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not an ever-present reality to you; nor the Saviour a personal friend. They do not accompany you, in thought and affection, as you engage in your toils, as you walk by the way, as you sit at your homes, as you enter upon scenes of gladness and festivity, or follow, with weeping, your beloved ones to the grave. The experience of some of you may deny all this. Blessed ones! I rejoice or you. But those who feel in any degree its truth, I ask why is it true? Is it not through a remissness in the employment of the common means of religious impression and improvement? Do they have stated seasons devoted to thought and reflection on religious themes,seasons of retirement, for self-examination and prayer ? My friends, does not our felt weakness, and continual exposure, plead with us for such seasons? Does not the unutterable worth of the soul's interests plead with us? While we use means for the attainment of every other object, will we forego them here? Is this the only one about which we will have no particular care and make use of no especial effort; which we will fling loosely to the winds of chance and circumstances? There may be "the form of godliness without its power." Too well we know it. But there can hardly be, as human nature is and the world is, the power of godliness without, first, the form.

I. R. BUTTS, PRINTER, 2 SCHOOL STREET.

UNITARIANISM NOT A NEW DOCTRINE,

GENUINE

BUT

CHRISTIANITY.

Ar the time when Christianity was communicated to the world, no people had made so great advancement in learning and philosophy, and no people prided themselves so highly upon their attainments in theology, as the people of Athens. Yet, when the Apostle Paul came to preach to them the new religion, they did not close their ears against him, nor presume to denounce his doctrine without affording it a hearing. Because to them it was a new doctrine, they did not conclude that, therefore, it was not true. The disposition which they manifested by bring. ing the Apostle to the Areopagus, and asking him,"May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?" this disposition to learn the merits of the question, before they pronounced a judgment, was in the highest degree commendable, and is worthy of the imitation of us all.

In inviting your attention, reader, to a plain statement of the doctrine of Unitarianism, or, more properly, of the Christian doctrine as understood by Unitarians, I am not willing to suppose that you will listen to it under the

unfavorable impression, that, because it appears to be a new doctrine, it is the less likely to be true. Truth, indeed, or true religion, in the abstract, is eternal and im. mutable. But it is not so with our ideas of the truth,with our conceptions of what true religion is. In this respect, we may be continually improving;- we may advance further and further in correct and worthy sentiments upon religion. We call that a new doctrine which is new to us. The presumption, then, against any doctrine, because it is new to us, is in exact proportion to the probability that we have attained the whole truth; -- that, in our views of religion, we need no improvement, and can make no further progress. But we cannot believe it was ever intended, that, in our views of religion, we should remain stationary. No. We deem it to be a duty, which yields to no other in magnitude and importance, to avail ourselves of all opportunities for inquiry, and, with a sincere desire to learn the truth, with minds candid and open to conviction, to study the sacred volume. We shall then find that we are advancing, from time to time, in religious knowledge, and in our ideas of the truth, and that more and clearer light is continually breaking forth from God's holy word.

How is it that errors are transmitted from one generation to another, and, at length, become, as it were, sacred from their antiquity, but by being received, in each successive period, implicitly and upon authority? It is our duty freely and fearlessly to inquire, and to bring every thing we have been taught to the test of reason and of Scripture. We believe the time has never been, when this duty was more imperious, or when there was a louder call for its exercise, than at present. The age in which