the audience has a very shallow capacity for reception. A sensible minister speaks once a week on the greatest of all themes, and he is expected to put what he has to say into the compass of a newspaper paragraph! If he knows his work, and is fit for it, he undertakes to treat some great question touching thought, belief, conduct, and destiny. And it is simply thoughtless nonsense to say that any man can often do this adequately within the limits of twenty minutes. If a man preaches so poorly that the less you hear of him the better, then do not stop at twenty, but say five minutes or none at all. But, if you believe him competent to say anything and you wish to hear him, then trust him to know when he has said what he regards as needed to complete a proper treatment of his theme.

“Then, the preacher of the old theology may fairly assume that his audience is familiar with his general scheme: he only needs to make the applications. But he who holds to the modern theory of the universe must not only make practical applications: he must prepare the way for his applications by a world of careful and systematic teaching concerning the new conceptions of the world, of God, and of man, out of which his practical precepts spring. And all this asks for time. It is not enough to tell people briefly to be good: you must tell them what goodness is, and why.

"It is indeed true that the length of a sermon does not consist entirely in the minutes consumed in its delivery. I have heard men speak what seemed an hour and a half in fifteen minutes, and I have heard all I wanted to in less than that time. And they were not always ministers either. And, on the other hand, I have heard a few men speak an hour and a half, and still wished them to go on. It is then a matter of interest, and not of time.

"If one can sit three hours at a theatre or concert, but finds himself bored by an hour and a half in church, it simply means that he does not care for the church. The reason of this may be the stupidity or lack of intelligence of the minister; or, on the other hand,

it may be the stupidity or lack of intelligence, or lack of religious interest of the hearer. A good musician may be bored at a poor concert; but it is equally true that a poor musician may be bored at a good concert."

DOES THE WEST WANT A CHRISTIAN UNITARIANISM?

In closing a recent letter to the Christian Register, Rev. George Batchelor, the Western agent of the American Unitarian Association, answers the above question, in the light of the knowledge which he has gathered from his six months' study of the condition and needs of the West. What he says seems to us so candid and true that we quote:

"Underneath the busy-ness of the West there is a vein of tenderness and a deep hunger for the things of the spirit, and he who can most easily draw from the eternal sources will have most solid success. There is a crowd which runs with a whoop and a hurrah after novelties. There is a set of hardened intellectual speculators whom no spiritual influences can for the present touch. But there is a great multitude who need and desire to live in the things of the spirit, and with competent leadership will do so.

"As to Christianity, there are a few men and women who intelligently decline both the name and the thing. Time spent with them is for the most part, at present, time wasted. There are many more who decline the name through ignorance of the thing. To them, it is a surprise of gladness to find that any blossom and fruit of Christianity can be so sweet and wholesome as that which our Church has to offer. To go to them holding the name behind our backs is to add a little to their confusion of thought. What they need, and what they welcome when it comes, is the assurance and proof that the great religion which, for good or for evil, is interwoven with modern civilization, and must make or mar its fortunes, has possibilities of humaneness, liberty, inspiration, and universal brotherhood such as nowhere else have place and power in modern life. More than ever am I confirmed in the belief that life, health, and a future for

our Western churches are involved in our ability to see what the best things of modern Christianity are, and to work them into the life of the people. AntiChristianity and extra-Christianity have no deep hold anywhere upon the promising elements of the social life of the West, as I see it, and are to have little place in our plans. Were there any beautiful ideal in contrast or any new rising star of religion to be seen over against Christianity, the case would be different. But the alternative commonly is suspense of faith. If they find no ground for optimism in Christianity, the alternative is pessimism everywhere. This is the general rule, with notable and noble exceptions."

THE WESTERN POLICY OF THE A. U. A. AGAIN.

We wish to follow what we said last month, regarding the Western Policy of the American Unitarian Association, with a somewhat more full and explicit statement of our thought upon the same. A little more than a year ago the Association, troubled by the fact that the Western Conference had put itself out of line with the national organization. sent a committee consisting of its Secretary and four other members of its Board of Directors, to Chicago, to confer with the directors of the Western Conference, to see if some basis could not be discovered upon which the two bodies could work together again as of old. A long consultation was held in the parlors of the Tremont House, during which the A. U. A. directors put to the Western Conference directors this question: "If, while maintaining unequivocally that their fellowship is bounded by no dogmatic test, they could not with equal distinctness affirm that the Conference, so far as it undertook missionary work, and the work of church extension, would do so on the basis of Christian Theism. A majority of the directors of the Conference, on their part, replied that they could not conscientiously make such affirmation." The A. U. A. committee therefore were compelled to go home without having accomplished anything, only they had found out for themselves

what they had been loth to believe, that the Western Conference leaders would not consent that the Conference should do its work, even its distinctly missionary and church extension work, on any basis but a purely ethical one.

With some slight hope that the Western Conference itself, at its annual meeting, might be willing to entertain favorably the proposition of the A. U. A., even though its directors had declined to do so, the Executive Committee of the Western Association, a few weeks after the western visit of the A. U. A. committee, prepared and printed an address to the Western Conference itself, and submitted the same to that body at its annual meeting in Chicago (May of last year), repeating in the address the proposition of the A. U. A., and urging its acceptance by the Conference as something which would restore harmony in the West as well as between the Western Conference and the A. U. A. But the Conference refused even to consider the proposition (much less to accept it), on the ground that the matter had been settled once for all at Cincinnati.

This, then, is the position now occupied by the Western Conference. At Cincinnati it voted definitely upon the question of whether it would or would not work upon the same basis with the A. U. A.-"pure Christianity," or "love to God and man"-and decided in the negative. In the interview of the subsequent March (which we have just described), between its directors and the committee from the A. U. A. who came to Chicago on purpose to ask the question offically, its directors took their stand firmly upon the Cincinnati decision; and the Conference itself at its next annual meeting (Chicago, 1887) did the same.

Under these circumstances what course is open for the A. U. A. in the West? Of course it is possible that the Conference, under the leadership of its more broad-minded men, may still, at its meeting to be held in Chicago this month, decide to reconsider its dividing and unhappy action, and put itself once more upon a really Unitarian basis. In

that case the difficulty before the A. U. A. will be removed, and the old co-operation between the national and the western bodies can be restored. This, however, is by no means probable,-indeed, since the very recent utterances of Mr. Gannett and Mr. Jones in Unity (March 3 and April 14), it is practically certain that nothing of this kind will

occur.

The western problem, therefore, may be regarded as definitely before the A. U. A. The postponement of it for a year, and then for a second year, has had no effect to solve the problem. It

has, however, shown the desire of the A. U. A. to act with great deliberation, candor and justice, and to take no step without the fullest light. But plainly the point is reached now where whatever light there was to be got on Western matters has been obtained. Much longer postponement, therefore, is out of the question, unless the A. U. A. is prepared virtually to surrender the West, so far as its organic work is concerned, into the hands of the Western Conference, to be molded and shaped on the basis of the ethical ideal.

But this of course the A. U. A. cannot do, for at least two reasons. 1. Such a surrender on the part of the A. U. A. would forfeit its claim to be a national organization. As our national missionary organization it is western as much as eastern, the west has a part in it as much as has the east. It has no power, therefore, to withdraw from or to surrender the directing management in a vast section of the country where sixty of its churches now are, and where, at no distant day, a majority of the Unitarian churches of the country may be expected to be. To do that would be to commit suicide as a national organization. 2. The West has claims upon it which cannot be ignored. As Mr. Batchelor points out, the west is in heart Christian. The very large majority of our people earnestly believe in, and want to work under, the banner of, God's Fatherhood and Man's Brotherhood. But those who reject this banner have got the leading organizations in the west into their hands. What, there

fore, is left for the Western Christian party, only to look to the A. U. A.? Around its leadership they can rally, and will rally strongly if given an opportunity. But as things are now they have no other leadership around which to rally.

