confidence in others; and, where their motives are obviously right, and their judgment on the whole has proved to be sound, when they have plans of usefulness which, if successful, must be beneficial, and which cannot be successful without aid from others, we should not be too nice in scanning all the difficulties, presenting all the obstacles, and reckoning up all the failures; but venture a little. Our means are limited, and our ventures, therefore, should be well directed; but if we are too fastidious, or too fearful of success, we shall create difficulties and prevent it.

(To be continued.)

ANECDOTE.

[From the Monthly Repository.]

SOME half a dozen years since, a gentleman, not very distantly related to the writer of this article, being then a student for the ministry, was on a visit in Devonshire to an uncle. At the request of his relative, who was a liberal Calvinist, he agreed to preach in a village near the town where his uncle resided. The use of the pulpit was readily granted to the nephew of Mr A., and the day being arrived, the young minister proceeded to fulfil the wishes of his relative. He left early in the day, and his uncle was to meet him at the chapel. Arrived at the village, he was treated with the greatest kindness and hospitality. At last, seated at the tea-table, his host, a respectable farmer, with somewhat of the Puritan in his appearance and manner, thus addressed him, of a sudden

interrupting the conversation that was going on: "Well, preaching time is near; but you have not told us what you are; but suppose it is all right, as your uncle sent you. Are ye of the church? Minister. No. Host.

All the better; then ye're a Dissenter? M. Yes. H. Well; are ye a dipper? M. No. H. Are ye a freewiller? M. No. H. Are ye a Calvin? M. No. H. Well, what then? Why," suddenly bethinking himself, "ye ar❜n't a Socinian, are ye?" M. "I am a Unitarian." "A Socinian!" exclaimed his daughter, a fine stout country girl that sat in a distant part of the room, listening to the dialogue with deep attention- A Socinian! How can ye preach, then, and ye deny Christ? O I'll go and tell them there'll be no preaching to night." And away went the alarmist to frighten the poor villagers with the idea of this Socinian preacher. Such a thing had never been seen in the village before. In a quarter of an hour all was in a bustle. The host had enough to do to keep people out of the house. At length the minister of the chapel arrived. When he saw him, the young minister felt his spirits rise, for his appearance of body and countenance indicated that no superabundance of sectarianism disturbed the easy tenor of his days. "He was glad to see his young friend; he had no doubt his young friend could preach without giving offence. He had a great respect for his uncle; his orthodoxy was unquestionable, and he would not have requested the use of the pulpit except he had known that all would be right.” While the minister thus spoke, in came the daughter. "He cannot preach, he's a Socinian. He cannot preach, The minister reevery body says so," she exclaimed. tired with mine host into a private room. Meanwhile,

the milk of human kindness which had an hour before abounded in all hearts, was curdled and soured. When the minister and his friend returned, they said, "It was a pity the people had been alarmed, but as it was so, it would be better to have a prayer-meeting. In that the young gentleman could join or not as he chose." This was determined on; though the daughter intimated by her looks that she doubted if a Socinian could pray, as she knew he could not preach.

As they went to the meeting-house, crowds came to gaze, looking with curiosity what this Socinian could be like; but few were present at the service, fearing, perhaps, too near an approach to so frightful a heretic. Of all persons interested, the uncle was most disappointed, who had meant to give these ignorant rustics a practical lesson on the virtue of charity, intending to inform them after the sermon, which he had reason to believe would be such as they would approve, that the preacher was a Unitarian. This narrative relates facts which might be enacted in hundreds of villages in this kingdom. The public mind is poisoned; and the uninformed look upon Socinians and Catholics as two species of monsters. Why or wherefore they are bad, is not well known. The dislike of them is a matter of feeling rather than of judgment. Two things, it is true, they do iterate; the one "denies Christ," the other would "burn you;" or, to use the words of a Cheshire Squire, recently used at a county meeting, "would make beef-steaks of you." But besides these facts, their feelings are those of indistinct and undefinable aversion, much like the raw-head and bloody-bone sort of feeling with which we remember, in our youth, to have thought of ghosts and of a churchyard. And now

that hobgoblins are getting out of fashion, being afraid of being caught by the schoolmaster, we should not be surprised to hear of honest matrons charming their infants to sleep by telling them, not "the old gentleman is coming," but "the Socinians will have you." A moral may be extracted from mirth, and the moral of our story is, that Unitarians must labor to enlighten the minds of the ignorant, and to check the misrepresentations of the interested. The latter is the chief point; for while the pulpit and the press are replete with injurious statements, Unitarians cannot secure the attention, much less the favorable regards, of the people.

A DANGER INCIDENT TO SUNDAY SCHOOLS.

We have always been the advocates of well-conducted Sunday schools. In large and populous places, in particular, where the children of the poorer classes are often left to grow up in ignorance and idleness, without a knowledge of God and their duty, we have thought that these seminaries could not fail to be eminently useful. And in all cases where parents neglect to bring up their offspring in "the nurture and admonition of the Lord," we deem it an act of christian benevolence in the individual who endeavors to supply, however inadequately, this defect.

We have, however, never been blind to one unhappy consequence of Sunday school instruction. We fear that the opinion of many excellent men in our community is but too well founded, viz. that it is the tendency of

Sunday schools to relieve parents from the sense of personal obligation and responsibleness in the religious.education of their children. The parent who finds excellent and well qualified persons willing and eager to assume the laborious office of imparting religious principles to his little family, will be tempted not merely to share with them this solemn duty, but to transfer it entirely into their hands. This, we say, is the danger; and it ought to be considered and carefully guarded against. These institutions are becoming so deservedly popular, that we are liable to close our eyes to the reality and extent of the evil alluded to. Formerly it was the custom for the little ones on the Sabbath, to gather round the knees of their parent, and to catch the accents of piety and holy love, as they fell warm from a mother's lips, doubly endeared to their young hearts by the sweet tones of that familiar voice. But now the thing is changed; and children are sent away from the fireside and the domestic altar to hear lessons of duty from the lips of the stranger. This thing ought not so to be. The christian parent should not be willing to devolve upon another that sacred and delightful office which he, and he alone, can adequately and successfully discharge. Imperative necessity alone should reconcile him to this unnatural alienation of duty.

Do not say that few parents are competent to impart religious instruction to their children. However it may be elsewhere, we cannot admit that this is generally true in our community. If it were, it would be high time for the ministers of the gospel to arouse themselves, and to remind the people of their charge, that it was their bounden duty to qualify themselves to be the religious 3*

VOL. IV.NO. I.