the valleys. From them run down the streams that water all the lowlands; and, after a little, they become the broad and powerful rivers which bear on their bosoms the commerce of the world. It is, too, these streams, whose sources are the far-off hills, which turn the world's mills and generate its electric power. Looked at wisely, then, nothing is more intensely practical than these fine and lonely studies of the great minds. They filter down through and fertilize the minds of the thousands of practical workers in all our hundreds of parishes. So the men who sit in the pews, and even the thousands of those who do not go to church at all, do reap the practical results of these quiet studies, although they may never know the origin of the good they have received.

Let us, then, do our utmost to put this great review in such a financial position that it may continue the work which has placed it in the front rank of the esteem of the scholarly world.

VI. Still one thing more. In former days many difficulties sprung up in connection with differences of opinion between the church organization and the parish. Perhaps partly as the result of this, and partly because joining the church was taken as a profession of superior goodness over other people, the church organization has fallen into disfavor. In many places there is no church, as such, but only a society. Your Council considers this a serious and grave mistake.

If joining the church is not made conditional on any statement of intellectual belief, if it is not made to imply a claim to be specially good, if it is understood to be only the expression of a purpose and pledge to help on the work for which the church stands, then there is no reason why any man or woman who does want to help, and get help, should not become a member.

There certainly ought to be a membership pledge as close as that which exists in a club. People ought formally to join, and they ought formally to withdraw, if they leave at all. In moving to other places, they ought to take letters and continue their great lifework wherever they go. They ought to constitute a body of helpers, united and at the call of the minister, the leader, for anything which needs to be done. Now in most

cases they are formally pledged to nothing, and they have little sense of responsibility to which their leader can appeal. With no bond but whim, or feeling, or liking for a particular preacher, what wonder that a large society sometimes fades out, and leaves little to speak for its existence?

When the church is thus organized and a sense of responsibility has been cultivated, then systematic work ought to be done in educating and training the children and young people. It is astonishing to note the fatuity and carelessness of many fathers and mothers in this matter. If it happens to be convenient, too often they will send their children to any Sunday-school, with no apparent thought or care as to what they are taught. It would seem as reasonable to have children taught false geography or absurd arithmetic as to have them brought up to believe what is false in morals or religion. As reasonable? Much more; for on these matters no such great and serious interests hang.

Then, besides the Sunday-school, there ought to be confirmation classes-the thing, called by whatever name-of young people in all our churches. The minister should teach them the essentials of our faith, and so fit them for active and convinced membership in our working organizations. If left to drift, is it any wonder that they drift away from us, and into any society where personal or social or business interests lead the way?

And now, in conclusion, your Council would end where it began. The world was never so ready for our word and our work. The stars in their courses fight for us. Our organization exists for our thought and our life. Let us rejoice, then, if the thought and the life advance, gain ground, and conquer, even though, for special reasons and at present, our labelled organizations gain slowly. The outward and apparent success we may not be able to command at will. One thing we can do: we can deserve success. We can be true and faithful. We can utter our word, bear our testimony. We can stand in our place with good courage and a great hope. We can give of time and money and effort. Then, when the victory comes, as come it must, we can be glad that we, too, belonged to the army of God.

THE seventeenth meeting of

National the National Conference of

Conference.

Unitarian Churches was held at Saratoga from September 20 to 23. It was a Conference of great themes, profound spiritual inspiration, and quiet, earnest, definite and harmonious work. The opening sermon by Reed Stuart was a sublime flight of spiritual apprehension. It led the soul along the material, physical, and intellect ual ascent till it faced the great window looking ever toward the East. There all measurements and small reckonings cease, and in the vastness the human soul finds itself alone with God. This sermon opened the hearts and minds of all who heard it to the wider vision, the broader thought, the better way, and sent abroad a thrill of spiritual power which influenced the events of the week.

Senator Hoar, the president of the Conference, set the activities going by a brilliant opening address, in which he urged the development of a zeal comparable to that of churches which were nourished by far less inspiring faith. He cited the case of sixteen orthodox churches in one county that contributed to their missionary organizations each year more than all the four hundred Unitarian churches contributed to the American Unitarian Association.

The opening report of the Council was presented by Minot J. Savage, and was the most stirring, vigorous, and thoroughly practical address ever issued by any Council of the Conference. It should be read in its completeness, if possible, from every pulpit in our denomination; and we trust our ministers will take the hint, and utilize this splendid word to the churches from the chairman of the National Council.

