ties, we judge of them according to our own view, as divided into saints and sinners, honest men and knaves. Carlyle, whose burning satire sometimes gave the truth a kind of blue flame, said there were thirty million of people in England, mostly fools; and we have all heard that there are two kinds of fools.

What is it to be a liberal mind? No man's head is the complete orb of truth, and no man's heart sends forth the full effulgence of love. Liberality is all-aroundness, many-sidedness, ocean-souled, humanhearted. To see the many-sided and infinite nature of truth, to look over and beyond the walls of narrow personal experience, to step off the treadmill of habit, to feel the free air of heaven and the light of the sun in the narrow cell of vocation, to do one thing and yet know how infinitely small it is compared with the whole,—to have some conception like this, a flash of it even, as of lightning beyond the horizon streaming up our sky, is the very first condition and possibility of the liberal mind. The liberal discerns and feels truth, the glory of the world and the glory of God, as they come from all quarters of the heavens, borne on all the winds.

Let us frankly and liberally confess that there are but few such. There are many men who cannot be liberals, and it is not their fault; but God has graduated truth to every condition and to every variety of mind. What is it as applied to religion? It is often confounded with toleration. But toleration is mere material exchange, and paying one's debts, and no thanks or obligation to any one,—allowing to another what you ask yourself. Liberality is understanding another's thought, appreciating another's view, and realizing in one's own imagination and sensibility the truth in all sentiments that have had the large consent of other minds. The liberal understands what he does not believe, whether it be the high doctrines of Oriental imagination, the bleak wastes of Calvinism, or the pathetic idolatry of the devotee, who croons softly, caresses and kisses the image of Mary.

With some, liberality means only liberty, wild and loose license. But such dangers beset all great principles. They are exposed to be interpreted on a lower plane. But if we have a true idea of what it is to

be a liberal, and have a touch of the spirit of truth, we shall discern that it is a question of, Can you? Are you? While we are true to our own common nature and true to our own convictions, we must still hold that the largest part of mankind is still in the infancy of thought, and needs specific directions, definite rules of opinion,-in short, a dogmatic religion.

In this the Greek and Roman Catholic churches act a great and providential part in the historic scene, while Protestantism is beginning to feel the tingling beams of the day-spring from on high. Thus the liberal in religion has a glimpse of universality; and, as the climates of the world enfold the earth and sea, so the spirit of God enfolds the world of men.

Let me say a word of the liberal in politics. Politics, in the true sense, is an extended morality: it is an appeal to the common thought and level feelings that are and must be below the highest standards of human action. The commonwealth has a conscience, but it is not the conscience of the individual. It has bulk rather than height. We are Americans, without inquiring whether the name is an accident or a usurpation. It is historic, and stands for perhaps the most remarkable combinations of human society in the world. Our nation is the mingling of many bloods and races,— white, negro, Chinese, Indian, English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, and all of the rest. The American is a type of universal man. Our Constitution is the most human instrument ever constructed for the government of men. It contains greater latent good yet to be unfolded for human welfare than any other writing, parts of the Bible excepted, on the earth. Its principles, when fully unfolded, are the principles of the New Testament; and, if I were left to the creeds of Christendom, from the council of Nice to the latest utterances of the latest synod, and the Constitution of the United States, I would take the Constitution as my guide and my hope.

To be a liberal in politics is to have this mind of the country. It is to be an American above all local provincialisms of politics or religion. It believes in the people,that they are honest, and that the bad and the dangerous are those who deceive and mislead the people by appealing to their

passions and prejudices or their griefs. What are called the corruptions of politics correspond to the sectarian meannesses and ambitions of religion; and, where the two unite, the tiger hate and the vulpine cunning are one. Thus the liberal in politics will allow no such union. The attempt to form a political alliance against any sect is only a modern way of kindling a fire for heretics; and shibboleths and secrets are a feeble attempt to establish a political Carbonari in a republic like ours. Any attempt to do it shows how little sway liberal principles have gained over us.

