for doubt that a high-class review, to be the exponent of the advanced and more independent religious scholarship of the time, is a real need. The question is, how to raise the money necessary to insure its success. Of course, changing from a monthly to a quarterly would greatly lessen the expense, and making the publication interdenominational and international would much enlarge its constituency. Have we not men women of means among us who would be glad to establish and endow such a highclass quarterly? The subject may come up for further consideration at Saratoga. or The The missionary spirit is undoubtedly growing in the Unitarian body. But there is still room for improvement. If our liberal faith is good for ourselves and our children, it will be good for others, and we ought to help them to get it. Mr. Savage well says: "The two or three great religions of the world that are of any historic significance have been missionary religions. people believed so thoroughly that they had the truth that the world needed that they felt impelled not simply to live it out at home, but to bestow it as broadly and freely as the sunshine or the rain. So one of two things must be true,-either Unitarianism is worth giving to other people or it is not worth keeping ourselves. If it be God's truth, and, if it be not, let us surrender it, -then we are under the highest obligations to do what we can to give it to all mankind." Of the fundamental faiths of Unitarianism, "one God whose nature is goodness and love, the oneness of man with God, and, therefore, the immortality of the soul, and the final triumph of good over evil in the universe," Rev. Stopford Brooke says, "These are not dogmas: they are the eternal truths, about which dogmas are made." That is an inspiring fact which Mrs. Sutherland Orr tells us in her recently published Life of Browning, that the great poet took up the study of Hebrew and Spanish after he had passed his seventieth year. And why not? He is the wisest soul who most defies age. See what Gladstone is doing at past eighty. And Martineau, since he was eighty, has given the world the greatest books of his life. Are there not signs of a closer and more rigid drawing of theological lines in the orthodox bodies? The action of the Presbyterians regarding Dr. Briggs, and of the Episcopalians regarding Mr. MacQueary and Dr. Newton, and the persistent effort made to keep Phillips Brooks out of the bishop's office seem to indicate as much. The declarations uttered in the recent International Congregational Council in London, to the effect that Unitarians are not to be fellowshipped, and the refusal of the Methodists and Presbyterians in Saratoga to allow us to use their churches for our coming Conference, seem to point in the same direction. Nor is all this strange. With liberal thought creeping into the orthodox folds everywhere, it is not to be wondered at if the shepherds begin to wake up, mend the gates, stop the cracks, and strengthen the crumbling walls. We sometimes flatter ourselves that the age of theological controversy is past, and, therefore, that Unitarianism has no further controversial work to do. On the contrary, the signs seem to indicate that the profoundest possible theological controversies are coming to the whole religious world, -controversies that no church can escape, least of all one that is in the van of thought, as ours is. And, after all, is controversy the thing most to be feared in the religious world? Is it not better than superstition? Is it not better than indifference? Have not the ages of religious progress and reform always been ages of controversy? We cannot escape controversy except by abandoning our place in the advancing army of truth. The army has fighting to do,-nothing is more certain than that. We must either participate or desert. If we are not cowards and traitors, we shall keep the post where God has put us. It is only by the grappling of truth with error that error is overcome. Let controversy be lifted up out of all bitterness and unfairness on to the plane of candor, let its aim be not personal victory, but the advancement of truth, and the evil passes away. Recreation that fascinates and demoralizes and makes regular work irksome is bad. Recreation that rests and sends one back to his work with renewed strength and ardor is good. We trust it is the latter that has come to our ministers and other workers as the result of the closing of churches and the suspension of religious activities of the past two months. We have had our rest and healthful diversion. Now for a year of glad and earnest labor,-labor with all our strength and with our whole hearts in it! Now is the time when plans for church work must be made. The strong minister and the efficient church make plans and carry them out, and do little drifting. As another year of activity confronts us, plans are to be formed and set on foot for the Sunday-school, for the Bible classes, for the Women's Auxiliary, for the Unity Club, for the Guild, for the King's Daughters or Lend a Hand society, for evening services, for missionary preaching, systematic tract and literature distribution, for temperance work, for philanthropic and charitable work, for the social life of the parish, for home finances, for denominational finances. In this work of planning, two or three things may to advantage be borne in mind. One is, to be sure and do it. A other is, to do it promptly, courageously, nd without apology. Another is not to expect perfection, but to remember that a poor plan well carried out is far better than no plan. Still further, it is well to remember that one of the best ways to get persons to help you work is to get them to help you make your plans for work. TEMPERANCE NOTES. The regular business meeting of the Unitarian Church Temperance Society will be held at