I say, that all we can learn of the Spirit of God will depend upon what we are, that he being ever willing, what he can impart will depend on our fitness to receive, that to him who hath is given, -that a soul conformed to Christ's, a will brought to his obedience, protected as his was against selfish and irritable passions, a nature becoming clear as crystal by the continual flowings through it of the pure waters of life, these are the only organs of spiritual Revelation, the only mirror in which God gives the image of himself. Why turn away from the one great difficulty, the one blessed work, of conforming our life and soul to his, when after all, say what we will, this is the only entrance through which divine light can pass? Are we to be told, that this is to make the Son of Man only an Example? What did the world know before the character of God and the divine glory of Man? Was this our Lord's distinction, was this his essential difference, that he succeeded in reducing to practice what already all men knew, in accomplishing what, without him, the world already had discerned as 'the way, the truth, and the life'? An Example indeed, but an an Example without whom no such divine call would ever have reached our souls he not only accomplished the task, he brought it into existence, revealed its conditions, and lifted the eyes of men so high,-an Example, without whom the veil would have been still on the face of God, the shadow of the unintelligible

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mystery, of his unknown calling, upon the face of Man.

Carry it all away with you in a few words of Paul: 'God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts, giving the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.'

III.

THE CHRISTIAN UNITARIAN POSITION.

DOCTRINAL.

'Is Christ divided?'- I CORINTHIANS i. 13.

N delivering the testimony for God given to you

interest that we should define our ground, to obtain a distincter view of the place assigned to us in the Christian Church, of the contribution we are appointed to make to the truth and charity of a free Gospel. But to define in Religion, thank God! is difficult: a soul in communion with the Infinite can draw around itself no boundary lines. Wherever we can fix a limit we have ceased to be spiritual, and are satisfied with being intellectual, or ethical, or scientific. I cannot therefore define to you our views, but only our attitudes towards God-our position towards, our expectations from, the infinite Grace. Every independent witness to God and Christ can fail in the service allotted to him, only by concealing or falsifying the special testimony given to him to bear. We are members one of

another, and can combine our individual light into a harmonious body of Truth only by manifestation of it, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. In full recognition of the fact that Christ is not divided-that we have each and all much to learn from one another-that every Soul, much more every Church, has something to communicate of the Eternal Mind not given to others, we seek only our own assigned duty towards God and his Grace, when we propose for consideration the three following questions:

I. What is our Doctrinal Position in relation to the Christian Church?

II. What is our Devotional Character in relation to the sources of Devotion possessed by the Christian Church?

III. And what modification do our Doctrinal or Devotional characteristics introduce into the more private and personal portions of our Church administration, into our pastoral relations?

I. Religion is the personal communion of a living soul with a living God. A spirit in conscious communication with a fountain Spirit, consciously fed from an invisible Source, and that Source a living Being, knowing that it has nothing of its own, but receives everything, that it originates nothing,that its goodness, its pity, its purity, its compassion, its faith, its hope, its aspirings after the Perfect, and absolute confidence in it as a condition that is more

and more to be reached, are not self-produced, but all breathed into us by another Spirit,-knowing that if we close, or interrupt, our personal intercourse with that Spirit the sap of Life is withdrawn, and we become dried and withered beings, going aimless through this world, trustful in nothing, and attaching no significance to our own existence, for our existence has no permanent significance unless there is an eternal Spirit sustaining us from himself, seeking every open inlet in our Nature to pour in more and more of the Perfectness that belongs to him, a spirit living in this knowledge, or in this faith when conscious knowledge fails, is a spirit in the state of Religion. Religious Life is drawn from the Fountain of life, giving absolute faith as long as we abide in it, because our confidence is not in our own measures of it, but in the fulness and the willingness of him who imparts it to us.

I confess, however, that this word RELIGION has almost ceased to be significant of any living reality, -that I never would employ it if the language afforded me any other single word expressive of the soul's life in God, and that the frequent use of it by an individual or a Church I should take as an unfavourable sign of their personal relations with a personal Spirit. The word (whether it meant divine obligation, or a gathering up, and dwelling upon, our spiritual relations) ought now to signify the binding power of an organic connection with the Source of life, as the branch is bound into the tree

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