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The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 By 
 
 ERNEST GORDON 
 
 “We trust the Unitarian doctrine and practice to leaven 
 the inert mass of archaic religious opinion. The pene¬ 
 tration has been accomplished and the leaven has worked 
 wonderfully .”—Twentieth Century Christianity, Charles 
 W. Eliot. 
 
 “Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking 
 perverse things to draw away disciples after them.”— 
 Acts 20:30. 
 
 BOSTON C&lhlim LIJ35AET 
 CHESTNUT KILE, MAKS. 
 
 Chicago 
 
 THE BIBLE INSTITUTE COLPORTAGE ASS’N 
 843-845 North Wells Street 
 
Copyright, 1926, by 
 
 Ernest Gordon 
 
 Erin ted in the United 
 
 States of America 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I. The Unitarian Defection in New England - - 7 
 
 The “capture” of the churches from Puritanism. The reac¬ 
 tion from Unitarianism to Episcopalianism. Dr. F. D. Hunt¬ 
 ington. The statement of an ex-Unitarian, F. S. Child. 
 
 CHAPTER II. Christian Missions and Unitarian Missions - 21 
 
 The rise of Christian missions in New England contempo¬ 
 raneous with the Unitarian apostasy. The Unitarian mission 
 in Japan and its collapse. The failure of the Harvard mission 
 in China. Drs. Sunderland and Bacon on the inability of 
 Unitarianism to initiate missions and the reason. Depreciation 
 of Christian missions by Drs. Johnson, Eliot, and Peabody. 
 Unitarian missions to evangelical heathen at Chautauqua, in 
 State universities, and among Lutheran Scandinavians. 
 
 CHAPTER III. The Good Works of Unitarianism - - - - 3 6 
 
 Unitarian accomplishment in philanthropy and good citizen¬ 
 ship. The evangelical roots in Unitarian personalities and 
 philanthropies. The Unitarian families in Boston and their 
 great wealth. The extent of Unitarian giving as compared 
 with that of the Christian churches. Unitarian contributions 
 to educational pioneering slight. The “capture” of Antioch 
 college. The moral character of Harvard and its graduates 
 according to Harvard testimony. Unitarian neglect of Negro 
 and Indian. The slavery issue and Unitarianism. How Uni¬ 
 tarianism has blocked the movement against alcohol. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. Unitarian Scepticism and Unitarian Schemes 66 
 
 An examination of Unitarian literature. Emerton, Chad¬ 
 wick, Dole, Eliot. Its anti-Christian character. The official 
 publications of the American Unitarian Association. The drift 
 into atheism. Dr. Dietrich and other “humanists.” Attempts 
 of President Eliot to break the way for Unitarianism into the 
 Federal Council of Churches. Unitarianism in the Massachu¬ 
 setts Federation of Churches and the resulting paralysis. The 
 drive to break down the evangelical tests of the Y. M. C. A. 
 and Y. W. C. A. and to admit Unitarians to their management. 
 Unitarian denunciation of these Christian tests. The Unitarian 
 plan of leavening Christian churches and institutions as stated 
 by themselves. Boring from within. The testimony of Slaten. 
 Staying in evangelical pulpits and “capturing” them for Uni¬ 
 tarianism. 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER V. The Religious Education Association - - - - 101 
 
 The Religious Education Association and Unitarianism. 
 Permeating the Bible Instruction in the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. 
 
 C. A. “Capturing” the International Sunday School Associa¬ 
 tion. “Capturing” Chautauqua. Permeating the hymnbooks. 
 “Capturing” the Bible chairs in the colleges. C. F. Kent and 
 his anti-Christian Life and Teachings of Jesus. Wild of Mt. 
 Holyoke. Agnosticism at Wellesley. The situation at Smith, 
 Bryn Mawr, Vassar. Fowler of Brown and Peritz of Syracuse. 
 
 The modernist drive at the state universities. Schools of Re¬ 
 ligion. Essential Unitarianism as a state religion. The 
 work of the Council of Church Boards of Education in pro¬ 
 moting this movement. Inter-denominational university pas¬ 
 torates. Modernist literature in school, college and Y. M. C. A. 
 libraries. Training of modernist instructors and directors of 
 religious education. Other intrigues. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. The Looting of Andover - - - - - - - -138 
 
 The perversion of the Hollis professorship at Harvard to 
 Unitarianism in. 1805. The founding of Andover as an evan¬ 
 gelical seminary to take its place. Safeguarding the endow¬ 
 ments from Unitarianism. The Andover creed and the Board 
 of Visitors. The great evangelical history of Andover. The 
 five professors break down the creed. Their trial. The decline 
 of Andover under modernist control. The affiliation with Har¬ 
 vard and final merging with the Unitarian school and de¬ 
 struction of Andover’s identity. The hypocrisy of Harvard 
 “non-sectarianism.” Unitarian taunt songs on the end of 
 Andover. Affiliation of Newton Theological Institution and the 
 Boston University School of Theology with Harvard Theolog¬ 
 ical School. The significance and dangers of these affiliations. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. The Apostate Seminaries ------- 159 
 
 The early history of Union and its evangelical usefulness. 
 
 Its perversion. President McGiffert questions the future life. 
 Non-theistic modernism. Lyman on “democratic theism.” 
 Fagnani on “indispensible faith in ourselves.” Ross and the 
 worship of Kwannon. “Conversion by convulsion.” Coe’s 
 psychological explanations of Christian experiences. Scott and 
 the Gospel of John. W. A. Brown and Spinozaism. Union 
 students. How the Baptists sacrificed to provide endowment 
 for Chicago University. Morgan Park Seminary turned over to 
 this University. The Unitarianizing of this seminary. Evan¬ 
 gelical Baptists told to begin over again and found their own 
 school. Blind guides to A Study of the Christian Religion — 
 Mathews, Case, Smith, Soares. The Finality of the Christian 
 Religion by a Baptist free-thinker. Ames’ psychological theo¬ 
 rizing. Proposals to standardize the ministry by law if neces¬ 
 sary. Barring Bible school scabs. Newton’s theological toxi¬ 
 cology. Unbelief at Rochester. Cross’s Creative Christianity. 
 Rauschenbusch would democratize God. Starratt of Colgate. 
 
 The Methodist reading courses and modernism. CrozePs 
 
Contents 
 
 5 
 
 PAGE 
 
 apostasy. Beckwith’s “Idea of God.” How near can one go 
 to atheism without being an atheist? Youtz and Hutchins of 
 Oberlin. The beauties of Baal worship. Prof. Lake: “God 
 is the unborn life of the world that is yet to be.” The Metho¬ 
 dist seminaries. Student notes from modernist lectures. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. Modernist Antiques, or The Old and the 
 New Enlightenment - -- -- -- -- -- -- - 21(2 
 
 Modern criticism and modern theology a recrudesence of 
 that of the eighteenth century. Parallels between eighteenth 
 century deists and present day modernists. Dr. Fosdick and 
 Tom Paine in parallel. Evangelical neo-Straussians. The simi¬ 
 larity in attitude, style and phrasing between the older and the 
 present unbelief. The tactics of eighteenth century unbelief 
 as well as its theology borrowed from the past. “Capturing” 
 the divinity faculties and the pulpits. Stealing endowments. 
 Disregarding creedal obligations, modernizing liturgies, muti¬ 
 lating evangelical hymns. Shorter Bibles in the eighteenth 
 century. Emasculating the ritual of the Methodist church. The 
 victory of eighteenth century modernism over evangelical Chris¬ 
 tianity. Death of religion. Persecution of evangelicals in 
 Scandinavia, Holland, Germany and Scotland by the modern¬ 
 ists. The collapse of morality following the triumph of un¬ 
 belief. The evangelical revival, Hauge in Norway, the 
 Haldanes in Scotland, Beck in Denmark, Schartau in Sweden. 
 
 The Reve'il in France and Switzerland. The restoration of 
 Christianity in Germany. The awakening of philanthropy 
 which followed—Wilberforce, Shaftesbury, Fliedner, Wichern, 
 
 Bost, Grundtvig, Bodelschwingh. Modern evangelical missions. 
 
 Appendix - -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 258 
 
 Ford Hall Forum. The Andover Decision of the Massa¬ 
 chusetts Supreme Court (Extracts). The Fellowship for 
 Christian Life Service. The Board of Missionary Preparation 
 a Modernist’s Sinecure. 
 
Note: Throughout this book “C.R.” stands for 
 Christian Register (the Unitarian organ); “R.E.” for 
 Religious Education, organ o£ the Religious Education 
 Association, and “C.E.” for Christian Education, 
 organ of the Council of the Church Boards of Education. 
 
The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE UNITARIAN DEFECTION IN 
 NEW ENGLAND 
 
 "^NITARIANISM was not so much a secession from 
 the church of New England as an apostasy from 
 Christ. “It did not set out primarily to create a 
 church,” says Dr. E. A. Horton. “It had one and it kept pos¬ 
 session of the majority of meeting-houses in this vicinity.” 1 It 
 was the Puritan party, the lawful heir of the great traditions 
 of New England, that had to go, leaving all behind. A com¬ 
 mittee of the Massachusetts General Association in 1836 re¬ 
 corded in a careful report eighty-one cases of ecclesiastical 
 division. Three thousand nine hundred evangelical members 
 withdrew. The property which fell to the twelve hundred 
 and eighty-two Unitarians who took possession of the churches 
 amounted to more than $600,000, a sum representing many 
 times that amount today. Many churches went over en masse , 
 taking buildings and endowments with them. This was the 
 case with twelve of the fourteen churches in Boston. 2 
 
 This alienation of property was made possible by the rela¬ 
 tion of the churches to the parishes in which they were situ¬ 
 ated. The town contributed to the support of the church and 
 was consequently given rights in the choice of pastors. When 
 the Unitarian crisis came, town out-siders, by uniting with 
 a minority inside the church, were often able to out-vote the 
 majority of church members. So, in the picturesque phrase 
 of Dr. Lyman Beecher, they “grafted heretical churches on 
 orthodox stumps.” “This is their favorite plan,” he continues, 
 “When the minister dies, some society's committee will be cut 
 and dried, ready to call in a Cambridge student, split the 
 
 7 
 
8 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 church, get a majority of the society and take house, funds, 
 and all.” 3 
 
 Two or three cases will illustrate the procedure followed. 
 
 In the town of Groton there was a Congregational church 
 with a fund of $11,000 for the support of its ministry. The 
 pastor, Dr. Chaplin, falling ill, the town appointed a commit¬ 
 tee to arrange a supply. This committee brought in a Unita¬ 
 rian minister from Boston, against the protest of the pastor and a 
 majority of church members. In spite of this protest it insisted 
 on its right of control and declared that “it would not be re¬ 
 sponsible for consequences which should follow in the course 
 of a just, legal, and firm opposition.” Dr. Chaplin and his peo¬ 
 ple, in consequence of this threat of forcible resistance, ceased 
 attending church. Written requests for its use were repeatedly 
 refused. A church council, called to consider the situation, 
 after defining the rights of a Congregational church as a cor¬ 
 poration, concludes with, 
 
 “If we know our hearts, we do not wish to contend from 
 party feeling or for worldly victory, but believing the Bible 
 to be literally and fully the Word of God and that Jesus 
 Christ and His blood can alone redeem the soul from death, 
 we cannot in conscience sit under Unitarian preaching, nor can 
 we be willing to die and leave to our children such an inherit¬ 
 ance.” 
 
 So they went out preferring the reproach of Christ to the 
 woodlots and bank accounts and glebe lands of Groton. 4 
 
 A more famous case because of legal decisions was that of 
 the First Parish church of Dedham. The large majority of 
 the church members were evangelical, but the parish, in spite 
 of protests, forced on the church a Unitarian minister and in¬ 
 vited an outside Unitarian council to ordain him. 5 In the coun¬ 
 cil were Drs. Channing and Ware, President Kirkland of Har¬ 
 vard, and other Unitarian notables, who decided that a min¬ 
 ister may be ordained over a parish without the concurrence 
 of the church. Thereupon the majority withdrew. Suit was 
 instituted for control of property. The court ruled that under 
 
Unitarian Defection in New England 
 
 9 
 
 a provision of the bill of rights of 1780 the parish was justi¬ 
 fied in electing a minister without consent of the church: that 
 a church had no legal existence apart from the parish and that 
 the property of the church should go to that minority of the 
 church which had associated itself with the action of the par¬ 
 ish. 6 By the aid of this far-reaching decision of Chief Justice 
 Parker (March, 1821) Unitarians were enabled to get pos¬ 
 session of the churches of Eastern Massachusetts and those 
 who remained loyal to the Puritan faith for which the churches 
 had been established and endowed were reduced to the status 
 of dissenters. 
 
 “It cannot be believed,” says the historian of the town, “that 
 the inhabitants of Dedham in 1659 who made such exertion 
 to establish a pure church . . . and who would not permit 
 the town to have any participation in the choice of their two 
 first pastors, could ever have consented to such a method of 
 controlling their funds . . . one which virtually gives the par¬ 
 ish the power of controlling them in exclusion of the church. 
 
 “Of all heresies they probably would have deemed that the 
 greatest which would place the funds given by them under the 
 control of a Unitarian parish to the exclusion of an orthodox 
 church, as has been done.” 
 
 Mr. Worthington, after this acknowledgment, says of this 
 action: “It must be ]ustified on revolutionary and not on legal 
 principles It was “rendered necessary by a change of opin¬ 
 ions." 1 Dr. Ellis, the historian of the Unitarian controversy, 
 makes a similar defense. If the courts had decided otherwise 
 “acres of territory and heaps of funded wealth, the lawful 
 inheritance of new generations unfettered by conditions of 
 creed, would have been pledged to obsolete terms and disbe¬ 
 lieved doctrine,” 8 disbelieved, be it understood, not by the 
 majority of the church members but by those outside church 
 walls. 
 
 Dr. Abiel Holmes [the father of Dr. O. W. Holmes in 
 whose biography is to be seen his fine Miltonic face] was 
 the honored Puritan minister of the First Parish church, 
 
10 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Cambridge. For thirty-eight years he had preached and led the 
 church in the Christian life, cared for the poor, instructed the 
 children, founded libraries for the parish and engaged in all 
 good works. When Unitarianism became rife he discontinued 
 exchange with certain ministers of this point of view. A 
 memorial was drawn up by sixty-three members of the parish 
 remonstrating. Attempts from the same quarter were made 
 to secure a Unitarian colleague for the pastor. The majority 
 of the church members supported Dr. Holmes in his refusal. 
 
 The parish then called (May, 1829) an ex parte council 
 composed of representatives of six Unitarian churches and voted, 
 “that the First Church of Cambridge has sufficient cause to 
 terminate the contract subsisting between them and the Rev. 
 Dr. Holmes as their minister and this council recommend this 
 measure as necessary to the existence and spiritual prosperity 
 of the society.” 
 
 The parish, confirmed by this backing, accepted this “result” 
 and voted that “the Rev. Abiel Holmes be and he hereby is 
 dismissed from his office of minister of the Gospel and teacher 
 of piety, religion, and morality in said parish and that all con¬ 
 nection between said Holmes as such minister or teacher and 
 said parish do and shall henceforth cease.” But a grant was 
 made of three months salary “to said Holmes on equitable 
 principles but not as legal right.” 
 
 This discarded friend of thirty-eight years was informed by 
 the committee that they “have employed a preacher to supply 
 the pulpit in the meeting house of the First Parish in Cam¬ 
 bridge on the next ensuing Sabbath . . . and that your services 
 will not be required or authorized in the public religious services 
 in the meeting house in said parish hereafter.” 
 
 The congregation and pastor set on the sidewalk in this 
 brutal fashion borrowed the court-house for services, Dr. 
 Holmes preaching from the text, “Think it not strange con¬ 
 cerning the fiery trial which is to try you.” Two-thirds of the 
 members followed their pastor in the organization of a new 
 church, the Shepard Memorial, which now stands on the west 
 
Unitarian Defection in New England 11 
 
 side of Cambridge common. The Unitarian minority was not 
 satisfied with taking the church building but demanded of the 
 church its church fund, poor fund, communion service, bap¬ 
 tismal basin, church records, church library, etc., and when 
 these were refused sued for them and obtained them. The 
 actual money which the church was obliged to surrender was 
 $4,000. This church fund had been gathered in contributions 
 at the Lord’s Supper. The church plate had also been pur¬ 
 chased wholly by church contributions, the parish having had 
 no part in the gift. 9 
 
 It is worth noting that no offer was made to divide the prop¬ 
 erty which a very questionable court decision had enabled Uni¬ 
 tarians to lay hands on. Nor as far as I can ascertain was this 
 done in other cases by the triumphant party. 
 
 When a generation had passed a writer, apparently Professor 
 Stuart of Andover, described in a compact paragraph the injus¬ 
 tice to which the Congregational churches had been subjected 
 by the liberalism of the day. The smart of this injustice was 
 still clearly felt. 
 
 “In the progress of this separation [of orthodoxy and Uni- 
 tarianism] some forty years ago, it sometimes happened that a 
 church and a parish which had long co-operated in the support 
 of public worship could agree to do so no longer. The parish 
 would call a Unitarian minister, the church by large majority 
 would refuse to concur. The parish unwilling to recede from 
 its vote would go on and settle the Unitarian minister and the 
 church in regular church meeting and by a strong major vote 
 would decide to withdraw from the parish. They claimed the 
 right as a distinct and independent body and a quasi-corporate 
 body to withdraw and to carry the records and their property 
 with them; expecting, of course, to leave all parish property 
 behind. 
 
 “But the parishes thus left were not content with holding 
 their own property; they claimed also the property of the 
 church. They sued for it and in repeated instances recovered 
 it. The ground taken by the courts, in opposition to all reason 
 
12 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 and Scripture, to precedents and history, was that a Congrega¬ 
 tional church is a mere appendage of the parish; that it cannot 
 exist separate from the parish; that it may think to withdraw 
 and retain its property but it cannot do so; that the few church 
 members which remain are legally the church; or if none 
 remain the parish, may proceed and gather a church which 
 shall succeed to all the rights of the property of the seceding 
 body. 
 
