of the anniversary of the temperance society, this same man's wife upbraided him for letting me go, thinking I would receive discourteous treatment; but never did I receive more kindly hospitality in the home of one of the leaders of that one-time prayermeeting, sitting up beyond the midnight hour, and talking with her and her son upon these great themes of love and of life and the larger religious fellowship. In other country places where I have preached some of the choicest people there have said, "Why, I am a Unitarian, and did not know it." Not many weeks ago one of the best men in our Ithaca church, who had come from his farm in another county, where was some liberalism, to educate his children at Cornell, in talking with me, said that the farming neighborhoods were more open to our gospel than even were the people of the villages. I believe he speaks truth. "Say not ye, There are four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto ye, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest." "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest." In the gathering together of a church in the country towns I would not name them Unitarian, nor commit them to the denominational fellowship, while yet giving them support and encouragement. I would let them be classed as the "Other Christian Churches" of our National Conference. The villages are very few in which could be gathered together a Unitarian church in the denominational use of Unitarianism. The villages are many in which could be gathered together a liberal Christian society, not in any denominational name, but in the name of neighborliness and in an aspiration after better things in religion for themselves and their children. Names divide, and are apt to add but one more competing sect to a people already devastated by that evil, as by a scourge of locusts. But you can gather together the different liberal elements in religion in the town, and organize them as the church of the Good Samaritan, with open and willing hands for all unto whom they can minister. You can offer such society as a healing for the village sect plague. The people of such a society can say, There is hopeless division in our bearing these sect names and striving for these sect ends: let us come together in a church of simple neighborliness, agreeing in love to differ about many things of opinion, to respect and by sympathy try to understand each other's honest thought; above everything else, to be a church of to-day, a church in and for this community, "accepting the religion of Jesus, summed up in love to God and love to man," and welcoming to our fold all in sympathy with our positive aim. You can not only at the very beginning offer such a society as a solution of the sect problem, but, as that society lives out its life, under loving and wise leadership, it will tend more and more to force such solution if it maintain a positive and satisfying religious life. In this liberal spirit it will tend to gather to itself those freeing from the sectarian bonds, and drive together for mutual self-protection those who believe in the essential savingness of the orthodox theology. It ought to work out in that way, and thereby be a practical solver of the problem of church union, giving to each village but two churches, one with its face toward the shadows of the past, the other with its face to the dawn. With men adapted and consecrated to this work, backed by the necessary missionary funds for the beginnings, one of the greatest religious works of the century could, I believe, be thus inaugu rated and pushed to successful issue. We ought to be doing a good bit of such work, free as we are to do our work and forego the naming of it. If we are to fulfil the fact which Mr. Savage stated at Washington, that we are as large as the Methodist church was at our age,-if that fact is to be prophecy that the Unitarian movement will be as great, we shall have to establish such churches in the country towns, grouping them into circuits, and putting some consecrated circuit rider in their charge. When our missionary fire comes, kindling us from on high into the conviction that we have a gospel which the world needs, then we shall, in just such ways, plant such country towns with non-denominational churches, preaching our gospel and solving the great problem of a united Christian church. JOHN M. SCOTT. The flourishing organization known as "The Boys' Brigade" started with three teachers and twenty-eight boys connected with a Sunday-school in Glasgow, in October, 1883; and in less than five years it had grown into a regularly constituted organization, with a headquarters' office, a paid staff, and a force throughout England and Scotland of 230 companies, 800 officers, and 11,000 boys. The motive which first prompted the organization was to improve the discipline of the Sunday-school, to hold and interest the older boys, and to reach and influence them, not only on Sunday, but through the week. Each company represents some one church or school, with which it is closely connected; and every meeting for instruction or drill is attended with an appropriate religious exercise. Of the members, 8,913 belong to various Christian organizations. There are Bible classes in ninetyeight companies, and