matter. That would not make the first chapter of Genesis a Hebrew myth, but only show that men of the New Jerusalem church are right in supposing that chapter, in the words, "Let the earth bring forth," to teach the doctrine of spontaneous generation. It would do nothing towards establishing Herbert Spencer's idea of an evolution and revolution in cycles of eternal length, but would leave the beginning and end of the present cycle undetermined as they are to-day. It would do nothing towards invalidating the everlasting strength of the induction by which we prove that mind is before matter, that "thought is the cause of all that is;" that, as has been argued by the immortal Agassiz, the creation is the embodiment of God's ideas, and science but a reverent reading of a part of that divine thought. It would still require but a moderate degree of logical acumen to show the preposterous absurdity of every attempt made by Mr. Spencer, and that school, to prove that we are absolutely shut out from acquiring any conceptions of God, or from receiving any revelations through his Son and his Spirit. And this is one of the special functions of Unitarianism, to show that the faith into which we baptize men, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, contains nothing incredible, nothing repugnant to reason, nothing against which science, either now or hereafter, can possibly bring any objection, but in favor of which, on the contrary, there is the strongest possible antecedent probability. It is acknowledged that the human mind naturally and inevitably infers the existence of God from the phenomena of consciousness and of observation. It is manifest that all parts of the universe are fitted together precisely as if in fulfillment of one grand plan, one artistic conception. Every discovery in science is a new proof that the world was built upon the pattern of ideas, which include our apriori ideas; every step in science shows not only that man is intelligent, but that the world is intelligible, that we were made in the image of our Creator that we are the sons of God. There is then an antecedent probability of the soundness of the induction which Jesus authorizes us to make, from our best ideas of the parental and filial relation, to our relation with God. We should reasonably expect him to communicate with us, and send us messengers independent of the routine of nature. The sacrifice on Calvary was

thus as distinctly promised in our highest intuitions of holiness and love, as man was prefigured in the lower vertebrates which preceded him. The inviolability and invariability of law no more precludes the forgiveness of sin, and the reconciliation of man through a mediator, than it shuts off the possibility of a man's receiving his returning and penitent son. Our Unitarian interpretation of the Scripture does not fix the age of the world, nor the methods of creation, nor the deterioration of the race from an original state in Eden; it makes the Scriptures, both of the Old and the New Testament, deal directly with the relations of God and of Christ to the soul; and brings out of the Bible a body of doctrines, which, as you may find them in the standard writers of our denomination forty years ago, I believe to be unassailable by any sound metaphysic and by any conceivable results of true science. And they are precious, whether presented in their simplicity, or cumbered by the traditions of men, they are the light and the life of the world, the source of wisdom and righteousness and strength; the comfort of the sorrowing, the aid of the tempted, the hope of the sinful, the fountain of love and kindness, of justice and purity and temperance; the stay alike of old and young, of rich and poor, of the wise and learned, of the ignorant and foolish; the hope of the dying; the life of the immortal church of living men. Would that our young men, turning their eyes from the dazzling pyrotechnics of modern speculation, might see in the bright and morning star which rose over the hills of Galilee the hope, the light and salvation of the nations. Would that each church represented in this conference, and each minister of our faith, might arouse some young man to prepare himself for the ministry of this faith, that we might see them coming into our pulpits, not to utter any such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this Christianity worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and Truth afterwards;" but those higher words of the Divine Master, "The Truth shall make you free; I am the Truth; if the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."

5

THOMAS HILL.

THINGS OLD AND NEW.

THE royal line of time, like the throne of England, never fails of a succession. The wine of progressive life is sweet to the lips and exhilarating; for the draught is ever of the new, though the flavor of the old lees cling somewhat to the taste. There are most lively bees and fresh honey in the decaying carcass of the old lion. God makes every age a beautiful flower seated on the stalk of all the by-gone world; and petals and pollen are each fragrant and good in its own floral season. As ride the roses and the strawberries on the advancing crest of summer all along from week to week on their way north, from the warm topic and perennial equator; so God from his perennial eternity moves forward with the sweetness and glow of life, and keeps even with the foremost life and verge of time.

In the act of going forward there is the necessity of leaving something behind, the shells and shards that have had their day, and given up their vivifying power to us and our present. Ah, the camping grounds, long ago left, of the human forces divine! It must needs be that the world should not always remain young, and that things in it, once new, should not stay such. So there is much that is old, old forms and practices; old usages in church and market-place, kitchen and court; old funeral ceremonies, old devices upon tomb-stones; old wives' fables; old superstitions, signs, and sayings of Norman descent or AngloSaxon; old Christmas gatherings and May-day festivals; old psalms, sermons, books, and old civilizations.