What part have we Unitarians, a small body compared with the sects of Christendom, to act in the great historic scenes of country and mankind? A great volume is now closing, and a new volume is to be opened. Never again, though ages pass away, never any more on earth shall be seen forms and fabrics that we have seen. Human planes of thought and schemes of God are taking their place among departed shades in that vast mausoleum which receives, sooner or later, all human creations. One era is coming to an end,-the era of a titled church intrusted with a monopoly of divine grace, and of a God that devours his own children. Another era has begun. A new dayspring from on high gleams on the horizon; and the simple Christian creed of righteousness and love shall remain to enlighten ignorance, fight with wrong and sin, and lead man on to the destiny that God shall provide. There is no infallibility for man: all new knowledge is revelation; all experiences of the soul are private property; and any pretension to unadulterated truth in any sect or name, or to any sort of spiritual patent rights for salvation, is as absurd as the mythical founding of Rome by the twin brothers suckled by a wolf.

Protestantism is only a modified Roman Catholicism; infallibility transferred from the church to the Bible; a new edition of the same old print. The weakness of Protestantism was and is its doctrines of an infallible book, with no infallible interpreter; and a creed that contained the truth, and nothing but the truth, derived from the infallible source. Out of this grew that vast system commonly called Calvinism, the the ology of the eighteenth century, the most masterly piece of logic ever framed by the

mind of man. I have no quarrel with it. With all its moral grandeur, it had a fundamental misconception, enthroning God as the personification of infinite and eternal self-will, bound by no law, except to do as he pleased.

The theology of the eighteenth century was as great a misconception of the moral world under a righteous God as the Ptolemaic system was of the universe of suns and stars. It called God father, yet attached no responsibility to him for the existence of the family. By an error of human judgment, Calvinism was fundamentally unmoral. According to it, God made a world of human beings, suffering, striving, weak and sinful, yet hoping and trusting, destined to eternal perdition. Such was the force of superstition that none but a cleareyed, daring soul could deny it. There have been some here and there who have denied it all along the historic ages, from Job, the great Arabian, to John Stuart Mill, the Englishman; rare souls who had the courage of their convictions, and health enough to know that some things that are said are not true; or, if they are true, their heroic souls will defy fate and take the consequences. Many of you will remember the famous words of Mill in regard to a theologic doctrine that was held to be essential to salvation: "If I must believe that or go to hell, then to hell I will go."

There is no infallibility for man. He is guided by opinions, judgments, probabilities; faith, hope, and love; great, general, and all-comprehensive truth, which, if you would define it too accurately, vanishes and spurns the thrall. At the present day a striking feature of our religious organizations is the fast-and-loose way in which men talk of the creed or of creeds. Much of it is often frivolity and joke, and much is a loose and slouchy use of words. The confessional differences between the various sects go for very little, and seem to have little or no significance of the spiritual life. Inasmuch as judgments of men and righteousness are subject to general facts of common sense, the tenacity with which some hold to these differences seems chiefly calculated to perpetuate the existence of rival organizations, and maintain the status quo in the distribution and strength of sects, some sects claiming that American liberty

was cradled in its creed, and that an Indian was baptized away back by them before anybody else thought of it. But this republic was neither cradled by nor born of any sect. Free government on this continent was the application of the principles of Protestantism to political society; and the assumption that any sect cradled or founded republican institutions is an idle conceit.

As I said, this fashion of thinking is gradually giving way. There are one hundred and forty sects in Christendom, or were a few weeks ago; and there may have been others added during the last week, and, the more creeds there are, the weaker they become.

Amid this general confusion there has arisen a kind of ecclesiastical conscience that can accept or believe almost anything if only one can have his own explanation of it. It is, in short, the fashion of having a creed that has no interpretation. There is something shrewd and foxy about it, like the man who says, "I'll agree to anything, if you'll let me write the contract"; but all men of good sense and uprightness would be very shy of such a one. I call this the ecclesiastical conscience, a concealed opinion under cover of the opinion expressed. It was this that impressed the mind of Abraham Lincoln, and led him to say that he would sign a creed if one could be found that he could sign without mental reservations.

