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    vicious ; but if we had been reared and had lived under the influences by which they have been formed , should we have been less vicious than they are ? or is it quite certain that , in the sight of the heavenly Father , taking into the account our inconsideration of them , and perhaps our injustice towards them ,. and our oppression of them , is it quite-Ge . rJ ; ainJthat _ we are less vicious than they 1 Are they not *

    equally as ourselves , immortal beings ; equally wiTh ourselves children of God ? How low , O how low , my friend , is our estimation of this highest style of man ! It was a noble sentiment of Epictetus , that he who knows himself to have descended from the Father of gods and men , can never think meanly of himself . And how much less can he think meanly of his fellow-beings , or treat them with meanness , or be indifferent to their wants , and vices , and sufferings , who feels that each one of them , poor and ignorant , and even depraved and debased as he maybe , is still a child of Him whom we call our Father in heaven

    —of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ! Our ministry , my dear sir , is a distinct recognition of this great Christian sentiment Let it be our aim to bring about among men—alike among the rich and the poor—a Christian sense of human relations . The poor are to be taught , and blessed indeed will he be who shall effectually teach them—their relation , not only to each other , but to God and their race . But this great doctrine is to be taught also , as it never has been , to the rich , to those who are in , the high places of the

    earth ; to-those who , in the fulness of earthly possessions ,, jire-livmg only for themselves , and for the earth . It is a great field on which we have entered ; but I have perfect confidence in the sufficiency of the gospel of Christ for all its purposes . I see in it means quite adequate to the moral regeneration of the world ; but I do not see these means in any of the artificial forms within which the technical theology of any sectarians have shut up our religion . There are 4

    multitudes/—multitudes now , as in the time of Christ , to be * astonished' at the doctrine of the sermon on the mount , if it were taught with the spirit , the divine sympathy with human wants and interests , with which Jesus taught it . A mere partizan theology will be as inefficient for arresting the progress of vice , and want , and suffering ; of raising the abject from their degradation , of enliglite . ning and quickening conscience , of calling up and purifying , and sending forth on their heavenly mission , the deep affections of the soul , as would be the poor expedients of mere human legislation for these great objects . We must go back to the time of the great teacher and his apostles . We must sit at the feet of the master , and there

    cherish love to him , and sympathy with him , till we may even lean upon his bosom , and feel the throfybings of his divine and disinterested love ; and under the inspirations of this lofve , — -witfi thei very mind that was in Christ , —we must go , in Christ's ) stead , to reveal to the poorest , and to bring within his reach that treasure , which , when a man hath found , he is no longer poor , though he may not possess a shilling , or a foot of all the earth ; to reveal to him the kingdom of heaven within his own soy I ; to help him to feel what it is to be a child of God ; to comfort him with the consolations of God ; and to bring him to account all things as worthless in comparison , as well with the immediate happiness of obedience to the heavenly Father ' s will ,

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    240 NEW PUBLICATIONS .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 1, 1833, page 240, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2619/page/16/