The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-11-14

because they have helped to bring
them in. Another fact which history
is demonstrating or will demonstrate
is that many leader which too
sectarian world mathematical as not
Christian will in due time stand in
the love and esteem of humanity as
truly such. Here the name of DIR.
Charming comes to me, and 1 cannot
do better than let the clear sighted
and great-souled Robertson of
Brighton speak for him: "The purest
love for man, the most unconquera-
BILE trust in human nature, seem to
have been the very basis of his being.
He was Unitarian, but that is a
very wide term, including vast va
riety of persons thinking very differ
emily on essentials. | can only say
that l should be very glad if half Of
those who recognize the hereditary
claims of the Son of God to worship,
bowed down before his moral dignity
with an alteration half as profound,
or love half as enthusiastic, as DIR.
Channing's. | wish l, a Trinitarian
loved and adored him and the divine
goodness in him. anything near the
way in which that Unitarian felt. A
religious lady found the book CDR.
Channing's 'Life) on my table few
days ago, and was horror struck. I
told her that if she and l ever got to
heaven we should find DR.. Charming
revolving round the central light in
an orbit immeasurably nearer than
ours, almost invisible to US, and
lost in blaze of light"
In spite of the undue self-deprecia-
ton in these words of the great
preacher, we cannot help feeling that
he has spoken with rare discernment,
justice, and candor. He has at least
revealed his thorough conviction that
such men as DIR. Charming are Chris
tians, and that they belong to the
one supreme spiritual order estab-
lished in heaven for mankind.
Who can doubt that this personal
union with Christ, which is manifest
throughout the whole broad course
of the history of the church, is the
basis of Christian Union?
This leads us to direct your atten-
ton in the first place to the thought
that this union we are considering
will not be attained through any
form of rationalism. Neither the
Trinity nor the Unity, embraced
merely as theological tenets, will af-
ford Christian Union. In saying this
we do not wish to be understood as
speaking single derogatory word
OF painstaking and conscientious
theology. Still it must ever be borne
in mind that there is a great gulf
fixed between theology and religion.
Theology is of man, but religion
is of God. What theology cannot do
in that it is weak. religion can do in
that it is strong. The chief value of
theology is that it demonstrates to
man his own impotence. What an
atomy is to the physical body, theol-
ogy is to the spiritual body. It is
the province of each to analyze and
to classify, but not to discover nor to
generate life.
Now it is worth while for man to
have expended the almost superhu-
man effort he has in the study of
theology, if for no other reason than
to make it forever impossible for
him to mistake his own fniteness.
He has thought as far as it is posi-
BILE for human thought to go in
certain directions, and still he has
not found God. Metaphysics can
not conduct to the spirit. God is not
revealed by searching.
But what the pure intellect can
never do, the soul can do. If thought
cannot unite men, love can. This, as
must believe, is the subtitle and SUBJ
lime meaning set forth in the lines of
one who asks:-
DO task each faculty highest to image sue
cess?
1 but open my eyes-and perfection, no more
and no less.
In the kind imagined, full fronts me, and God
is seen God.
In the star, in the stone, In the lesh in the soul
and the clod
And thus looking within and around me, ever
renew
with the stoop of the soul. which in bending
upraises it tool
The submission of mans nothing perfect, to
Gods all-complete,
And by each new obeisance in spirit, climb to
his feet"
II.
We may we'll pause here and
simply say again that Christian
Union, eternal union, God union in
the midst of humanity, can never be
L. r