IN offering to the readers of the Advocate, a series of cursory and miscellaneous remarks on the questions between the Orthodox and Liberal parties, I am disposed, at the outset, to say something by way of apology. My defence might perhaps justly relate to other and more important particulars, but I confess that the feeling I have most to contend with, in myself, and I suppose, it exists in others, is a strong reluctance to come into that collision with others, with opponents, I mean, to which controversy leads. The case, I must think, is a peculiarly hard one on our side of the question. I know, at least, that it involves many painful feelings.

Men do not often nor easily place themselves in the situation of others; least of all, of their opponents. The dominant sect of a country, little know to what they subject an individual when they cut him off from so many of the sympathies of the social world around him. To a man, who has spent his youth in severe and wasting

studies with the honorable and ardent hope of being useful and acceptable to his fellow men, who, with patient inquiries and earnest prayers, has sought for truth, who in deep and solitary meditations, has sought for the pure fountains of all generous and holy influences, wherewith he might nourish and quicken the piety of others-to such an one it is hard to meet with no welcome in the countenances and manners of society, nay, to meet with suspicion and hostility, where he looked for welcome, to be summoned to strife, where he desired peace and amity, to be brought to the bar as an accused person, when he hoped to be hailed as the messenger of glad tidings. And he feels, the honest and affectionate advocate of religion, feels that he has glad tidings to communicate. His heart is ready to kindle with his theme, he would spread before mankind, the venerable and lovely perfections of God, he would call and win them to piety and virtue and glory, he would gladly cherish the tenderness and love and charity that belong to a mission, so sacred and merciful, and how is his heart smitten within him, to reflect that all these sentiments and affections are denied to him, that he is looked upon as engaged in a bad work, that multitudes regard his doctrine and preaching and person with aversion or horror! Besides, that must be a bad mind, indeed, to which contention is not in itself painful. Who does not feel sometimes tempted to leave the world to its controversies, to leave the opposing sects to fight it out among themselves if they will,-to withdraw from the visible ranks of all religious denominations, and to take his way, alone and peacefully, to the grave, where all these strifes are so soon to be composed ? Who that feels, how many are the necessary trials of life, how becoming

are sympathy and pity and forbearance in such a world as this, how great is the moral work which he and every man has to do, and how solemn is the destiny of eternity,-who, I say, feeling all this, does not grow sick, at the thoughts of contending with his brethren in ignorance and frailty and affliction, his brethren in the great errand and end of life, his brethren in the solemn account of an hereafter?

I confess, that under the influence of these considerations, I am sometimes ready to shrink from what I do nevertheless conceive to be the duty of contending earnestly for those principles, which I hold to be the faith once delivered to the saints. So far as I might consult the first feelings and impulses natural to me as a citizen, a friend, a social man, I should sedulously avoid it. should choose to pass in society, without attracting any attention to my religious belief. I should reserve the comfort and joy of religious fellowship for my intercourse with those, who would meet me in the affection and confidence of that fellowship. I would endeavor so to enjoy that privilege as not to have the reflection forced upon me, that I was surrounded by suspicions and strifes, or by benevolent, though as I think mistaken, anxieties and regrets.

If then I address any who have a strong aversion to controversial discussions, I may safely affirm that I feel it not less than they. I have had a good mind, at times, to sweep from my table, every controversial book, tract, publication, Review and Newspaper, and henceforth to know nothing and to care nothing about them-to know nothing and to care for nothing but religion as a general subject of contemplation, and a guide and comfort of

life. There is no honor nor comfort to be reaped from these contests; and to the honorable, the liberal, the better and more sacred feelings of the mind they are attended with no little danger. I said, no comfort. There is the satisfaction, indeed, arising from the discharge of what is believed to be a duty; and that, I trust, is the consideration that, with me, settles the question. This must be the repose of faithful and honest minds, engaged in controversy with those whom they would fain regard as brethren and friends.

And it is my purpose, (as I have partly intimated,) in these introductory remarks, to meet the natural reluct ance, which many feel to read anything of a controversial nature.

I say, then, that, the state of the public mind demands investigations of this kind. The age is thoroughly agitated with questions of all sorts, political, moral, and religious-with all those questions, especially, which bear upon human happiness. On all these questions, and in foreign countries, even, on that of the diffusion of knowledge, there is a liberal party, and an Orthodox party-or, in other words, there are advocates of new opinions, and adherents of old opinions. But of all the questions that thus agitate the general mind, none bear more directly upon the general welfare than those which are religious. None, indeed, do more palpably affect the rights of men. None do, so vitally affect their happiness. For it is when my soil is defended, and my political freedom secured, and I go and sit down under the shadow of my own dwelling with none to disturb or make me afraid, it is then, and after all that, that the great question is to be settled in the feelings and habits of my own

mind, whether or not, I shall be happy. And it is here in this interior, this secret and silent world of thoughts and purposes, of moral ideas and contemplations and affections, that religion has the amplest scope and the widest dominion.

Something of this is beginning to be felt; and men, at least, men generally, are inquiring, as they never before inquired, for the difference between truth and error, right and wrong, pure religion, and needless superstition. And he who can be insensible to the importance of these inquiries, or, can turn indifferently away from them as not worth his regard, understands neither the discussion, nor the duty it devolves upon him.

It is, by no means, a light discussion; and this is the second consideration which bears upon the question of duty in the controversy of the age. It is a great controversy. It is not about the minor forms and features of religion. It is not about a church government or ritual. It is, in part, about the very nature of morality and piety. It is mainly a practical question. It is not even concerning the Trinity that we are most deeply interested, as a matter of controversy. That seems to me a scholastic question ; and more properly to belong to a scholastic age. And, in fact, it it only from the strongly practical cast, which the spirit of the present age gives to every discussion, that this question of the Trinity is brought into such earnest debate. That is to say, it is not because the question, as I apprehend it, has any important and immediate bearing upon the nature of religion, or the character of God, but because it is artificially mingled with the practical popular system of the age, that it has any considerable inte