This leads us to notice a misapprehension into which the editor of _The Religious Magazine_ of Boston has fallen. This Unitarian periodical is one which we esteem very much, on account of its excellent and truly devout spirit; and its contributors belong to a class of liberal Christians whose tendencies inspire us with much hope. It is with pleasure, therefore, that we recognize the candid and amicable tone of the notice which it has given of that which we have written especially for those whose intellectual direction is in the line which it follows. Our Unitarian critic has, however, made the great mistake of supposing that we use an orthodox phraseology, without any ideas behind it different from those of liberal Christians or rationalists. He says, "Setting aside what we cannot help calling theological technicalities, his account of man's moral being accords almost entirely with that which our liberal Christianity would give." "Perhaps the criticism upon our author must be, that he only retains in word and form much which he has abandoned in fact." The writer of this has been so accustomed to associate certain Catholic formulas and words with Calvinistic ideas, that they seem to him to mean nothing when dissociated from them. With him, the logical alternative of Calvinism is Unitarianism; and whoever agrees with him in rejecting the former, must substantially agree with him in holding the latter, however his language may vary from that which he himself uses. The reason of this is, that he fails to apprehend the Catholic idea of the supernatural order; that is, of the elevation of the rational creature to the immediate intuition of the divine essence in the beatific vision. We fear that in the last analysis it will be found that Unitarians have lost the distinct conception of the personality of God, and retain only a vague, confused notion of him as abstract being, and therefore not an object of direct vision. {187} Hence, they conceive of the highest contemplation and beatitude of man in the future life as a mere evolution and extension of our natural intelligence and spontaneity. Or, if they do conceive of heaven as a state in which the soul attains to a direct, personal fellowship and converse with God as a friend, a father, a supreme, intelligent, living, and loving Spirit, with whom the human spirit comes into immediate relations, like those of man with man on earth, they still believe that we are capable of attaining to this by the mere development of our natural powers, and by purely natural acts. There is, therefore, a great chasm between the Unitarian and the Catholic doctrine. The latter teaches, in the mystery of the Trinity, the only real and possible conception of personal subsistence in the divine essence, and sets forth the concrete, living, active, impersonated God, in whom is infinite, self-sufficing beatitude, without any necessity to create for the sake of completing the reason, and relations, and end of his being.