to the friends he had left, which the sense of duty permitted. Then, when the high resolve of faithful conscience had achieved the deed of Duty, the exhausted heart, no longer called to act, felt more than the bitterness of death. There is something most sad, but unspeakably noble, in the first feelings committed to his private diary in that town,-the temporary sinking of the spirit when the sacrifice was made, and the excitement of high courage no longer needed:

Liverpool, January 10, 1835.

"My whole life has not had moments so bitter as those which I have experienced within the last half hour. Exhausted by the inconveniences of the sea passage last night, I laid myself down and fell asleep for a short time. I awoke in that distracted state which a sudden transition

from place to place frequently occasions. Now every painful circumstance of my present situation crowded upon me, so that I could not bear up against the anguish of my heart. The whole of what had passed through my mind with such irresistible power respecting my duty, appeared like a delusion—a dream, with my present misery for all its reality. In this state I had to write a few lines to those I have left, and I thought my heart would break. How entirely must I cast myself on God's mercy for support! Has not some martyr, when already bound to the stake, been tried by the awful impression that he had been brought there by a delusion ? Was there not something of this horrible idea in Christ's mind, when having deliberately gone to the garden which Judas knew,' he thought three successive times he might possibly have overrated the necessity of drinking the cup which he had now close to his lips? Oh may his fortitude encourage me, and his spirit strengthen me! How much indeed do I wars it!"

But the true spirit is never long without the encouraging sense of God's presence. Angels came to Christ in that garden. And the promise of his Father to those who love him and keep his word, was not here unfulfilled. They came to him and made their abode with him, and never afterwards left him, even for a moment. I find the following entry made the next day :

"I am relieved from that mental distress which oppressed me. All my hopes of usefulness have revived. My sense of duty is again attended with courage to perform it. My heart is full of gratitude to God the Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, for this support in my utmost need. Blessed be his name!"

The rest of his days, a period of more than six years, were spent in Liverpool, during which time his bodily weakness and ill health obliged him to lead a purely mental life, incessantly devoted to the highest departments of Thought,-rejoicing, whenever an interval of strength permitted, in his mental freedom, and in the firmer faith into which his soul rose, when his reason VOL. III. No. 13.-New Series.

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was relieved from the difficulties that had so long clouded his views of God and Christ.

In his private journal there is the following entry, on August 17, 1835:

'At no period of my life have I enjoyed moments of purer happiness than during the present. As soon as that agitating struggle was at an end, I began to reap the reward of my determination. I am of course subject to attacks of that dejecting and distracting indigestion which has the power to cast a veil of darkness over nature. But I have learnt to distinguish between reality and this peculiar delusion. I wait till the cloud has glided off, and am all the while certain that sunshine is behind it. But never before had I perceived what happiness may be bestowed on man, through the mere activity of his soul. I had to-day relieved the uneasiness and pain to which I am subject; had dressed myself, and, as has been my custom for some time past, had opened my window and seated myself in view of the heavens, to collect my mind for the daily tribute of adoration to my Maker. The mere act of directing my mind to Him, in the presence of his glorious works, filled me with an inexpressible, though tranquil and rational delight. I said to myselfWhat a glorious gift conscious existence is in itself! Heaven must essentially consist in the absence of whatever disturbs the quiet enjoyment of that consciousness, in the intimate conviction of the presence of God."

He has recorded the fact that from the time of his acting upon his last convictions, his living faith in God and Christ, and his consolations in Religion, were daily gaining strength. He had never been in any dissenting place of worship, and having been always told that he could never bear the coarseness of other dissenters, and the absence of all real devotion with Unitarians, he was for a time afraid that he should be obliged to follow Milton's example, and abstain from public worship.' He came, however, and saw for himself; and for the sake of those in the Church (of whom he thought there were many) who may suppress their doubts by the question, "but where shall we go?" his experience ought to be made known. These are his words:

"Oh that it were possible that some of my friends would come and see;' how much their unjust prejudices would be softened. The Unitarian worship stands on ground which all Christians hold as sacred. What strikes me most of all is, the reality, the true connection with life which this worship possesses. All that I had practised before, seemed to be in a region scarcely within view. It was something which I forced myself to go through because I had persuaded myself that it would be good for the soul; yet like an unintelligible and partly revolting charm, it only fatigued, but did not touch the mind, except here and there when the prayer descended from the clouds of theology, and did not adopt the slavish language of eastern devotion. But here the whole worship is a

part of my real life. I pray with my spirit; I pray with my understanding also. May I not say that suffering every hour from the bleeding wounds of my heart, those wounds that even my friends touch roughly -I have been already rewarded for acting in conformity with principle? I believe my faith in Christ is stronger-it has more reality—it is more a part of my being-not detached, loose, an appendage, hanging on, and almost in the way of real life-but, like an articulated limb, adding strength to the whole of my moral being."

He had the strongest sense of the importance of social worship as the purest means of keeping alive in the heart spiritual sentiments of God and of humanity; and, whenever his great bodily sufferings permitted, he never omitted an opportunity of seeking these connections with his fellow men. Not many weeks before his death he sent for the writer of these notices, early on Sunday morning, and having for days together suffered anguish which cannot be described, he said with tears, which he was too feeble to restrain,-"I wish you to ask for me the prayers of your congregation,-I do not doubt the goodness of my God,— nor do I believe that he overlooks me, or requires intercession,but my soul longs for religious sympathy, and I wish to feel that I am not separated from my fellow Christians, nor deprived of the consolations I have always found from social prayer."

