could be furnished, let it embrace the enforcement of whatever doctrines it may, will accomplish that work; and such disposition and effort would supersede the necessity of any reconstruction of machinery, by immediately doing all that was required to be done. We want that those who profess our principles should really prove their interest in and live up to their profession; and while that want remains, it is useless to look out for other principles which may serve our turn better than those we hold. What hope can there be that some new expedient which is offered to our faith will regenerate us, if we are lacking in activity and zeal with regard to the matters with which our faith is at present concerned? Why need we blame our circumstances as presenting too few topics of mutual excitement and sympathy, when the topics acknowledged by us are not made available for the excitement and sympathy natural to their character? It is the call of duty as to what has been placed under our control that we have first to attend to, and while we are longing for other spheres of duty which have not been assigned to us, we shall only strengthen our reluctance to obey that call.

It is scarcely necessary that I should do more in vindication of the remedy I am suggesting than bring it face to face with the statement of failure and deficiency which Mr. Tayler has drawn up. "What fruits," says he, "do we produce, what influence do we exert, at all proportioned to the breadth of our principles, the opportunities of our position, and the wide-spread sympathy with many of our prominent views, which is known to exist in the world? Why is this sympathy not called out into more active expression, and made to react more powerfully on the spiritual condition of society?" I answer, Because our principles are not carried into living action as they might and should be, because our opportunities are not employed with the faithfulness and energy which they demand, and because the sympathy with our views existing in the world is not met on our part by corresponding exercises of attachment to those views. "Why is it," he proceeds, "that, with very few exceptions, the state of learning, and especially of theological learning, has fallen so low amongst us?-that mere belles-lettres accomplishment has so generally superseded scholarship? So that we occupy relatively a much lower position in the learned world than our ancestors a century ago, and, as compared with the great body of the Protestant clergy on the continent, especially in Germany, are sadly in the rear of the actual state of ascertained knowledge." I answer, Because scholarship, and especially theological scholarship, does not possess among our people the interest which it formerly possessed. An indifference to its

results has so far grown up in our body, that learning constitutes no qualification for ministerial success, and the most careful preparation for the work of the ministry affords no security for

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obtaining congregational favour. Why is there," he further asks, "so general a complaint of the languid condition of our institutions? Why are so many things started among us, which come to no effect? Why are our meetings so often aimless and profitless?" I answer, Because our institutions are not supported by the presence and assistance of our members as they ought to be; because so little sympathy is extended to measures for increased benefit, that it is almost impossible to secure unanimity toward anything which is started to that end; and because the heart and soul of our societies is not thrown into the business for which our meetings are constituted. The whole case thus resolves itself, in my mind, into one which, according to the particular nature of the subject, requires a better spirit-a spirit of deeper concern and more earnest exertion-to be infused into those who have the interest of Unitarianism in charge. This can only be done by individual efforts of reformation and resolve. The mere putting of the case as Mr. Tayler has put it, seems to me directly to bear upon the point on which I am insisting, and his language, when he comes to enforce his own remedy, insensibly takes that form which the strictly personal nature of the case demands. Thus he says:

"The first step is to revive and develop a deeper and more earnest religious life." "Life in the whole can only grow out of life in the several parts. Juxtaposition of dead members, however artificially contrived, will not produce a living organism." "The condition of any successful result is, before all things,....the development of a distinct religious consciousness. This alone can give vitality, harmony and effect to any common deliberations.”

Mr. Tayler does not use these expressions exactly in the sense for the sake of which I have quoted them, and in making my quotations I have omitted what does not immediately concern my purpose; but, in justice to him as well as to myself, I have thought it right thus emphatically to mark sentiments which coincide so nearly with my own.

Having stated my remedy, I proceed to state the one Mr. Tayler has proposed. It is this: that our churches should be reconstructed on a doctrinal basis which recognizes the life of Christ as the expression of the religion they cultivate. I will quote from his letter a few sentences in which this position is laid down.

"My conviction is, that our spiritual, and therefore our social, weakness as a body, results from the want of our common recognition of some definite, positive belief, as a vital centre of our manifold intellectual and sentimental divergencies." "What we are in search of is some central conviction which expresses the essence of Christianity, and yet is capable of being approached, apprehended and realized under various forms. of intellectual conception, corresponding to the wants and capacities of various religious temperaments." "The question is, not what should be the rule of brotherly action towards all men, believers and unbelievers,

Christians and simple Theists; but what should be the bond of sympathy and joint action in a community professedly Christian? This I can find in nothing broader, and at the same time more positive, than the acceptance of the life of Christ as the type of our own." "In the simple acceptance of Jesus Christ as the type of human religiousness, as a revelation of the spiritual worth and destiny of man, and the endeavour, through believing sympathy with it, to transform and glorify our own life by its power of self-sacrificing love,-I find the true point of union for a Christian church, the central principle and aim which makes it properly Christian."