QUITE a lively discusAre Universalists sion is afoot over the Unitarians? nice definitions of sect that separate certain good people into the two denominations known as Universalist and Unitarian. Some say, "There are no differences of faith, of purpose, or form of government between these two bodies: why not unite?" Others say, "The differences

are radical, permanent, and vital: there can be no possibility of union."

Some cite various utterances of leaders, and claim the difference is in the attitude of thought in each denomination.

Others declare there are vital differences in the emotional regard of each toward Jesus Christ. Others assert that fixed associations, the established organization and administration of funds, would alone prevent a union. Nobody can solve all these problematic difficulties and differences.

In the abstract, union is almost always a tendency to be welcomed; and sometimes the very difficulties may bring it about, just as it is said that "God often waits till something is impossible before he does it." But that which appeals to us as remarkable is that the parties to the discussion are evidently postponing the event which all would desire, were it attainable. This prodigious gravity over minute details elevates ruts-which a smart turn might avoid-into mountain ridges, insurmountable. A little kindly humor might leaven the lump of formal denominationalism till it rose above its differences, and found union in the higher Spirit.

No single denomination is a whole unit. We are all fractions, and the very word "denomination" might remind us that it signifies only the "kind of parts into which the unit is divided."

A GREAT deal of interest B. Fay Mills. very naturally attaches to the announcement that the well-known evangelist and revivalist, B. Fay Mills, is to preach during the coming winter in Boston Music Hall, at the invitation and under the auspices of Unitarian laymen and clergy. Mr. Mills does not state that he intends to proclaim the Unitarian gospel or that he is to sever his connection with the orthodox church. The situation is therefore somewhat vague, and curiosity is aroused.

The matter, however, hardly seems to need explanation. It is the result, apparently, of evolution. Mr. Mills has eaten his fill of the leaves upon the tree of life, and is

going into the pupa stage of his development: he is to be for a time "undenominational." It will not be possible to say he is still the vigorous, lively, travelling "grub" he has been, nor that he is yet the beautiful "imago" toward which he is doubtless maturing. In this state he "will not dogmatize"; but, as he has frankly confessed that the inward tendency he feels is all in the direction of "the religion of Jesus as summed up in love to God and man," which is the platform of the Unitarian National Conference, it is to be expected that Mr. Mills will in time put off the “distinctly undenominational wrappings" of the cocoon period, and spread the wings of his perfected being under the bright sunshine of a satisfying and positive religious philosophy such as Unitarians profess.

"The Outlook" Confused.

Christian

WHEN the Union changed its title to that of the Outlook, many readers anxiously hoped that the new name would be significant, and that a clear vision, definite and sharp, would henceforth characterize its religious utterances. That expectation, however, has hardly been justified. We cannot imagine that the Outlook is not familiar with the deep spiritual emotion with which Unitarians adopted their platform at Saratoga in 1894; and yet, in a recent editorial referring to the indorsement of that platform by Evangelist Mills, we read that that platform is only the cold statement of a law, and lacks the very quality essential to the message which Christ delivered, that of "power." Indeed, we find in this editorial the first denial we have seen put forth anywhere that the religion of Jesus is summed up in love to God and man.

The Outlook says: "We understand that more fundamental than either [love to God or love to man] is Christ's message that God loves us. Our understanding of the message is that it is the proclamation of the fact historically attested by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that we can summon to our aid a power not otherwise possessed by us." We would not for a moment attempt to say what the Outlook means by the above, which to us is a most extraordinary statement; but it is followed by the declaration that "the real issue in the

Christian Church of our time is between those who regard the gospel as a law summed up in love to God and love to man and those who regard it as the proclamation of a new power." To us this statement is a source of sorrow as well as aggravation. It is pitiably confused, but it appears to set Unitarianism and Orthodoxy upon exactly the wrong platforms. If any word in any language could be found to imply living power rather than dead law, it is the word chosen as the keystone of our platform,love. And, surely, no expression of human ingenuity could devise a better statement of the unvital law which the Outlook charges Unitarians with adopting than the orthodox creeds.

ONE UPWARD LOOK EACH DAY.

THE GOLDEN RULE.

[These selections are from the pamphlet "The Golden Rule," by Charles F. Dole. Published by the Chautauqua Press, Meadville, Penn.]

Sunday.