But how can the A. U. A. get and hold the leadership in the West which the majority of Western Unitarians really desire, and without which the Western Christian forces must remain scattered, disorganized, overshadowed by ethicalism, misunderstood, more or less discouraged, unable to do their best work in any direction?

For the A. U. A. to accomplish this end several things seem indispensable: 1. It must have a permanent agent (better if he be called the "Western Secretary" of the A. U. A.) in the west;

a wise man, a trusted man, a strong man, to have charge of the A. U. A.'s and the Building Loan Fund's growing business interests in the west, but especially to attend, and to represent the the national organization at, every local conference, convention, dedication, installation or other important meeting held in the west; and to visit as often as possible all the western churches, to carry them the greeting of the denomination, to counsel with and encourage them, to inform them of the plans and work and hopes of the national missionary organization, and to secure their sympathy and, so far as possible, their contributions, even if only to the extent of a few dollars. This work carried out patiently, persistently, in a broad spirit, and with strength, year after year, would be invaluable; it would help the west, and strengthen the A. U. A. in the west, immensely.

2. But this is not enough; indeed the effectiveness of all this would depend largely upon something else. The A. U. A. should have, must have if it is to accomplish much, a permanent western headquarters; and that headquarters must be in Chicago. Chicago is the key, the strategic point, the center of influence in the west. Whoever holds Chicago strongly, holds the west. It is idle to think that we can build up Christian

Unitarianism in the west, in anything but a scattered and feeble way, with the metropolis of the west, and the powerful forces for molding sentiment and creating influence in the west which naturally mass themselves there, in the hands of the ethical party. The Western Conference leaders well understand the importance of Chicago, and hence for several years they have been doing all in their power to strengthen themselves at that central point. It is announced that the anniversaries of the Conference and its allied organizations are to be held again this year in Chicago, "in obedience," as Unity of April 14th says, "to a slowly growing conviction and a steadily forming policy of making Chicago the regular western Jerusalem of our cause." This is wisdom. Will the A. U. A. and its friends in the west have equal wisdom?

Already the ethical party have their weekly paper published in Chicago; there, too, are their book and tract publishing interests; their headquarters' rooms, for a meeting place and rendezvous for the city and for persons coming to the city; their Western Conference, reaching out through its secretary and treasurer into as many as possible of the western churches; the Woman's Conference, reaching out into the churches from a different side; the Sunday-school Society, in communication with the Sunday-schools of the west; a book and tract depository; a Postoffice Mission headquarters; and a Conference Secretary who keeps his office in Chicago, and goes out from there constantly to visit churches, attend local conferences and other meetings, and do what he can to mold the west after the ethical pattern.

With western ethicalism thus organized and sleeplessly at work, and making Chicago a center for the propagation of its thought throughout the west, in all the ways mentioned, what can Christian Unitarianism in the west do, so long as it remains unorganized, with no center, and no unity of effort? It has strength enough,-far more than ethicalism has,-if only it had a headquarters, leadership, concentration, one

ness of plan and effort. But without these it is powerless. What should be done?

In our judgment, nothing is so important as that our national missionary organization, whose missionary interests in the west are so large, and which is the natural rallying center of our western churches, should, as is its right, and as our western churches desire, take quiet but strong leadership in the west. To do this it must do more than simply keep an agent in the west, in the saddle. That is of some value, doubtless; but that alone can never accomplish the unifying, consolidating work which needs above everything to be done. For that to be accomplished there must be not only a western representative of the A. U. A., somewhere, but there must be one in Chicago; the A. U. A. must thoroughly identify itself with the west by establishing a permanent headquarters in its great central city. At that center its tracts and books must be kept to supply the west; at that center its representative must be able to be found; from that center he must go forth to visit the western churches and local conferences; from that center his appeals to the western churches must go out. Then the work of reconstruction will commence in the west. Then confidence will begin to be restored. Then our work in the west will begin again to take on the appearance of unity and strength.

