sonifying fictions; you do what you can to sunder it, to make a second God out of the first, a second Light out of the first, two Gods near each other, and to burden the understandings of your brethren with the imposing word "created," as a formula of faith. We did not arrogate to ourselves this power. (Acts xv: 10.) We had one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, (1 Cor. viii: 6.,) one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, (1 Tim. ii: 5.,) and eternal life therein, that we know the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent. (John xvii: 3.) Leave such things, ye disputatious Fathers, and do not become new theogonists. The times of mythology are gone by."

37.

It were a useless task to follow through the address which our Evangelist might make to all the councils of the dark ages, as well as to the auditories of all scholastic and mystic refiners, arrogant dogmatists and sectaries. They heaped decisions upon decisions, added canon upon canon, and at length carried it so far that no one could speak as he truly believed, without running against some canon of some council, or some dogmatical subtilty. The language of most of them indeed John would not understand, and he would, perhaps, with his little book in his hand, address them in this gentle spirit:

38.

"We had not intended this, my dear friends. The doctrine of myself and my brethren about our Christ, was very simple and intelligible. Without him we knew not God; we regarded him as the one through whom the Deity revealed himself. After God had for a long time spoken to men through the mouth of wise men and prophets, he spake to us through his Son. He had only this one idea of God," the Father," the most rich in meaning, from which idea he deduced all that might be for the salvation of men through knowledge and conduct. Of himself he had only one idea, "the Son," who must do what he seeth the Father do, and he offers himself up cheerfully and willingly to the work. Of man he had but one idea; that they are a fallen race, in whom notwithstanding there is implanted a higher tendency, a germ of the Godlike, through which men can and must become a happy brotherhood, of heavenly origin.

VOL. VIII. 44.

39.

"When, after his ascension from earth, the whole idea of his Being shone up before us in light and beauty, where we had lived through all that we did; how could we call him any other than Him, who in the innermost of his soul was the Son of God, the Saviour of the world? When he had offered himself up to this his calling, we saw in him the counsel of God respecting our race revealed, the power of God's love set forth in him, whatever can be known of God to men, made intelligible in him-in short, the Father glorified in him. We called him also, as he was to be called, the image of his Father, the brightness made visible of that original Light which is invisible to us, the express image of his person, all that we are capable of comprehending of the Divine principle; or, if you prefer to express it in the language of the dogmatical propositions of your own invention, the acting organ of the Godhead in the human race.

"We spake too in the fundamental propositions of our religion, without being the upolders of false Gods or of two Gods. The counsellor and executor of the Divine will for the salvation of man, his teacher and interpreter, was to our senses, as well as to our understanding, his expression, his sensible form; without his Father he, was not; the Father was in him and through him all. What was before said and pre-conjectured of the contriving wisdom, the creating Word, the illuminating Light, the Mediator and Uniter of God and, men, we applied to him, and dedicated to him, the Divine man, the highest love and honor. This true and efficient organ of the Deity I have set forth and explained to you in his writings. (John v:19-22, 20-30. x:28-30. xiv: 1, 9, 11, 23. I John ii: 22, 23. v: 20. 2 John ix: 10.) Do you understand it better? Very well! only do not weave upon me your fine-spun speculations. Our idea was clear and to the heart; we saw, we loved and honored in the Son the Father; and we saw in the Son our own brother.

40.

"You have done me the honor to call me the Theologian, and to say that I have theologized the Son of God; you would be nearer to the truth, if you had said that I have humanized the Godhead as far as it is intelligible to us; that I have held up his counsel and his love to men, to be seen, to be enjoyed, and his work on earth as a work in which they are to

co-operate. Of what benefit to you would be a God, who is not your Father-a son of God, who is not to make you happy? Away then with your speculations about the deep abysses before all time; our Son of God is the Saviour of the world."

T. S. D.

GREAT PRINCIPLES FOR CONSIDERATION.

WE extract the following article from the Non-Resistant, as one sign of the times. Most readers will condemn it altogether as an ultraism of the day, and think the writer an owl, blinded with the light of a meteor. Others will pause and ask whether the author is not in part at least a seer, heralding by his song a coming morning. At all events, if men are actually thinking and saying such things as are contained in these "Principles," it behoves us to give them consideration.

"PRINCIPLE I. All men are created equal-are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights: among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, government must, in the nature of things, exist among men, deriving its just powers from the constitution of mind, the inseparable relations and interests, and the individual consent of the governed.