the badges and mottoes of the brigade re-enforce the command to be "a good soldier of Jesus Christ." There are, too, “church parades, when all the boys of the company muster at the school, and march to church in uniform." And on the practical side, besides military exercises and "cricket, foot-ball, swimming, and athletic clubs," with reading-rooms and games, and bands of instrumental music, there are "ambulance instruction" and "stretcher drill," with instruction how to render "first aid to the injured," which has already, in some cases, proved of efficient service in case of city accidents. "It seemed to us," say the founders, "that by associating Christianity with all that was most noble and manly in a boy's sight, we should be going a long way to disabuse his mind of the idea that there is anything effeminate or weak" in the religious life. It was also their aim to create a "sentiment which would make the boys proud of their company, jealous of its honor, ashamed of doing anything that would disgrace it, and prepared to make any sacrifice rather than be dismissed from it. How heartily the boys took up the work, and how earnestly they entered into it, may best be shown by the fact that there are boys in some of our companies to-day who have been members for three years, and during that time have never been one minute late for drill nor ever once missed the Company Bible Class on Sunday morning." It may be added that the age of membership extends from twelve to seventeen, and that the members receive their discharge with keen reluctance and regret. OBITUARY. REV. O. B. FROTHINGHAM. The death of Rev. O. B. Frothingham November 27 takes from us one who has been for forty years a strong leader on the progressive side of our denominational life. He began preaching in Jersey City, N.J., in 1855, and four years later began the movement in New York which was organized as the Third Unitarian Congregational Church. Here for twenty years he held a large audience, attracted by his eloquence and powerful intellectual personality. As a literary man, he was distinguished by a forceful style and wide culture. He published several volumes, of which "The Religion of Humanity," "Boston Unitarianism,” and one entitled "Recollections and Impressions" are the best known. REV. HELEN G. PUTNAM. A life of quiet heroism has suddenly closed, while at the height of its usefulness, in the death of Miss Helen G. Putnam, our solitary volunteer missionary in the Far North-west. With wonderful patience and endurance Miss Putnam carried on a holy work of comforting and counselling little groups of hungry souls through North and South Dakota and Minnesota, far from our churches and the opportunity to hear our gospel. Her mission and devotion were Christ-like, and her example an honor to our cause. REV. CHARLES W. PARK. The death of Rev. Charles W. Park, November 24, at Pittsfield, Mass., is a great loss to our work, as well as a severe sorrow to all his friends. Mr. Park was the nephew of Prof. Park of Andover, and was ordained as an orthodox Congregational minister in 1870. For many years he was a missionary in India. On returning to this country, he preached in various places under the American Board; but, growing in breadth of theological conviction, he quite recently accepted a call to the Unitarian church of Pittsfield. Mr. Park was a scholar, a genial, lovable friend, a fine and cultured preacher, and a most pure and noble soul. ONE UPWARD LOOK EACH DAY. SUNDAY. Our Common Purpose. We join in worship and in work to learn God's holy will, That every day and every hour his love our lives may fill. We join to find, by following Christ, the truth, the light, the way, That leads through every doubt and fear to God's eternal day. We join to help and cheer the weak, to reckon not the gain, But count the hardest duty light that lifts another's pain. By holding fast each other's hands and looking up to God, We mean through all the wrongs of earth to keep the heavenly road, Till nothing from the simple right our daily lives can sever, And we shall win the love of God, to live with him forever. Old and New. -Frederick B. Mott. MONDAY. Can a child presume to choose A Prayer. -Laurence Tuttiett. SATURDAY. Thy will to do, Thy work to make -Philip Phillips, Jr. wishes for the New Year! We begin our eleventh volume with this number, and wish most heartily to acknowledge the invaluable co-operation we have received from all our correspondents, and from so many known to us only by name. The kind words of appreciation we receive from so many quarters are our constant encouragement, and the personal interest shown by regular subscribers in helping to extend the circulation of the Unitarian is the chief source of our success. We enter with great hope the new year, our purpose always being to unite all denominational interests in a closer devotion to "the religion of Jesus." MANY a faithful heart made Send Me. glad by the joyous gospel of a religion that is inspired through and through by love, and therefore hope, would willingly do something to spread that gospel, something to send on the blessing to other hearts. We often hear it said, especially by devoted women: "I would so gladly help if I knew how! If I only had the means that some others have! or