pressed the truth in the most incredible and revolting terms. If they meant exactly what they bore upon their front, they were true expositions of false doctrine; if their hidden and ultimate meaning was in accordance with the principles brought out in the life of Christ, then they were false expositions of true doctrine; in either case, our position of dissent from them as articles of faith was justified. Mr. Wicksteed then went into a statement of his views as to the best means of securing the progress of theological reform. He shewed that this must be done mainly by affirmation; that no mere negations could be of permanent influence; that the bare denial of the popular doctrines was as distasteful to the orthodox, and as inefficacious with them, as the bare forms of the creeds and articles were to the Unitarian. He believed that nothing but a combined action of affirm ation and development of high and positive truth, accompanied by the occasional but distinct exposure of theological error, could efficiently serve the interests of truth. A long meeting of the Committee took place after service in the vestry. Soon after five, a large assembly of the members of the Exeter congregation and their friends met to take tea together. The Rev. Thomas Hincks, minister of the congregation, was called to the Chair. The Report, read by Rev. W. James, was an interesting document, which we propose noticing hereafter. It was unanimously adopted. The speeches which followed were by Rev, R. M. Montgomery, of Taunton; James Terrill, Esq.; Mr. Kent Kingdon; Rev. Chas. Wicksteed; J. B. Estlin, Esq.; Rev. J. Orr, of Strabane; Rev. William James, and the Chairman. We regret that our limited space prevents us from giving a report of the excellent addresses of Mr. Montgomery, Mr. Estlin, and especially Mr. James. The former part of Mr. Wicksteed's speech, which has not hitherto appeared, we are able to insert. In both the Committee meeting and at the evening meeting, a very earnest wish was expressed that Mr. Wicksteed would allow the Society to print his sermon. Mr. Wicksteed said that the kind expression of interest in his sermon, he was not ashamed to say, was exceedingly gratifying to him, because it shewed that those who had come out on that inclement morning to the service in the chapel, had not come for the sake of hearing something new, eloquent or original. In that case they would have been disappointed; and he for one should have been glad that they should have been so disappointed. For the only state of mind in a hearer for which he had any respect, or for which he felt any gratitude, was that which lay in a feeling of interest in the object of the preacher, a feeling of sympathy with his effort, and a desire to let the heart go out in Christian love and truth to meet the preacher, and to work with him in the spirit. He sympathized entirely with the sentiments which had already been expressed on the necessity of the Unitarian shewing his faith by works of love and piety, and co-operating in all those Christian efforts in reference to which he stood upon the broad platform of an unsectarian religion. He had the less need to state this, however, because his sermon that morning had principally been devoted to an exhibition of that broader ground on which Christianity stood, and therefore on which Christians might stand. But they could not conceal from themselves that, as members of the Union, they had distinct objects, as well as these general objects. Indeed, that fact formed the ground and the necessity of their separation from other religious bodies. He had himself been brought up at a large public school in England: while his class-fellows parted from him and went to share in the honours of Oxford and Cambridge, he wended his way to the bleaker regions of the North. He had certainly some reasons for this course, and he must say he was not disposed to undervalue those reasons. In like manner, he asked those present why they did not worship under the shadow of their own cathedral-why they did not unite in the services of the Independents and