Can our principles cease to be prominently dogmatic, without becoming vague and characterless?"-P. 10.

We must not extract, as we are tempted to do, the "duties" of Unitarians in this position. This is their fitting close:

"Begin at the fountain-head; begin at home; cultivate a spirit of deep, sober, earnest piety in your hearts, and in your households. Let the church be refreshed and fertilized from the overflowing fountains of domestic goodness and piety. Let the spirit of your pious and venerable forefathers, enlightened by clearer knowledge, and sweetened with a more tender charity for all men, re-enter and once more sanctify your homes; making every household a temple of religion, and training up your children and your servants to become members of Christ's Church on earth, and heirs of the promises in heaven. Do this; and you have done every thing: your task is accomplished; your victory is won. No outward change or adversity can undermine the foundations of a religion, which is built on personal holiness and domestic piety,—which stands secure and strong on the firm and immutable basis of deep conviction, of steadfast principle, of living faith, and of heavenward hope." -P. 27.

We observe that this discourse is a sequel to two others on the Origin and Progress of the Unitarian Doctrine. May we be permitted to express a strong desire that they be printed, in connection with the one already given to the public, forming, as they then would do, a complete sketch of the Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Unitarian Faith.

II. The Use of the Bible in Sunday Schools. By Edwin Chapman. London: John Green. 1839.

This is a very judicious lecture upon a subject affecting, at this moment, the highest interests of this country, and, as it is viewed by the great mass of those who use the Bible, affecting them for evil. The author does not allude to these wider relations of his subject, but if his rational yet zealous use of the Scriptures was understood and adopted, the Nation's Religion would never have placed itself in the disgraceful and perilous position of making the Bible the stumbling block in the way of Knowledge, and the Christianity of the Nation the active obstructor of the Nation's Education. We hope in a future number to enter fully on the discussion of this, which has now become a vital, question. It is not too much to say that the civilization and higher interests of the People of England, are put back an indefinite period, for no other cause, than a narrow, technical, bigotted hostility to views so simple as the following:

In attempting to do something towards the moral and religious education of children, it would appear strange indeed to neglect a book which contains the history of God's moral and religious education of mankind, from Adam to the apostles of Our Lord-a history rendered rich by its full details of God's revelations to his people, illustrated by the sublimest and most heart-stirring of all poetry, and teaching duty to God and man, in the simplest language and by the noblest examples.

"The question, Should the Bible be used in the religious education of children?' must be answered, then, in the affirmative for these three reasons, its ancient and continued popularity, its varied contents, and the peculiar portion of human history which it embraces.

"How should the Bible be used in the religious education of children?'

"This question is very differently solved by men perfectly agreeing in the affirmative given to the preceding question, owing to the different views which they entertain of education, of the Bible, or of both. I have no hesitation in saying, that I cannot class myself with those who advocate an indiscriminate use of the Bible in education, or with those who expect a mysterious blessing upon the mechanical passage of the eye over the words from Genesis to Revelation without stopping to enquire, understandest thou what thou readest?' Though written

by many hands, and at widely distant intervals, it has a general design arising from the deep religious influence which was upon the minds of the writers: but this general design, to promote and establish the glory of God among men, consists with great variety in its contents. It has peculiar need, therefore, to be used with careful discrimination, even in our own personal reading; much more so, then, when we seek to make it the instrument of conveying moral and religious impressions to children. It was the want of this discrimination which made those eminently Bible-Soldiers, the armed Covenanters of Scotland, struggling manfully and rightfully against spiritual oppression, produce what they called scriptural authority for many deeds which sullied their noble cause, and proved that the baser passions of our nature largely and awfully mingled with their zeal for what they thought evangelical truth and primitive church government. It is the want of this discrimination which now makes many men imagine that they have scriptural warrant for uncharitable feelings and persecuting deeds, against those who differ from them in the interpretation of the Bible.

"The Bible is to be used in education, but carefully: it contains large materials for instruction, but they must be selected according to age, capacity, and opportunity, by the enlightened and benevolent instructor. Its strong meat' given to babes will not nourish them into healthy maturity like the sincere milk of the word.' The pages of the Bible must be opened gradually to the young :-until their advancement in years, in knowledge, in understanding, in desire for full information on the momentous subject of God's revelations to mankind, shall fit them for the reception and study of the entire volume, and shall preserve them from the injurious effects which some of the narratives might have upon undisciplined minds, or which might arise from weariness, if they were

compelled to read as a task, many portions of its contents which afterwards would prove in the highest degree curious, interesting, and instructive. "Much unnecessary clamour has been raised by some persons against certain Selections from the Scriptures, for the use of Schools and private families. It has been called mutilating the Scriptures, and treated altogether as though the intention were to shut up the rest from the enquiring minds of the young and ardent, for some sectarian or infidel purpose. Such, however, cannot be the intention or the wish of those who have made the Selections. All that is known of them forbids such a supposition: and the tendency of a judicious use of certain portions of Scripture is to interest young minds in its contents, to create that desire for acquaintance with its entire records which is so eminently important as they advance in years, as they arrive at the age when they can combine and harmonize the whole-when they can separate examples for warning from examples for imitation-when they can distinguish between the delineation of coarse manners, among nomadic tribes or half civilized people, from the indulgence of an impure imagination when they can see the holy foundation of laws strongly expressed against varied and disgusting iniquity-and can trace the gradual progress of Spiritual religion, from the creation of mankind in Adam to their redemption in Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Bible must be used with discrimination in the education of children. How?