It is often hastily assumed that nature is wholly against the Golden Rule. Selfishness, This is to leave out of sight an immense it is said, drives the wheels of the world. and impressive series of facts. It would be truer to say that the world is a vast parable of some deep law of co-operation. You see it at work in every crystal, you see it in the frost-work of your window-pane. You see it in binding birds together in flocks, cattle in herds, bees in hives. You see it in its culmination in man. There is that, even in his animal nature, which binds him in social relations with his fellows. His better nature finds abiding contentment nowhere more than in friendly service. Jesus was the forerunner of a long line of those who have not only lived the good life, but have lived it with serene gladness.

Monday.

It is hard enough to imagine that Jesus would ever have accepted as one of his friends-that is, as a Christian-a person who broke the Golden Rule toward outsiders, toward heathen, toward heretical Samaritans, much less who made his living by breaking it. But it is quite impossible to think of Jesus as admitting those to be Christians at all who break the Golden Rule toward their fellow-Christians. "What!" we

hear him say: "do you call yourselves by my name, and yet dare to injure or cheat my friends, your own brothers and sisters? You have missed, then, the one idea for which I gave my life.”

Tuesday.

So far is the Golden Rule from being impracticable in the realm of the home that nothing else will serve to hold a home together. Where selfishness is, where selfindulgence pushes to the front, where there is scrambling and quarrelling, in that hour or day when the Golden Rule lapses, the home is spoiled. The home begins as soon as a single life in the family group gives itself in love for the welfare of the others. The home is a success, a joy to enter, and a place of rest to stay in, where all the members down to the young children breathe the atmosphere of thoughtful helpfulness.

Wednesday.

All the men and women who have ever done memorable things, or lived the noble lives whose memories we are proud to inherit, have taken ventures for truth, justice, liberty, love, humanity. Our religion itself is such a glorious venture. You can make no demonstration of its truth in advance that will satisfy a coward or an egotist. It rests, indeed, on great and ever-increasingly

obvious facts of the moral universe. To

the trained engineer's eye its conclusions are irresistible. But to each individual the entrance upon it remains an act of faith. To do merely what is safe, what pays, what gives immediate satisfaction, requires no faith nor courage nor even intelligence. To do the new and higher thing, the lines of which run into the infinite distance, is ever the call of religion. Faith predicts that it will be well, but the man has to wait to see. This is the condition of his finiteness. It is only at his highest moments, bought by obedience to the heavenly visions, that he catches glimpses of the eternal certitudes.

Thursday.

The truth is that real life is in the activity of every part and function that makes the whole man. It is as though a stream of divine health were coursing through one: the nerves tingle with zest; the mind is quick; the heart is warm; faith treads its brave ventures with firm foot. The man is at his full height when, like Jesus, body and mind give themselves with free abandon to carry the message and do the service of love. The life of Jesus was large, rich, full. Who saw more of the beauty of this

world? Who rejoiced more in the love of his friends? Who had a more joyous hope to buoy up his heart, that all would be well? Who in his time was better educated than this carpenter's son, who saw the deeper though quite simple meanings of existence? If the Golden Rule worked his death a little earlier than Herod's or Pilate's, it first gave him the sweetest enjoyment of life that man had ever possessed.

Friday.

Jesus' faith was in the Golden Rule, that it would work; that whoever would trust it, the eternal love would support. Jesus sealed this intensely practical faith with his life and his death. Those who looked on cried out: "We told you so. The Golden Rule is brought to naught." On the contrary, Jesus' death proved to usher in the dawn of a new era of human progress. We have henceforward the key to understand history. All history is the constant march of the forces that bring the Golden Rule to triumph, the defeat of every short-lived scheme, policy, industrial system, or political government that thwarts the growing good of man.

Saturday.

How can we believe in God unless we

keep the chief law of his kingdom? The Great Engineer shows us the plan of the bridge that binds earth and heaven together. He lays down the law of the bridge. He trusts the weight of his life to it. Shall we dare to call ourselves Christians, and not do the same?

SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.

An important change has been made in the current lessons published by the Unitarian Sunday School Society, "Beacon Lights of Christian History." In compliance with the wishes of many Sunday-schools lessons for the Primary grade will be prepared, thus making the present series uniform with the courses of the past four years. The October lessons are now ready. They are in three grades,-Primary, Intermediate (both illustrated in each lesson), and the Advanced. Every leaflet is of four pages, giving ample matter for the teachers. The subjects are as follows: Primary: "The Catacombs," "The Good Shepherd," "Antony, the Hermit," "Saint Radegunda," and "The First Christian Emperor." Intermediate and Advanced: "Church in the Catacombs," "Spirit of First Believers," "The Hermits: Saint

Antony," "The Ascetic Spirit," and "Constantine, the Great." The Primary and Intermediate grades are prepared by Rev. Edward A. Horton, and the advanced by Rev. Albert Walkley. Price 75 cents a hundred leaflets, each grade.

