CHAP. X.] NOTHINGARIANS. 139 



sale of Channing s works in the United States, I was informed 

 that several of them, published separately, had gone through 

 many editions, and no less than 9000 copies of the whole, in six 

 volumes, had been sold already (1845), and the demand for them 

 was on the increase, many copies having been recently ordered 

 from distant places in the West, such as St. Louis and Chicago. 

 A reprint of the same edition at Glasgow, has circulated widely 

 in England, and the reading of it in America is by no means 

 confined to Unitarians, the divines of other denominations, 

 especially the Calvinists, being desirous to know what has been 

 written against them by their great antagonist. 



Having been informed by one of my friends that about a fifth 

 of all the New Eriglanders were &quot; Nothingarians,&quot; I tried, but 

 with little success, to discover the strict meaning of the term. 

 Nothing seems more vague and indefinite than the mariner of its 

 application. I fancied at first that it might signify deists or in 

 fidels, or persons careless about any religious faith, or who were 

 not church-goers ; but, although it may sometimes signify one or 

 all of these, I found it was usually quite otherwise. The term 

 latitudinarian, used in a good sense, appeared most commonly to 

 convey the meaning ; for a Nothingarian, I was informed, was 

 indifferent whether he attended a Baptist, Methodist, Presbyte 

 rian, or Congregationalist church, and was often equally inclined 

 to contribute money liberally to any one or all of them. A Meth 

 odist writer of some eminence remarked to me, that the range of 

 doctrines embraced by these denominations, was not greater, if so 

 great, as that which comprehended within the same pale a high 

 tractarian and a low churchman, and that he who would indiffer 

 ently subscribe to these two forms of Episcopalianism, might with 

 equal propriety be styled a Nothingarian. In other cases I as~ 

 certained that the term Nothingarian was simply used for persons 

 who, though they attended worship regularly in some church, had 

 never been communicants. One of the latter, an Episcopalian, 

 once said to me, &quot; I have never joined any church ;&quot; and then 

 in explanation added, &quot; it would be hard at my age to renounce 

 society, dancing, and public amusements.&quot; I expostulated soon 

 afterward with an Episcopalian minister in Virginia, observing- 



