wide rivers within nearer banks to give them deeper flow and greater power and usefulness. One of the great problems given us to solve as Unitarians is, Can we make our religion both broad and deep? for deep our religion must be,-deep as sorrow, deep as the breaking heart, deep as death, deep as duty at its sacredest, deep as life at its fullest tide, deep as God, deep as the soul's profoundest experiences and needs, or else it cannot satisfy us long; it will fail us when our want is sorest, and the world will rightly reject it as a mockery and an empty thing. Says Dr. Eliot, "Our denomination has done and is still doing a useful work of the intellect. It has vindicated a broad religion. It has asserted from watch-towers and battle-fields the rights of reason, the 'liberty that makes every man free,' the charter of an open soul before an open universe. We have gained the victory of a broad church and a broad creed. Now let us have a church of the spirit that 'searcheth the deep things of God." The death of General S. C. Armstrong, May 11, takes from his labors one of the real heroes of the century, a man who laid down his life for the least of his brethren. His rare combination of qualities, his courage, insight, gentleness, and faith, enabled him to conceive and execute an original work for the elevation of the negro and the Indian. His death is a great call to the supporters of Hampton, for many are needed where this one stood. A striking portrait of Dr. James Martineau, the greatest living exponent of Unitarian thought, will be found in our publisher's department at the end of this number. We propose to continue the publication of these excellent reproductions of famous Unitarian leaders, giving one each month. Departments. SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. In the midst of discussions as to the place which the Bible should hold in Sundayschool study at the present time, it is well enough to recall two or three facts. There must henceforth be a great many sidelights thrown upon the Bible as it is intelligently examined. To know nothing but the Bible is not to know the Bible. More and more we see it is a mine to be worked rather than an idol to be worshipped. The study of it will increase along wider and more thorough lines. It will be presented to pupils as a history of the growth of a special people in religion and morals. It will furnish hereafter, as it has heretofore, sentences that the memory will cherish and which will serve as shapers of character. It will implant in early youth by this teaching, rare psalms and beautiful passages full of hope and comfort when adult life is cast amidst struggles. As it receives illumination from other sources, so in turn it will more steadily cast into life its inspiration and interpreting power; it will give where it receives. Not less, but more, will the learner turn to the Gospels to find out what real Christianity is. It is in the Bible that the student must search to find the beginnings of this great faith which is spreading over the world and coloring civilization; and to it will teachers turn for those assertions of immortality which are the most vivid in all sacred literature. What is chiefly needed is a reform of unfortunate methods. The misuse of the Bible has been constant and continuous for centuries past. But the higher and nobler criticism, the more scientific study of the books and their contents, the more sympathetic ap proach upon the spirit of the Bible,—all this will tend to give us a larger and more profitable use of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. We have a great deal of sympathy for the overcrowded teacher. We mean that individual, man or woman, young or old, who has kindly consented to take a class in the Sunday-school. She (the majority of teachers being women, we will say "she") is busy through the week, engrossed with matters which are of first importance and cannot be laid aside. She is not equipped with a library, and has not been trained in habits of investigation. Her facilities for accumulating information on any given topic are limited. It is expected that such a one will appear before a class of bright boys or girls, and compete in the treatment of a stated lesson with the skilled public teachers. She is expected to know everything about the topic, and to be in a condition of mind and body whereby she is enabled to impart that information in an interesting way. This is rather unjust, especially, as is so frequently the case, there may have been no teachers' meetings, and the teacher must rely wholly upon her own resources. What can we say to encourage such a person? Our first advice would be, that she should demand of the minister or superintendent some help somewhere along the week. There ought also to be a good reference library in Sunday-schools for the teachers' use. There ought also to be put into the aforesaid teacher's hands the right kind of text-book, after due consultation, a manual calculated to be of genuine aid to the pupil and teacher. But, aside from those helps outside, we advise the overcrowded teachers to put the subject in mind on Monday morning, and at intervals here and there, at every opportunity, pick up illustrations, and so draw together something of a nucleus for the coming Sunday's instruction. Let such a teacher stir up the pupils to all the questioning possible, and so get the subject away out of its fetters into light and liberty of treatment. There are tides in Sunday-schools. I wish I could thoroughly describe the tidal laws that govern the varying moods and fortunes of Sunday-school existence, but they are mysteries. Sometimes with all the best efforts of the minister and superintendent, the work goes wrong. The results are unsatisfying. A kind of lethargy rests upon affairs, and the attendance diminishes. At other times without much effort everything blooms and sings. Children seem glad to come whether there is anything to draw them or not. It is the same way in class work. One Sunday