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the book is all on their side. Historically, neither in the Old World nor in the New, has liberal opinion been the product of theological training, but of other influences. The Trivium of the schoolmen-logic, rhetoric, and grammar-was a friend to orthodox dogmas, rather than a foe. The danger came from other sciences, less hallowed. While it is true that there has been much good theological writing on the liberal side in this country, it is equally true that the preponderance of special theological scholarship has always been on the side of orthodoxy. In special theological studies, sued, as these generally are, to the exclusion of physical science, of political and social questions, following the ancient method of dogma, hermeneutics, and pastoral care, with some account of the affairs of religious sects and parties, carefully distinguished from the general course and meaning of human history, - there is really no liberalizing tendency. We sometimes wonder, that, in the use of all this critical apparatus of reviews and commentaries and dogmatic summaries, students of theology should be able to keep the faith of the fathers, and almost doubt the honesty of those who so sin against their light. But in reality the wonder is, that any should come out with a broad theology where there is so much pains taken to make faith narrow and technical. The Princeton graduate learns his liberalism, not from the ancient books of divinity, to which the modern are only helps, but from the world into which he goes. And, if the Cambridge graduate is not as orthodox as the Princeton, it is because he has a better faith to start with, which disposes him to another style of proof. There is nothing in special theological studies that compels one to the opinions of Channing or Parker; though when the field is widened, and secular and religious studies are identified, that issue may seem inevitable.

Another fancy of the former time was, that the liberal faith is especially the religion of cultured men, reserved for the educated and refined, and not acceptable to the poor and ignorant. The experiment of Unitarian ministries to the humbler classes seemed quixotic to many, and doomed

to failure at the start. How could these unlettered men be brought to take the proper faith of the enlightened? Liberal Christianity, it was maintained, was and must ever be an aristocratic religion, —a religion for the chosen few prepared by birth or training for its large and dignified ideas. But somehow that fancy is vanishing, and we are coming to see that it never had any good foundation. Not only does it seem natural, that a simple faith, which is nearest to natural religion, should be most acceptable to simple and untutored minds; but it has been proved, by experiment and by history, that these minds prefer a faith which has few rudiments. Our ministries to the poor are not a failure in this direction any more than was the ministry of Jesus a failure among those ignorant Jews. The class which preferred the gospel when it was of the simplest type, — the worship of a good Father by works of humble obedience and brotherly love, — was the poorer class, the ignorant class. The Pharisees and Scribes would not take so simple a faith; and, when the gospel addressed itself to the higher orders, and invited the pupils of the schools and the rulers in the halls, then it took on the Greek metaphysics, and disguised itself in subtilties and mysteries. The rude Goths preferred the Arian to the Athanasian faith; and, if we may believe Colenso, those Zulus of the Cape receive more willingly the simple teaching which he gives them, than any orthodox refinements. Ignorance goes with superstition, is ready to believe signs and wonders, and to tremble before mysteries; but, in the matter of mere dogma and formula, it takes most readily the simplest style, the statements of the Sermon on the Mount, or the parables, rather than the refinements about faith in the Epistle to the Romans, or about sacrifice in the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is not the metaphysics of orthodoxy which wins the unlearned, but the fear of its pretensions; its threat and its promise, not its ingenious scheme. The ignorant Catholic knows nothing of the theology of St. Thomas or St. Anselm, but only remembers that the priest at the altar keeps the keys of the kingdom of God. Apart from this force of anathema, the system of the creeds would

have far less charm for the humbler classes than the system of a rational religion, which any hearer can understand. At any rate, there is nothing in a rational faith which makes it unsuitable for the masses of men; and it is well that we are now vehemently asserting this, asserting that Unitarians are just as much in their place when calling in the outcasts of the greater cities, or the pioneers of the frontiers, or the dusky, wondering freedmen of the South, as in repeating their graceful ethics of the gospel to the comfortable owners of cushioned pews; that all the opportunity of our faith is not limited in the charmed circle of Harvard College, or of the habitual readers of the "Christian Register" and the "Boston Advertiser." It is well that we insist that some will come in from the highways and the hedges, to hear the word which we bring; certainly in this Western land, where the wedding guests seem to be better provided for.

