heartily responded to the Resolution now proposed. Unitarians cannot but appreciate the value of religious liberty, not only on accouut of the principles they adopt, but also as the period is not far gone, when they were debarred like their Roman Catholic brethren from that measure of it which they now enjoy. Similarity of fate begets fellow-feeling. Hence, among those who, in the name of justice, have pleaded the claims of Roman Catholics, the Unitarians have stood pre-eminent. A series of illustrious men has appeared among us, who, long before the mass of the people of Great Britain was disposed to be just to their fellow Christians and fellow subjects, perceived and displayed in their writings, the necessity of liberty of conscience, in order acceptably to worship God and live peaceably together. It is forty years since Wakefield and Lindsey, Price and Priestley, defended and suffered for the cause of religious liberty. With fortitude and constancy, those illustrious individuals announced, that no human power had a right to legislate in the Christian Church; that the Founder of the Christian Faith was the sole Head of the Christian Church; and that to create any inequalities in the civil rights of men on account of a diversity of religious opinions, was a species of persecution that would perpetuate dissension among the subjects of the same Sovereign, till a more enlightened age should abolish those degrading relics of a barbarous antiquity. What these master-spirits of a former day, dimly descried as certainly to be accomplished in a future age, we have seen realised. They laboured, and we enjoy the fruits of their virtuous labours. Yes, the Test and Corporation Acts have been consigned to oblivion with the rubbish of fifteen hundred years; they have gone down to perdition, and so perish with them the animosity, the variance and jealousies, the bitter fruits they produced among the professors of our common Christianity. The man who should now propose the re-adoption of those hated emblems of party spirit, would be justly stigmatized as falling behind his age, a laggard in the onward career of human improvement. Prelates of the Established Church, with an exception or two, and Dissenters all over the United Kingdom, with the statesmen who then surrounded the throne, have since combined in the loud and unanimous demand, that the invidious barriers which disunited Roman Catholics and their Protestant fellow-subjects, should be thrown down, and that admission to the honours of the State should be commensurate with merit and capacity. In this general harmony, indeed, there were not wanting some few, who affected to foresee in this liberal measure the ruin of the Established Church, and the introduction of general anarchy, precisely as there are persons who in the great measure of Reform in Parliament, now impending, behold the subversion of order; but these forebodings have not been fulfilled. On the contrary, the hostility which was fermenting in the breasts of four millions of our countrymen, who were compelled to view their Protestant brethren in the light of persecutors, was calmed, and one of the numerous grievances of old Ireland was blotted out. "That no individual should hold any office under Government, whose understanding was not cast in the mould of the Church of England-that no man should be permitted to serve his country, till his conscience had first received the dogmas of her privileged priesthood,-this is so great a monstrosity, that if we except its own marvellous inconsistency, there is nothing so marvellous as that it should so long have survived unrepealed, and remained till within a few years the reproach of our age. Not to speak of the profanation of the Christian Communion, involved in degrading it into an instrument of secular advancement, what presumption is implied in any one class of men saying to the other professors of Christianity, "We are the only persons fit to be trusted with political power; to us of right it belongs to engross all the civil emoluments of the kingdom; and you Dissenters may think yourselves happy in being suffered to pass through life, unhonoured subjects, and in your religion only tolerated!' Contemptuous Churchman! what right divine empowered you to appropriate all, and exclude your brother? Have Dissenters shown themselves less loyal than those of the salaried Church? Have they not as much capacity for the business of the State, as those who are so fortunate as to believe in the Prayer-book-or is there any thing in the creed of Dissenters which irresistibly and invariably produces mental stupidity, and thereby disqualifies from holding office? Or, finally, have Dissenters shown more laxity of moral principle-are they less regardful of their promises, or do they not feel as strongly as a Churchman the obligation of an oath? Such questions were put, and the sophistry of sectarianism could not answer them. The sense of the nation reprobated the Test and Corporation Acts and Catholic disabilities, and they were consumed on the altar of religious liberty. They now disgrace our statute-book no more; and the nation does not regret their absence. On the contrary, a better feeling, a more expanded charity, have begun to unite all Christian denominations. "Grateful, however, as we are for that measure of religious liberty which has been acquired, we must not relax our efforts to be freed from