As a transition from Deism, Pantheism can hardly fail to appear, at first sight, an escape into a higher view. Whether, however, this change from Deism toward Pantheism be a concession to weakness or an emergence into a higher and fuller truth, depends upon the extent toward which the change is carried. There is nothing whatever to warrant, in relation to God, the idea of deputed cosmical action, through second causes set up as tools qualified to work of themselves, separate from his will. The form in which the idea of causality comes to us is that of Will, and the only question that can rationally arise is, whether the action of Divine Will is most easily conceived as continuous through the operation it performs; or as momentary in itself, and handing over the prolonged part of the efficiency to a system of means, inert in themselves, but charged with delegated power cut off from its source. The lat ter supposition has nothing to recommend it. Against the former it may be objected that it involves an incessant and universal intervention of God in the minutest affairs. But is there any assignable reason for parsimony in the expenditure of immeasurable Will? Why may it not disperse itself in myriad drops, instead of pouring itself forth all in one flow? It is not in the field of action, but in that of thought, that we are restive under complexity, and forever pressing our demand for unity; and in the immanence and boundless distribution of Divine energy there is nothing at variance with perfect simplicity of purpose and intellectual symmetry of method; any more than our own repetitions of will in each reproduction of habitual action are inconsistent with a rational system of life. The theist, therefore, need have no fear of the num

and durable the continuance of the laws of physical change, they are entrusted with no causality of their own, but are only the modes of the Divine action.

The whole external universe (external to self-conscious beings) then, the theist may, with the pantheist, unreservedly surrender to the indwelling Will, of which it is the organized expression. From no point of its space, from no moment of its time, is His living agency withdrawn, or less intensely present than in any crisis called creative.

Only at the boundary of the proper Ego does the theistic theory of the universe find ground upon which the Supreme Will arrests itself. Did that Supreme Will still press on and annex this field also, it would simply abolish the very base of its own recognizable existence, and, in making itself all in all, would vanish totally from view. It is precisely in not being unitary that causation is accessible to thought at all; and if our own will does not exercise it we are excluded from even the search for it elsewhere. The voluntary nature of moral beings, then, must be saved from pantheistic absorption, and be left standing as, within its sphere, a free cause other than Divine, yet homogeneous with it. You cannot even declare yourself a pantheist without self contradiction; for in doing so you reserve your own personality as a thinking and assertive power that deals with all else as objective.

If, however, the will of each rational being must be allowed a sphere of its own, the same is true of his whole personality including intellect, conscience and affections. It is not another, even the Infinite, that decides for us, neither is it another that is tempted, that strives and prays.

To the doctrine as thus shaped it may perhaps be objected that, while it admits the Divine action as immediately present in the lower provinces of the cosmos, it excludes that action from the highest, viz., our moral life, precisely

the sphere that is nearest to God and would seem most congenial to him. Are we then to find God in the sunshine and the rain, and to miss him in our thought, our duty, and our love? Far from it. He is with us in both; only in the former it is his immanent life, in the latter his transcendent life, with which we are in communion. It is not indeed he that, under the mask of our personality, does our thinking, and praying against temptations, and weeps our tears: these are truly our own; but they are in presence of a sympathy free to answer, spirit to spirit; neither merg ing in the other; but both at one in the same inmost preferences and affections. This alone it is that gives scope for a Divine personal being, living with persons, and acting on grounds of reason and righteousness. Without freedom thus to act freshly out of immediate thought and affection, intellect, character, personality can have no place in the Divine causality. This personality of God thus rescued from pantheistic absorption, not only leaves his voluntary agency as free cause in an unpledged sphere, that is, a sphere transcending that of immanent law, but precisely this it is that constitutes his Infinity extend ing his sway over all the possible, after it has filled the actual, and giving command over infinite alternatives. Hence it is plain that his personality and his infinity are so far inseparable concomi tants that, though you might deny his infinitude without prejudice to his personality you cannot deny his personality without sacrificing his infinitude; since there is one mode of action-the preferential, the very mode which distinguishes rational beings, from which you exclude him in denying him personality.