 “Such was the ground of these decisions and on this ground 
 church after church was plundered of its property even to its 
 communion furniture and records. We called this proceeding 
 plunder thirty years ago. We call it by the same hard name 
 now. And we solemnly call upon those Unitarian churches 
 which are still in possession of this plunder to restore it. They 
 cannot prosper with it. And we call upon the courts of Massa¬ 
 chusetts to revoke these unrighteous decisions and put the Con¬ 
 gregational churches of the state upon their original and proper 
 basis.” 10 * 
 
 *1 know of no attempt ever made to filch Unitarian church property 
 from its owners. I judge therefore that it was merely an uneasy con¬ 
 science, recalling these early nineteenth century confiscations, which 
 dictated the following circular. The policy outlined has been acted on 
 and Unitarian church property is now quite generally protected in 
 this way. 
 
 The Protection of the Property of Unitarian Churches 
 (Circular of the American Unitarian Association) 
 
 “It will surely be agreed by all loyal Unitarians that a church 
 property created by the self-sacrifice of past generations or by the energy 
 or devotion of the present generation should not be seriously diverted 
 from its original or present purpose except by the natural process of 
 evolution or progressive change. At present our churches are not thus 
 protected against capture for adverse or secular uses.” It is therefore 
 proposed “that each Unitarian society wishing to preserve its property 
 for Unitarian purposes give to the American Unitarian Association a 
 trust deed for the property. . . . The trust clause of the deed will pro¬ 
 vide that in case the society ceases to be a Unitarian church the Asso¬ 
 ciation may assume full control of all the property and improvements.” 
 
 The children of this world are wiser than the children of light! 
 
 It may be added that the Unitarianism of the early nineteenth century 
 took care to guard its grip on the college which it had taken over from 
 Puritanism. To this end it secured from the legislature repeated alter¬ 
 ations in the constitution of the board of overseers. This board con- 
 
Unitarian Defection in New England 
 
 13 
 
 So it came about that in Boston and other towns of Eastern 
 Massachusetts, as Mrs. Stowe has written in a well-known 
 passage, orthodoxy became a “despised and persecuted form of 
 faith. It was the dethroned royal family wandering like a 
 permitted mendicant in the city where it once had held court 
 and Unitarianism reigned in its stead.” But though the churches 
 of Boston had passed over to a more or less pronounced unbe¬ 
 lief, large portions of their membership were not satisfied after 
 the excitement had died down and the time of reflection had 
 come. 
 
 Of Dr. Lyman Beecher, who had come to Boston to rally 
 the evangelical loyalists, his daughter writes, “He had not been 
 in Boston many weeks before every leisure hour was beset by 
 
 sisted originally of the governor, lieutenant-governor, chancellors and 
 senators of the commonwealth with the ministers of the Congregational 
 churches in Boston and outlying towns. But as a body constituted after 
 this manner was liable to continual change and Unitarians might not 
 long constitute a majority, an alteration was in due time proposed and 
 effected. An act in 1810 prepared by Chief Justice Parsons provided 
 that the board should consist of president of the senate, speaker of the 
 house and an elective body of fifteen clergy and fifteen laymen with 
 power to fill their own ‘vacancies. By this arrangement Unitarians were 
 able to perpetuate their control. The legislature in 1812 restored the old 
 arrangement but that of 1814 revived the act of 1810. 
 
 Dr. Griffith, the Congregational pastor of Park Street church, was 
 constitutionally a member of the Board of Overseers. But no notice of 
 time or place of meeting was ever sent him. At length he took his seat. 
 His claim was disputed and a committee was set to consider the case. 
 A majority voted in his favor but the law of 1814 was whipped through 
 the legislature for the purpose of excluding him. (The Spirit of Religion, 
 1829: 478, quoted in Eddy, The Unitarian Apostasy.) 
 
 How consistently Unitarians boycotted others than those of their con¬ 
 nection in the management of Harvard comes out in a Report on Filling 
 Up Vacancies in the Clerical Part of the Permanent Board of Overseers 
 of Harvard College, 6: “Between the years 1810 and 1843,” it says, 
 “while elections were confined to the Congregational denomination 
 fifteen clergymen have been elected, fourteen from that part of the 
 denomination known as Unitarians. Although the nomination lists have 
 never been without other candidates there has been but one instance 
 during a period of upwards of thirty years of a selection being made 
 from the Orthodox part of the Congregational body.” 
 
 In 1852 every member of the Corporation was a Unitarian. More 
 than half the members of the Board of Overseers were Unitarians. On 
 the Board of Overseers were ten ministers—eight Unitarian. Of the 
 thirteen members of the faculty eleven were Unitarian, one a Quaker 
 and one without church connection.— Eliot, The One Hundredth Anni¬ 
 versary of the Harvard Divinity School, 34. 
 
14 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 people who came with earnest intention to express to him those 
 various phases of weary, restless, wandering desire and aspira¬ 
 tion proper to an earnest people whose traditional faith had 
 been broken up but who have not outlived the necessity of 
 definite and settled belief. From minds of every class in every 
 circle of society, the most fashionable and the most obscure, 
 these inquirers were constantly coming with every imaginable 
 theological problem from the inspiration of the Bible out 
 through all the minutest ramifications of doctrinal opinion or 
 personal religious experience.” 11 
 
 Early Unitarianism in its right wing was much nearer to 
 evangelical Christianity than one would imagine who knows it 
 in its modern phases alone. Emerson wrote of old Dr. Ezra 
 Ripley of Concord [who indeed could say of himself, “I am not 
 sensible of having departed in any degree from the doctrines 
 properly called the doctrines of grace”], “He seemed in his 
 constitutional leaning to their religion one of the rear-guard 
 of the great camp and army of the Puritans.” And there were 
 many such. Emerson’s own father could declare, “This doc¬ 
 trine of human depravity, whose truth is sanctioned by univer¬ 
 sal observation and experience is a doctrine of the Christian 
 revelation and he who preaches it preaches Jesus Christ and 
 Him crucified. For this purpose was the Son of God manifested 
 that he might destroy the works of the devil. By his sufferings 
 and death He proves the inherent and unchanging mercy of 
 God, moves sinful men to penitence and reformation and thence 
 expiates their guilt and procures them pardon of sin. He vol¬ 
 untarily laid down his life, took it again and broke the prison 
 of the grave, thence becoming the first fruits of them that 
 slept.” 
 
 Hezekiah Packard in his last days declared: “I have nothing 
 but Christ to trust to and hope to be clothed with my Saviour’s 
 righteousness.” When asked if he feared death his reply was, 
 “I do not think much of the King of Terrors; my thoughts 
 are on the King of Glory,” and his last whispers were of 
 “Rock,” “Redeemer,” “Shepherd.” The Rev. W. B. O. 
 
Unitarian Defection in New England 15 
 
 Peabody had his Bible training courses which he led from an 
 interleaved Bible. “His preliminary prayer was full of humble 
 entreaties for spiritual aid. Then he opened at the third 
 chapter of John, which he read and commented on, at the same 
 time addressing his hearers on the absolute necessity of being 
 born again.” “He seemed,” his biographer tells us, “fully and 
 cordially to recognize the death of Christ as the only founda¬ 
 tion of a sinner’s hope and his later years were more evan¬ 
 gelical than the earlier ones.” Samuel May was brought up in 
 King’s Chapel and he could say of the preaching of Dr. Green¬ 
 wood, “it contained little or nothing that an evangelical Chris¬ 
 tian could not cordially subscribe to.” “Let no man say when 
 I am dead that I trusted in my own merits. I trust only in 
 the mercy of God through Jesus Christ,” wrote Dr. Freeman, 
 Greenwood’s predecessor. 12 How world-wide the difference, 
 let us say, from Dr. Edward Cummings, who not long ago 
 in the South Congregational church [the writer being present] 
 referred to our Lord as Joshua ben Joseph and spoke of His 
 atonement as “post-mortem religion”; 13 or from Dr. Rihbany 
 who on the following Sunday actually told his hearers that 
 they, too, could say of themselves, “ ‘I am the Way, the Truth, 
 and the Life.’ Why not?” 
 
 The uprooted feeling, the nostalgia, the craving for spir¬ 
 itual support which Mrs. Stowe describes, was reinforced later 
 by a revulsion and indignation among these moderate Uni¬ 
 tarians such as any normal Christian would feel on listening 
 to such utterances. The paradoxes of Emerson, the blas¬ 
 phemies of Parker,* furnished occasions enough for this indig¬ 
 nation. The leakage of the dissatisfied from Unitarianism grew 
 
 •“The Lord’s Sapper is a heathenish rite and means very little. Cast 
 away the elements. Let all who will come into a parlor and have a 
 social religious meeting, eat bread and wine, if you like, or curds and 
 cream and baked apples and have a conversation free and cheerful, on 
 moral questions.” 
 
 “It is folly, even impiety to say that God cannot create a greater 
 soul than that of Jesus of Nazareth.” 
 
 “It is the same great problem of duty which is to be wrought out by 
 all,—huckster, merchant, lawyer, harlot, minister, poetess, orator, Dinah 
 
16 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 constantly. Its main current swung into the Episcopal church, 
 the contention with orthodox Puritanism having been too 
 strong to make easy any reconciliation with the “standing 
 order.” “We have seen,” said the New Englander, Oct., 
 1845, “Episcopal churches erected almost solely by seceders 
 from Unitarian societies. . . So great has been the movement in 
 this direction that we have heard in Episcopal circles the con¬ 
 fident boast that it is the prerogative of that church and her 
 special mission in Massachusetts to recover the Unitarians to 
 the true faith.” 
 
 This secession was more or less constant through the nine¬ 
 teenth century and was especially marked in the ministries of 
 Dr. Huntington and Bishop Brooks. It can be explained 
 only by the fact of an unsatisfied spiritual thirst and should 
 be set in contrast to the enthusiastic utterances from new 
 comers which appear in the official literature of the American 
 Unitarian Association.* 
 
 on negro hill and Jesus on Mt. Tabor. And it is not of such future 
 consequence to us as men fancy whether the tools of our work be a 
 basket or a warehouse, or a mop or a cross.”— Weiss, Life of Parker, 
 Vol. 1, 155 and 140 and Vol. 2, 504. 
 
 To those who know the facts it is a commonplace that Theodore 
 Parker did more than any other man to fill Episcopal churches and to 
 establish them on a secure foundation. C.R. 1910:1182. 
 
 *Of these converts to Unitarianism the Rev. Theodore Bacon says: 
 “A considerable proportion of them remain with us but for a time.” 
 C.R. 1915:898. 
 
 To these devout Unitarians the Age of Reason was as antipathetic 
 as it would be to devout Christians today and their apologist, Dr. Ellis, 
 used to charge with unfairness those who put quotations from Paine 
 and from Unitarians in parallel. But when the time came to erect a 
 memorial to Parker Unitarian opinion had so far changed that the main 
 hall of the building could be given the name of Paine Hall in spite of 
 the fact that Parker had said of him “he is no man for my fancying. 
 . . . He was filthy in his personal habits.” At present Paine has attained 
 a sort of Unitarian canonization. Dr. G. Bachelor speaks of “the recipi¬ 
 ents of his intellectual bounty” and uses the phraseology of the eleventh 
 of Hebrews of this hero of faith and his ilk. (“What shall we say then, 
 the time would fail, etc.”) C.R. 1916: 604. An Indianapolis church has 
 recently unveiled his bust. On the wayside billboards of the Unitarian 
 church at Lancaster, Mass., appear, with quotations from Persian and 
 Brahminic Scriptures, sentiments from Paine, C.R. 1915:374, and we 
 are told that Mr. McHale gives “talkettes” on Tom Paine to Unitarian 
 young men’s Sunday school classes. C.R. 1915:1150. 
 
Unitarian Defection in New England 17 
 
 Many of the profounder minds in English Unitarianism, 
 notably S. T. Coleridge, F. D. Maurice and R. H. Hutton, 
 the great editor of the Spectator, returned to the Christian faith 
 in the last century. Prof. F. D. Huntington of Harvard was 
 the most outstanding figure in the return in New England. 
 “From first to last,” says his biographer, “his own denomina¬ 
 tion conferred on him almost every distinction which official 
 station could afford,” but years after he spoke of his departure 
 from it in terms of happy escape. “It is the anniversary of 
 that blessed day in 1860 when H. and G. and A. went with me 
 to Christ Church, Cambridge, in the evening to be confirmed. 
 We were going out from a place of unsatisfying privileges, 
 comfort, and honors, a barren and dry land where no water 
 was, into a country which we had not known save by faith 
 and as it were in dream but promised to us and given to our 
 ancient fathers. As it proved the description of Palestine in 
 Deuteronomy is not too good for it.” He had come to the con¬ 
 viction that “Christianity cannot be accounted for on the Uni¬ 
 tarian theory of Christ; that the Christian heart needs both 
 consolations and inspirations which Unitarianism, even in 
 Channing and Martineau, does not supply.” In a remarkable 
 article in the Forum (June, 1886) he asked [referring to the 
 disintegrating tendencies of Unitarianism], “Is there anywhere 
 in ecclesiastical annals an instance of so swift a plunge down¬ 
 wards in any association of people bearing the name of 
 Christ [by] simply losing hold of the central fact of reve¬ 
 lation ?” 
 
 “Broad room was opened for more extensive relaxations,” 
 he continues, describing the course of Unitarianism into stark 
 unbelief. “Individual independence is a rapid but bold rider 
 and drives with loose reins. Institutional Christianity began to 
 be regarded more as a superstition than as a safeguard or an 
 obligation. Ordinances were optional. All beliefs were elec¬ 
 tive. Any distinctive divinity in Christ, the personality of the 
 Holy Ghost, a sacrificial redemption, a permanent and heredi¬ 
 tary disease of sin in human nature needing such redemption 
 
18 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 . . . were emphatically, if not passionately, rejected whether 
 as facts or dogmas. 
 
 “There would be from a believing past and from many 
 sides sources of God’s gracious help, high-toned families, pure 
 lives, encouraging and enlightening preaching, ardent reformers; 
 but it is difficult to see how practically the upshot could be 
 escaped that everybody is to do in this world of temptation, 
 error, and folly what is right in his own eyes.”* 
 
 A group of Unitarians, turning away from the radicalisms 
 of Theodore Parker, organized on the Boston Back Bay, under 
 Dr. Huntington’s leadership, a new and powerful church, giv¬ 
 ing to it the significant name of Emmanuel, God with us. 14 
 
 Equally striking testimony to the progressive dechristianizing 
 of Unitarianism to a point where it became intolerable to many 
 Unitarians themselves came later from the leading protagonist 
 of Unitarian controversy, Dr. George E. Ellis. The following 
 letter from him [dated April, 1881] appears in the biography 
 of Dr. Phillips Brooks, who himself was baptized a Unitarian. 
 
 “Nothing will ever lower my sense of the profound indebted¬ 
 ness, of the obligations of this especial community to that class 
 of persons, clerical and lay, of the last generation, who were 
 known as Liberal Christians, devout, serious, earnest, Bible- 
 
 *At the close of his life Dr. Huntington wrote, “I was brought up 
 and was a minister among those who deny the truth of the Trinity. My 
 heart’s desire for all such is that they may be saved.” Memoir, 182. On 
 his 48th birthday he wrote: “How little accomplished. There are those 
 thirteen years in the Unitarian denominational interest. How shall I 
 get them back. Alas, only by trying to prevent others from a like mis¬ 
 take.” 206. 
 
 Interesting light is thrown on the misgivings which were working in 
 Unitarian minds in some reminiscences of Elizabeth Peabody, prominent 
 in these circles and close friend of Channing. “In the last year of his 
 [Dr. Channing’s] life,” she writes, “my own mind was drawn to a view 
 of orthodoxy quite contrary to that which I had cherished for years. I 
 began to understand what truths were probably in the eyes of those who 
 had formularized the Athanasian creed. In the first place I thought 
 I saw what the original Trinitarians wanted to express respecting the 
 nature of God and man and what the atonement meant to Luther and 
 Calvin. My mind was very strongly moved with these new ideas and 
 I seemed to seize hold of a philosophy of religion that unlocked and 
 explained mysteries of my own experience which the formulas of Unita¬ 
 rianism did not cover.”— Sprague, Unitarian Pulpit, 382. 
 
Unitarian Defection in New England 19 
 
 Christians. Their works and services have left an enduring 
 benefaction to this good city and to the college. But with 
 existing so-called Unitarianism I have for many years had no 
 concern. It has left no authoritative basis for religious instruc¬ 
 tion and institution common to preachers and people. The 
 preacher has for his stock and capital his own individualism of 
 opinion and belief and his utterances are like notes, dependent 
 on his own credit and integrity.” 15 
 
 Finally, I would reproduce as an illustration of the spiritual 
 hopelessness which seems to lurk in the background of Uni¬ 
 tarianism and which has led so many to flee it, a communication 
 from one who has come out of its more intimate circle. Some 
 years ago I had referred in a paragraph to the saying of the 
 late Prof. Francis J. Child that he always pitied an agnostic 
 as one who had forfeited the happiness of teaching his little 
 children to pray. This quotation brought from Prof. Child’s 
 son, Francis S. Child, two letters which expressed his reaction 
 from Unitarianism with a bitter sharpness. “I distrust Uni¬ 
 tarianism,” he wrote. “I have intimately known its leaders, 
 preachers and laymen, American and English, from the seven¬ 
 ties down. What impression have they made on me? Abso¬ 
 lutely none. My whole impression of Dr. Hale’s preaching 
 and personality for example, is that of emptiness. Without 
 faith it is impossible to please God. If we have not the Son 
 we have not life. C. W. Eliot is a good example among laymen 
 as is John Burroughs, both of whom I have known in public 
 and private life. Pleasant companions, no doubt, and interest¬ 
 ing personalities, but to what purpose when their ways are the 
 ways of death. 
 