those remaining impediments, which still clog the human faculties in their exercise on subjects most intimately connected with human welfare. We have yet gained only a partial victory over intolerance, which is founded on ignorance. Who will say, that the human mind has yet full scope for unlimited investigation, while the rewards of a rich overgrown Establishment are held forth to those who may be willing to defend a system founded on authority? While so many are obliged to contribute of their property, to support an order of men to preach doctrines which the contributors believe to be erroneous, is the human mind free? Numerous similar existing absurdities and impositions, prove that the human mind, though it has broken some of its mental fetters, is not completely unshackled. But the intellect of man is destined to enjoy entire and unlimited liberty. From what has been achieved, we may augur as to the future; and the past history of the world warrants the anticipation, that there is a period coming, when the human mind will indignantly cast off every remaining restriction, and liberty of thought will be universal. "Permit me to express the satisfaction I have enjoyed, in witnessing the proceedings of this day, and to congratulate you and myself, on the prospects of the Scottish Unitarian Christian Association. We shall look back on the transactions of this day with pleasure. Memory will recal the sentiments expressed at our meeting; and when many days have fled, memory will delight to repose here, as on one of those green spots that cheer the journey of human life. The festive board, has been by you converted into the feast of reason and the flow of soul.' Our wishes have been for human improvement, and our Resolutions are directed against the temple of superstition. "Our prospects as Unitarian Christians, are far from discouraging. We have at this moment in Scotland, what we never had before, four settled ministers of the Unitarian persuasion-one at Glasgow, one at Edinburgh, one at Dundee, and one at Greenock; whilst fifteen months ago there were only two Unitarian ministers in all Scotland. It is true there are, comparatively speaking, exceedingly few who attach themselves to us; yet there are not wanting some few examples of those who have abandoned the imposition of creeds, and the austerity of Calvinism, for the authority of Christ and simple Christianity. And I cannot persuade myself, that Scotland, in whose Universities the philosophy of common sense, as developed by Reid and Stewart, continues to be taught, will long remain in bondage to a theology which frowns on the best feelings of human nature, and establishes itself on the ruins of that philosophy. With respect to Greenock, I cannot but contrast the reception which the respected Pastor of the Congregation in Glasgow, met with on the two last occasions when he visited Greenock, and when he proclaimed Unitarianism there in 1815. In 1815, for attempting to bring Unitarianism before the public of Greenock, Mr. Harris was received with hissing, pelting, and every mark of disrespect which those who knew not Unitarianism could heap on him. In 1831, he was listened to with breathless attention by a respectable audience of 400 persons, and in the same year a Unitarian Chapel was established at Greenock, a Unitarian minister was settled at Greenock, and a Unitarian Congregation assembles three times every Sabbath, none daring to molest them. These and the other circumstances detailed this day, are cheering as the commencement of Unitarianism in Scotland. I cannot help, indeed, feeling some degree of shame, that Scotland has contributed so little to the dissemination of those principles, and that among the six Unitarian Clergymen now present, two are natives of England, three of Ireland, and myself the only native of Scotland. Unitarianism is, in truth, very little known in Scotland. But it shall be known more generally in my native land. The Unitarians will come down with great wrath upon Scotland's bigotry. We shall assault Calvinism in its stronghold. We bring the war, and do battle for Christian liberty. For myself, I think I can never cease my endeavours to put down the bewildered and bewildering superstition which passes under the name of Calvinism. I must ever detest and resist that superstition which so long distracted and withered my mental faculties, when, in the sincerity of unexamining belief, I inhaled its pestilential influences. From the horrors of this system I found no rest for the sole of my foot, till I took refuge in the ark of Unitarianism. Enveloped in the gloom of this awful system, I looked up to heaven, and beheld a Divinity shrouded in darkness, frowning on the creation of his power. I looked around upon man, and to my disordered vision, human nature wore the features of a demon, and seemed a loathsome compound of all that is detestable; and the face of nature was cursed with the universal blighting malediction of Deity; and I looked forward into futurity, and a yawning gulf, canopied with flame and boiling with ever-burning sulphur unconsumed, opened its mouth to receive the vast majority of mankind. But oh! how altered was the scene, when Unitarianism threw light and consistency over the objects, which erewhile were covered with the mystery and contradiction of Calvinism! I looked again up to the heavens, and the darkness was scattered from the throne of