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East, Third East, and so on for each cardinal point,- a scheme which entices some minds at first by its apparent simplicity, but which in practice causes such perplexity, confusion and vexation that I think the recording angel has long since ceased to note what people say when they are disappointed in getting to the place they seek.

For example, a friend will tell you that Mr. Smith lives at 435 East 9th South. You go there, and find a park or a vacant lot filled with docks and sunflowers, and return to be informed that he meant 435 South 9th East. But the people here are patient and good-natured, and they are willing to direct the stranger a great many times if he needs it, as he generally does; and they are mostly firm in the faith that they have hit upon the ideal system of street naming and numbering.

Our cause here has been prosperous, even popular, from the very first. Mr. Eliot preached to about three hundred people the first meeting, and we have seldom had less since and generally a greater number. We have paid all our bills so far; and, though the times are hard, we expect to be self-supporting from this time forward. We have met now for six months in the Salt Lake Theatre, a theatre built by President Brigham Young many years ago. It is quite large, and is well arranged and seated, and is the only theatre in the city. We have with us a large number of persons who have been Mormons, or whose people are or have been Mormons, many of them people of influence and the highest standing in the community. No orthodox church has ever attracted this class as ours does; and now that it is done the wonder is that we never thought of it before. All the churches have had high hopes, at times, of "converting the Mormons"; but the results have been almost as meagre as have followed similar efforts at converting the Jews. The reasons for this are straightforward and easily seen and comprehended by an outsider. The Mormons are a sincere people, and build their faith upon the Bible as a whole more simply and completely and literally than any other church ever dreamed of doing. They take it all, Old Testament as well as the New, and try to live up to it in all particulars. They believe in miracles and revelations through dreams and visions,

not simply in the days of Christ and the prophets, but as among the true people of God in all ages. They heal the sick, cast out devils, raise the dead, and speak with tongues now, just as Jesus and his disciples did. At least this is what they believe is done now, and they point to their miracles as showing that they only fulfil the word of Jesus,-"These signs shall follow them that believe." They do not strain the interpretation of any scripture: they take all literally; and, if any prophecy seems unfulfilled, they either have fulfilled it or will as soon as they can get round to it. The Bible seemed not to recognize America, and so Joseph Smith found the American part, showing how this continent was peopled, and how Christ was prophesied of here before he came, and how he came here as well as in Asia. Even the Garden of Eden is located as in Jackson County in Missouri. Such a system is sure to be outgrown by the intelligent and educated; but, as they let go of it, all belief in miracles and in special inspiration or revelation is sure to go, too. Natural Religion, Theism, Christianity as a result of natural evolution, may have some attractions; but never again can anything be "proved" from the Bible or come to them as of any special divine authority. It is "Mormonism or nothing," they say as long as they try to hold on to it; and then their feeling is that the Mormon Church is the reductio ad absurdum of the religion of the Book. And so, in increasing numbers, they come to us, and will come as the schools improve and the masses become better educated.

And yet we labor under many disadvantages, especially in trying to conduct a Sunday-school. There are so few who can be persuaded to even try to be teachers, and yet for every teacher we could form a class up to a large number at least. Our theatre, admirably arranged for speaking and hearing, is not adapted to the needs of a Sundayschool; and yet it is the best we can do. My Bible class is large and interesting, from forty to sixty. We have no Sunday-school library and no money to get books, and no place to keep them if we had them. And yet what an opportunity to do good by circulating good books is here! I never saw anything like it. A free library here with ten thousand good books would be used as

hardly any other city of this size would use it, and not anywhere would it be used by people so hungry. The joy of my work here amid its perplexities and difficulties is the eager reception that is given to every word printed or spoken that I have to give. DAVID UTTER.

Aug. 14, 1891.

HERESY IN THE PEWS.

A Presbyterian gentleman said to me the other day in all sincerity that "nobody believes the Westminster Confession," but that "it ought not to be revised or disturbed in any way, because the Presbyterian Church is founded upon it." I quote his exact words, though I don't think he meant exactly what he said, but he thought he meant it; and his position in this matter is by no means exceptional. Yet people who take that ground habitually wonder at and deplore what they call the irreligious tendencies of the present age, and they seem somehow unconscious of the fact that they are doing all they can to make religion a mere amiable and pious fiction, an outgrown fairy tale. Are they not the real heretics and the only heretics in the Church to-day? Are they not guilty of the most solemn and dangerous kind of trifling with the Christian gospel? The lingering superstition and intolerance still to be found in many churches are bad enough; but these things are not doing one-tenth of the injury to the cause of religion that is daily being done by that formal insincerity of well-meaning people who hold one doctrine in their worship and another in their lives, one doctrine in the sanctuary and another in the street, one doctrine as members in good standing of some evangelical church, but an entirely different doctrine as loving, thinking, trusting members of God's great human family.

