matter, and who understand too what a weight of influence they exert. Still, notwithstanding these and other admissions of a like kind, justifying some of the charges brought against the churches (so called) by reformers, there are, we think, a few extenuating circumstances. Though churches are composed of people, they are by no means generally those least worthy of esteem. "Why come out?" asks Emerson; "the street is as false as the church." It is untrue, generally speaking, that the churches in their ecclesiastical action are not, to say the least, a little in advance of thoroughly selfish, worldly, irreligious conservatives. They are just so far ahead of these upon moral and reformatory questions, as individuals who are thoroughly respectable, sedate, and moral, in the main conscientious, and meaning to do what is about right, yet who are not above unworthy biases, or aloof from narrow prejudices, will be in advance of other individuals in the community who have not their good qualities.

There is also another point which we can merely glance at in this connection. Religious bodies, calling themselves churches, have many interests at stake, and therefore, compared with other associations, they occupy, we think (we would not say it irreverently), the same relation to them, as does the religious to the secular press. The tone of the former (though there are too many exceptions to the remark) is, generally speaking, higher than that of the latter. Our religious papers are edited, not only by professedly religious individuals, but in some instances by those whose tendencies are decidedly reformatory, and yet they rarely meet the expectations of earnest reformers, in their mode of treating great moral and social questions. Why is this? Undoubtedly one reason is, that there are various interests to be consulted by the proprietors besides those of reform. Like the church, the journal has subscribers who approve or disapprove of Mexican wars, and of selling and drinking intoxicating liquor, subscribers to the creed, like subscribers to the paper, dwell South as well as North. Like the church, the journal has supporters who are very radical, and also some who are very conservative. Various tastes and temperaments are to be consulted. It will not do in either case to have numbers fall off; nor must rival pa

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pers, any more than rival churches, profit by "an imprudence." There are, in brief, various reasons why "a conciliatory, a prudent course "should be pursued, some of them not entirely bad ones, and which we only refer to in order to prove that the Church, as the phrase is usually applied by Protestants, cannot by any possibility be much in advance of the public sentiment on reformatory questions.

On another point, suggested by what has been said, — the attitude of liberal Christianity and liberal Christians to the reformatory movements of our day, our limits will not allow us to say as much as we wish. The preaching and writings of Dr. Channing, of a reformatory character, have had great influence upon liberal Christians as a religious body. Many of them feel that reforms are quite as much legitimate inferences from our fundamental religious views, as are any doctrines that we may hold. And yet it cannot be denied, that, owing, we think, mainly to the social and other conservative influences of the city which is the stronghold of our faith, this is by no means true of all. We are not sure even that Dr. Channing's reformatory writings do not find more sympathy among Christians of a different name than they do among our laymen, at least in our cities and large towns. There is this curious circumstance,and we are indebted for the remark to one of our most conservative ministerial friends," No other denomination has so many rather radical ministers in it, and yet at the same time so many conservative lay members." We think that our laymen, generally speaking, may be considered as coming next in this regard to those of the Episcopal Church, that church which supplies almost all the chaplains to our navy, which is the favorite one with the military, which looks distrustfully upon temperance societies, which is the only one that has not been disturbed by the antislavery agitation, and the administration of which, whatever other defect or excellence it may have, is singularly free from every thing that can give offence to any hearer, if so be he believes in the doctrines of "the Church" and likes its Liturgy. In view of these facts, and of another in close affinity with them, namely, that earnest Unitarians are now and then found to prefer Episcopacy to the preaching of their own min

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isters, if it be vitiated, as they deem, by allusions to "foreign and exciting topics," this question has often been forced upon the minds of other earnest Unitarians: - For the sake of these individuals, whom we must always hold to our body by rather a weak bond, is it best to present the liberal tendencies of our faith only in connection with theological inquiry? Or, on the other hand, is it not best (while we shun an ultraism and extravagance not in harmony with the genius of our faith) to follow out also those equally strong tendencies leading to a sympa thy with all that wisely aims at social improvement and progress? Is it not our duty to follow conscience when it points the same way as does a purely intellectual induction?

