American

interested in Unitarianism, lay services were begun here more than a year ago. As a result of his correspondence with the American Unitarian Association, and with Rev. George W. Chaney, the Unitarian Association Superintendent for the South, Mr. Chaney spent a Sunday in Richmond in June last. He has been here again lately for several weeks. Reports of decided progress may be expected soon.

Salem, Ore.-Under the two or three years' work of Rev. H. H. Brown of Brooklyn, N. Y., an elegant church building was erected a year ago, and quite a respectable "society" formed of the most reputable people of the city. The society has recently obtained the services of Rev. T. W. Haven, who is a young man of great promise. He is a son of Bishop Haven of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who died in this city several years ago, while attending one of its conferences. The prospects for acceptable and useful work by the young man are highly flattering. If all the people who are in hearty sympathy with the rational principles of Unitarianism really understood the effect and influence their support would have upon advancing liberalism to a high degree of popularity, all Unitarian societies would be at once increased tenfold. But many are indifferent, and so they allow the leaven of liberal truth to work out the slow process of "leavening the whole lump" of society and crystallized Orthodoxy.

San Diego, Cal.-After six years of fruitful labor, Rev. B. F. McDaniel resigns his charge here. Mr. McDaniel has been much more than the minister of the Unitarian church he has been a prominent citizen, and has done wonderful things in building up the schools and enlarging educational agencies. The following resolution was unanimously voted by the society:

"Resolved, That in Rev. B. F. McDaniel this church has had an able, faithful, and Christian pastor, true to every duty and earnest in every good work; that his faithful services and good work have not been confined to this church, but that he has been a public-spirited and patriotic citizen of this city. He has not only been the earnest educator of our children, but also the consoler of those in sorrow and the alleviator of those in suffering and distress. We cannot part from him without expressing to him and to his wife our continued love and affection, and it is only from the necessities of our situation that we now accept his resignation as tendered to this society."

Shelbyville, Ill.-A correspondent writes: "Mr. Douthit's congregations and Sundayschools here and at the Jordan church in the country have been better attended the past year than usual, but of the poorer classes, though a few well-to-do families have come in. It is now a year since he

gave up his paper, Our Best Words, by the aid of which he was so long able to hold the liquor interests of the community at bay, and at last shut up all the saloons of the city. But, alas! now that his paper has gone out of his hands, the saloons are back, and as bad as ever, while even his political enemies say that the saloons could not have come back if he had kept his paper.

The Findlay (Shelby County) Enterprise of January 5 contains an editorial upon Mr. Douthit's work for education and temperance, and among the poor, from which we are glad to copy a few sentences: "Rev. has done more for church

Jasper Douthit

and school in Shelbyville than any man who ever lived in that beautiful city. He has done more for the poor than will ever be credited to him on earth. He has healed many a broken heart, and worked tirelessly on, asking no remuneration but the consolation of God. He has builded for himself a name that will live with the people."

ex

St. Louis, Mo.-Dr. Snyder has changed recently with Rev. Mr. Sunderland of Ann Arbor and Rev. Mr. Fenn of Chicago.

Mr. Fenn visited our city as the guest of the Unitarian Club, before which on January 17 he read a paper on "Some Assumption of the Higher Criticism," by many of those fortunate enough to hear it considered the strongest paper presented to the club in the six years of its history. Mr. Fenn will find many admirers when he visits our city again.

Locke Richardson read under the auspices of the Junior Eliot Society "The Winter's Tale." The enterprise was in the interest of the piano fund.

Rev. E. E. Hale gives an address on the opening of the new public library on February 17. There is much interest among Unitarians. Those never having heard him anticipate great pleasure, and his old friends are eager to welcome him.

The chorus choir gave one of its delightful song services early in December: another is promised for the middle of this (February) month.

The annual meeting of pew-holders and trustees received reports on the condition of church society proper, Mission School and Home Sunday-schools, and Eliot Society. Financially, all is prosperous. The trustees signified their appreciation of the service of the pastor by an advance in his salary. The society is quite free from debt, the property in excellent repair, and a balance in the treasury. Something in the neighborhood of $18,000 was raised and disbursed by the various treasurers in 1892.

The Eliot Society (local Branch Women's Alliance) held its regular monthly meeting on the 19th. The hour set apart for literary work was occupied by a discussion on "Proportions in assigning Time to Various

duties," which proved so interesting that the topic is to be continued for the February meeting.