I do not say that men are dishonest or hypocrites. I only say that they could not do business in that way for an hour or write a promissory note to have any value. But this inheres in and belongs to the very nature and method of the dogmatic system of religion. There is a trick of the mind in it. The prestidigitateur,-"Now you see, and now you don't see."

It seems to me that, if a man would be square with himself and square with his Maker, he must rest in some great truths, stately, large, and free. There are some things of our most profound conviction, which, if we strive to give them more definite conception, either vanish or involve us in confusion. The moment that religion is fixed in dogma, that moment the dogma begins to dissolve.

Unitarianism is not a dogmatic form of religion, but a way of thinking that corre

sponds with reason, common sense, and the great facts of man's experience. The protest that it makes against dogmatic Protestantism is of the same kind that Protestantism made against dogmatic Rome. Unitarians are a small body among the sects of Christendom, as Christendom is a small body compared with the human race; but Unitarianism, as a way of thinking, has an influence far beyond its numbers. Poetry is imbued with it, literature bears it on wings of power, and science proclaims it. The late Dean Stanley said that he did not hear a sermon in America that was not imbued with the spirit of Channing and Emerson. Religious reform is, of all, the slowest to move; but, as sure as day and night, the Christian religion is about to be placed upon a basis of reasonable fact,-physical, moral, and spiritual. The appeal to ignorance and fear and dread of mysterious consequences will give place to appeals to honor, the sense of justice, the latent affection for truth and goodness, the beauty and holiness of God. Before such powers, majorities are nothing. The world is young, and the paths of humanity are wet with dew; and man becomes a nobler spirit as he learns to gauge his opinions and actions by a scale commensurate with his nature. The vision is played. He who runs may read. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come. It will not tarry long.

THE ROSE GARDEN OF THE HEART. "Heresy to the heretic, and religion to the orthodox. But the dust of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the perfume-seller."

-Inscription by Abul Fazl, for a Temple in Kashmir.

Why any doubt about our life's best gift,—

Religion in its strength to help and cheer? The royal rose we know is sweet and dear, And can the heart to heaven's heights uplift; And, when the petals in the garden drift,

To gardener they beautiful appear,

They tell him of the summer of the year, And give his soul for joy a sacred thrift! Let none deprive thee of the precious gain, The years have grown far sweeter than the

rose.

Religion is thy life, its worth maintain;

Hold all the good its Eden grounds enclose; Love each delight, each hope and faith and truth; In hearts these blossoms have eternal youth!

WILLIAM BRUNTON.

"How can I make God real ?"

"Can I follow Jesus?"

"How shall I pray ?”

"What is required of me?"

"Can I be one with God?"

CAN I GIVE MYSELF?

Yes! But not except I am full of personal life myself. A tree, a mountain, the seas, the stars, cannot give themselves. A man must know himself, develop himself, make himself day by day, if he would have a self to give to others.

Accordingly, Jesus is not afraid to constitute the individual self as the centre of his religion. First, each man is to love God, alone with the Alone; and then, purified thus himself, he is to love his neighbor as he loves God in himself.

Self-sacrifice is thus not the denial, but the realization of ourselves,-of our highest selves. Our natural tendency when we love is to give ourselves freely away. It is one of the most beautiful and mightiest of our impulses.

But still God is greater than our heart. We may not, therefore, consent to the demands of others on our sympathies, except we recognize God to be in those demands. Every sacrifice of time, of opportunity, of talent, of mind and of strength, which God in our best humanity does not approve, is an iniquity. Not even our nearest and dearest

have a right to ask that of us. We must lose ourselves in obedience to God before we can truly lose ourselves in human love. Otherwise self-sacrifice means increasing contempt both of ourselves and of those to whose love we yielded.

The best way therefore of helping our fellow-men is to live on our divine life as completely as possible.