All men are talking of the heretic who stands in the pulpit: of him who sits in the pew but little has yet been said. He is a good man, and he means to be honest; but is he not in a false position? He loves his brother man, he worships God in spirit; but does he worship him in truth? He delights in charity, in tolerance, and in liberalism-so long as it can be made to pass for orthodoxy; but as a Christian has he no duty regarding honesty and truth? I should

be glad if I could in any way help some people to see the great wrong which they are unintentionally doing, not to themselves only, not only to their fellow-men, but to the Christian religion itself which I know they dearly love, by professing or even seeming to profess as members of a Christian church what as thoughtful men and women they cannot and will not pretend to actually believe. By so doing, are they not publicly making a mockery of Christian faith? And are they not making themselves largely responsible for the irreligion and scepticism of the present day? No man is to blame in this age because he cannot decide at once what is true; but any man, most of all he who calls himself a Christian, is to blame if he will not decide for himself what is honest. HOBART CLARKE. Plainfield, N.J.

FATHER TAYLOR.

About the time that Mr. Emerson's view of the communion services made such a sensation I was walking home with Father Taylor, when a Methodist leader on his other side was telling Taylor some awful story of Unitarian innovations. "Brother," said my friend, "I know these Unitarians better than you, and all the good they are doing at the North End. Now, if the tree is good and the fruit good, why should we quarrel because the bark is a little bitter?" The man was silenced effectually: it was a good sermon on the text, "By their fruits shall ye know them."

At a time when his throat was inflamed he charged me to pull his coat when he had preached an hour; but, when I obeyed orders with my utmost vigor, it was only to draw this reply: "Brother, I cannot put into port. The open sea invites me on: the seven spirits before the throne fill my sails."

Another Sunday, when a sailor's elbow projecting over the side of the pew hindered a much beflounced lady from making much headway, "Messmate," said Taylor, "take in your jib-boom and let that frigate sail by.”

A curious story of his last hours is that, when some of his friends tried to cheer the dying man by reminding him of the angels he would soon meet, he replied that he did not want any other or better angels than he had known here.

F. W. H.

UNITARIANISM.

Religion is older than Christianity and greater than any organized form of religion. As Unitarians, we do not claim that our Church, nor do we believe that any Church, holds all truth. We stand for that which has been given to us, and hold that fidelity to that is our first duty. The Christianity of which we claim to be a part may be said to begin with the sublime doctrine of the one God associated in history with Abraham and the patriarchs. It was developed by Moses and the law-givers, received a more spiritual interpretation from Isaiah and the prophets, and was enriched by contributions of Oriental wisdom and the learning of Greece and Rome. By Jesus and the apostles it was enlarged beyond the bounds of any church or nation, and was fitted for the acceptance of the world. Since the first Christian century it has been sometimes hidden under creeds and forms of exclusive churches, but always, as the assertion of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, it has existed in all the churches, even the most intolerant and exclusive, and now at last comes into clear light as a spirit and a life, the light of the world and the hope of man. Temporarily, the Unitarian Church accepts the duty of declaring this world gospel as a denomination, in the hope that at last all Christian churches will see the wickedness and folly of attempting to monopolize the gifts of God, and will unite in the spirit of their great Leader for the worship of God and the service of man. GEORGE BATchelor.

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Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,

Parts the goats upon the left hand and the sheep upon the right,

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,

Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?

Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around alone is strong, her throng

Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record

One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just;

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,

Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is cru

cified,

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Else never had the eager soul which loathes
The slothful down of pampered ignorance,
Found in it even a moment's rest.

There is an instinct in the human heart
Which makes that all the fables it hath coined,
To justify the reign of its belief
And strengthen it by beauty's right divine,
Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift,
Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful hands,
Points surely to the hidden springs of truth.
For, as in nature naught is made in vain,
But all things have within their hull of use
A wisdom and a meaning which may speak
Of spiritual secrets to the ear

Of spirit, so, in whatsoe'er the heart
Hath fashioned for a solace to itself,
To make its inspiration suit its creed,

And from the niggard hands of falsehood wring
Its needful food of truth, there ever is

A sympathy with Nature which reveals,

Not less than her own works, pure gleams of light

And earnest parables of inward lore.