 “I remember dear Dr. Holmes [Oliver Wendell] saying, ‘I 
 can see no excuse for Unitarianism to exist longer. Whatever 
 good it may have done the reason for it is long passed away.’ ” 
 
 Then he proceeds to give this personal testimony: 
 
 “Father, who was born on Salem Street, Boston, 1825, in his 
 great-grandfather Paul Revere’s house, united with the local 
 Methodist church on confession when about fourteen years of 
 
20 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 age. When a professor at Harvard about 1850 his letters from 
 then to 1860 to my mother were full of deepest faith and often 
 referred to the Cross in the most devout and sweetly fervent 
 manner. But mother was a Unitarian, her mother own cousin 
 to Dr. Channing, and together they attended the First Parish 
 [Unitarian] church. Prof. F. G. Peabody was their pastor. 
 When I was ten years old (1879) family prayers, regularly 
 held up to that period, were dropped off. Father ceased going 
 to church more than once in a great while by 1885. At his 
 death in my arms in the Massachusetts General Hospital in 
 1896 he had lost all faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and I, 
 under the same influence, was utterly without hope and in the 
 depths of despair. I was convicted of sin and joined the First 
 Congregational church, Cambridge, on confession of faith in 
 November, 1900. Papa was always an intense lover of the 
 Bible but read it, alas! little after 1880 or at least less and 
 less, except that being professor of English literature he taught 
 the Bible as literature once in three years. 
 
 “I ought to say that Unitarianism which ruined papa’s hap¬ 
 piness and peace and likely his eternal joy and spoiled all my 
 childhood, youth, and young manhood, I have observed to be 
 always deteriorating and disintegrating in its influence and 
 effect, spiritually and morally. I know many instances, espe¬ 
 cially in the leading families of Boston.” 
 
 REFERENCES TO CHAPTER I 
 
 1. Horton, Unitarianism, 5. 2. Walker, History of the Congregationalist 
 
 Churches, 343. 3. Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, Vol. 1, 449. 4. The 
 
 Rights of the Congregationalist Churches of Massachusetts, 3 and 7. 5. Walker 
 op. cit. 342. 6. Worthington, Historical Address, 250th Anniversary of Dedham, 
 55. 7. Worthington, History of Dedham, 126. 8. Ellis, The Unitarian Con¬ 
 
 troversy, 427. 9. Alexander Mackenzie, The First Church in Cambridge, 196, 
 189, 194, 195, 198, 203, 206. 10. Quoted in Ellis, The Unitarian Controversy 
 (415) from the Puritan Recorder. 11. Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, Vol. 
 2, 110, 11. 12. Sprague, Annals of the Unitarian Pulpit, 115, 118, 245-6, 290, 
 
 498, 504, 489, 172. 13. The Layman’s Answer, 6. 14. Memoir of F. D. Hunt¬ 
 ington, 153, 366, 361. 15. Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks, Vol. 2, 285. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND UNITARIAN 
 
 MISSIONS 
 
 He could do no mighty work there because of their 
 unbelief. 
 
 I T is a striking coincidence that the Unitarian defection 
 from Christianity coincided with the beginnings of the 
 greatest expansion of Christianity since apostolic days. 
 New England Congregationalists ejected from their churches 
 not only went to work to build others, together with Andover 
 and Amherst to take the place of Harvard. They also pioneered 
 the West and laid the foundatians for the American Board, 
 the greatest spiritual institution which has come out of New 
 England. It is worth while to meditate on what the world at 
 large would have lost if Jefferson’s forecast had proved true 
 and Unitarianism become the predominant religion of America. 
 
 There would have been no great apostles as Judson and 
 Hamlin and Thoburn and Ashmore and Wells Williams and 
 Horace Pitkin and W. A. P. Martin and Bliss and Greene 
 and Dwight; no great missionary families as the Scudders, the 
 Gulicks, the Schaufflers, the Riggses. Peter Parker would not 
 have opened China at the point of his lancet nor would he have 
 had his great successors in Asia such as Dr. Wanless of Miraj 
 and Dr. Van Allen of Madura. The Doshisha University 
 would have been unbuilt, Robert College never founded on the 
 Bosphorus; there would have been no St. Luke’s hospital in 
 Tokyo or Presbyterian hospital in Canton; no great mission 
 presses in Beirut, in Rangoon, in Calcutta, in Shanghai. Thou¬ 
 sands of lepers would be rotting in dirt who are now in shel¬ 
 tered homes. Christie and Nesbit and Shedd and Frederick 
 
 21 
 
22 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Greene and Emily Wheeler and Corinne Shattuck would not 
 have championed Armenia and pioneered relief and relief indus¬ 
 tries among her orphans. There would have been no agricul¬ 
 tural missions such as Higginbottom is building up in Gwalior 
 and the missionaries of Nanking University in China. The 
 great Indian famine relief which Hume headed in 1906 would 
 not have come into being nor would there be that chain of 
 Presbyterian mission schools along the Nile. The best friends 
 of Asia and Africa would have spent their lives denouncing 
 dogma in America and the open sores of the world would have 
 run unstanched. I wonder if there is really an honest Uni¬ 
 tarian that is not glad that early Unitarianism did not burn 
 over a larger area of American Christianity. 
 
 Not that Unitarianism has not made attempts at missions, 
 but between Unitarian mission theory and mission empiry is a 
 deep chasm indeed. “ ‘Honor all men,’ ” wrote Dr. E. E. Hale, 
 “makes it easier today for the Unitarian missionary [than for 
 others] to deal with the Ute Indian or with a Fiji islander. 
 They meet not as enemies on two sides of an entrenchment 
 but as the common children of one God.” 1 So far theory. 
 But have there ever been Unitarian missionaries to Utes or 
 Fijis? Not to my knowledge. 
 
 There was a Unitarian mission to Japan and Dr. Hale and 
 President Eliot were on the platform of the Arlington Street 
 church when its initiation received the benediction of “Jesus, 
 Buddha, and the eight million Japanese deities” from the mouth 
 of young Mr. Fukazawa. 2 * Dr. Clay Macauley, its leader, 
 had high hopes for it. “I am bold to say that the American 
 Unitarians have undertaken nothing of greater importance. 
 
 . . . I am confident that our mission is distinctly prophetic of 
 an era for the Japanese people as yet unknown, an age of deep 
 spiritual awakening.” 
 
 ♦This Mr. Fukazawa was son of the educator Fukazawa who set 
 himself by book and lecture to drive Christianity out of Japan but later, 
 though disbelieving it, still urged its adoption in order to secure Japan 
 standing among the nations. (Strong, Story of the American Board, 
 354, 357.) The Unitarian mission was closely related to his school. 
 
Christian Missions and Unitarian Missions 23 
 
 Later he wrote, “We are probably more widely known in the 
 Empire and receive more attention in Japanese current litera¬ 
 ture than any other foreign religious body represented in the 
 Far East .” 3 The field was an attractive one, free from all 
 pioneering discomforts and with a people accessible to novelties. 
 Mr. Knapp, who spent a year looking over the ground before 
 the mission was established, declared Japan “ripe for the Uni¬ 
 tarian gospel” and the Japanese “born Unitarians .” 4 Christian 
 missions, which seem to be the only really hopeful recruiting 
 ground for Unitarianism, were well established. A consider¬ 
 able number of Japanese Christian ministers were from first 
 to last picked off.* 
 
 Dr. Macauley seemed to have had hopes of the Doshisha 
 University also, that noble institution of nineteenth century 
 New England Christianity.! “The teachers of the chief 
 orthodox Christian college of Kyoto, the Doshisha, though 
 not associated with your mission and [though they] would 
 decline such association are again and again referred to 
 in public print as ‘Unitarian.’ The changes they have lately 
 been making in the direction of a liberal administration of their 
 institution have brought upon them our name .” 5 
 
 But there was not money enough in Unitarian Boston to 
 finance its few representatives in Japan.! Dr. Macauley was 
 obliged to make the humiliating confession, 
 
 *Prof. Onishi, Prof. Kishimoto, Rev. T. Murai, Prof. Abe and Prof. 
 Toyosaki “all coming to us through orthodox Christianity.” In 1921 
 Mr. Abe reported to the Unitarian annual meeting, “Unfortunately 
 there is retrogression in our church. Eighteen years ago it seated 400 
 and was crowded. Today Sunday attendance averages between 60 and 
 100” C.R. 1921:511. 
 
 fCertain of the Doshisha faculty adopted Unitarian views and the 
 trustees in 1897 took out of the constitution the unchangeable article 
 that the ethics taught there should be based on Christianity. The Pru¬ 
 dential Committee at once engaged counsel to recover the trust funds 
 which it was claimed w r ere thus being perverted. As a result of this 
 pressure a new board was elected and a new constitution adopted re¬ 
 affirming the Christian character of the school.— Strong, History of the 
 American Board, 361. 
 
 ^Yet Dr. Van Ness of the [Unitarian] Second Church, Boston, tells 
 us that “it is easier to raise thousands for the Japan Mission than 
 hundreds for work in the South End of Boston.” At the 250th An- 
 
24 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 “There is but little money called for for our work, not nearly 
 as much as many of our parishes expend each in its narrow 
 limits. And yet that small amount has been growing smaller 
 from year to year for several years past and now the question 
 has become serious with your board of directors as to whether 
 they are justified in their endeavor to uphold longer this part 
 of their burden. At the board’s last meeting a sum sufficient 
 to ca&ry the Japan mission only six months longer was voted 
 and the whole future thereafter left open and overcast with 
 doubt. . . . Must it be that now when we have almost every¬ 
 where gained recognition among the Japanese as the chief visible 
 embodiment of the spirit of the times, as prophetic of true 
 religion and ethical insight, our voice shall be stilled?” 3 
 
 Yes, so it was to be. American Unitarianism sold out its 
 property and retired, notwithstanding the fact that according 
 to Dr. Macauley “as a whole Unitarianism has had a wider 
 and deeper-reaching effect than any other of the spiritual or 
 religious agencies that have been brought into Japan.” 7 Mr. 
 Hawkes, an English Unitarian, wrote at the same time of a 
 Mr. Meikawa, a Japanese preacher of great eloquence trained 
 for the ministry among the Presbyterians, who had seceded to 
 Unitarianism. He had pledged English Unitarians for his 
 salary of £50 annually but found it impossible to collect “this 
 trifling sum” in the English churches. 8 
 
 “The honored president of the National Conference” is 
 quoted as finding in this Unitarian mission “a crucial experi¬ 
 ment.” I think that to be the case and that Unitarianism is 
 here shown to be marked for failure in any attempt to build 
 up a following among distinctly non-Christian people. 
 
 niversary of this church he said: ‘‘Hereafter we can listen with 
 respect and sympathy to far-off missionary appeals for help to those 
 who believe our chief duty is to spread the gospel in Japan, Sn 
 the hills of India, in Hungary, among the Molokans of the Trans- 
 Caucasus; but to one and all such appeals we can kindly but firmly 
 return the answer, ‘This is not our direct work; not the especial thing 
 for which we were founded. We wish you God-speed in your efforts 
 but we cannot turn aside to do your particular work.’ ”—Twenty Years 
 of Life, 59 and 63. 
 
Christian Missions and Unitarian Missions 25 
 
 Other Unitarian enterprises abroad need not detain us. 
 “Singh of India, missioner to the common people, a great Uni¬ 
 tarian pioneer” is the subject of an obituary notice in the Chris¬ 
 tian Register, March 6, 1824. Mr. Singh seems to have been 
 a devoted man, an ex-Methodist and “trained in an orthodox 
 mission school” who built up a little Unitarian community 
 in the Khasi hills, Assam. But the backing received from Eng¬ 
 lish and American Unitarianism has been so slight that the 
 mission has been unable “at any time to support more than 
 one paid worker among all these churches and schools” and 
 Mr. Singh, “great Unitarian pioneer” though he was, was 
 obliged to make his living as a clerk while carrying on his work 
 as missionary. 
 
 One ought, perhaps, in this connection to mention the defunct 
 Harvard Medical Mission in Shanghai. Yale has a great edu¬ 
 cational and medical plant in Changsha, Hunan; Oberlin, an 
 educational mission in Shansi; and Princeton, the University 
 of Pennsylvania and many other colleges support Christian mis¬ 
 sions abroad. The Harvard mission was framed on similar 
 lines. 
 
 President Roosevelt was its early president. Rich gradu¬ 
 ates, Mr. James Stillman and others, were on the board. China 
 was chosen as its field and the Harvard Medical School of 
 China, Inc., officered by an imposing list of Harvard men, was 
 its first venture. It was to give China modem medicine 
 together with “the Christian religion in its simplest forms” to 
 use President Eliot’s words concerning it. But its career as 
 a mission institution did not last long and it was finally turned 
 over to the Rockefeller China interests for nursing and eventual 
 adoption.* 
 
 *The Harvard Mission is still in existence in a small way and 
 finances two men abroad. It is perhaps significant that it has not sent 
 them out to do independent or pioneering work but places them in 
 evangelical missions, a rather dubious contribution as the following indi¬ 
 cates. The report of the mission for 1922 is before me. One of the mis¬ 
 sionaries is writing from the Syrian Protestant college at Beirut. He 
 differentiates between the evangelistic and the educational missionary. 
 “The evangelistic missionary pins his faith to sudden change but the 
 educational missionary is usually indifferent to or actually skeptical of 
 
26 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 That Unitarianism is a non-conductor of spiritual life is 
 evinced by its failure in this field. It is not merely that it is 
 more comfortable to “huddle closely around the cozy stove of 
 civilization in this blessed Boston” (H. W. Bellows). Uni¬ 
 tarianism simply cannot Christianize; cannot go to a degraded 
 pagan people and make new men and women of them. If the 
 Puritan momentum had carried far enough Boston Unitarianism 
 might in a measure have imitated the educational and Samaritan 
 work of American Christianity abroad. But to bring forth 
 little churches of the new-born such as are now scattered by 
 tens of thousands through the non-Christian world and which 
 are its only hope, is absolutely beyond it. Nor has it any sense 
 of responsibility in the matter. A hundred years have passed 
 since its rise in New England and the following is the 
 confession which its best informed student of missions has to 
 make. 
 
 “Do we as American Unitarians have any national foreign 
 mission society as most denominations do? No. Are we as a 
 
 professed conversion and pins his faith to evolution. . . . No student is 
 required to attend chapel or made to study the Bible.” Those who elect 
 to stay away must take a course in ethics and the history of religions 
 with this Harvard missionary. He writes: “In ethics I have tried to 
 show the students that no religion has a monopoly of truth nor can any 
 one church or religion claim to be the sole recipient of revelation and sole 
 channel of God’s saving grace.” Of evangelism he has a poor opinion 
 indeed. “It must be confessed that such a policy results in failure. Few 
 indeed are the men who come forward and say ‘I wish to change my 
 religion’ and those few nearly always turn out badly. . . . The ‘convert’ 
 may, often does, lapse. Evolution takes longer to effect the change but 
 the change is more lasting.” 
 
 As a result of Dr. Hale’s advocacy Ramabai circles were at one 
 time formed in various Unitarian churches. They finally abandoned 
 her. “In later years Pundita Ramabai became more outspokenly ortho¬ 
 dox, carrying on a mission not only for educating but also for Christian¬ 
 izing [in the orthodox sense] Hindus. Of course this was a disappoint¬ 
 ment to American Unitarians. Under such conditions their sympathy 
 with her work and their financial contributions to its support inevitably 
 grew less and less.” C.R. 1922:962. 
 
 C. H. A. Dali, an American Unitarian, conducted an industrial 
 school in Calcutta for many years. Fortunately he did not have to de¬ 
 pend on Boston for his support. “He himself inherited a considerable 
 fortune but spent nearly all of it on his work.” (Eliot, Heralds of a 
 Liberal Faith.) At his death his five schools were closed and all visible 
 trace of the many years’ labors vanished .—Memorial to C. H. Dali , 67. 
 
Christian Missions arid Unitarian Missions 27 
 
 denomination now supporting any foreign missions? Yes, one. 
 [Now defunct]. How many missionaries have we in the field? 
 One. [Now withdrawn]. Have we any women’s foreign 
 missionary society? No. Have we any missionary society for 
 our young people? No. Are we training our children in our 
 Sunday schools to become interested in foreign missions? 
 No. 
 
 “Have we any students in our colleges and theological schools 
 preparing to go to foreign fields as missionaries? So far as I 
 am aware not one. Do our large and influential Unitarian 
 clubs and other organizations of men follow the example of 
 such clubs and organizations in other denominations and have 
 evenings devoted to foreign missions? I am not aware that 
 any of our clubs ever consider foreign mission subjects. Are 
 our ministers accustomed to preach often on foreign mission 
 themes? I am not aware that this kind of preaching is ever 
 done in our pulpits. Are our churches accustomed to take up 
 regular stated collections for foreign missions once a year or 
 oftener as other churches do? I do not know anything of the 
 kind. 
 
 “Are we Unitarians satisfied with this condition of things? 
 Can we look other Christians in the face, can we look the out¬ 
 side world in the face without shame?” (J. T. Sunderland, 
 C. R. 1912:732 abridged.) 
 
 What is the reason for this situation? Another Unitarian, 
 the Rev. Theodore Bacon, answers with accuracy: “That 
 which is lacking in Unitarianism is conversion, the coming of 
 a new life,” he tells us. 
 
 “Should such new life come into our churches there would 
 also come with it a new power to reach others. It is, 
 I think, a rare occurrence at present for Unitarian preach¬ 
 ing or Unitarian church activity of any kind to reach 
 out and bring into the religious life those who are con¬ 
 sciously engaged in wrong-doing. We have to get the Metho¬ 
 dists or some other body to do that for us and then if they 
 become discontented with Methodism or whatever, we try to 
 
28 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 show them the beauty of our gospel.* But is it not a little 
 humiliating that this primary work of ‘saving sinners’ should be 
 beyond our reach? 
 
