would not hesitate to say that the union of Rome to the Italian State would be fatal not only to Catholicism but to the existence of Italy itself. Yet, further, I can imagine no greater misfortune for a cultured people than to see in the hands of its rulers not only the civil but also the religious power.

The history of centuries proves to us that wherever this union was consummated, civilization immediately ceased to advance and, therefore, necessarily began to retrograde; the most detestable of despotisms followed, and this, whether a caste of priests usurped the temporal power or a caliph or sultan seized control of things spiritual. Everywhere this fatal union has produced the same result; God forbid that it should ever be so here! . .

When these doctrines have received the solemn sanction of the national Parliament, when it will be no longer lawful to doubt the feelings of Italians, when it is clear to the world that they are not hostile to the religion of their fathers, but wish to preserve this religion in their country, when it is no longer necessary to show them how to prosper and to develop their resources by combating a power which was an obstacle, not only to the reorganization of Italy, but also to the spread of Catholicity, I believe that the greater part of Catholic society will absolve the Italians and will place where it belongs the responsibility of the fatal struggle which the Pope insists upon waging against the country in whose midst he lives.

But God avert this fatal chance! At the risk of being considered Utopian, I believe that when the proclamation of the principles which I have just declared, and when the indorsement of them that you will give are known and con. sidered at Rome and in the Vatican, I believe, I say, that

those Italian fibres which the reactionary party has, as yet, been unable to remove from the heart of Pius IX. will again vibrate, and there will be accomplished the greatest act that any people have yet performed. And so it will be given to the same generation to have restored a nation, 5 and to have done what is yet greater, yet more sublime, an act of which the influence is incalculable, that is, to have reconciled the papacy with the civil power, to have made peace between Church and State, between the spirit of religion and the great principles of liberty. Yes, I hope that it will be given us to compass these two great acts which will most assuredly carry to the most distant posterity the worthiness of the present generation of Italians.

CLARKE

J

AMES FREEMAN CLARKE, an eminent American divine, was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, April 4, 1810. He was educated at Harvard University and Cambridge Divinity School and was pastor of a Unitarian church in Louisville, Kentucky, 1833-40. In 1841 he established in Boston the Church of the Disciples, where he officiated until his death, June 8, 1888. He was a conservative Unitarian, but a man of broad sympathies, and although differing very widely in doctrinal matters from Theodore Parker he exchanged pulpits with him on one occasion because he "could not sit still and see an honest man tabooed for his opinions." He took great interest in politics from an ethical or moral standpoint, and never hesitated to express his personal convictions, whether they were likely to be popular or not. He was prominent in many of the philanthropic reforms of his time, both local and national, and as a writer exercised an extended and beneficent influence. His literary style is notably clear and graceful. His published works include Christian Doctrine of Prayer (1854); Orthodoxy, its Truths and its Errors " (1866); "Ten Great Religions," his best known work (1871-81); Exotics," a collection of fine verse translations (1876); "Essentials and Non-Essentials in Religion" (1878); "How to Find the Stars" (1878), and many others.

WHY AM I A UNITARIAN

"But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers."-Acts xxiv, 14.

W1

HY am I a Unitarian? Why are we Unitarians?

Is it because we like to stand apart from the rest

of the Christian Church? Is it because there is

any special pleasure or satisfaction in being known as heretics? Is it because we would not enjoy as others enjoy being in the sympathy and in the brotherhood of the whole Christian Church? By no means. We should all like that. We are not Unitarians and do not call ourselves Unitarians, because there is any special pleasure in standing thus alone and apart from our brethren whom we respect and honor, though they differ from us.

Why then did the early Unitarians in this country; why did he who first professed himself avowedly a Unitarian in this city and in this country, Dr. Freeman; why did William Ellery Channing and Henry Ware; the late revered and beloved James Walker of Cambridge, and Francis William Pitt Greenwood, that pure apostolic soul,-why did these come out from the rest of the Christian Church and stand apart? It was because they thought that it was necessary to bear witness to some truths which they believed had been neglected or forgotten, and they were willing to encounter any possible obloquy or opposition in the defence of what seemed to them to be important truth. And now I propose to show you why some of us still believe the same, and think that the time for this protest against many of the popular doctrines of the Christian Church is not over.

.

Perhaps some present may say, "What do you mean when you speak of a Unitarian? Unitarians have no creed, and therefore they have no common belief at all. There is nothing which can be represented as Unitarian belief, since there is among them no fixed or avowed creed." It is very true that for reasons which I shall presently state we have not any formal creed or Confession of Faith; but it does not by any means follow from this that we have no common belief. There may be a common belief when there is no definite, precise, or formal statement of it. Take a great party for instance like the Democratic party or the Republican party; they have no Thirty-nine Articles, they have no Confession of Faith; nevertheless they have a belief. There are certain great ideas which unite them together and which make their faith.

Suppose that you should go into one of our universities and should find there certain professors calling themselves

6688

geologists, teachers of geology; or of chemistry; or of astronomy; and you should say to them, "Where are your Thirtynine Articles of astronomy? Where is your Confession of Faith of chemistry?" and they should reply, "We have nothing of the sort."

"Why then you cannot have any common belief; the astronomers in one university probably teach an entirely different doctrine from the astronomers in another; and so do the chemists and geologists."

"No," they would answer, "we have a common belief which is determined by certain convictions which we all share, certain knowledge which we all possess; and though we may differ in details from each other you will find that the professors of astronomy in Oxford in England and Cambridge in the United States and in the University of Paris, teach essentially the same thing, though they have not formulated their doctrines into any creed."

You can express the union of men in a common faith in two ways just as you can express the union of a flock of sheep in two ways. You can put a flock of sheep into a fold. and build a fence around it, and that will distinguish it from You will say, "The flock that I refer to Or else you may say, "The flock of sheep which I refer to is the flock which has such a man for its shepherd."

any other flock. is in that fold."

If you are travelling over the hills of Syria you may see two great flocks of sheep coming from different directions, and meeting each other and passing each other; each with its shepherd at the head, each following its common shepherd, and never confounding themselves together, although they have no fence around them to separate them.

And so parties in the Church and parties in the State can