If these things are so, if the liberal faith is good for unlettered men, and if knowledge is not essential to its growth and strength, where is the use, it may be asked, of any education for the ministry? Why should we spend so much time and zeal and money, in preparing men for a duty which is so simple, and so little dependent upon the aid of culture? Why should it be needful to force a college training upon the religious guides whose work is only to repeat the command of goodness, and to show the easy and plain way of obedience to the Divine law? Why should it be asked of the demonstrators of this practical saving word, that they should be expert in classic tongues, and should have read in heathen mythologies? What need of any special theological training to make known the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man; to convince of sin, or persuade to holiness? Why ask more than the average intelligence for a work so free from all technical refinements? If a man has a clear conscience, an earnest soul, and a good voice, why cannot he go at once from the common school or the work-bench, and ask men, in the liberal fashion, to be reconciled to God? Why must we set between his desire and his labor this season of preparation, which may chill the zeal

and bewilder the soul, adding doubts and difficulties that were better let alone? Why not leave the prophets of our faith to their own inspirations, and let them speak, without any dress or pruning from the schools, the fresh word which the Lord gives them? Especially why should not those who affirm that inspiration is not exhausted or antiquated, and that the spirit has a general voice for the churches, permit that word to come forth, as it came in the elder time, from the lips of tent-makers and fishermen, of the men of the people? Why should those who claim to be the nearest to the thought of the primitive Church still hold to the way of the Church in later ages? Must Peter be a pupil of Hillel to fit him to say, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" or had John to study three years in Tiberias that he might fitly urge the call, "Little children, love one another?" Paul, indeed, had waited at the feet of Gamaliel; but is it not clear that his rabbinical memories hindered, rather than helped, his missionary work, and darkened the gospel which he so burned to expound? If our message is that of the early apostles, who were sent out at the first, not only with no store of learning, no manuscripts, versions, commentaries, no Mishna or Gemara, more than their memories of the synagogue teaching; but also with no provision for physi cal needs, with no gold or silver or brass in their purses, nor scrip for their journey, nor extra shoes and garments, - - why should we make such careful and long preparation for the repetition of that message? Why should it be necessary to become a master in Israel, in order to do the work of a Christian evangelist? On the theory that the sole business of a Christian minister is to iterate an ancient message, such questioning as this is plausible; but, on a broader theory, it may easily be answered and set aside. It does not require any special learning to enable a minister simply to say, "Little children, love one another," or to demonstrate sins which are palpable, or to show the beauty of a righteous life. But that is not now the theory of a minister's service. No church, in any sect, is satisfied now to have its ministry a mere echo of ancient inspiration. The "mouthpiece"

idea, which makes a prophet of this century only an automaton, with no personal soul, finds no more favor with the churches than the "mouthpiece" idea of the ancient prophets finds favor with the critics. In spite of these plausible questions, we have to recognize the changed conditions in which the gospel of this day and land is to be preached, though it is the very same simple gospel which was preached by the first apostles. We speak and think reverently of those plain messengers who journeyed in Galilee; but I doubt if the fisherman or the tax-gatherer, preaching as a candidate in any of our liberal parishes, city or country, would satisfy the hearers, and "get a call:" much less in the churches of other faiths, where they would certainly be rejected, not only as uncouth in manner, but as "not orthodox," fatally unsound. Peter would not do at all in Cincinnati, or Philip in St. Louis, or Thomas in Baraboo. Nay, I doubt even if Paul the Apostle would quite come up to the mark of the city in Minnesota which bears his name. That the substance of the word is the same now as in the beginning, does not involve the conclusion, that the ancient form is still sufficient and best.

It is a singular fact, that the Church which has the most refined and complicated system of theology is the Church which needs to give its ministers the least theological training for their practical use. The priests of the Roman Church must have very careful and thorough discipline for their priestly vocation; but, in their function of preachers to such congregations as they find in this land, theological knowledge aids them very little. They get it, but they do not need it. On the other hand, the liberal faith, simplest of all, both in statement and in substance, which may be reduced to five or three propositions, or even to one, which a child may understand, really requires, by the conditions in which it must be preached, a great deal of knowledge and dialectic skill. It needs about as much ingenuity in our body to keep saying, "Love one another," to any effect, as it does in the evangelical bodies to explain the Triune mystery, or the plan of salvation. And this for several reasons: