"First, a devout and intensely interesting sermon, by a distinguished preacher, on the Real Presence of God, and the evidences from man's free will which show that man is a child of God. This sermon was heard by fifteen hundred people, crowded together in the great town hall of Saratoga, which has generally been given to political purposes. The mere delivery of such a sermon, alive with the profoundest lessons of infinite life, consecrated that place, and made it a church.

"Second, the other of the usual formal exercises' was the celebration of the Lord's Supper, in the same place, crowded as before. The officiating clergyman said afterward that the cups returned empty which had been filled for the purpose of the communion service long before the clergymen in charge of them could pass to the end of the hall. I have been present at many occasions where large bodies of people met together for the celebration of the communion; but I have never joined in a communion service where so many persons received the elements, certainly not in any service where so many different races of the world, so many different nations, and so many States of our country joined thus in the expression of universal brotherhood, and in seeking the closest communion with God.

"To us who, as I think you will yourself admit, are Congregationalists of the Congregationalists, Congregationalists pure and simple,-services like these do not seem to be the usual formal exercises,' which are to be spoken of as mere matters of detail, and pushed out of the way. But, as I said, we are not unused to language of this sort in what are called the evangelical' journals. And I take the liberty to write to you to say that, if you are at all curious as to the reason why large numbers of persons of religious habit dislike what is called Orthodoxy, abstain when they can from the services of orthodox churches, trample creeds under their feet, and, in general, refuse to admit that religious service is in any way a me

chanical function, may be found in the unfortunate fact that so-called ministers of religion are, by the machinery of theological schools, by the contrivances of sects, and the other misfortunes of high organization, accustomed to think even of devout sermons, and of what they themselves call sacraments,' as being formal exercises,' which might be spoken of like the roll-call of a militia company.

For persons who have the lead of religious bodies which are fettered by creeds or for persons who direct the expressions of journals which are organs of such bodies, it is quite worth while to note such dangers of high organization. For this is certain that the Roman Catholic church lost half Europe when it came to regard its forms as forms which were not alive by the spirit. And organized Protestantism to-day is losing the disciples of Christ whom it would most prize by every step which it takes in the same direction. The moment when any believer comes to think that the sermon in a church or the administration of the Lord's Supper is to be ranked with other 'usual formal exercises' will be the moment when he inquires, first, whether religion, in all its forms of worship and communion, may not be found more certainly in communions where people believe that the letter killeth, and that only the spirit giveth life." "E. E. HALE, "Chairman of the Council of the Unitarian Conference."

REV. DR. SADLER.

The recent death of Dr. Sadler, minister of the Rosslyn Hill Chapel, London, removes from the ranks of English Unitarianism one of its oldest, most useful, and most honored ministers. He was not widely known on this side of the ocean, though occasionally his name has gone the rounds of our papers, -as, for example, in connection with the funeral of George Eliot, his address on that occasion (one of singular felicity and beauty) having been widely printed and read here. He had been for many years before his death the Unitarian minister of longest settlement in London, as well as the minister of our strongest Unitarian church there. It is to fill the important place made vacant by his death that Rev. Brooke Herford has been called to England.

The tributes to Dr. Sadler that have appeared in the English papers have been abundant and warm. Says the Christian Life:

"The death of Rev. Dr. Sadler removes from the ranks of the Unitarian ministry one whose name was honored wherever it was known. Personally he was best known in London, where he passed the whole of his ministerial life, extending over fortyeight years. But far beyond the capital he was known by reputation, and by the works he committed to the press, mostly modest in aim and pretension, but each possessing high merit of its kind. His reputation was that of a man who led a blameless, godly, and eminently useful life, who was highly gifted and highly successful as a preacher, and whose praise came most readily from the lips of those who saw him closest. And what reputation said about him, actual facts and his actual character most amply justified. He was at once a strong pillar and a great ornament to our religious denomination, and we shall rarely look upon his like again."

THE UNITARIAN CAUSE AMONG THE KIASI HILLS OF INDIA.

The earnest little band of Unitarians among the Khasi Hills of North-eastern India are keeping up their meetings and doing what they can to spread the liberal gospel. They are looking forward eagerly to the time when they expect to receive the Khasi hymn-books which are being printed for them in Ann Arbor, Mich. Mr. Kissor Singh, their leader, writes from Jowai, under date of August 12, as follows:

We are very much obliged to Mrs. Helen N. Bates, of Watertown, Me., and her friends, for having undertaken to defray the expenses of printing the two Khasi pamphlets; and we are also indebted to the American Unitarian Association for sending us $25 for the same object, and for two packets of tracts, which we hope will do much good.

