traitant du larcin, avec défense à eux de plus enseigner une telle doctrine, sur peine de la vie."

With this singular reductio ad absurdum I take leave of the doctrine of "intention," and can only briefly refer to a single other point which is eminently characteristic of the system attacked in these Letters.

I have said that the object of the Pères Jésuites was to retain within the communion of the Church those to whom its duties and its restraints were alike burthensome. With this view, not only were the obligations of morality most arbitrarily relaxed, but the claims of religion were reduced to what may fairly be described as a vanishing point. All that could be required of a courtier or fine lady engrossed in the affairs of a very secular and not very pure life would be to salute the Blessed Virgin daily with the simple greeting, "Bon matin," "Bon soir," or, if this effort of memory should prove too considerable, the words might be engraved upon a bracelet or a locket, which would "speak for itself." And, if it should still be thought necessary to hear Mass, the process might be shortened and the effort lightened by the simple expedient of attending some great church, as that of Notre Dame, where four Masses, we will say, were going on at the same time, each priest reciting a different portion, so that the whole might be accomplished in a quarter of the time. But I must desist. Fascinating as is the subject, I must remember that I am writing not an essay, but only a few notes. "Fungar vice cotis, acutum reddere quæ ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secundi." And, therefore, I must omit the interesting defence which Pascal offers of the use of irony in sacred topics; nor may I dwell upon his indignant repudiation of the charges so freely brought by his opponents against the pure and self-denying lives of his friends at Port Royal. Yet, perhaps, we do some service to our age if we draw attention to the wretched consequences which inevitably follow from such cowardly trifling with the foundations of morals or with the supreme obligations of personal religion.

It remains to add that by the confession of the first French critics the Provincial Letters did more than any other composition to fix the French language. On this

point the suffrages of all the most competent judges of Voltaire and Bossuet, D'Alembert and Condorcet-are unanimous. "Not a single word occurs," says Voltaire, "partaking of that vicissitude to which living languages are so subject. Here, then, we may fix the epoch when our language may be said to have assumed a settled form." "The French language," says D'Alembert, "was very far from being formed, as we may judge from the greater part of the works published at that time, and of which it is impossible to endure the reading. In the Provincial Letters there is not a single word that has become obsolete; and that book, though written above a century ago, seems as if it had been written but yesterday." A thoroughly qualified English authority, Prof. Henry Rogers, pronounces this judgment: "As these Letters were the first model of French prose, so they still remain the objects of unqualified admiration. The writings of Pascal have, indeed, a paradoxical destiny. 'Flourishing in immortal youth,' all that time can do is to superadd to the charms of perpetual beauty the veneration which belongs to age. His style cannot grow old."

Boileau's admiration for Pascal was unbounded. He declared the Provincial Letters to be the best work in the French language. Madame de Sévigné, in her letters, narrates a whimsical scene that took place between him and some Jesuits. Their conversation turned on literary subjects, when Boileau declared that there was only one modern book to be compared to the works of the ancients. Bourdaloue en

treated him to name it. Boileau evaded the request. "You have read it more than once, I am sure," he said, "but do not ask me its name." The Jesuit insisted; and Boileau at last, taking him by the arm, exclaimed: "You are determined to have it, Father. Well, it is Pascal." "Morbleu! Pascal!" cried Bourdaloue, astonished. "Yes, certainly Pascal is as well written as anything false can be." "False!" exclaimed Boileau. "False! Know that he is as true as he is inimitable." On another occasion the Jesuit already named, Father Bouhours, consulted Boileau as to what books he ought to study as models for style. "There is but one," said Boileau. "Read the Provincial Letters, and, believe me, that will suffice." Voltaire

expresses the same opinion. He calls Pascal the great satirist of France, and says of the Letters that Molière's best comedies do not excel them in wit, nor the compositions of Bossuet in sublimity.

S. FLETCHER WILLIAMS.

Scarborough, Eng.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Thy fine face and twinkling eye
Will my lines with wit supply;
All I lack thy name bestows,
Mystic music from it flows,
As what time pied piper blew,
Children near and far he drew,
But wise men and children twain
Follow thy enchanting strain,
Through the town and o'er the lea,
Lost in love's wild ecstasy!

