manded toward the Lord Jesus Christ, I have exhausted the possibilities of my mind, I have nothing higher to offer before any other throne. And when I have walked by His strength, and my life has been hid with God in Him, when, by His conscious presence, I have trod down temptation, and walked the appointed waves of trial unsubmerged, when he has dwelt as a light in my dwelling, and lit the candle of love in my heart that never goes out, when all my affections and enterprises have been quickened by my faith in Him, when sickness and loss and disappointment of every varied kind by Him have been irradiated as clouds are by the sun and changed from misfortunes into gorgeous decorations of life, when, leaning upon Him, I languish, I die, I have no fear that life will then burst as a bubble, and reveal to me that I have been the dupe of a phantasy. Assuredly I shall behold Him as He is, no whit less the God, and if then likewise also, before my clarified vision, there shall arise, in equal proportions of majesty, the then revealed Father and Holy Ghost, they shall not overshadow my Christ, nor take one whit from the glory of His divinity. What this final revelation of the majesty of God shall be I am content to leave to that hour of birth which men call death. But O, if then I find that I am left with no Christ to adore, no Christ upon whom it is lawful to put my long-trained worshiping feelings, with plaints more piteous than Mary gave in the garden and with worse despair, I shall call out to the heavens, They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him! But I fear no such disaster; no such blackness shall cloud the future. I shall behold Him as He is, and shall be satisfied." No! The Christian Church need not fear attack as to one of its fundamental verities. That being regarded as settled, this is to be said in addition: Second: There are Unitarians and Unitarians. In the "Life and Letters of the Rev. Frederick W. Robertson" is to be found the following interesting passage concerning the foremost of all American Unitarians, Dr. William Ellery Channing: "He was a Unitarian, but that is a very wide term, i essentials. Acluding a vast variety of persons thinking very differently alf of those who recognize the hereditary claims of the Son I can only say that I should be very glad if of God to worship, bowed down before His moral dignity with an adoration half as profound, or a love half as enthusiastic, as Dr. Channing's. I wish I, a Trinitarian, loved and adored Him, and the divine goodness in Him, anything near the way in which that Unitarian felt. A religious lady found the book on my table a few days ago, and was horror-struck. I Old her that if she and I ever got to heaven, we should find Dr. hanning revolving round the central Light in an orbit immeasrably nearer than ours, almost invisible to us, and lost in a Jaze of light, which she has no doubt duly reported to the Brighton inquisition for heretics. But, by the bye, I began on at very day to write out the conversation. Here it is, all complete: "A lady called to-day, and when she came into the drawingoom, she put her hand on Channing's 'Memoirs.' 'I am sorry see you read this book, Mr. Robertson.' I replied: 'Dr. Channing was one of the highest of his species. For a minister refuse to read such a book would be miserable. I am not so ensitively afraid of error as that. I throw myself on the Father of Lights, read all, and trust that He will answer a desire for light. An immoral book I refuse to read, but a book containing merely false doctrine, or what is supposed to be false, I dare not refuse to read, or else I could not, with any consistency, ask a Roman Catholic to read my book of Protestant heresy.' 'But, Dr. Channing could not be a good man, because he did not believe in Christ.' 'Pardon me, he did-he loved Christ. I wish I adored Him half as much as Dr. Channing did.' 'But he denied that he adored Him.' 'I cannot help that. If the lowliest reverence and the most enthusiastic love constitute adoration, Dr. Channing worshiped Christ. I Care not what a man says. His homage was more adoring than that of nine out of ten who call Him God. Besides, do You remember the story of the two sons, one of whom said, "I sir," and went not, the other refused to go and went? What e I if Dr. Channing adores saying that he does not adore? She replied, I believe he adored himself much more.' I returned that some passages in his diary expressed the deepest self-abasement. Well, probably, he had a high ideal: he was mortified at not attaining that before the world' 'Do you recollect,' I answered, how the Pharisees got over a similar difficulty to yours? There was a holy man before them, and because they could not deny the beauty of His deeds, they found out that they were done from diabolical motives, for Beelzebub's cause. Take care. Do you reccllect what sin they committed by that seeing good and refusing to recognize it as good? It is a perilous thing to set out with the assumption that a doctrine is true, and that all who do not hold that doctrine are bad. Christ reverses that order of procedure. "Believe Me for the work's sake." I would just as soon disbelieve in God as contemplate a character like Dr. Channing's, and hesitate to say whether that was a divine image or not: whether God had accepted him or not: whether those deeds and that life were the product of evil, or the fruit of the Heavenly Spirit.”” This utterance was evidently written under deep feeling, and is somewhat unguarded. But, fairly interpreted, it is undoubtedly true. In December, 1859, Frederic Dan Huntington (afterwards Bishop of Central New York), issued a volume containing his famous sermon, entitled, "Life, Salvation, and Comfort for Man in the Divine Trinity." He had finally reached conclusions which carried him into the Episcopal Church; but before that time he had certainly been doctrinally an orthodox Christian. Much of the Unitarianism about him had been a reaction against ultra-Calvinism. With that attitude he had been in sympathy. He was right as far as he went. He simply needed to go further. So with a multitude of other men and women; and to-day there are Christian Unitarians as well as agnostic Unitarians, just as there are unbelieving Roman Catholics, and devout Roman Catholics who live in fellowship with our Master Christ. But, third: Even if Sarah Flower Adams had been no more than an ordinary Unitarian, it would still seem wise to sing her uplifting words because she believed God, and that was counted unto her for righteousness, and she was called the Never riend of God. I am not an Israelite, but a Christian. Aloses and David and Isaiah; and I should have no difficulty in heless, I rejoice in the songs which have come to us through Joining with Jew and Mohammedan in singing not only "The God of Abraham praise" as well as "Nearer, My God, to Thee," but many other hymns we are wont to sing, without any inquiry as to the Christian beliefs of the authors of these hymns. The first of our Thirty-nine Articles is this: "There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts or passions; of infinite power, wisdom and goodness: the Maker and Preserver Of all things, both visible and invisible." The Jew believes that. The Mohammedan believes that. The Christian goes on to dd: "And in unity of this Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost." If I am to have this Christian doctrine of the Trinity connected with every hymn, I will not spoil the unity of the hymn by bringing it in where it does not belong, rather will I change the metre, and sing: Praise God, from whom all blessings flow! Or, if not that, I should try to have it arranged that, at the same service at which "Nearer, My God, to Thee" were sung, there should also be sung that wonderfully touching distinctively Christian hymn of Mrs. Elizabeth Payson Prentiss: 654 More love to Thee, O Christ! More love to Thee! Hear Thou the prayer I make On bended knee. This is my earnest plea, More love, O Christ, to Thee, More love to Thee! Once earthly joy I craved, Sought peace and rest: Now Thee alone I seek: Give what is best: This all my prayer shall be, More love, O Christ, to Thee! More love to Thee! Let sterow ds its work, Send grief and pain; When they can sing with me, Then shall my latest breath My heart shall raise, This still its prayer shall be, More love, O Christ, to Thee, Two men, closely resembling each other in lyric power, were Frederick W. Faber and John G. Whittier the one, when his hymns were written, a Roman Catholic, the other a Quaker, certainly not altogether "orthodox." Let me give you a hymn from each. Faber was orthodox, and intense in his distinctively Christian beliefs, yet an Israelite might join with him in singing, My God, how wonderful Thou art, Thy majesty how bright! How dread are Thine eternal years, By prostrate spirits day and night How wonderful, how beautiful, The sight of Thee must be, Thine endless wisdom, boundless power, Oh, how I fear Thee, living God, And worship Thee with trembling hope |