Methodists-why they underwent many outward inconveniences, perhaps mortifications, in the prosecution of this independent course? They had good reasons for it, and he (Mr. W.) was not disposed to undervalue those reasons. He took this Union to be promotive of the expression of those reasons, and his having full sympathy with its objects was the occasion of his willingness and desire to be among them that day. He understood that Union to be established with a view to mutual assistance and co-operation their work of Christian reformation, both practical and theological, among the congregations in that neighbourhood, thus separated from the other churches around them. It had for its worthy and benignant purpose the encouragement of those old places, some of which had been mentioned in the report, and which required aid and countenance to enable them to persevere unto the end,-and those new places, such as Torquay, where it required the spirit of a martyr to hold up against the tide of opposing prejudice; and he was sure Mr. Montgomery for one would take home with him fresh heart and hope for his work from that day's meeting. In our desire of acting upon society at large, it was obvious to help and encourage those nearest to us and most associated with us. He had fully agreed with the warm-hearted remarks that had fallen from Mr. Montgomery, of Taunton, in our duty to the large neglected population around us; so convinced had his friends at Leeds been of this duty, that they had instituted a Domestic Mission, and supported it with singular liberality, for this very purpose. These things, as the spirit of that meeting and the general spirit of Unitarians was prepared to avow, were the first objects of a Christian's philanthropy, but certainly not to the overlooking of a purification of the source of all practical good-faith and opinion. The Chairman summed up the evening's proceedings in a clear, kindly and judicious manner. He correctly described the spirit of the evening to have been entirely harmonious. They were all agreed in the great importance and value of religious opinion, and in the necessity of an honest and frank avowal of it. They were also agreed in the conviction that this should be effected in no narrow or dogmatic temper, but in a pure love of the truth itself, and a kindly spirit of co-operation and sym pathy in all our common ground with our fellow-christians of all churches. The Rev. George Armstrong was prevented from being present, but wrote a letter to Mr. James to be read at the meeting. A delay in the post prevented this, but it has subsequently been printed in the Inquirer (Nov. 11), and well deserves attention. It is a spirited and admirable protest against the "new form of latitudinarianism" which, in its aspirations after spirituality and practical usefulness, would proscribe the distinct utterance of Christian doctrine. Mr. Armstrong seems to have been apprehensive that an attempt would be made to alter the purpose, character or NAME of the Western Unitarian Christian Union. He intimates that, should there be a final majority of the Union in favour of a suppression of its Unitarian character, "he should feel it to be his duty to relinquish his connection with a scheme which he should consider as fatally characterized either by unearnestness or unfaithfulness in the entertainment of Christian truth." This is a subject on which Mr. Armstrong, almost beyond any living man in the Unitarian denomination, is entitled to feel and to speak strongly. Having sacrificed for Unitarianism the dignities and emoluments of a Trinitarian Church, he may be pardoned if he expresses wonder, and something more, when he is asked to sacrifice his Unitarianism for a something which as yet nobody has been able to define. His denial of Trinitarianism is by those he has left accounted infidelity; by some of those whose ranks he has joined, his earnest convictions of Unitarianism are identified with bigotry. Mr. Armstrong can well afford to smile equally at both charges. MARRIAGES. 