‘There is a religion of humanity,’ writes Mr. Fox, ‘though not enshrined in creeds and articles—though it is not to be read merely in sacred books, and yet it may be read in all, whenever they have anything in them of truth and moral beauty; a religion of humanity which goes deeper than all, because it belongs to the essentials of our moral and intellectual constitution, and not to mere external accidents—the proof of which is not in historical agreement or metaphysical deduction, but in our own conscience and consciousness; a religion of humanity which unites and blends all other religions, and makes one the men whose hearts are sincere, and whose characters are true, and good, and harmonious, whatever may be the deductions of their minds, or their external profession; a religion of humanity which cannot perish in the overthrow of altars or the fall of temples, which survives them all, and which, were every derived form of religion obliterated from the face of the world, would recreate religion, as the spring recreates the fruits and flowers of the soil, bidding it bloom again in beauty, bear again its rich fruits of utility, and fashion for itself such forms and modes of expression as may best agree with the progressive condition of mankind.’ And this religion of humanity is to be met with in Finsbury Square. I am not aware there is anything new about it. Every school-boy is familiar with it in Pope’s Universal Prayer; but latterly, in Germany, in England, and across the Atlantic, it has been preached with an eloquence of peculiar fascination and power. Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson have been the high priests in the new temple, which fills all space, and whose worship is all time. In England, as an organisation, whatever it may have done as a theory, it has not succeeded. Here William Johnson Fox, originally a student at the Independent Academy, Homerton, then a Unitarian minister, and now the member for Oldham, and the ‘Publicola’ of the ‘Dispatch,’ has been its most eloquent advocate. If any man could have won over the people to it, he, with his unrivalled rhetoric—rhetoric which, during the agitation of the Anti-Corn-Law League, will be remembered as surpassing all that has been heard in our day—would have done it; and yet Fox never had his chapel more than comfortably full—not even when the admission was gratis, and any one who wished might walk in. But now the place has a sadly deserted appearance. You feel cold and chilly directly you enter. The mantle of Fox has not fallen on his successor; and what Mr. Fox could not accomplish, most certainly the Rev. Mr. Ierson will not perform.