se
of progress, should thus fall a victim to some of the most childish
superstitions of the human race.

THE POETS AND LIBERAL THEOLOGY. *

* _The Development of Theology as Illustrated in English
Poetry from 1780 to 1830_. By Stopf ord A. Brooke.
London: Green, Essex-street.

Unitarianism has had wealth and learning on its side for several
generations, it has also enjoyed the services of some men of singular
ability, yet it has signally failed to make an impression upon the
general public. In all probability it ever _will_ fail. Those who like
theology at all, for the most part like it hot and strong. To purge
it of its "grosser" features is to rob it of its chief attraction. The
ignorant and thoughtless multitude want plenty of supernaturalism.
Those who think for themselves, on the other hand, are apt to grow
dissatisfied with theology altogether, and to advance beyond the
somewhat arbitrary and fantastic limits of the Unitarian faith. For this
reason Unitarianism was called by Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of the
great Charles Darwin, a feather bed to catch a falling Christian. Others
regard it as a halfway house between Christianity and Atheism, or even
as a bathing machine for those who would wade, and fear to plunge, in
the waters of Freethought.

Let us not, however, deny the distinction of such advocates of the
Unitarian faith as Dr. Martineau and Dr. Stopf ord Brooke. The latter
was once a clergyman of the Church of England, which he left because he
no longer held her tenets, and in this he was more honest and courageous
than some others who eat the Church's bread and undermine her faith.
Mr. Brooke regards himself as a teacher of positive religion, but in our
judgment his service to liberalism is really negative. His writings and
sermons are a protest, however decorous, against the orthodox theology;
and the protest may be all the more effective, with a certain order
of minds, because it does not show them the ultimate consequences of
freethinking. When they see the preacher aglow with the ardor of his
"purified" faith in God and Immortality, they are encouraged to advance
as far as he has gone, and thus to leave behind them the worst portions
of the creed of their childhood.

Mr. Brooke is well known in the field of literature, and is held to
shine as a critic of poetry. Hence it was that the British and Foreign
Unitarian Association appointed him to deliver the first lecture o