it is said, has occupied the pulpit from which he would exclude Mr. Parker. So much for "liberty of the pulpit!" Verily it comes with an ill grace from those who have sat, by courtesy, in a better than "Moses's seat," to question the right of other prophets, quite as good as they, to sit or stand in the same place. And no less graceless an errand was it in such to favor a secession of the disaffected from a peaceable and well compacted church. Time was when the members of that church were called, as in jealous derision, "the Come-Outers:" (a title which is getting to be complimentary) — and what shall we now say of those who would come out even from these? They are still farther out, the very "outrés" of the outermost. And who are they that pretend so harshly to denounce an honest man for the honest exercise of his thought and speech? Ay, and who are they who claim to be the umpires of what is absolutely true? "Who among men, Great Lord of all! Thy servant to his bar shall call ? And doom him to the realms of woe? Doubtless, in the sight of God and the angels, many a so-called heretic has a larger faith, a purer soul, and a better prospect of heaven than nine-tenths of those who denounce and exaggerate his views. "Oh yes," say they, "no doubt it may be so. He may be a much better Christian in character than we, more Godlike, Christlike, and everything else, 'accepted of God' if you will, welcomed even to the presence of God; but that is no reason he should be admitted to our pulpits, even though he be a recognized teacher of Christian truth if he differ from us in opinion. No matter what God accepts; we accept no man but for his creed." This is the substance of the argument often used; and, ah! here is the false ground of fellowship, we might rather say the rigid principle of separation, which is fast sundering the Saviour's household, shattering Christendom into a thousand fragments, multiplying its partition walls, casting its morality to the winds, and covering, under the broad mantle of the Church and its rituals, those base and shameless immoralities which make the spirit of a "pure and undefiled religion" hang her head, and weep, and wring her hands in agony. Thus it is, because of the disproportionate influence allowed to men's opinions in religion, that we see so much indifference, comparatively, in regard to practice. Thus it is we see them leaning on the crutches of speculation rather than the staff of their obligations to a godly life. Thus it is that lust, avarice, and fraud are often suffered to run riot almost up to the very altar of the sanctuary and lay hold of its horns with only a qualified rebuke, while meek heresy is waylaid at the porch, arraigned before a "concio ad clerum" and put in irons without so much as a hearing. Thus we see men all around us taking fire by the sparks struck out of their own scimitars; full of hot prejudice, and violent enough — the most violent of all, in their outcries of contempt against the views of a heresiarch; threatening to leave the church wherever such a man preaches; and yet God alone knows how much better than he, in regard to faith or practice, any one of us would appear if "weighed in the balance." Are these the men to estimate or excommunicate him who labors for that "holiness without which no man shall see the Lord?" Well might we apply to them the questions-"Why dost thou judge thy brother? and why dost thou set at naught thy brother?" And now, perchance, it may be argued that the writer of this is "hand in glove" with all Mr. Parker's speculations, because he has chosen thus to speak a word in favor of his claim to be treated fairly. If so, the reasoners upon such a premise are welcome to their logic, while their conclusion is respectfully denied. But we have done. The writer of the letter under our notice, says, that " any measure which interferes with the proper liberty of the pulpit should be sacredly resisted," and therefore we have resisted his letter; "and anything like unchristian exclusion should be met with an earnest protest," but where is his protest? I suppose he will not deny that Mr. Parker is now, and henceforth, and forever, excluded from the pulpit of Pitts Street Chapel ; and that he, the pastor of that chapel, assents to that exclusion? Will he say that such exclusion is not unchristian; or at least intolerant, and so far unchristian? On what ground will he say this? Let it be remembered that Mr. Parker is a Christian minister, or at least claiming so to be; and who shall dare deny him the title which he claims? He is a Unitarian minister, claiming so to be; and who shall question his right so to consider himself? Nay, further, he is a member of that fraternity, or association, to which Mr. Waterston himself belongs, and the crowning interest of whose fellowship is, or has been, the freest liberty of thought and the frankest concession of the Christian name to every one who claims it. How, then, or with what consistency, can Mr. Waterston deny to Mr. Parker (as he does in effect by his letter) the Christian name? for this is the point. He does not pretend to say that his unwillingness to exchange with Mr. P. is founded on any other considerations than his infidelity, as he understands it. He does not say that he closes his pulpit against him because, as a matter of convenience or taste, he prefers not to exchange at all; but he takes distinct issue with him, in this letter, on the ground of his title to enter a Christian pulpit. He makes out a formal indictment, by an array of negative