It is again our sad duty to note the death of one of our most promising young people. Edith Knowlton Sawyer, eldest daughter of F. O. and Nellie Sawyer, died on November 21, after a brief illness. The loss to this home of its eldest daughter can only be estimated by those who have undergone

similar trials. It will be long before her friends cease to miss her womanly, bright, and helpful presence. She had been for many years a pupil in our Sunday-school.

Dr. Snyder completed his twentieth year in this pulpit on January 1, and made that the occasion for a review of the period, in which he paid eloquent tribute to his predecessor, Dr. Eliot, and those members of that band who have made history in this city noteworthy.

Tacoma, Wash.-A Liberal Club has been established here under most favorable auspices. The first meeting for organization was held January 3 at the residence of Mr. Samuel Collyer, and January 12 as many as forty-two members sat down to dinner together. Regular meetings are to be held on the second Thursday in each month, and the annual meeting in May. Judge E. N. Parker was elected president, and W. A. Ryan secretary and treasurer. The object of the club is to discuss social and other topics from an ethical standpoint.

Ware, Mass.-The ordination and installation of Rev. Victor Emanuel Southworth as pastor of the First Unitarian Church took place December 29. Rev. Minot J. Savage preached the sermon; invocation, by Rev. N. Seaver of Millbury; Scripture reading, by Rev. George W. Kent, Worcester; ordaining prayer, by Rev. A. F. Bailey of Barre; right hand of fellowship, by Rev. D. W. Morehouse of New York; charge to the pastor, by Rev. L. W. Mason of Gloucester; address to the people, by Rev. Grindall Reynolds, secretary of the American Unitarian Association.

tyrant or bigot can conquer it. All victories over truth are sham victories,-preludes of the inevitable disaster that awaits a lie.

There are prayers that little honor those who utter them: prayers of selfishness, which others may not share; prayers of wherein the petitioner craves blessings bigotry, limiting by man-made conditions God's free grace; prayers of revenge, calling Heaven's vengeance upon earth's wrongs; idle prayers, wearisome repetition, mere air gossip; pretentious prayers, assuming to advise Omniscience; impertinent prayers, suggesting failure on the part of the Infinite; peevish prayers, complaining of the inevitable; childish prayers, pleading the impossible.

Alas for our poor praying! Were not the Father most merciful, our prayers might plead against us in the judgment.

But let us not forget that there are some prayers that lift our wicked world nearer heaven than aught else except a good deed, -which is only a good prayer in the acting. Such

are prayers of communion,—the good in man reaching up to the goodness that is above man; purity, imperfect, yet aspiring, communing with perfect holiness, -love with the upward look seeking a Father's blessing. Fragrant as flowers laden with dew are the prayers of the gentle and

pure.

And there are prayers of resignation,— sad sorrow saying, "Thy will, not mine, be done,"-broken-hearted grief crying in the darkness, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust him." Thus the soul, praying, conquers its deepest woe.

Then there is the prayer of aspiration,— that holy desire, voiced or voiceless, that the life may be right, in thought, in feeling, in purpose, that noblest of ambitions, to be good and do good, to honor every good cause and bring shame to none. This is Faith the best prayer, the most manly. the most honorable ambition we can possinever offers a more acceptable petition. As bly conceive of is to be good and do good, so the noblest prayer is one in which divine assistance is invoked to that end. thee be

"Let not them that wait on

ashamed through me, O Lord of hosts. Let not those that seek thee be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel." W. D. SIMONDS.

Battle Creek, Mich.

THE

VOL. VIII.

THE OPEN MIND.

A SERMON BY REV. CHARLES E. ST. JOHN, OF THE FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH,

PITTSBURG, PA.

"My soul looketh for the Lord more than watchmen look for the morning."-Ps. cxxx. 6.

One great object of the liberal church is to cultivate the open mind, to make people mentally watchful. Men are watchful enough when any danger threatens. When every hour of the night is liable to bring the incursion of a crafty enemy, the Oriental watchman would not miss the first gleams of the morning. The sailor who nears a rocky coast in the night keeps a sharp lookout for the first distant flash of a lighthouse, from which he may get his bearings. And the belated fisherman, pulling shoreward in the deepening night or in the gloom of an impending storm, strains his eyes to find whereaway shines the light from his home by the snug landing-place No eye so quick as his to catch that faint glimmer of safety. God bless the dear home that keeps the light!