Nature, from her finished plan,
Fashioned thee a noble man:
Poet, scholar, leech, and wit
Fortune found thy mould would fit.
Thus her varied gifts we see
All combined as one in thee!
Small of form, but large of heart;
Great of mind, so swift to dart
Like a swallow on the wing,
When thy mirthful soul would sing!
We have heard thy rippling lay
Breathing wisdom many a day,-
Heard, and still desire to hear,
Its perfections many a year!
Memory tells thy numbers o'er
As a child its fairy lore;
Hymn and song and lyric fine
Touch thy harp with notes divine;
Speech, romance, and chatty pen
Tell thy story unto men!
Let me the small sailor know,
Ship of pearl that blest thee so;
May the lesson long abide,
Inspiration thee supplied;
May my soul enlarge to be
Brotherhood of soul to thee!
Thou our genial, jovial friend,
Honors crown thee to the end,
Blessings follow through the gleam
Of our love's immortal dream,
Where the saintly souls are blest,
Thy companions long confest,
Singers God as angels sent,
Cheering us in banishment;
Thou with them a power shalt be,
Torch of truth and poesy,
For the teacher keeps his place
Till the dying of the race,
Shedding brightest beams afar,
Like the glowing of a star:
So thy star shall burn and glow,
So thy countrymen shall know
Thee for generations long,
Golden star of sweetest song!
WILLIAM BRUNTON.

Malden, Mass.

WAS JESUS "NOTHING BUT A

? י MAN

While the Orthodox doctrine about Christ emphasizes his divinity, the Unitarian doctrine emphasizes his humanity, and thus brings him, as we believe, nearer to man, and makes him more really a help to our human life. But, one will ask, was he nothing but a man? O my friends who ask such a question, can you hold that man was made in the image of God, that he is our Father, and that we are his children, and then say "nothing but a man," as if it were but a mean thing to be a man? a mean thing to be made in the image of God? a mean thing to be the child of God? It is a most pernicious thing to think so meanly of our humanity, as if it were incapable of rising to any high estate or of attaining anything really good; pernicious, because it cuts the roots of faith in ourselves ever becoming better than we are except through some miraculous aid. And it does great dishonor to God thus to slight his workmanship, and to speak of it or think of it as though it were utterly evil.

Those who still hold that humanity is totally depraved, and that there is no good in it except what comes from the outside, will of course be unwilling to class Christ as a man. But those who hold that humanity is capable of the highest possibilities will not feel that Christ is dishonored by such a classification. On this latter ground Unitarians, and others of the liberal faith, stand. We believe that there is something of divinity in every man, or else God is not our Father. We believe in the divinity, to a greater or less degree, of every man. We recognize that this divinity is often cast under a cloud, and sometimes almost wholly obscured by the sin which corrupts humanity so much. We shut our eyes to nothing of the evil that any see in man. And yet we believe that all these things are not his true nature, but that he is the truest specimen of manhood who gives the divinity in him the fullest growth.

We believe that the fullest growth of divinity in man, the fullest measure of divinity that has ever been attained in a human life, was realized in the person of Jesus. And, if any wish to speak of Christ as divine to a special degree, we do not object

so long as they do not try to place him upon such a plane as will remove him from ourselves, or make his nature different from our own in any way, except that he realized its privileges more fully than we have done. We look upon Jesus as an example of the highest perfection humanity has ever reached, humanity expressed in its highest terms, and yet a man. We look upon him as the most perfect flower that has ever sprung from our common clay, and yet as thoroughly human. And we dare not say that there can ever again arise one who shall manifest the love of God, or do the will of God, as perfectly as Jesus did. Indeed, when Paul says, “Till we attain unto ... a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," he seems to mean that it is the destiny of us all to reach the standard that his life has set for us. Nor are we bold enough to limit the power of God by saying that there can never be a time, in the far distant future, after humanity shall have advanced many a stage beyond all that it now has realized, in which God shall be able to raise up one who shall point his children on to ideals which as yet, even in the sublime character of Jesus, are not realized or imagined. I say this, too, in a feeling of the deepest reverence for the person of Jesus, and in the persuasion that he has set up for humanity a standard that men must strive toward for ages yet to come before they have begun to attain its fulness.

Do we believe that Christ was the Son of God? Yes: if there be thought to be any advantage in still using a phrase which theologians have abused for a thousand years, into which they have put meanings both unscriptural and untrue, and which is still liable to be misunderstood whenever it is uttered, then we will use the phrase, and say that we believe that Christ was the Son of God. But we wish it to be clearly understood that, if Unitarians are heard to use that phrase, they do not mean by it to assert the deity of Christ. We believe that all men are the sons of God. We imply this in the first two words of the Lord's Prayer. We find that this is the teaching of the New Testament. Any concordance will show that there are nearly a score of places in which others than Jesus are called " sons Eph. iv. 13.