if I only had the ability or the time!" The Unitarian offers itself to every one who has this desire, and says: "Send me. "If you can afford one dollar, I will carry for you to any place in the United States, every month for a year, the best and most inspiring words of all the leading teachers of our gospel of great joy. "What a good work you will be doing the whole of this New Year by sending me. "If you cannot yourself afford to do that, then this at least you can do: take half an hour or less, and go to some friend or some neighbor, and say: 'Do subscribe for the Unitarian. Let it lie on your family table: it will bless somebody.'" The Unitarian therefore says to each reader, "Do not be content to take me: do more, send me !" would undoubtedly claim to belong to Mr. So-and-so's church. Yet they belong to it only in so far as it is convenient. The sense of attachment is incomplete. It is an attachment for gain, but not for sacrifice. An attachment on fine Sundays, but not on wet. An attachment to the church, but not to the Sunday-school. The burden of church work and support sits lightly upon these members. What a field for church extension and missions and forward movements in completing the attachment of the semi-attached! Unitarian Union. ONE of the most im portant movements which our denomination has yet experienced is the effort to establish a union of our various young people's religious societies. The suggestion has been often before us, and after many quiet consultations the matter was brought to public notice at the Washington National Conference by a formal meeting. There was very great interest manifested, and evidently an earnest desire for the formation of some one organization to represent all the young people of our denomination. A committee, with Rev. E. A. Horton, chairman, was appointed to communicate with the churches, and prepare a report to be presented at the annual May meetings in Boston. That committee has already sent a circular letter to the churches, with a suggested form of organization, and inquiries which, if promptly responded to, will give the committee the necessary data for their report. We urge all our ministers to bring the matter before the young people of their societies. As to the suggestions offered by the committee, we infer from past experience that the form of organization should be as absolutely business-like and simple as possible. Spiritual Service. THE message, the power, and the life of Jesus Christ was a spiritual service to the world; and it is surely this spiritual service which continues to be the deepest need of our own times. God is Spirit; and we are! Yet, as Jesus found the religious life of the people encrusted with formalism, legalisin, and ceremonialism, so to-day how deeply is spiritual vigor buried beneath social display, material extravagance, and the rivalry of fashion! Even churches are becoming "Institutional," lessons in carpentry and dressmaking, classes in all conceivable subjects, engrossing the time and thought of the minister and his phalanx of committee managers. The Unitarian Church, free from the ceremonial and creedal bindings of other churches, has an immense field of work in stimulating that spiritual life which is the essence of Christianity, In closing an admirable address to the Unitarian Club of Boston, Col. Carroll D. Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor, said: "Can the Unitarian Church render a service to the American people in helping to spiritualize it? I believe it has a mission before it. I believe that that mission is to bring out the very declaration of the Conference at Saratoga, reiterated at the Conference at Washington, that the basis of the The Bible as a Banner. THE Bible can be much more appropriately used as a banner than as a prison! It makes a glorious flag for those who face the light, for it unfurls the brilliant story of man's march toward God. From beginning to end it is a record of progress, of shaking off the outgrown form or creed, in order to accept the new discovery of better things. Abraham's religious belief was not good enough for Isaac, nor Isaac's for Joseph, nor Joseph's for Moses, nor Moses' for David. So on through the development of the wisdom writers and the priests and the prophets. And even then Isaiah's best was not good enough. So the old was again outgrown, and Jesus declared his clearer thought of God. How strange it seems that such an inspiring story of the grandest "forward movement" ever recorded in history should be so perverted from its purpose as to be used to prevent any further progress in religious thought! Yet we find our contemporary, the Lutheran Witness of Chicago, in a letter to young people, saying: "The Bible is infallible: it always and everywhere directs us in the right way, and never and nowhere can it direct wrong." It is this utterly unreasonable treatment of the Bible, putting the savage doings of Israel's early warriors, their treacheries and butcheries, on a plane of equal importance with the gentle example of Jesus, that makes many people hardly care to read the Bible at all; for, if it is infallible, it is absurd. It is because it is not infallible, it is because it is in itself an example of improvement from generation to generation, |