Saratoga in connection wtih the National Conference. The business will consist of reports, the election of officers, and the consideration of amendments to the constitution offered two years ago. The principal one relates to membership, and provides for an individual membership in addition to that of branch societies in churches. It is also proposed to omit the word "church" in the name of the society, calling it simply "The Unitarian Temperance Society." Either we must abridge and break down the liquor business, or it will ruin and destroy us in body and soul, in home and State. There is but one solution of the problem that promises any safety to ourselves and our homes. The liquor business must be made disreputable, it must be made unprofitable, and, lastly, it must be made impossible. The first step has already been taken, when, in California, the saloon business, especially, is recognized as a dishon orable, a disgraceful occupation. The very man who patronizes the open bar despises the man who serves him behind it. The second step has been taken in many communities and even States of our Union, which have so heavily taxed and so restricted the saloon as to make it unprofitable, and drive most, if not all, saloon-keepers out of the business. Some day, and soon, too, we shall pursue this course in California. Ultimately, the last step will be taken, and the saloon will be made impossible either by a high taxation that breaks it down or by its absolute prohibition. This step, also, has been taken by many communities States, and their number is daily increasing.-Rev. Charles W. Wendte. and There is no more excuse for my boy to be low Than your girl. Then please do not tell him so. This world's old lie is a boy's worst foe. Don't allow him to go into places of sin, And then to your hearts and homes take him in, Saying: "Oh, for a boy there is nothing to fear, And it don't matter much if he does drink beer. He will stop by and by,-it was always so, To them the harvest is hidden from view, see What the outcome of sowing wild oats must be. Don't send my boy where your girl can't go,For a boy or a girl sin is sin, you know; And my baby-boy's hands are as clean and white And his heart is as pure as your girl's to-night. Drunkenness is a disease in America with the proportions of a pestilence. The method of socialism is to send the constable to close the saloon: the method of Christianity is to send the teacher and the preacher to make the man strong enough to control his own appetite. I am not here discussing which of these methods is the better; and what I have said above I repeat,-that they are not mutually exclusive. It is legitimate, however, even if hardly necessary, to say that I have more faith in education than in the Force Bill, in the methods of John B. Gough than in those of Neal Dow.-Lyman Abbott, in the Arena. Omaha's saloons and houses of prostitution pay immense sums yearly to Omaha's school fund. But is the cause of education promoted thereby? A suggestive answer is found in the fact that the total enrolment of school children is only about one-half of the school population, and the average daily attendance is only about one-third the total school population. Thus does vice promote virtue, and blood money educate innocence! The Voice. The Union Signal for February 12 contains an address of Abraham Lincoln before a Springfield temperance society, delivered on the 22d of February, 1842, said to be his first address. It is prophetic of things to come: "And when the victory shall be complete, -when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth,-how proud the title of that land which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those revolutions that shall have ended in that victory! How nobly distinguished that people who shall have planted and nurtured to maturity both the political and moral freedom of their species."- Unity. C. R. ELIOT. GUILD DEPARTMENT. OUR UNDISCOVERED SELVES. Abstract of Paper given before Young People's Guild of Wellesley Hills, Mass. What mother, looking at the helpless little being given to her care, has not pondered long and earnestly on the wonderful mystery of its development? The aimless movement of the tiny hand, as yet uncontrolled by the will, gives no definite promise of the future. The eye tells no story of emotions: it only speaks the placidity of the unawakened. The tender lips move not in communion of human speech: they utter only the unconscious wail of physical discomfort. And yet the mother knows-she feels as no one else-the infinite possibility of that physical and mental life. She won ders if the tiny hand will grow in brawn and muscle to grapple with the practical realities of life. Perhaps it may be trained to sweep the chords of poesy and song for the elevation of his fellow-men. Will love and intelligence speak from the kindling eye or sodden brutality darken the "windows of the soul"? Are the feet destined to walk along the upland way or the martyr's road, the lips to utter only sighs and groans or swell the anthem of immortality? The thoughtful tremble at the responsibility resting upon them. We have learned something of what physical training will do for the body. America is waking to needs in this direction. Man ual training is assuming an importance unrecognized twenty-five years ago. A symmetrically developed mind cannot coexist with physical malformation. In a race or nation healthy minds mean healthy bodies, and the reverse is true. We are as yet only placing our feet in the right direction. When I see the care taken of little children, the intelligent and thoughtful consideration given to their food and clothing, though I feel that much more remains to learn and do, I am sure we are moving in the direction of a more perfect manhood and womanhood. In the matter of intellectual cultivation