 “Sinners have no special predilection for orthodox doctrine 
 as such. They would do without it if they could. But they 
 do want something which shall give them a new hold on life 
 and that we seem unable to give them. That direct spiritual 
 help which shall strengthen them to turn away from the evil 
 in their lives and lay hold on the good seems unattainable as 
 presented by us. If we could but realize the reality of repent¬ 
 ance, of conversion, of regeneration, I cannot but believe that 
 we could reach such men with greater power.” 9 
 
 At times one notes a stirring but it soon dies down. The 
 First Unitarian Missionary Conference was held in Boston, 
 Nov. 11, 1913, a century after the founding of the American 
 Board. Dr. Wendte, a participant, described it as “a daring 
 innovation in view of the habitual abstention of Unitarians 
 from foreign missionary endeavor and the prevailing opinion 
 among them that foreign missions are more or less of an imper¬ 
 tinence as well as waste of effort and money.” The war- 
 horses were all there, Peabody, the Eliots, Dole, Rihbany and 
 W. H. P. Faunce. “The spirited discussions, the devotional 
 exercises, the earnest singing of missionary hymns, lifted the 
 sessions at times to an enthusiasm and fervor not often witnessed 
 at Unitarian meetings.” 10 But there it ended. 
 
 Two years before at the Unitarian ministers institute at 
 Meadville, Pa., “it was unanimously resolved that at least we 
 thirty or more Unitarians would henceforth try to be ashamed 
 of our selfishness, our small views, our limited interest in others, 
 
 *Thus King’s Chapel, Boston, has an Italian Mission. Its provenance 
 comes out in this statement of Mr. Tagliatela, the missioner: 
 
 “Everywhere [In Italy] you will meet some Italian who has been 
 converted by Italian Protestant missionaries. These good and earnest 
 Italian orthodox missionaries do an excellent work and in a brotherly 
 manner. They open the way to the glorious liberty of the children of 
 God and consequently to Unitarianism. ... In New York we have a 
 large group of Italian Unitarians formerly members of my Methodist 
 church in that city. . . . Another group is in Philadelphia where I 
 was for two years.” C.R. 1917:700. 
 
Christian Missions and Unitarian Missions 29 
 
 our narrow thought as to the mission of Unitarianism in the 
 world and would try from this time on to think and act in ways 
 more worthy of our faith. 
 
 “And to begin with we resolved to reach out a helping hand 
 at once to our Brahmo brethren in India who so greatly need 
 our encouragement and our aid.” The Meadville Conference 
 of the Tuckerman Association was accordingly formed to co¬ 
 operate with the Samajists “who are trying to do in India much 
 the same kind of religious reform work we are trying to do 
 here only under conditions ten times harder.” 
 
 “We all said, we cannot do much at first but we are going 
 to begin. Already we have $3.80. Let nobody smile. This is 
 a small nest-egg. There will be more and larger eggs in the 
 nest by and by.” 11 
 
 The greatest feat which Unitarianism has ever accomplished 
 was the raising of two and a quarter millions in the drive of 
 1920-23. But of this not even $3.80 was set apart for foreign 
 missions. President Eliot after a visit to the East called for a 
 million for Unitarian missions. President Taft seconded the 
 call. No nest-egg has been found for the fund. 12 It is too 
 cold in Unitarian Boston. They simply cannot crank the car. 
 
 They look enviously at the great missionary super-six, the 
 American Board. Is it possible they could get into it with their 
 bundles of leaven?* For years Prof. E. C. Moore of the 
 Harvard Divinity School has been president of the great organi¬ 
 zation and it is Prof. Moore who says to Unitarians in a tract 
 of the Unitarian Association, “It is from our own ancestors 
 in the faith that we are separated rather than from one 
 another.” Things, too, seem to be going their way. ' Rev. W. 
 I. Lawrence, erstwhile Unitarian missionary in Japan, thinks 
 that the missionaries there though calling themselves by other 
 names are “in the very great majority Unitarians at heart.” 14 
 
 *“If things go on improving at the rate recorded in the missionary 
 annals of our time the day may not be far distant when even a Unita¬ 
 rian physician and teacher might be sent under the auspices of the 
 A. B. C. F. M. to minister to the needs of our fellow-men in fartibus 
 infidelium” C.R. 1910:1154. 
 
30 
 
 The Leaven of the. Sadducees 
 
 The Rev. J. Edgar Park, Congregationalist pastor in Newton, 
 would open the car door. “It would be a magnanimous and at 
 the same time practical step toward Christian unity if some 
 of the Unitarian churches as churches would resume their inter¬ 
 est in say, the American Board, by contributing as churches to 
 the educational and medical work done by it. Indeed now 
 when so many stations are being occupied by the younger men 
 I feel that it is more and more the case that the actual preach¬ 
 ing and teaching of the missionaries of the Board is largely 
 along the line that would be approved by both sections of our 
 faith.” 
 
 If there are those who would admit Unitarians to the Amer¬ 
 ican Board there are others ready to accept the invitation. 
 What a splendid precedent in the history of the Andover endow¬ 
 ments! Who else should be the residuary legatee of the mis¬ 
 sionary gifts of the other great foundation of New England 
 Congregationalism? “There are only five hundred Unitarian 
 churches in the United States and many of them are young and 
 struggling,” writes Dr. Wendte. Who would look to these 
 impoverished folk for independent work abroad? “Our denom¬ 
 ination as a whole is hardly a century in existence and must 
 still dispute its right to exist. . . . The wisest way for us, there¬ 
 fore, is to co-operate to what extent we can in undertakings 
 already existing which under various . . . auspices perform 
 admirable educational and humanitarian services. Such insti¬ 
 tutions as Robert College at Constantinople, the American col¬ 
 leges at Beirut, Assuan, and Salonica and others like them 
 deserve our sympathy and modest support.” 15 
 
 One kind of contact with heathenism Unitarians cultivate 
 more successfully. The Parliament of Religion in 1893 was 
 chiefly the promotion of Dr. Lloyd-Jones and other Unitarians 
 or near-Unitarians. It was also Unitarian ladies in Cambridge 
 who were the chief financial sufferers from the insinuating 
 Swamis, Yogis, and other adepts who represented Asia there or 
 followed to America in the wake of the Chicago gathering. 16 
 An extension of this favorite idea of inter-religious comity was 
 
Christian Missions arid. Unitarian Missions 31 
 
 the Congress of Theism planned by Messrs. Wendte and Sun¬ 
 derland but unrealized because of the war. It was taken up 
 with interest by Hindu theists, Reformed Jews, Sikhs, Parsees, 
 theistic Buddhists, Theosophists, Bahaists and some Moslems 
 of India and Syria. This Pilgrim Theistic Congress was to 
 journey around the world holding sessions at various points, 
 Tokyo, Shanghai, Colombo, Calcutta, Delhi, Cairo, Jerusalem 
 and Constantinople. One wonders if the “humanist” or atheist 
 Unitarians were to travel with this “theist” caravan. 17 
 
 Allah is one and Channing is his prophet. Will Unitarian 
 muezzins ever cry their summons from the minarets of Cairo 
 and Constantinople? Hardly, yet we read in the Unitarian 
 organ an account of the visit of one of their representatives, 
 fresh from their school at Meadville, to a professor of theology 
 at the Azhar mosque school in Cairo. “I told him what I 
 was . . . and asked him whether or not the Mohammedans 
 would favor co-operation with the Unitarians. ... He asked 
 me if besides denying the godship of Jesus we believed in the 
 prophetic mission of Mohammed and in the religious value of 
 the Koran. On receiving an affirmative answer he was com¬ 
 pletely satisfied and said that he knew no obstacles why the two 
 religious bodies could not work together with the utmost cor¬ 
 diality. He expressed a desire to see our literature translated 
 into Arabic.” 18 
 
 “Islam should be looked upon as a sister of Christianity. It 
 is nearer in many respects liberal Christianity than is the ortho¬ 
 dox Christian faith,” quotes the Christian Register from one of 
 its kindred spirits [Prof. Montet]. 19 Well, then, is not Uni- 
 tarianism’s place rather in the seminaries of the ulemas than in 
 the Christian colleges of the Near East? 
 
 Unable to initiate missions themselves Unitarians minimize 
 and even ridicule the mighty movement which is surely trans¬ 
 forming Asia and Africa. The ethnic religions are painted 
 in glowing colors. “The cheery Chinaman,” wrote Samuel 
 Johnson, the Unitarian hymn writer, “is not bent like a grim 
 theologian over his mediaeval creed; he is erect and cheerful 
 
32 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 and genial.” His belief that human nature is essentially good 
 is contrasted with dogmas of Semitic origin current in Chris¬ 
 tianity. “The life of Confucius was perhaps the most wonder¬ 
 ful success on record. His death, too, with his concluding 
 words, ‘It is time for me to die after a long life spent in faith¬ 
 ful service of the highest practical aims,’ is more pathetic and 
 more attractive than the cry of the young Jesus, ‘It is finished.’ 
 The tide of race tendency sweeps on incapable of taking cog¬ 
 nizance of these conceptions of a fallen nature and a mediatorial 
 salvation through Jesus of Nazareth. . . . Tens of thousands of 
 Bibles and millions of tracts are distributed but hardly an 
 instance is on record of an appeal for explanation of Scripture. 
 The tracts distributed by thousands at the competitive examina¬ 
 tions are apt to serve for wrapping paper in the market of 
 Macao. Missionary publications are scarcely known beyond the 
 little circle of converts. . . . We have by no means expressed 
 our sense of the futility of this business. No fetishism on earth 
 compares with the enormous expenditures of money, machinery, 
 and labor in printing and circulating Bibles among heathen 
 whose utter waste of them is fully equal to the supply.” 20 
 
 It was fifty years ago that the Rev. Samuel Johnson of 
 Salem wrote this. He had never been in the East and the 
 great efflorescence which has broken out in China and Korea 
 and India since then was in its budding only. President Eliot 
 had better opportunities for judgment but his eyes are beetle- 
 blind with prejudice. He learned in his Eastern jaunt “that 
 the missionary teaching of the last hundred years throughout 
 the East takes no hold, has taken no hold on the Oriental mind 
 and for just the same reason that the old-fashioned dogmas, 
 tenets of the Christian sects, took no real hold on the minds of 
 our fathers” 21 and his alter ego, Professor Peabody of Harvard, 
 after a similar excursion wrote of the Chinese and Japanese, 
 “They have been familiar for ages with doctrines of incarna¬ 
 tion, resurrection and propitiatory sacrifice and the supernat¬ 
 uralism of Christian teaching is likely to seem quite insignifi¬ 
 cant to minds instructed in the Shinto worship of nature and 
 
Christian Missions and Unitarian Missions 33 
 
 of ancestors or the vast pantheon and voluminous scriptures 
 of Buddhism. A system of Christian theology or a specialized 
 type of Christian ecclesiasticism is a vain thing to carry to the 
 Far East.” 22 
 
 So speak the brave theoreticians of a missionless church. 
 
 Five-sixths of the present income of the American Unitarian 
 Association comes from endowments which amount to $3,397,- 
 398. Actual donations from churches and individuals in 1923 
 totaled $57,704 [from the wealthiest Boston churches—King’s 
 Chapel $1,260, Arlington Street $1,886, Brookline First Parish 
 $1,585, Second Church $750, South $900, Church of Disciples 
 $87]. This $57,704 represents the year’s contributions [apart 
 from endowments] of American Unitarianism to church exten¬ 
 sion, church erection, missions and all other enterprises of the 
 American Unitarian Association. Its chief work is described 
 by John Haynes Holmes as “maintaining old Unitarian churches 
 whose natural lives are already spent and building new Uni¬ 
 tarian churches which cannot maintain themselves.” 23 The 
 subsidized “missions” are generally among those who need them 
 least, self-respecting Scandinavian and Icelandic Lutherans 
 [“the founding of these churches is a part of the romance of 
 missions,” 71, Report of the A. U. A., 1923]; in college towns, 
 Amherst, Ithaca, Ann Arbor, Urbana and five others for the 
 benefit largely of non-Unitarian students and “at political and 
 commercial capitals” as Albany, Nashville, Pittsburgh, etc. 
 There is also a Unitarian work [“of a definite missionary 
 value”] at Chautauqua, of many years’ standing.* 
 
 ^University pastors at the state universities are ordinarily appointed 
 to shepherd the studying youth of their respective denominations. But 
 there are few Unitarian young people, if any, in many of these schools. 
 When the American Unitarian Association announces that real estate 
 will soon be needed in the neighborhood of such universities as those 
 of Ohio, Texas, Arizona, Washington, and North Dakota, we are safe 
 in saying that its main objective is the constituency of evangelical young 
 people. C.R. 1911;596. When it also announces that a new Unitarian 
 church has been gathered at Austin, Texas, the seat of the state univer¬ 
 sity and that for several years the attention of the missionary board in 
 Boston has been fixed on this strategic point, we know pretty well what 
 Unitarians mean by “missions.” C.R. 1916:356. 
 
34 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 What Christians understand by home missions,—rescue mis¬ 
 sions, schools for mountain whites, missions among ignorant 
 Slavs and Italians, among Filipinos, Porto Ricans, and other 
 dependent peoples are non-existent. “The Unitarian movement 
 is nearly as old as the Methodist and older than the Episcopal 
 High Church,” writes a Unitarian in the Christian Register, 
 “but what progress has it made in converting ordinary, igno¬ 
 rant, commonplace busy people from worldliness to holiness? 
 Much is said of the orthodox persons who become Unitarians. 
 Their religious character was formed under Orthodoxy. . . . 
 Social reform is not religion. ... As a denomination we ought 
 
 Prof. J. F. Shepherd of the department of psychology at the Uni¬ 
 versity of Michigan, an active member of the Ann Arbor Unitarian 
 church, tells us without embarrassment or circumlocution that “the most 
 vital function of the Unitarian church in the college town is to furnish 
 a satisfying and abiding faith to those students whose intellectual awak¬ 
 ening is cutting them loose from orthodoxy “Seats of learning through¬ 
 out the South like similar institutions in the Northern states,” writes.the 
 Unitarian minister at Dallas, Texas, “are promising fields for the propa¬ 
 gation of Unitarian principles. There are four thousand students in 
 the University of Texas at Austin. They come from the best families 
 and in good time after returning to their homes and taking up their 
 duties of life in the natural order of things will be leading citizens of 
 their respective communities. The same opportunity to further the cause 
 of Unitarianism is present in every university community” C.R. 1921: 
 380. 
 
 The West Side Unitarian church has been built near Columbia Uni¬ 
 versity, the greatest student centre in the world. “Membership will be 
 sought from among the fifty thousand students. ...” C.R. 1920:822. 
 At the University of Iowa Dr. F. C. Doan has an office directly opposite 
 the campus so that students can drop in and talk with him. C.R. 1921: 
 545. The Unitarian Laymen’s League finances it. “Half of the atten¬ 
 dants on his congregation are students.” Dr. Doan is a “humanist” as 
 distinguished from a theist and the Unitarian minister at the gates of 
 the University of Nebraska is said to entertain similar opinions. “There 
 is,” reports Dr. S. A. Eliot, “no more fertile field for recruiting than the 
 college and school towns of New England. The church at Burlington 
 is at the seat of the University of Vermont and Colby University is at 
 Waterville. The University of Maine is near Bangor and Norwich 
 University near Montpelier. The Exeter church is adjacent to Phillips 
 Exeter Academy. At Presque Isle, Castine, and Farmington are the 
 normal schools that supply the teachers for the schools of Maine.” C.R. 
 1919:1162. 
 
 T. J. Roberts writes from Chautauqua (C.R. 1920:964), “I am so 
 pleased with the leavening process going on there that I should like our 
 Unitarian people to continue with the other denominations in this very 
 important educational work. Mr. Badger is right that the Unitarians 
 
Christian Missions and Unitarian Missions 35 
 
 to have missions to teach religion to the benighted, in the city, 
 in the country, on the frontier, among the immigrants and in 
 foreign lands; not to start Unitarian churches among the 
 orthodox but to start personal religion among the irreligious.” 24 
 
 But they never will until they make their peace with the 
 Eternal Christ. 
 
 have at Chautauqua one of the finest opportunities offered in this 
 country.” 
 
 Prof. C. R. Bowen in like vein: “There are at Chautauqua ten 
 thousand people and upwards on any one day during the high season. 
 They are all serious, earnest people seeking light. They are religious 
 ■people. They are a picked group of precisely the people we would 
 choose as promising hearers of our word. They go by our open door 
 daily, practically every one of them. The missionary opportunity is 
 unique.” C.R. 1911:641. Also on 976: “The majority of these attendants 
 [at Unitarian services] are not Unitarians. They are often attending 
 a Unitarian service for the first time in their lives. . . . Rarely is any¬ 
 one disputatious; more common are genuine conversions. . . . Many 
 join the correspondence Church of Souls or get in touch with the Post 
 Office Mission.” 
 
 REFERENCES TO CHAPTER II 
 
 1. The Unitarian Principles (tract). 2. Our Day, Vol. 1, 29 quotes C.R. 
 Nov. 17, 1887. 3. Clay Macauley, Memories and Memorials, 112, 504. 4. Our 
 Day, Vol. 4, 299. 5. Macauley, op. cit. 494. 6. Macauley, 501. 7. Macauley, 
 The Unitarian Mission in Japan. 8. Hawkes, Unitarian Mission Work in Non- 
 Christian Countries, 22. 9. C.R. 1915:923. 10. C.R. 1913:1146. 11. C.R. 1911: 
 
 784. 12. C.R. 1913:519 and 1917:95. 13. Our Common Inheritances. 14. C.R. 
 
 1910:634. 15. C.R. 1913:465. 16. C.R. 1911:618. 17. C.R. 1913:1074. 
 
