In order to boil the pot of well wishers, it were good to convert our household furniture into firewood; do good even to the wicked, it is as well to shut a dog's mouth with a crumb.

Sadi.

A cross grained fellow abused a certain person; he bore it patiently and said "O well-disposed man! I am still more wicked than thou art calling me, for I know my defects better than thou cans't know them." Sadi.

"We think there is an error of an opposite kind. If the doctrines of the gospel are defended with the whole soul, passion will be exhibited, unless indeed a man has actually "attained" (as well as believed in) perfection. The truth in our day has suffered much from the tame, cold and lifeless spirit with which it has been sustained. Men fear too much their amiable and Christian temper will be called in question.

"The spirit of Paul and other Apostles, and that which animated Luther, Calvin, Knox, and the other reformers, would shock the sickly sensibilities of modern feeling; and would be denounced as wholly uncharitable and unworthy the Christian cause. Hence it is that our defenders of the faith cannot persuade a large part of the Church, much less the world, that fundamental and vital principles are involved in their discussions. They do not stand upon the walls, cry aloud, sound the alarm, and blow the trumpet, but they speak of war in "peaceful parlance." Is such a course consistent with Christian obligation to the world, and to the deceived and deluded? Ezek. 33. 8." KNOX.

"If the doctrines of the Gospel are defended with the whole soul, passion will be exhibited." We suppose the Savior defended the doctrines of the Gospel with his whole soul, and we suppose no one will venture to say that he exhibited passion in doing it. We presume therefore that passion is not a commendable thing in those who have not, like him, attained perfection. The more of that heavenly gentleness which when reviled, reviled not again, but endured the contradiction of sinners against himself, that we can attain unto, is surely desirable. As to the spirit of Luther, Calvin and Knox, we have no desire, we confess, to see it introduced again into modern controversy. Eminent reformers they were, but were too much in the habit of attacking one another, and others who differed from them, in the coarsest and bitterest terms. Blasphemers, Devils, Infidels, Apes, Atheists-these were the epithets which ran glibly off from their pen and tongue. Mr. "Knox" may call this "blowing the trumpet"-we think the cause of Christ demands a milder strain. But we pray

that the courteous and benignant spirit of Paul may not be confounded with that of these savage wranglers. He was bold in the defence of truth, and exhibited the doctrines of the Gospel with the whole soul; but we do not know that he was ever in a passion after his conversion, though before it we know he was exceedingly mad against the saints, and persecuted them even unto strange cities. On the contrary, we find in his writings, such exhortations as these "Bless and curse not"-"Recompense no man evil for evil."-"Overcome

evil with good"-"Who art thou that judgest another man's servant." "Follow after the things which make for peace." "Thou hast faith, have it to thyself."-"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you with all malice; and be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." We think even the most sickly sensibility would not denounce as uncharitable a course of conduct conformed to these injunctions. Editor.

ART. 6.-LETTERS ON UNITARIAN CHRISTIANITY.

No. III.

APRIL 29, 1837.

My dear M.-You find fault with the concluding part of my last letter, and think that I deceive myself in supposing that the majority of Episcopalians agree, substantially, with Unitarians, upon the doctrines of Original Sin, Total Depravity, Regeneration and Election; but I have taken some pains to ascertain the fact, and believe that my former assertion is correct. Perhaps you do not know the Unitarian faith upon these subjects. You have been taught to look upon us as heretics "from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot," and are naturally startled to hear it said, that in any important doctrines we agree with so Orthodox a body as the Episcopal Church. Your worthy parents used to think that there could be no better argument against a doctrine than its reception by Unitarians, and, if I do not mistake, they actually gave up several minor points because they found them defended in one of Dr. Channing's printed sermons. You do not go quite so far, but I fear that even you, if I prove that you agree in many important particulars with our sentiments, will feel as if you were unexpectedly put in very bad company. Depend upon it, my dear M. that you do us injustice. I do not blame you for this, for I know, that until our friendship began-it is now two years ago-you never heard any thing about Unitarians except from their inveterate opposers, who think that they "do God service" by branding them as wilful heresy-holders and altogether "gone astray." Such persons, however, prove noth

ART. 5. TOO MUCH CHARITY.

We have been pleased to notice of late years, the constantly increasing spirit of liberality and access of tolerance in that great and miscellaneous multitude who glory in the name of Orthodox, Evangelical, Calvinistic believers. We think the Unitarians may take, to a considerable extent, the credit of this change of spirit and opinion. Though the direct and visible results of our exertions are comparatively small-though our Churches are in most places feeble, our opinions as yet unpopular, and our name denounced-our doctrines and sentiments have been indirectly circulating over a wide surface. Our books have been studied, our writings pondered, by many who would be afraid to have it known that they ever read a Unitarian work. The sentiments thus obtained, have passed on in conversation from mind to mind, till, like the little leaven hid in three measures of meal, the whole mass now gives visible signs of its influence upon the heavy lump of Calvinism. Our opinions begin now to appear again in print in the writings of the opposite party. Views which years since were brought forward, defended, explained and illustrated by Unitarian writers, and are now trite and familiar through our whole denomination, are brought forward as novelties and elaborately argued in Calvinistic books and periodicals. For instance. In a late number of the Christian Spectator there was an article on the authority of Reason in explaining Revelation. The same arguments which years ago were stated in the Christian Examiner and which seem to us almost like truisms, are set forth with much pains and care as though they were great discoveries. Miss Beecher in her letters on the difficulties of religion, takes great trouble to show that if you want to convince a man of any truth, it is best not to abuse him or call him names, but treat him respectfully and kindly. Mr. Jacob Abbott's writings are full of Unitarian sentiments. His views of Christian union-his idea that the nearer a man is to the truth the better it is with him-his sense of the importance of charity toward those who differ from us-these are the notions which Unitarians have been preaching, and as they feared ineffectually, for many years. But not ineffectually. God takes care of his word. The river which seems to lose itself in the earth shall doubtless burst forth anew in another region. The rain which cometh down from Heaven,