are we also in the right way? A grave question. with as many answers as communities. I am inclined to think we have overrated the educational influence from books alone, especially with our girls. With boys other factors have come in to lessen the dangers attending a life wholly given to study. Yet I glory in the educational advantages our girls have to-day; and I would give to every boy or girl, rich or poor, to whom it would be a true educator, a developer of power, a collegiate course; and I would withhold it from the boy or girl, however circumstanced, to whom it would not be all this. For many, a practical business is the best educator. It does not seem wise to attempt to fashion all children to the same pattern. Some will be misfits if we attempt it. Light thrown on one point reflects to others; and I hope this from manual and all physical training,-that, when one has learned to balance his physical powers, he will instinctively adjust his mental gifts. If, then, grave problems meet us on every side in these more tangible matters in life, who shall wonder that we fail to comprehend our spiritual natures? Our inner selves are to us almost an undiscovered land. There are no delusions so complete as those we cherish concerning ourselves, no eyes so blinded as those turned in upon our own motives, nothing so little understood by us as the mainspring of our own actions. This has its cheering as well as its depressing side. The words of Jesus apply to us all,-"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." It is true we do not and cannot realize the remote results of our commonest acts: even the smallest sin of omission may entail disaster. Yet I believe we often see these failings, weaknesses, sins of ours, far more readily than we see and admit our good deeds and tendencies. We need to hear what Jesus by his life is constantly saying, -Father, forgive them; for they know not how much of thee is in them. We are weak of faith: we cannot believe in our God-given inheritance. Men go on, day in and day out, "till years make up the sum of life," grieving for sins that are perhaps not violations of God's laws at all, but simply offences against the customs of men. We are so surrounded by these conventionalities of thought that have grown out of some need, perhaps no longer existing, that we approve and condemn our own and others' lives by them heedlessly. Does not Jesus warn us when he says, "Judge not that ye be not judged"? Judge not even yourselves by laws which may be false or which you imperfectly comprehend. If you are trying to live worthily, have faith in your Father. Leave judgment to the Power that alone sees and knows all. The Power which made your life a resultant of many inherited traits, the Power which has perhaps placed your life in contact with some other life seemingly at variance in purpose, will judge you by other standards than it is possible for you to use for yourself. Two divergent souls chained together by circumstance have in life no opportunity to see each other in perspective. So situated, daily intercourse means the friction which wears the character, as do the wave-beats the rocky coast of our New England. The end finds them scarred and seamed with the struggle to maintain integrity of purpose. Such being our lot, if, like the bluff, we have by God's grace withstood the inroads of life's struggle, so much the better for the sandy beach beyond, the weaker ones we may have unconsciously defended. To the eye which sees the life as a whole, it is grander and of stronger beauty for the warfare; more lovely, also, if perchance the tide has brought to it the various germs of sea life which may lodge in its fissures, the pimpernel and mosses to beautify and glorify its very ruggedness. And we are to remember that of that other life which seems to dwarf our own we may not judge. If one life varies from the right, so surely does the other. No human life can be a standard for any other. I sometimes think we may not be so responsible for the outcome of our individual lives as we are inclined to think. An infinite, beneficent Intelligence must govern in a way far, far beyond the power of our littleness to know. The great schemes of God are not to be comprehended by finite man. So that, even if we could shape our lives, unhindered, in accordance with our highest ideal, should we not at last in the Divine Light find our highest too low? Believe, therefore, that "your Father knoweth what things ye have need of"; that, although "it doth not yet appear what ye shall be," it will be fairer and better for all men than we can dream. MARY CLARKE SMITH. At the Wednesday morning meeting at Weirs, July 29, Miss Brown spoke in regard to religious culture for young people, and, we understand, gave some share of her remarks to guilds. Mr. Fenn makes the suggestion, which surely could be carried out in many places, as soon as the guilds become numerous enough, that they should start Sunday-school services, and follow these in time with church services in sections where no liberal preaching had been heard. We are glad to learn that our movement will get recognition at the National Conference along with the Sunday School Society, Unity Clubs, and the temperance work, as in general forming one feature of young people's work. Rev. E. A. Horton will have charge of a meeting for this purpose. B. R. BULKELEY, President. UNIVERSALIST NOTES. CHARLES ROBINSON. The sunshine of midsummer has been clouded to many of us by the tidings that Charles Robinson was dead. And there are sure to be as many to whom these words will come in Unitarian circles who have known his worth and will feel his loss. He was a man of more than common strength, Sprung from integrity, and moral worth. the best Massachusetts stock, out of a stanch old Middlesex family, he exhibited in his whole