Yet we are constantly told that a personal being is necessarily finite; that he is an individual, not a universal; restricted to a definite centre of consciousness and activity, into which and from which influences flow that make up his life. In short a self implies an other. than-self, and so gives two spheres of being, only one of which would be God and the other his negative. What an

swer shall we make to this? According to the division we have been defending, this other than the Divine Self is the aggregate of rational and moral beings, represented in our world by man. This man, as endowed with Will, we have actually treated as a separate cause, and so we have apparently accepted a limit to the infinitude of God. But surely it is not impossible or unreasonable that infinite Will should divest itself of a portion of its causality in order to fit up another and resembling nature. This nature thus set up, is included in what God has caused though exempted from what he is causing; and the causality conceded to us takes therefore nothing from the Creator's infinitude, but what he himself renounces; moreover, what is thus relinquished is potentially retained.

Alike in setting up other minds with a range of command over alternatives, and instituting a universe under law without alternative, the infinite Cause foregoes something of his absolute freedom; in the one case admitting partners of his liberty; in the other, establishing for himself a sphere of necessity; and the more comprehensive the sphere of necessity or law, the vaster is the renunciation; if it extends to the All, so as to leave no margin of transcendency, the limitation reaches its maximum, no possibility but one being left open anywhere. What greater contradiction can there be than to say in one breath, that a being is infinite and omnipotent, and yet cannot put forth preferential power? And if we are careful for his infinitude, which shall we be more afraid to grant,- that he lends to a derivative being a little proferential power; or that he is forever incapacitated for exercising it himself?

"For these reasons the modern scruples that are felt with regard to the personality of God," says Dr. Martineau, after a full presentation of the subject, "appear to me not less intellectually weak than they are morally deplorable. If any one is fastidious about the word, and thinks it spoiled by the Athanasian controversy, let him supply us with a better; but some symbol we must have

of that Divine freedom in the exercise of Will, the acknowledgement of which makes the difference between Theism and Pantheism, and gives religion its entrance into the conscience and affections of men. As the parts of our nature which thus enter into relation with God are precisely those which make us persons and distinguish us from other 'living things' it is difficult to see why the same term should not be given to the corresponding attributes of rational and moral Will in him: and where the idea is really present, and craving expression. I believe that for the most part it will be glad enough for the word. At all events its contents are just what Theism rescues from Pantheism. Here it is that the God, immanent through the universe besides, and operating by determinate methods alone, passes into transcendent existence, existence still unpledged, and establishes moral relations with beings whom he has endowed with a certain scope of similar volitional causality.'

ELIZA R. SUNDERLAND.

JANUARY ROSES.

To a "tender-foot" in South California the months of October, November and December, are most surprising and delightful. Day after day brings clear, warm sunshine. No wind breaks the stillness. The sky is full of calm. A subtle charm broods over the broad valleys and enfolds the distant mountains. Wagons, heavy-laden with luscious grapes, drive from the burdened vineyards. For many weeks tens of thousands of trays of raisins dry under the cloudless sky. All ranch work goes on with vigor. During October probably the last irrigating is done before the rains, which are looked for in November. The plows are busy mellowing all the orchards, and plowing the fields for barley and wheat, which are then sown that they may have the benefit of early rains and get their growth during the winter months. Garden seeds are sown to provide a part of the crisp vegetables that come to the table every day of the round year. The past fall the first copious rain came early in Novem

ber, and before January was followed by two others. At once all the hills and valleys put on a spring-like garb. Instead of the frosty touch that blights the life of grass and tree, these warm winter rains bring to roadside and fields and the distant hills, the sheen of tender green that visits the North in April and May.