The last result of his religious inquiries was the firmest faith in the spirit of Christianity as the divine guide and light of men, together with the absolute rejection of every thing of a dogmatic or external nature, as essential to the salvation of the soul. And the only correction required to be passed on his latest published writings to bring them into more entire conformity with his last views of Religion, would be to strike out traces of a conventional language, clinging to him from former habits, which seemed to recognize other essentials of Christianity than the true allegiance of the soul to the spirit of the Christ. He had no toleration for the theological habit of setting snares for faith,—and Christianity was to him the Religion of life,—the acceptance by the heart and soul of the moral and spiritual Christ, independently of all dogmas whatsoever. He regarded as decidedly opposed to the direct purpose of the Christian mission, the common view that any speculative views are necessary to Salvation. Many of his latest religious connection will differ from him in his views of the essence of Christianity, but he revolted from all Orthodoxies, wherever they might appear, and having emancipated himself from older and more imposing authorities, he was not likely to yield himself up to Unitarian Standards. Never was there a heart more full of moral love for

Christ. Never was there a Disciple who more truly understood that Master.

He may justly be regarded as the most distinguished convert Unitarianism ever had, a convert all the more honoured for the consistency with which he has taken successive steps in the direction of the same fundamental principles;-but we should very much mistake him if we deemed him one of a class, or that the word Unitarianism, as expressive of a sect, exactly describes and compasses his mind. He had taken up Unitarian views from a new position, and therefore we should expect him to carry into them new lights. In truth, it may be signally useful to observe what modification our views undergo when taken up by minds trained in other Schools, and removed from some of our narrowing and partial influences. We are all in danger of exclusiveness, of the bigotry of maintaining that a subject has no sides, no points of view, except those our little experience has presented to ourselves. We think too much in masses. There is too little of individual investigation, and individual opinion. With most men, to determine what sect they belong to, gives you their whole confession of faith. When you know that they are Churchmen, or Independents, or Baptists, or Unitarians, you know all that is to be known about them. There is nothing to distinguish the individual from the class. Thus every little party lives within its own set of influences, and there is nothing to lead them to a new point of view. We ought to be alive therefore, with the expectation of new light, whenever a fresh mind looks upon our work from the vantage ground of another position than our own. Certainly our views can be perfected only by taking them from every side; and since that is impossible to any of us singly, each individual must be invited to throw his own experience into the common stock of Truth, and out of the whole the view may be completed. We reverence Mr. White's progressive spirit too much, to claim him as a partizan. Would to God that his Catholic mind was claimed, as it ought to be, by the whole Church of Christ!

He had the most real and constantly operative belief in a guiding and protecting Providence, who cares for the individual, and shapes the course of events so as to fall in with the improvement or the happiness of those who seek the leadings of His Spirit. And this faith in a God intimately present to the individual is especially deserving of mention in a mind of so philosophical a character, and that would have revolted from the gross human conceptions of special interferences. He derived this belief in a Providence never absent from the individual, and

which was the source to him of unfailing consolation, from the spiritual faith of Christ, that God was a Spirit, and that the soul which sought Him was ever the sanctuary of the Deity. The last words he was heard to utter on the subject of Providence, a few nights before his death, were these,-" that whatever might be the difficulties in the course of this our life, yet in the very direction of those difficulties there were circumstances that were more than compensations for any sufferings that Duty and Principle might bring, and that though he had never doubted of Providence, he had seen this in his own case more clearly than any Treatise had ever presented it to him." He had not much patience with those philosophical pretensions that aspired to clear the subject of Providence of all mysteries. To comprehend, in this full measure, the ways of God he thought was nothing less than an attempt to define the infinite, to know the Omniscient. He was in the habit of saying, "Man must turn to the light within him, aided by its developments in Christ,— the highest, the purest, the best guide he knows. He must follow that light; he must sacrifice his selfish will to the duties which Conscience points out, and, forgetting the dark mystery of his existence, use that existence, so that if it depended upon him exclusively, the universe would be free from evil. Any conduct but this is madness." He believed that the material views of God which exist in the common mind were the greatest obstructions to true Religion, and the real supports of prevailing systems. He nourished his own soul on the sublime words of Christ to the woman of Samaria: "God is a Spirit: and they who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in Truth." This was his view of the spiritual God:

"Whenever the ideas of wisdom, order, love, blend together into an imageless conception, and that conception draws the soul into the Infinite, in an act of longing love after the eternal source of our being, how pure, how tranquil, how confident is the adoration which the soul performs! Tears indeed suffuse the eyes-for the longing itself reminds us of a state of suffering, of evil, and of struggle; but the mind turns back to the business and the pains of life full of filial confidence, without a thought about acts of propitiation, about practical measures of safety against the wrath of the Idol-God of the multitude. It feels assured that life itself under a conscientious faithfulness to Reason, is the only acceptable service which the true, the spiritual God expects from his creatures. This is true Faith."

For a time, after his arrival in Liverpool, he was supported by the first feelings of complete mental freedom, and by the thought that, by his continued writings on Religion, he might be useful