right relations with God by becoming incorporated in the church organization and partaking of some mysterious thing that is supposed to reside in that body by means of the sacraments. This is the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church and of the High Church Episcopalian. Others tell us that we must come into communion with God by means of a something they call faith, by passing through some mysterious and indescribable experience that makes us another kind of being, or by believing in the creed or accepting the declarations of councils. We are coming more and more, so this clergyman tells us, to teach that the one great thing in religion is character,-is a concern for being right in thought, being right in feeling, being right in life. We accept this statement, friends, and we believe that by as much and in so far as all other churches tend Godward, they also must more and more come to this position which we are so glad to occupy. We believe that the only revelation of God is in the truths that, through whatever medium, have come to men, and that the way for us to be in right relations to God is to come perfectly into accord with his laws; that is, to be right in thought, word, deed. This is the only salvation of which we know anything. To make the whole world thus is the one object and aim of the existence of all churches, whether they put it in that way or not.

We are, then, coming to lay more and more the emphasis of our teaching on ethics. But this does not exclude worship; this does not exclude the reaching out of our souls after communion and intercourse with the Divine. The artist who ever expects to accomplish any grand thing must be in love with his dreams first, his ideals, for these are the mainspring and inspiration of all his efforts. So it is only as we are in love with God, as we dream of this perfect ideal of all that is true and all that is fair and all that is good, and find our souls lifted towards it, and inspired by the desire to be made like it, it is only so that our ethical principles become alive. So, though ethics is the

one object and aim of our ecclesiastical endeavor, it does not exclude, it rather includes and emphasizes, all that is highest and best in what those who seem to be so afraid of ethics call, by way of contradistinction, religion.

It seems to me, then, that this is distinctly the drift and tendency of our Unitarian body. We are becoming less careful about any belief in the supernatural; we are changing the definition of the word "natural" to include all that is. While not forgetting or slighting the element of worship, we are listening to the saying of the old prophet when he declared that the one thing that God cared for was that we do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with him.

It is time now for us to note the question as to whether Unitarianism, while it has been undergoing this internal change, has been gaining or losing. Are we growing or are we dying?

It is curious that this question should be so perpetually up for discussion, but it is every little while. The Unitarians themselves are talking about it; and every little while some person whose wish is father of the thought is declaring that Unitarianism is nearly at the last gasp. Let us consider the question, then, as to the relative increase or decrease of Unitarianism as compared with the general life of Boston and the country.

It is true that, since I came to Boston, two Unitarian churches have ceased to exist,- the old Brattle Street and, more recently, the Hollis Street. But within the limits of what is now called Boston there are more Unitarian churches in number than there were at that time. And another thing that is worth noting is that the general average attendance at Unitarian churches is larger to-day than it was fifteen years ago in this city. There are more people to-day worshipping in Unitarian churches than there were then. As measured by the missionary activity and by the money raised for religious work, we have made very marked gains.

One reason, it seems to me, why we cannot count a larger growth yet is a reason which affects not merely Unitarians,

but all Protestant denominations as well, and that is the change in the life of the city. There are fewer people living to-day in what was Boston twenty-five years ago than there were then, and a very large number less of worshippers at Protestant churches. That is, there is a less number of the native population in the city of Boston than there was twenty-five years ago. The process is going on that goes on in all great cities, in all cities that grow. If you should visit the old city of London, that which used to be included in the walls, any time during the day, you would find it crowded,fifty or a hundred thousand people, for aught I know, thronging in every direction. If you should visit the same place at ten o'clock at night, you would find it like a deserted city. Hardly anybody sleeps there. It is merely the business centre of the city. That process, though in a smaller degree, is going on here. Facilities for transportation and travel have led hundreds and thousands of people to move into the suburbs, so that old Boston has changed in its population, not only as to quantity but as to character, and changed in a way that has touched the growth of Protestant churches and the attendance at them. So that I suppose our experience in that regard has been very much the same as the experience of most other Protestant churches.

Unitarianism, then, I think, has grown here, not very rapidly, so far as organization is concerned, but it has made a distinct gain even in Boston, and it has made a much larger gain when we take into account the whole country. And now I wish to raise the question as to why it has not made larger gains still. That is, I wish you to comprehend the obstacles, the natural obstacles that stand in the way of the growth of organized liberalism. There are a good many of them that I need to take at least some account of so that you may understand the situation in the midst of which we are doing our work. In the first place, without saying a word that may be regarded as in the least slighting concerning any other body of men, one thing at least does seem to me incontestably true. It requires something of mental in

dependence, a little original thinking, some critical power, something more than the ordinary amount of brain, to make a good Unitarian. Once in a while I hear ministers declare that Unitarianism is adapted to the great mass of the common people. I do not believe a word of it, until the great mass of the common people become somewhat intelligent, somewhat critical, and a little more practically independent than the most of them are. The power of religious tradition. is something tremendous,- the drift of old ideas. There are only a few people comparatively who can resist easily the tendency of things around them. We have been taught, and had it drilled into us for hundreds of years, that the Bible was the infallible truth of God, and that there was no religion except on the part of those who took it all in all, according to the popular interpretation. Before a man can be a clear-headed and earnest Unitarian, he must be able, then, to do a little thinking, to criticise, to read. There must be independence of character enough in him so that he can go his own way and not merely drift with the tide of his neighbor's life. This is one thing, it seems to me, that we need to take into account in estimating the relative growth of Unitarianism or liberal thought of any kind.

And then there is another thing, springing out of, and so germane to, this last point, although it appears to be contradictory at first sight. I just said that we have been trained for years and years to believe that there is no religion outside of the common interpretation of the Bible,-the accepting it and all it says as an infallible revelation from God. The tendency, then, is in many directions for a man, just so soon as he makes up his mind that the Bible is not infallible, to make up his mind also that thenceforth he must go without any religion.

I have had curious and striking illustrations of this during the past summer. I have had letters from the South, from the West, from different parts of the country, called out by certain articles and sermons of mine, which have expressed the greatest surprise that any man with the "Rev." at

tached to his name could hold such opinions. One man wrote me frankly, saying: "I agree entirely with you; but it has never occurred to me that there was any church on earth that held such ideas, or that I could any longer call myself religious. I supposed I was an out-and-out unbeliever, cast out from all sort of religious associations. I felt compelled to go, but I knew nothing else to do." Everybody in his neighborhood had been telling him that he must hold the ideas which they held, or give up all religion; and he had taken them at their word. So you find them all over this country, hundreds and thousands of them who are outside of the old faith, but not ready to organize themselves into Unitarian or liberal churches, for the simple reason that they have been taught for so long that there was only one kind of religion, that they have supposed that, in giving that up, they had given up religion itself.

Then there is another thing that stands in the way of our more rapid growth. It has always seemed a very curious thing to me; but you will notice it, probably, if you study your own minds, as a characteristic, at times at any rate, of your own thinking. Every man is apt to think that it is safe to go in the matter of religious inquiry and belief just as far as he has gone, but that it is not quite safe to go an inch farther. And so you will find a large number of the older and more conservative Unitarians who have become a little frightened at the rapid drift of things in the modern world, and for safety have rushed back again into the old and more liberal conservative organizations. So I think you will find throughout New England many persons who have been Unitarians to-day attending Episcopal churches, or some of the more liberal Congregational churches, because they have become a little troubled over what they regard as the extreme tendencies of free belief on the part of the Unitarians.

And then there is another thing, and that is the fact that the orthodox churches themselves have grown so liberal that there are hundreds and thousands of their attendants all over