When rain comes to the valleys, snow falls on the mountains. After the first day or two of rain the clouds break away and show the peaks, twenty to sixty miles away, covered with snow which will lie there until the next July or August. In January it creeps farther down the mountains, sometimes appearing on the peaks of the nearer spurs, but from these a few days of sun drive it to its distant summits, where it maintains its hold until forced to yield by the fiercest heats of summer. one recently from the East the snow on the mountains is the chief reminder that winter is here. Most other signs fail. The lawns are as green as in June, so also the roadsides, the fields, the hills. The many miles of cypress hedges, recently from the clipper's shears, have put forth the new and delicate growth. The lines of pepper trees on many streets droop their graceful branches over the walks.

To

New leaves appear

upon the palms. The loquat, a Japanese plum, sends out vigorous shoots of growths, and soon is a mass of white and fragrant bloom, amid which the clumsy bumble-bees luxuriate in awkward flight, and the graceful humming-birds rest on invisible wing in midair. The lemon trees give bloom scarcely less fragrant than the tuberose, and show fruit in all stages of growth, while oranges in thousands of orchards grow golden amid the gleaming leaves.

Most people allow their flower gardens only a scant supply of water in October, to give the plants a season of rest that will prepare them for bloom in the winter months. Then when water. is again given them, or when the November rains fall, they put forth buds for innumerable blossoms. English violets, pansies, sweet alyssum, mignonette, ageratum, petunias, and many

others, give of their beauty with a generous hand. Heliotrope covers itself with a delicate garment. Lantana is a mass of brilliant color. Callas in clumps, in long rows, in broad borders, hold up innumerable white chalices of fragrance. Tuberoses dull the sense with soporific balm. Camellias, grown to trees fifteen feet high, display their snowy white and brilliant red with a stately stiffness that seems conscious of aristocratic blood. The poinsetta gleams with a dazzling brilliance that vies with the richest of the eastern maples under an Indian Summer sun. A few strawberry blossoms are found along the sheltered rows, and strawberries even now are ripe. I gathered them, lusI gathered them, luscious and beautiful, on Christmas day, from the garden of a friend, and the same friend told me to-day that they picked them for their New-Year's din

ner.

The roses are especially generous in their wealth of winter bloom. They are not, indeed, so abundant as in April and May, for then is the season of roses, and they seem to come in floods. But even in January one is not conscious of any scarcity. You can pluck them, of the richest colors and choicest varieties, by the basket-full. Tasteful hands bring them in profusion to church, and there they preach marvelous sermons. I have just been out in the garden and walked among them under the weird light of the eclipsed sun. The heavy-laden bees were at work in their midst. The larks were making love in the bordering orange orchard. The odor of the loquats was not unlike that of eastern orchards when in fullest bloom. The wide valley with its many orchards and vineyards stretched away on every hand. All around it stood the great mountains to guard it from wind and cold, and holding aloft their snow-capped summits as if to remind the dwellers beneath of the rigors from which they protect us. Across the face of the sun glided the mysterious shadow that once would have filled all men with fear. To-day that shadow gives us assurance of the harmony and stability of the uniIn the dimmer light the work

verse.

man yonder, with mind undisturbed, plows the long rows of the orange orchard, and I gather a handful of rich Safrano roses which will be gladly given to any reader who will come for them.

Pomona, Cal., Jan. 1, 1889.

MR.

O. CLUTE.

BATCHELOR'S CONCLUSIONS
REGARDING THE WEST.

As our readers know, Rev. Geo. Batchelor, one of the best known, most candid and most influential ministers of our body (and withal one of the most radical as radicalism has been understood until the rise of the recent ethical type in the West) has been for two years past the western representative of our national missionary organization, the American Unitarian Association, and as such has been giving a considerable part of his time to making tours of observation and fraternal helpfulness among our churches and conferences in the various western states. His experiences and observations he has communicated to the American Unitarian Association, and also given somewhat fully to the public in a series of articles in the Christian Register. In the last of these articles he sums up the results of his observations as follows:

66

One general conclusion-the most important, I think I will put on record. The lay men and women of the West, those who know what they want and are willing to work for it, are nearly unanimous as to the nature of the message which our church has for them and ought to have for the world. By way of illustration of the kind of gospel they believe in, let me quote the recently made covenant of the church in Wichita, written by a committee of laymen appointed for that purpose.

