This declamatory lament over the theology of the evangelical Christian church is a repetition of an old skeptical charge. It is the expression of a spirit similar to that which animated the German Rationalists, prompted the criticism of Colenso and of the Essays and Reviews, and is now ready to welcome any effort that may promise a revolution of the popular religious sentiment in Great Britain and the American Republic. Orthodoxy is unhesitatingly pronounced a public curse. In reply, we would request our skeptical opponents to remember the historical record of their principles, as seen in the social convulsions of Germany, in the immorality and revolutions of France, and in the religious indifference and prostration of England in the eighteenth century. We would remind them, further, that orthodox theology has here been in the ascendant, and that in no land are public morals purer, the laws more just, humanitarian enterprises better supported, material interests more progressive, or education better fostered than in the United States. The American Church laments that her faith has not been stronger and her zeal more fervent, but her history, with all its dark pages of hesitation and inefficiency, is the answer which she returns to the accusations of her Rationalistic opponents. Meanwhile, she proposes to continue her labor for human salvation, by the promulgation of her present system of theology, nor will she consider her mission accomplished until the gospel of Christ has been preached to every creature.
FOOTNOTES:
[232] Smith, History of the Church of Christ in Chronological Tables, p. 74.
[233] The Reason of Church Government against Prelacy. Ch. II.
[234] History of the Church of Christ, &c., p. 74.
[235] Baird, Religion in America, pp. 547-562.
[236] Unitarianism in its Actual Condition. Edited by Rey. J. R. Beard, D. D. pp. 1-4. London, 1846.
[237] Sprague, Annals of the American Unitarian Pulpit. Historical Introduction, p. xii.
[238] Appleton's American Cyclopædia. Art. Wm. Ellery Channing. W. L. Symonds, Esq., is the author of this biography.