 18. C.R. 1920:529. 19. C.R. 1913:956. 20. S. Johnson, Oriental Religions: 
 
 China, 57, 855, 849. 21. C.R. 1914:439. 22. C.R. 1914:59. 23. C.R. 1912:254. 
 24. C.R. 1924:180. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GOOD WORKS OF UNITARIANISM 
 
 The devotion of the Unitarian denomination to good 
 works seems to be its chief distinction from other denomi¬ 
 nations.—President Eliot at the Ninety-ninth annual meet¬ 
 ing of the American Unitarian Association. 
 
 
 NITARIANS have never taken any interest in the busi¬ 
 ness called carrying the Gospel to the heathen,” says 
 the President of the American Unitarian Association. 
 
 We have found overwhelming need for our limited resources 
 in work that lies nearer at hand.” 1 
 
 What has Unitarianism accomplished at home? 
 
 In the way of citizenship and philanthropy much. One 
 recalls its gracious services in the Sanitary Commission during 
 the Civil War [H. W. Bellows, Jeffries Wyman], its leader¬ 
 ship in civil service reform [G. W. Curtis, Dorman B. Eaton], 
 in the women’s movement [Miss Anthony, the Blackwells, 
 Mrs. Stanton], in the peace movement [E. E. Hale, Edwin 
 Ginn, the Meads] and pre-eminently in the antislavery move¬ 
 ment. It has furnished certain notably useful citizens to the 
 nation. One thinks of that fine and competent social worker 
 Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, of the services which Gen. Bar- 
 low rendered in the fight on the Tweed ring, of Peter Cooper’s 
 philanthropies, of the Baldwins, father and son, of Alfred T. 
 White, pioneer of tenement-house reform. Of these personali¬ 
 ties Unitarians are justly proud. “Unitarianism has been the 
 characteristic exponent of the American theory ‘by their fruits 
 ye shall know them,’ ” a Unitarian minister has lately declared. 2 
 The claim is a large one and at least applies to such rare souls 
 as Samuel J. May and S. G. Howe and Mrs. Lowell and 
 Dorothea Dix. President Eliot makes similar affirmations. 
 
 36 
 
The Good Works of TJnitarianism 
 
 37 
 
 “The Unitarian faith leads directly to broad social effort to 
 promote human welfare. This is a natural issue of the Uni¬ 
 tarian faith. We have not been chiefly concerned about per¬ 
 sonal salvation. We have taken to heart the command to love 
 one's neighbor as one's self." 3 
 
 If President Eliot had a wider knowledge of the life of 
 American churches he would hardly care to lay claim to any 
 primacy in good works for his own household. It should also 
 be pointed out that Unitarianism has been indebted for its 
 leadership in social movements largely to the churches which 
 are “concerned with personal salvation.” That its pulpit lead¬ 
 ers have in large proportion come from these churches is often 
 remarked by Unitarians themselves.* Hardly less notable this 
 other obligation. Second generation idealism seems not alto¬ 
 gether common in the Unitarian body.f Its idealists are far 
 too frequently naturalized into it. Dr. Bellows once remarked, 
 “Liberalism cannot break the connection which history has 
 established between [it and evangelicalism] nor get rid of the 
 blessed inheritance of faith and experience delivered to her by 
 the church of the last centuries.” 4 
 
 *The graduates of the three Unitarian divinity schools “entering the 
 Unitarian ministry in any one year do not suffice to take the places of 
 the ministers who die during the same period. It is still true that our 
 churches depend for leadership chiefly upon ministers who have been 
 trained in schools that represent the traditions of orthodoxy. Many of 
 the men who come to us from other fellowships are of the highest 
 quality but the Unitarian churches can take no satisfaction in the situa¬ 
 tion until they cease to be parasitic in this all important matter of minis¬ 
 terial leadership.”—D r. S. A. Eliot, Annual Report of A. U.A. 1923:32. 
 
 t“The genius of our denominational life seems to run to the practical 
 application of religion to social and national issues. . . . But at least 
 three-fourths of the religion we apply was generated in orthodox com¬ 
 munions. If our source of supply from other denominations were cut 
 off we should be extinct in a generation. IVe should have no religion 
 to apply. If we are to win and hold the respect of America we mus t 
 rediscover for ourselves the springs of power and inspiration and learn 
 to generate our own spiritual resources. ... I have worshipped with 
 many groups of religious liberals from the Atlantic to the Pacific and 
 have often been amazed to find that they have completely lost the 
 power of intensive devotion. Many of our meetings are held without 
 prayer. . . . Our people are spendthrifts living on the capital of the 
 past, on the prayers of generations departed.”—E. J. Bowden, C.R. 
 1924:156. 
 
38 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 This was more obvious a hundred years ago than at present. 
 That Abou Ben Adhem of old Boston, Dr. Joseph Tucker- 
 man, was one of the seven “ministers at large” [three Uni¬ 
 tarian, four Evangelical] who cared for the poor of the city 
 in the early years of the nineteenth century. His careful and 
 intelligent records of poverty and unemployment were the 
 beginning of systematic charity in its modern form and his 
 personal service to the poor a thing even more attractive than 
 system. His life fed on the words of Christ. “The New 
 Testament,” he writes in a letter, “as often as I open it or think 
 of it becomes to me glad tidings of great joy. I cannot think 
 of Jesus but with the sentiment, ‘Thanks be to God for his 
 unspeakable gift.’ ” Years after his death his copy of White’s 
 Diatessarion [a harmony of the Gospels] was found with the 
 words on the fly-leaf, “This has been my daily manual. It has 
 been to me for light and strength and solace and peace. When 
 at home it has long been my custom to read it every morning 
 that I might take a lesson from my Master before I went to 
 the ordinary duties of the day and when I have traveled it has 
 been my guide and my treasury on the water and on the land. 
 . . . I account all things but loss for the excellency of the 
 knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord.” 5 
 
 There is the authentic note of Christ’s own. 
 
 Dorothea Dix, the great friend of the insane, who laid the 
 foundation for their institutional relief in the United States, 
 was of evangelical parentage. Of her inner life her biographer 
 says, 
 
 “With her the day always began with four or five o’clock in 
 the morning when on rising she secretly set apart the first hour 
 for her religious devotions. In the most hurried time of work 
 or travel she would never intermit this habit, feeling that when 
 frayed in spirit through pressure of care the virtue had gone 
 out of her, she must utterly faint and utterly fail but for refuge 
 in this mount of prayer. God was her present help in time of 
 trouble. . . . Religion was the breath of her life. . . . Those 
 who heard her when she would call together the nurses in a 
 
The Good JVorks of U nitarianism 
 
 39 
 
 new asylum to speak to them about their sacred duties, say they 
 never listened to such moving speech from human lips. Her 
 auditory would be wrought to mingled tears and exaltation as 
 though in their merciful vocation the divine privilege of the 
 very call of Jesus to be eyes to the blind and feet to the lame 
 had descended to them from out of the heavens.” 6 
 
 Garrison was son of a Baptist mother who evangelized in 
 the Baltimore shoe factory where she earned her bread and 
 he himself was as a young man a convinced evangelical Chris¬ 
 tian. 7 The early numbers of the Liberator were full of Biblical 
 language and spirit. When later he was charged with infidelity 
 he wrote: “I esteem the Holy Scriptures above all other books 
 in the universe and always appeal to the law and the testimony 
 to prove all my peculiar doctrines. I believe in an indwelling 
 Christ and in his righteousness alone. I glory in nothing here 
 below save in Christ and in Him crucified. I believe all the 
 works of the devil are to be destroyed and our Lord is to reign 
 from sea to sea even to the ends of the earth; and I profess to 
 have passed from death unto life and know by happy experience 
 that there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, 
 who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.” 8 
 
 Channing was as a boy converted in a revival in a Congre¬ 
 gational church in New London, Conn. 9 Theodore Parker 
 says of his mother in a recently published letter [C. R., April 
 10, 1924] : “She was a woman of rare piety who took pains 
 to lay the foundations of the character I was to build upon the 
 Rock of Ages. . . . Few men have had so good a religious 
 training as I ... I was brought up on the Bible.” Edward 
 Everett Hale’s connection with Puritanism was not immediate 
 but both his grandfathers were Puritan ministers, Enoch Hale of 
 Westhampton being spoken of by him as “dreadfully orthodox.” 
 His own mother’s Unitarianism was of a type that could be 
 nourished by Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying, her 
 favorite religious book. 10 The remarkable social work Dr. 
 F. D. Huntington did in the South Church as Dr. Hale’s 
 predecessor [for it was he who organized in the southern wards 
 
40 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 of Boston the Provident Association which gradually extended 
 to the rest of the city] is clearly a fruit of the lofty Christian 
 character of a mother “who was nurtured under the influence 
 and within the fold of the Trinitarian church.” 11 
 
 John Pierpont was brought up a Calvinist and attended in 
 his early days the ministry of Lyman Beecher. Noah Worcester, 
 pioneer advocate of international peace, was in early life a Con¬ 
 gregational home missionary in New Hampshire and never 
 moved far from what that implied theologically. Adin Ballou, 
 “practical Christian Socialist of the Hopedale Community,” 
 was bred a Disciple. Both Lydia Maria Child* and Samuel 
 G. Howe were bom before the rise of Unitarianism and hence 
 were presumably bred in the Puritan discipline. Dr. Howe 
 when remonstrating because there “was no Bible, no prayer, 
 no praise” in a Unitarian service, speaks of his early supersti¬ 
 tious regard for the Bible (Journals and Letters, Vol. 12:471). 
 Julia Ward Howe’s father was an Episcopalian of Puritan 
 type, one of the founders of New York University and a fore¬ 
 most promoter of church building in the then distant West; 
 also president of the first temperance society ever organized 
 in America. It is not hard to see where his daughter’s humani- 
 tarianism and interest in education had its springs. A. Bronson 
 Alcott also came out of Episcopalianism. 
 
 William Cullen Bryant, Free Soiler and opponent of the 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill, was brought up in the Presbyterian faith 
 and in later life divided his connections between Presbyterianism 
 and Unitarianism. “No one,” says John Bigelow, his biog¬ 
 rapher, “ever recognized more completely or more devoutly the 
 divinity of Christ.” 12 The Massachusetts war governor, John 
 A. Andrew, was of evangelical parentage; also Horace Mann. 
 Frank Sanborn was brought up among the Congregationalists 
 of Hampton Falls, N. H. Francis W. Bird was in early life 
 as Congregationalist active in Boston city missions. Theodore 
 D. Weld was converted under Finney’s preaching and trained 
 
 *“She was the outgrowth of New England theology, traditions and 
 habits,—the finest fruit of these.”—Quoted by Wendell Phillips in 
 Letters of Lydia Maria Child, 263. 
 
The Good Works of Unitarianism 
 
 41 
 
 as a Congregationalist minister. Susan B. Anthony was of 
 Quaker parentage, Mrs. Stanton of Presbyterian. Antoinette 
 Brown Blackwell was a Congregational preacher educated in 
 Oberlin. Lucretia Mott, closely identified with Unitarianism, 
 was brought up an evangelical Friend. Mary A. Livermore 
 was baptized and trained in the First Baptist church, Boston; 
 Lucy Stone among the Congregationalists delivering the first 
 plea for women’s suffrage ever made in her brother’s church at 
 Gardner, Mass. Col. George H. Putnam, leader in New York 
 city reform movements, was in early life member of the First 
 Baptist church, New York. 
 
 George T. Angell, leader in the movement for the humane 
 treatment of animals, was son of a Baptist minister. Samuel 
 J. Barrows has described the Baptist meeting-house of his early 
 years and this background goes far to explain his later useful¬ 
 ness. His wife and co-worker was, before marriage, a Congre¬ 
 gational missionary in India. Charles G. Ames before he 
 pioneered associated charities in Germantown as a Unitarian 
 wrote the early state prohibition law of Minnesota and edited 
 the first antislavery paper of the state as a Free Baptist minis¬ 
 ter. 13 Jasper L. Douthit, of whom Unitarians speak as “a 
 second Oberlin,” was Methodist bred, as was Dr. Robert 
 Collyer, the patriot leader of Civil War days in Chicago. Dr. 
 Edwin D. Mead, prominent in the peace movement, was of a 
 Methodist family and studied for the Episcopal ministry. The 
 Rev. C. F. Dole, also active in the cause of international peace, 
 came out of a Congregational manse as did Charles H. Lever- 
 more. Owen Love joy, opponent of child labor, was once a 
 Methodist minister. Thomas Mott Osborne, prison reformer, 
 is of Quaker family. William Pryor Letchworth, the founder 
 of the Craig and Sonyea colonies for epileptics, was born into 
 Quakerism in 1823. Edwin Ginn, A. D. Mayo, and Starr 
 King emigrated from Universalism into Unitarianism. 
 
 The limb which Channing sawed off from the trunk of New 
 England Christianity had much fruit on it. It was the same 
 fruit as that which ripened on the other branches and was nour- 
 
42 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 ished by the same Puritan taproot. These reformers and 
 philanthropists were of the same great family that produced 
 H. W. Beecher and Wendell Phillips and Elihu Burritt and 
 Elijah Lovejoy and John Brown and Mrs. Stowe and Charles 
 Loring Brace and Horace Bushnell and William E. Dodge 
 and Mark Hopkins and Alice Freeman Palmer and Timothy 
 Dwight and Mary Lyon and Frances Willard and Neal Dow 
 and O. O. Howard and General Armstrong and Cyrus Hamlin 
 and Leonard Bacon and Grace Dodge and Graham Taylor and 
 C. C. Crittenton. 
 
 It must always be remembered in making any attempt to 
 evaluate the philanthropic activities of Boston Unitarianism 
 that its social and financial control of the city during most of 
 the nineteenth century was fairly complete and its economic 
 resources very great indeed. In 1850 Boston’s assessed wealth 
 exceeded that of New York. It was the greatest shipping port 
 of the country. Indeed William Gray was the largest ship 
 owner in the world, Wm. F. Weld and Co. and Ezra Weston 
 following closely after. Great fortunes were built up in the 
 China trade by the Russells and Perkinses, the Forbeses, the 
 Waleses, the Coolidges, the Lows, the Sturgises and the Cush¬ 
 ings; in the Singapore and Penang trade by the Tuckermans; 
 in the India trade by the Wigglesworths and Tudors; by 
 Augustus Hemenway in the Valparaiso trade and in Cuban 
 sugar. 
 
 The Thorndikes and Crowninshields early profited by pri¬ 
 vateering to get together large properties. The Amorys inher¬ 
 ited much of the great Green estate made by starting plantations 
 in Demerara, stocking with slaves, and selling out at a profit. 
 For two generations the ground rents of Boston came in steady 
 flow into the pockets of Unitarian families,—the Shaws, Park- 
 mans, Searses, Welds, Brookses and Inches. Fortunes were 
 made by the rise of values,—on Beacon Hill by the Joys, the 
 Masons, and H. G. Otis. 
 
 In 1881 there were sixty-one national banks in Boston. In 
 the great banking firms of Lee, Higginson and Co. and Kidder, 
 
The Good Works of Unitarianism 
 
 43 
 
 Peabody and Co. have been grouped such representative and 
 intermarried Unitarian families as the Lees, Jacksons, Cabots, 
 Lowells, Higginsons, Kidders, Thayers, Winslows and Pea- 
 bod ys. The cotton manufacture of New England has enriched 
 the Lowells, Appletons, Amorys, Coolidges, Walcotts and Law¬ 
 rences. The Shaws and Bigelows and Agassizes have drawn 
 great incomes from Calumet and Hecla and Anaconda copper 
 mines. 
 
 Railroads, too, have contributed to Boston wealth—the 
 Union Pacific built by the Ameses and C. F. Adams, the 
 Michigan Central by the Forbeses and Thayers. The Burling¬ 
 ton and the Atchison systems were both financed and con¬ 
 structed by Boston promoters and the Mexican Central to a 
 certain extent. In 1880 Boston capitalists held 340 millions 
 in securities of these Western roads and 120 millions in the 
 railroads centering in their own city. To recount the extent 
 of Boston investments in New England industries, power, trac¬ 
 tion, and gas companies, Chicago real estate and office buildings, 
 General Electric, United Shoe Machinery, American Tel. and 
 Tel., Southern cotton mills, and what not, would carry us far 
 afield. 
 
 Now this wealth was for two generations preponderating^ 
 in Unitarian hands and is probably to a certain extent still so. 
 One would have thought that a little of the great fortunes 
 made in the Asiatic trade might have returned to the East for 
 educational and hospital pioneering. Not a rupee ever did. 
 Almost as little did the continuous incomes from western mines 
 and railroads help in the task of planting churches and schools 
 and colleges in the West. The apothegm “Unitarianism stands 
 for the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man and the 
 neighborhood of Boston” is literally true in its last term. These 
 opulent Unitarians adorned their city as their residences, built 
 its art museum, financed its orchestra, endowed its university, 
 library, and general hospital, and gave considerable sums to 
 charities. The public spirited traditions of Puritanism survived 
 in them to this degree. When one however looks for a rich 
 
44 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 institutional life in Boston under the name and fostering care 
 of Unitarianism one is on the whole disappointed. The year¬ 
 book of the Unitarian Association for 1924 under the title of 
 philanthropic agencies has four items which represent the actual 
 survival of formal denominational charity after a century of 
 exceptional opportunity. 
 
 The Boston Young Men’s Christian Union has an admir¬ 
 able summer outing department carried on at an expense of 
 $22,711 in 1924. Its general work for young men is excellent 
 if not very extensive. The Children’s Mission to Children 
 expends $63,333 (1922) of which $14,131 comes from dona¬ 
 tions, the rest from investments and other sources. The North 
 End Union is a social center with sewing classes, school of 
 printing, baths, dances, debating clubs. At the Norfolk House 
 Centre there is extensive social work for which Unitarian 
 churches are chiefly responsible and a less extensive settlement 
 work at Hale House. 
 