The Unitarian brethren of Nongtalang have appointed one of their number, U. Kiri Tongper, as their lay leader for 1890-91. The following is an extract from a letter written to me by one of them:

"Our brethren here are exceedingly glad to know that our own hymn-books shall be printed in October, 1891, and they are also very thankful to our brethren in America for their kindness in printing for us Khasi

hymn-books and tracts; and they are very glad that our brethren there do not forget us here, though we are so poor and few in number. Dear brother, I say that the kindness of our brethren in America towards us greatly inspirited my brethren here in the work of God. I hope that this will not be the end, but the beginning, of the kind work of the American Unitarians for us and for our fellow-countrymen. I was urged by my brethren to write to America, but I am ashamed that I cannot write English corlife and for your welfare. I beg you also rectly. I am always praying for your long pray for me and for my brethren that God will help us in endeavoring to put this Great Truth in the hearts of all men. We

have purchased one bell for the use of our religious meetings. Please write to America that we are very thankful to them.

"U. RIANG POHLONG.”

Some time ago I wrote to Rev. W. Roberts, Unitarian missionary, Pursewawkum, Madras, and received a very interesting reply from him. The following is an extract from his letter:

"I am much pleased to hear that there are seventeen Unitarians [now twenty in Assam. I read your letter after service. They were all much gratified on knowing the contents of it. I receive no magazine from the United States of America. If they will be kindly pleased to send us some of their periodicals and books, such as Channing's, Parker's, Collyer's, and others, it will be a great blessing to India; but we have only to wait till they may be pleased to have sympathy and regard toward us. . . . I really cannot imagine how you came to know of my intention to start a paper to be called 'The Madras Unitarian Christian Herald.' It surprises me very much. . . . I hope to have it started soon, . . . the paper to be issued fortnightly; but unless I can get some of our friends in England and in America to assist us in bearing the financial burden, I fear it cannot be continued very long. When it is published, it will contain both English and Tamil articles. . . . I would be very glad to know something more about Munshi Akbar Masih and yourself as to how you became acquainted with Unitarian Christianity. . . . I remain, etc.,

"WILLIAM ROBERTS."

In another private letter Mr. Kissor Singh writes in substance as follows:

I beg now to add a word about a matter of great importance to the Unitarian cause here. The Unitarian brethren at Nongtalang are now fourteen in number (twelve men and two women), according to the roll register. They greatly need a permanent leader to guide them and minister to their spiritual wants. I see you cannot send a missionary to us from America, but we must have a man to act as our lay minister and

preacher. Such a man would need to spend most of his time at Nongtalang, but should occasionally visit me here at Jowai, and those few brethren who are now at Shillong and other places. Fortunately, I find that one of the Nongtalang brethren, U. Riang Poblong, is a fit man to be a lay minister. Besides his other qualifications, he has a fair knowledge of English. If we can give him twenty-four rupees, or ninety-six dollars, per annum, it will be sufficient for his maintenance. Though my own means are very limited, I think I can make a personal contribution of twenty-four dollars a year; and all contingent expenses can be met from the small contributions which the friends here are able to make. Now, I beg to ask if the Unitarians of America cannot manage to raise the seventy-two dollars necessary to maintain a Unitarian lay preacher. In case you are able to grant to the cause here this aid, I propose to send for U. Riang to come to Jowai and study with me for a few months to learn something more of Unitarian theology, and music, and then he will be ready to take up his work permanently.

You may ask why we do not bear all the expense of this work ourselves. The reason is, we are poor. We are doing what we can, but we are not able yet to sustain a lay preacher. You in America can have little idea how very scanty are the resources of people here.

As for myself, I am employed as a clerk in a government office, and have only a few leisure hours, mornings and evenings. I cannot do much for the work of organization and preaching, as I would like to do. I am very anxious to see Unitarianism firmly established in this region, but under my present circumstances I have no means to do it. It has pleased God to cast my lot among the Unitarians, so that their interests have become mine, and I cannot but share their joys and sorrows. Please take such means as you may see fit to ascertain whether our brethren in America would not like to contribute the small sum necessary to enable us to sustain a Unitarian lay preacher and missionary in this part of India. HAJOM KISSOR SINGH.

GIRLS IN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY.

