THE UNITARIAN CONGRESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11371, 14 May 1900, Page 3

THE UNITARIAN CONGRESS.

TriK seventh national triennial Conference of Unitarian, Liberal Christian, Free Christian, Presbyterian, and other non-subscribing or kindred congregations was opened at Leicester lately.

The proceedings began with a reception at the chapel in East Bond-street, built in 1708 by the successors of those "2000 ejected ministers," from whom Mr. Chamberlain once claimed descent, and known by the quaint title of the " Great Meeting."

Dr. Blake Odgers, Q.C., the well-known authority on the law of libel, as president of the conference, delivered an address and extended a welcome to the foreign delegates. In the course of his address the president, after (referring to some of the more important matters of interest to the conference, which had come under observation during the past three years, adverted to the death of Dr. Martineau, of whose life and work he gave a sympathetic appreciation. He referred also to the death of Dr. St. George Mivart, and to his conflict with the Church of Rome, whoso attitude he strongly condemned, declaring it to be the same now as in the days when the fires of Smithfield were alight, and was there none of Cardinal Vaughan's arrogance displayed by some of the clergy of the Churcn of England ? There was no doubt that the same spirit existed in the Church of England, but to a less degree. On the subject of religious education he said that the resolution carried at Sheffield in 1897 was a mistake. He thought it a sad confession of weakness if men, who call themselves Unitarian Christians, were driven to such a last resort as purely secular education. Surely there was some other solution of the religious difficulty, if a religious difficulty still existed. Let the education given in Board schools be unsectarian, let it be independent of all ecclesiastical control, but surely it need not be secular. What harm could there be in children being taught the Lord's Prayer or the twenty-third Psalm '! From what source could lessons of devotion to duty and self-sacrificing love be better learnt than from the Life of Christ ? But, however they might differ on that point, there was one thing on which the churches represented all agreed— them the Hook of Revelations was not closed. They welcomed the everwidening knowledge of truth as much in science as in religion. The president's greeting was acknowledged by Mr. N. P. Gilman, representing the National Unitarian Conference of America. The Rev. Chas. Hargrove, of Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, preached in the evening at a largely-attended service in the Temperance Hall. mmm