down, alone and unattended. I went up to her and asked if she had no home. With an oath she turned on me and demanded what business was it of mine whether she had or not. After some persuasion, she told me she must remain in the street till morning; that her husband had come home drunk, kicked her and her child out of doors, and so she must remain walking up and down till he saw fit to let her in the house again. I took her into my cab and drove to a coffee house, where for a small sum of money, I procured her some nourishment, and then bade her good bye. I could not get her to leave the drunken brute of a husband, but turning away, she said with a sigh, 'There's only one more hour to wait, then he'll let me in.' I tell you, my It is because all noblest things are born friends, the price of the salvation of our fellows is our eternal vigilance. It is Only upon some cross of pain or woe in these awful depths of misery and crime that we find our newspaper tragedies. home, which is perchance crying from hunger. Yet stand there she must. The next day she returns and stands in the same position till she has been sufficiently 'drilled' and the 'sweater' gives her her money. "Oh, my friends, don't grow weary of your immigrants. If you could realize how they are crushed down by the poverty of foreign lands; how they long to reach the shores of free America, you would bid them welcome." ONE UPWARD LOOK EACH DAY. Rest in the Lord. morn. In agony. God's Son may lie; Each soul redeemed from self and sin must know Its Calvary. Yet we must crave neither for joy nor grief; More than our feeble hearts can ever pine That Father, in his tenderness divine, He never sends a joy not meant in love, Our gratitude the sunlight falls to prove, In his hands we are safe. We falter on "If wages for men and women for the same work were alike, it would have a great tendency to decrease debauchery and crime, and to stop this awful struggle for existence. But the wages paid the working women of London are nothing. Six cents they receive for making a white shirt, and find their own thread and needles. But you say, why don't they strike? Yes, the men can strike and get higher wages, but let the poor women strike and their work is taken away from them altogether, and given to others. The great curse of the sewing women is the middlemen or 'sweaters' as they are called; and no less than 13 of them share in the profits between the sewing women and the retailer. A woman, possibly with two or three chil- God's arm shall lift us up to victory: dren, makes a pair of trousers requiring four hours' work, for which she is to receive two pence. She takes them to a 'sweater,' under whose contract she is working, and he looks them over, and finally finds fault with the button holes; they are not worked enough. He says 'You must be drilled-stand there!' She stands there hour after hour, for if she stirs she will lose her money. Think of it! She has perhaps left a little babe at What though we fall, and bruised and wounded lie, Our lips in dust? In Him we trust. For neither life, nor death, nor things be- Nor things above, Frances Power Cobbe. MONDAY. Strive, Wait, and Pray. Strive; yet I do not promise Will not fade when you think to grasp it, And melt in your hand away; Wait; yet I do not tell you Will not come with its radiance vanished, Yet far through the misty future, Yet pray, and with hopeful tears; Contentment. TUESDAY. Some murmer, when their sky is clear In palaces are hearts that ask, Love that not ever seems to tire, THURSDAY. The Sin of Omission. It isn't the thing you do, dear, The tender word forgotten, The letter you did not write, The flower you might have sent, dear, The stone you might have lifted The bit of heartsome counsel These little acts of kindness, So easily out of mind, Each chill reproachful wraith, And the blight has dropped on faith. For life is all too short, dear, And sorrow is all too great, To suffer our slow compassion That tarries until too late. And it's not the thing you do, dear, It's the thing you leave undone, Which gives you the bitter heart-ache At the setting of the sun. Men! whose boast it is that ye Is true freedom but to break They are slaves who fear to speak From the truth they needs must think; SATURDAY. The Purpose of Life. Hast thou, 'midst life's empty noises, Early hath Life's mighty question Thrilled within thy heart of youth, With a deep and strong beseeching, "What and where is Truth?" Not to ease and aimless quiet Doth the inward answer tend, But to works of love and duty As our being's end. Earnest toil and strong endeavor And, without, with tireless vigor, J. G. Whittier. A CHRISTIAN BASIS FOR UNI- Nothing was more noticeable in Dr. Martineau's recent great address at the Leeds Conference in England, than his insistence upon a Christian basis for Unitarianism. Unitarianism has ever been Christian, he urged, is Christian in its very nature, and always must be Christian. The problem that is before it he declared to be, How can it remain true to its Christian heritage and nature, and at the same time keep free and progressive? The solution of this problem he finds in its past course of conduct what it actually has been doing viz., rejecting all dogmatic creeds