"Unitarian Association" the only one which cripples moral freedom? Is it the only one to be avoided? The first association formed to spread the truths of the gospel, was that of the apostles of our Lord. Surely there are few who will not regard this as high authority. 2. The next method is for a church, or for several churches united, (as has been lately done,) to support a missionary. I like this method. It is a good thing for a man's soul, when he rises in the midst of the great congregation to pray, to remember that he and his brethren have not been unmindful of the spiritual wants of others. It is good for them when they pray for the spread of the truth, to feel that they have practically done something to promote its spread. It will give a new life to their devotions to feel that at that very time, a missionary whom they have provided, is carrying consolation to sorrowing hearts, and strength to wavering consciences. 3. Another method is for each society in its turn to send out its own clergyman for three or six months on missionary labor. Were I permitted to address any society on this subject, I would say; - You have been benefited by the labors of your Pastor. In the church, in sickness, in sorrow, as a teacher, as a guide, you have felt, you have known from experience, that he was capable of doing good. For years past you have been, for years to come you expect to be, blest by his labors. Let others then, who have no religious teacher to whom they look with confidence, share with you for a short season in your vantages. You can supply his place for a few months and hardly feel it; and in those few months he may, unier the blessing of Providence, have been able to build up ad another christian society, where souls shall be saved, and from which, as a centre, truth shall spread. It may cost you some sacrifices, but believe me, such self-denials will not injure your hearts or enfeeble your devotions. You pray every sabbath that the gospel may have free course and be glorified throughout the world; -will not this be a good way to show that the prayers which you utter from the lips, rise up from the heart? And were I permitted to speak as I have supposed, I would say, that you will gain more than you will lose by the improvement of your minister. It is not good for him to be always at home. Familiarity with one state of society and ignorance of any other, will make him insensible in some degree to the wants of his own people. It is well for him and for you that he should see men under different aspects. It is well that he should have a larger experience of human conditions and wants. All the books and all the solitary meditations in the world, will not give him so intimate a sense of the worth of christian truth and of the importance of the guidance, the sanctions and consolations of the gospel, as six months of missionary labor. More than years of study, it will teach him how and how truly Christ is a Saviour, and how he may become a more efficient minister of Christ. And while he learns this in doing good to others, you in turn will receive the full benefit of what he learns in his increased and more enlightened zeal in his sacred office. 4. There is yet one other method. Those who think it unwise to pledge themselves for any particular course, or dread becoming entangled with an association, may still contribute to what they at the present time consider a good object. They may make their clergyman a life member of the American Unitarian Association; they may themselves contribute a certain sum annually; or if they do not like this, at least make an occasional donation, and still keep, for all practical purposes, disconnected from any thing which by the most sensitive could be called a sectarian organization. And what a noble work is the one here proposed! Had we any just sense of what we are, of immortality, of God, the common interests of life would in the comparison fade into insignificance. For what is this work? Nothing less than the salvation not of property or reputation- but of the soul itself—the welfare of that which cannot die. He is justly honored who of his abundance aids a young man when he is struggling with difficulties at the outset of life and puts him in the way of success. Is it not a still nobler work to aid souls upward to heaven? They do a noble work, and God will bless them for it, who build hospitals and asylums for the sick and blind in body. But think of man one moment as he is ing;—is it not a still nobler work to build hospitals and eye infirmaries for souls. O! my friend, I fear that none of us appreciate the importance of the soul- the man. Occupied in business, sympathizing with others in their occupations, rejoicing in their success, pained by their failure, we forget that each human being has something to gain, and, dread thought! something to lose, for which the kingdoms of this world cannot compensate him his soul! We are blinded by temporal interests. out in the clearest night and hold your hand over your eye and it will shut out half of the sky. So I fear, too an IMMORTAL and ACCOUNTABLE be Go often the interests of time, so close and pressing upon us, hide the infinite interests of eternity. I have spoken at perhaps, too great length, of a great work in which other sects have come forward, and to which our brethren, I hope, will cheerfully give their aid. That work is, to bring the sinful, the doubting, the indifferent to Christ. What multitudes there are in our land who know nothing of him except in name. Το their hearts Christ has not come has not taught has not died. They who carry christian truth to them, carry Christ to them. To them, it will be as if the Saviour were raised from the dead, and taught, and wrought his miracles before them. And every one may aid in this holy work, each in his own way, one by writing, another by the contribution of money, another by the preaching of the word. The division of labor that exists in modern times, renders it necessary that all should join in such a work. And all can join. By the contribution of means, the mechanic at his bench, the farmer in his field, the nierchant in his counting room, becomes, not less than the preacher, a missionary of the gospel. Let all join, and ages to come, with grateful hearts, will utter thanks for the labors of this generation. But I must come to a close. I have written sheets, where, when I began, I did not intend to write pages. And it were easier now to go on, than to pause, in speaking of as holy and noble a cause as often engages the interest of human hearts. I say, a holy and a noble cause. Many a cause has been dignified with this name, and thousands of lives sacrificed to it on the battle field, and thousands of widows -- and orphans made, when the only interests involved have been a few leagues of land on a desert coast, a few vessels wrongfully seized, a slight tax unjustly levied. But in this cause of which I speak, not his temporal interests, but the welfare of the man himself, the welfare of the soul, is involved. I speak not of what the soul may love, but of the soul itself—not of temporal interests, but of eternity. I see before me a vast empire growing up rapidly in a night — composed in great part of the young, composed almost altogether of those whose object it is to seek their fortunes. I see them sometimes neglectful of their religious wants sometimes heedless of them, sometimes struggling against almost insurmountable difficulties to supply them. I see multitudes of the young from our own New England environed by perils of which they are scarcely conscious. Is it strange that I look to their mothers, their fathers, their kindred in New England for aid in shielding them from danger? It may be as irksome to us as to any one to solicit the benevolent action of others, but I see around me spiritual wants that cry aloud, as if the spirit of God were speaking in the midst. I remember that soon you and I and all now on the earth will have passed into a state of being in which our temporal interests will be nothing, in which the soul will be all in all, in which a contribution or an effort made to save a single soul will be more grateful to us than the memory that we have possessed the honor or wealth of the world. I remember that in that future world we shall meet again, in the presence of God and of souls saved or lost through our care or neglect, and I do not hesitate to call on our brethren for aid. May they read in the spirit of christian charity and thoughtfulness, |