Of course it is to be expected that this course, or any other that does not surrender the west absolutely to ethicalism, will be criticised by the ethical party. Nevertheless, this course will disarm criticism sooner than any other, because it is so straightforward, self-respecting, natural, reasonable. If the A. U. A. could have seen its way to the adoption of such a course two years ago, when the trouble in the west began, and when everybody, even the ethical men themselves, supposed this course would be adopted, we believe the worst of our difficulties would now have been over.

3. Besides appointing a permanent Western Secretary, and establishing a permanent western headquarters of its own in Chicago, the A. U. A. may well

take two or three other steps. One is that of carrying out systematically, year by year, the plan entered upon tentatively this spring, of holding conventions in various parts of the west, conducted by the Western Secretary and the General Secretary of the A. U. A. with such help as they may see fit to employ. The meetings held this year have unquestionably done good, both in a missionary way, and in drawing to gether and strengthening all our Unitarian forces in the west that are not definitely committed to ethicalism. The same good effects we are sure will appear if similar meetings can be held in coming years.

4. We are of the opinion that a Western Advisory Board may wisely be chosen by the A. U. A., consisting of prominent Unitarians in the west, ministerial and lay, in sympathy with the aims of the A. U. A., to be in constant advisement with, and to assist by their counsel both the Western Secretary and the A. U. A. Board in their deliberations and plans regarding the western work. This Western Advisory Board might well include either the presidents or the secretaries of the various local conferences of the west, as well as the missionaries of the A. U. A. at work in the western field. The deliberations of such a board would greatly strengthen the hands of the A. U. A. as well as add to the unity and efficiency of its western operations.

Other suggestions might be made, but these are enough.

We are perfectly well aware that the way forward for the A. U. A. which we have indicated, is not without stones. But there is no path it can choose that is entirely smooth. We believe, however, this is the one that will be found to have fewest obstacles. Indeed, we believe it is the only one that will not lead to serious disaster.

It may be thought by some that the clearest and least troublesome way is to stand aside and let the west go. But to take this course would be a sorry confession of weakness, not to say cowardice and faithlessness. Nor could such an attempt do anything but lead to worse

trouble still. As we have pointed out, for the A. U. A. to abandon the west would be for it to destroy itself as a national organization. Moreover, western Christian Unitarianism could not consent to be thus abandoned by a body that it had trusted and had a right to trust. Nor would the Christian Unitarianism of the east for a moment consent to the faithlessness of such an abandonment. To suggest it is to suggest a course that could lead to no ultimate result expect that of dividing the denomination, both west and east, in the most unnecessary and harmful way.

No, the west must not be abandoned by the A. U. A., but must be held for that broad Christian Unitarianism to which the Christian money and labor of fifty years have consecrated it, which still at heart it believes in and wants, and to which with wisdom, patience and courage, it easily can be held.

Let no one say that we advise the A. U. A. to open war upon the Western Conference. On the contrary, we distinctly and earnestly wish the A. U. A. to have no controversy or collision with the Western Conference whatever. Any conflict between the two we shall greatly deprecate. The course we urge contemplates none; indeed, it distinctly proposes the avoidance of controversies of all kinds. Our thought is, for the A. U. A. to go forward to plan and to do its work in the west by constructive methods and in a broad and hospitable spirit, but with independence, and selfrespect, and fidelity to its constitution and its trusts as a Christian body; treating the Western Conference and its representatives and members with courtesy always, affiliating and co-operating with them as far as it can without compromising itself, and holding itself ever ready for full co-operation as soon as the Western Conference sees fit to return to a basis which makes such full co-operation possible, but not forgetting that it (the A. U. A.) is the older and the larger body, with pecuniary and missionary interests in the west which began before the Conference had any existence, and have been growing and strengthening ever since. We believe