'Recognizing the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of mankind, receiving Jesus as teacher, seeking the "Spirit of Truth" as immortal life, we associate ourselves tothe guide of our lives, and in the hope of the gether to maintain the public worship of God, and to promote the welfare of humanity. Imposing no creed upon the conscience of any, asking only an earnest effort to find and follow the truth, we cordially welcome all to a place among us who sympathize with us in these, our aims.'

"That statement, because it is indige

nous, a spontaneous product of organization in Southern Kansas, represents better than anything I could write the purpose which the people of the West would like to see put forward as the aim, not the test, of Unitarian effort in church and conference.

"With such an aim, we might do well to take a lesson from our friends who are founding societies for 'ethical culture.' For these children of light have gained something of the wisdom of this world which we need. They do no miscellaneous missionary work. Dr. Adler does not adopt every man or woman whose name appears in print as a recent convert to ethical culture.' Many are called, but few chosen. He takes a selected person, sees to it that he is well trained in the philosophy of ethics, that he is a good speaker and an efficient worker, causes him to serve an apprenticeship under his own eye, then plants him in some city, goes with him to install him, and frequently returns to watch his methods, to stir up the people to their duty, and to maintain the needed solidarity of purpose. Then in long vocations these few trained apostles of the new creed keep close together, studying, planning, and keeping themselves in close sympathy with each other and the specific work they have set out to do.

"Now, such a plan as that, made more free and democratic, with a little more elasticity and broader sympathies, is precisely what we need. A definite plan, a trained worker, and sympathetic supervision will insure success in a hundred western cities. We need a narrow purpose with the broadest sympathies."

THE IDEA OF THE UNITY CLUB.

The Unity Club has a right to be. It is often questioned, however, whether it is appropriate to connect it with the work of the church. It is looked upon with distrust and positive disfavor by those who feel that the serious and vital needs of the church are not being met, and that this effort faces away from the higher opportunities of spiritual life and consecration.

This criticism is certainly just, wherever the spirit and purpose of the church are manifestly diminished by attention given to the work the Unity Club has in hand. Surely the Unity Club is a vain substitute for the church, and wherever it takes the lead, becomes a dissipating and even harmful influence. But may it not be a branch of the church, subordinate, but worthy of respect and help? The statement of its right to be involves such connection. The Unity Club addresses itself primarily to the intellect both as understanding and as reason. It is not impossible, too, that under the aspect of truth some suggestions of goodness, some light of spiritual grace may also be brought. It would seem inevitable that in some degree this should happen. But characterizing it broadly as the occupation of some field of knowledge and truth by the church, with no greater claim, but certainly with this claim, has it not a clear title to regard? And I mean, distinctly, the regard of the church as a church. I am one who has hitherto looked with distrust upon the Unity Club as a proper or serviceable adjunct of the church; and because I felt that its purposes were better met elsewhere, and that the church needed rather to narrow itself to its supreme task of regenerating the spiritual life of men. I am no less sensitive to the necessity of high and confined direction; but I perceive, too, the inevitable existence of tributaries, and the wisdom of providing breadth as well as intensity of movement.

The Unity Club is simply the church looking a certain way. The same view cannot come from the standpoint of education with all its multiplicity of centers and opportunity. Here there is a lack of elevation and consequently a sense of separation. For the church to concern itself with matters that interest the mind, so it be not to bury itself in these matters, is to give welcome expression to the unity underlying things spiritual and intellectual and moral. The apprehension of such unity involves worthy attraction in both directions. It imparts within literary and intellectual fields the subtle power of a spiritual