall be the restraint, what the safeguard, of the Christian intent and influences of this School ? We repudiate all the old, sectarian tests, limitations, and covenants. We have not the inclination, even if we had the wit, to devise a new one. It is weakness always, — and what is more and worse, it is a sense of weakness, a consciousness of it taking the form of a poor fear, — which suggests the binding of a fetter on free thought. We must find wise and just restraints against the inroads and ruin of a reckless scepticism, within the terms of the very freedom exer- cised here.

"And the first method of wise restraint upon the spirit of scep- ticism as induced by free theological study, is in a wise allowance to it. We cannot prevent it, nor repress it. It lies in the way of those processes of thought which we engage upon the record ; it besets every theme on which we speculate, and is itself one of the helps and instruments of speculation. Not to any one of you, my brethren, is the spectre which lurks within the shadows of yon- der theological hall an unknown shape. You saw it in the open daylight, as you turned into a word-study, and a subject of critical inquiry, the old record, which was writ solely for uses of piety.

4*

42 THE CAMBRIDGE DIVINITY SCHOOL.

You felt the nightmare of that spectre, as, with thought and faith all in a maze, you went to your rest. And you never put that spectre wholly down, so long as you stayed within those walls. You have dissolved its mocking shape hy going into the thick of life, and proving the power of faith in its active strife with evil and sin. Our own doubts yield only afler we have tried to make others believe, and have succeeded in the effort. Incident to theo- logical, critical. Scriptural study is this spirit of scepticism, espe- cially in our age. It is said, and truly, that there were in former times men as learned in Scripture studies, and as profound think- ers, as there are now, but who were never even annoyed by scepti- cism, much less enthralled by it. It is because such men did believe without testing everything, that some now stumble all the more at finding such a class of believers on the line by which faith traces backward its sanctions. Their implicit faith has helped to bring faith into discredit, instead of commending it confirmed to us. The root and impulse of much of the sceptical spirit which has manifested itself, even within the best guarded folds of the Church, has been, that men once believed too readily ; that they did not do justice to themselves, to their own faculties, to the laws of evidence ; and that, consequently, much which they have accredited to us in science, philosophy, and religion needs re- examination that it may be re- authenticated. There has been, too, a keener inquisition, a sharper scrutiny, a more penetrating- and thorough ordeal of test and challenge visited upon the materials and elements of faith in our own day. The trial is an infinitely harder one. To an European Christendom which believed itself part of a world six thousand years old, have been told tales of ancient astronomical calculations and royal dynasties covering some forty thousand years. To a race of believers who regarded their Bibles as containing records parallel in contents and author- ship with the whole history of the world, have been offered the sacred writings of other faiths which boast — idly indeed, but none the less boldly — that they had a long start on the recorded page. The old faith of Christians has been buffeted and browbeaten by weapons out of old mounds, and by bricks shaken from the walls of heathenish old palaces^ This sceptical trial of our belief has

THE CAMBBID6B DIVINITY SCHOOL. 48

been pressed most vigorously by the conjoined forces of a large, free-daring spirit of investigation, ploughing into the sands of Nineveh, and staring the old Egyptian Sphinxes out of counte- nance, boasting of progress before it has been won, and tossing all political and social problems into a vortex of strife and debate. It was never so before : the tests of truth were never so severe, nor the triumphs of faith so hard in the winning. What is more, candor compels from us the admission, that no solution, no har- monizing, rebutting, or reconstructive argument, has as yet been given which we can expect will be satisfactory to those who have opened all our new questions and confounded the speech in which the builders of the old towers of faith understood each other.

'* Yet it is all folly to pretend that these sceptical risks and con- sequences are the peculiar products of the perfect freedom in theo- logical studies afforded here. The spirit of Rationalism wanders about in all dry places. It visits the Seminary hill in Andover, the sand plains of Princeton, and the shaded nooks of old Cam- bridge and Oxford. Indeed, some of the very classics of modem scepticism have come out of the bosom of the Established Church of England."

May we not hope that an institution which has received such important accessions to its working power will become a more cherished object of interest to our churches, and that those who have influence over promising and serious-minded young men will turn their attention to the means here of- fered for their preparation for the noblest profession to which human agency can be called ?

44 PARIS.

PARIS.

BY RET. WILLIAM MOUNTPORD.

Four days we waited, near Brighton, for weather in which to cross the Channel. And when at last, one Decem- ber morning, we got across, it was with fear and trembling ; for soon afler we lefl port, the barometer exhibited a most extraordinary fall of the mercury ; and by the time we were within sight of Dieppe, we found ourselves threatened from behind by an awful cloud, a floating arsenal of thunder- bolts. And very gladly did we find ourselves inside of the harbor.

O, what a change with crossing a few leagues of water I The people are different, the houses are different, the streets are different, and so are the horses and carts, and the wo- men's tall caps. And hark ! that is French, — that is a foreign language ! " Monsieur, votre passeport." Horses and harness, houses and wooden shoes, and even dogs and cats, in all these things France differs from England. But all these differences are as nothing to the passport system. A policeman, with a sword by his side, stopping you vnth " Sir, where is your passport ? " — ah ! this persuades one of being in a foreign land more effectually than even the speech of Normandy, or the loud, thumping clatter of wooden shoes on the pavement. But soon, the passport having been examined, we are free, in conformity with what has been found therein requested and required in the name of her Majesty by '* us, George William Frederick, Earl of Clarendon, Baron Hyde of Hindon, a Peer of the Unit- ed Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, a Member of her . Britannic Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council,

PABIS. 45

Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Gsuler, and Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, etc., etc, etc''

On landing in France, the stranger is surprised at the great, high houses. Soon, however, he begins to miss the people, who should be the occupants of such buildings. But indeed these great buildings are not what they would seem ; for really they are houses piled one above another, — struc- tures in which every floor is a distinct habitation.

Dieppe seemed to me remarkable, before everything else, for its fenude dealers in fish. Fishwomen, I should have called them, but that the word woman is too gentle and good for what they would seem to be. Dirty, gigantic, fero- cious, they are indeed terrible to look at. And as I saw them standing together and quarrelling on the quay, I seemed to realize what the ^^ Poissardes " were, in the days of the Revolution and Marie Antoinette.

Dieppe was once the chief port of France ; and though now it is only a fishing town, yet formerly it was in commu- nication with every region of the world then known, and its merchants were so great, that by one of them, at the head of a fleet of his own, the king of Portugal was defied in the very midst of Lisbon. Products from all parts of the world once passed through Dieppe, from Canada, from Sen- egal, and from the East Indies. But of all this vast com- merce, the sole memorial which is now to be found is in the manufacture of carved ivory, which is almost pecu- liar to the place, and which began in consequence of the facilities which once existed there for procuring elephants' tuBks.

This utter decline of what was once an eminent city is attributable partly to the superiority of Havre as a port.

46 PARIS.

and only partly ; for, like many another flourishing city of France, Dieppe suffered much from the suppression of lib- erty of conscience, and especially from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the consequent emigration of many of its best and most valuable citizens. It was close by Dieppe, and within reach of help from its walls, that Henry the Fourth gained that great victory which made him king of the Catholics, as well as the Protestants of France. His troops were but four thousand ; and opposed to him was an army of thirty thousand Leaguers. Before the battle, he was taunted by an officer of the League with the fewness of his forces ; but the brave Bearnese answered, " You do not see them all : for you do not count Grod and the good right which assist me." God as being the God of us all alike, and the good right of every one to worship God in the prompting of his own soul, — through not remembering these things, there is many a city of France and the Conti- nent which has been impoverished, enfeebled, and degraded. And often a party which has thought to strengthen itself by the extinction of its enemies, has found its victorious arm palsied by the operation of invisible forces, the violated laws of the spirit.

From Dieppe, our course to Paris was through GisoiB, Pontoise, and a few other intervening places, little known, and but little worth knowing. Along this region, there is nothing whatever of much interest for the traveller : no an- cient monument, no good-looking house, no wood, no pretty landscape, and no one picturesque object. The pleasantest I'ecollections which I have of the country are of flights of crows, of magpies hopping about, and of the mistletoe ; for throughout Normandy, that singular parasite, the mistletoe, is so common, that in some places there is hardly an apple- tree, or a poplar, without a bush of this evergreen in its

PARIS. 47

branches. A long, straight line of road, paved with great stones ; an open country, without any fences ; here and there an orchard, or a long row of poplars ; now and then a flock of sheep, watched by a shepherd wearing a sheep- skin cloak ; crows startled from a field, and rising like a black cloud ; at long intervals, a larger house than usual, but dilapidated ; and, every &Ye or six miles, a dirty vil- lage ; — this is Normandy, or rather I should say, this is the appearance of Upper Normandy. And in order completely to represent the impression which I have retained of the country, I ought not to omit mention of the inns. Always they are dear, and always in some respects dirty, and some- times even filthy. Dirty and dear I should have always thought these inns; but I do not think that I should have mentioned them as such, but that I have found them de- scribed as being pre-eminently so, in a French work which I have lately been reading. The author of the Life of Char- lotte Corday made a pilgrimage through Normandy, and he describes the extortion of the innkeepers as being a charac- teristic of the country. He says that the people are cun- ning and avaricious, and especially careful against letting strangers gain any advantage over them. He mentions that in the South the usual announcement of an inn is, "Ici on donne, — Here one gives things to eat and drink " ; but that in Normandy always it is announced by the host, " Ici on vend, — Here one sells things for eating and drinking." And really a dinner of exquisite cookery, and elegantly served, will cost less than is sometimes charged in some. Norman inn for bread, butter, and an egg, eaten in a kitchen, where the floor is filthy from never having been swept, and where, overhead, the rafters are black with soot.

This uninteresting region behind us, very glad we were

48 PABIS.

to find ourselves passing Napoleon's Triumphal Arch, and soon stopped at the Barrier of Paris to answer questions about tea, beef, and other articles, which are taxed before being admitted into the city. And at once Normandy, and the dirt and dulness of it, were forgotten, and as though by magic ; for, indeed, having passed the Barriere de TEtoile, we were at once in the Champs Elysees, in a forest of bril- liant lights, and environed by the movements and the sounds of life in Paris.

It is nearly twenty years since last I saw this city. It is altered for the better in appearance, and in some respects also in decency. The city is larger than it was, and many public places of resort have been much improved. The streets are better lighted, and many of them are better paved than they were. The churches are better attended, and Sunday is a little better observed than formerly ; and vice is a little less obtrusive than it was. I think also that per- haps the laboring classes seem more prosperous. When I was here before, France was a monarchy, but now it is an empire. But Paris is still itself, is Paris still ; and is prob- ably less changed than even it seems. The open gutters, down which dirt used to run, are now sunk under groniid, and are sewers ; and though some of the temptations to vi^ are not as open as they were, they probably are quite as effective. But when I say that the city is improved in de- cency, I mean that it is simply improved. For in some things the filth and the indecencies are still what might well astonish a stranger even in Timbuctoo.

And while I am criticising the city, I would say that I think it does not deserve the character which its inhabitants have for politeness. The people in the streets are often very rude. And in the churches, both Catholic and Protes- tant, I have witnessed in a month more acts of incivility

PARIS. 49

thaa perhaps I had seen before in places of worship during my whole life. Then too the people are not — However, instead of saying what they are not, I will say what they admire. In novels, the heroes and heroines prevaricate and tell &lsehoods with great freedom, apparently without any detriment to their characters. To ideal excellence in France, it would seem that truthfulness is not necessary.

