mission working up a little more to its best. I think it is so with us to-day as never perhaps before; and therefore it is that I dare to speak of larger work, and to call you to take the next onward steps of power and growth. For I do believe all that the most enthusiastic can say of the mighty work that waits in this new great growing world for such a faith as that which God has showed us! But God's kingdom is to be not so much by coming as by becoming, and not by new great schemes, but by the little, onward steps of faithful, patient service.

REMARKS OF THE REV. THOMAS R. SLICER,
OF PROVIDENCE.

IN opening the discussion of the two papers on Congregationalism, Mr. Slicer said that he found himself in emphatic disagreement with certain parts of Mr. Herford's essay, and also, happily, in cordial accord with other parts. He had had large experience with a loan fund in his earlier ten years of ministry in the Methodist Church, and was in hearty agreement with Mr. Herford's proposal. But this fund should not be raised by a few persons, but by a regular contribution of the churches year by year. The Unitarian Church is the most generous church in Christendom. Some four hundred and fifty thousand dollars have been contributed to the general purposes of the Association. That makes an average of $128 per church, reckoning the churches as 350. We laud the magnificent generosity of the Methodist Church, but at one of their largest contributions the average was only $65 per church. The burden of contribution falls with us, however, upon our richest people. We work our rich men as though they were a mine warranted never to be flooded and never to give out. That is all wrong. They do not say so; their interest in Unitarian principles prevents them from saying so. If the giving could be distributed, if there could be found two hundred churches that would give an average of fifty dollars a year, there would be instantly raised ten thousand dollars for such a fund. Chaplain McCabe hit upon an admirable plan for raising such a fund. He said that there were a great many people, old men and women, in the Methodist Church, who thought there was nothing like their church. These people had a few thousand dollars invested at small interest. He persuaded many of them to let him have their money, paying them much more interest than they had been receiving. In this way he raised half a million dollars for the church extension fund.

As to union churches, Mr. Slicer did not believe in them. He thought no one who had ever had to take his turn in the use of a union church would ever vote to establish them.

With reference to the independence of the local conferences, although he believed in them and that they should be made efficient working bodies, he did not wish to see anything that should deflect the tide of influence that comes from the American Unitarian Association. He thought that should be the chief object of interest, and the local conferences subservient to it.

DISCUSSION OF RESOLUTION ON STATE

MISSIONARIES.

REV. CHARLES G. AMES, in discussing the question of appointing State missionaries, said: "I think we have never taken any action looking more definitely and practically toward doing something worth doing, than what this resolution recommends, — that is, in a general way. But when we come to try it, we shall perhaps wish the system might have been left more flexible than the definite appointment of State missionaries, or bishops, by every conference, might imply. For I have apprehensions on one point; that is, that it is going to be very difficult to find the bishops. I think it will be easier to find the money and the States where they are wanted, than to find the men who can be spared from existing work. The selfishness of the average parish is what stands in the way of there being many more parishes. Very few are willing to spare the minister they love, for the sake of the cause they ought to love a great deal more.

"A single instance shows what may be done. I knew one parish that voted to release its minister from the second service, if he would use the time for missionary work. They were willing to give up the second service for that purpose. To tell the truth, they did not greatly care for this service themselves. He went into a near-by city and hired a hall and started what has since grown into the Spring Garden Society. That society owes its existence to the aforesaid action of the Germantown Society.

"I think it important to break up the parish monopoly of ministers. I do not think a society has any right to the whole time of such a man, for instance, as James Freeman Clarke. He thinks so to, and so does his society; and so he goes a good deal, and his pulpit is supplied by other men. There is no howling or growling; and Mr. Clarke, therefore, gets a chance to be quite a travelling bishop. The same thing is true of the South Congregational Society. You hear of its pastor in various places, and sometimes in several places at the same time, on this planet, and in other parts of the solar system, for all I know.

"What is wanted is a great deal more of this. I want to break up the monopoly of the parishes. Where it can be done, we want to hire an entire man and put him into the field; but when this is not possible, I want the State or local conference to utilize the fragments of a man. We want to employ the whole missionary force there is in the Unitarian body for the good of mankind. We do not care so much for the name,

but we ought to care a great deal for the holy thing we mean. I want to see the parishes prove their willingness to share the necessary sacrifices by lending their ministers; and by putting into the hands of the American Unitarian Association the means to pay for the services of such men as are needed, and to take them whenever they are wanted. Then, if any

man in our whole body can be put to better service than where he is now, no parish or personal selfishness should stand in the way of the greatest good to the greatest number; and that means a new departure.

"I have had a bad dream. I dreamed there were one hundred and twenty apostles and disciples in Jerusalem. And they said: 'We are sitting in heavenly places; let us stay here.' And they arranged a beautiful upper room, with one hundred and twenty cushioned seats, and thought they would have a nice time singing hymns and listening to inspired speeches from the Twelve. It looked as if Christianity would never be heard of outside of Jerusalem. But presently there broke out a great persecution, a blessed persecution; for the devil outwitted himself, and the believers were scattered everywhere, preaching the word.

"I have taken my part. I advance as a persecutor of the parishes. I demand the liberation of the apostles in Boston and vicinity, and that they be sent forth to the various parts of the earth."

UNITARIAN CHURCH PLANTING: THE RIGHT SEED.

BY REV. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, D.D.

I HAVE been requested to read to you a paper on the following subject: "The Right Seed to be used in Planting Unitarian Churches."

If custom did not blind us to all wonders, we should stand amazed before the mystery of a seed. I hold two in my hand: one, we will say, is that of an apple, the other is an acorn. As I look at the two, I ask, "What is there which is so inevitably connected with one that, if I plant it, and it grows, it will certainly develop into an apple-tree, with the roots, trunk, bark, wood, leaves, flowers, fruit, and seed of an apple, and the other as necessarily into the wood, bark, leaves, flower, and fruit of an oak?" There must be something, some power, some element, some principle; but science does not detect it, the most powerful microscope will not show it, no chemical analysis will separate it. But, for tens of thousands of years, this principle of life will pass on through generations of seed, plant, and fruit, maintaining its unerring law. We call it the Law of Heredity; but that is only a phrase, it explains nothing: it is a mere statement of the mystery, not its solution. It is only saying in a new form, "To every seed its own body."

This quality of the seed was taken by Jesus as an illustration of the word. Every word is a seed, each bearing fruit after its kind. As a man sows, so shall he reap. Plant sophistry, and you reap falsehood: plant selfish and worldly axioms, and you reap a crop of corruption. Hence, the responsibility and also the opportunity of those who go forth to sow. The duty involved is not only to see where they shall sow and how they shall sow, but also what they shall sow.

The more definite and distinct the purpose of any Church, the more certainly it will grow in that direction. Vagueness is fatal in preaching. Some denominations believe that men are saved by sacraments, by being enveloped in a ritual, trained in fixed ecclesiastical habits of thought and life. They speak to the conscience awakened to its needs, and say: "Come into our Church, and we will take charge of your soul: we will put you under such influences as shall keep you safe in time and eternity. The Church, your dear mother, will watch over you and take care of you, and save you from all anxiety and all danger."

Another class of teachers insist on Orthodoxy. "Believe this creed: keep it in your mind and heart, talk of it as you rise up and sit down, as