Before mentioning a further thought which has occurred to some liberal Christians, we would remark that we do not propose to insult our Unitarian readers (nor to lower ourselves), by basing any argument addressed to them on the poor plea of denominational policy, one to which, thanks in part to our loose sectarian organization, they are but little accustomed. We would add, also, that liberal Christians have cherished the thought referred to, whose desire to see truth spread rests on considerations somewhat independent of increase to sect, or the filling of empty pews, or the building of new Unitarian meetinghouses. Their ideas have been somewhat these. Not only are there many in our own congregations, young people and others, who have little interest in Unitarianism, considered simply as a doctrinal system, but there is also another class which we should bear in mind. It is made up of persons throughout the whole country, who sympathize strongly with the reformatory movements of the time, who are disgusted, not only with the action or want of action of the Evangelical churches upon these questions, but also with their bigotry and their religious dogma, and yet who are not attracted towards our views because they are not satisfied with a liberal system of theology merely, holding as they do, indeed, that too much account is made everywhere of mere theology. Now some liberal Christians think, that, if this class can be reached by any one of the Christian bodies in the land, it can be by ours. They believe that our views have great advantages to this end, inasmuch as they are

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little trammelled in their exhibition by church rule and interests and connections. They are confident that, if these could be fully developed in their legitimate relations to the great moral questions of the day, though they should bear no more ultra or fanatical stamp than they wore in Channing's mind, they would meet the wants of this large and constantly increasing class, who, if such truths are not presented, will inevitably swell the ranks of Come-outism, if not of infidelity.

The question, how far these floating ideas and opinions are right or wrong, our limits, already exceeded, compel us to leave our readers to decide for themselves.

J. P.

ART. IV. THE ELEMENTS OF INFLUENCE IN THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST.*

THE title of the little compilation named below suggests two trains of reflection to us, which we shall pursue with a freedom corresponding to the latitude of our One line of reflection leads us from Christianity to the character of Christ, and the other leads us from the character of Christ to Christianity. In the one, we start from the fact of the spotless and unchanging worth which all creeds and all ages confess and venerate in that character; in the other, we start from the fact of the pure and benignant humanity which that character has breathed into all creeds and all ages.

The fact stated in the first of these propositions, we may assume. It is admitted and unquestioned. This unity on the moral and spiritual personality of Christ is a great peculiarity. It is a peculiarity, if we compare the character of Christ with his circumstances and with his mission. He was poor, of humble position, — of humble occupation. He had no earthly learning, and though his soul was Divinely gifted, his gifts were not used to catch men with bewitching guile, nor to hold

*

The Words of Christ. From the New Testament. Boston: Crosby & Nichols. 1847. 16mo. pp. 150. VOL. XLIX. -4TH S. VOL. XIV. NO. III.

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them in luxurious fascination. Gentle though he was, his themes were awful, and though meek of spirit, he spoke with absolute authority. And thus he spoke in the hearing of men who held themselves the elect of nations, and in the presence of other men, who were the conquerors and the kings of nations.

The fact stated respecting the character of Christ has peculiarity when that character is compared with other characters. Characters do, indeed, constantly show themselves, that are not bound by limits or traditions, but which are yet limited in their own inherent power. Power in none of them was spiritual or full; power in none of them was inward or complete. The result was, that they entered but little into the essential life of Man, and from that little they were in no long time cast out. Time outlasts them; the ages leave them behind, and he whose very name is not lost in the thick cloud of distant centuries finds his only immortality in being nothing but a name. Open the Lives of Plutarch, and observe how many names of men who had been heroes had no clear existence in the memory of historic Greece. Mythologic superstition wrapped them in oblivious fable, with a denser fog than any that covers Olympus, when clouds are heaviest on its summit. Take even the names which are highest in the light of fame and story, -to the studious of mankind they are but phantoms, and to the rest of mankind they are nothing. We have no

occasion to travel back so far. Our assertions can be verified much nearer. Nor need we consult even the remote pages of modern biography. Examples sufficiently apposite and convincing belong almost to our own day and generation. The names of men who might now be alive are already but sounds, and ere long will be but echoes. What a foolish as well as vulgar malice was that which excited the savages of the first French Revolution to disturb the ashes of their kings, as if a short-lived splendor had not paid its penalty to Time by forgetfulness among men, and by the silence of the grave! How sublimely might the poorest beggar address the most regal tyrant of Westminster Abbey or St. Dennis, in the grand and pathetic words of the prophet, - yet not exultingly, but in humility,-"Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee!"