those which they have originated. It is not necessary to exaggerate the importance of individuals, who usually are acted upon by influences around, who anticipate others less than is commonly supposed, in order to rightly appreciate those who are regarded as the founders of reformatory beneficent institutions. The Liberal party has furnished, to say the least, its full proportion to their ranks. Dr. Worcester gave birth to Peace Societies. The Temperance movement derived its first impulse from a body of men the majority of whom were of our faith. We do not disparage other sects or other men when we say, that to Horace Mann, now President of Antioch College, the first Secretary of the Board of Education in Massachusetts, and to Edmund Dwight, the cause of elevated education in New England owes its first impulse. The first State Reform School in Massachusetts for the instruction and employment of boys traces its origin to one holding our views, the late Theodore Lyman. The first Institution for the Blind in Massachusetts was established and richly endowed by Hon. Thomas H. Perkins, and until this day remains under the charge of Dr. Howe, well known in Europe, as in this country, as the friend and advocate of every good cause. Nor are these the only Unitarians towards whom the blind have reason to be grateful. "Of the institution for the instruction of the blind in Philadelphia," Mr. John Vaughan, an eminent and zealous Unitarian (says his biographer), was emphatically the founder.

Miss D. L. Dix, who has spent several years in visiting prisons, and who, by her memorials addressed to different State legislatures, has procured the erection of several State lunatic asylums, was the personal friend of Dr. Channing and a member of his church. The first asylum of the kind for superannuated sailors will owe its origin to a large sum recently left, to accumulate for twenty years, by one of our faith.

The first Sunday school in New England was that commenced in Beverly, Mass., in 1810, by two young women, and subsequently merged in the Sunday school connected with Rev. Dr. Abbot's society. The first one established in Boston was in connection with the Rev. Dr. Lowell's society, in 1812. Both of these, as well as

one at Cambridgeport, connected with the church of Rev. Mr. Gannett, preceded the first Sunday school established by the Trinitarians of "Christ Church," which was instituted in 1815.

To the Unitarian body belongs, especially, the honor of having originated and established the Ministry at Large. On the 5th of November, 1826, Dr. Tuckerman entered on the duties of what he called the Mission to the Poor in Boston. December 2d, 1826, "in a painter's loft, under naked beams, surrounded by plain walls, the wind whistling through the casements, he preached his first sermon," to a mere handful of hearers. At the end of a year he had made nineteen hundred visits; and one hundred and seventy poor families were connected with him as their minister. In six months more, two hundred poor families stood to him in this relation. Not until several years afterwards was there in the United States any institution like that which he thus founded.

Nor need we go back to the past to see that Unitarianism has some vitality,

The religious instrumentalities now existing and employed by Unitarians present many encouraging features. Our Sunday schools will compare advantageously with those of other bodies, in all respects. They are considered as necessary auxiliaries to our religious societies.

In 1845, Mr. George Channing, the Domestic Missionary of the American Unitarian Association, estimated the whole number of Sunday-school scholars in our body to be 27,000; and of teachers, 4,800.

The ministry to the poor is still in successful operation. Established, as we have seen, by Dr. Tuckerman, in 1826, it immediately awakened interest in our body, and when its founder left for Europe, on account of his impaired health, it was taken charge of by the "Benevolent Fraternity of Churches." Since that period, the spacious brick chapel in Pitts Street, that in Warren Street, and the stone chapel in Suffolk Street, have been erected by this association of Unitarians.

The Suffolk Street Chapel was built at a cost of $15,000. Eleven different clergymen of our faith have for longer or shorter periods been employed in this service. The children who have been connected with the Warren

Street Chapel alone number about seven thousand, almost entirely of the poorer classes. The number of families connected at the present time with the two other chapels is five hundred.

The last report gives the annual sum appropriated for the support of the chapels in Pitts and Suffolk Streets as $5,808. The Sunday services held at these chapels constitute but a small portion of the useful instrumentalities employed by them. Evening and Sunday schools, evening lectures, teachers' meetings, sewing circles, schools for instruction in sewing, popular lectures on scientific and other topics, the procuring situations for those out of employ, the rescue of boys and girls from evil association, united temperance clubs, debating societies, the furnishing of books from the chapel libraries, occasional excursions to the country, instruction in singing, are all auxiliaries to Sunday instruction.

