I make no apology, my hearers, for having taken up your time with this subject, though I confess it is by no means an agreeable one. It is not often that I think it necessary to ask your attention to the passing topics of the day, but these are matters which must interest all whom Christianity itself interests. The evils on which I have taken occasion to comment, as they have their root and origin in certain gross misconceptions of Christianity, are curable only by the exhibition of Christianity as it truly is; and it is every Christian's duty to make such a stand as his position and opportunities enable him, for that SPIRITUAL EQUALITY which is our religion's crowning glory. I would that we should all learn to look at these things, and at others of a like nature which may follow in their train, not with the listless unconcern of mere spectators-if we understand and feel our religion, we cannot be mere spectators-nor again, with the eager, worldly interest of mere politicians or mere dissenters, but as Christians; with a Christian concern for the equal spiritual rights of every human being, and a Christian zeal for the assertion and protection of those rights by every means, legal and moral, that Providence has entrusted to our stewardship. The contest now going forward in the religious world is not a mere contest of party with party, or

sect with sect, or creed with creed,--though we are all too apt to make it such; it is a contest of the simplest practical principles of our common Christianity, with some enormous practical perversions of them,—a contest of the noblest rights of man with his worst wrongs,a contest of the principle that gave us our Protestantism, with the principle that built the Inquisition: the question is, whether the human mind shall go on, or stand still; whether Religion shall be the common right of all, or the monopoly of a few, the peculium of priests, or the inheritance of a people; whether we are to be all equal in brotherhood, as Christ left us, or whether Scribes and Pharisees who tell us that they sit in Moses' seat, shall bind on us what burdens they will.

On such a contest no good man can look with indifference; no Christian church can look on it with indifference, for it goes to the very root of the principles on which all churchunion rests. It is our privilege, my brethren, to be united together upon principles which, whatever our practical forgetfulness of them, involve not one single breach of the spiritual rights of man. We call no man Rabbi. give no man the lordship over our faith. We are equal among ourselves, we are equal as regards other churches and other sects. We do not borrow our opinions, we do not borrow

We

our modes of worship, from our fellow-creatures, though it is matter of rejoicing with us that the opinions we deem to be rational, and the worship we feel to be spiritual, are participated in by many Christians and Christian churches, with whom we count it a happiness to be associated in the fellowship of a common faith. But we recognize no right in a sect, or in the leaders of a sect, to think for us; we arrogate no right to think for others.We are free and equal among ourselves. You ascribe not to your ministers any official, artificial sanctity-you give them not one iota of authority, temporal or spiritual. I trust you never will. But you give us more. You give us freedom. You give us the free use of our own minds, and free access to your minds. And we give you in return-what no other price could purchase of us-our real, honest thoughts on all matters within the range of the office you invest us with, leaving it to you to judge whether those thoughts be right or wrong,-assured that, whether or not you think with us, we have, and ever shall have, your kind and candid appreciation of every effort to disseminate truth and righteousness.

Is this an inefficient spiritual agency? Will such a mode of administering the gospel not evangelize the world? Will not the voluntary efforts of voluntary unions of Christian

men, to provide instruction and moral impulse, not for themselves and their families only, but for those who need them more and feel the need less,—will not these carry forward Christian truth and virtue? Do we want establishments, and hierarchies, and tithes, and ecclesiastical courts? To say that we do, is to say that we want a new Christianity; that the old is old, and worn out; that Christ did not make provision for the wants of our day; that there is not that, in his simple teachings and beautiful life, which, of itself, will so work on and in the Heart of the World, as that the world through him may be saved.-No, men and brethren, Christianity is not worn out; will not wear out. We do not want a new gospel. We want the old gospel to be preached and practised with a new energy and earnestness. We want a new perception and setting forth of its everlasting truths, a new out-pouring upon us all of its spirit of liberty and love, We want not to have Rabbis, and masters, and fathers upon earth-we want a true, living devotedness to our Master and our Father in heaven. We want not more sacraments, more priests, more bishops, more cathedral churches-we want more faith, more hope, more love. We want not government patronage, but popular intelligence and virtue. We want not the dominance of a sect, though it were our own

but the sway of the Christianity common, more or less, to all sects, the Christianity that is known by its fruits. We would not fasten the creed of this generation, though it were the creed of Apostles, on the blind belief of the next-we would leave to the Reason of the next, the legacy of our own free thoughts and free institutions.