1848. Oct. 24, at the Presbyterian chapel, Atherton (Chowbent), by Rev. A. Macdonald, Mr. HENRY FLETCHER to MARY, eldest daughter of Mr. COCKER, both of Leigh. Nov. 2, at the Old meeting-house, Mansfield, Notts, by Rev. C. Berry, of Leicester, PHEBE, daughter of the late Henry HOLLINS, Esq., of Mansfield, to EDWARD JOHNSON, Esq., Abbot Cottage, near Chester. Nov. 15, at the Old chapel, Dukin field, by Rev. R. Brook Aspland, M.A., Mr. JAMES BENNETT, of Stalybridge, to MISS HArriet RowbotHAM, of Newton Moor. Nov. 18, at the Unitarian church, New-hall Hill, Birmingham, by Rev. James Cranbrook, Mr. FELIX HADLEY, of Lionel Street, son of the late Mr. William Hadley, of Brettel Lane, near Stourbridge, to ELIZABETH, only daughter of Mr. William WORRALL, of Newhall Hill, Birmingham. GENERAL INDEX. A. on Tritheism or Unitarianism, 631. Abbott, Archbishop of Canterbury, 529. Adams, Mrs., obituary of, 640. Anne, Queen, character of, 623. Arnold, Mr., obituary of, 256. B., J., lines by, 39, 93, 104. In reply Bagot, Dr., Bishop of Norwich, 205. Binney's Service of Song, reviewed, 130. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 629. Bolton Unitarian Association, 380. Bourne, Rev. S., account of, 18. Bowman's Remarks on Manchester Col- British Quarterly Review, 179, 565, 753. Barker's Review of the Bible, 173. Cappur, Mr., obituary of, 128. Com- Carmarthen College, 571. Barling's Review of Trinitarianism, re- 745. Benevolences of James I., 530. Channing, Dr., 107, 334, 399, 562, 697, Channing's, W. H., Memoir of his Uncle, Chapin's Crown of Thorns, 44. Christian Tract Society, 359, 442, 736. Christie, Mr. John, of Hackney, 98. Coleridge, S. T., 46, 281, 367. Convulsion in the Church of England, 50. Experimental, 79. Cooper, Rev. John, 473. Cooper, Rev. Bristowe, 478. Fault-finders, 555. Correspondence of Archdeacon Hare and Field, Mrs., obituary of, 703. Mr. Armstrong, 482. Cotton, Mr. John, of Boston, 583. Crompton, Dr., and the Nottingham Crompton, Mrs., obituary of, 640. Cromwell, Oliver, letters of, 49. D.'s, J. B., obituary of Isaac Whitehouse, "Damnation writers," 353. Darbishire, Mary, obituary of, 640. Davison's Translation of Coquerel, 79. Denby, Mr. William, obituary of, 256. Distance, 349. Field's, Mr., Life of Parr, 20. Letters, Findern Academy, 475. Flower, Mr. Benjamin, 296, 352. Fogg, Mrs., obituary of, 320. Foster, John, extracts from, 31, 224, 333, Fox, William, 41. Fox, George, 641. Fox, Charles James, character of, 102. Freme, Mr. James, obituary of, 127. Fry, Mrs., 114, 147. Life of, reviewed, Fuller, Mr. Andrew, at Cambridge, 220, Furness's sermon on Son of Man, 44. r.'s review of Martineau's Sermons, 65. Gaskell, Mrs. D., obituary of, 382. Dixon, Rev. Thomas, of Norwich, ac- Gaskell's, Rev. W., speech at Hyde, 447. count of, 17. Dobell's Obsequies, reviewed, 495. Domestic missions, 513. Drayton, Mr., obituary of, 640. Drummond's, Dr., Life of Servetus, re- Duckworth, Mr. Samuel, obituary of, Dudley lecture, 511. Dyer, Mr. George, 100, 553. Hymn for opening the chapel, 502. Gee-Cross chapel, description of, 184. Gisburne, Mr., of Soham, 218. Goldsmid on Jewish Disabilities, review- Goldsmith and nature, 595. Goodier, Rev. Benjamin, 677. Green's Beggars, Criminals, &c., 45. Grief for the departed, 731. Grote's History of Greece, reviewed, 1. Guesses at Truth, extracts from, 683, H.'s, H., impromptu, 23. In reply to Hackney, opening of the New Gravel- Harmonies of the Gospels, 705. Heinfetter's usage of Inσovs, reviewed, Henry's, Matt., Exposition and Choice Hincks, Rev. T. D., correction of an History of the Hebrew Monarchy, re- Hoadly, Bishop, 624. Holland, Lord, letter of, 104. Monu- Holme, Dr. Edward, obituary of, 61. Horne's Judas Iscariot, reviewed, 750. Houghton, Rev. John, 476. Hoyle, Rev. John, account of, 21. Hyde chapel, history of, 471. I.'s review of Medwin's Life of Shelley, Indian burial-place, 605. Irish Unitarian Magazine, 117. Jacock's Moral Government of God, re- Jean Paul, extracts from, 349, 731, 746. Jews in Alexandria, 619. John iv. 48, 710; ii. 13-25, 711. Johns, Rev. J., of Liverpool, 47, 135, Johns, Rev. W., letter of, 681. Joyce, Rev. Jeremiah, 670. |