The girl who goes to the University of Michigan to-day, just as when I entered there in 1872, writes Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer in the September Forum, finds her own boarding-place in one of the quiet homes of the pleasant little city whose interest centres in the 2,500 students scattered within its borders. She makes the business arrangements for her winter's fuel and its storage; she finds her washerwoman or her laundry; she arranges her own hours of ex

ercise, of study, and of sleep; she chooses her own society, clubs, and church. The advice she gets comes from another girl student of sophomoric dignity who chances to be in the same house, or possibly from a still more advanced young woman whom she met on the journey, or sat near in church on her first Sunday. Strong is the comradeship among these ambitious girls, who nurse one another in illness, admonish one another in health, and rival one another in study only less eagerly than they all rival the boys. In my time in college the little group of girls, suddenly introduced into the army of young men, felt that the fate of our sex hung upon proving that "lady Greek" involved the accents, and that women's minds were particularly absorptive of the calculus and metaphysics. And still in those sections where, with growing experience, the anxieties about coeducation have been allayed, a healthy and hearty relationship and honest rivalry between young men and women exists. It is a stimulating atmosphere, and develops in good stock a strength and independent balance which tell in after life.

GREAT THOUGHTS FROM MARTINEAU.*

"The universe which includes us and folds us round is the life-dwelling of an Eternal Mind."

"The assumption of atoms can explain no property which has not previously been attributed to the atoms themselves."

"To educe mind from what is not yet mind and conscience from blind and neutral force is to put more into the effect than the cause provides."

"For all spiritual natures Unity and Personality are one. . . . This rule of thought is our only guide when we pass to things divine; and it compels us to say that, if God be not One Person, he is not One at all."

"Are we to worship the self-ideality, to pray to an empty image in the air? No. If religious communion is reduced to a monologue, its essence is extinct and its soul is gone.

"Will any moonlit form be seen kneeling and asking, 'O Thou Eternal! not our*From his last published volume, "Essays, Reviews, and Addresses," vol. iv.

selves that makest for righteousness, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me'? Will any lose the bitterness of death in crying, 'O Stream of Tendency! into thy hands I commit my spirit'?"

"If it takes mind to construe the world, how can the negative of mind suffice to constitute it?"

"On the hypothesis of a mindless universe, such is the fatal breach between the highest inward life of man and his picture of the outer world, all that is subjectively noblest turns out to be the objectively hollowest."

WHITTIER.

It was a calm, clear October afternoon, and the soft, dreamy haze of autumn had begun to fall upon earth and sky, when a small party of friends set out to call upon the preacher poet at his beautiful summer retreat near Danvers. He had been apprised of our coming, and received us with a simple, earnest cordiality, which assured us that, if we did not trespass too far upon his time and strength, we were truly welcome. In personal appearance he has changed of late; yet the touch of fourscore years upon his tall, manly form has been gentle and tender. He still shows that he comes of a race of men remarkable for their gigantic size, as well as for their moral and physical energy. For an elderly person he is unusually erect. He did not impress us as an old man; for, whether listening attentively to others or modestly expressing his own convictions, a peculiar look of animation and serenity lights up his high, noble forehead, his dark, deep-set, piercing eyes, and his benignant lips, which make one forget the large number of his mortal days. He indeed partakes of the eternal freshness and cheer of the immortals. In outward observance, he is loyal to the simple ways of his own sect. He dresses in a suit of black, cut in Quaker fashion, and in his speech to some extent retains the peculiarities of the people whose modes of life and forms of worship he prefers to any other. But, while he still clings to the formal formlessness of the Friends, he is in thought and faith almost too broad and free to be counted as a defender of any sect or denomination of Christians. He is thoroughly emancipated from all dogmas, unless it be a

grand, transcendent belief in the Divine Immanence and in the constant witness of the Inner Light. As he seemed quite willing to speak to us on some of the deeper themes of life and religion, we listened eagerly, reverently, almost affectionately, to the words that fell from his lips. If I rightly recall the hour, he spoke in substance as follows. The Inner Light sets us free from all dogmas. That is the true citadel of our faith, and, when understood aright, is unassailable. The Eternal Spirit beareth witness to our spirits of all the necessary truths of religion. Everything of value to the soul has its corresponding need in the soul, and God continually ministers to that need. Heretofore religion has rested almost universally upon authority. The divine law has been proclaimed as the Thou shalt or the Thou shalt not of an arbitrary Being, who would not permit men to reason or to inquire concerning that law. This must all be changed. God did not drop the Bible from the skies, and then go off and leave us, but with the written Word gave us also the Living Spirit and the Inner Light by which to think and reason and inquire. The letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive. "As a boy," he said, "my only book was the Bible: from that and an old dictionary I got my knowledge of English words, and these have always clung to me. Yet, in poetry, we cannot be very precise in the use of words, since the thought and sentiment transcend and elude. all speech. I never wrote a hymn as such."