Who is the surgeon that lives for his patients? He whose sympathies are all controlled by steadfast devotion to his profession, and the increasing knowledge and skill that inspires.

Who is the most helpful teacher? A man sensitive indeed to the doubts and needs of the student, anxious also to assist him, but still one who has lived, first, his own individual life of mental study very well.

Who best cheer and rest us when we are in trouble? Those who have added to the tenderness that weeps with us that power of inward conquest which puts iron into our failing, wavering hearts.

Once more then: Can I give myself? Yes! But only so far as I have first sought my eternal life as God sees it.

THE NEWSPAPER AND THE TOWN.

A PAPER READ BEFORE THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S GUILD AT ATHOL, MASS., BY WELLS L. HILL.

Taking the country editor as we find him to-day, I have no hesitation in declaring that, as a rule, there is no public worker anywhere who strives harder to satisfy his constituents. There is no one who has a more honorable or a more unselfish ambition. His newspaper is the pride of his own life. He tries his best to make it the pride of his town, too. He likes to hear of its being mentioned as an institution that has been indefatigable and influential in the town's best interests, and is worthy of the people's most cordial indorsement and favor. He is gratified when he is assured that his work is appreciated, but long experience in a hard school has taught him the futility of being unduly disturbed by the carping criticisms of fault-finders. He is quite in sympathy with the poet Riley, when he wrote:

"My doctern is to lay aside
Contentions, and be satisfied.

Jest do your best, and praise or blame,
That follows, that counts just the same.
I've allers noticed great success
Is mixed with trouble, more or less;
And it's the man who does his best
That gits more kicks than all the rest."

That the work of the country editor is held at its proper value by men whose experience in the affairs of life qualify them to speak with intelligence and authority, there is ample proof; and it is largely owing to the frank tributes paid these papers by men of this character that the local paper has in recent years gained materially in public estimation. These tributes have served to supplement in a most effective way the tendency of the newspaper itself to a higher intellectual standard and a broader and more positive field of usefulness. Mr. Moody, the great evangelist, said in one of his addresses during his recent work in Boston that the newspapers had been of the greatest possible aid to him in his relig ious work. He believed in the newspapers thoroughly, and expressed the opinion that, if the churches in every city and town were more zealous in cultivating pleasant relations with the papers and sought the benefit of their advertising columns more freely,

they would no longer be obliged to preach to empty pews. "Advertise your sermons," he said to the ministers, keep your church doings freely before the public. Let the people outside your regular membership know what you are doing, what you are going to do, and what you want to do. In no other way can you so successfully attract the interest and support of the public. Our own churches here in town are excellent witnesses to the beneficent results of a free and judicious use of printers' ink. Not one of the Athol papers ever goes to press now without liberal mention of church affairs, reports of services and of matters concerning the social side of church life.

Wherever we find the pulpit and the press working hand in hand for the good of the people, we invariably find a community strongly buttressed by the principles which make for social order and advanced citizen

ship. The direct influence of the pulpit is, at best, restricted. The preacher speaks to only a few hundreds at a single time. The utterances of a newspaper are read by thousands. The minister, therefore, who realizes the limitations of his position, frankly recognizes the fact that he cannot reach from the pulpit the many hundreds of people who may need the teachings of religion the most, and are perhaps accessible through the columns of the local newspaper, and avails himself of the privileges which the editor always freely extends to him, shows at once his own practical common sense, and his freedom from that narrow-. ness and scepticism which have often kept the pulpit and the press severely apart, the one looking upon the other as nothing but a cheap purveyor of news,- and not always the most printable news, either, in league perhaps with the very forces with which the pulpit has most sharply to contend, and ready at any time to sell its editorial favors to the highest bidder; the other resenting this contemptuous and unworthy attitude, striking back with vigor, and sometimes, doubtless, in unworthy and unmanly ways.

In the days of the old orthodoxy, when the church arrogated to itself about all the goodness and virtue that obtained in a community, and regarded with severity and disfavor any public voice that contended with itself for influence among the people, the pulpit and the secular press were usually