 Much more than this I cannot find. 
 
 Charles F. Barnard, the most effective social worker of Bos¬ 
 ton’s nineteenth century, was the real initiator of the institu¬ 
 tional church and the god-father of the Boston childhood of his 
 day. But Boston Unitarianism with all its wealth never prop¬ 
 erly backed him and when the Old South [Congregational] 
 church began a similar work he wrote with a touch of bitter¬ 
 ness, 
 
 “The embarrassments, debts, and deficiencies of more than 
 thirty-two years occur to us with force and chastened delight 
 as we observe the different and better fortune of our noble 
 compeer. . . . We know of no martyrdom to compare with that 
 which waits upon the sight of human suffering without ade¬ 
 quate and perpetual means in one’s hands for its relief. . . . 
 The Old South is rich to be sure. ... So are other churches, 
 other communities that we might name.” 14 
 
 The greatest of all Unitarian philanthropists, Dr. S. G. 
 Howe, made the same complaint. His work for the blind 
 seems to have been constantly in financial want. “There were 
 
The Good JVorks of Unitarianism 
 
 45 
 
 times when he had to put forth all his powers to obtain the 
 money needed to carry on the work. In 1858 he wrote: ‘The 
 annual expenses of this institution have been for many years 
 greater than the income.’ ” 15 
 
 In the seventies of the last century there was a Methodist 
 hot-gospeller and foe of rum who with great hardihood bought 
 James Freeman Clark’s old church on Indiana Place from its 
 Unitarian owners. The price, $20,000, he toilsomely collected 
 by lecturing throughout New England. During his life time 
 he carried on his church single-handed and at death willed it 
 to the Unitarian Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, hoping 
 that they would develop some ministry there. 16 For years it 
 languished. Then Methodism resumed control and today there 
 is in the Church of All Nations with its attendant industries 
 the busiest social hive in Boston. 
 
 There have been, as Unitarians rightly explain, important 
 Unitarian contributions to the general charitable work of the 
 city. The Associated Charities, the Perkins Institute for the 
 Blind, the McLean Asylum, the General Hospital, the Boston 
 Provident Association were largely of Unitarian promotion and 
 have no doubt benefited from Unitarian wills. Calculations 
 in the Memorial History of Boston (Vol. 4:667) of gifts to 
 public charity from 1800 to 1845 come to $4,739,293. This 
 represents the gifts of all citizens. From the same source (669) 
 we get material which may serve as basis of denominational 
 comparison. 
 
 From 1825 to 1881 Unitarians expended about $1,500,000 
 of which $500,000 came from Boston through the American 
 Unitarian Association and three other Unitarian societies. The 
 receipts of the American Board for substantially the same period 
 from Boston alone were about $2,000,000 and the American 
 Board was but one, if the greatest, of the Congregational 
 organized interests. 
 
 When one recalls that the Unitarian defection carried off not 
 only the church and educational plant but also the wealth of 
 Eastern Massachusetts these figures are significant. 
 
46 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 The Boston Federation of Churches prints the financial sta¬ 
 tistics of the churches of Greater Boston in its Bulletin, April, 
 1923. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Percent- 
 
 
 
 
 
 Out- 
 
 ages of 
 
 
 
 Com- 
 
 Parish 
 
 side 
 
 Bene vo- 
 
 
 Number of Churches 
 
 muni- 
 
 Ex- 
 
 Be- 
 
 lences to 
 
 Totals 
 
 
 cants 
 
 penses 
 
 nevo- 
 
 Parish 
 
 
 
 
 
 lences 
 
 Ex- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 penses 
 
 
 Baptist, 101 . 
 
 .41,319 
 
 $786,230 
 
 $416,965 
 
 53% 
 
 $1,203,195 
 
 Congregationalist, 127. 
 
 .49,299 
 
 963,289 
 
 485,438 
 
 50% 
 
 1,448,727 
 
 Episcopalian, 96. 
 
 .36,637 
 
 900,434 
 
 284,472 
 
 31% 
 
 1,184,906 
 
 Methodist, 101. 
 
 .31,344 
 
 450,074 
 
 313,357 
 
 70% 
 
 763,431 
 
 Unitarian, 56 . 
 
 .21,986 
 
 388,616 
 
 101,319 
 
 26% 
 
 489,935 
 
 The per capita gifts for benevolence are: Baptist, $10, Con¬ 
 gregational, $9.80, Episcopalian, $7.07, Methodist, $9.99, and 
 Unitarian, $4.60.* 
 
 Has the wealth of Boston Unitarianism given us large phil¬ 
 anthropic foundations like the Peabody Fund, the Slater Fund, 
 the Jeanes Fund, the Phelps-Stokes Foundation, the Sage Foun¬ 
 dation, the General Education Board, the Carnegie Founda¬ 
 tions? Yes, one: the World Peace Foundation, whose founder, 
 Mr. Ginn, came to Unitarianism from another church. Have 
 there been in its membership really large-scale givers such as 
 the New York Presbyterian group, Anson G. Phelps, Wm. E. 
 
 *The budget for benevolences of the First Presbyterian Church, New 
 York, was in 1924, $102,021. This was for home and foreign missions, 
 education, boys’ clubs, hospital fund, day nurseries, etc. It amounts 
 to somewhat more than the fifty-six Unitarian churches of Greater 
 Boston together contributed to benevolences in the preceding year. The 
 average annual benevolences of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church 
 for the last five years were $134,038. This all passed through the church 
 treasury and does not include the large contributions of members through 
 other channels. 
 
 The recent Unitarian endowment drive which brought in something 
 under two and a half millions in three years [i. e., $800,000 yearly] is, 
 as far as I can find, unique in the history of Unitarianism. But the Sev¬ 
 enth Day Adventists in 1923 alone raised nine millions for religious pur¬ 
 poses [$41.45 per capita]. Of this $3,224,000 was for foreign missions 
 and of this again $1,392,000 came out of the Sabbath schools. Chiesa 
 fregante chiesa pagante! The membership of the Adventist and Unita¬ 
 rian bodies is approximately the same. The Adventists have no wealth. 
 This represents their normal yearly giving. They are the ones to turn to 
 if one wants a high standard of giving. 
 
The Good Works of Uhitarianism 
 
 47 
 
 Dodge, John S. Kennedy, D. Willis James, Morris K. Jesup, 
 John Crosby Brown and the rest? Have there been Boston 
 Unitarians who have literally stripped themselves of their mil¬ 
 lions as D. K. Pearson did for Christian education or as John 
 Center Baldwin did in an earlier day? Or in humbler circles 
 does one hear of Unitarian “tithers” or of anything correspond¬ 
 ing to the sacrificial giving which brings, one knows not whence, 
 $600,000 annually to the work of the Christian and Missionary 
 Alliance ? 
 
 Ungracious questions, but how otherwise than by asking 
 them can one test the truth of utterances such as the fol¬ 
 lowing ? 
 
 "Unitarian views of God and man are more effective than 
 any other toward right living, good works, public spirit.” C. W. 
 Eliot to the Hawthorne Club, Bowdoin College. 17 "We can 
 without confusion submit the record of the contributions Uni¬ 
 tarians have made to the reforms and charities which bless 
 modern life.” C. G. Ames. 13 “Let us in all modesty boldly 
 suggest that the fundamental idea of our churches is unique as 
 compared with any other religious organization . . . the historic 
 religions and churches have never been directed with singleness 
 of aim toward the actual realization of the kingdom of God in 
 this world.” C. F. Dole. 19 Julian C. Jaynes writes: " Christian¬ 
 ity primarily aimed to improve the social life of humanity. . . . 
 Now UHitarianism claims to be the direct heir of this beneficent 
 unpulse. . . . They are ever ready with hand and purse to serve 
 their fellowmen. . . . They stand in the front rank of those who 
 are endeavoring to secure for men the widest culture, the sanest 
 philanthropy, and complete justice.” 20 A correspondent in the 
 Christian Register (1915 : 343) writes: “We are a race of phil¬ 
 anthropists giving millions annually to every kind of beneficent 
 or preventive agency.” The Rev. Dr. Sunderland: "There are 
 no people in the world that give more generously for schools 
 than Unitarians.” 21 " Unitarians* wealth /' we are told by Dr. 
 E. A. Horton, “has flowed into the church treasuries of all de¬ 
 nominations. Hardly one good enterprise has failed to elicit 
 
48 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 response from our laity even to the detriment of our own 
 financial welfare,” 22 M. J. Savage declares that, “Unitarianism 
 indicates a growth of the human heart, a higher manifestation 
 of that humanity which we call specifically humane, tenderness, 
 pity, compassion, love, sensitiveness to that which is right, to 
 that which is just;” 23 and the Rev. W. I. Lawrence in 
 a similar lyrical flight describes Unitarianism as “the flower¬ 
 ing of Christianity and the heart of both Christianity 
 and Unitarianism to be the words of Jesus, “I am come 
 that they might have life and that they might have it more 
 abundantly.”* 24 
 
 I cannot find that Boston Unitarianism has either pioneered 
 or financed education in the country at large to the extent 
 which is often supposed. Certainly it has given generously to 
 Harvard where its own boys have had their schooling. Outside 
 Massachusetts two educational institutions have received their 
 largess. Washington University, St. Louis, was established 
 under the lead of Dr. W. G. Eliot, a Unitarian minister of 
 that city. Most of the funds were locally raised, chiefly in 
 his church. Two Boston subscriptions, one of $47,000 from 
 Nathaniel Thayer, the other of $40,000 from Mrs. Hemenway, 
 are to be noted, 25 
 
 Antioch College, Ohio, was, as its name suggests, founded 
 by the “Christian Church.” It had at the start a checkered 
 financial history and was finally subsidized by a Unitarian gift 
 of $100,000 on condition that all theological qualifications in 
 trusteeship and government should be abandoned. The Uni¬ 
 tarians denied any desire “to have the college exclusively on 
 
 *It is not altogether easy to estimate the extent of Unitarian philan¬ 
 thropy and there seems to be wide divergence of opinion regarding it. 
 Mr. Salter of the Society of Ethical Culture writes: “There has not 
 been a man to my knowledge among Unitarians who has addressed 
 himself to the social question in the spirit of Channing.” (C.R. 1910: 
 260.) The next entry in my notes is from Mr. W. M. Backus: “There 
 is not a city in which there is a Unitarian church that its members 
 are not found leading in the work of public benefactions.” (C.R. 1910: 
 293.) I judge that the truth would be that with much that is creditable 
 Unitarian philanthropy has not been notable considering wealth and 
 self-imposed abstinence from the missionary and educational programs 
 which characterize the life of the Christian churches of the country. 
 
The Good Works of Unitananism 49 
 
 any terms,” wrote Dr. H. W. Bellows. “They were truly 
 anxious to retain the characterizing control of it in ‘Christian’ 
 hands. . . . They felt that the less formal their possession of 
 the college, the larger legitimate moral and intellectual 
 possession they might have of the ‘Christian’ mind. What 
 they wanted was the chance of giving away such edu¬ 
 cational experience, such liberalizing influences as they pos¬ 
 sessed.”'^ 
 
 Horace Mann was made president and soon brought the 
 institution to a high level of efficiency. But the alliance proved 
 an unnatural one. Mann’s letters indicate that he, too, was 
 interested in denominational infiltration. “In all this great 
 West, ours is the only institution of a first-class character which 
 is not directly or indirectly under the influence of the old-school 
 theology. . . . Our college, therefore, is really like breaking 
 a hole in the Chinese wall. It lets in the light of religious 
 civilization where it never shone before. Think of this great 
 state with more than two millions of inhabitants and only one 
 Unitarian society!” He looked on the “Christian sect,” as his 
 biographer says, “as the only conduit through which unsectarian 
 education could flow into the West. . . . The Universalists had 
 as bad a reputation among the orthodox as the Unitarians and 
 therefore could not be thus used so safely.”* 
 
 One can see how this arriere pensee would sooner or later 
 alienate the owners of the college and its denominational con¬ 
 stituency. Mann was at last obliged to write: “The last sands 
 of Antioch College are running out. Unless we can have some 
 wholesale instead of retail donations the institution sinks . . . 
 and the cause of liberal Christianity and a free-thought edu¬ 
 cation expires for an indefinite time for all this valley of the 
 West.” 27 He had identified himself by church connection with 
 
 ♦After the death of Mann, E. E. Hale wrote: “We expect to re¬ 
 establish Antioch College under our own men and to lure into the 
 ministry . . . men enough to run our enlarged machinery.” Dr. Hale 
 also speaks of the possession of Antioch as involving “the moral and 
 spiritual direction of the public education of the state of Ohio and for 
 that matter of the neighboring states.”— Life of E. E. Hale, Vol. 2, 
 7 and 267. 
 
50 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 the “Christians,” a step to which his friend Theodore Parker 
 took strong exception in view of the “moral contempt Mann felt 
 for the absurd and debasing theology of the ‘Christians.’ ” 28 
 
 He who sups with the devil needs a long spoon. The 
 “Christians” have today no college in Antioch. In the college 
 promotional literature its president is described as “of Quaker 
 antecedents.” He is actually vice-president of the American 
 Unitarian Association.* Unitarian shibboleths are dominant in 
 this literature. “Antioch holds the way to truth lies through 
 sincere, open-minded inquiry, not through an unquestioning 
 acceptance of dogma and creed. . . . Comparatively few young 
 people are interested in traditional theology. They have decided 
 that the authority of tradition is not an adequate basis for re¬ 
 ligious belief. . . . Mr. Morgan deprecates religious formulas.” 
 There are religious discussion groups. “We all talked about 
 Buddha, Zarathustra, and Confucius, comparing their doctrines 
 with the laws of Moses and the teachings of Jesus as freely 
 as we discuss the base-ball score.” 29 President Eliot endorses 
 the college’s present drive for a million and H. Van Loon dis¬ 
 penses history of a sort in its classrooms. 
 
 The Unitarians are “the natural planters of higher education 
 in this country” according to Dr. Bellows. 30 The two above 
 mentioned enterprises [with Reed College, Portland, a recent 
 private foundation] represent the chief results of their efforts 
 outside Massachusetts. In Massachusetts individual Unitarians 
 established Clark University and Radcliffe College. Cornell 
 is also claimed by them as Ezra Cornell was an expelled Quaker 
 
 ^President Arthur Morgan writes of himself: “I grew up in the 
 Baptist church. . . . When I ceased to believe the Bible infallible I 
 found the bottom had not dropped out of the universe. When I doubted 
 the deity of Jesus the structure of the world remained intact; when I 
 began to question a personality called God chaos did not begin. . . . 
 As to immortality I observe that life continues and grows finer and 
 more abundant. What but aggravated selfishness would insist that it 
 be my particular composite of consciousness that continues.” Ours “is 
 an impersonal universe.” “I see no evidence that a Friend behind 
 phenomena is directing the life urge toward any predetermined goal.” 
 C.R. 1918:1048 and 1923:1066. 
 
 Mr. Morgan was recently made president of the Unitarian Sunday 
 School Association. 
 
The Good Works of Unitarianism 
 
 51 
 
 with Unitarian sympathies. 31 As a corporate body , however , 
 Unitarians have never pioneered education as other churches 
 have done. The institutional poverty of Unitarianism is illus¬ 
 trated in the secondary education of New England. The great 
 schools of this grade are either Puritan; Andover, Exeter, Wil- 
 liston, the Northfield Schools and some dozen others, or Episco¬ 
 palian; St. Paul’s, St. George’s, St. Mark’s, Groton. Uni¬ 
 tarianism is represented by Procter Academy in New Hamp¬ 
 shire: “poor and situated in a poor country but keeping alive 
 the lamp of liberal culture and sincere truth-seeking,” as Presi¬ 
 dent Eliot tells us. 32 But why after a century of Unitarian 
 wealth should it be poor? 
 
 Harvard has been the pride of Unitarians and is fairly en¬ 
 titled to be considered an expression of their spirit. What do 
 those who know it best say of it? 
 
 President Eliot thinks it stands pre-eminently “for service.” 33 
 If he means efficient paid service one can readily believe it but 
 it would be a bold thing indeed to connect sacrificial service 
 in any way with the college or its graduates. Prof. Wm. James, 
 lecturing at the University of Chicago some years before his 
 death, took a less flattering view. After expressing his disillu¬ 
 sionment regarding the moralizing power of education he con¬ 
 tinued: “I have been a citizen of Cambridge for many years 
 and in my time there has been in Eastern Massachusetts no 
 enterprise of public or private rascality that has not been or¬ 
 ganized or led by a Harvard graduate.” 34 
 
 Just what called forth this remark we do not know. Prof. 
 James’ occasional vehemence is well remembered and this may 
 perhaps pass as an illustration of it. A cooler and more accurate 
 judgment is that of Henry Adams who knew Harvard life 
 au fond. “Harvard college was [in his education] a negative 
 force. The absence of enthusiasm was all that Harvard College 
 taught. In effect the school created a type, not a will . . . leaders 
 of men it never tried to make. The Unitarian clergy had given 
 to the college a character of moderation, what the French call 
 
 "35 
 
 me sure. 
 
52 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 This mesure is little else than a lack of idealism and whole¬ 
 some moral initiative. A recent Oberlin publication, A History 
 of Honor, illustrates what I mean. From this school moulded 
 by the spirit of President Finney more than a thousand men 
 and women have gone out as missionaries. Twenty laid down 
 their lives in Shensi during the Boxer days. President R. B. 
 Hayes said of Oberlin’s work for negro emancipation that the 
 college was “at the head of every forward march in the great 
 conflict against slavery/’ Oberlin men and women at the time 
 when Phillips was denouncing Harvard as “an infliction” fired 
 the anti-slavery conscience of the whole Middle West through¬ 
 out which they taught winter times in the district schools. 
 Oberlin was the first college to admit students regardless of 
 race. In 1923 Harvard Jim-Crowed the freshman dormitories 
 and blackballed the Jew. The Anti-Saloon League was or¬ 
 ganized in the Oberlin library and when in desperate financial 
 straits was saved from dissolution by the personal subscription 
 of President Fairchild. Of Harvard’s part in the Committee 
 of Fifty I have spoken elsewhere.* 
 
 When a student of alcohol intrigues I was often struck with 
 the way in which Harvard men were directly or indirectly 
 
 *“Would any young enthusiast 
 on fire for a new reform be crazy 
 enough to go to Harvard College 
 for countenance ? If so he must 
 be very j r oung and will soon learn 
 better .”—IVendell Phillips, (Life) 
 by Carlos Martyn, 527. 
 