Although the current lessons on the "Beacon Lights" are widely used, yet there is a large demand for other publications, as is shown by the fact that the Unitarian Sunday School Society has just printed new edi tions of the "Teaching of Jesus, Intermediate," and the "Teaching of Jesus, Primary," also the "Beginning of Christianity, Advanced"; and, although the "Story of Israel" has just been issued in bound form, a second edition has been called for of the Intermediate grade.

My attention has been called to one or two statements made by me in the August and September numbers of the Unitarian, which certainly need correction. I refer to a paragraph descriptive of the new lessons, "Beacon Lights," in which I state that "there is nothing so far published which treats Christian history in any fulness for purposes of study in Sunday schools except the book by Dr. Allen, Outlines of Christian History.' I should have mentioned Rev. J. H. Crooker's scholarly lessons, published by the Western Unitarian Sunday School Society, entitled "The Growth of Christianity," had they been available in book form. I am not in the custom of referring teachers and students to publications in leaflet form, even of our own publishing. Mr. Crooker's lessons were not published in book form at the time the August paragraph was written, and I have not been able to obtain a copy yet from the Western headquarters. I am very glad to call attention to Mr. Crooker's careful work, which has been supplemented by Mr. Gannett's questions. As soon as I obtain a copy of Mr. Crooker's manual, I will give a more extended notice of it in this department, and shall be very glad to use it among the references in the current leaflet lessons on "Beacon Lights." Both Mr. Crooker's book and Dr. Allen's are intended for Advanced classes, and will also serve as an outline basis for guides to teachers in the Intermediate and Primary grades.

The other statement referred to was contained in the September Unitarian, under the appeal of the Unitarian Sunday School Society for annual contributions. I mentioned nine reasons for giving, and started in with the first one, that the Unitarian Sunday School Society had gone on faithfully for over sixty years. The next reason I gave was that it stood for the "moral and religious instruction of the young"; and, unfortunately, my mind was centred on the expression which occurs in our charter and by-laws where that phrase

is used. There is no other organization in our denomination which contains such a declaration in its charter. But that was not sufficient reason for my saying what I did, that "it is the only organization in our denomination" which stands for this object. It has been suggested to me that I must have had some ulterior meaning or motive in such a statement. I had no thought whatever of ignoring the Western Sunday School Society, and should be one of the last to indulge in such unfriendly language. It was a pure and simple accident of expression, and I had not the slightest thought of how the sentence sounded until it was quoted to me by a Western friend within a few weeks. I have a decided admiration for the work of the Western Sunday School Society, and for its efficient president, Rev. Allen W. Gould. This testimony I have given so frequently in public and private, in print and in speech, that I hardly think it necessary to repeat it here. The Western Unitarian Sunday School Society is decidedly a part of our denomination, and a very valuable part. It also stands for the moral and religious education of the young. I regret that this ap parent injustice occurred; but the actual fact is so strongly in contrast with the statement that I cannot see how any harm could result, even if I had not made this acknowledgment.

The Channing Hall "Talks" will probably be resumed on Saturday afternoon, October 2, at 2.30 o'clock. The subject will be the current leaflet lessons on "Beacon Lights of Christian History," and the lecturer will be Rev. Albert Walkley. All Sunday-school workers are welcome. The "Talks" will be given fortnightly. These current lessons fall into couplets, so that a fortnightly treatment will be thoroughly adequate. Besides, individuals may be able to attend more constantly if they are not required to be on hand every week.

The annual meeting of the Unitarian Sunday School Society will be held Wednesday evening, October 27, and Thursday, the 28th. The place of meeting will be announced in the Register and through other channels. At the time of writing these "Notes" (and I am doing it before the Saratoga Conference, in order to meet the needs of the printer) I am not able to tell where we shall meet. A valuable programme has been prepared, and full announcements will be made to the Sundayschools and the public in due season.

I am glad to call attention to Old and New, published monthly at Chicago by our Western friends, containing a great deal of church news. But I make mention especially at this time of the publication which is edited by Rev. Allen W. Gould, because it