There is an absolute religion above all written revelations, and this rests at last upon absolute truth. Slowly the change is going on from old religious ideas to new facts; yet we have no cause for fear or alarm. It is a natural and necessary change, and the truth at length comes uppermost. The times are never so bad as some people imagine. The teachings of Christianity are founded on the needs of man. The real claims of Christ are based upon the perfection of his life and character, and not upon his authority. His highest authority is in his perfect life. Mr. Whittier does not accept the doctrine of the trinity as it is taught in the creeds. To him, however, Jesus is no common man, but is a special and peculiar manifestation of the Divine. There is none equal to Christ, and he stands

apart from the general order of humanity; yet his superiority was a difference in degree only, not an essential difference in kind. Christ forever leads us on; but he, like ourselves, is always subject to the Father.

may

In social and public life we need a larger recognition of spiritual forces and ethical laws. As civilization advances, we lcok for this. At the beginning of the anti-slavery agitation, the Quakers, being non-resistants upon principle and firm believers in moral forces, thought that evil might be removed by peaceful means. They said: Truth and justice ought to prevail. Let right principles be proclaimed, and the emancipation of the blacks will gradually be achieved. They urged this among themselves, and some thirty or forty thousands of the colored race were freed by them. This they considered the divine method; and they hoped that other bodies of Christians would accept and act upon this idea. The Quakers were never guilty of defending the institution of slavery upon the authority of the Scriptures. But God's ways are not our ways. The Civil War burst upon us; and, by blood and violence, the wished for end came to pass.

Whittier will always be remembered as our inspired poet-militant, when that awful crisis came. As Samuel J. May has truly said of him: "Of all our poets, he, from first to last, did most for the abolition of slavery; and all my anti-slavery brethren will unite with me to crown him as our laureate."

Referring to the great problem of immortality, he said: There is much restlessness at the present time in regard to a future state, and there are many who cannot patiently accept the blank uncertainty about the dead; yet the silence of the grave is wisely ordered, while we certainly have all the light we need for our daily living. Some day we may have more clear and definite relations with the future life; but there is no reason for us to murmur or complain. The Eternal Goodness reigns everywhere. And, as he was speaking, I could not but recall some of his conceptions expressed elsewhere,

"I have friends in spirit-land;
Not shadows in a shadowy band,

Not others, but themselves, are they." The transition is simple and natural,

"Thou livest, Follen!-not in vain Hath thy fine spirit meekly borue The burden of life's cross of pain."

And, again, in "Snowbound," speaking of his sister:

"And yet, dear heart, remembering thee,

Am I not richer than of old? Safe in thy immortality,

What change can reach the wealth I hold?"

Annihilation, he said, was to be preferred to a state of eternal punishment; yet we may believe that, in the hereafter, good awaits us all. A future life he considers a moral necessity. It is demanded by the incompleteness and unsatisfactoriness of the present. Here our highest aspirations and noblest ideals are at best but broken fragments: they call for a fuller realization elsewhere. The hope and yearning for continued existence is inborn and divinely given: all races partake of it, and reach upward for a larger and larger life.

Mr. Whittier regards Channing as a hero and a saint, and felt that he was at one with him in his pure, ardent enthusiasm for humanity, and in his earnest defence of the rights of all men. The poet is still deeply interested in all social reforms, and in every movement which will help to open up larger opportunities for the best services of faithful men and devoted women. The cry

of the human never fails to move him, and his heart is quickly responsive to the suffering of man for man. To-day, as forty years

ago, this serene prophet of the coming kingdom of God celebrates all brave, heroic deeds, and rejoices in all acts of fine renunciation. His optimism is not idle or indifferent, but illustrates the resolute faith of those who, having done their part valiantly, quietly, and confidently, leave results with God.

"I mourn no more my vanished years; Beneath a tender rain,

An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.

"That care and trial seem at last,
Through memory's sunset air,
Like mountain ranges overpast
In purple distance fair;

"That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.