 In an address to the Harvard 
 alumni in 1903 Prof. James re¬ 
 ferred to the venal quills of Har¬ 
 vard: 
 
 “Some of Tammany’s staunch¬ 
 est supporters are Harvard men. 
 Harvard men, as journalists, pride 
 themselves on producing copy for 
 any side that may enlist them. 
 There is not a public abuse for 
 which some Harvard advocate 
 may not be found.”— Memories 
 and Studies: The True Harvard, 
 352. 
 
 The first students showed their 
 aggressive tendencies by going out 
 in scores to temperance “raisings” 
 and by gathering Sunday-schools 
 in destitute neighborhoods. . . . 
 Oberlin students were abused and 
 cursed in neighboring towns be¬ 
 cause of their antislavery opinions. 
 At times terrible mobs greeted 
 them. The signposts to Oberlin 
 were bespattered with mud and 
 shot up. On the Middle Ridge 
 road six miles to the north there 
 stood, at a very recent day, a 
 board directing to Oberlin not by 
 the ordinary index finger but by a 
 full-length picture of a colored 
 man running with all his might 
 to reach the place.— J. H. Fair- 
 child, Oberlin, Its Origin, Prog¬ 
 ress, and Results, 26-27. 
 
The Good Works of Unitarianism 
 
 53 
 
 serving the interests of that basest of organizations, the U. S. 
 Brewers’ Association. Koren, its arch-intriguer, was not trained 
 there but he had intimate connections with leading Harvard 
 personalities. [It was also a Harvard overseer, Sedgwick ’95, 
 who continued to publish the Koren articles in the Atlantic as 
 bona fide science even after he had been informed of the writer’s 
 relation to the brewers.] Oppenheim ’88, was the bibliographer 
 of the U. S. Brewers’ Association. Stone ’94, the son of the 
 manager of the Associated Press , was in full [clandestine] con¬ 
 trol of their publicity interests and met a wet death on the 
 Lusitania when going on a wet errand for the brewers to 
 European capitals. 36 The wettest of machine politicians, Pen¬ 
 rose ’81, the Republican boss of Pennsylvania, and Barnes ’88, 
 the Republican boss of New York, were both prepared for their 
 life work at Cambridge. Nor does this exhaust the list. 
 
 “The influence of Harvard College was beginning to have 
 its effect,” says Henry Adams of himself. “He was slipping 
 away from fixed principles A 37 
 
 Further, we should remember the official attitude of the 
 university of which the Adolphus Busch building gives ocular 
 evidence. Busch was a St. Louis brewer who for a generation 
 provided the saloons and brothels of the Southwest with alco¬ 
 holic gaity and corrupted the politics of the same section with 
 his incessant slush funds [ The Brewers and Texas Politics], 
 When the corner-stone of the Germanic Museum was laid the 
 Appleton Chapel choir led the procession of which the brewer’s 
 wife and the Harvard faculty formed the nucleus. A Harvard 
 professor described Busch as “a doer of great things and warm¬ 
 hearted lover of mankind, a soul too joyous and active ever to 
 grow old.” On the building’s facade Goethe’s words look down 
 with ironical smile: 
 
 Es ist der Geist 
 
 Der sich den Koerper baut. 
 
 “What a shabby place Harvard is,” remarked Dr. Phillips 
 Brooks to Percy Grant, possibly with the architecture of the 
 
54 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 yard in mind. One could hardly find fault with the architecture 
 of either the Germanic Museum or Andover Hall. But oh, the 
 moral shabbiness they summon up! 
 
 The moral energy of Oberlin was the child of Oberlin re¬ 
 ligion; the flaccid conscience of Harvard, of Unitarianism run to 
 religious nihilism. Of this nihilism one gets an interesting 
 expression in a recent commencement address on religion by a 
 Harvard senior. Harvard students, he explained to the assem¬ 
 bled commencement-gathering in Sanders Theatre, “do not deny 
 the idea of God as a ruling force in their lives. Nevertheless 
 they find no place for it in their daily thoughts. When a 
 temptation arises it is not the idea of God, who with a firm 
 hand guides their steps aright, but rather a faith in the ideals 
 of manhood and duty inculcated at Harvard. 
 
 “We can go still further. There are many men, they are 
 a well-known type, who are spiritual in their tendencies, who 
 have with great care and thought worked out a religion for 
 themselves and who still find no support in the thought of 
 God. Yet they, too, have a more vital religion than most con¬ 
 ventional believers. It is solely a creation of their own. In 
 studying many-sided Harvard they have studied life and de¬ 
 veloped a life religion. 
 
 “So it is with Harvard men whether we know it or not. 
 We all form our ideals of life in an atmosphere of Harvard 
 personalities. These ideals either constitute our whole religion 
 or are at least the foundations upon which a more conventional 
 superstructure may be built. This common religious basis is 
 what we mean by Harvard's religion and it is this which unifies 
 all Harvard men even as Christ by his personality still unifies 
 all Christian denominations." 38 
 
 There is no reason to regret, then, that Boston Unitarianism 
 was too niggard to start schools in the West and that Yale 
 rather than Harvard became “the mother of colleges.” It w^as 
 to the evangelical Congregationalism of New England that the 
 country owes Marietta College, Ohio; Wheaton, Knox, Illinois, 
 and Rock Island colleges in Illinois; Beloit and Ripon Colleges 
 
The Good IForks of Unitarianism 
 
 55 
 
 in Wisconsin; Olivet College, Michigan; Grinnell College, 
 Iowa; Carleton College, Minnesota; Washburn College, Kan¬ 
 sas; Duane College, Nebraska; Drury College, Missouri; 
 Colorado College, Colorado; Yankton College, South Dakota; 
 Fargo College, North Dakota; Whitman College, Washington; 
 Pacific University, Oregon; Pomona College, California, besides 
 numerous academies. 
 
 The American Missionary Society [Congregational] was a 
 merger of anti-slavery mission groups formed because of the 
 neutrality of the denominational boards, the oldest being the 
 Amistad Committee organized in 1839. By 1860 the Associ¬ 
 ation had 112 missionaries. Berea College, Kentucky, was its 
 first college. As soon as the Union armies entered the South 
 its teachers and missionaries opened freedmen schools in Wash¬ 
 ington, Hampton, Norfolk, Cairo, Newbern. In 1866 its an¬ 
 nual income had reached $253,945 and its workers numbered 
 525. 
 
 Atlanta University was founded in 1867. In the same 
 year Howard University, Washington, which has now 2,000 
 students, was started [in a prayer-meeting] in the First 
 Congregational church, Washington, under the leadership of 
 General O. O. Howard. In 1868 General Armstrong in co¬ 
 operation with the Association laid the foundations of Hampton 
 Institute. Then followed Fisk University at Nashville, Talla¬ 
 dega, Tougaloo, Straight, and Tillotson colleges for the blacks, 
 with other institutions, seventy-eight in all. So did the old 
 theology of New England pioneer education among the freed¬ 
 men as well as on the frontier. 
 
 “If our churches had seen their opportunity at the end of 
 the Civil War and taxed themselves $100,000 for education 
 in the South we should be nearer today to the demonstration 
 of our religious thought to America.” So remarked Dr. Dole 
 in a speech at the General Unitarian Conference of 1913. 89 
 What a confession! I know about the devoted work of Mr. 
 Baldwin as trustee of Tuskeegee and the gifts from Mrs. 
 Hemenway to Hampton and the excellent labors of Calhoun 
 
56 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Colored School, Alabama.* But are these theoretical protagon¬ 
 ists of “social Christianity” proud of the fact that this last 
 institution with an endowment of $139,950 [more than half 
 of which I discover on inquiry has come to the school from 
 other than Unitarian sources] represents practically all their 
 denominational work in fifty years for the uplift of nine million 
 black Americans? The New England Freedman’s Aid Society 
 which Miss Crocker and Miss May promoted for the Uni¬ 
 tarians was carried on “as long as it possibly could be kept 
 alive.” It was started in war-time but Boston purses soon 
 wearied giving. When the war closed “in the sanguine hope 
 that the fourteenth amendment had sufficiently secured the 
 rights of the negro and that the school system of the Southern 
 states would give him equal opportunities of education with 
 the whites, the New England Freedman’s Society closed its 
 work.” Memoir of Abbie W . May, 23 and 368. 
 
 For the Indian, Unitarianism has done even less than for the 
 negro. When James Tanner, a mission worker of the Baptists, 
 passed into their fold they undertook to support his enterprise 
 but were unable to raise $4,000 annually. When Unitarianism 
 broke away from Puritanism it took with it, with its other 
 spoils, the Society for the Propagating of the Gospel among 
 
 *During its first eight years the Tuskegee Institute received $5,000 
 annually from Unitarians and in more recent years $10,000 annually 
 (Cooke, Unitarianism, 339.) The Shellbanks Farm [valued at $10,000] 
 was presented by Mrs. Hemenway in ’79; the King’s Chapel Hospital 
 in ’86. Hampton was founded by Congregationalists. Its president and 
 vice-president in 1924 were Unitarians and there are two other Unita¬ 
 rians on the board of trustees. The student body meets in forty classes 
 Sunday mornings for Bible study. Their textbooks are from the Uni¬ 
 versity of Chicago Press . No Unitarian would object to these publica¬ 
 tions. “I fear,” said Mrs. Stowe of the Liberator in its later days, “that 
 it will take from poor Uncle Tom his Bible and give him nothing in 
 its place.” There is a colored ministers’ summer conference each year. 
 More than a thousand ministers have attended in ten years past. Prof. 
 Cadbury of the Harvard Theological School and Prof. Fullerton, an¬ 
 other modernist, were teachers in the last course. 
 
 “When the question was raised whether these [Unitarian] gifts might 
 not effect injuriously the orthodoxy of the school whose charter had 
 determined that ‘its teaching should always be evangelical’ Armstrong’s 
 reply was unequivocal, ‘The Institution must have a positive character. 
 It has. It’s orthodox and that’s the end of it.’ ”— Peabody, Education 
 for Life, 138. 
 
The Good Works of Unitarianism 
 
 57 
 
 the Indians and its fund. The old society supported missionaries 
 in Maine, on the Isle of Shoals, on Martha’s Vineyard, among 
 the Narragansett, New Stockbridge, Passamaquoddy, St. Fran¬ 
 cis (Canada) and other tribes. It revived the missionary tra¬ 
 ditions of John Eliot and his profound sympathy for “the poor 
 soules of these mines of mankinde.” What happier starting 
 point could have been found for missionary expansion! Yet not 
 a soul has been discovered in Unitarianism to continue the 
 work and the income from investments has been applied to 
 general Unitarian interests. In connection with this society 
 John Alford had devised in the eighteenth century a consider¬ 
 able sum “for the spreading of the Gospel among the heathen.” 
 This is the base of the Alford professorship in philosophy at 
 Harvard now held by Prof. Hocking, and in no even distant 
 relation to the purpose for which the money was bequeathed. 
 Walcotts and Coolidges and Hunnewells are to be found on 
 the management of this old society but there have been no 
 Whipples or Hares or Sheldon Jacksons in its post-evangelical 
 history. Its seal, “Not by might nor by power but by my spirit,” 
 explains its early prosperity and later impotence. 
 
 Nor in the past century did the Unitarians of New England 
 to any extent parallel the great home-missionary work in the 
 West which the old theology of New England promoted. Four¬ 
 teen missionary and Bible societies were organized by the 
 latter in the first ten years of the nineteenth century, and during 
 the first forty years orthodox Congregationalists of Massachu¬ 
 setts and Connecticut planted something like 1,500 churches 
 in the West, contributing in the aggregate about two millions 
 for their support. 40 Nothing came out of Harvard similar to 
 the famous “Yale bands” of Illinois and of Iowa nor did Uni¬ 
 tarianism contribute pioneers of the type of Marcus Whitman 
 and Julian Sturtevant and Asa Turner and David Bacon and 
 the apostle to the Nez Perces, H. H. Spaulding, to win the 
 wilderness to Christ. 
 
 One little present-day interest of this sort, however, Unita¬ 
 rianism is fostering in the South. It is located in Eastern North 
 
58 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Carolina and consists of two schools, the combined budget of 
 which is about $4,000, raised with difficulty. The neighborhood 
 does not altogether relish the teaching offered it and is even 
 accused of having “boycotted the library.” Mr. Robinson, how¬ 
 ever, “has gone on quietly in the face of abuse and misrepre¬ 
 sentation.” Baptist and Methodist women at Shelter Neck, 
 N. C., are spoken of much as if they were Hindu mothers 
 throwing babes to Ganges crocodiles. “Oh, you cannot think 
 what it is to us,” they are quoted as gratefully saying, “not to 
 have to believe that when our babies die they are going to 
 hell.”* 41 
 
 The golden age of Unitarianism coincided with the era of 
 antislavery agitation and a shining group indeed was that which 
 it contributed to the leadership of this movement: J. Q. Adams, 
 Sumner, Channing, Parker, S. J. May, Theodore D. Weld, 
 J. A. Andrew, John P. Hale, J. R. Lowell, J. G. Palfrey, S. G. 
 Howe, and J. F. Clarke. But if it gave some of the best minds 
 to the right side it did a like service to the wrong one. John 
 C. Calhoun, most relentless of fire-eaters, was a Unitarian as 
 also was Millard Fillmore, the most plastic of dough-faces; the 
 “cuckoo lips” of Edward Everett were trained in the Harvard 
 Divinity School, and Samuel A. Eliot, the single Massachusetts 
 congressman who voted for the Fugitive Slave Law, got his 
 moral inspiration in the same place.f If Garrison was in general 
 
 *Mr. Robinson contributes an article on “Prayer” to the Christian 
 Register (1915:61) which may explain this resentment among the North 
 Carolina heathen. “Billions of people,” he writes, “have been taught 
 to take their burdens to God in prayer. They have done so and have 
 shifted them from their own shoulders. Instead of that people ought 
 to have been taught that their own good and the upward progress of 
 the world depends upon themselves, that what God does he does in a 
 general way. ... I find no place for petition in my prayer. The very 
 moment I begin to use the words ‘help’ or ‘grant’ or any such words 
 I begin to feel the emptiness of my prayer.” 
 
 fHis son, President Eliot, apparently forgot this when commending 
 Unitarianism to the Japanese in Unity Hall, Tokyo, on the ground that 
 the movement against slavery in America was started and strongly 
 supported by Unitarians (C.R. 1912:745), nor did he recall that he is 
 the grandson of Mayor Lyman of “the broad-cloth” episode of whom 
 Phillips said, “I saw him beg and sue. . . . He never vindicated his 
 
The Good Works of Uhitarianism 
 
 59 
 
 sympathy with Unitarianism so were most of the gentlemen 
 in “the broadcloth mob” who dragged the rope about his waist 
 that October afternoon on Washington Street. For the Uni¬ 
 tarians were the people who wore broadcloth in the Boston 
 of 1835.* Certainly Mayor Theodore Lyman was of that per¬ 
 suasion as was Harrison Gray Otis who presided at the meeting 
 of Boston aristocrats that is generally regarded as the prologue 
 to the mob outbreak. 
 
 Sumner was a Unitarian but Boston Unitarianism put its 
 social ban upon him. He was obliged to declare when fighting 
 the cause of the slave in the Senate at Washington that only 
 two doors in Boston always stood open to him. When his 
 broken body was brought back to Massachusetts after the 
 assault in ’56 the blinds of every house on Beacon Street save 
 those of Messrs. Appleton and Prescott were shut in an osten¬ 
 tatious demonstration of hostility. 42 
 
 Hear Samuel J. May pleading with Channing to come out 
 unmistakably for the movement: 
 
 “We are not to blame that wiser and better men did not 
 espouse abolitionism long ago. . . . The scholars, the clergy¬ 
 men, the statesmen had done nothing and did not seem about 
 to do anything. For my part I thank God that at last any 
 persons, be they who they may, have moved earnestly in this 
 cause, for no movement can be in vain. We abolitionists are 
 just what we are, babes, sucklings, obscure men, silly women, 
 publicans, sinners, and we shall manage the matter we have 
 taken in hand just as might be expected of such persons as we 
 are. It is unbecoming of abler men who stood by and would 
 do nothing to complain of us because we manage this matter 
 no better.” 43 
 
 office by even attempting to rally a force and maintain order. . . .1 
 saw him consent if not assist at tearing down the antislavery sign and 
 throwing it to the mob to propitiate its rage.”—A ustin, Life and Times 
 of JFendell Phillips. 
 
 *“A11 the elite of wealth and fashion crowded the Unitarian 
 churches.”—M rs. H. B. Stowe in Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, 
 Vol. 2, 110. 
 
60 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Channing answered to the call finally but when he spoke at 
 the meeting summoned in Faneuil Hall to denounce Lovejoy’s 
 murder, it was a Unitarian layman, James T. Austin, member 
 of his church and attorney-general of the commonwealth, who 
 declared that Lovejoy had “died as the fool dieth” and that 
 “to free the negroes would be letting hyenas loose.” 
 