life the best traits of our American life. He was a man of the largest practical wisdom, yet tender and susceptible to the finest things in life. He had a faith in divine realities far above the narrow definitions of the sects; yet he gave his sympathy and support to the church with which his sympathies and associations fell with unstinted liberality. He was the friend and trusted adviser of some of our foremost clergymen and laymen, and one of a little group in Boston to whose wise foresight and prudent devisings our church owes some of her stablest institutions. Especially did he give to Tufts College his warmest support, and he was ever counted among the wisest and most helpful of its counsellors. Thank God for such men, and especially for their works which follow them! LONG PASTORATES. The recent observance at Minneapolis of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Dr. Tuttle's settlement as pastor was an occasion of rare interest to our whole church. No man ever deserved the praise and honor bestowed upon him more thoroughly than Dr. Tuttle's and no pastor among us has done a more exemplary work than he. The witnesses to his devoted and fruitful pastorate were present in force, and spoke with no uncertain voices. It was interesting to note how much of this testimony would probably have been unavailable but for the length of time which Dr. Tuttle had dwelt in the city of his choice, and the opportunity which had thus been given to his fellow-citizens as well as to his parishioners to become well acquainted with him and with his work. That slow-growing plant called "confidence" had had plenty of time in which to ripen to a glorious and abundant harvest. If this noble minister had done the same work in just as faithful a way in four cities instead of one, that same quarter-century would not, because it could not, have yielded any such splendid return of appreciation and of trust. That rolling stone, an uneasy and roving minister, gathers but little of the moss of power and influence which attaches to him who rests long in a place. It takes time to establish one's self in any community. The higher the character of the community, the longer the time which must be allowed for the man to be known, proved. trusted, and followed. Of course, the man may be of the sort whose reputation could not survive the strain of a long settlement. That may be the true reason why there are so few which outlast a half-dozen years. But it is hard to believe that our ministry is so poorly endowed with grace or our laity so exacting and impatient that, with proper ideals of the true pastorate, the average term might not be vastly lengthened, and a far larger proportion of ministers celebrate their silver wedding with their churches. It cannot be but that a reaction will soon occur, and with it more permanent and satisfactory results in the churches. JOHN COLEMAN ADAMS. LITERARY NOTES. Our readers will be glad that we have selected our "Upward Looks" this month from James Russell Lowell. The last work that Mr. Lowell did, so far as is known, was an introduction to an edition of Izaak Walton's "Complete Angler," which Little & Brown are to publish in October. We print in this number of the Unitarian the first of a series of three articles by Rev. Charles L. Waite of Brunswick, Me., on "Universalism: Its History, Doctrines, Condition, and Prospects." Every one not thoroughly acquainted with our sister denomination should read these excellent articles. Many will be astonished to find how nearly parallel with our own has been its history and how exactly identical with our own is its doctrinal position to-day. Rev. Richard A. Armstrong of Liverpool, Eng., who is to preach the opening sermon of the Saratoga Conference, is well known to some of our readers. He is one of our leading English ministers, and was the editor of the Modern Review during the three or four years of its history. To such as may not have formed his acquaintance we are glad to introduce him through the article from his pen printed in this number of the Unitarian. A small Unitarian Hymn-book in the Khasi language of India, containing ninety hymns, besides some brief services and prayers, is being printed at Ann Arbor, under the supervision of Mr. Sunderland. The book is for the use of the little band of Unitarians gathered by Mr. Hajom Kissor Singh of Jowai, Assam, letters from whom have been printed from time to time in the Unitarian. The money to defray the expense of the publication is being raised by the Women's Auxiliaries of Waterville and other places in Maine, through the exertions of Miss Helen N. Bates of Waterville. Edward Everett Hale and Lucretia P. Hale are writing a new novel, entitled "Harry and Lucy," which is appearing serially in the Boston Commonwealth. It is a story of Boston life to-day. "Ethics for Young People" is the title of a new book by Prof. C. C. Everett, just published by Ginn & Co. D. Appleton & Co. announce "The Faith Doctor," a new novel by Edward Eggleston. The The Universalist Publishing House will issue this month a volume of sermons by Dr. Tuttle of Minneapolis, Minn. book will also contain a historical sketch of Universalism in Minneapolis, written by Dr. Tuttle, to whom its remarkable growth has been so largely due, together with a portrait of Dr. Tuttle, and tributes to his worth and work by several friends. The Hibbert Trust course of lectures delivered this year in London and Oxford was given by Count Goblet d'Alviella, in French. His subject was "The History of the Religious Conception of God." They are being translated into English by Rev. P. H. Wicksteed, and are to be published this autumn. The Pall Mall Gazette announces the discovery of two unpublished manuscripts by Carlyle, an account of a trip to Paris in 1851, and an unfinished novel entitled "Wotton Reinfred." |