ary for Unitarians themselves to-day to look back on these
years of early zeal and controversy with but a qualified sympathy, so
much was still cherished in the body as a whole that is no longer
tenable, and again so much that was undreamed then is indispensable to
modern thought. One of the greatest of Unitarians, Dr. Martineau, whose
important share in the development of their ideas and life must be
considered farther on, referred in a discourse of about forty years ago
to three distinct stages in Unitarian theology. First, he pointed to the
significance of the struggle for the principle of 'Unity in the Divine
causation,' as against a doctrine which, as Unitarians maintain,
endeavours in vain by words to prevent a triplicity of 'Persons' from
sliding into a group of three Divine Beings. This struggle marks in
great part the whole track by which the reader has come thus far in the
present story. The second stage, according to Dr. Martineau, is that in
which the Conscience of Man is emphasized, in virtue of the belief in a
real responsibility and an actual power to choose the right or the
wrong. This 'Religion of Conscience' he sees especially illustrated in
the principles enunciated and the work accomplished by Channing; perhaps
it would be fair to say that many who had preceded the American leader
were imbued with a measure of his wisdom when they insisted, as we have
seen, on the adaptability of the pure Gospel message to the needs and
understanding of men everywhere, and declared that its aim was 'to make
men good and keep them so.' The third stage, which Dr. Martineau
considered to be fully begun at the time of his sermon (1869), is that
of the 'Religion of the Spirit,' in which the ideas of the Divine
Sovereignty and the Human Duty are rounded into vital beauty and
completeness by the idea of the actual relation of Man to God as a Son
to a Father.

We have referred in advance to this compendious view in order to show
whither the sequel is to lead us, but before this all-important
development can be traced there remains one more piece of external
history to be supplied. Happily it may be dealt with summarily.

QUESTIONS OF INHERITANCE

The bitterness of theological discussion which troubled the earlier
decades of the nineteenth century received new provocation in the shape
of litigation about property. Both in England and America the right of
Unitarianism was challenged to hold those Meeting Houses and