absolutely, while at the same time continuing true to the few great, central, simple faiths which lie at the heart of Christianity,-faiths which hold it firm to what is deepest in religion, and yet which, not being in the nature of creeds, allow of unending growth and progress. The definite basis which he proposed for Unitarian churches and organizations to plant themselves upon was that of "the worship of God and the culture of the Christian life," or, "the worship of God and the service of man in the spirit and faith of Jesus Christ." Such a basis, he urged, insures not only perpetual growth but perfect freedom. During the discussion which followed his paper the question was asked him if he would propose affiliation with others than Christians. He answered that "he would not so propose." (We quote from the London Inquirer). "Not because there cannot be good men who teach and listen to non-Christian theism; there were doubtless many such; many also who formed ethical societies, etc. They were perfectly at liberty to do so, but they cannot both do that and stay with Christians. You must limit somewhere, and the best limit, the widest he knew, was that of Christian affinities.” REV. LEONARD WHITNEY. The last number of the "Iowa Historical Record," a quarterly issued by the State Historical Society, has, as its leading article, a biographical sketch of Rev. Leonard Whitney, prepared by his ministerial successor, Rev. Oscar Clute. The article is a very interesting one, tracing the career of Mr. Whitney from an early New England home, through a course of law study and practice in Ann Arbor, Mich., followed by several years of preaching as a Baptist minister, then a number of years of service as the first Unitarian minister settled within the state of Iowa, and founder of the Unitarian church at Keokuk, Iowa, and ending with his death, the result of exposure endured as Chaplain in our late war. Much additional interest is added to the sketch by the incorporation into it of a number of letters from such men of national fame as Hon. Samuel F. Miller of the U. S. Supreme Court, Hon. Geo. W. McCrary, and Col. Robert Ingersoll, -the first two old parishioners of Mr. Whitney, and the last the Colonel of the regiment in which he acted as chaplain. And the testimonials are as strong as the writers are distinguished. Col. Ingersoll: "Rev. Leonard Whitney was one of the best, one of the purest, one of the noblest men I ever knew. He was in the highest sense a deeply religious man-that is to say he lived in accordance with his ideal." And Chief Justice Miller writes: "He was a Says 1888.] Some Recent Eastern Utterances Upon the Western Issue. true man with a noble heart and a com manding intellect. He died a martyr to his sense of duty, died in the prime of life, regretted and mourned by the population of an entire city, died without an enemy, and his loss was an irreparable one. Thanks are due Mr. Clute for having done something substantial to perpetuate the memory of a noble man and a fellow worker in the cause of religion and morality. It is a deserved tribute paid to worth and service. And this suggests the query: Why would it not be a good thing to have a denominational Historical Society, into whose pub. lished records sketches of many such consecrated lives as this might find their way, to serve first as an inspiration to fellow workers, and second as invaluable historical material for coming generations? 321 as ignorant as I went, but with the feeling that the controversy was over words rather than over principles and beliefs." We can but wonder that Mrs. Andrews should have been willing to make any public expression about a matter concerning which she confesses she is in ignorance. One of the great troubles about this whole matter has been, from the beginning, that persons who were in ignorance, who had not taken the trouble to find out the truth in the case, have allowed themselves to pronounce judgments and publish their judgments to the world. If Mrs. Andrews, instead of being content to come and go in confessed ignorance of the western issue, had given a little thoughtful study to it, she would have quickly seen how very far from a controversy over mere "words" it is, and would thus have been saved from unintentionally putting in a false SOME RECENT EASTERN UTTER- light much more than half of the earn ANCES UPON THE WEST ERN ISSUE. In another column (under "Woman's Work") will be found a brief abstract of Mrs. Andrews' interesting report, given at the annual meeting of the A. U. A., of the work done by the Women's Auxiliary Conference during the eight years of its existence. We are very sorry to feel obliged to couple with the expression we there give of our deep interest in the Auxiliary, and our pride in its achievements as brought out in the excellent report of its president, a word of disappointment over the closing paragraphs of that report. In these, by a seemingly implied censure, Mrs. Andrews did, we can but think, a real though doubtless unintended injustice to that large body of Western Unitarians with whose beliefs she is herself personally in sympathy, namely, the Christian Unitarian party, which feels that it can no longer work with the Western Conference and the Women's