Bat taking it just as it is, Paris is Paris, and the one city of its kind in the whole world, — not very moral, probably, and not very dean, but very agreeable ; and certainly not very religious, but yet very, cheerful. It is a city in which there is not much spiritual earnestness ; but then also it is a place in which stupidity is as little stupid as it well can be to be human. Milton was bom in London and resided there nearly all his life. And were he bom there to-day, he might grow up there, with his genius opening into more than all the beauty and the solemnity of Paradise Lost, Lycidas, and Comas. But Milton, a native of Paris, and growing up to be himself, would be a natural impossibility. The French call themselves a nation of sentiment; but certainly it is not of such sentiment as would have helped to form the mind of Milton, or have fed the meditations of Channing. At the Pantheon, now called the church of St. Genevieve, is an inscription to Bousseau, on what is now a cenotaph because the body has been carried off from the tomb, — " Here lies the man of nature and truth." When I read this sentiment, I had recently been perusing the Confessions of Bousseau, and I felt what often I had thought before, that nature, truth, man, and such words, do not always mean the same things in French as in English. " Jean Jacques," said I, as I read the inscription on his tomb, " Jean Jacques a man of nature ! Yes, but what nature ? " Deliberately, and from his first acquaintance with her, he refused to mar-

VOL. V. NO. T. 5

50 PABIS.

ry the mother of his children. And his children, as &st as they were bom, he caused to be carried to the foundling hospital. And other things he tells of himself, revolting, atrocious, and too disgusting to mention, but which yet he writes of quite complacently, and apparently without the least consciousness of sin. Rousseau was once the idol of France, and he is still the object of much sentimental regard. In the literature of France, in many of its social theories, and in the manners of all classes, there is much which is akin with the inscription, according to which Jean Jacques Rousseau is accepted as the man of nature and truth. Paris then is not at all a city with the spirit of which man or woman can hope to have their moral nature much strengthened. And indeed the low morality of the place must be distinctly recognized, or residents will be the worse even for what good there is here.

However, I do not purpose writing an elaborate criticism on French society, or on life in Paris, for which I know very well that I am not at all competent. Nor yet am I tempt- ed, like so many others, to speculate on the political future of France, on the strength of knowing the sites of the barri- cades, and of having talked with one or two "ouvriers," and having been acquainted with the editor of a journal, and having read two or three newspapers, and having even been a housekeeper for six months in Paris.

It is difficult here to get information as to the temper of the public politically. For the newspapers are, all of them, in effect, revised by the government. And Frenchmen cannot well talk with one another freely, and still less can they do so with strangers, lest some person in the company should be a spy. Also it is difficult even for a native to know what the circumstances are which determine the progress of events, even such as he himself shares in. Often the

PARIS. 51

politics of a nation have been altered by a mere trifle, hap- peoing, however, in an important place. And so in this citj, the wisdom of the wise and the madness of the mob may be frustrated perhaps by some little thing, the importance of which nobody as yet altogether knows. In Paris hitherto always a revolution has been began with barricades, and the barricades have been begun with paving-stones. But lately the streets have been macadamized, and there are now no paving-stones. It is said that they have been broken up to prevent their being used by revolutionists. This is a small matter in itself, yet it may render a sudden outbreak of the people more difficult than it has yet been in Paris.

The other day, at the bank, I received a number of five- franc pieces. And some of them I found to make a singu- lar illustration of the more recent history of France. These coins show the variety of political principles which exist here. The Communists have never yet succeeded in possessing themselves of the mint, but the coins in cu-culation show what various political principles have obtained pre-eminence in France during the present century, and show also now what discordant principles have their advocates here. Among my silver pieces were one of Napoleon, the year of his return from Eussia, — one of Louis the Eighteenth, in the year of the restoration of the monarchy, — another of Louis, after he had been chased from Paris by Napoleon, and been brought back again by the allied armies after the battle of Waterloo, — one of Charles the Tenth, in the very year when he lost his throne by the three days of July, — one of Louis Philippe, in the first year of his reign, when he was the citizen monarch, and another of the same king, the year before his deposition, — one of the French ItepuJ)Hc, in- scribed with the words, " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," — a second of the French Republic, with the image and super-

52 PARIS.

r

scription of Louis Napoleon, — and lastly a coin of Napo- leon the Third, Emperor. And the different parties repre- sented by these coins, with still other political parties which exist, are not merely parties which differ from one another as voters, for they are as hostile to one another as nations which never intermingle. Across the bridges and firom street to street they have fought till Paris has been like a battle-field. And indeed for passions at work in it, and for the manner in which daily it is secured, at this very time, as always, this city is a field in which three or four different armies watch one another.

The French nation ! There can scarcely be said to be such a thing. There is here a country full of French per- sons ; but they properly are not a nation. For these persons are suspicious of one another ; they hate one another ; they have shot at one another; and they expect yet again to grapple with one another, in mortal fight. Centuries must elapse here, or some awful scourge must sweep the country, or there must be an outpouring of the Holy Spirit greater than France has ever yet known, before the hostile parties of this country can be fused together, and become truly one people.

But disorganization is here more than political, for it is moral, spiritual. In this city exist together the grossest superstition, the silliest incredulity, and the maddest atheism % and there are the wildest theories as to property, and the relations of man and woman to one another. In all serious subjects, French thinking is apt to be wild, flighty. And this is no wonder. It is said that an unusually large propor- tion of the ^children bom in France during the Reign of Terror .were idiotic. Now the Frahce of to-day is largely the offspring of that Reign of Terror, and of days akin to it.

PABIS. 53

The revolutions which the French people have passed through, and hj which so often their minds have been con- vulsed, have been unfavorable to stability, at least as regards public matters. During the first revolution, it was almost their object to cut themselves off from that succession in opinions and customs, which wisely used is very largely the education and the safety of a people. They abolished mon- archy ; and also they forbade the profession of Christianity. They abolished the observance of Sunday ; and also they abolished even the names of the days of the week, and the names of the months. From underneath the cathedral of St Denis they disentombed the remains of the kings of more than a thousand years, and trampled upon them. It was their attempt in every way to disown the past of which they themselves were the children, even in regard to learn- ing manners and common customs, as weU as in regard to morality and religion. Of this national madness there must of course survive some taint even now, vitiating sobriety of thought and favoring sudden and violent movement.

But what chiefly troubles Paris is its being the head of France, " Jeune France." And Young France has a ten- dency to be hydrocephalous. Nearly all the vitality of the country is in the head, and hence the head is feverish. And the more feverish it is, the more do all the energies of the body flow to it. In the cities and villages of France, there are no towns' meetings. Power is centralized, and Paris is the seat of it. And so in Paris a skilful rising of the mob, or a coup d'etat, revolutionizes Eouen, Lyons, Nantes, Bor- deaux, Marseilles, Toulon, and all the frontiers of the coun- try. Always the fight is for the Town-hall : and with the capture of the Town-hall, all France is captured. And so in this city every needy man, and every ambitious man, and every man of blood, and every lover of liberty, and every

5*

54 PABIS.

V

indignant philanthropist, sees with the eyes of his imagina- tion on the front of the Hotel de Ville the words, " Revolu- tion made Easy." And it is because of this perception, that always the state of Paris is feverish and liable to out- break. The tendency to outbreak necessitates of course the imposition of restraints ; and the existence of restraints of course irritates still more the tendency to outbreak.

A government strong in soldiers, policemen, fortifications, and system; a mob longing to hoist the red flag; and other large classes divided against one another by political theories or adverse interests ; — these all in Paris may not live together very cordially, yet in some manner they suc- ceed in making their city what is very agreeable to stran- gers. And indeed there is really one cry in which they are all united, — "Few la hagatelk" And for those who can enter into the humor of it thoroughly, and who are con- tent to live so, it makes life in Paris a never-ending holiday.

A walk in the streets of Paris is very different from a walk in the streets of London. In the metropolis of Eng- land, all the persons one meets seem to be striving at an object to be accomplished by a certain hour exactly ; but here everybody would appear to be independent of busiiieBs and clocks. In London life is a means to an end ; in Paris life is simply life. But here, more than in any other city in the world, have means been invented for making that life pleasant, — not pleasantly profitable, nor profitably pleasant, but simply pleasant, lively, gay.

With walking up and down the streets, it is easily per- ceived to be the pleasure-place of the world, the metropolis of gay people, by the number of houses for feasting, carods- ing, and amusement, restaurants, cafes, theatres, and ball- rooms, — and by the multitude of shops, the windows of which are often to be studied like cabinets or pictures, —

PARIS. 55

and hj the conyenieiices of all kinds which exist for mak- ing smooth the ways of life. There is a Latin phrase, ^<homo &ctas ad ungaem" a man finished to the tips of his fingers. Of this phrase I was reminded on the Boulevard des CapucineSy bj seeing the sign of an establishment at which persons have their nails trimmed. And indeed Paris is uniiyalled for physicians, surgeons, writers, singers, actors, tailors, cooks, policemen, and a hundred other classes, bj whom there is protection for the person, care for life, and decoration and delectation for it. And I think that perhaps for knowledge simply as information, science, and for that training by which a person can be made most thoroughly a man of " the world which now is," there is no city in which he can so readily and fully attain his object as at the colleges, lectures, museums, and libraries which exist here. There is no place like Paris for the outer world, the outer man, and even the outer mind.

And conformably with this, it is an out-of-door life which the Parisian affects, — a life I mean outside of his own doors. • In the French language, there is no word which corresponds to the word home. And certainly home life is not a charac- teristic of Paris, as might easily be supposed from the number of public rooms for eating, drinking, and dancing, and from the multitudes of persons, whenever they can, who throng the boulevards and public gardens, and who sit on the road-side.

And, in an idle mood, there is certainly much interest in • merely sitting and seeing people pass, nearly all of them seeming to be much at their ease : persons in carriages ; workmen in short frocks called blouses; members of the Legion of Honor, distinguished by a bit of red ribbon in the button-hole of their coats ; soldiers in various uniforms ; nurses from the provinces, with their Celtic faces ; priests,

56 PABIS.

with their broad hats and black gowns ; sisters of charity, with their complexions so clear, and their great muslin caps so white; policemen, moving quietly along and watching people from the comers of their eyes; and occasionally, drawn very swiftly, an imperial carriage with outriders and an escort of dragoons.

Besides these, I recollect some other persons and things as having struck my attention during my first walks here : the number of youths in the same uniform, probably of some school ; the many bands of boys, almost always each one of them being accompanied by two or three priests ; the dogs which so many ladies lead about with ribbons, reminding one of Sterne's Maria ; the brass badge of the beggar, by which he is authorized to ask for charity ; the frequency of pubhc baths ; the creches, at which in&nts are taken in to be nursed, while their mothers are at work ; the proclamations on the walls as to the new levy of conscripts ; the govern- mental inspection of mineral baths, and the legal price of bread for the fortnight ; at the butchers' shops, the labels on the meat describing its quality, according to the law ; the , impossibility of going in and out of my own doors at any hour, except with the knowledge of the concierge ; the thor- ough efficiency of the police, and the manner in which every person and every locality seemed conscious of inspection.

Also, I remember well the first occasion on which I saw a man with whose appearance I became afterwards very fa- miliar. This person was a juggler ; and he stood just under my windows, in a comer of the Place de la Madeleine. It was on a Sunday morning when I first saw him begin to play with his sticks, balls, dishes, and cups, and just at the moment when a large congregation was descending the steps of the most beautiful church in the city. Afterwards, I noticed that every Sunday, all day long, in front of this

PARIS. 57

church, did this juggler station himself, and play his tricks, and pick up his " sous," surrounded by an attendance which never failed.

At first too, the name of the Place de la Concorde seemed to me to be very singular. Originally, it was the Place of Louis the Fifteenth, and afterwards the Place of the Revo- lution. The spot where once twelve hundred persons were trampled to death, where occurred the collision which occa- sioned the attack on the Bastile, and where for thirty months stood the guillotine, is now called the Place of Concord. With the changes of the government, often the names of streets are changed ; and it would seem to be quite common here to attempt to make words do political service. Fre- quently, on public buildings, are to be seen, just beginning to reappear from underneath a coat of coloring, the words, by which it would seem as though a futile attempt had been made to infect Paris with what had not been abiding, — " Liberty, equality, fraternity."

I will not omit mentioning, also, my novel sensations at seeing for the first time in the churches altars dedicated to Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, and other personages, for whom I have long had deep reverence, though it has not been ac- companied with such convictions as would prompt me to invoke them on my knees.

Paris, which is peculiarly the city " des vweurs,^' — of liv- ers, gay livers, — is also largely a city of the dead ; a city in which so many of the streets have names which are like his- tories, and in which so many buildings are haunted by mem- ories and echo still with voices, which long ago were old, and in which, every here and there, are places where it seems, for awfulness and the sound in one's ears, as though the very stones were crying out. Yet these ancient remains were formerly much more numerous thaii they are now, for

58 PABIS.

during the first revolution innumerable old objects of inter- est were destroyed, buildings, tombs, and statues.

But I have never known a place where, even on their own ground, the past and the present seem so far apart as they do in this city. It seems to me as though the people in the streets were altogether disconnected with the antiquities of Paris. And certainly the humor in which persons walk the Boulevards is not at all the mood in which to feel them- selves allied to ancient times.

The voices of the past, even though very distinct, are yet not of a character to be audible by those who are fresh from indulging at a cafd, or riding in the Champs Elys^es, or laugh- ing in a theatre. But for one who has been quietly at home, shutting out the noisy present from his mind by the perusal of some book, or who has been having his spiritual hearing quickened by meditation, O how the past seems to linger on the air, as he walks in some of the old neighborhoods of this city. At one place, he seems to hear the cries of alarm with which it was perceived by the French that Jeanne d'Arc had been wounded from the walls, — the dauntless, mysterious maid ; and at another place, it is as though there were still sounding the triumphal acclamations which welcomed Vol- taire to the house on the quay, named now in his honor, and where, indeed, he ended his days. In one street, it is as though there were to be heard the shouts of the mob, as they carried aloft the head of Richelieu from his desecrated tomb at the Sorbonne ; and in another neighboring street, it is as though they had not yet died away, the yells with which Charlotte Corday, pale and calm, was dragged down stairs from the apartment where Marat lay in his blood.

In some quarters of the city, historical memorials are very numerous. At the beginning of the Rue St. Honor^ is the house in which Henry the Fourth was assassinated

PABIS. 59

bj Havaillac ; and at a little distance from this house is the spot where Admiral Ck>ligny fell under a murderous attack, and with him the strength of the Protestant cause ; and again, adjoining this spot is the site of the house where the Abb^ de Rauc^ had that terrible experience, which sent him from the chamber of his mistress into the convent of La Trappe.

Bound the Sorbonne is a region in which are many col- leges and schools, and which is called the Latin Quarter. Mostly the streets in which these buildings stand are nar- row and dingy ; but yet they are very interesting as having been the resorts of students and professors so long; for this Latin Quarter was crowded by thousands from all countries, in the Middle Ages, when Paris was the chief university of Europe, when Abelard lectured here on philosophy, and when here Rabelais studied medicine, and Peter Lombard learned the logic with which he wrought his sentences, and when Dante and Petrarch wrote of the localities here as though known to the whole world.

Here and there, too, in the city, is to be found an old house, which is interesting from the persons who have been its occupants, such as that which still bears the name of Sully, who escaped from the massacre of St. Bartholemew, as a boy, to become the incorruptible Protestant, and the great minister of Henry the Fourth. Also, there are hotels which may be regarded as monuments of a past era in so- cial life ; mansions occupied once by ladies whose names are historical, and justly so, on account of their social tact and conversational ability, — such ladies as Mesdames Longue- ville, Sevignc^, and Rambouillet, in whose parlors resided a power by which even Louis the Great felt himself checked, restrained, and not absolute. And I do not know but that some of these residences are among the pleasantest remains

62 FUND FOR LIBERAL CHRISTLAJaTY.

just as in the charity of Fenelon there is a spirit which per- ceptibly is of France, and not of England or Germany.

But yet also this is a place where the son has been taught by his father ; a city in which not buildings only have been inherited from the past, but also old divisions and con- flicting opinions, and certain mental tendencies. Yes, Paris is a city very stately and highly embellished, and, in all those ways of which policemen can take cognizance, it is most orderly. But yet, also, resting as it does on a moral vol- cano, it is liable any moment to be convulsed by forces from beneath, as though by an earthquake.

FUND FOR LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY.

For two years information has annually been communi- cated to the Western Unitarian Conference concerning the working of the Fund for Liberal Christlajs^ity. As, however, some Unitarians may not even know the origin of the Fund, or might like to see a general statement of its operations from the beginning, I send the following ac- count for the Quarterly Journal.

In February of the year 1854, an individual, who wishes while alive to remain unknown, placed five thousand dollars in charge of the Trustees of the Meadville Theological School, and an equal amount in August of the same year, for the four following objects : —

1st. " To aid Western ministers whose salaries are inadequate to their support, in doing which the administrators of the Fund are to lay it down as a rule, whence they are only to depart in very urgent cases, and where there is a good degree of unanimity

FUND FOB LIBEBAX CHBISTIANITT. 63

among themselves, that the aid thus extended to any one society shall, if continued, decrease each year in a fixed ratio of at least one fourth of the original amount given or loaned."

2d. " To improve the libraries of ministers by a loan or gift of books."

3d. " To aid libraries which may be formed by associations of Western ministers, such aid not to exceed the amount contributed or otherwise procured by the ministers themselves."

4th. *' To aid parishes in forming or increasing permanent min- isterial libraries for the benefit of their pastors, which aid to any parish is nojt to exceed the amount raised by it."

These ten thousand dollars were invested on abundant security at ten per cent Three years' interest has been received on the first half of the donation, and two years and six months' interest on the second, making in all $ 2750. Out of this, $ 25 were set aside for contingent expenses, of which a trifle is still on hand ; $ 400 have been contributed to the salaries of two ministers, in Ohio and Illinois ; four permanent ministerial libraries have been instituted for soci- eties in Michigan and Illinois, at a cost of $100 to the Fund, and $100 to the societies, and eighty-nine ministers of three different liberal denominations have been supplied with li- braries, at a cost of $2,225. These ministers, except some who may have changed their location, reside in New York, Peimsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wis- consin. The number of volumes furnished to this date is more than four thousand, comprising our best Unitarian publications, and such selections of standard theology as were deemed suited to the wants of the recipients. Mil- man's Gibbon, also, is in nearly every library, and one or two good devotional works are constantly included. All these libraries, varying in size from thirty to fifty volumes, have been labelled, and a record kept of every book in each library. More than a ton of books is annually thus distrib- uted by the Fund.

62 FUND FOR LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY.

just as in the charity of Fenelon there is a spirit which per- ceptibly is of France, and not of England or Germany.

But yet also this is a place where the son has been taught by his father ; a city in which not buildings only have been inherited from the past, but also old divisions and con- flicting opinions, and certain mental tendencies. Yes, Paris is a city very stately and highly embellished, and, in all those ways of which policemen can take cognizance, it is most orderly. But yet, also, resting as it does on a moral vol- cano, it is liable any moment to be convulsed by forces from beneath, as though by an earthquake.

FUND FOR LIBERAL CHRISTIANITY.

For two years information has annually been communi- cated to the Western Unitarian Conference concerning the working of the Fund for Liberal Christianity. As, however, some Unitarians may not even know the origin of the Fund, or might like to see a general statement of its operations from the beginning, I send the following ac- count for the Quarterly Journal.

In February of the year 1854, an individual, who wishes while alive to remain unknown, placed five thousand dollars in charge of the Trustees of the Meadville Theological School, and an equal amount in August of the same year, for the four following objects : —

^Ist. "To aid Western ministers whose salaries are inadequate to their support, in doing which the administrators of the Fund are to lay it down as a rule, whence they are only to depart in very urgent cases, and where there is a good degree of unanimity

FUND FOB LIBEBAX GHBISTIANITT. 63

among themselves, that the aid thus extended to any one society shaU, if continued, decrease each year in a fixed ratio of at least one fourth of the original amount given or loaned."

2d. " To improve the libraries of ministers by a loan or gift of books."

3d. " To aid libraries which may be formed by associations of Western ministers, such aid not to exceed the amount contributed or otherwise procured by the ministers themselves."

4th. ''To aid parishes in forming or increasing permanent min- isterial libraries for the benefit of their pastors, which aid to any parish is nojt to exceed the amount raised by it"

These ten thousand dollars were invested on abundant security at ten per cent. Three years' interest has been received on the first half of the donation, and two years and six months' interest on the second, making in all $ 27o0. Out of this, $ 25 were set aside for contingent expenses, of which a trifle is still on hand ; $ 400 have been contributed to the salaries of two ministers, in Ohio and Illinois ; four permanent ministerial libraries have been instituted for soci- eties in Michigan and Illinois, at a cost of $100 to the Fund, and $100 to the societies, and eighty-nine ministers of three different liberal denominations have been supplied with li- braries, at a cost of $ 2,225. These ministers, except some who may have changed their location, reside in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Blinois, and Wis- consin. The number of volumes furnished to this date is more than four thousand, comprising our best Unitarian publications, and such selections of standard theology as were deemed suited to the wants of the recipients. Mil- man's Gibbon, also, is in nearly every library, and one or two good devotional works are constantly included. All these libraries, varying in size from thirty to fifty volumes, have been labelled, and a record kept of every book in each library. More than a ton of books is annually thus distrib- uted by the Fund.

64 FUND FOB LIBERAL CHBISTIANITT.

The contingent expenses at present comprise merely a small compensation to the agent who collects the interest in the city where the Fund is invested. The selection of books, recording, and general superintendence are gratui- tous. The cost of blanks, labelling, boxing,, etc., is borne by the recipients.

There are, of course, some difficulties in the practical workings of the Fund. Occasionally, a volume of a set has been erroneously numbered by the bookbinder, and an im- perfect work has thus been sent some hundred miles, where it is no easy matter to remedy the deficiency. The labor of inquiry, also, concerning persons applying or recommended for the benefit of the Fund, is sometimes not smalL Yet its management has been so systematized as not to be bur- densome, and its operation, in many instances at least, is, so far as we have the means of judging, exceedingly beneficial. On this point, the following extracts from letters written by recipients of libraries may give some light to the reader.

^^ Albion, Mich.y June 18, 1855.

" I have long desired to possess some of the works

mentioned in your schedule. They cannot be obtained from book- stores here. My yearly expenses in circulating books and tracts are greater than the amount received for my labors. I hope to be better prepared to So good afler their perusal.

" Permit me here to express my gratitude to Unitarian brethren for the benefit I have received from their published works, such as Drs. Channing, Dewey, Ware, Burnap, and others whose works I have chanced to obtain from colporteurs, although I have very few of them in my possession at this time, having loaned them in the various districts of our new State, where I trust they are do- ing good.

" Not long since, calling upon one of our senator fanners, after some time conversing on religious topics, answering his objections to Christianity on account of sectarianism, etc., I left him a copy

FUND FOB LIBERAL CHISTLAiaTY. 65

of Unitarian Views, published by direction of the Western Unita- rian Conference. Some two weeks after, calling again, I was met with a smile, while he remarked, could such works be placed in every family, much good would be effected in removing many objections to religion, by showing the difference between the truths of the Bible and the fancy of man."

'^Hampdetij Ohio, Od. 18, 1855. " I have just received yours of October 9th, and truly, if ever I thought I had an angePs visit, it is now. I have never had an opportunity of getting many books, that is, many of the right stamp ; hence I hail the present as a new era in my history."

''Lakeville, N, Y,, July 26, 1855.

" I suppose that you have received an expression of thanks for the valuable present of books that you sent to young ministers in this section, as one was written at the Central Conference, which

was signed by each of us, and left with Brother to forward

to you. I will in addition to that say, that since the books have been received by me, I have many times, while perusing them, experienced feelings of deep gratitude to yourself and the donor, or donors, who established the * Fund for Liberal Christianity.' Receive this, therefore, as another feeble expression of my grati- tude for this valuable gift. I felt much the need of those very works, and of that kind. Permit me to say, that Channing's Woiks I had before, but have now availed myself of an opportunity to make a present of the copy I before had to a worthy young brother in the ministry."

** Monroe, Wis., June 28, 1855.

** With regard to your very choice donation, you will

please accept my warmest thanks, as nothing could be more op- portune and well chosen."

^'Pleasant Grove, Min, T., July 22, 1856. " I received, one year ago, from the Trustees of the Meadville Theological School, an appropriation of books, and it appears no more than proper that I should let you know how I am profiting

by them

6*

66 FUND FOB LIBEBAL CHBISTIAKITT.

'* Those books, and especially the writings of Dr. Channing, have been of incalculable value to me. Never, until I read his writings, did I have anything like proper ideas of God or man. While I applied the term * Father ' to God, I had little idea of that grand and consoling idea of a father as exhibited in the char- acter of God, and I had too much overlooked that germ of immor- tality in man, which alone is sufficient to command our respect, and inspire us with awe and a deep sense of the vast responsibility we take upon ourselves when we attempt to guide that immortality to its true sphere of action and enjoyment. Indeed, I can only say, with gratitude, that, since receiving the ideas of that truly great mind, my own mind has moved in another sphere. But my thanks are not due for his writings alone ; the others have been of great value to me.

" Not only for myself alone are thanks due, but for others also. These works have been generally well received, and many who have read them like them much. I think much good might be done by the circulation of Channing's Works here, and if you deem it proper, I am willing to put forth such efforts as I can for such an object"

''Eaton, Ohio, May 26, 1856.

" I have just received your favor of May 14th, and thank you and the Association kindly for their donation to me. I receive no present with so much satisfaction as I do good books, and I spend money in the purchase of them the most willingly of any way. I have not attended school since I was a child of eleven yeais of age, and did not care anything for education until I had seen nine- teen summers. I then was poor, and had no one to assist me, and being the eldest son of my father's family, I had to work. At the age of nineteen, I professed religion, and have been trying ever since to obtain some knowldge. I have added a few books to my library each year, as I felt I could spare from my small income, until the number is now three hundred volumes."

''Warrensville, Fa., Nov, 26, 1856. " You will please accept my thanks for the favor re- ceived I will only add, that I was very much in need of

books, and knew not how nor where to get them."

FUND FOB LIBEBAL CHBISTIANITY. 67

'^Blackberry Station^ III, June 3, 1856.

** The box of books has come safely to hand at last, and I am broaght under deep and lasting obligations to yourself and oth- ers for this memento of their affection to me and to our com- mon cause. Be assured that I shall use those books, and use them to my advantage. Many of them are books which I have long felt the need of, and which I had not the means at my disposal to pur- chase.

*< The books are a valuable addition to my meagre library ; in fact, they comprise the largest half of it.

'*It seems to me that the prices set against the respective works in the list are very low. Are they the wholesale or retail

prices? "

[''Oxford, N, F., May 5, 1857.

" The volume you sent [Martineau's Discourses] was

the first volume of the box that I read, and I assure you I found in it a literary feast. I have read it twice carefully, and pronounce it decidedly the best volume of sermons that I have ever seen. I would not hesitate to pay double the price of the other volume, if I could obtain it. I am just finishing Channing's second volume. I find there too a depth of thought. I have glanced at Dewey's Works, and anticipate in reading them another rich treat.

" I cannot refrain from thanking you again for your kindness in adding to my library so rich a store of books, which my limited means would not permit me at present to procure."

''Coojperstown, N. F., May 20, 1857.

'* Be assured the books will not lie idly upon my

shelves. They comprise some which I have long yearned to possess, in the only true sense of possession, — that of mental di- gestion.

" Particularly have I ever held in high esteem the Uni- tarian branch of the Christian Church, for holding prominently before the world the idea of the dignity and sacredness of man "

Further extracts or details as to the operations of the Fund might, perhaps, interest some readers, but the major*

68 FUND FOB LIBERAL OHBISTIANITY.

ity will probably prefer to receive such information in a brief shape. While they read this conununication, the Fund will be distributing another half-year's income. Hitherto the number of societies which have applied for aid in the formation of " Permanent Ministerial Libraries " has been small. It is to be hoped that they will gradually become more familiarized with the idea of establishing such libra- ries, since in this way the appropriations of the Fund will effect at least twice as much, the societies will become more interested in the mental wants of their pastors, and a minis- ter, instead of having to carry a library from place to placcj which is expensive, troublesome, and often injurious to the books, will find at least such books as he most needs in every parish.

I had thought of adding some remarks on the deep ap- preciation of Unitarian literature, and heartfelt expp^sions of gratitude for the opportunity of its perusal, whidi {have found among the Orthodox, both ministers and laity. J hoped that such a communication might lead some among ourselves to a better appreciation of the worth which our literature has for those to whom it is new, and lead them in consequence to distribute the same more freely in direclicms where no thought of controversy should have a place. But I found that it would occasion too wide a digression &om the subject of my report, and I hesitated, also, to draw on my private correspondence for heart-felt utterances which had not been intended for publication.

The need of our books at the West is, as yet, far greater than the supply. There is not only ample room for exer- tion among Western men in their distribution, but abun- dant opportunity for a judicious application of whatever our Eastern friends may wish to appropriate to such a purpose.

F. HUIDEKOPER.

A WELL-6B0UNDED HOPE. 69

A WELL-GROUNDED HOPE, AND NOT INFAL- LIBLE CERTAINTY, THE OBJECT AIMED AT BY DIVINE REVELATION.

BY ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

In human nature there is no more powerful principle than a craving for in&Uibilitj in religious matters. To examine and re-examine, — to reason and reflect, — to hesitate, and to decide with caution, — to be always open to evidence, — and to acknowledge that, after all, we are liable to error ; — all this is, on many accounts, unacceptable to the human mind, — both to its diffidence and to its pride, to its indo- lence, its dread of anxious cares, and to its love of self-sat- isfied and confident repose. And hence there is a strong prejudice in favor of any system which promises to put an end to the work of inquiring, at once and for ever, and to relieve us from all embarrassing doubt and uncomfortable distrust. Consequently, this craving for infallibility predis- poses men towards the pretensions, either of a supposed un- erring Church, or of those who claim or who promise immediate inspiration. And this promise of infallible guid- ance not only meets man's wishes, but his conjectures also. When we give the reins to our own feelings and fancies, such a provision appears as probable as it is desirable. If, antecedently to the distinct announcement of any particular revelation, men were asked what kind of revelation they would wish to obtain, and, again, what kind of revelation they would think it the most reasonable and probable that God should bestow, they would be likely to answer both questions by saying, " Such a revelation as should provide some infallible guide on earth, readily accessible to every

70 A WELL-GBOVNDED HOFB.

man ; so that no one could possibly be in doubt, on any point, as to what he was required to believe and to do ; but should be placed, as it were, on a kind of plain high-road, which he would only have to follow steadily, without taking any care to look around him ; or, rather, in some kind of vehicle on such a road, in which he would be safely carried to his journey's end, even though asleep, provided he never quitted that vehicle. For," a man might say, " if a book is put into my hands containing a divine revelation, and in which are passages that may be differently understood by different persons, — even by those of learning and ability, — even by men professing each to have earnestly prayed for spiritual guidance towards the right interpretation thereof, — and if, moreover, this book contains, in respect of some points of belief and of conduct, no directions at all, — then there is a manifest necessity that I should be provided with an infallible interpreter of this book, who shall be always at hand to be consulted, and ready to teach me, without the possibility of mistake, the right meaning of every passage, and to supply all deficiencies and omissions in the book itself. For, otherwise, this revelation is, to me, no revela- tion at all. Though the book itself be perfectly free fiom all admixture of error, — though all that it asserts be trae, and aU its directions right, — still it is no guide for me, unless I have an infallible certainty, on each point, what its asser- tions and directions are. It is in vain to teU me that the pole-star is always fixed in the north ; I cannot steer my course by it when it is obscured by clouds, so that I cannot be certain where that star is* I need a compass to steer by, which I can consult at all times. There is, therefore, a manifest necessity for an infallible and universally accessible interpreter on earth, as an indispensable accompaniment — and indeed essential part — of any divine revelation."

A WELL-GBOUNDED HOPE. 71

Such would be the reasonings, and such the feelmgs, of a man left to himself to consider what sort of revelation from Heaven would be the most acceptable, and also the most probable, — the most adapted to meet his wishes and his wants. And thus are men predisposed, both by their feel- ings and their antecedent conjectures, towards the admission of such pretensions as have been alluded to.

And it may be added, that any one who is thus induced to give himself up implicitly to the guidance of such a sup- posed infallible authority, without presuming thenceforth to exercise his own judgment on any point relative to religion, or to think for himself at all on such matters, — such a one will be likely to regard this procedure as the very perfection of pious humility, — as a most reverent observance of the rule of " lean not to thine own understanding " ; though in reality it is the very error of improperly leaning to our own understanding. For, to resolve to believe that God must have dealt with mankind just in the way that we could wish as the most desirable, and in the way that to us seems the most probable, — this is, in fact, to set up ourselves as his judges. It is to dictate to Him, in the spirit of Naaman, who thought that the prophet would recover him by a touch ; and who chose to be healed by the waters of Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, which he deemed better than all the waters of Israel.

But anything that falls in at once with men's wishes, and with their conjectures, and which also presents itself to them in the guise of a virtuous humility, — this they are often found readily and firmly to believe, not only without evidence, but against all evidence.

And thus it is in the present case. The principle that every revelation from Heaven necessarily requires, as an indispensable accompaniment, an infallible interpreter always

72 A WELL-GBOUNDED HOPE."

at hand, — this principle clings so strongly to the minds of many men, that they are even found still to maintain it after they have ceased to believe in any revelation at all, or even in the existence of a God.

There can be no doubt of the fact, that very great num- bers of men are to be found, not deficient in intelligence, nor altogether strangers to reflection, who, while they for the most part conform externally to the prevailing religion, are inwardly utter unbelievers in Christianity ; yet still hold to the principle, — which, in fact, has had the chief share in making them unbelievers, — that the idea of a divine reve- lation implies that of a universally accessible, infallible in- terpreter ; and that the one without the other is an absurd- ity and contradiction.

And this principle it is that has mainly contributed to make these men unbelievers. For when a tolerably intelli- gent and reflective man has fuUy satisfied himself that in point of fact no such provision has been made, — that no infallible and universally accessible interpreter does exist on earth (and this is a conclusion which even the veiy words of Paul, in his discourse at Miletus (Acts xx.), would be alone fully sufficient to establish), — when he has satisfied himself of the non-existence of this interpreter, yet still adheres to the principle of its supposed necessity, the consequence is inevitable, that he will at once reject all belief of Christian- ity. The ideas of a revelation, and of an unerring inter- preter, being, in his mind, inseparably conjoined, the over- throw of the one belief cannot but carry the other along with it. Such a person, therefore, will be apt to think it not worth while to examine the reasons in favor of any other form of Christianity, not pretending to furnish an in- fallible interpreter. This — which, he is fully convinced, is essential to a revelation from Heaven — is, by some churches.

A WELL-GROUNDED HOPE. 73

claimed, bat not established, while the rest do not even claim it. The pretensions of the one he has listened to, and delib- erately rejected ; those of the other he regards as not even worth listening to.