This doctrinal union Mr. Tayler distinguishes from the present constitution of Unitarian churches in the following passage, the object of which is to point out the inefficiency of our existing arrangements:

"Free inquiry is far too weak and negative a principle. In fact, free inquiry is not a principle at all, properly so called. It is a condition of mental action, not a principle. It supposes some positive matter already extant, to which it can be applied. It is a condition of development; but then there must first be something to develop. Now we have overlooked this, or nearly so. We have treated a condition as if it were a principle. It will be answered, Scripture or Christianity is of course implied. But what Scripture? its letter or its spirit? the whole of it or only certain books? and by what test do you discriminate the divine from the simply human? Again: What Christianity? What do you understand by Christianity? In what do you make it consist? It is clear to me, that something more positive is yet required to bind us intelligently and vitally together. Would I then introduce a creed? Certainly not, as a creed is usually understood. But there must be some principle, some fact, recognized in common, as the object of joint sympathy and the motive of joint action, or no body of men could possibly co-exist as a religious association. Where, then, are we to find this principle, this fact? My objection to the term Unitarian is, that it is at once too narrow and too negative. Though indicating a truth, and a very great truth, it still does not express the essential element of the Christian faith, for we hold it in common with Jews, Mahometans and Theists of every description; and, moreover, it assumes to itself exclusive possession of a truth which all Christians equally claim, simply by repudiating the form in which they are accustomed to realize it. Unfortunately, as it seems to me, it has become the designation of a Christian body, from simple antagonism to the so-called Athanasian symbol, and has thus stamped on their creed a character of reactionary negation."

The conclusion to be drawn from this exposition of his views is, that Mr. Tayler would establish an acceptance of the life of Christ as the binding principle of our Christian associations, in the place of the Scriptures or Christianity as interpreted by free inquiry, and thereby supersede the distinct profession of Unitarianism.

I presume I am right in inferring that when Mr. Tayler proposes an acceptance of the life of Christ "as the bond of sympathy and joint action in a community professedly Christian," he

intends something more than that this principle should stand in the same relation to such a community as it and similar principles now stand toward churches called Unitarian. He must be as conscious as I am that by insisting upon the importance of this principle he is not introducing any novelty among us. He cannot therefore have only in view an enforcement of the principle itself. I hope I do not mistake his intention when I say that I gather from all he has advanced, that he selects this principle from others in order to fix it in a different relation to the constitution of our societies from that in which this constitution at present places any principles with whose interests it is concerned. It is in some way to be so connected with these societies as to characterize them in distinction from everything else. Now I wish to know what exactly is meant by this. What are the precise measures contemplated? What are the specific changes to be effected? I cannot obtain any satisfactory answer to these questions from Mr. Tayler's letter; and till such an answer be obtained, I know not what I should be assenting to if I were to express approval of his plan. It was, I think, but right that the means of satisfaction as to the practical carrying out of his recommendation should have been afforded, because most serious dangers attach to certain ways of its being carried out. I do not myself see how those dangers can be avoided, and I should like to be made acquainted with what is relied upon for avoiding them.

There is, for instance, the danger of a doctrinal test being applied to the members of our churches. How is that danger to be avoided? Are we to make the non-acceptance of the life of Christ a ground of exclusion from our communion? And if not, in what way are we to give to that communion a character answering more decidedly than is now the case to an acceptance of the life of Christ? I am not able to escape from this dilemma; and till some way of escape be shewn to me, I must conclude that Mr. Tayler's proposal points in the direction of that kind of creed bondage which would be destructive of all that is most marked and influential in our position. When Mr. Tayler asks himself the question, "Would I then introduce a creed?" he answers, "Certainly not, as a creed is generally understood;" but I am wishful to know how he would distinguish between what is generally understood and what he would introduce. do not find the distinction in the succeeding sentence, where he says, "There must be some principle, some fact, recognized in common, as the object of joint sympathy and the motive of joint action, or no body of men could possibly co-exist as a religious association." I fully subscribe to that sentiment, and am prepared to defend the constitution of our churches as consistent with it. There are both principles and facts recognized in common by us; but the recognition does not present the necessity for requiring from our members any other test than that which

their voluntary association implies. More than that appears to me to be "a creed as generally understood," and without this addition, or something equivalent to it, I do not perceive how an acceptance of the life of Christ can be made more expressive of our associations than it at present is.

There is an intimation in Mr. Tayler's letter as to the separation of unbelievers from our religious communion, which, although I do not fully understand its application, seems to look with an unfavourable aspect toward the liberty which we cultivate in that respect. As Mr. Tayler has formerly distinguished himself in the defence of this particular branch of our church freedom, I cannot suspect him of entertaining any purpose of restricting it, but the cast of thought which marks his present reference to the subject is a rather singular indication that he is treading upon dangerous ground. I must also observe, in dismissing this part of my subject, that a similar indication is afforded in the prospect held out by Mr. Tayler of "an annual representation of our whole body in public meeting." I should hope that if the plain reason of the case did not convince us that such a synodical assembly must be dangerous to our theological freedom, the experience of our Independent brethren, under the pressure of their Congregational Union,-with the noise of whose complaints the air is full, would be a sufficient warning on that subject.

I am a member of a Christian church in which free inquiry is one of the main conditions of the association, and which makes open profession of Unitarianism. Unitarian Christian is therefore the designation I ordinarily adopt. I shall occupy the remainder of this communication with a vindication of the position I thus, in common with Christians of my class, assume, viewing it in the light of Mr. Tayler's remarks.

It is in deference to that reception of Christian truth which commends itself to the individual conviction of the members of our churches that creeds and confessions of faith are rejected by them. None of those members would, I should suppose, object to identify this conviction with the life of Christ. This at least is one of the main forms in which a Christian belief is universally represented among us. That belief would be, and is, declared in this form under fitting circumstances, just as, under other circumstances, it may be declared in the forms of adherence to the Scriptures or acceptance of Christianity. To these latter forms Mr. Tayler objects, by asking, "What Scripture? its letter or its spirit?" and "What Christianity? What do you understand by Christianity?" But Mr. Tayler must be well aware that exactly similar questions may be urged against the form he recommends. It may and will be asked, What life of Christ? His natural or his miraculous life? The letter or the spirit of his life? His life as God, or man, or both? These questions are as pertinent to the case he advocates, as those advanced by