the children will be bright and responsive, and another Sunday they grow as dull and heavy as lead. The chief consolation is that this is true of most buman life. There is a kind of temperament condition attached to almost everything. The only way for a wise person is to "hold in and hold on and hold out." There are tides to the ocean, there are changes in weather, there are seasons, and we must look upon a Sunday-school as we would look upon an individual. individual has his times of elation and depression, of activity and rest. Just wait until the tide has sufficiently rolled out, and then you will rejoice as interest returns and everything awakens to new life with the incoming currents. An A committee has been appointed by the Boston Unitarian Sunday School Union to confer with the Unitarian Sunday School Society as to the inaugurating of normal classes for the instruction of teachers. This is a most worthy movement, and I hope something will come out of it. Every Other Sunday will close its eighth volume with the twenty-second number, on July 2. The subscription list has largely increased the past year, and the little paper is doing a great deal of missionary work by the help of the "Paper Fund." A series of monthly leaflets on "Acts, or the Early Days of Christianity," will be prepared by Rev. W. W. Fenn, for the Unitarian Sunday School Society, to be published during the next current school year, beginning with September. This set of lessons will surely prove very popular. The author and the subject both attract. EDWARD A. HORTON. GUILDS. THE USE OF TEMPTATION. Read before the Guild of the Good Shepherd, Reading, Mass., April 10, 1892, by Miss Mabel Hunter. The use of temptation is to show us the weak parts of our character, so that we may know them, and, by knowing them, be able to correct them. Every one has the temptation to do wrong come to them. It does not always come in the same way, and it comes to some more than it does to others. When it comes, if we hesitate and argue with our conscience, we are almost sure to yield to it. We often think, when we are tempted to do wrong in little things, that we will do it this time, but next time we will do right; but the next time comes, and we yield to it again. Yielding to the little temptations makes it more difficult to resist the greater ones. Persons using strong drink and tobacco think, when they begin the habit, that they can leave it off at any time, but the longer they indulge in it, the harder it is to do so, and, unless they are possessed of strong wills, they seldom do. It is the same in other things. If we would decide immediately to do the right at any cost, and leave the wrong alone, we should probably succeed. Every time we resist temptation, we gain a victory over the evil in us, and it strengthens our character. The things in life that are enjoyed the most are those obtained by hard work and earnest efforts. There would be no credit or satisfaction in doing right if we had no temptation to do wrong. If we should make no endeavor to resist temptation, we would soon lose our self-respect and confidence and the respect of others for us. Mrs. Margaret Bottome, the President of the Society of King's Daughters and Sons, says, "We pray, 'Lead me not into temptation,' It does not mean that God will not lead you where you cannot be tempted, for character can be made in no other way than by temptation. The stronger the power of temptation, the stronger character you will be. The people in the world that are doing grand work for humanity are people who have known the power of temptation." When we know in what ways we are most tempted, we cannot be too careful in watching over ourselves. A business meeting of the National Guild Alliance was held in the American Unitarian Association building, Boston, on May 6, at three o'clock. The arrangement for the anniversary meeting was left with the officers of the Alliance. It was announced that there are sixty-two guilds in the denomination, of which only forty-four are in the general organization. Probably there are even more that have not joined. Rev. H. T. Secrist, of Milwaukee, Wis., writes that the "Emerson Guild" has been formed in his church. The motto is suggestive: "So nigh is grandeur to our dust, The guild at Chelmsford, Mass., is to press right on into the summer months-a fact which shows well for the vitality of the organization. We notice the following among the subjects set apart for the Sunday evening meetings: "Failures in Life," "What is Fate?" "In Honor of our Dead," "How to Spend Sunday," "The Boy is Father of the Man." Each The National Guild Alliance will hold its annual business meeting in Room 10, American Unitarian Association building, May 31, at two o'clock. All guilds are invited to be represented on that occasion. Reports of committees will be given, and the election of officers will occur. guild is represented by the minister and two delegates. The annual public meeting will be held at three o'clock in Channing Hall. Rev. B. R. Bulkeley will preside. Addresses will be made by Rev. John Cuckson, Rev. Thomas J. Van Ness, Rev. Charles G. Ames, and Rev. George W. Cooke. Miss Kate L. Brown will tell about the work. Mrs. A. J. Culp and Miss Frances Merrill will speak of junior guilds. We request the guilds to send large delegations. All are invited. B. R. BULKELEY. UNITY CLUBS. It is greatly important that young people should be interested in the work of our churches. New blood, fresh courage, are always needed. The church is too apt to become a place for the old only, for those whose thoughts are matured, whose beliefs are fixed. Too frequently one sees a church with only here and there a young person in it. The preaching is beyond them, too intellectual, deficient in sentiment and emotion, too much out of touch with ordinary life and its practical interests. Such a church cannot be fully alive. Its life is little else than a lingering death. The church that is alive, that is quickened with new purposes and an