The system, then, of reasoning from our own conjectures as to the necessity of the Most High doing so and so, tends to lead a man to proceed from the rejection of his own form of Christianity to a rejection of revelation altogether. But does it stop here ? Does not the same system lead naturally to Atheism also ? Experience shows that that consequence, which reason might have anticipated, does often actually take place. He who gives the reins to his own conjectures as to what is necessary, and thence draws his conclusions, will be likely to find a necessity for such divine interference in the a&irs of the world as does not in fact take place. He will deem it no less than necessary, that an omnipotent and all-wise and beneficent Being should interfere to rescue the oppressed fix)m the oppressor, — the corrupted from the corrupter, — to deliver men from such temptations to evil as it is morally impossible they should withstand; — and, in short, to banish evil from the universe. And, since this is not done, he draws the inference that there cannot possibly be a God, and that to believe otherwise is a gross absurdity. Such a belief he may, indeed, consider as useful for keeping up a wholesome awe in the minds of the vulgar ; and for their sakes he may outwardly profess Christiamty also; even as the heathen philosophers of old endeavored to keep up the popular superstitions ; but a real belief he will regard as something impossible to an intelligent and reflective mind.

It is not meant that all, or the greater part, of those who maintain the principle here spoken of, are Atheists. We all know how common it is for men to fail of carrying out some principle (whether good or bad) which they have adopted ;

VOL. V. NO. L 7

74 A WELL-GROUNDED HOPE.

— how common, to maintain the premises, and not perceive the conclusion to which they lead. But the tendency of the principle itself is what is here pointed out : and the danger is anything but imaginary, of its leading, in fact, as it does naturally and consistently, to Atheism as its ultimate result.

But surely, the Atheist is not hereby excused. To reject or undervalue the revelation God has bestowed, urging that it is no revelation to us, or an insufficient one, because un- erring certainty is not bestowed also, — because we are re- quired to exercise patient diligence, and watchfulness, and candor, and humble self-distrust, — this would be as unrea- sonable as to disparage and reject the bountiful gift of eye- sight, because men's eyes have sometimes deceived them, — because men have mistaken a picture for the object imitated, or a mirage of the desert for a lake ; and have fancied they had the evidence of sight for the sun's motion ; and to infer from all this that we ought to blindfold ourselves, and be led henceforth by some guide who pretends to be himself not liable to such deceptions.

Let no one fear that, by forbearing to forestall the judg- ment of the last day, — by not presuming to dictate to the Most High, and boldly to pronounce in what way He must have imparted a revelation to man, — by renouncing all pretensions to infallibility, whether an immediate and per- sonal, or a derived infallibility, — by owning themselves to be neither impeccable nor infallible (both claims are alike groundless), and by consenting to undergo those trials of vigilance and of patience which God has appointed for them, — let them not fear that by this they will forfeit all cheerful hope of final salvation, — all "joy and peace in believing." The reverse of all this is the reality. While such Christians as have sought rather for peace — for men- tal tranquillity and satisfaction — than for truth, will often

OITB FIFTH VOLUME. 75

fail of both truth and peace, those of the opposite disposi- tion are more likelj to attain both from their gracious Mas- ter. He has taught us '^ to take heed that we be not de- ceived," and to '^ beware g( false prophets " ; and He has promised us his own peace and heavenly comfoit. He has bid us watoh and pray; Hie has taught us, through his blessed Apostle, to ^ take heed to ourselves,** and to ^ work out our salvation with fear and trembling"; and He has de- dared, through the same Apostle, that ^He worketh in us"; He has bid us iej<Hoe in hope ; He has promised that He ^^ will not suffesr us to be tempted above what we are able to bear'*; and He has taught us to look forward to the time when we shall no longer ^^see as bj means <^ a mirror, darkly, but &ce to face " ; — when we shall know ^^ not in part, but even as we are known**; — when fidth shall be succeeded by certainty, and hope be ripened into enjoyment. His precepts and his promises go together. His support and comfort are giv^n to those who seek for; them in the way He has himself appointed*

OUR FIFTH VOLUME.

The first number of the Quarterly Journal was issued in October, 1853. The work has consequently been con- tinued for four years, making sixteen numbers, which are four volumes. With this number we enter upon our fifth volume. We may take occasion, therefore, at this point, to offer a few words to our readers in r^ard to our situa- tion and wishes.

76 OUB FIFTH VOLUME.

The publication of the Journal was undertaken as an experiment, as it was believed that a small periodical, filled with short articles, some of which should report the action of the Executive Committee of the Association, and contain extracts from the correspondence of the Secretary, would acceptably take the place of the monthly issue of Tracts. Our humble magazine received a welcome far more cordial than was anticipated, and quite beyond its deserts. Many imperfections necessarily attending a new enterprise of this kind, started without the advantage of any previous expe- rience, have been kindly overlooked, in the hope, doubtless, which we trust wUl be realized, that time will correct mis- takes and supply defects. We enter upon a new volume with the conviction that the Journal will hereafter be moi^e worthy of the patronage of its friends.

We print seven thousand copies. These are sent to the following persons : —

1. To all life-members. Of these there are between sax and seven hundred. They receive the Journal and Tear- Book gratuitously. By a payment of thirty dollars, either at one time, or by five annual instalments of six dollars each, any person may become a Hfe-member, and will thereafter receive all the periodical publications of the Association free of charge. We are glad to add, that we continue to re- ceive evidences that this mode of assisting the Association meets the favor of our friends. At no time for thirty years have names of life-members been more frequently received.

2. To all persons paying one dollar per annum. We have nearly one thousand annual subscribers. They are scattered over the whole country. Many of them have met with stray copies of the Journal, and have sent us by mail their name and dollar subscription. A large number live in places where there is no Unitarian Society ; and the Jour-

OUIt FIFTH VOLUME. 77

nal supplies them with religious reading, and forms a tie con- necting them with the body of Christians to which they feel allied. Through the pages of this work they learn what plans of Christian action the Association is undertaking, and now and then a contribution is received as the fruit of such information ; as also they see what books the Associa- tion publishes, copies of which are accordingly frequently ordered. These annual subscribers likewise receive the Year-Booh

3. To all societies that take up annually a contribution in aid of the Association. By far the largest portion of our quarterly issue is disposed of in this way. We have had the following rule for our guide, — to send as many copies of the Journal as there were dollars contributed by any Society, excepting where the contribution was large, and in this case to send such a number of copies that one may be placed in each pew. To all Societies thus contributing, a like num- ber of the Tear-Booh is also sent.

For one dollar a year, therefore, we supply five hundred and seventy-five printed pages, and uniformly prepay the postage on everything sent from our office. .We do not know of any other publications of the kind that are furnished more cheaply. Perhaps our readers may agree with us in the opinion, that the Journal ought to have a much larger circulation. We had hoped that our subscription list would before this have amounted to ten thousand. May we not ask the assistance of our friends in accomplishing a result which a little painstaking on their part would easily se- cure ?

We are stimulated to greater exertions in the promotion of a pure and earnest faith by the possession of more en- couraging opportunities than were ever before accorded to us. It is true we do not witness any increase of Societies.

7*

78 OUB FIFTH YOLUME.

No denomination in New England is growing in this way. The various sects do but little more than barely hold their own. The religious world has arrived at a stage of devel- opment in which changes of opinion are not indicated, as formerly, by transfer of members from one party to another, but are shown by silent and gradual modifications of belief within the party itself. Where are the signs that a theology which we believe to be unscriptual and unreasonable is secretly and steadily gaining any strength? We look in vain for such signs. All the indications of the age are the other way. A simpler and purer Christianity is underlying all our most vital and hopeful civilization; and literature and art, humanity and reform, God and his gracious provi- dence, and Jesus and his spirit of truth, are all working to- gether for the advancement of those views which, dawning £rom the Scriptures, are c<mfirmed by our reason, and are dear to our hearts.

Meanwhile, it becomes us to stand in our lot with more hope and courage, with mbre faithfulness in the present and more confidence in the future. For a more signal success than has ever attended our efforts, nothing is wanted but a more affectionate union among ourselves, and a more de- vout consecration to those interests of which we are put in charge. Let us each ask ourselves, Is there not some- thing for God's holy and precious truth which I can do, — something, the doing of which may make others b^ter, certainly will make me better ?

QUASTEBLY BEPOBT OF HOME MISSIONARY. 79

SECOND QUARTERLY REPORT OF HOME

MISSIONARY.

In my missionary visitations during the quarter which has just come to a close, I have had my attention drawn in an especial manner to the subject of church polity and church organization. I have had frequent opportunities of noting some of the prominent causes of church declension in our body, which are still operating most unfavorably in respect to its future increase.

I find, by reference to the missionary record which I kept in 1845, '46, and '47, that, notwithstanding the uniform increase of population in aU our cities and towns between the last date named and the present year, there has been a gradual falling off in church-membership, so far as our household of faith is concerned. The admissions to church- fellowship have not equalled the number of such as have died, or have ceased to be interested in the means of grace. I hope, erelong, to find time for an explanation of this startling fact, and to suggest certain remedial measures, which, if heartily adopted by ministers and those still claim- ing to be members of the visible Church, will be sure to cause a revival of religion in our congregations.

The mission with which I have been intrusted is full of interest to me ; and I feel certain that those with whom I have sojourned have been sharers of my joy. A rich ex- perience it is that works conviction in behalf of a liberality hat longs to give to Christ the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession, and which joins works to faith in the cause of this great philan- thropy.

The following are brief sketches of the parishes I have

80 SECOND QUASTEBLY REPORT

visited, twelve in number, since my first Report. It will be seen that I have officiated twice at Communion seasons, have preached twenty-eight sermons, and addressed twelve Sunday schools. They are barely sketches these, and noth- ing more, as room could hardly be afforded for the contents of twenty closely written quarto pages, which comprise my doings during the last quarter.

Mzst Marshfield, June 7, 1857. Rev. Greo. Leonard. — My first visit of the second quarter, since my appointment as Home Missionary, was made to this sea-shore village, to the church of our faith, set upon a beautiful hill. The weather was unfavorable in the morning for much of a gathering. It improved in the afternoon and evening. At the last sei^vice in the evening, at a school-house about 4;wo miles distant from the village, the attendance was very good. Number of inhabitants, 1,000 ; average attendance, 100 ; members of the church, 15 ; Sunday school, 45 ; teadiers, 9 ; library, ^00 volumes ; no fund ; no debt. Oth«» ^* %rche8 : 1 Orthodox, 1 Baptist.

Fitchhurg, June 14, 1857. Rev. Wm. P. Tilden. — The weather this morning promised a golden day. A beautiM scene greeted me in the spacious avenue leading to the church ; and a still more exciting one, as I gazed upon the company of worshippers which filled the capacious church. I preached all day upon subjects connected with my mis- sion ; addressed a large Sunday school ; and at the close of the service in the afternoon, after the benediction, I unfolded my plans for the circulation of our publications. Mr. Til- den, in the most genial and efficient manner, confirmed my statements, and the whole matter was left in the hands of the Ladies' Association. How they responded will soon be

OF HOME MISSIONABY. 81

ascertained; but credible information assures me, that the number and value of the books already sold will prove the high estimation in which they are held in this parish of our faith. No collection was taken, because a generous one had already been remitted to the Treasurer of the American Unitarian Association. Number of inhabitants, 6,000 ; aver- age attendance, 400 ; members of the church, 150 ; Sunday school, 200 ; teachers, 25 ; library, 650 volumes ; no debt ; no fund. Other churches, 2 Orthodox, 1 Baptist, 1 Univer- salist, 1 Methodist, 1 Catholic

Gloucester^ June 21, 1857. Rev. Robert P. Rogers. — The sound of the sea on this rock-bound coast, together with the angular direction of the streets, and the peculiar architecture of the buildings, reminded me at once of my native place, Newport, R. I., which a French traveller once wrote about, describing it ^^as the only place in America where they built old houses."

Mr. jc^o wb's parish is in the occupancy of an excellent church buuuing, and appears to be very happy in the pas- toral relation subsisting between shepherd and fold. I preached all day ; took up a collection in the aflemoon, and made most successful arrangements for the sale of books. Not a single appeal has been made in vain in behalf of the Association's publications. Number of inhabitants, 8,000 ; average attendance at the Unitarian Church, 120 ; members of the church, 30 females, 2 males ; Sunday scholars, 60 ; teachers, 12 ; fund, $ 1,300. Other churches : 2 Orthodox, 1 Baptist, 2 Methodist, 1 Universalist, 1 Catholic.

Dorchester, Mass,, First Parish, June 28, 1857. Rev. Nathaniel Hall. -— I have highly enjoyed this Christian Sab- bath. The weather has been very beautiful ; and a hearty

82 SECOND QUASTEBLY BEPOET

welcome from the pastor and people has given an additional glow to the outer and the inner world. The church build- ing, viewed externally, has undergone little or no change since its early construction ; but the interior is marvellously improved. I hardly know of a church that is so perfect in its seatings ; and, when occupied to the full, as it was this morning, no sight could be more imposing. The chapel attached to the church is admirably suited f(Mr the Sunday school, Bible class, and conference meetings. I was glad to be introduced to such a school, and to speak to its pupils a word of admonition and encouragement I preached all day, and received a very liberal contribution in aid of the objects of the American Unitarian Association, as will ap- pear in the Treasurer's Report At the close of the after- noon services, all who felt interested were invited to draw near to the table upon which the publications of the Associ- ation had been placed ; and after a free statement of my plans of distribution, and a brief analysis of the woik% it was determined to leave the same in the hands of i|be ladies connected with the sewing-cirde. Number o£ inhabitants, 9,000 ; average attendance at Mr. Hall's church, 400 ; chiprch- members, 100; Sunday school, average attendance^J^; whole number of pupils, 200 ; teachers, 21 ; librariaitt^i2 ; library, 800 volumes ; fund, $ 15,000.

Concord, jBT. -ffi, Jidif 5, 1857. Vacant — Sent as a sup- ply, the parish being without a minister. Not having been expected to perform any special service, there had been no notice given from the pulpit the Sunday previous, and of course I withheld my missionary discourse ; but which, sub- sequently, it was arranged I should deliver on the second Sunday of September. My conversation with several mem- bers of the Society satbfied me that their hearts and minds

OF HOME MISSIONABT. 83

are alive and awake to spiritual things, and are deter- mined to be built up on the foundation of Christ and his Apostles, and upon none other. Number of inhabitants, 11,500 ; average attendance at Unitarian Church, 300 ; members of the church, 90 ; Sunday scholars, 100 ; teach- ers and superintendent, 17 ; library, 600 volumes. Other churches; 4 Orthodox, 3 Baptist, 1 Free-Will Baptist, 1 Episcopal, 1 Methodist, 1 Universalist, 1 Catholic.

Dva^bmy^ Mzss., Jtify 12, 1857. Eev. Josiah Moore. — The appointment for this day had been agreed upon two months ago. Soon after my arrival, I ascertained that my visit was ill-timed, because of a fair that was soon to be held, in union with other Societies of the place, for the erection of a fence around the cemetery of the town. Of course, the amount contributed at the church was unusually small. I lefl with Mr. Moore our series of books, and it was agreed on all hands, that, as soon as the fair was disposed of, they would do what they could for their circulation and sale. Preached all day and evening, and addressed Sunday school. Number of inhabitants, 2,700 ; average attendance at Unitarian Church, 300 ; members of the church, 40 ; Sunday school, 60; teachers, 11; library, 200 volumes; parish library, 200 volumes ; fund, $ 10,000. Other church- es : 3 Methodist, 1 Universalis^

North Chelsea, July 19, 1857. Rev. W. O. Moseley. — Having been requested by Mr. Moseley to officiate for him in the " Tuckerman " Church, and to address the people in behalf of our book and missionary enterprises, I most gladly availed myself of the opportunity of standing upon the ground consecrated to the memory of one who, during a long series of years, devoted himself to the highest happi-

84 SECOND QUARTERLY REPORT

ness of the people of his charge, and who, when a separa* tion from them was deemed necessary, entered upon a much wider ministry, that of a ministry to the poor, and continued therein, a dispenser of faith, hope, and love, as long as his feeble health would permit. The present church is a neat and graceful edifice, formed in part out of the old one, and considerably enlarged. The old steeple will ever remain as a well-known landmark. The Society is growing. The people are happy in the ministry which they enjoy. The Sunday sc];iool, which I addressed, is quite prosperous, hav- ing faithful teachers and a devoted minister, to aid them in spiritual culture. I presented the subject of religious read- ing, and received the most cordial assurances from the ladies that everything should be done in their power to insure a wide circulation of our publications. Number of inhabitants, 800 ; average attendance, 100 ; members of the churchy 20 ; Sunday school, 80 ; teachers, 10 ; library, 300 volumes. Other churches : 1 Orthodox.

Judy 26, 1857. — In consequence of a brother's inability to fulfil his ministerial engagement with me for this Sunday, I have for once laid aside my professional employmjeii% and been with a numerous company to worship God, and to lis- ten to a truly godly discourse upon the subject of a want of reverence at the present day. The sermon was well stated and admirably illustrated.

. Salem, August 2, 1857. Rev. James W. Thompson, D. D. — This is one of the most lovely days of the season. Its ten- dency, separate from any religious considerations, could not fail to attract the people towards the various houses of wor- ship, so temptingly open for their reception. Barton Squaire Church was well filled, notwithstanding the numerous ab-

OF HOMB MISSIONAEY. 85

sentees at this season of the year. Better than all, there seemed to me to be a quick and earnest engagedness in the pews, the promise of a happy and profitable day. Nothing cheers a minister of the Gospel so much as the wide-open and uplifted eyes of a numerous congregation, such a one as has greeted me to-day. There have been no sleepers present to put me to sleep. I deliverd discourses to-day in harmony with the commemorative service of the blessed Communion, and with the Home Missionary movement in our body. I addressed the Sunday school, embracing par- ents, teachers, and scholars, and rejoiced in the season, which is precious above all others to me. I also preached in the evening in the chapel. A collection is to be taken up next Sunday, and measures have been adopted for circulating the books. I have never received so many personal salutations as were tendered to me. Both the aged and middle-aged gave me the right hand of fellowship. This was peculiarly touching at the close of the Supper. Number of inhabitants, 22,000 ; members who commune, 85 ; Sunday scholars, 100 ; teachers and superintendents, 20 ; library, 968 volumes. Other churches : 3 Orthodox, 2 Baptist, 2 Friends, 3 Catho- lic, 1 Bethel, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Methodist, 1 Universalist, 3 Unitarian, 1 City Missionary, 1 African.

Saco, Maine, August 9, 1857. Rev. J. T. G. Nichols. — During a three years' missionary service, from 1845 to 1847 inclusive, I visited Saco twice, and always felt that myself and the cause I advocated received ample reward for any exertions made in behalf of the church in this im- portant town. Upon comparing the former record of statis- tics with my present tables, I find that the population has increased over two thousand. Number of families attend- ing church have doubled during same time. Six naembers

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86 SECOND QUARTERLY REPORT

have been added to the church this year. This is a notice- able event, not because of the magnitude of the conversions which have been wrought elsewhere, but because of the very few instances of any revival of religion whatever with us. Preached all day and evening upon the topics coincident with the objects of my mission. Made arrangements for the circulation of the publications of the Association. The Sun- day school is flourishing. No collection was attempted, be- cause the Society liberally contributes in aid of the Associa- tion, annually. I ought not to forget mentioning, that Saco is a near neighbor of the city of Biddeford. It is expected that, quite soon, a new Unitarian Society will be started in that place, with every prospect of sure growth. Number of inhabitants in Saco, 8,000 ; members of the church, 58 ; teachers, 11; average attendance, 300; Sunday scholars, 93 ; no fund ; no debt. Other churches : 1 Orthodox, 1 Bap- tist, 1 Free-Will Baptist, 1 Methodist, 1 Universalist, 1 Episcopalian.

Newport, R, £, August 16, 1857. Rev. C. T. Brooks. — This day opened most gloriously. The atmosphere is so genial that one might adopt, without exaggeration, the lanr guage of Dr. Morse, in one of his early Geographies, and say of this spot of earth, " It is the Eden of America." At church time, the streets were suddenly made alive with peo- ple, on foot and in carriages, wending their way to their several places of worship. The church of our faith was crowded with its own society, and with a great number of strangers from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Balti- more. Preached, as usual, concerning matters and things connected with my missionary labors. The response was unrestrained and most generous. Let us ever thank Gk)d and take courage. I had the pleasure of addressing a very

OF HOME MISSIONABT. 87

prosperous Sunday school. I preached on Sunday after- noon, also on the Friday evening following. ' The series of books published by the Association were left with the pastor, to be circulated by ladies connected with the parish. I will just add, that the church building is very commodious, and beautifully proportioned. Number of inhabitants, 10,000 ; average attendance, 200 ; church members, 40 ; Sunday scholars, 85 ; library, 600 volumes. Other churches : 3 Bap- tist, 1 Seventh-Day Baptist, 2 Methodist, 4 Episcopal, 2 Friends, 1 Catholic, 1 Orthodox, 2 African.

FaU River, August 23, 1857. Eev. Josiah K Waite. — This Society has evidently, of late, increased in numbers and in religious interest It has not learned, because it has never been systematically taught, of the blessedness of re- ligious activity and charity beyond its own pale. But a change has already become apparent, and very soon nothing will be wanting to make this a luxuriant vine of God's own planting. As fast and as far as they become sympa- thetic with our whole household of faith, at home and abroad, will be their growth in the study and practise of Christianity. I preached all day, and addressed the Sunday school. Made arrangements for the circulation of our books through the kind agency of Mr. Potter. Took up a collec- tion in the afternoon, and attended a conference meeting in the vestry in the evening. As respects this last service, I must confess that, for years, I have not experienced such genuine pleasure and profit as I derived from that meeting. It reminded me of the good times, so richly experienced, at the " Church of the Disciples." The speaking was very general, and full of life-giving expressions in behalf of Christ's kingdom. There are two such meetings held every week. There is also a Bible-class meeting, and a church

88 QUASTEBLY BEPOBT OF HOME MISSIONABT.

meeting. May God be pleased to help on the good work. Number of inhabitants, 13,000 ; Sunday school, 150 ; teach- ers, 15 ; library, 400 volumes ; average attendance, 200. Other churches : 2 Orthodox, 3 Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, 2 Christian Baptist, 1 Swedenborgian, 2 Calvinist Baptist, 2 Friends, 1 Catholic.

Marblehead, Augtist 30, 1857. — This parish is without a stated ministry. After Rev. Mr. Bartlet's death, Rev. Mr. Huntoon officiated, until his health obliged him to vacate a pulpit in which, and out of which, he rendered himself an acceptable and profitable preacher and pastor. It is a Soci- ety that any earnest, devoted minister might well covet, if to godly preaching he shall be able to add godly visiting. So much is to be done for souls in the house and by the way-side, as well as in the pulpit, that the business of private and public religious instruction should be felt to be equal- ly pressing. Addressed the Sunday school in the morning. Preached all day, and, at the close of the afternoon service, took up a collection in behalf of missionary objects, and for the promotion of the book enterprise. Number of inhah- itants, 7,000 ; members of the church, 30 ; Sunday scholars 80 ; average attendance, 400 ; teachers of Sunday school, 15 ; library, 400 volumes ; church fund, $ 500 ; no debt. Other churches : 1 Orthodox, 1 Methodist, 1 Baptist, 1 Uni-

versalist.

Geo. G. Channino, ITome Missionary.

WILLIAM PARSONS LUNT. 89

WILLIAM PARSONS LUNT.

With sensations of deep grief our brotherhood received the tidings of the death of one of our ripest scholars and most eloquent preachers. Dr. Lunt was not widely known in the denomination. He sought no notoriety ; on the other hand, he instinctively shrank from it. His study was his •world. Excepting his own people, and the few pulpits in his neighborhood, the affluence of his genius and culture was known only by two or three public performances which had been reluctantly undertaken.. To those who knew him, it was evident that he had gathered stores both of learning and of spiritual experience which might yet bring forth fruit far richer than any hitherto matured ; and many were the fond hopes of wider usefulness, and more quickening power, as the result of the relief, and mental and bodily recreation, afforded by foreign travel. But these hopes were not to be fulfilled. Suddenly and at midday was his sun to go down, its renewed splendors to shine in a world where they shall no more be dimmed.

William Parsons Lunt was bom in Newburyport, April 21, 1805. He graduated at Harvard College in 1823, and completed his course of theological study at the Divinity School in Cambridge, in 1828. He was ordained pastor of the Second Congregational Unitarian Society in New York, now Church of the Messiah, June 19, 1828 ; and June 3, 1835, was installed colleague pastor of the ancient Congre- gational Church in Quincy, Massachusetts, of which he was the sole minister at the time of his death. In December, 1856, he sailed for Europe, with the purpose of visiting Egypt and Palestine. He was seized with disease on cross- ing the desert between Cairo and Jerusalem, and on March

8*

90 WILLIAM PABSONS LUNT.

21, 1857, died at Akaba, a small village in Arabia Petrsea, near the site of the ancient cities of Elatb and Ezion-Geber. On the 7th of June last solemn commemorative services were held in the church in Quincy. A most appropriate and affectionate discourse was preached by Rev, Chandler Robbins, D. D., of Boston. The following is an extract, giving an account of Dr. Lunt*s last letters, and of his sick- ness and death.

" His last letters were written on the eve of his entrance into the desert which lies between Egypt and Palestine. Their tone is cheerful, even jubilant. Was he not nearing the goal of his longings ! Was he not nearing the promised land ! * Our tent,' — he writes from Cairo, on the 22d of February, — * is now pitched in the great square opposite my window, and yesterday we tried for the first time the camel's back. It is more like a dream than anything which has ever happened to me. Only fifty- three days have elapsed since I left home, and now, here I am, with my most cherished plan about to be accomplished! How amazing it seems to me to be commencing a journey in which, all the way through^ ilie Bible is the best guide-book ! Our expectation is to be in Jerusalem in about forty days, which will bring us to the 6th of April. Eastei' this year falls on the 10th of April, and that will be a truly interesting occasion to be in Jerusalem. You will not, therefore, expect to hear from or of me for a long time after this. But I trust in the kind care that has preserved me thus far, to enable me to carry through to a happy result this, the dai^ ling wish of my life.'

" At a still later date, the 28th of February, he writes from the desert itself, in which his small caravan had pitched their tents, a few miles distant from Suez. * Our ride in the desert has been beautiful. The atmosphere has been clear and bracing. I never enjoyed any scenery more highly. At sunrise, this morning, while the Bedouins were striking the tents and loading the cam- els, our party walked forth to enjoy the exhilarating air. The hills on either side, although composed of nothing but stone and

WILLIAM PABSONS LUNT. 91

sand, yet presented the most beautiful forms against the clear sky, and were colored with the softest tints. Every shade imaginable of brown and purple was displayed upon their many angles, and mingled with the masses of shade. I have just mounted one of them, and, with a telescope, had the pleasure of seeing the Red Sea, stretching its blue line down from Suez, and beyond it the hills of Asia. I never felt better in my life, and everything looks inviting before me.'

" Over the same dreary wilderness through which, of old, the hand of Jehovah led his chosen Israel, — in ' the right way, to a city of habitation,' — though a way that seemed to them so circu- itous and tiresome and desolate, — the same secret hand was lead- ing him, to the same sure rest. He saw the same bleak rocks which frowned upon them. He wound his way through the same dark valleys which they traversed. He climbed the same precip- itous and stony paths up which they toiled. He stood where they stood, awe-struck before Sinai and Horeb. His last walk was alone, along one of the deep chasms that indent their united base, — near where once the prophet Elijah walked in gloomy seclu- sion.

'' Who can tell us what were his impressions amidst that sub- h'me scenery 1 The shadow of the awful mount may, for a little while, have cast its gloom over his sensitive and poetic mind ; but quickly the gladdening Gospel came to cheer its solitary herald in the very place which had once reverberated with the thunders that announced the Law ; and above that scarred and frowning monu- ment of wrath and judgment, ■ — of * blackness and darkness and tempest,' — the radiant sign of a better covenant glittered like the morning star.

** He returned, apparently in his usual health, to the Convent, from which he had strolled forth, while his more robust compan- ions were ascending the mountain. The day after leaving Sinai, a disease, which had been coming on stealthily for several days previous, began to manifest more decided symptoms, and was evi- dently fastened upon him. Still he was able to be moved. No accommodations or comforts for sickness could be obtained in the desert. The Bedouins were unable to find water. To remain

92 ANTIOCH COLLEGE.

where they were was perilous and impracticable. The only chance of relief was in getting on to some inhabited place. He was carried forward for three or four days, by short stages, as care- fully and gently as was possible on a camel's back.

'' They halted at Akaba, a small and mean village of Arabia Petraea, situated at the northern extremity of the Elanitic Gulf, — the eastern arm of the Ked Sea. Everything was done to comfort the invalid that the skill and kindness of his intelligent fellow- travellers could suggest or supply. But it was in vain. While neither they nor he anticipated immediate danger, he was already beyond the reach of human aid. The second night at Akaba, af- ter a short fever, attended with delirium, a deep sleep fell upon him, and in it he passed away. Since he must die afar from his kindred, was it not mercifully appointed that that soft veil should hide from him a vision of the sorrowful group at home, for whose sake, far more than for his own, it might have been hard to die ! Who can hesitate to acknowledge that it was * the right way!^

" Decently and reverently, on the morning of the 21st of March, his mortal remains were laid away in the sand. The funeral ser- vice was recited by a clergyman from his own country, while all the English, French, and American travellers who were then at Akaba stood uncovered around the grave. The place selected for his sepulchre was a sandy eminence in the rear of the town. A rude heap of stones marks the spot. His monument is in youi hearts." — pp. 34-37.

ANTIOCH COLLEGE.

Rev. Dr. Miles, Secretary of the American Unitaricm Association : —

Dear Sir, — You have been pleased to say that you should like to have the remarks which I made at the meet- ing of the Executive Committee, on my return from Anti-

ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 93

ocli College, brought into such a form that they could be presented to the readers of the Quarterly JoumaL It was my object in those remarks to give in plain, if not in few words, the impressions which I received from my two days' visit at Yellow Springs. It will be my aim now to assist others in forming a judgment concerning an institution, the character of which is imperfectly known in New Eng- land, by a j&ank confession of the effect on my own mind of what I saw and heard.

I arrived at Yellow Springs on the day before the Com- mencement, and had both public and private opportunity of observing the influence of the College on those who were connected with it. It may not be improper to say, that, if the interest I felt in the institution drew me from home, I carried with me some New England notions that were likely to be offended by what I should find. I believe there was as much of unfavorable as of favorable prepossession in my mind.

The situation of Antioch College, though not particularly agreeable to the eye, is well chosen. In the southwestern part of the State of Ohio, seventy-five miles north of Cincin- nati, accessible by railroad, yet not lying on any great line of travel, its position is at once central and secluded. A loose, straggling village will soon grow into a neat town, and may eventually extend itself around the College buildings ; which now stand in naked majesty, every tree having been swept from the lawn on which they are placed, while a noble grove but a few rods distant shows how regardless alike of beauty and of comfort was the " clearer's " axe. There are now three buildings, which might and should be united by covered galleries, to prevent exposure in passing from one to the other in stormy weather. The expense of complet- ing the structure according to the original design, with con-

94 ANTIOCH COLLEGE.

necting piazzas, would be about five thousand dollars ; all that is really necessary might be provided for a tenth part of that sum. The buildings are of brick, four stories in height, and, with the exception I have noticed, are finished externally and internally. The central edifice has rather an imposing appearance ; the other two are as plain parallelo- grams as Harvard or Yale can boast. The former contains the chapel, a large and well-arranged room, capable of hold- ing nearly a thousand persons, the library, in which the present collection of books reminds one of the famous line, " Tall oaks from little acorns grow," the lecture and reci- tation rooms, and several smaller apartments. The two buildings in the rear are used for dormitories, one being given wholly to the young men, while in the other provision is made for the residence of the steward's family, besides a general parlor for the young ladies, and the use of the whole of the ground floor as a " commons' hall." There is ample room for the accommodation of all the students. The Pres- ident's and Professors' houses are just without the College fence. There is pleasant scenery in the neighborhood,* and the climate is found, even by invalids, to be healthful. Some springs, at a short distance, from which the place derives its name, though they possess little medicinal virtue, have been visited for years by persons seeking salubrious air and op- portunity for agreeable exercise.

* I am unable to verify from actual observation the enthusiastic description inLippincott's " Gazetteer" : — " Adjoining the College plat on tlie east is a highly romantic and picturesque ravine, affording all the scenic variety of overhanging cliffs, waterfalls, isolated rocks, nu- merous gushing springs, deeply embowered amid climbing vines and clustering evergreens, threaded with varied walks, inviting the pedes- trian by their cooling shade and graceful bowers." Still I would by no means deny the existence of such a paradise.

ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 95

Antioch College has been in existence four years, having just graduated its first class. It consists of three depart- ments,.— the " Preparatory," the " English," and the " Un- dergraduate." The first two are in effect one, embracing the branches of instruction common in our schools and acade- mies; the last corresponds to our colleges, with a four years' course of study. The Catalogue for the year 1856-7 gives the whole number of students as 539, of whom 105 were undei^raduates. The earlier classes, as might be pre- sumed, were small, but the Freshman class of last year in- cluded 52 members, a decisive proof of the estimation into which the College is rising with those who desire more than an elementary education. At the late Commencement, fif- teen were graduated ; three of whom were young ladies, who read their performances and received their diplomas with a propriety and grace of manner that could not have disturbed the severest taste. The exercises were all such as did no discredit to the training under which the pupils had passed. Some of them were remarkable for vigor of expression and soundness of thought, and, in point of both composition and delivery, the average merit did not fall be- low that of any of our Eastern Colleges. Of the thirty institutions bearing this name in Ohio, none can claim supe- riority to Antioch, and but one or two, I was assured by a competent judge, can give as good proof of faithful instruc- tion and diligent study.

The most obvious peculiarity of Antioch is the enjoyment by both sexes of the privileges, and their subjection to the restraints, of academical life on perfectly equal terms. This feature of the institution has awakened in many minds such a doubt of the wisdom of its managers, that nothing but long and entire success will overcome their distrust. The experience of four years may not be thought sufficient to

96 ANTIOCH COLLEGE.

settle so grave a question. Yet I cannot but think that a visit to Yellow Springs would go far towards changing the opinion so common at the North in regard to the impropri- ety, if not impracticability, of such a union of the sexes. I certainly went there without any prejudice in its favor, and expecting to see much which would justify a preference of the separation which we deem both safer and more deco- rous. But as for safety, decorum, propriety, or practicabil- ity, I saw nothing which warranted the slightest doubt or fear. Two days' close observation, under various circum- stances, confirmed the testimony of all of whom I made inquiry, that no evil resulted from the participation of young men and women in the same scholastic exercises. Whether in the public hall, the crowded levee, the street, or in private conversation, I did not notice less ease or re- finement of manner, or a greater freedom of behavior, than in similar circles at home. It should be remembered tiiat the experiment was not commenced under specially &yora- ble circumstances. Some of the young men, before coming to Antioch, had been accustomed to what we are apt to con- sider the rough and rude ways of the West, and the first year, though free from reproach, was not without its trials. Gentle discipline and consistent example on the part of the instructors were, however, sufficient to correct any tendency to disorder, and the last year has scarcely given occasion for the exercise of coercive authority. Not only are pupils re- ceived from either sex, but ladies as well as gentlemen are employed as teachers, even in the higher branches ; an in- novation that, in the judgment of many, would be sufiicient to discredit the right of Antioch to rank as a College. Yet the universal expression of respect for the lady who filled one of the professorships last year, and the ample qualifica- tion of another recently appointed, whose modesty sdone

ANTIOGH COLLEGE. 97

has prevented her rare acquirements from being known be- yond the circle of personal friends, afford good reason for relinquishing the belief that women can teach onlj the rudi- ments of knowledge. At Antioch, the opinion seemed to be unanimous in regard to the Influence which the pres- ence of female instructors and female students had exerted on the deportment and characters of the young men.

