forth the essential coldness of Unitarianism, and its remarkable likeness to a palace of ice, which in the very act of becoming warm melts away and is destroyed. He therefore prophecies, that if Unitarians should ever grow enthusiastic enough to send out missionaries to the heathen, the effort, from its very nature, will bring them back to the good old fervent doctrines of trinity, total depravity and atonement; and he further foresees and foretells, from the same high ground, that the author of the Appeal will shortly become an orthodox man.

Now, Sir, I will not say that this is all true, but I repeat that it is all fair; and I do not doubt that the reviewer, with the prejudices and piques of his party about him, thought that it

was true.

In the remarks which I am about to offer on this subject, it is not impossible that I may occasionally offend all parties, friends and foes. I assume not to be the organ or interpreter of any denomination, but merely to utter my own opinions, for which no one is answerable but myself; and though I cannot pretend to be deeply versed in missionary affairs, I have not let them pass without some attention, or without devoting to the general questions involved in them, many hours of serious thought. If I fall into any mistakes, I shall be happy to see them rectified. If I make any admissions unfavorable to the cause which I have most at heart, I must be content to bear the triumph of one side, and the blame of the other.

The topics discussed in the review, will lead me to speak, first, of the real ability of Unitarians to support foreign missions, and, secondly, of the success which has attended the orthodox missionaries. Then, perhaps, I shall take up some of the miscellaneous items of the review.

And in the first place, Sir, I hold that the reviewer has altogether mistaken and misrepresented the power, influence, and resources of Unitarianisin at the present day. He calls us a denomination possessing vast resources, and commanding the most powerful instruments of moral influence; a denomination, with all the energy and enthusiasm of its youth and rapid advancement.' We will consider for a moment what these vast resources are. Leaving Massachusetts, for the present, out of the question, let us take a glance at the condition of Unitarianism in other parts of our country.

Beginning at Maine, we find one flourishing congregation in Portland. Two or three others are scattered through the state, small and unimportant. In New Hampshire the case is very similar; one large society in Portsmouth, and here and there a small one, as in Keene and Amherst. In Vermont I am acquainted with but one avowedly antitrinitarian society, and that is in Burlington. In Rhode Island there is one. In Connecticut there is one, and quite a small one. In New York, the gigantic state of New York, there is one. In New Jersey there is not one, that I know of; Princeton, like a kind of Rome, I suppose, awes heresy into nothingness. In Pennsylvania, there are two or three small ones, just strong enough to hold themselves together, and two or three more, hardly strong enough for that. In Ohio, not one. In Delaware, not one. In Maryland, one, in the city of Baltimore; formerly in prosperity, now in adversity, and obliged to borrow money to save their beautiful church from the hammer; never large. In the District of Columbia, one. In Virginia, not one. In North Carolina, not one. In South Carolina, one. In Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Missouri, &c. &c. not one.

There are in several of these states, congregations who have been called Unitarian; and so far as their discarding the doctrine of the trinity entitles them to the appellation, they deserve it. But they have little or no effective sympathy with us; they would rather, I believe, decline any cooperation with us; their teachers may be regarded as missionaries themselves among a semi-civilized people; and they cannot be charged with a want of zeal or devotedness, in which qualities they are left behind by none, and for the exercise of which they have ample occasion at home.

I do not intend, nor by any means wish to deny, that scattered through the country, we may number many single names of respectability and influence on our side. But they are insulated; they cannot meet with us; they cannot be reached by us, nor be made useful in a common cause.

Here I pause, and ask, where are the vast resources of American Unitarianism? Are they in those parts of New-England, where a Unitarian minister would be obliged to ride thirty, forty, fifty miles to exchange with a brother Unitarian? Are they in the one almost unobservable handful in the London of the new world? Can they be found in the plain little church at

Philadelphia, or among the untenanted pews of the splendid one at Baltimore? Or are they to be gathered from the loghouses of those irregular brethren at the west, of whose existence we are chiefly informed by report? Vast resources, Sir! the phrase is ridiculous to the ears of one, who knows, that within the last four years, applications have been made at Boston, from Baltimore, from Washington, from Harrisburg, and other places, for assistance to enable the Unitarians there to build or to retain their houses of worship; to enable them to put a roof over their heads, or keep over them one which was already erected. The optics of the reviewer must have been wonderfully dilated, and dilated by fear, perchance, when he saw the vision of these vast resources. For ourselves, we have never laid claim to them, nor dreamed of them; or if we have, it has been all a dream. How a man would be stared at, or smiled at, who should talk, south of Long Island Sound, or west of Connecticut river, of the vast resources of Unitarianism!