eager, onwardlooking spirit, must have young people in it. When they are in they should be recognized, have a place in its deliberations, and have an influence upon its methods. It is not well that they should be made too prominent or deferred to unnecessarily; and they should not form a coterie by themselves. It is important that old and young old need the courage and enthusiasm of should work together, side by side. The youth; and the young need the judgment and wisdom of age. In order to interest the young the sermon should be fitted to their needs. It should be such as they can comprehend. This applies more to manner than subject, for here the profoundest subjects can be dealt with in a way to make them intelligible. The subjects need not be commonplace, and the treatment need not be superficial in order that the young may be interested. The use of simple and direct language, the avoidance of technical and abstract theology, and the use of pertinent illustrations will enable the preacher to interest young people of average intelligence. We believe most preachers of intellectual earnestness and a studious purpose will gain in power and effectiveness by trying to interest the young, and by the endeavor to make what they say comprehended by them. For interesting the young nothing is so important as giving them something to do. If they have a place in the work of the church, some responsibility for its success, they will take an interest in it which cannot be secured in any other way. This is the advantage of the Unity Club, the Guild, the Lend-a-hand Club, and all similar or ganizations, that they directly interest the young people in work they can understand and fully appreciate. Such organizations in connection with the church are of great importance because they enlist the sympa thies and convictions of the young, bring them together for some noble purpose, and give them a sense of responsibility. Organizations specially designed for young people are of much value for this reason. They feel timid and inexperienced, they are shy and confused in the presence of older and wiser people. In the company of their companions they can say out their own thoughts without fear, and with a feeling that they will be received with sympathy and approbation. This helps them to free utterance, and to giving shape to their own thoughts. When we try to say what we know we deliberate upon it, find what we really do think, and are stimulated to find out more fully what the subject in hand means to us. There is danger that the young may too exclusively associate with each other, that in this way conceit and a forward spirit and shallowness may be developed. Let the young people's meetings, of whatever kind, be a church meeting, open to the more sympathetic older people, open to the minister, and in that way find its corrective, its sincere criticism, and its touch with older and wiser interests. The danger from age lines, from bringing the young and inexperienced to act wholly by themselves, may be most effectively avoided by drawing the young into the church itself. What is greatly needed in most of our churches is the intimate and sympathetic associations of the young with all their work. They should be members and have the privileges and responsibilities of membership. The church needs a constituency of those who believe in its work and are ready to stand by it to the end. To this end the church must enlist their sympathies, bind them to it by deep emotional attachments, and cement the union by giving them ideals which command their enthusiastic approval and acceptance. Membership means little if it does not lay hold upon the imagination, if it does not satisfy a need and create a warm attachment. The church which is a home to a young person, which he feels for somewhat as he does for his mother, is sure of his fidelity and persistent effort in its behalf. Such attachment can be secured without resort to ecclesiasticism or undue influence over the intellect. When the church has a mother's heart for the young, wins them by warmth of affection, they will respond with eager appreciation of her effort. In the past we have too little felt our duty toward the young in giving them ideals that win and hold them, and in sorrounding them by great sentiments and the closest sympathies. We are doing better now, but not so well as we might. We are afraid of going too far or of adopting methods of other people. We are not to impose ourselves on the young by closing up their minds to the free search for truth; but we are to win them by sympathy and a true direction given to their moral and spiritual growth. GEORGE W. COOKE. UNIVERSALIST NOTES. This is the season when the more strenuous activities of our churches begin to lag a little from the stress of weather which affects us all at the summer solstice, so that news of the churches, so far as that can be specified in items or generalized out of the same, is slender and unimportant. But perhaps that is a good sign in ecclesiasticall affairs, as it is sometimes held to be in the secularities of life. I have a friend, a de-voted reader of newspapers, who, when his wife asks him, after he has run over his morning paper, "What is the news?" is wont to reply, "No news, thank heaven!" No news is often the best news. It means in our churches steady, quiet, day-unto-day and week-unto-week work for the kingdom, out of which come the noblest results. The idea is obtaining far too strong a hold in the minds of the average minister and the average layman, too, that not much is being accomplished in church work unless it is of a sort which can be paragraphed in the newspapers and celebrated in editorials. It is an error of the times in which we live to measure performance by publicity and effect upon the public mind; and grave injustice is thereby done to the very best achievements of the very best men and women. So, while the spring months have not afforded any striking items of church news, all the reports which come in from the