velopment from within, and cannot be moulded by external constriction; and the larger freedom you have courage to allow, the less will you have to regret irregularity and distortion, for it has inherently a tendency to order and to beauty, only determined, not by authoritative mechanism, but by the rhythm and symmetry of the affections themselves." * Experience has demonstrated to us, as Unitarian Christians, the truth of this description, the value of this freedom.

Now, friends, if any here present remain unenlightened as to what I understand to be Unitarian Christianity, then I can only reply, that I despair of being able to make myself understood. We unite to differ. We agree to disagree. We seek unity with diversity. We look forward to uniformity of mind, no more than to uniformity of body, and by imposing no restrictions, we find the strongest conjunction.

This is the unity of spirit that we seek, this is the Unitarian Christianity we would develop. We seek the unity of natural science with religious science. We seek the unity of Nature's revelation with Christian revelation. We seek the unity of week-day religion with Sunday religion. We seek the unity of all persons and objects, which may conduce to the grand design of perpetual human progress. The spirit of Unity, Love, the Unitarian element, we would diffuse through the whole world. of existences. The small, the local, the fugitive interests of life, may continue to divide men into par

ties, and separate them in sentiment. But the great, the universal, and enduring interests of men are the same, and must unite them. Our present wants and real enjoyments are the same; our hopes of the future, and our aspirations upward, are one, all one. Blinded by their zeal, religious sects and churches may continue to build the Babel towers by which their elect ones think to wind their way to celestial felicities reserved for them. But he, whose eyes are open to read the signs of the times, and to interpret the moral commotions of the world, may see that powerful and time-honored structures are crumbling and wearing away, and men are flying out from their tottering walls into the open atmosphere, and finding refuge in the protecting embrace of God, whose bosom of boundless love can welcome all. The prayer of Jesus, "That they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one," — is now realizing itself in every invention of art, every discovery of science, every grand movement of Christian civilization.

DISCOURSE XXV.

THE MIND WHICH WAS IN JESUS.-DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CHRIST AND WHAT IS CALLED CHRISTIANITY.

LET THIS MIND BE IN YOU, WHICH WAS ALSO IN CHRIST JESUS.Phil. ii. 5.

THE author of this injunction had just referred to the characteristics which he summed up in the term mind. "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." These qualities constitute what he signifies by the mind of Jesus, advising those whom he addressed to imitate this mind.

A quite different aspect might Christendom have now worn, had societies and churches bearing the Christian name made it the chief object of their researches and efforts to ascertain and imitate this mind of Jesus. But it is with a heavy heart that every lover of peace and truth must turn to the pages of ecclesiastical history. The early Christians being Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, each division retained more or less of its theology,

deavored to bring the others to a regard for its peculiarities, as to times, places, and modes of worship. In order to secure the desired consideration, they began to arrange and systematize their peculiarities, both of modes and opinions, of forms and of faith. As nominal Christians increased in number, and became allied with civil government, each system of opinions and forms, more or less perfected, sought after a legal and unrivalled pre-eminence; and thus the unholy and unbrotherly strife has continued century after century, leaving the volumes of Church history, for ages, down to this hour, little more than a mournful record of divisions, wars, persecutions, censoriousness, and enmity among those, who, in common, claimed to be the special conservators and teachers of a religion of peace, fraternity, and love. Even now, in this very noontide of intelligence,throughout many portions of enlightened Christendom, what is the burden of daily, weekly pulpit proclamations? Is it the practicability, the duty, and the excellence of lowliness of mind, of doing nothing through strife and vainglory, each esteeming other better than himself? Is it to this mind. of Jesus, that the old, the young, and the whole thinking,, acting world of mankind, are perpetually pointed?

So far from this, it is still to the necessity of faith or belief in certain schemes of redemption, or plans of salvation, or means of grace, prescribed by various, varying, and contending sects and churches.

Let us ascend to the highest accessible point of observation, and survey impartially the condition of what is called the religious world. What does the

beholder witness? Is it a spacious field of unwearied industry, of varied and harmonious exertion, some surveying highways and removing obstacles in the way of general advancement,- some eradicating useless growths, and preparing soil for cultivation, — some sowing seeds, and fostering tender plants, some arranging, some training, and some pruning valuable trees, some gathering and protecting mature, rich, precious, and life-sustaining fruits for the general enjoyment, each one in his sphere laboring successfully, and all without conflict co-operating peacefully toward individual and general good?

What scenes soever may yet in coming time await the observer so favorably situated, certain it is, that no such gratifying and inspiring scene now salutes his longing vision. Painful as it sometimes is to perceive the truth, it becomes us to acknowledge and to utter it, though it be as much in sorrow as in love. It is a melancholy sight, which the observer sees in the religious world to-day.

Noble spirits there are, moved by noblest impulses, in every party, sect, or circle; — large hearts there are, with ever-enlarging sympathies, toiling and hoping for the world's welfare, despite the restraints which associations throw around them. But, justly excepting these, the beholder witnesses a line of sects, churches, and religious circles, each with its own tent pitched and its own banner flung to the breeze, proclaiming hostility to all the others, each ignoring common interests, and declining common efforts, each drawing lines around itself, except where it contemplates aggression, invasion, and con