epithets and theorems taken out of his book, and out of their connection in his book, as if to neutralize the attractive pole of the magnet; and therefore, we say his accusations are unfair and one-sided. At all events they are irreconcilable with that principle which Unitarians have always professed to hold of the utmost toleration towards one another. Mr. Waterston has said, in his letter, "I do not recognize any new feature, at the present time, from what we have always maintained, respecting liberality of sentiment and the freedom of the pulpit." And yet he must be well aware that, so far as opinions are concerned, Unitarians have never affixed the least reservation to their terms of fellowship. They have heretofore acknowledged all to be Christian teachers who claimed so to be; not even presuming (by any absolute terms) to define who is or is not a Christian upon doctrinal grounds, except so far as to require, in some sense, a belief in Christ. Now this may have been an error in their first principle, or starting point; and they may not have wisely foreseen this crisis to which their principle would lead. They may have stood in a wrong position at the outset, and the "point d'appui" they selected may have proved a false one. If so, let them say so like men, and come down and define their position like other denominations, and not be trying to balance themselves on a broken reed, while they wrestle with every one who comes up to the same place, with quite as good a right as they, and are trying to throw him off the platform. The Unitarians may disown Mr. Parker if they will; but, in so doing, as we judge, they will disinherit their own child, the very progeny of their own begetting, their legitimate offspring, if not their "well-beloved;" for he is as much and truly the fruit of their own primary principles as ever the gnarled oak was the product of a smooth acorn.. As a system, Unitarianism began with a solemn protest against all exclusiveness or assumption in matters of faith; against the arrogance and dogmatism which would make a man's creed or opinions merely, the test of his right to be called a Christian. It claimed and asserted for every individual the largest liberty of thought, conscience and speculation, telling him, even as Christ tells us all, to "call no man master, on the earth;" pointing him to the Scriptures, and to the light within, by which he must read them; bidding him be faithful and fearless; leading him up to the Bible, and saying-"Here, take the Word of God and make what you can of it, in the fear of God. Live its truths, as you can learn them, by yourself. Judge no man, as you shall be judged by none. 'Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good;' and remember that to your own Master and Maker, alone, must you stand or fall." The carrying out of these principles and premises to their uttermost conclusion, has generated, among other results, the views of Mr. Parker. If such a consequence seem to many no better than the edge of a precipice, they must remember that for them there is no other alternative but either to overleap it as they can, or go back and round some other way. "But no," say the Unitarians, "Mr. Parker is not of us.' Well, they may disallow or deny his right to any relationship or connection with them, if they please. They may cut him off; but, by all that is gracious in the heart of Unitarianism, it will bleed to death out of the very place where the knife of their exclusion is applied. They may say he is only an excrescence, or a nuisance, an offence, or a mushroom, a mere weed in the great garden of their faith. But this is only to condemn themselves; for, the worse they make him, the more feculent they acknowledge the soil, or system, or set of principles out of which he has grown; for, by all the rules of cause and effect he is theirs, and theirs only. The fact is, in the view of many, Mr. Parker has now become, as it were, the embodiment of Ultra Unitarianism; the personification of its first principles; the full harvest of a liberal theory, run up to seed; the farthest decimal of theological arithmetic. There he is, and we must make the best of it. We cannot so easily shake him off if we would, and we ought not if we could. Like the ghost of Hamlet's father, “Armed at point and cap a pé," he will be ever rising up, now and then, as a retributive admonition to Unitarians -the spectre of their past offences -telling of the wrong which a brother has done him for the sake of a crown, (not by pouring poison into his ears, but the ears of others), and calling on posterity to reverse and revenge, as they will, the wrong he has suffered. In the midnight of our uneasiness he will come, as well he may, and tell of assassinations done by his own kinsmen, while he dreamed of peace, in his own garden; nor will he away, though we cry out never so loudly, at sight of the apparition, 'Angels, and ministers of grace, defend us!" for he has yet a mission and a baptism, and will be straitened till both are accomplished. The fact is, he has only carried out freedom of thought and inquiry like the rest of us. He has gone up, fearlessly, to the "ultima thule" of liberal investigations. What right have we to blame him for this exercise of his prerogative as a theologian? In his researches he has come, as it were, to the vast cave of unfrequented truth, and, though his voice may ring there like the report of an overloaded gun, we must hear it, and stand the fire as we can, though it be to us as the crack of our doom as a denomination, |