men that ever filled that office. By taste a scholar, once a tutor in Latin and Greek at Harvard, his health failed him at the very outset of his ministry. After three courageous attempts at holding a pulpit, first, at New Bedford, second, at Salem, and last at Somerville, each ending, after brief terms of labor, in hemorrhage from the lungs, and a prostration threatening speedy death, he was obliged to content himself with the less regular and periodic duties of the secretaryship. This office, which he found a neglected, unpopular, and unthriving routine, he made alive, attractive, and prosperous, by his zeal, devotion, and wisdom. He filled it to the admiration and gratitude of all the churches, and we owe his memory generous gratitude for what he did for our denomination and cause. I think his prudence, wisdom, and love were among our chief securities for peace and progress. He reconciled the contentious, held together the antagonistic, and smoothed the way for all. His character was of singular beauty and worth. If he had faults, his closest observer did not find them out. Devoted to duty, punctilious in his word, incapable of deceit or double-dealing, despising hardship, and trampling on his own infirmities, he did more work with his deseased body than most well men accomplish with vigorous frames. He was a hero in his will and self-sacrificing temper, and he fought his disease, consumption, for five and twenty years, and never gave up until two days before he died. The day before his death, he dictated a letter to the publisher of "The Unitarian Review," which he had just revived, beginning, "I am much grieved at the trouble my death is about to give you and our enterprise." Thus calmly, could this saintly man confront the last enemy! He died in the gentlest and most peaceful manner, with a joy and confidence most consoling to all who loved him. He was so very close to my heart, on account of his devotion and efficiency in the Unitarian reorganization, which we undertook ten years ago, that I can never sufficiently attest my sense of his value to us, or his nearness and dearness to myself. "The beauty of Irsael is slain upon thy high places! How are thy mighty fallen." Let us take heed, for the time is short; and when we fall, as fall we must, may it be from high places, and may the best in the land lament that in us more of the beauty of Israel is slain !

EDITOR'S NOTE-BOOK.

A THEOLOGICAL REVIEW.

IN resigning into the hands of the more permanent editors the conduct of "The Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine," with the close of the present year, the editor would commend the journal under its prospective management to the good will of its readers, and to the wider interest of all who believe in the possibility of establishing an organ of religious thought on the basis of a broad yet positive Christianity.

The foundation-principles for the conduct of this review were carefully laid down by Mr. Lowe in his prospectus in the number for March, 1874, and in his editorial article on "The Unitarian Name," in the same number. It has been the plan of "The Review," in accordance with these principles, to preserve the qualities which have long endeared "The Religious Magazine " to a large class of the most devout minds among us, while directing more especial efforts, in Mr. Lowe's well-considered words, "to the end of making this a thoroughly able Theological Review, that shall represent the best learning and culture of our time as applied to the questions of Christian theology." This plan, as laid down in the articles in the March number to which we refer, had been fairly demonstrated to be feasible, by its founder, in the four numbers of "The Review" which were issued under his care. His sudden death left "The Review" in the hands of the writer, who had undertaken to relieve him of its care during the illness which it was hoped would only temporarily prevent him from its charge. Under these circumstances, it became a sacred duty of friendship to ensure the permanent continuance of "The Review" on the basis already so satisfactorily established, by keeping it without a break, so long as other pressing duties would permit, and until arrangements could be made which would secure a satisfactory permanent editorship. If any of our readers have found "The Review" to fall short at any time of the ideal standard which they have formed for it, we would ask them to remem

ber that in the nature of the case the perfect organization of a Review of this kind requires in all its parts a considerable time. It is to be expected, therefore, that in the future it will steadily more perfectly attain the ideal of a theological and religious periodical.

There can be no question in the minds of those who are conversant with the state of religious and theological thought in our time, that there is great need in America of a journal occupying exactly the ground which this review undertakes to cover. The signs on all sides indicate a broader and freer fellowship of Christian scholars, in sympathies that go beyond denominational lines, and in a simpler yet more profound view than formerly of the essentials of Christianity.

The Unitarian body is providentially placed in a mediating position among the churches, and should be specially able to furnish a journal which should occupy the position of an organ of the American Broad Church. Under the auspices of "the unsectarian sect," such a journal can open its pages to all reverent and thorough students of Divine Truth, while heartily loyal to the Christian affirmation on which the Unitarian body in America unequivocally stands and proposes to remain. A journal which shall hold in this country something like the scholarly, liberal, Christian position which "The Contemporary Review" holds in England, must do a great work for good among the fermenting, chaotic conditions of religious thought in our time.