Thus watchful are men in the face of danger, thus appreciative of discovered guides. But this trait of watchfulness is advantageous at all times, not merely for the warding off of disaster, but still more for the quick discovery of truth and the resulting increase of intelligence. There are far too many people who never think that a new day is coming, and so never watch for its dawn Whereas the fact is that new truth is always pressing in upon us like a brighter day, the fact is that the things which we do not know so far outnumber, so far exceed in glory, the present items of our knowledge that the contrast between our future and our present is like that between day and night. We know some things; but there is dawn yet to come

No. 3.

with larger knowledge and fuller life, and we must watch, must keep an open mind.

The open mind is very much misunderstood by some. It must be a strong and not a feeble thing, open not by being merely empty, but by the progressiveness of its vigorous thought. There is laid upon every man in this modern age a duty of earnest thoughtfulness. Every moment brings unforeseen possibilities of larger knowledge, and the man who will not with open mind reach out toward fresh ideas is a traitor to the best life of his time. The term agnostic awakens a great deal of needless fear and hatred, but in a true sense we are all agnostics to a very large extent. There is so much that we do not yet know!

And, if there is any point of knowledge or of faith concerning which any person does not know, he should frankly say so. But the man who is happy in his agnosticism, and lays constant stress upon what he does not know, has not an open mind. He is not merely buried in the night, but he even keeps his eyes shut. And, when bolder spirits all around are catching the bright hints of larger truth, these sealed minds hug the darkness. That is not the way of honest thought. If in anything I am ignorant, in that one thing will I be most watchful for the first opening out of the darkness into the light of approaching truth. The truly open mind, while admitting its ignorance, will not for a moment be proud of or contented with that agnosticism, but will in the same breath declare its eager wish to attain knowledge in that realm.

I cannot but distrust the earnestness of the thinker who does not lay the stress of his speech on the hope that there is truth ahead. You say you are an agnostic. That is nothing, if your mind is open. It is mental death, if your mind is shut. Even now the day is quivering in its faint lights

around you. See to it that you who need it most be not of all men the last to awake. Lay the stress on your watchfulness for new truth, not on your state of not knowing, and so preserve the open mind. A darkness as of night is around you. Many mysteries clog the processes of thought. Much inadequacy of reasoning exists in the words of every man who tries to teach. And on all hands there is deep uncertainty in regard to the future. But do not you join the cowardly band of those who sink weakly into this night. Rather watch with a ready mind for the first word of a clearer reasoning among thinkers, and the first gleam of discovery about the mysteries. The light will flash out soon. Day is always coming. And the holy joy of liberalism is that liberals are always the first to catch the new dawn. Every sincere and open-minded agnostic can be a Columbus in the mental enlargement of the scope of human life. Every man who, nobly chafing under the limitations of his present ignorance, watches for the truth that shall dawn, will be able to add a continent to the domain of what men know. Not continued ignorance, but continuous increase of knowledge, is the natural aim of brave spirits.

So we are looking, looking on toward days not yet born, looking out into the vast ness of what is undiscovered. More than watchmen look for the morning, we are looking for the first tokens of new light. We are looking with open minds for some addition to the worth of life and for steady improvement in ourselves and in the world. If you are a lawyer, you are not resting idly in your present knowledge, but are pressing on toward a profounder acquaintance with the principles of law. If you are a physician, you are daily striving to become a better one, and to get new suggestions from If you are a tradesman, you are every case. watching the business world with unremitting closeness of attention. Who knows what brilliant opportunity for profitable enterprise may suddenly appear? If you are a scholar, it is not mere memorizing of ancient history you are after. You are hourly looking for the inner meanings of life, you are bringing your soul into training, so that you can grasp broad principles, see the bearings of new ideas, and distinguish a true thought from a false one. In some way

your life shows forth these high aims and eager traits, if you have an open mind, and do not weakly fancy that you already know enough, and have probed all the depths of human life.

There are two intellectual vices which seriously interfere with openness of mind. One of them is mental indifference,—not caring to think about great topics, not caring which way the tide of politics turns, nor who governs the city, nor how the creeds are written, nor who suffers in the bonds of error. This selfish feeling that truth does not matter, this shrinking from personal responsibility concerning the condition of the world, is a very ignoble fault, and not made any less so by the fact that many of the wise and good fall into it. The man who does not care enough about any question over which the world disputes to take the trouble to make up his mind about it is, to say the least, a cipher in the best life of his time. When a United States senator repeatedly avoids voting on so important a matter as the silver question, and, lest he should displease some voters, tries to make it appear that he has not made up his mind about it, or is ready to favor whichever side it is that wins, that man dooms himself to early obscurity. The world wants statemen who have positive convictions. In this strenuous age no man leads save he who has a mind of his own, and dares to express it. The men of decided opinions, the men who take a close interest in all that concerns humanity, are the ones that have an influence among us. And the rushing stream of life leaves stranded on the muddy bank of the past the souls that have no opinion, no fine ambitions, no banners to fight for. No open mind is ever indifferent toward the thought of the day or the new and larger truth.

