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His faith is secure

he can go straight to God for himself. because he has won it, not by imitation or conformity, but by conquest of objections and through the overthrow of doubt, because he has proved it in trial and found it strong. Such a man's religion is not conventional, is not superstitious, has no fear. It is personal. It is interwoven with his life, and part of his being. He is at home in the world, as in a father's house, at one with his fellowmen and with his God.

The power of this personal religion, this independence of mind and soul, is our first privilege. We are called into this freedom, but let us not forget that "freedom is only the first lesson of self-government." Let us not forget that it is a law of liberty by which we are to be judged. Human history is the story of the effort of man to attain not only the freedom, but the unity to which he feels himself born. Too many reformers have missed the necessity of this combination. Some have contended for liberty without union, and some for union without liberty. They are really one and inseparable. Robert Toombs was willing to dissolve the American Union to save slavery. Wendell Phillips was equally willing to dissolve the Union to save liberty. The founders of the American Union did not believe that freedom and union could endure long together. They knew the short tenure of ancient confederacies and the jealousies of sections, and they believed that the Constitution might prove to be only a temporary bond. But, by a thousand influences as subtle as the forces of the air and earth about a growing tree, our nationality has grown, striking its roots deep, and defying the tempests. In the same way the consciousness of unity in our free religious fellowship has steadily developed. Could the founders of our Association hear the voice of the present, it would say

to them: "I am no more a medley of lonely, scattered churches. I am no more a vapor; I am condensed. I am no more protoplasm; I am a life." Without loss of personal freedom we have thus attained to a realization of a living and organic unity.

We have inherited a system of co-operative life which commits the creation and direction of our institutions and activities to the faith, intelligence, and generous love of the whole people. Our Christian commonwealth is distinguished from the ecclesiastical government which rests upon the authority of a self-constituted and self-perpetuating priesthood, and quite as carefully is it to be distinguished from the religious anarchy which emphasizes individualism so far as to unsettle all recognition of a common principle and a common cause.

I believe it can be justly maintained that the Congregational system in good hands develops the highest working power of a Christian church, not, indeed, for the building up of ecclesiasticism, but for the building up of the kingdom of God among men. Were it our end to aggrandize a church or a sect, we could hardly do better than to imitate the methods of the Roman or Anglican communion; but as we seek to accomplish for ourselves and for mankind a benefit incomparably beyond mere ecclesiastical prestige, our ways and means must be adapted to that higher end.

We must measure our success not chiefly by its outward growth of enrolled members, but by the practical power of our principles over the life of the people. Merely to acknowledge and brand a man with the name of a sect is as useless as it is easy. We seek rather to inspire and uplift the souls that are in need, to encourage aspirations toward things that are true and lovely and of good report, to guide life in clean and honest ways, to consecrate intellectual and

moral products and resources to the glory of God by securing them to wise human uses. I take it, then, that (to quote the preacher of our Anniversary Sermon) "we have no cause for misgiving and regret, but rather for humble confidence and gratitude that we find the Unitarian body committed by its history and its dominant convictions and tendencies to the purpose and championship of liberty as the law of spiritual life."

It is sometimes assumed by the critics who are hostile to free government that a religious democracy like ours is nothing but a parade ground for the weaknesses, defects, and eccentricities which a better discipline suppresses or conceals; and it is the unfortunate habit of some Unitarians to re-enforce this criticism by a temperamental habit of insisting upon their private peculiarities and calling them their rights. I deem it, indeed, one of the advantages of our voluntary system that it exhausts the human possibilities of dissent. No matter how minute and numerous may be the verbal and accidental differences that separate us, by giving them publicity we disarm them. A self-absorbed individualism is finally oppressed by its own pretensions, and becomes a cause of inconvenience to itself as well as to others. The man who exaggerates his specialty as an individual only succeeds in putting himself in a state of siege, until, grown weary of isolation, he destroys his own outposts and effects a junction with his real allies in the field.

It is another blessing of our republican system that it spares us the sad necessity of acting as spies and informers upon each other's opinions and purposes. We hold the vital unity of the spirit, not a barren uniformity of thought and custom. We are agreed that in freedom there must be differentiation; but in all the calmer moods, which we know

to be our wiser moods, it is transparently clear that most of us are trying to say the same thing, that we are really trying to sing the same music, but have not always the skill to hit or keep the key. The remedy is that we must practise more together.

Our deep and true desire for unity may well thus qualify our just pride of independence. Let us make of our Association a stout cord on which to string the fugitive beads of our independent organizations. We have our treasure in earthen vessels; but let not the ideal pour contempt upon the actual, let not our love of the better keep us from what is practical and good. We do not propose to dwell ever in tents, or exist as outcast atoms discarded by the law of gravitation. A common religious hope and purpose is the surest of bonds. Our restlessness and incoherence must give place to disciplined order, and our irresolute zigzagging to definite advance.

I yield to no one in my adhesion to the good Puritan principle of nonconformity, and I hold absolutely to the supreme right of an independent church to govern and control its own affairs; but at the same time I believe that the providence of God is now leading our churches into a new era, wherein the guiding principle is fellowship. I believe in harnessing our forces in strong teams for definite tasks, in concentrating our energies, in consolidating our activities, in unifying our methods, that without sacrifice of essential independency we more and more work together for the coming of the kingdom of God.

My expectations are neither unreasonable nor excessive. I have proved by experience the perplexities and difficulties of the task to which our fellowship has set itself. But no observant person can, however, fail to perceive a steady and

fellowship. This has been a process of modification and development rather than of reconstruction. The failure of a single church or mission does not discourage us; and we do not think that nothing has been gained because everything is not accomplished at once, as we do not suppose that the tide is not rising because every succeeding wave is not higher than the last. We may be sure that that cause is always safe which is in sympathy with great moral affairs, with the common-sense and intelligence of the people, with the earnest faith and high purpose of youth, with the lessons of experience, and with the convictions of wise and gentle men and women. I know of no cause in this country of which this may be more truly said than of the cause of Unitarian Christianity.

For ours is the cause of freedom, unity, and brotherhood. These democratic ideals, which are equally the Christian ideals, are the living experience which nerved our fathers to break with established Orthodoxy; and they are the messengers of God which still inspire our resolution and our energy. Sometimes the impatience of men denies their existence; sometimes they are talked about until they seem so vague and nebulous as to elude all pursuit; sometimes they are derided by a near-sighted utilitarianism; sometimes they are obscured by the mists of cant; but ever and again they reveal themselves, and prove their power of still guiding and shaping the hopes and efforts of men. For two generations we have been endeavoring to build these ideals. into the vital life of America; and by experience we have proved their capacity to promote righteousness, public serviceableness, and spiritual vitality. We have turned some of our ideals into realities, but still the efficiency of our visions and their embodiment in our national life can be preserved and made more fruitful only by eternal vigilance.

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