From the nature of its contents and of its general design, it is evident that the Bible, if it is to be used with advantage, must be used to call forth the moral and religious affections: this is its legitimate office: and, having called them forth, to purify and guide them; awakening thought in its inmost recesses, and stirring conscience to its most sacred depths. If it do not this it fails in its work and is a dead letter. It has no life in itself; it is a medium of communication between the Spirit of God and our Spirit."—Pp. 9-12.

III. The Western Messenger, devoted to Religion and Literature. Vol. VII, No. 1. Cincinnati. 1839.

This is one of the many American periodicals devoted to the liberal influences of religion and literature, the very existence of which is scarcely known to us in England. At this we cannot be surprised, when we find its editors complaining in this very number, as all editors are apt to complain, that even in "the West" there are thousands of Unitarians who do not know of its existence. We rejoice to hear that the Unitarians in the West, who know nothing of what is going on at Cincinnati, may be numbered by thousands. The Western Messenger seems constructed to be popular and widely useful, to meet practical wants and the fresher demands of the religious sentiment, and to avoid the discussion of graver and deeper questions interesting chiefly to students and theologians. It is full of the spirit

of life, and in this service may send forth many a breath of freshness, and as the "Messenger" winds, blow kindlingly on souls. The youthful zeal of its many coadjutors will, we trust, act upon the Christian Examiner, and awaken its former vigour. We could wish to find it more earnestly grappling with the really great difficulties, in all quarters of the world, of maintaining a spiritual and unsectarian form of Christianity, and meeting with courage the critical and delicate questions that have arisen out of the progress of religious opinion, out of more enlightened views of the nature of the Scriptures as containing a spiritual and not a logical revelation, and out of the necessity of conducting wisely the growing and inevitable transition from a religion of dogmas to a religion of inward life, a religion of sympathy with the moving spirit of Christ. Its place ought to be in the front ranks of progress. It has done much good; it may do much more; but, if so, it must not be contented with representing the conservative aspects of Unitarianism, with being the sentinel of the faith, or being identified with what, in another connection, is styled in this country the "finality” principle.

We select, as specimens of the Western Messenger, a piece of true poetry from Bryant, and a fable exposing the unholy and fanatical aspects of Agitation, with however no sullen or unsympathizing spirit. If the writer would not universally adopt the motto Agitate, Agitate, Agitate, he would, with Dr. Wardlaw, take as unobjectionable-Enlighten, Enlighten, Enlighten.

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,

When all of thee that time could wither, sleeps,
And perishes among the dust we tread ?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not,
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again

In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there—
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given ;
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer:

Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven?
In meadows framed by heaven's life-breathing wind—
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
And larger movements of th' unfettered mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?

The love that lived through all the stormy past,
And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
And deeper grew, and tenderer, to the last :
Shall it expire with life, and be no more?
A happier lot than mine, and larger light,
Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will
In cheerful homage to the rule of right,

And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

For me-the sordid cares in which I dwell

Shrink and consume the heart, as heat the scroll;
And wrath has left its scar-that fire of hell
Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

Yet, though thou wear'st the glory of the sky,
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?
Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this-

The wisdom that is love-till I become

Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?"

"AGITATE-AGITATE-AGITATE.

'It was hot noon of a sultry day. The wilted herbage turned brown on the sunny slopes; the clover blossoms shrivelled; leaves drooped on their stems; and the long green streamers of the corn curled up. Birds hid silent in the shade. And the locusts alone, with their shrill music, rejoiced in the glare and heat. Meanwhile fruit ripened; far away the polar snows were melting; and over wide seas, by unseen processes, the waters rose into the firmament. Nature through her wide circuits moved on, as ever, with benignant grace.

"In a hollow sat watching a well-meaning but restless spirit of the air. 'The world is absolutely dying of suffocation,' said he, indignantly puffing. 'Where can the careless rains be? Gone to hide in the ocean, because they are afraid of the heat; faithless cowards! And the mean little dews! What sycophants they are! No sooner does this tyrant of a sun rise, but they quit the flowers that need them, and go glittering up to pay their court. My brother winds, too, who ought to be more free spirited, have put on the golden fetters, and leave him to scorch up the flowers and grass at his pleasure. Let the world be glad that I am true hearted, and can feel for its sufferings. On me depend its destinies. How grand is my privilege; how arduous my duty! No time must be lost. I will agitate agitate-agitate. Now for a blow.'

The enthusiastic wind rushed out with a burst of benevolence. So much was to be done, that he felt he could not blow amiss. He stirred up the dust on the dry plains, he tossed the withered leaves, he ruffled the stagnant pools, and at last getting into a wood he made such a roar,