God, and the Father of the Universe bent beneficently his view upon the world, and a voice was heard, proclaiming 'peace on earth and good will to men;' -and I looked again upon raan, and his faculties seemed angelic, and his aspirations heavenward; and the face of nature was decked in beauty, and the earth was blessed abundantly with fruit for man and beast, and the mansions of heaven were the destined final dwelling-place of purified and immortal man. Many other sentiments and addresses would have been given, had the time permitted. At half-past eleven o'clock, this truly happy and auspicious meeting was closed by the company singing the following Hymn, written for the occasion by a female friend, and by joining in prayer by the President. May it to brighter virtue lead. THOU art, O God! the bounteous spring We bless Thee for a purer creed- To spread the blessings which we share; The words of eloquence-the flow Oh, bless our efforts; speed the time CHRISTIAN PIONEER. No. 64. DECEMBER, 1831. Vol. VI. Domestic Missions recommended. "Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring, hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. Luke xiv. 21. in THE land in which we dwell is called a Christian land. Christianity is said to form an integral part of the Constitution under which we live. And certainly the description is correct, if a splendid and wealthy hierarchy, blended with and supported by the State, spreading its ramifications over the whole surface of the kingdom, and thence drawing to its own support, nutriment which ought to enrich and fertilize the soil itself-if stately edifices, remarkable as much for the ignorant zeal of those who founded, as for the surpassing art of those who erected them if humbler, yet costly, and far more numerous temples, which have been built at the cost of the many, though wanted and used only by the few-if an extensive profession of the name of Christ, while by many his doctrines are disowned, and his authority repudiated,—if these be genuine tokens of a Christian people. To judge, indeed, from the mere surface of society, we might be deceived with the notion that ours is a Christian community. Are there not millions a-year consumed in the support of the ministers of religion? Is there not many a benefaction of departed worthies, devoted to the maintenance of what is deemed Christian truth? Our splendid halls of learning profess to blend Christianity with their form and essence. Wherein the dominant sect has been deficient, minor and dissenting branches of the Church of Christ have laboured diligently, and not unsuccessfully, to feed his sheep. And of Christian philanthropists, not a fewvarious in rank, various in ability, and with objects as varied, yet all with one aim and to one end, to bless men by turning them away from their iniquities-have, within. a comparatively recent period, laboured industriously— devotedly I doubt not acceptably to God. To men of this spirit, we owe the Societies for the spread of the Gos L pel at home and abroad; in many of which, while I see errors and deficiencies to lament, I cannot fail to take a deep interest. To men of this spirit, we owe the several institutions of late established, and the invaluable works of late prepared for the enlightenment and direction of the labouring classes. And, finally, to whom but to men of this spirit, does the Sunday-school, that great regenerator of the many, owe its origin and its chief support? With so many moral luminaries, there ought not, one would think, to exist a dark spot in the land. Yet what is the fact? The most unquestionable authorities bear record to the existence in the country of an amount of crime, at which the heart sickens; and of an amount of poverty, too frequently the parent of crime, which fills the mind with apprehension as well as pain. Nay, we need not travel beyond our own neighbourhoods, nor seek any other evidence than our own experience. It is a fact too well known to require the allegation of evidence, that in the streets and lanes of every city and town of our country, there are not only poor, not only maimed and halt and blind, but a great multitude dead in trespasses and sins. How many a house is there in which the parents are a prey to vice, and the children to misrule, idleness, and beggary! It is impossible for any one who has the smallest portion of the spirit of Christ, to avoid being grieved at the sight which he may behold, or the image which he may form, of the pitiable and lost condition of no small portion both young and adult of the poor population of our large towns. What capabilities thrown away! What a capacity of happiness undeveloped or perverted! How many a parent, dead to the workings of natural affection, who might have experienced a thrill of joy as exquisite, and a fulness of satisfaction as permanent and pure, as that which is enjoyed by the most refined Christian! How many a child, piercing its parent's heart through with anguish, who might have been at once his pride and delight! If this description apply not to a few, but to many-if in every large town there are hundreds, if in some thousands, of whom it is true-how can we do otherwise than declare the insufficiency of the agents which have as yet been employed to christianize the country? Large portions of the country are destitute of almost every Christian influence; and these in the very class that, of all |