and brightest in John Howe's character and career, dwelling with
evident unction on the many pregnant titles of Howe's works, which he
seemed much to prefer to the works themselves, and in which he was right;
for Howe's thoughts, it must be conceded, are not couched in the form and
language most easy of apprehension to the men of to-day; and from the
past, with some rare exceptions--those, of course, written in a dead
language being the chief--it is vain to extract literature for the study
and edification of the present. Religion is no exception to a universal
law; indeed, more than anything else, it is required of him who preaches
it that he should speak to living men in the living language of
to-day--not according to formulas that have long died out, or in terms
that have long become extinct; and this specially may be said of Mr.
Lynch, that as much as any one he realizes this great law, and does use
language and illustration and argument familiar to the men and women of
London in this latter day--that he does not cease to be a man when in the
pulpit, and deal with abstraction rather than with real life. When Mr.
Lynch began his ministerial career this virtue was rarer than it is now,
and of this desirable result Mr. Lynch deserves, at any rate, some of the
credit. Be that as it may, the writer has one other thing to say. It
seems to him that these Thursday evening lectures of Mr. Lynch's deserve
a wide support. There are many in London who would be glad enough to
attend. There are many living out of town who would find it worth while
stopping an hour or two later on a Thursday evening. The service
commences at a quarter past seven; and I believe generally Mr. Lynch
takes some specific subject, such as "John Howe," or "Bells," or anything
which seems to him notable. The writer heard also on the night in which
he was there something about questions asked and answered; but on that he
can say, as he knows, nothing.

CHAPTER IX.
THE UNITARIANS.

"In the apostolical Fathers we find," writes the Rev. Islay Burns, "for
the most part only the simple Biblical statements of the deity and
humanity of Christ in the practical form needed for general edification.
Of those fathers Ignatius is the most deeply imbued with the conviction
that the crucified Jesus is God incarnate, and indeed frequently calls
Him, without qualification, God. The development of Christology in the
scientific doctrine of the Logos begins w