A few years ago, Unitarians used to predict, though not very earnestly or emphatically, that the efforts of orthodox missionaries in India, so far as they were successful at all, would sooner or later terminate in the establishment there of Unitarianism. But did our most sanguine anticipations imagine that a Rammohun Roy would so soon feel his way alone through the system of Christianity presented to him, till he should arrive nearly at what we believe the simplicity of the gospel? Did we expect that the propagandists of orthodoxy itself would so soon write home, as they have already done, to their employers in England, and profess their conversion to the Unitarian faith? Did we look forward to the institution in India itself of two or three congregations, where pure Unitarian Christianity is adopted and inculcated?

To come home again, and survey the progress of our cause in single neighbourhoods. In any given spot where Unitarianism has arisen for the last few years, what changes and fluctuations of feeling with respect to it have come within the experience of every one at all interested! How have we learned to bear the brunt of the storm, which obloquy, bigotry, and false zeal, have blown with an infuriated blast against us! In many places, the name of Unitarian is already beginning to become honourable, where, but a short time since, he who dared to assume it did it only at the expense of a suspicious and withered reputation. A Unitarian chaplain has already proclaimed the simplicity of the gospel within the walls of our central capitol. In vain have pulpits denounced us-and private circles hunted us down-and Bible societies refused our subscriptions-and hypocrites started back with an

affected and glowering shudder on learning at what church we worshipped-and little children been encouraged to scoff at our little children;-we are every where holding up our heads; the public clamour no longer makes us half believe we have done wrong, and almost inquire of ourselves whether we have not been picking pockets, instead of comparing scriptural texts; the films on the eyes of our adversaries are loosening, if not absolutely dropping off; hatred is softening into respect, and the spirit of exclusion is melting into that of toleration. This happy process, it is true, is as yet very far from being perfected every where, or perhaps any where; but he must be a superficial observer of the course of public opinion, who does not perceive the tide, on the whole, making against intolerance, as surely as the ocean tide advances up the shore.

And all this was to be expected, as we intimated in the beginning of these remarks, from our second source of encouragement, the spirit of the age. Unitarians calculate much on this. Mere authority bears nothing like the sway which it once did. The sentimental worshippers of antiquity are growing fewer in number, and are learning to value religion for its essence, rather than for its rust. Or, should this poetical class of believers continue to flourish, Unitarianism, even though it could not claim, as we hold that it can, the character of the only true antiquarian form of Christianity, is yet every day increasing its recommendations on this score, and two or three hundred years hence, it will exhibit as beautiful and imposing an antiquity, as any sect now does, with the exception of the Roman Catholic alone. That active curiosity, which is pushing its researches into every other

department of inquiry, cannot stop short at the Bible. Trinitarianism (and its advocates too well know the secret,) is this moment the religion of the majority, only from acquiescence. They very well know, that he who but questions it, is lost to them. An aged Trinitarian minister of Massachusetts, nearly twenty years since, predicted to a brother clergyman, the certain ultimate defection from orthodoxy of a revered ornament of the Boston pulpit, only alleging as his reason, that the latter had expressed his doubts. But how many doubts will be expressed the next hundred years?

We are aware, however, that we must not too sanguinely calculate on the spirit of the age. Circumstances often arise to give it an unexpected character and direction. It is not impossible, that a cold blast of infidelity, more freezing than a northern wind, may sweep over the world, and wither, for a long time, Unitarianism, along with the less perfect modifications of Christianity. Or a sirocco of wild enthusiasm, as universal as the mania of the crusades, may drive the reason and understanding of mankind out of the region of deliberate faith, into a spiritual frenzy, undiscriminating and passionate. But on the other hand, the same possibility exists, tinged too, we trust, with some little probability, that a very wide and sudden movement may ere long take place in favour of Unitarianism.

But we need not indulge either the gloomy or the romantic apprehensions involved in the foregoing extreme suppositions. For we already behold our opponents, every where, the involuntary pioneers of our majestic and ultimately triumphant principles. Let them establish their education societies; train their young men to the knowledge and practice of Biblical

criticism; plant them all over the country, all over the world, in flourishing churches; as sure as the soul is free, and truth attainable, and the march of opinion unfettered, these young men, or their successors, must work their way, as fifty other settled clergymen have done in Massachusetts the last ten years, amidst the calm seclusion of their studies, into the precincts of a brighter and more solid faith, than that which is now taught them as the relics of the unfinished Reformation. The Eclectic Reviewers long since pathetically mourned the alarming process by which non-conforming churches in England degenerated into schools of heresy. They ascribed it to the custom of settling the sons of clergymen in the places of their fathers! Time and learning, as they complained, quite blunted in the descendants the original vehemence with which their orthodox progenitors maintained the doctrines of Calvinism. It will be so here and every where. Time, learning, study, reflection, and the Bible, are our unpaid Unitarian missionaries. Though we should employ missionaries elsewhere, never may we be induced to encroach on this field, nor steal into parishes for the purpose of breaking them up, and introducing a tone of bitter feeling, which is as much to be deprecated as speculative errors. Divisions and bitterness will sufficiently multiply of themselves. It is not to be expected, that no resistance will be made to the increase of light and truth, which we so confidently anticipate. We compassionate the future victims of persecution, whom the irresistible growth of Unitarianism will raise up among those who embrace it. But we know they will be firm, and enjoy that peace of mind, which the world cannot, but which truth, conscience, and

Heaven can give. And, happily, numerous will be the congregations, where a gentle and silent transition, like that from night to day, will be made from error to truth. The people, as the Panoplist allowed unawares, will know nothing of the old doctrines, if the old doctrines are not perpetually dragged into notice. With the exception of comparatively a few rapid, violent, and resisted changes, the probable process of universal Unitarianization will be this. In every denomination under the sun, the great leading truths, doctrines, and spirit, of unadulterated Christianity will alone be dwelt upon, and all that is unimportant, all that is merely sectarian, all that is solemnly metaphysical, all that even the refined and able spirits of Milton's Pandemonium in vain attempted to penetrate, will be quietly dropped out of view, and be as little heard of as the once agitated question now is, whether Lois, the mother of Mary, was the grandmother of the Deity, or only the mother of his mother.

In this desirable and gradual transmutation, the very name of Unitarian will, in all probability, disappear, along with those of many existing sects, which are at this moment far more busily engaged in digging lines of circumvallation about their own separate enclosures, than in promoting the general interests of Christianity. When the idea, or the phantasm, of Trinitarianism goes out of the world, the name will go with it, and of course the correlative term Unitarian will be abolished too. Yet no genuine Christian of that denomination can lament this circumstance, since we ought to rise infinitely higher than the poor and paltry spirit of sectarian triumph, and expend our sole endeavours in behalf of those things and principles, which revelation has