These ancient furnishings and cunning traps, though now somewhat laid aside, as in dark and dusty garrets, humanity delights to look upon, at times, as being once its all, once, and perhaps now, very dear; as a man would look upon his boyish kite, wondering when did the owner fly that machine; or upon the little coat, thinking pleasantly of the little man that could have worn such a covering; or upon his youthful masterpiece of mind and hand that will have to wait long for a better. Much, then, that is old has a charm about it. It has seen so many years, looks so

and

venerable and gray; and yet all this, so ancient, time-worn, and dear, once throbbed with the quick pulsations of life, and was the measure of the life that then was. We like to pass through old and roomy houses, and stand beneath the old trees that shade them, and ponder how long time the swelling tide of being flowed there, childhood sported and manhood toiled; how many a scene of joy had been enacted there, how many of sorrow, how many have forever passed from thence to other mansions. It is no small thing when the plow upturns the utensils and ornaments of savage men; for we are shown where life once wrought, and though a poor one, yet the beginning of what shall be immensely great. Christians and patriots of other times, martyred and unmartyred, their last resting places are mile-stones along the road thus far traveled by religion and freedom. There is a pleasure, sad and subdued, in looking upon the spots their bones have made sacred; since they have labored and we have entered into their labors.

Looked at for a day, all things seem sturdy and strong against anything they may encounter; but ere long the flood of time has gone over all, bearing down and away what it will, and leaving what it will. It leaves the traveler to wonder and muse over the remains of former greatness, -some Volney to write his Ruins, civilization to seek other channels and new-opening areas. Historians retrace the ground, taking note of rich and lasting life and deeds. Poets, from some commanding mount and vantage of inspiration, sing the ancient worth and renown. Walter Scott and other romancers reconstruct daring and heroic times. Overconservative men search among the débris for precedents in religion, governments, and other things that were. As time and its newness advance, the stains gathering on the old and the past, -then the living grope mournfully among the memorials of the dead. It is then that love and sentiment indite reflective and pathetic lines to the fallen, to fallen cities and empires, to departed good men, to the vigor of age cut down, to the faded flower of infancy.

When men little knew just how to act and live, the past shows us their first attempts, hitting now the right method, and missing how oft! In the things that are old is seen the spirit of humanity

first coming into contact with matter and moulding it into artistic forms, how rudely at the start, witness the hut of the early inhabitant, and his navy all comprised in a raft. Traveling back, we come upon a great force turning this way and that, traversing plains, river-valleys, and seas. It is the human mind coming into consciousness of itself. There the first housekeeping, — with what economy, we have all read. Hearth and home have long gathered endearments and sacredness. Like an apple swaying on its branches through all the summer, and gathering sweetness month by month, so the world has long been ripening under the warm breath of God. The present is the past improved. The men of other times have done more than can be reckoned up to make the men of this time what they are.

Lowell and Manchester belong to the very aristocracy of talent and skill; yet their grand-ancestors were the humble hand wheel and the plebeian loom. Society is not all above the surface, as stem, branches, and foliage. It has roots running down through the strata of centuries. From the first, as one would open earnest lips, the boiling kettle was wont to lift its cover, breathing out ardent breath, as much as to say, "See here a giant power, his shining tools and appliances imprisoned, out of his reach, in the stolid bars of iron, that will one day grasp his weapons,-off .to the field, plant and rear a new civilization." A vote of thanks to early humanity for bearing with negations and poor contrivances, while primary conditions have their time, the sensitive lack comes to its senses, and reaction gathers head-way to bring the needed invention and supply. In the nest of weakness strength gets its eyes and its plumage, and flies forth.

If other men had not been the semi-savages, that stage of being would have devolved upon us. Then Milton had been a "mute inglorious Milton," some thriving, piping shepherd, not dull-brained indeed, but thoughtful amid herds and hills, stars and seasons, sights and sounds; and Channing some gentle chief, liking best, between peace and war, the plumes and privacy of peace. There is just so much barbarism to live through; and it was very kind of the old barbarians to take so much of the burden from our shoulders. So they relieved those coming after from holding, as divine, stone idols, crocodiles, cruel and inhuman sovereignties;