Seeing that these errors, delusions, and wrongs of the past are to be dissolved, what is the work of the Universalist Church now and in the time to come? The answer is ready. It is to magnify its office, to extend the spirit and life of its holy faith. It is false to its trust if it fail to do this. It is to advance, "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." To boast of its grand conceptions of truth, its reasonable interpretations of the Bible, of its pre-eminence in any way, and still to have no quickening power in the work it is called to do, is not to seek advancement and success, but to court disappointment and failure. This highly-favored church, then, should offer to the acceptance of the world,-- 1. A positive faith. At this peculiarly transitional time in the Christian Church history, great watchfulness and discrimination are needed on the part of those who are regarded by the majority of the churches as "liberal Christians," because this word "liberal" is often quite vague in its meaning and covers very many phases of belief and unbelief, scepticism, and credulity. A candid and able writer of the Unitarian fraternity has just given to the public these very timely and wholesome suggestions:-- "Liberal Christians will make a fatal mistake if they dream of gaining strength and influence by statements so nebulous and so universally inclusive that even those who deny all spiritualities can ally themselves with them, and speak from their pulpits. If they intend to form a debating club or a school of philosophy, they might naturally and wisely pursue such a policy. But if they wish to form a church, with a faith to offer to the world, and a positive and definite work for a definite end, such a course is self-destructive." "The effort of liberal Christianity should have been to strengthen the things that remain. Instead of that, its work has tended too much to minimize faith and to maximize doubt. Everything has become the subject of dissection, almost nothing the object of enthusiasm and trust. That religious body whose supreme function is criticism, however skilful it may be in special work, will never be a regenerating power in human society."[67] Well said. And this leads us to speak directly and freely on the subject of creeds as connected with all Christian churches, and especially as involving the policy and duty of the so-called Liberal churches. We know that at the present time many are cutting themselves away from old creeds, such as have held them and their ancestors before them; when there is more religious inquiry abroad than ever before, and when it is becoming quite fashionable to speak lightly of all creeds, and to intimate that, on the whole, the church and the world may get along about as well without them as with them,--perhaps much better without them. It is well, as this impatience of creeds is increasing, "to think soberly," if possible, on the whole matter.