his ministerial services and friendly counsels,-and when he stood highest in their esteem, and had engaged their warmest affections. This address was voted, November 12th, 1805, and the answer to it is dated from Oldenbarneveld, January 1, 1806. Mr. Sherman's talents were not suffered to remain long unemployed; and he appears almost immediately after his dismission, to have been invited to undertake the pastoral charge of the small congregation which had been collected chiefly by the labours of the excellent Adrian Vanderkemp. And to enable him to remove his family to this distance, he received a very handsome pecuniary present from his friends at Mansfield, which he acknowledges with warm gratitude. At last this respectable society seems to have roused itself from its slumbers, and to have taken the step which it might have been expected that their affection would have dictated immediately upon their worthy pastor's dismission. The church and the congregation invite him to resume the pastoral office at Mansfield. This invitation was dated December 19, but it was then too late. A scene of greater usefulness had, in his estimation, opened before him, and to this considcration he regarded it as his duty to sacrifice personal gratification and social enjoyment. But, in his reply to this application, he introduces a very judicious summary of the evidence of the Unitarian doctrine, and concludes with expressing his grateful sense of the kindness of his friends, and with a very impressive address to the youth of the congregation.*

* The conclusion of this worthy confessor's address to the youth of his late congregation at Mansfield, is so excellent, that no apology can be necessary for inserting it.

"To the great question in dispute, undoubtedly your minds are also directed. The subject is of primary importance, and demands your serious and attentive consideration. Surely you ought to know whether you are to be the worshippers of Three Gods, or of One God only. Let me exhort you to search the the Scriptures diligently on this point, and see whether they teach you that three divine persons, three distinct moral agents, make, when added together, only one individual being. Should

For some years afterwards Mr. Sherman remained at Oldenbarneveld; and in a letter to Mrs. Lindsey, dated November 5, 1807, the worthy Mr. Vanderkemp expresses himself thus favourably of the exertions and success of his respected coadjutor.

"It must fill Mr. Lindsey's heart with gladness that his labours are blessed here in the wilderness, through the means of those, whom he enlightened and confirmed in the Gospel doctrine by his writings. Our pastor, with his amiable and worthy wife, has the greatest reason for gratitude to the Divine Being, being beloved, respected, and useful in spreading religious knowledge far and wide. Our situation, in a religious point of view, is very gratifying. Notwithstanding our pastor has to struggle with furious bigotry and ignorant superstition, which blacken his charac ter and slander his innocence, while infidelity has her adherents through the whole country. That kind of writings are spread every where, and peddled round the country by hawkers in the wilderness, sometimes, under spurious titles. Volney and Paine, and Hollis are found in miserable cots and hovels, while it is often difficult to meet the sacred Scriptures. This evil has been nursed through the misconduct of high-flying Calvinist teachers in New-England in choosing their missionaries from the most stupid and bigoted; perhaps from necessity: while men of talents among them decline the task. It is therefore not surprising that our pastor is heard with delight wherever there

the result of your investigation comport with the doctrine which I have taught you from the Scriptures, I wish you may be duly impressed with the importance of openly avowing it, and appearing as its advocates; that as you rise into public life, you will never be ashamed of the interesting truth, but boldly and faithfully stand in its defenee, though the multitude should be against you. Let your zeal, however, be well tempered with Christian charity. Be moderate and candid, liberal and catholic, in your treatment of those who may differ. Above all, always remember that the best orthodoxy is a faithful observanee of the sacred precepts of that One God whom you prefess and acknowledge."

remains any claim to virtue and religion. His plain, affable manners, his energetic manner of preaching, his vast superiority over his antagonists in disputes, whenever they attack him, increase his influence every day. He preaches in the week twenty miles round, and is sanguine in his expectations that he shall form another society twelve miles from hence. Few weeks are passing in which some one or other of the vicinity do not join our church, and those by far the most respectable among them. Disney's Tracts and Seddon's Sermons have operated a great deal of good so too have the works of my worthy friend, who now ere long shall receive the glorious reward of his labours. Our minister has instituted a school of moral instruction, in which every subject of natural and revealed religion is discussed freely."

In a letter dated April, 1809, Mr. Vanderkemp writes in a less sanguine, yet not altogether discouraging strain. "The Gospel cause gains slowly here and at Philadelphia. We have at length succeeded to re-engage our worthy minister," who it should seem was about to leave them for want of necessary support for his family. "His ministerial labours are not in vain. Well supplied with a tolerable library,' he has seen it enlarged, by Mr. J. Priestley, and Mr. J. Taylor from Philadelphia, by some valuable ad ditions. He deserves fully this encouragement. His talents are bright: his sermons are plain and persuasive; his prayers devout and ardent; and his conduct struck his slanderers dumb."

