Address.

The President said—I trust that I may, on the occasion of this the Sixteenth Anniversary of our existence as a religious Congregation, be permitted to offer a few observations to the Members of our Church, and also to any others present who may feel an interest in the progress and development of our particular faith.

The position which we occupy in the religious world as Unitarian Christians, and the simplicity and (as we believe) reasonableness of our opinions having been so frequently made the subject of attack and misrepresentation, may have induced on our part a certain positiveness of assertion and impatience of contradiction which it may perhaps be well to watch and control, for whilst disclaiming anything of a sectarian spirit, and advocating the most perfect religious liberty for all who earnestly search after the truth, we cannot too carefully guard ourselves against falling into the error so common amongst active religionists, of denouncing those who conscientiously differ from us. It may perhaps be difficult for some of us to understand how minds of a certain class can accept those peculiar and, to us, repulsive forms of religious dogma which we feel bound to reject, but we must remember how forcibly the teaching, and the associations of early life, often bind both the heart and the intellect of many susceptible and highly conscientious persons, especially when it is borne in mind that the main object of certain churches is to curb the promptings of reason, and to procure an outward assent at least to a particular creed.

Towards persons so circumstanced we should cherish none but the kindliest feelings of sympathy and goodwill, but as regards those bolder, but less consistent individuals, who openly avow their dissent from the Articles of the Church to which they belong, and who constitute what is called the Broad Church, a very different feeling is excited, and with them, I must, for my part, disclaim any sympathy. page 6 The position of a clergyman remaining in open connect ion with, and receiving the emoluments of, a Church whose doctrines and teaching he repudiates, simply because the law has not power to expel him, appears to me to exhibit one of the grossest forms of infidelity, and certainly affords a spectacle, as was lately truly said in England by a Minister of State, sufficient to taint the morality of the whole nation. And such indeed does really seem to be the result, for if we look around, we cannot fail to notice that the vilest forms of social vice are frequently associated with the loudest and most ostentatious display of so-called religious zeal and punctiliousness.

I have been induced to make these brief remarks from a feeling that the prevailing and avowed religious opinions of our time do not penetrate the heart, or favourably influence the conduct of the general body of the people, and from a firm belief that the vacillation and indifference so commonly shown in regard to matters of religion, and which disinclines to any inquiry concerning, or investigation of the subject, lest an inconvenient conclusion should be arrived at, lies at the main root of nearly all the infidelity' of the present day.

Although our place of worship be small, and our numbers comparatively few, we may, I think, congratulate ourselves that we have been enabled to retain the services of our energetic and talented Minister, nor can we foil to observe, whilst watching the tendency of the religious movement of the age, that our characteristic views are very generally entertained, and are still rapidly extending.

We know that many very well-meaning persons think our opinions (at least so far as they understand them) extremely shocking, and that they are perfectly sincere in the expression of their regret that we should adhere to them; such persons, however, should remember that these opinions, or rather convictions are, to us, truths, and that if we were to abandon or sacrifice them, we should truly be what we are often falsely called, infidels.

We freely admit that, in common with all other human beings, we may be in error, and we moreover know that our shortcomings are neither few nor small, but we can at least affirm that we have not yet sunk into so debased a con- page 7 dition as to forsake what we believe to be true and acceptable to our Heavenly Father, to embrace what we feel to be false, merely to secure the favour of men, who might forward our worldly position, and endorse our spurious respectability.

Modest as may seem this small pretension to righteousness, and vile as would be considered any who openly acted in opposition to it, it must be, I think, admitted that even this very obvious path of rectitude is by no means universally trodden. Let us therefore be steadfast to our convictions, and without ostentatiously parading, be prepared to assert and maintain them on all suitable occasions, endeavouring to let them have their full influence on our lives and actions. "We may thus, perhaps, exert proportionately as great an influence for good as some other churches, many of whose most pious and thoughtful members are themselves often heard to complain, that the true spirit of Christianity is nearly extinguished by the empty forms and ceremonial practices by winch it is surrounded and oppressed.

To follow the light that is within us on matters of religion, seems so palpable and inevitable a duty, that of all recorded miracles and strange incongruities of human action, nothing seems more inexplicable or incredible than that any intelligent being having a belief in the existence of a God and a life beyond the grave, should so disgrace his humanity, to say nothing of imperilling his soul, as to use any dissimulation on so solemn a subject as his relation to God and to Eternity.