A CORRECTION.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SprenToR."] SIR,—I hope that the other allusions in your very interest- ing article in the Spectator of February 18th on " Wholesale Conversion" are more accurate than that in which you point your moral by mention of the religious body to which I have the honour to belong. Speaking of the weakening of "the sense of the necessity for correlating faith with action," you say : "There are, for example, thousands of Unitarians within the English Establishment, yet the Unitarian Church as a body of avowed believers in the humanity of Christ is rapidly dying away." The first statement I will not dispute. You probably know more about Latitudinarianism within the Church than I do. Nor need I argue about the alleged moribund condition of Unitarianism in its avowed and organised form. That it was " rapidly dying away " was urged upon me by orthodox friends fifty years ago as a reason for my not going into the Unitarian Ministry. And ever since the parrot-cry has been repeated so often and so confidently that by this time I should have almost come to believe it, were it not that throughout these fifty years, as any one can verify who cares, our lists of churches, our organisa- tions, our subscriptions for constantly enlarging activities, have kept showing slow but unmistakable growth. But a more serious correction is required by the words I have italicised. So far as a church-life which has always refused to base itself on any "avowed belief" can be defined, our central and special " belief" is, and always has been, as our commonly accepted name indicates,—the simple Unity and Fatherhood of God, as distinguished from any doctrine of the Trinity. With regard to Christ, your mistake is one both in fact and in theory; for while the most, in our English churches, are, I think, humanitarians, some in England, and many in our Irish, American, and Transylvanian churches are distinctly Arian. But the chief point is that we regard all such differences as minor matters in Christianity, compared with that reverent discipleship which may, and does, co-exist with every variety of Christological theory. from that of the Nicene Creed to that of Channing or Martineau.—I am, Sir, &c., BROOKE HERFORD.
Rosalyn Hill Chapel, Hampstead, February 22nd.
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