"All laws and governments which assume to alienate the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, carry upon their face a flagrant falsehood, inasmuch as they pretend to alienate what is eternally inalienable: they are arbitrary and despotic, because they strike at all rights, and the rights of all; for if one single right may be justly taken away, upon the same principle all may be. No man can rightfully 'consent' to be governed by such laws, because he has no right to alienate what is absolutely inalienable. He can no more alienate his own rights than uncreate himself.

"PRINCIPLE II. Whatever is necessary to the support of life, to the enjoyment of liberty, and to the pursuit and attainment of true happiness, is the common right of every individual member of the human race. Air, water, the light and heat of the sun, the products of the earth, food, raiment, medicine, intelligence; all the means of physical, mental and moral improvement and happiness, belong equally to allhence, while no HUMAN BEING, as such, can be made the

i

property of another, or of all others combined, yet, that appropriate action of all the energies of each individual, which is adapted to secure the highest well-being of all, is due from each, and is the rightful claim of all.

PRINCIPLE III. Of all that which is justly called property, each individual is entitled, by immutable right, to an equal share, if the equal share is necessary to the full enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Every individual has the right to whatever is necessary to support life, to invigorate and expand the mind, to enlighten and guide the conscience, and to gratify every lawful affection. Hence no person can rightfully claim or hold more than is necessary to meet all the natural, moral and intellectual wants of himself and family. All who hold more than this are guilty of robbery, because by this others are made to possess less than is necessary to meet these wants in themselves, and so are villanously deprived of their just and equal rights.

"PRINCIPLE IV. In all communities where there are natural or artificial inequalities; where part are abased and part abound; where part are ignorant and part are intelligent; most are poor and many rich; where part have more than they really need, and the rest less, there are all the elements of fraud, injustice and oppression.

"PRINCIPLE V. All encroachments upon the life, liberty and happiness of any one individual, are encroachments apon the life, liberty and happiness of all. He who sets but a light estimate upon life, liberty and happiness in another, invites all others to set an equally light estimate upon the life, liberty and happiness of himself; he who justifies the robbing of another, justifies the robbery of himself: hence he who in any way injures or wrongs another, injures and wrongs himself in the same particulars, and all others; for by invalidating the rights of one, he invalidates the rights of all, including of course his own.

"PRINCIPLE VI. All unnatural inequalities are the result of monopoly. The monopoly of land, labor, capital, power and intelligence, is the robbery of the great whole; or, the mass of the people, who are in any manner deprived of their proportionate share of these. Where any one holds a thousand acres of land, and another none, or not enough for necessary uses; where one appropriates all his own labor, or the labor of others, to his own individual aggrandizement, and others are deprived by this of necessary benefits; where one holds capital, or wields power by which others are reduced or depressed; where one possesses all the means of a liberal edu

cation, and others few or none; where one has full freedom of thought, of conscience and action, and another is in any measure deprived of these, there is monopoly; in other words, tyranny, and the virtual overthrow of all rights and true in

terests.

"PRINCIPLE VII. All laws and governments which pretend to confer rights on some, which are withheld from all others: which grant special privileges to some, that are denied to all others; which give power, and place, and influence, and advantages, to the few, and prohibit them to the many, are based upon usurpation and despotism-upon the ruin of all natural relations, and of all inherent and inalienable rights, and must ultimately and inevitably perish.

"PRINCIPLE VIII. Man is made up of two natures, animal and spiritual, or, in other words, of body and mind; the animal or corporeal being the inferior, and the spiritual or mental the superior nature; the animal being the lawful servant, and the spiritual the rightful master; the animal being the instrument, and the spiritual the arm that wields it. Where the spiritual holds the pre-eminence, there are developed all the attributes which distinguish and dignify the man; and where the animal holds the pre-eminence, there are developed all the attributes which distinguish and designate the brute.

"PRINCIPLE IX. Where physical evils are to be repressed and overcome, the animal is the appropriate instrument; where moral evils are to be repressed and subdued, the spiritual is the approprite power to effect this. Physical remedies for physical diseases, and moral remedies for moral diseases. It is not in the power of physical cathartics to purge away the moral corruption, or of tartar emetic to eject the vices which collect in the mind-no more can legal prosecutions, imprisonment, banishment, the whipping-post, the stocks, the gibbet, effect any moral reformation, but directly the reverse.

"PRINCIPLE X. It is in the power of unperverted minds only, to correct the evils of perverted minds: error in one mind is to be overcome by truth in another; sophistry in one by sound reasoning in another; hatred in one by love in another; fear in the timid by courage in the resolute; laxness of principle and morals in the dissolue, by firmness and consistency of principle and practice in the upright; perturbation by calmness; rage by gentleness, and revenge by non-resis

tance.

"PRINCIPLE XI. In removing the grievances or evils inflicted upon us by others, it must be done, (if done justly,) with a