I complain not of the nakedness of our land, nor do I care who spies it out. Both our strength and our weakness are open to inspection, and truth is better than boasting. Neither do I despair at our ill success, and mourn over our gloomy prospects. On the contrary, I think that our success has been remarkable, and that our prospects are cheerful and encouraging. When I consider how little time has elapsed, since an objection to the chief doctrines of orthodoxy could not be whispered safely; when I consider how fond mankind are of mystery, how generally dissatisfied they are with simplicity, and how averse to make reason the interpreter of religion, I am disposed to triumph in the diffusion of liberal sentiments, and to anticipate with confidence their further progress. But the imagination of our vast resources never for a moment entered my head. They were left to be imagined by the reviewer; by a man, who knows that in the whole of his own populous state, there is but a solitary Sabbath-bell, which calls together the worshippers of the One God; who knows that the whole banded power of the country is orthodox; that all the institutions for religious education in the country, with a single exception, are decidedly, and some of them assumingly, popishly orthodox;-I beg pardon of the Catholics, I do not mean them ;-yes, by a man who cannot travel toward any point of the compass, without being surrounded by orthodox believers, orthodox manners, and orthodox exclusiveness.

But I am now ready to speak of the Unitarian resources of Massachusetts, where there is doubtless more Unitarianism than in any other part of the United States. Unitarian societies, more or less flourishing, exist in almost every county, growing more frequent as Boston is approached, the nucleus and headquarters of American Unitarianism. I am not aware of the exact number of these societies, but am quite ready to confess, that, if they could be brought to act on any point, they would be sufficiently numerous and wealthy to effect something of consequence. Why then are they not brought to act on the subject of foreign missions? Is it because Unitarianism is, as the reviewer says it is, essentially cold? No; but the short answer is, because Unitarianism is not heartily and intelligently embraced by one half of these societies, nor by one third of the members of the other half. This is the chief reason of our seeming remissness, and it needs some comment.

There cannot be mentioned a more palpable fact, than that our country societies, in general, are only Unitarian in the following respects; they cannot believe the doctrine of the Trinity, nor sympathize cordially with Trinitarians; they take the Examiner, perhaps, instead of the Spectator, and the Register instead of the Recorder; when they want a minister, they send to Cambridge instead of Andover, and when they settle him, a Unitarian and not a Trinitarian brother gives him the right hand of fellowship. And yet he must seldom preach to them liberal doctrine; they are afraid of it, and afraid because they are but half informed; they are resolved not to be Trinitarians, but they are not resolved what they are, nor what they ought to be, in the way of doctrine, for in the way of character they are pious and good. Then there are always some few in a society, very respectable and very fearful, whom the minister is cautioned not to shock or offend, by exhibiting any stronger light than the glimmerings by which they walk, and with which they are contented; and so, because two or three must not be shocked, none must be instructed. Surrounded by this timidity, the minister often grows timid himself; keeps to one style of preaching and one round of subjects, and neither excites nor is excited to inquiry, decision and exertion.

Much of this is also true of the Unitarian societies in Boston. I can remember the time, and I am not old, when, though Boston was full of Unitarian sentiment and feeling, there was no open profession of it. A dead silence was maintained in

the pulpit on doctrinal subjects—a silence which was not disturbed by the press. Then came the Unitarian controversy, and people read it for a while, and a few of the ministers ventured to preach at intervals on the strict unity of God, and converts were made, and eight or nine of our churches were content to go on under the designation of Unitarian churches, though many and loud were the protests against the name. But the name was taken with tolerable unanimity; the utter dismission of orthodox doctrines from the pulpits followed, and the ministers were permitted to preach the plain morality of the Gospel. This would have been very well, if they had been permitted to preach any thing else; but they were not. People were tired of the controversy; some, because they thought they were completely masters of it, and some, because they never liked it. They were called Unitarians, and that was enough; they desired to hear no more about the matter. Controversy excited bad passions, and hurt the temper; the precepts of the Gospel were the rules of life, and why should they be troubled with doctrines and questions, which only ministered to strife, and not to edification? This disposition had been in a great degree fostered by their own champions. No Unitarian pamphlet could be written, without being prefaced by a deprecation of the evils of controversy, and an expression of the writer's deep sorrow that he had been drawn for a moment from the retreats of peace, and dragged into the thorny paths of disputation; and then would follow a peroration concerning the exquisite loveliness of christian charity, and the immense advantages of letting one another alone. In all this there was certainly much truth; and the tenderness of giving offence on the rational side, contrasted advantageously with the first outpourings of orthodox arrogance and denunciation. It looked amiable, and it manifested amiable feelings. But these dispositions were carried to excess, and knew no limitations, exceptions, or circumstances. For my part, I do not see why a man should feel so extremely uneasy, on taking up his pen to expose what he believes to be false, or defend what he believes to be true; and though I am willing to allow that the morality of the Gospel is of paramount importance, I am not ready to grant that it has no doctrines, or that having them, its ministers are not bound to preach them, at proper times and with due discretion. These, however, were not, nor are they now, the prevalent opinions; and the consequence of those other opin