Western Conference on their present misleading and false basis. Speaking of her recent visit to the Women's Western Conference, she says: "I went to it almost ignorant of the merits or demerits of the 'Western Issue,' and returned quite est Unitarian workers of the West. Mere words! One thing is certain, to the Christian party in the West, at least, it is not mere "words," but a question of "beliefs and principles "-the deepest realities of religion. If to the Ethical party it is only words, then are they culpable in a deeper way than we have ever said or believed, for stickling over words at the expense of fellowship and co-operation among brethren, being willing permanently to divide Western Unitarianism in order to gratify a whim of prejudice (if the issue is merely one of words it can be only a whim of prejudice) against using such great words as God, Christianity, worship,-words which they know are dear to their brethren, and expressive of the very soul of Unitarianism. For our part we cannot believe that our Ethical friends would do so unjustifiable and so wicked a thing as thus to tear Western Unitarianism to pieces for nothing. It must be more than "words" with them or they surely would not have brought all this heart-ache and disaster upon Unitarianism in the West, when they could have saved it all and brought all parties together in five minutes time, by voting at Cincinnati or Chicago, that the pur 322 Some Recent Eastern Utterances Upon the Western Issue. [July pose of the Western Conference was the promotion of "pure Christianity," or "love to God and man," or anything that meant Christian theism. Mrs. Andrews says further (speaking of the persons she met at the Western Conference and the Women's Western Conference): "In their spirit of selfsacrifice, in their earnestness of purpose, and in the reverence of their religious utterance, I recognized that sacrifice, earnestness, and reverence, were the same in the West as in the East." True; and so were sacrifice, and earnest ness, just the same in the South as in the North, twenty-five years ago; but did that make the "Issue" between the South and the North one of "words" merely? No, everything still shows, as every thing has shown from the beginning, that the issue in the West is, alike in Western Conference and the Women's Western Conference, clear and deep and real. To one party God and worship are essentials of Unitarianism, as much essentials as are "freedom," "fellowship" or "character." To the other they are not: they may be good, in the minds of many very good, but they are not necessary, and the time has come for a declaration to the world of their non-essential character. This declaration was made by the Western Conference in its Cincinnati and Chicago action (1886 and 1887); and the late action of the Women's Conference (Chicago, May, 1888) through its President (the Conference acquiescing) in refusing to adopt or even consider the amendment offered by the St. Louis ladies, of "love to God and man," can be interpreted only as a stand taken for the same. Here, then, plain as anything can possibly be, is the issue that is before the Unitarians of the West, women as well as men. We regret that Mrs. Andrews should have made the mistake of calling it "words." willingly we would admit [to a place with And the reason it does not enter is because And now a word regarding a recent utterance of the Christian Register. In the issue of May 24, the editor refers indirectly to the proposition made in the Women's Western Conference (its mover acting under instruction from the Church of the Messiah, St. Louis, and its seconder representing the nearly unanimous sentiment of Unity Church, Chicago) to amend the Constitution of the Conference in such a way as to make the purpose of the organization, instead of "freedom, fellowship and character in religion," "love to God and man," -that is, to give it a basis which, instead of ruling out, should unequivocally include "worship" and the "Goddoctrine," as something for which the Conference stands and proposes to stand. Does the editor of the Register express his regret that this desirable amendment did not pass-this amendment so reasonable, so fair, so broad, so in harmony with all that is best in Unitarian history, and calculated, if it had passed, to bring all the Unitarian women of the West into united and harmonious working relations once more? Instead, he says: "The Women's Conference promptly refused to have anything to do with verbal quibbles." We submit, is this just or even respectful treatment to give to a matter tional concern? Is it what the Chrisof grave and far-reaching denominatian Unitarian women of St. Louis and Chicago and the West have a right to expect from the editor of our oldest, and heretofore most representative and most esteemed organ of Unitarianism in this country? Has it come to this, that the earnest effort of our first churches and No one has expressed it better than best known workers to keep "worship" Mr. Gannett: "We hold him to be 'Unitarian' who emphasizes Freedom, Fellowship and Character as his three grand emphases. * * There is another great word which right * and the "God-doctrine" as still essen- We regret to say this, but we should |