The other most remarkable peculiarity of this Western institution is the disuse of emulation as a motive to study or good behavior. <^ Eank " is ignored. No one takes pre- cedence of another. The performances at Commencement are not distributed on any scale of relative merit What- ever jealousies or disappointments grow out of the rivalry allowed or encouraged in ahnost all other seminaries, are here unknown, or are at least kept out of sight. Yet there is no want of interest in the purpose for which the yourig people are assembled within the coUegiate halls. The spirit of study is as prevalent and as strong as in any similar in- stitution. It has been shown, that prizes and honors, com- petition and £une, are i^ot necessary to awaken the love of knowledge, or to sustain the effort for its acquisition. The value of this example I cannot but regard as almost inap- preciable.

You will probably infer from these remarks, that I was gratified with the moral condition of Antioch. So far as I could judge, it seemed to me satisfactory and admirable. Practices with which I had always been familiar in our Eastern colleges, and which I had been told were ineradica- ble, were banished from the place. The use of tobacco, that favorite indulgence of the West, is entirely and suc- cessfully prohibited. No means of intoxication or gaming are allowed. No immorality is virtually countenanced, by permitting its indulgence if it do not become too open or

VOL. V. NO. T. 9

98 ANTIOCH COLLEGE.

too gross. If there be yice, it is at least disreputable and covert Again let me remind you, that, if the seclusion of Yellow Springs forbids the proximity of social temptation, here are more than five hundred young people, three fourths of them young men, many of them fond of that indepen- dence of conventional rules to which they have been accus- tomed, brought together at an age when ardent feelings and undisciplined tempers easily run into disorder. The ab- sence of such disorder is noteworthy.

In the address delivered by President Mann, at the dose of the Commencement exercises, a position was taken, and maintained with equal deamess of expression and strength of argument, which, if enforced in almost any one of the older colleges of the country, would cause an outcry of ap- prehension, lest it should be ruined by a decrease in the number of its students. Yet how can our colleges become what they should be, while they hesitate to accept this posi- tion ? Affirming that a college had no right to send out graduates into the community, with its virtual recommenda- tion, unless they were correct in life, he declared that no person of immoral or vicious habits should ever reoeive a diploma from his hand. Is not this a vindication of the true principle, by which the moral takes 'precedence of the liter- ary character of an institution designed to prepare young men to fill their places in society ? I could not but listen with admiration to the frank and manly tone of Christian sentiment which pervaded this address.

President Mann's influence over the students at Antioch is certainly as great as he, or any one, should desire to exer- cise. The confidence which is reposed in his ability and sincerity is unqualified. And it has good foundation. The course which he has pursued since he took charge of the College, has been judicious and consistent Without re-

AKTIOOH OOLLEGB. 99

noundng his political attachments, he has withdrawn from political action, and devoted himself to the interests of edu- cation. Throughout the State he is known and esteemed for his intelligent and luminous advocacy of these inter- ests ; and beyond the boundaries of the State, his name carries a weight of influence enjoyed by few others. Since his remo^ to Ohio he has become a member of the ^^ Chris- tian Connection," from a preference of their fundamental principle, of entire freedom for the individual judgment within the limits of Scripture. Adopting both the truths involved in this principle, the authority of Scripture on the one hand, and independence of ecclesiastical authority on the other, he can be Christian without being sectarian, and belong to a denomination without encouraging proselyt- ism. That he exerts a decidedly religious influence cannot be doubted. Though not ^n ordained or licensed preacher, he often fills the pulpit of neighboring societies on Sunday, and conducts the devotional services in the College Chapel. Of the religious condition of Antioch, I cannot, of course, speak from any direct knowledge. Of a positive interest in religion, I am inclined to think there is neither more nor less than is usually found in similar institutions. One of the rules, which requires attendance on public worship once only on the Lord's day, may be thought too lax, but the reasons which led to its adoption are not without force. Morning prayers are observed daily in the Qhapel, at which the students are required to be present. The College is neither directly nor indirectly committed to the support of any theological tenets. If the Christians and Unitarians alone have shown an interest in its success, it is because they alone have approved of its care in avoiding sectarian proclivities. It throws its doors open to all who seek the means of intellectual culture, and it disowns or dislikes only

:- ,» .,-v ^ . ■* r ' . » . r #

100 ANTIOCH COLLEGE.

those who lead an immoral life. It makes no attempt to convert any student to a particular form of religious belief, and regards all sects with an inipartial indiflerence. It is this position, so unlike that taken by the other literary institutions near it, that should give to Antioch a special importance in our eyes, and does give it a peculiar advan- tage in its relation to the part of the country in which it is situated. It is a mistake to suppose that it must or will draw its students almost wholly from the Christian denomi- nation. That great body of people, spread all over the States lying between the old Western border of the Union and the Mississippi, who reject creeds, and who, some with and some without faith in Christianity, demand liberal treatment of their liberal views, are looking, and every year will look more confidently, to Antioch as the only place of education for their children. It would not be easy to over- rate the influence which it may hereafter exert if it shonld retain its present character with increasing resources, or the loss which would be incurred if it should sink under its present pecuniary embarrassments. It stands, not merely as one of the light-houses of knowledge, shedding a broad and generous illumination over the pathways of education, but as a citadel of free thought for that vast region, in which young minds may enjoy protection till they are trained to exercise their own powers on truth and life. Its overthrow would be a calamity of the most serious kind, from which letters, morals, and religion might suffer long after the opportunity of saving them from such a disaster had passed out of our hands.

Antioch is not a Unitarian College, and should not be made such. By assuming a denominational attitude, it would forfeit its relation to the free intellectual activity of the West It can best promote the diflusion of Unitarian

ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 101

sentiment by faithfulness to its unsectarian position. There is, doubtless, a readiness with large numWs in the West to accept our exposition of the Gospel, as well as a curiosity with others who would patiently listen, though they might not assent. While the Christian Connection would certain- ly prefer to retain their own arrangements, and would be jealous of any attempt which they should think they dis« covered on our part to hide their distinctiye existence under our name, they are prompt to acknowledge a general agreement with us in the interpretation of Christian truth. The delight with which they confess having listened to Dr. Bellows, is a proof of this harmony. On the Sunday before I reached Yellow Springs he had preached a sermon in the College Chapel on the Holy Spirit, of which all who heard it spoke .with the greatest satisfaction. On the day preceding the Commencement he delivered an Address before the United Literary Societies of Antioch College, which called forth the hearty expressions of admiration which it deserved. It would be unjust to allude to this Address without saying a word of its extraordinary merit A discussion of the subject of Education, under the several heads of natural and artificial, human and Divine, popu- lar and scholastic, European and American, Eastern and Western, trite as was the topic, nothing could have been more appropriate, sound, or racy. When a fortnight later I yielded, with every one else, to the charm of that exquisite rhetoric which only he whom Lord Napier so aptly styled " the magician of Massachusetts '* knows how to elaborate, I still could not deny to the orator at Antioch the superi- ority in extent of survey and athletic mastery of his theme. It was not this admirable performance alone, however, but all which Dr. Bellows had said and done in his five succes- sive visits to Yellow Springs, that had drawn to him the*

9*

102 AHTIOCH COLLEGE.

confidence of the ** Christians " of Ohio. Whatever preju- dice thej had indulged against Unitarianism, he had neu- tralized. <

The expectati<Mi that Antiodi would supply students to Meadyille maj be disappointed. So long as the coarse of studj at the former conducts its graduates to a much higher point of sdiolarship than is required for admission at Meadyille, entrance into the latter will be r^arded bj many as a step backward^ radier than forward. A proper atten- tion to the difference in the character and purpose of the studies pursued at the two places would prevent such a judgment ; but young men are apt to form opinions on par- tial grounds. That gradual increase in both the requisitions and the advantages at Meadville, whidi would not be in- consistent with the design of furnishing prc^sssional prep- aration to those who had enjoyed little previous culture, will make the weakness of this objection still more manifest In future years the College wiU, doubtless, send pupils to the Divinity School. Still the probability of any large ben- efit which the one will derive &om the other, is not such as would entitle it to much weight in considering the dakils of Antioch to our support. These claims seem to me to rest on the principles of education which it is intended to iQus- trate, and on the relation which it holds to a portion of what is called, with a constantly enlarging definition, ^ the great West." Greater every year in geographical surfiioe, it also becomes greater in respect to the influence it must exert on the national character and history. Stretching from the border of Pennsylvania across the Mississippi, towards, over, beyond, the Rocky Mountains, touching the Northern Lakes, and approaching the Southern Gulf, " the West " embraces more than half our country. The eastern part of this extensive region, at once young and old, when

ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 103

compared with the Atlantic States on the one hand, and with the soil which emigration reached bat yesterday on the other, occupies a position the importance of which it would be difficult to overrate ; a position which enables it to receive, and to transmit, as well as retain, the intellectual, moral, social, and religious influences of which the riper civilization and higher culture of the Eastern States may be the fountains. Independently of- their connection with the whole breadth of territory between the Mississippi and the Pacific, these Middle States, as they should now be called, have an active, ambitious, and inquisitive population, with whom life cannot be routine, nor religion prescription. They are not ready to rush with blind delight into the arms of those who may bring them a liberal theology or a gener- ous refinement. Many, perhaps most, determined by con- siderations to which the spirit of mental independence is seldom strong enough to prevent a successful resistance, will adopt the forms of belief which have the greatest currency in the Christian world. But thousands of minds are there whose religious opinions are unsettled, whose views of the meaning and worth of life are crude, and who will wel- come an instruction that in the same sentence directs the conscience and solicits the approval of the understanding. The West feels its want of knowledge and faith ; but it will not receive the one nor the other on dictation. A body of teachers, who shall present truth and duty as subjects of free examination as well as of high prerogative, allowing and as- sisting every one to justify to his own mind the conclusions which are proposed as final, will have an eager and respect- ful audience. It is not in contempt of other institutions, literary or religious in their aims, that we ascribe to Antioch a peculiar ability to meet the demands of the people among whom it is situated. Unshackled by a creed, and free from

104 ANTIOCH COLLEGE.

sectarian control, it commands a sympathy which no college devoted to the support of certain religious tenets can enjoy ; while at the same time the spirit of faith that pervades its 'whole action, addresses the most effectual rebuke to scepti- cism, irreligion, and immorality.

Our interest in the prosperity of Antioch is heightened by the experiment which will there be tried for the benefit of the whole country. Starting with all the advantage it might derive from the history of other colleges, at home and abroad, and exempt from any influence that would prevent an impartial choice and fair use of the principles on which such an institution should be conducted, it has not only avoided errors which few would wish to see retained, but has adopted methods which are far from having, as yet, secured a general assent. By relying wholly on the senti- ments of honor and rectitude in the young mind, and discard- ing alike rivalry and penalty as means by which the student may be kept at his books, the Faculty at Antioch have set themselves in opposition to time-honored opinion and almost universal practice. Who can help wishing that they may es- tablish the sufficiency of pure and generous motives, whether for securing intellectual progress, or for enforcing order and good behavior among the members of our academical and col- legiate institutions? Even more valuable than this result would be success in maintaining the principle, that the object of such institutions is to form character, as well as to develop and train the mental powers. A college which should