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Worn and footsore was the Prophet, When he gained the holy hill; "God has left the earth," he murmured, "Here his presence lingers still. "God of all the olden prophets,

Wilt thou speak with men no more? Have I not as truly served thee

As thy chosen ones of yore?
"Hear me, guider of my fathers,
Lo! a humble heart is mine;
By thy mercy I beseech thee

Grant thy servant but a sign!"
Bowing then his head, he listened

For an answer to his prayer;
No loud burst of thunder followed,
Not a murmur stirred the air:
But the tuft of moss before him
Opened while he waited yet,
And from out the rock's hard bosom
Sprang a tender violet.

"God! I thank thee," said the Prophet; "Hard of heart and blind was I,

Looking to the holy mountain
For the gift of prophecy.

"Still thou speakest with thy children Freely as in eld sublime; Humbleness and love and patience

Still give empire over time.

"Had I trusted in my nature,

And had faith in lowly things,
Thou thyself wouldst then have sought me,
And set free my spirit's wings.
"But I looked for signs and wonders,
That o'er men should give me sway;
Thirsting to be more than mortal,

I was even less than clay.
"Ere I entered on my journey,
As I girt my loins to start,
Ran to me my little daughter,
The beloved of my heart.

"In her hand she held a flower
Like to this as like may be,

Which, beside my very threshold,
She had plucked and brought to me."
FRIDAY.

A Sonnet.

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CREED SQUEEZING.

In the periodic eruptions of heresy from the old volcanic craters of Orthodoxy, the creeds are slowly getting buried out of sight.

To the average on-looker of any religious belief, who appreciates intellectual progress, this is eminently satisfactory. But the few to whom the elaborate inexplicabilities of creed utterance are sweet much deplore the obliterating process. As they cannot, however, extricate their favorite dogmas from the steady pressure of modern criticism, they busy themselves in endeavoring to save the juice.

The latest effort of this kind is that of Mr. Spurgeon et al., who publish what may be called an extract of creed. For any one desiring to familiarize himself with the creed taste, we know of no preparation that better preserves the genuine flavor. It is as

follows:

We, the undersigned, banded together in fraternal union, observing with growing pain and sorrow the loosening hold of many upon the truths of revelation, are constrained to avow our firmest belief in the verbal inspiration of all Holy Scripture as originally given. To us the Bible does not merely contain the Word of God, but it is the Word of God. From beginning to end we accept it, believe it, and continue to preach it. To us the Old Testament is no less inspired than the New. The Book is an organic whole. Reverence for the New Testament, accompanied by scepticism as to the Old, appears to us absurd. The two must stand or fall together.

We accept

Christ's own verdict concerning "Moses and all the prophets" in preference to any of the supposed discoveries of so-called higher

criticism.

We hold and maintain the truths generally known as "the doctrines of grace." The Electing Love of God the Father, the Propitiatory and Substitutionary Sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ, Regeneration by the Holy Ghost, the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness, the Justification of the sinner (once for all) by faith, his walk in newness of life and growth in grace by the active indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and the Priestly Intercession of our Lord Jesus, as also the hopeless perdition of all who reject the Saviour, according to the words of the Lord in Matthew xxv. 46, "These shall go away into eternal punishment," are, in our judgment, revealed and fundamental truths. Our hope is the Personal Pre-millennial Return of the Lord Jesus in glory.

EDITORIAL NOTES.

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Announcement is made on another page of the great Unitarian event of the season, the meeting of our National Conference, at Saratoga, from the 21st to the 24th of the present month. The summons once more to the old place, where so many inspiring meetings of the Conference have been held, will be to many a pleasant one. We trust the representation of our churches will be large, and the spirit earnest. In most parts of the country our churches are few and widely separated. All the more important, therefore, are these national gatherings which bring great multitudes together, and give an opportunity for lonely workers to meet other workers, and to gain a sense of comradeship, and that inspiration that comes from numbers. Liberal Christianity has an immensely important work to do in these United States. May the Conference help us all to realize this as never before!

It seems likely that our missions in Japan will thrust upon the Unitarian and Universalist bodies in this country some larger and more important questions than we had dreamed. In the article on another page entitled "A Most Significant Word from Japan" we indicate briefly what some of these questions are.

A meeting of some forty leading Unitarian ministers and laymen was held in Boston last May, during Anniversary Week, to consider the general subject of Unitarian periodicals. It seems probable that the Unitarian Review will not be continued

longer than through the present year. The limited circulation which it is able to secure does not seem, to some of the Directors of the American Unitarian Association, to warrant a continued appropriation of $3,000 a year, the sum which it has been found necessary for some years past to appropriate, to carry on the Review in its present form.

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Ought we to have something else in the place of the Review? and, if so, what? These were the questions before the meeting. Rev. J. H. Crooker proposed a plan for a theological Quarterly, to be international and, to some extent, interdenominational in its character.

The plan met with considerable favor. There seems to be little room

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