The other vice which destroys openness of mind is that of complete intellectual self-satisfaction, the feeling that you know the whole truth in any matter. When one holds that all religious truth is stated in the creed of his church, he sets up a barrier between himself and any larger knowledge of God. When he believes that any one book can be an infallible authority for faith, he closes his mind to all the later discoveries of earnest seekers after truth, and so ceases to be watchful for the fresh revelations that

are ever coming into the world. If you think that your present ideas must remain unchanged forever, straightway you become a bigot, and join the persecutors who have long tried to suppress the open mind. Conservatives are most exposed to this fault, but even liberals sometimes fall into it by the very eagerness of their liberalism. To be rigidly certain that some things never can be known is as foreign to true openness of mind as to be sure that you already have the whole truth.

Avoiding, then, these two causes of spiritual narrowness, we look out into the realms beyond our present mental state, and find that what we now know compares with what is yet to be learned about as the spot where I now stand compares with the boundless sweep of space reaching out to infinity in every direction. My eyes can see only a limited distance. I can distinguish objects for a few miles around, but beyond that all things fade into the dim horizon. Shall I say that beyond that horizon there is no beauty, no life? Shall I say that beyond my present knowledge there is no truth? Or shall I grasp the invigorating thought that there is no end to truth? This idea of eternal truth need not discourage any one. It should come to you as a blessed inspiration to constant thoughtfulness. Who will not be on the watch for truth, when he feels that the horizon may at any moment open to its bright inroads? Truth is not for the rich or the fortunate or the highly-educated alone. It gleams all around us. It is the very substance of the future into which we steadily advance, and it is given to every open mind. Truth fills earth and air and all the expanse of matter. It is the very essence of all spiritual being. And every one who tries to live nobly must abide in truth. In fact, nothing else is so easily accessible, so all-pervading, as truth; and they who look must find it.

But, in order to avail ourselves of this blessing, we must have great docility of mind. We must remember that we are to be always learners, that there never comes a graduation day in the school of life. There

never will come a time when a man can say: "This, and nothing more, is the science of geology." "This is the final step of being a Christian." "This is all there is to human duty." For one acquisition of knowledge

merely makes it possible for you to reach on toward a still larger thought. Our minds can enter this splendid growth, provided we hold ourselves entirely free from prejudices. We must be willing to learn from any quarter; must live in fraternity with every race of men; must not despise the Chinese, the Indian, or the negro. We must not scorn another religious ceremonial nor another sect than our own, for all such intolerance is failure to keep the open mind.

And now having the open mind, the mind free from prejudices, tolerant, kindly, hopeful, and observant, what shall we do with it? It seems to me that it is not enough merely to be willing that there should be truth outside of our own circle, but that openness of mind involves a duty of active search on our part for the new truth we talk about. We ought to be watchmen in all concerns of the mind, lookers for light who are so enthusiastic at the thought of what is yet to be known that we search with all our might. And, when we are faithful to this duty of the spirit, we have entered into what is, either consciously or unconsciously, a religious life. I have heard men use the word "religious" as if it meant something superstitious or unprogressive. But I understand by a religious life one that is earnestly striving to put itself in harmony with all that is perfect around it. And to my idea he is the most reverent man who is the most eager to rise out of all narrowness into larger knowledge. To watch for the coming day, to believe that there is limitless truth yet to be found out, to wish to be a part of the best life of the future,-is not this reverence? I think it is. I think that any sincere expression of such desires is prayer. And I think that a moment's dwelling upon this conception of an eternal truth on before us lifts one straight into a thought of God.

When the open mind of to-day bends eagerly toward the growing truth, he is doing exactly what the Psalmist did in "looking for the Lord more than watchmen look for the morning." Our search for truth is religious faith; and the only difference between the ancient Psalm writer and ourselves is that we have greater definiteness in our search. Our idea of God is broader, larger, richer, than the primitive world had; and our search is guided by that nobler,