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Extensive and permanent as may be the influence of the pulpit, it is also proposed to effect the same object through the medium of the press. The diffusion of knowledge by means of concise and cheap publications, is an expedient happily suited to the character of the times, and to the circumstances of our people. At a distance, especially, many will read a tract who might never hear a sermon; and amongst ourselves the number is not small of those, who, deterred by various causes from attending a Unitarian church, will not refuse the opportunity of learning the character of Unitarianism, which a tract, seasonably thrown in their way, may from time to time afford. In the silent chamber, the religious tract is often welcomed as the messenger of truth and hope to the perplexed mind and anxious heart of the timid inquirer; and to the man of the world, upon many occasions of leisure and retirement, at home and in his travels, as often, perhaps, by accident as by design, it becomes the agreeable companion of an idle hour, supplies topics of useful reflection, administers wholesome advice, removes unfounded prejudice, corrects pernicious errors; and by this fortuitous circulation, by this invisible agency, often goes far to answer all the important ends of moral and religious instruction. In the conversion of infidels, religious tracts already afford the proofs of encouraging success. Tracts, too, have an advantage over sermons, inasmuch as they admit of a greater variety of style and subjects, and their attractiveness may be increased by suiting them at pleasure to the tastes, habits, and feelings of different classes.

I have thus ventured to solicit attention to existing evils of a practical character, which I have supposed to be deserving of serious consideration. In enforcing the duty of Unitarian Christians in reference to these evils, I have urged only a resort to those public means of influence, which are within the reach of our larger associations.

In pursuing the subject, I should feel bound to enlarge upon the imperative obligation of combining private efforts with public exertions at so critical a period as the present, and in aid of a cause which is as closely connected with individual interests as with the common welfare. With all the efforts to explain and publish it, Unitarianism is as yet strangely misunderstood. Its enemies, whether orthodox Christians or avowed infidels, are indefatigable in their various efforts to misrepresent it; and its friends, I must be permitted to think, have never yet done it justice. I complain particularly of laymen, who are not in general sufficiently prepared to vindicate the religion which they have embraced from the aspersions, with which ignorance and malevolence delight to assail it in the common intercourse of society upon the very occasions where a simple and rational statement of its objects and doctrines might prevent much misapprehension, stifle many a sarcasm, and solve doubts which are but too prevalent in honest minds. I complain still more of Unitarian laymen, that there is such a sad deficiency of practical adherence to the moral precepts, to which we attach so much importance in estimating the peculiar value of our principles, and the influence of which might well be expected to be conspicuously displayed in our characters and lives. It is true that

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many Unitarians make but little use of their religion except in the formation of their opinions; and there are those, I fear, who value it for this purpose only so far as it enables them to divest their minds of the influence of the uncomfortable doctrines of orthodoxy, and who disregard the obligations which are implied in the very act of substituting the precepts of plain duty for the subtleties of a blind faith. Let Unitarianism, in its ordinary acceptation, be stripped of all connexion with the tradition, the cant, and the ecclesiastical frauds, so abhorrent to the reason of any honest man, that have but too often had the effect to render religion ridiculous and contemptible let its simple and solemn truths be familiarly urged in the simple and solemn manner that alone can do justice to their character let it be shown that here is no imposture, no priestcraft, no idolatry, but only stubborn facts, and glorious truths, and immortal hopes, and blessed promises-let it be shown, still further, by living examples, that Unitarianism is efficacious to produce the strictest virtue, a temperate but constant. cheerfulness, a devotion to duty which disregards temporary expedients, which is faithful to all the offices of private and social life, which conciliates universal respect; I say, let Unitarianism be thus understood and practised, and honest and candid minds will not fail to honor and embrace it. It will appear that its objects are the highest to which the human intellect can aspire, that its means are adapted to the circumstances of the human condition-that to disbelieve its truths, is to disregard the first dictates of the understanding, and to violate its precepts is to revolt against the best feelings of the heart.

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THOUGHTS

ON

VITAL RELIGION.

SECOND EDITION.

PRINTED FOR THE

American Unitarian Association.

BOSTON,

GRAY AND BOWEN 141 WASHINGTON STREET.

1830.

Price 3 Cents.

THE whole of this Tract is not now for the first time published. Several passages, by the same author, are here reprinted with revisions, from an article in answer to the inquiry, What is Vital Religion?' which appeared a few years since in the

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Christian Disciple.'

PRINTED BY I. R. BUTTS....BOSTON.

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