Unfortunately, whether it were owing to the inabi. lity of the congregation at Oldenbarneveld to raise an adequate income for the support of their worthy pastor; or whether, as is often the case with persons of genius, and whose minds are devoted to intellectual pursuits, there might be on his part too little attention paid to economical arrangements; in the next account we learn that Mr. Sherman was under the necessity of dissolving his connexion with his society, and that the flock was at that time left without a shepherd, and

in a state by no means encouraging. "The best that I can say about our situation is," says the excellent Mr. Vanderkemp, in a letter to Mrs. Lindsey, dated August, 1810, that we are in a very torpid state. Since March we have no minister. Though a few doubled their subscriptions, though twice we took the defalcations of others on our account, we could not raise a sum adequate to his salary; so the connexion was dissolved, to our great grief and the irreparable loss of this community. We have resolved, however, and continue steadfastly our religious meetings. Some of us have engaged to read in turns; so that we are edified sometimes by Clarke, and Tillotson, sometimes by Blair, and sometimes by Lindsey, Priestley, Price, and Toulmin."

Of the present state of the Unitarian doctrine in the District of Maine, the author of this Memoir is not informed. Whether the congregation at Portland, collected by the worthy Mr. Oxnard, or that at Saco under the patronage of the truly excellent Mr. Thatcher, still exist, or in what state they now are, he has not heard. At Hallowell, the first families in the place are in their principles decidedly Unitarian; and it is hoped they will find some opportunity of erecting an altar to the ONE GOD, and that by the powerful influence of instruction and example they will diffuse the blessings of rational religion in a district which, under their auspices, is rapidly rising into opulence and distinction,

In the state of Massachusetts, and particularly in the environs of Boston, the great cause of Christian truth is making a silent but-rapid and irresistible progress. From the inquisitive and liberal spirit which prevails in the University of Cambridge, which has never been checked at any time, but which there is reason to expect will receive every requisite aid and encouragement from the present learned and accomplised Principal, Dr. Kirkland, the happiest consequences may be expected to ensue.

The edition of Griesbach's Greek Testament with select various readings, and with the accurate and la

borious author's latest corrections, a copy of which was procured in Germany by the reverend, learned, and eloquent Joseph S. Buckminster, which under his inspection has been elegantly and correctly reprinted in America, as a text-book for the Students of Harvard College, cannot fail to contribute essentially to the true interpretation of the Sacred Oracles. And a large and beautiful impression of the Improved Version with the Notes, published by my intelligent, learned, and valuable friend and correspondent, Mr. W. Wells, of Boston, whose zeal for truth is beyond all praise, will, it is hoped, contribute to the better understanding of difficult and doubtful passages in holy writ. The Monthly Anthology, the General Repository, and other valuable periodical publications, conducted by gentlemen of distinguished talents and liberality, tend very much to diffuse a spirit of inquiry. Bigotry is discountenanced; and, if 1 am not greatly misinformed, divine worship in many of the principal churches at Boston, is carried on upon principles strictly, if not avowedly Unitarian.*

A very correct, certainly not a partial account of the present state of professed Unitarianism in the State of the Massachusetts, and particularly in Boston, has lately been published in the Monthly Repository for March and April, 1812, in a letter addressed by my highly esteemed friend the Reverend Francis Parkman, of Boston, to the Reverend John Grundy, in reply to a flattering account of the state of Unitarianism in Boston and its vicinity, contained in the Appendix to Mr. Grundy's elo, quent discourse at the opening of a new place of worship at Liverpool. This account appears to have been communicated to my worthy friend by some person whose zeal in a good cause led him to see the objects of his wish in rather too favourable a light. See APPENDIX. W. Wells' Letter.

The following extract from a letter written by a minister in America to his friend in England, dated October, 1810, though somewhat long, will, it is hoped, be found both entertaining and important; it will throw much light upon the state of religion in Boston, and may give rise to some useful reflections.

"In my return home I spent the Sabbath at Templeton, and I preached twice. There are not more than forty or fifty families near the meeting; but they come in all directions from the woods and mountains in such numbers, as to make all together a goodly company. There being in almost every parish, especially in Massachusetts and Connecticut, a settled minister always of good morals, and generally of real piety, to administer divine ordinances to them, and lead them in the way of truth and duty, can scarcely fail having a good influence upon the people at large, in preserving them from that gross ignorance and grievous profli gacy so prevalent in many countries that are called Christian. Nothing