The reports of the ministers at large are full of interest. One minister, Rev. Mr. Winkley, speaks of nineteen weekly meetings, of which he attends seventeen. Another, Rev. Dr. Bigelow, has distributed several thousands of useful publications " which bear the impress of no sectarian mint." "At times, whole days have been occupied by him with visiting. On one of the winter days, twenty-four Sabbath visits were made, requiring a walk of from four to five miles.” "Within that space," he says, "it was my lot to minister to nearly every state of suffering humanity;-to age and widowhood, the sick and feeble, the mourning and bereaved, the obscure and the solitary, the ignorant, frail, tempted, and erring; conditions aggravated for the most part by the pressure of want in some of its gloomiest forms." Another still, Rev. Mr. Cruft, who is not behind either of those just mentioned in the kind or amount of labor which he performs, thus expresses his view of the great objects which should be paramount in all that is done: "Giving alms is but an incidental part of the missionary's work. His great, all-absorbing work is with the souls of the degraded and lost; to fill these with the unsearchable riches of Christ, to bring them out from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God." For this, "he threads the lanes and alleys, beats the garrets and cellars, and ferrets them out and labors to come into

personal communion with them." The reports of Rev. Mr. Barnard, of Warren Street Chapel, contain the records of benevolent labors covering a wide field. The sum of $4,000, though larger than usual, expended last year under his direction, saves to the city ten times that amount. No business man is more industrious than he is in his peculiar work. From five to six hundred children, "whose parents are connected with no other church," enjoy his ministrations on Sunday, and his friendly oversight during the week. "We do not," he says, "desire the slightest interference with their religious opinions. The cause of our Master and the interests of civilization in such a matter as this, lay us under obligations which are superior to the claims, as they ought to be above the jealousies, of mere sectarianism." Extracts as interesting as these could be supplied from the reports of the ministers at large who labor under Unitarian auspices in Charlestown, Salem, Lowell, Roxbury, Providence, Portland, St. Louis, and New York.

We had proposed in this connection to reply at some length to the reproach, it is made in the book of M. Grandpierre and in various other quarters also, that Unitarians have never shown great interest in missions. We think we could show, that, though there is much in the Foreign Missionary cause both to awaken and to excuse enthusiasm, its results, especially in view of the vast means employed, have not been such as to disarm honest doubt about their comparative usefulness. We are not sure but that it could be proved, that, within a few rods of the banks of the East River in New York, whence the missionary sets sail, there exists as much of heathen darkness and wickedness as there can be found on the banks of the Ganges,-"the benighted region" to which he is bound. Other considerations might be presented, were one inclined, which we are not, to attack the missionary enterprise as conducted by our Orthodox brethren. A better reply to what is said by them of our remissness in these regards is this. "We believe with you in missions, but we differ from you about the best places for them. Let us pursue our objects without clashing. Surely our missionary posts are far enough apart for that. Our mission stations' at Boston, Providence, Portland, and St. Louis need not

interfere with yours at Bombay and Shanghai and on the coast of Africa."*

Unitarians are sometimes reproached for the backwardness which they manifest in comparison with members of other sects, when appeals for pecuniary aid in behalf of worthy objects are made. Though we must regret that they have not done more this way, still the degree of failure and lack here is often greatly overstated. However difficult it may have been in some cases to raise even comparatively small sums for particular objects, however provoking such failure often is, we are confident that the pecuniary liberality of Liberal Christians, in Boston and New York, towards worthy enterprises, is not behind that shown by the members of other sects. To prove this, we need not point solely to Harvard University, as having received from this source, in

*A published discourse preached in Albany, in 1846, by Rev. H. F. Harrington, gives some statistics in relation to these and other points touched upon in this article, which we think are exceedingly striking. Premising that Albany has one small Unitarian society, he gives the following statements. There are in Albany, to a population of 41,000, ten district school-houses, and the average attendance during the year was 2,000. The cost of the school-houses was not far from $300 each.

In Boston, to a population of 110,000, there are 147 public schools, including one Latin and one English High School. They contain more than 15,000 scholars, and the investment in school edifices is more than $300,000, i. e. about $20,000 each.

In Albany the tax raised for support of public schools is 18 cents to each person. In Boston, $2.

In Albany the number of complaints examined at the Police Court was more than 3,000. In Boston, 2,135, with a population much larger.

In Albany there are 32 religious societies, and Mr. Harrington computes "there are at least from 8,000 to 10,000 persons who have no possible opportunities of religious instruction, if all our churches were filled." Yet only a single missionary is appointed in this large field. There are at least 1,400 children growing up in ignorance, vice, and crime. No chaplain is supported for the jail or almshouse.

In connection with these details, the author gives what he considers the gross amount of money probably contributed for objects of general philanthropy, in this sum being included "the contributions of Protestant religious societies for all benevolent objects, except such as are immediately connected with their own church organizations, and all other sums from voluntary sources publicly devoted to charitable purposes." This sum he sets down at $19,000. În a note he states that the amount is somewhat larger," he having omitted one item, and having given the average returns from several churches." But suppose that we add, say $5,000, as covering this error. How does the amount compare with that annually given in these ways in Boston? The aggregate of its public philanthropy, during the last year, Mr. Harrington states, was not under $200,000.

One very significant fact remains to be stated in connection with Albany, that, out of the $ 24,000 thus contributed, $ 9,000 was devoted to the aid of foreign missions.

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