Many of

of God," or "children of God."* us, alas! are unworthy sons; many of us are little enough like our heavenly Father; but yet, if we believe in the fatherhood of God, we must also believe in the sonship of man. We gladly allow that the character of Jesus was such as to entitle him to be called, more truly than others, the Son of God; and we have no desire to say, as some do say, that he was no better than many men of to-day, or no better than Confucius, or Buddha, or Socrates, or Epictetus, or other great and holy ones in the world's history. We believe that the records which remain to us of his life, and the influence his character has had upon the world, are such as to compel the judgment that he exceeds all others in those elements that make man God-like. But, if we say that Christ was the Son of God, we are very far from saying that Christ was God. We simply say he became what every man ought to become, and might become by opening his nature to the will of God, as Jesus did, and what every man will become, exactly according to the proportion by which he follows the footsteps of Jesus.

And we believe that this view of Christ, when reverently held, is many-fold more helpful to poor suffering, sinful humanity than the one which makes him very God, as well as very man. If Jesus, as a purely human being, having a nature like our own, a nature with no greater possibilities than the nature of every man contains, was able to live the kind of life that he did, was able to let the divine within him develop till it ruled his whole nature, and was able to realize a life untouched by temptation an unsoiled by sin, then there is inspiratio and hope for you and me, that we, men like himself, may, if we will use the means that he used, reach the results that he reached. His life gives men the testimony of an actual experience that it is possible for a man to become fully worthy of the name "Son of God." His example shows men how they, too, may become divine. If men Jesus lived. But if Jesus was not only very will pray as Jesus prayed, they may live as Man, but also very God, then he lived in vain for us, his life gives us no help. That a God-man should live in the world, and

* Matt. v. 9; John i. 12; Rom. viii. 14; Gal. iii. 26; John iii. 1, etc.

tagonistic, but supplementary, to their own work. In many cases, the sympathy of the writers has been shown by signing and returning the pledge. The Brotherhood already includes among its members clergymen of all shades of belief, college presidents and professors, editors, scientists, and men and women of all varieties of opinion, in the churches and out of them.

This history is not surprising when we consider the present condition of the Christian world. The Church is being aroused to a new sense of its duty and responsibility in elevating and Christianizing the masses of the people. This at once brings into prominence the immense waste of power which results from the present system of divided efforts. It thus becomes evident that the paramount duty of the hour is to bring the churches, and not the churches only, but all humanitarian agencies, into united and harmonious action. The Brotherhood of Christian Unity proposes a feasible plan for accomplishing this result. Its pledge furnishes a platform upon which all churches and all organizations or individuals who wish to carry out the spirit of Christianity can unite. The teachings of Christ embody everything that is good and practical and helpful in the ethical socities, the theosophical societies, and all organizations and fraternities having in view the public good. The Church ought, therefore, to be the sustaining power beneath every form of philanthropic effort. The Brotherhood is not, in reality, a new organization. It is merely an aid to all other organizations. Wherever there is to be united effort, there must be some basis of union. The various existing organizations cannot combine for practical work without some orderly method of combination, such as the Brotherhood supplies. No complex machinery is necessary to this

end.

A central committee in each place will be sufficient. Through this medium, diffused effort may be transformed into concentrated effort. Force that is now wasted will be economized. The combined Christian element in any community will be like a giant dynamo from which all spiritual force will proceed, and the proper share of the electric current will be directed in every channel, according to its need.

A gratifying feature of the movement is its evident mission to the unchurched.

Many non-church members have signed the pledge; and the gratitude they express at the opportunity afforded them of declaring themselves on the Lord's side, without subscribing to a formidable creed, is sometimes very touching. This side of the work seems likely to be a very important part of the movement. An eminent scientist, in signing the pledge, writes: "It seems to me that the plan ought to enlist the support of many who find the churchly limits of creed too much restricted, yet who would gladly sign your pledge. Among these I believe there are many of the scientific men of this country who have found much annoyance in the attitude of the churches toward their efforts in the search for truth."

The inauguration of the Brotherhood in any community is very simple. Wherever two or three are gathered in Christ's name, he will be with them, and the work may begin. Those who become interested should at once form themselves into a committee to secure concert of action. One of the first steps should be to prepare for a union meeting. Pastors, and all classes of Christian workers, should be consulted, and every care taken to make the movement as general as possible. If desired, I am willing to go to any place, within practicable distance of New York, to address a meeting.

The work of the Brotherhood is so multifarious that the different forms of possible operation can only be suggested:

1. To induce non-church members to sign the pledge as a first step toward or into the kingdom of Christ.

2. To lead church members to sign it as a means of breaking down ecclesiastical barriers.

3. To help and encourage each other in carrying out the spirit of the pledge, thus substituting love and sympathy for the class and caste distinctions which are now too common in the churches.

4. To serve as a medium for united effort among the churches.

5. To assist other organizations, such as the Evangelical Alliance, Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations, Working girls' Clubs, etc.

6. To circulate literature for the promotion of Christian Unity.

East Orange, N J.

THEODORE F. SEWARD.