parishes indicate healthy activity and industry. Our churches are busy in the steady toil of organized effort. The old methods are followed with persistency and zeal, and new ones are constantly winning approval. It is evident that our clergy are alive to the new thoughts and kindling with the new spirit which is constantly being poured into the religious life of the world. One sees many cheering signs of progress. The value of organization and of administration is becoming more widely recognized. One after another our leading churches are putting "assistants" at work to supplement the efforts of their pastors. clubs, guilds, unions, and circles multiply in the parishes. The conventions see the need of more help. The philanthropies gain larger recognition. Without revolutionary reforms our churches are broadening their policy to the needs of the times. The I cannot see that we are a whit behind our sister denominations in the rate at which we are remodelling our machinery to fit the age we live in. Of course, much of our machinery is out of date and needs replacing. The same is true of a good deal in our policy, especially that which is marked out by some of our official bodies. But this is true of every church as it is of every organized body under the sun. So our lot is not unusual. We have been having a slight debate such as periodically comes to all churches. It was about a phrase. Somebody, in a venturesome moment or an unguarded one, formulated the phrase "the New Universalism." Of course, many of the brethren liked it and talked about it and told what they conceived it to be. A good many others disliked it, were troubled by it, and began to deny the existence of any such thing. It seems too evident for disputation that there is not only such a thing as the "New Universalism," but several kinds of it; and about the only matter over which there can be any serious difference of opinion is as to the contents of the expression. As usual, when new thought is formulating, it is easier to show what it excludes than what it includes. If a "consensus" of denominational thought were taken to-day, it would probably disappoint both our extreme conservatives and our extreme radicals. The great body of our clergy and people, while they have given due heed to the thought of the times, both in philosophy and criticism, have done their thinking temperately and coolly, and have not yet been swept away by any of the freshets of theological nihilism which are so commonly mistaken for the rising tides of the coming truth. Unitarians themselves are hardly more intractable independents than Universalists, who resent with equal emphasis attempts to stampede them into heresy or to imprison them in traditionalism. Brooklyn, N.Y. JOHN COLEMAN ADAMS. TEMPERANCE NOTES. The Unitarian Temperance Society will hold a public meeting on June 2, at 7.30 o'clock in Arlington Street Church, Boston. The principal address will be given by Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant, of England. A little book has recently appeared from the pen of Mrs. Helen Campbell, entitled "Some Passages in the Practice of Dr. Martha Scarborough." It is a book written with a purpose, as are all those from this author's hand. In this the purpose is to call attention to the intimate relation existing between the problem of good food and that of intemperance. The idea is worked out in the form of a story. Simply expressed it is somewhat as follows: Many a man's and many a woman's health is undermined by excessive tea-drinking, and by living upon pies and doughnuts and highly seasoned food, or by eating food fried or spoiled in the cooking. Many a child's constitution is wrecked by similar causes. They become nervous and irritable. Or, perhaps, a craving for stimulants is thus awakened. Excessive meat-eating, the writer claims, may cause or aggravate such an appetite. Inherited tendencies may thus be aroused. Many cases of intemperance may be traced to this cause. If this is true, the reverse process, that is from a diseased condition to that of health, from intemperance to sobriety, may be thought reasonable. Good food, well cooked, especially a diet of grains, fruit, vegetables, may be expected so to build up the system and so recruit the master powers that morbid appetites will be quieted and habits of drinking overcome. The author believes the drink appetite to be a form of disease, to be treated by the physician. The treatment, however, is not to be medicine, but "new methods of living"-a "food doctor" is the kind of physician required. "Nature offers natural means of her own for any and every disease,-air, sunshine, sleep, and food being able nine times out of ten to cure, while their joint forces, understandingly used from the beginning of life, guarantee a manhood and womanhood not yet believed possible for the world, but a possession that will be the natural life of that better future of which we dream, for which we labor, and which is God's own meaning for us all." [Quoted from "Alcoholic Inebriety," by Dr. Parrish.] One of the characters in this book says: "The wives of drinking men among the poor, if they were taught wholesome, savory cookery, would find their number diminishing day by day. I don't wonder the men drink. Housed in dens, the most of them where no man would dream of keeping a decent horse, and packed into them like so many herrings, many a one has told me he waked up with the feeling of an iron band screwed about his head, and ran for his 'sup of whiskey to take away the goneness.' A bit of beef or pork, fried to a crisp, baker's bread rank with alum, and tea no less rank, boiled in a tin pot, that with a cabbage now and then, is their notion of diet. Till they are taught better, there is small hope for them. My propaganda would come from the kitchen." I am reminded by this book of Mrs. Campbell's of another called "A New View of the Temperance Question," by Edwin Reed. The purpose of this is the same, to emphasize the importance of food in the solution |