In this connection, we must express our regret that a passage in the report of the council at our recent National Conference should have been in some cases so misunderstood as to be supposed to state that the efforts of Mr. Lowe in this direction had been unsuccessful in obtaining proper support from an appreciating public. On the contrary, Mr. Lowe, to the writer's knowledge, found the success of "The Review" under his management equal to his expectations; and the conditions have not altered since his death. So long as the arrangements made by him with the publisher and with the American Unitarian Association shall continue in force, there is no reason why "The Review" should be regarded as insecurely established; and it may reasonably hope for a steady increase of its readers, and may safely promise the

best contributions from the best Christian thinkers of our time. It should not fail to be noted here, that the special arrangement with the publisher, by which the editor was authorized to receive new subscribers on the "editorial list," with the understanding that all profits so received should be applied to improving the quality of "The Review," is to be continued hereafter, under the charge of Mrs. Charles Lowe.

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In consenting to return to a joint editorship of "The Review,” Dr. Morison meets the wishes of its readers, who have shared the regret expressed by Mr. Lowe at his withdrawal, in behalf of all who have known the marked ability with which he has conducted the magazine" during his former editorship. His colleague, Mr. Barber, will bring to the editorial chair, as the friend and pastoral successor of Mr. Lowe, a thorough sympathy with his aims and spirit in the conduct of "The Review;" and they will have the co-operation of able contributors in this country and abroad.

H. W. F

THE CONGREGATIONAL COUNCIL.

The meeting of the Saratoga Conference of our own denomination, in September, was soon followed by that of our Orthodox brethren, at New Haven, where their triennial council held its session from Wednesday, September 30, to Sunday, October 4. The animated discussion which had taken place at Saratoga, concerning the sending of a delegation with a fraternal message to this body, probably caused many of us to watch its proceedings with the more interest. It is evident from their religious journals that this meeting of the Congregational representative body is regarded as a successful one; and it may be profitable for us to consider a little in detail some of its most characteristic features.

In the first place, it is to be said that the papers presented to the Congregational Council, which have been printed in "The New York Tribune," and in a high degree the opening sermon preached before it by Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D., of Brooklyn, N.Y., of which, as it was extemporaneous in form, only a full abstract has been given, were thoroughly worthy of a great ecclesiastical occasion. Dr. Storrs is one of the three or four leading preachers of the country, combining with the thorough culture of

the scholarly student the fervid power and magnetic sway over an audience of a pulpit orator, with all the advantages and apparently none of the drawbacks of extempore address. He wisely chose for this occasion a theme large enough for the loftiest treatment, the reality of our knowledge of the Living God. Even from the partial reports which have been given to us, it is evident that the discourse was one memorable for combination of exact thought, vivid imagery, glowing rhetoric, and spiritual insight. We quote from such a sketch, the following striking vindication of the validity of the soul's intuition of God:

"The pure in heart, they shall see God,' and this is a revelation not of Scriptures only, but of philosophy. Any moral state in us discerns the same in others. By love to God do we see him who is love. So Jesus saw him, so Paul, so others of the apostles, so Edwards, so Augustine, whose several experiences have been so many Apocalypses to the world of what had lain forever hidden to its external sense.

"See, then, why science does not discover God. Because it is working with wrong instruments, — with physical analysis and metaphysical speculation, instead of with the moral nature in exercise. It is like hunting for love with a microscope; like sweeping up music with a broom. The Alpenstock is well to climb the glacier with, but to measure the Matterhorn the scientist needs the barometer, and to sweep the horizon he needs the telescope; and so no matter how high he may climb in his search for God, he needs at the summit the lenses of faith and love.

"Suppose I am told that Naples is not, but my memory of the vision of its beauty none other than a dream; that Venice, lying anchored at her lagoons, and Mont Blanc, raising its dome in the sky as if it were the Great White Throne itself, are naught; shall I disbelieve what my own eyes have seen? So men who have not been able to find God tell me that there is no God. But I put over against the negative that is in them, the positive that is in me; the revelation which this soul of mine, illumined by the Spirit of God, has had of him; and I stand invincible in my faith upon him. You may reason the blue out of the heaven that is above us; you may untwist the strands of the ray of light as it comes to us from above, and prove it to be but darkness; you may dispute that there is any air to breathe,-- but not till then may you wrest from me the knowledge that has been vouchsafed me of this God of love and truth. Against this knowledge the shaft of argument cannot prevail, but falls shattered like the lance before the unyielding bronze."

No less than seven able papers were read before the Council. (It had been intended to have as many as ten, but fortunately,