ny of the trustees, and a
considerable portion of the wealthier members, cared nothing for
religion. Others had no regard for anything about Christianity but the
name and a little of the form. Some had such a hatred of what they
called Methodist fanaticism, that they shrank from any manifestation of
religious life or earnestness. And they had such a horror of cant, that
they canted on the other side. Their talk about religion was little else
but cant. Their talk about cant itself was cant. They had quite a
dislike of any thing like religious zeal, and had a dread of any one who
had been a Methodist, especially if he retained any of his Methodistical
earnestness. The word unction was a term of reproach, and the rich,
invaluable treasure for which it stood was an offence. They wished to
enjoy themselves in a quiet, easy, self-indulgent, fashionable way, and
have just so much of the form and appearance of religion as was
requisite to a first class worldly reputation. They had no desire to be
regarded as skeptics or unbelievers; that would have been as bad as to
have been reputed Methodists; but they would have nothing to do with any
schemes or efforts for the revival of religious feeling in their
churches, or with any interference with the customary habits or quiet
worldliness of their peaceable neighbors. Some, and in certain districts
many, even of the poorer members, were utterly indifferent, and in some
cases even opposed, to any religion. In some cases both rich and poor
had become grossly immoral. Their churches had degenerated into eating
and drinking clubs. The endowments were spent in periodical feasts.
There were also cases in which the chapel and school endowments had
fallen into the hands of individuals or families, who looked on them and
used them very much as private property. The schools and congregations
had disappeared, and even the chapels and school-houses were rapidly
hastening to ruin.

And there was everywhere a tendency downward from the Christian to the
infidel level. If churches do not labor for the conversion of the world,
and endeavor to become themselves more Christ-like and godly,
degeneracy, and utter degradation and ruin are inevitable. And the
tendency, at the time to which I refer, throughout the whole little
world of Unitarianism was downwards to utter unbelief. In many minds
there was as much impatience with old-fashioned moderate Unitarianism,
as with old-fashioned Christianity or Method