 Parker seemed to have no illusions regarding his co-religion¬ 
 ists. “As a general thing,” he wrote, “the Unitarian ministers 
 have ideas in advance of the orthodox ministers* while they 
 have generally congregations more mammonish, hunkerish, and 
 worldly than the orthodox. . . . Unitarianism had always a 
 worldly character. Some of their members engage in the great 
 moral movements of the day such as temperance reform and 
 the antislavery movement, but the sect as such is opposed to 
 all reforms.” The opposition which he received from those of 
 his own household is well known. When appointed by a vigi¬ 
 lance committee “spiritual director of all the fugitive slaves in 
 Massachusetts while in peril” he had to write, “It is a rather 
 queer state of things. Some of Gannett’s parishioners attempt 
 to kidnap some of my parishioners. I hide them in my house 
 and guard the doors night and day to keep them safe.” 44 It 
 was his fellow churchman, Benj. R. Curtis, Justice of the 
 Supreme Court, who indicted him for “obstructing the process 
 of the United States law,” referring to his active opposition to 
 the Fugitive Slave Law. 45 
 
 If anyone doubts the sentiment of Boston Unitarianism of 
 the forties and fifties regarding slavery let him run through the 
 list of the seven hundred names attached to the memorial to 
 Webster in recognition of the Seventh of March speech wherein 
 that statesman had announced his support of the Fugitive Slave 
 Law “with all its provisions to its fullest extent”: George 
 Ticknor, T. H. Perkins, Jared Sparks, W. H. Prescott, James 
 Jackson, C. C. Felton, B. R. Curtis, T. B. Wales, J. A. 
 Lowell and the rest. 46 What a rally of the Brahmins! Dr. 
 
 ♦Yet O. B. Frothingham describes the Unitarian ministers as a rule 
 to have been opposed to the abolitionists .—Boston Unitarianism, 197. 
 
The Good Works of Unitarianism 
 
 61 
 
 Orville Dewey, leading Unitarian minister in New York, went 
 so far from the course Garrison had marked out as to declare 
 his willingness to return his own mother to slavery if it were 
 required to save the Union.* 47 
 
 In the next great emancipation movement, that from alco¬ 
 holism, one finds a few Unitarian names: John Pierpont, 
 Mary A. Livermore, John D. Long, H. H. Faxon, but these 
 were even less representative of their church than the Unita¬ 
 rian abolitionists. Dr. Bartol, the minister of the West Church, 
 felt called to ridicule the anti-alcohol movement and his para¬ 
 doxes drew a reprimand from Wendell Phillips which consti¬ 
 tutes a fair judgment of Unitarian public morals as far as this 
 particular question is concerned. 
 
 “Some temperance men,” he wrote, “are surprised and indig¬ 
 nant at what they consider Dr. BartoFs prostitution of the 
 liberal pulpit. Such men forget the history of the temperance 
 movement in Boston. When Rev. John Pierpont forty years 
 ago returned from the East he stated in his pulpit in Hollis 
 Street that the first thing he saw there [in Smyrna, I believe] 
 was a barrel of New England rum [N. E. RUM burned into 
 its head in large capitals]. He made this the text for an earnest 
 and eloquent agitation of the temperance question. The richest 
 parishioners were rum-makers and rum-sellers. Their rum was 
 then stored in the very cellar of his church. I will not mention 
 names. Their children continue the manufacture and the 
 traffic. They set to work by reducing his salary, refusing to 
 
 *“I must go or choke in this disgraced and degraded community,” 
 wrote Dr. S. G. Howe in 1854. James Freeman Clarke preaching on 
 the return of Anthony Burns said, “Especially I blame the Unitarian 
 churches for they have had the especial and rare fortune of having 
 their greatest and best teacher on the side of justice and humanity and 
 they have fallen away from his teaching and his example. . . . Out 
 of the Unitarian churches of Boston have come those who have done 
 the most in this community to lower its moral sense on this subject .”— 
 Hale, Life of J. F. Clarke, 233. 
 
 So Samuel J. May, “Continually in their public meetings the question 
 was staved off and driven out because of technical, formal, verbal 
 difficulties which were of no real importance. ... It does seem to 
 me that they were pre-eminently guilty in reference to the enslavement 
 of the millions in our land.”— Cooke, Unitarianism in America, 356. 
 
62 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 pay one dollar of it, mortgaging the church for heavy debt and 
 by every means tried to drive Pierpont from the pulpit. Finding 
 this ineffectual they announced their determination to buy up 
 every pew that could be had and then securing a majority of 
 votes, dismiss him from his charge. . . . 
 
 “The wealthy rum-sellers of the city, whether attending the 
 Hollis Street church or not, bought pews there, pews they 
 never used, and finally obliged Mr. Pierpont to agree to vacate 
 his pulpit. During the seven years of this hard-fought battle 
 between the penniless, eloquent apostle in the pulpit and the 
 wealthy rum-sellers in the pews, the Unitarian clergy of Suffolk 
 county gave the public to understand that they renounced all 
 ministerial . . . professional recognition and courtesy. With 
 two or three exceptions all the liberal clergy shut him from 
 their pulpits. The rum-sellers taunted him with the fact that 
 hardly one of his clerical brethren in Boston would exchange 
 with him. In his letter of farewell to the ministerial association 
 Mr. Pierpont affirms that this course of conduct toward him 
 was adopted with the intention to drive him from that pulpit. 
 
 “Mr. Bartol, therefore, does not prostitute the liberal pulpit. 
 . . . Judged by the example and conduct of the vast majority 
 of the liberal clergy of Boston for the last forty years such 
 sermons as Dr. Bartol has of late delivered are just the preach¬ 
 ing for which the liberal pulpit was created and is sustained” 
 [abridged].* 48 
 
 The alcohol question is not a complex question. All that is 
 ever needed for its theoretical solution is a reasonably sensitive 
 personal conscience and an elementary sense of public decency. 
 The whole brunt of the movement in New England has been 
 borne by the Christian churches. Unitarianism until recently 
 consistently stood aloof. Occasionally it has intervened to over- 
 
 * Moses Williams, a very rich Boston liquor-dealer, led in this fight 
 on Dr. Pierpont. A large slice of the tainted Williams’ fortune went to 
 the endowment of theological education at Harvard and another to the 
 building fund of the Boston [Unitarian] Y. M. C. Union. Dr. Chaney, 
 successor to Pierpont, said of this rum-selling Maecenas, his “praise 
 should be in all the churches for the provision he made for the unsecta¬ 
 rian preparation for the ministry in Harvard.” C.R. 1918:1167. 
 
The Good Works of XJnitarianism 63 
 
 throw that which has been painfully built up. Thus in 1867 
 it was Unitarianism led by its most prominent layman [ex-Gov. 
 J. A. Andrew] which broke down the prohibitory law and 
 turned Massachusetts over for another generation to the vend¬ 
 ors of alcohol. Andrew [who beside being the great war-gov¬ 
 ernor was superintendent of J. F. Clarke’s Sunday-school] 
 received a fee from the [illegal] liquor interests exceptionally 
 large for the time and defended alcohol and its sale at the 
 State House in a plea which for sophistry and hypocrisy makes 
 one hang one’s head for shame. To his support came all the 
 great lights of Harvard Unitarianism: the Bigelows, the Bow- 
 ditches, the Jacksons, Prof. Francis Bowen, the Rev. F. H. 
 Hedge, Dr. O. W. Holmes. Alcohol was given a scientific 
 exoneration by these authorities which atoned for all its moral 
 delinquencies. 49 
 
 A generation later from this quarter came another and more 
 serious blockade of the anti-alcohol movement, that which found 
 expression in the Committee of Fifty Report. This was led by 
 Prof. F. G. Peabody, Prof. H. P. Bowditch, President Eliot, 
 and others. At the 1922 Founders’ Day at Cornell University, 
 Prof. Nicholls reflected on the reactionary spirit of American 
 students and illustrated it by their indifference to the movement 
 which has culminated in the Eighteenth Amendment. Why is 
 it that this toryism should be dominant in the colleges? Simply 
 because whenever American students of the generation past 
 have asked for guidance on the alcohol question they have been 
 directed to the Report of the Committee of Fifty. Here, it has 
 been alleged, is to be found the scientific judgment on the sub¬ 
 ject in all its phases. The rehabilitation of alcohol as “a food,” 
 an intolerant hostility to temperance instruction, scorn of pro¬ 
 hibition as an insane counsel of perfection,—these have passed 
 from this six-volume report into the mental makeup of American 
 college students and the student community which [as so often 
 in Continental Europe] should have furnished the leadership 
 of the movement, has in America commonly checked and ridi¬ 
 culed it. 
 
64 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 I venture to say that all the economic and hygienic advances 
 which are emerging from National Prohibition have been delayed 
 a decade by the publication of this report by these Unitarian mar¬ 
 plots. It is almost inconceivable today that a Harvard group 
 should have gone to the legislature in the name of science to 
 break down a law which taught children in the public schools 
 the hygienic dangers of alcohol, insisting that “temperance 
 instruction could result in nothing but the wide-spread demoral¬ 
 ization of our youth” (Bowditch), and urging the legislature 
 “not to offend these little ones.” 50 
 
 Channing, sixty years before, had proposed “to end intem¬ 
 perance by improving the physique of the young.” 51 Prof. 
 Peabody offered a similar blue-sky program, deprecated “in¬ 
 temperate speech and exaggerated statement,” (“There is much 
 to fear from excess of drink but there is also much to fear 
 from excessive statements”) declared that the investigations of 
 the Committee of Fifty were not “missionary tracts or moral 
 appeals” but hard-boiled “science” and went on to print the 
 ever-memorable, apodictical sentiment of Dr. J. S. Billings, 
 “The term poison belongs with equal propriety ... to coffee, 
 pepper, ginger and even common salt” [as to alcohol]. 52 
 President Eliot’s treatment of prohibition was colored with the 
 exaggerated language which his colleague censured and was 
 clearly without the substratum of knowledge which “science” 
 is supposed to give. The remarkable social results of prohibition 
 in Maine which lie on the surface in the statistics of state and 
 nation were not even mentioned, but the adjectives of uncritical 
 invective were laid on with a thick brush. The Committee of 
 Fifty Report served as the great theoretical breakwater of the 
 U. S. Brewers’ Association and the brewers showed their ap¬ 
 preciation by secretly paying one of its chief investigators to 
 be for years their dispenser of beer science to the American 
 public. 
 
 The reactionary attitude of the academic representatives of 
 Unitarianism had its political complement in the unremitting 
 opposition to prohibitory legislation of its leading layman in 
 
The Good Works of Unitarianism 
 
 65 
 
 public life, President Taft. The veto of the Webb-Kenyon bill 
 by Mr. Taft, all its concomitant circumstances considered, was 
 as discreditable as the signing of the Fugitive Slave Law by 
 the Unitarian President Fillmore. 
 
 REFERENCES TO CHAPTER III 
 
 1. C.R. 1914:539. 2. C.R. 1924:178. 3. Eliot, The Wise Direction of 
 
 Church Activities. 4. Warren, The Religious Aspects of the Age. 5. Annals 
 of the American Unitarian Pulpit, 356. 6. Tiffany, Life of Dorothea Dix, 181. 
 
 7. Goldwin Smith, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, 9. 8. Grimke, Garrison, 303. 9. Life 
 
 of Channing, 21, 74. 10. C.R. 1916:510, 63. 11. Memoir of F. D. Huntington, 
 
 85, 180. 12. W. C. Bryant, 275. 13. A Spiritual Autobiography, 64, 65. 
 
 14. Tiffany, C. F. Barnard, 152. 15. Letters and Journals of S. G. Howe, 
 
 Vol. 2, 49. 16. C.R. 1918:612. 17. C.R. 1917:379. 18. Unitarianism: Religion 
 
 with Liberty. 19. Unitarian Ideals. 20. Christianity as a Social Force, 3. 
 21. C.R. 1912:782. 22. Unitarianism, 9. 23. The Signs of the Times, 58. 
 
 24. C.R. 1913:92. 25. Washington University, 25th Anniversary, 33. 26. Bellows, 
 
 The Claims of Antioch College, 14, 12. 27. Life of Mann, 488, 431, 477. 
 
 28. Weiss, Parker, Vol. 2, 342. 29. Antioch College Bulletin, 1923, July, April. 
 30. The Claims of Antioch, 19. 31. Cooke, Unitarianism, 397. 32. C.R. 1911: 
 
 584. 33. Harvard Memories, 36. 34. Religious Education, 1906, 88. 35. Edu¬ 
 cation of Henry Adattis, 61, 68, 55. 36. Report of the Overman Committee, 
 
 777, 1084. 37. Education of Henry Adams, 63. 38. C.R. 1914:643. 39. C.R. 
 1913:996. 40. E. C. Moore, Our Common Inheritances. 41. C.R. 1917:134. 
 42. Pierce, Memoir of Summer, 162. 43. Life of Channing, 528. 44. Weiss, 
 
 Parker, Vol. 1:381, 270, 271; Vol. 2:110. 45. Martyn, W. Phillips, 273. 
 
 46. Austin, Life of Phillips, 135. 47. Martyn, Phillips, 261. 48. Austin, 
 
 Phillips, 326. 49. Massachusetts Licensing Law Reports, 1867. 50. Physio¬ 
 logical Aspects, Vol. 1, 31. 51. Life of Channing, 474-5. 52. The Liquor 
 
 Problem, 9, 8, 23. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 UNITARIAN SKEPTICISM AND UNITARIAN 
 
 SCHEMES 
 
 For there are certain men crept in unawares. . . deny¬ 
 ing the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 I F the early Unitarians were living and should make ap¬ 
 proaches to the Christian churches of today many of them, 
 no doubt, would be welcomed back. But in the course of 
 the century Unitarianism has so completely repudiated its 
 Christian inheritance that the breach is now irreparable. Never 
 can there be common ground and the rapprochement which 
 Unitarianism is now quietly promoting in the name of “unity” 
 and good will must be considered as tactics of a not too credit¬ 
 able order. 
 
 A casual glance into current Unitarian literature will make 
 this clear. 
 
 Emerton’s Unitarian Thought is described by Prof. F. G. 
 Peabody as “the most important statement of Unitarian ideas 
 since the popular setting-forth of our denominational beliefs by 
 James Freeman Clarke.” 1 It is therefore presumably authori¬ 
 tative. It certainly exhibits the unbridgable chasm of which we 
 speak. 
 
 The Unitarian is a “this-side” man. Immortality “is not one 
 of the subjects on which the mind of Unitarians is inclined 
 to dwell.” He knows nothing of answered prayer. “They join 
 with all rationally thinking men in rejecting as mischievous 
 superstition the notion that the wishes of men, expressed no 
 matter in what approved form, can change ever so slightly 
 natural laws.”* Man needs no redemption. The Unitarian 
 
 *Rev. J. H. Dietrich speaks of men as “still flabby from long reliance 
 on prayer.” C.R. 1918:585. 
 
 Dr. Dole has this of prayer: “The old-world idea of prayer is 
 familiar. . . . The good God moved by prayer would set aside the 
 
 66 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 67 
 
 believes in “the capacity of human nature to do the greatest 
 things that human life requires.” We are in no way dependent 
 on Jesus. “The same divine quality that was in Jesus is also 
 in every man that is born into the world. . . . Jesus’ victory 
 was won, as all human victories must be won, after bitter 
 struggles with his own lesser self. . . 
 
 The narrative of Christ’s birth of a virgin mother is “an 
 insult to motherhood.” The word “sin” is in Prof. Emerton’s 
 book frequently enclosed in quotation marks as a preposterous 
 notion of the orthodox. “The Unitarian asserts as positively as 
 words can do it the capacity of man to do what is right in the 
 sight of God. . . . To have been bought off from the conse¬ 
 quences of his own wrong by the sacrifice of some one else 
 appears a meanness that in common life would be branded with 
 the scorn of every high-minded man.”f 
 
 Jesus is not the Alpha and the Omega. “He was not the 
 first: he will not be the last.” He was but “one in a long line 
 of revealers to men of the law by which they are called upon 
 to live.” And to His revelation there seem to be in Prof. Emer¬ 
 ton’s mind elements of imposture. “He had the power of 
 making a credulous people believe that he was in a highly 
 specific sense the direct agent of God.” Doctrines of revelation 
 in the Christian sense are considered absurd and reprehensible. 
 
 visible machinery of second causes in order to meet the need of his 
 worshippers. Such is the childish conception of prayer still held by 
 multitudes whose nurses and mothers have taught them so. As soon as 
 men begin to think straight, that is to think the thoughts of civilized 
 man, the childish conception of prayer fades away.”— The Religion of a 
 Gentleman, 81. 
 
 *“If criticism should finally render it highly improbable that Jesus 
 on the cross said ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they 
 do’ we need not on that account be depressed. The reason becomes 
 clear the moment we can answer the question how then did the story 
 of this beautiful forgiving, quenchless love arise? It is because we 
 ourselves are capable of doing this very thing, because this goodness, 
 this divine life is struggling to express itself in us and has led to create 
 our spiritual hero and put into his legend all that we need him to have.” 
 — Rev. Dr. Dodson, C.R. 1920:560. 
 
 tThe Rev. Charles Pease says: “The awakened portion of mankind 
 cannot hang around the old traditional band-wagon hoping to catch 
 a tune it can whistle. ... Far from a slavish imitation of Jesus in 
 
68 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 “It would be as mean to ask for truth without work as it is to 
 ask for ‘salvation’ as the free gift of anyone.” 
 
 Let us dip into another Unitarian classic. 
 
 In John W. Chadwick’s Old and New Unitarian Belief one 
 meets the customary superciliousness. “That Jesus was a per¬ 
 fect man is an assertion as impossible to prove as that the inhabi¬ 
 tants of Mars eat nothing but unleavened bread. . . . Certainly 
 there are things about Jesus in the New Testament which are 
 not helpful to the doctrine of his impeccability, for example, that 
 dreadful treatment of his mother T 2 
 
 “It were a terrible mistake to think that any life, albeit that 
 of Jesus . . . could fully answer to our utmost need. Man¬ 
 kind needs for its salvation all the best that science, art, philoso¬ 
 phy, religion, literature and life contain within their boundless 
 scope. ... To imagine that we have a perfect revelation [of 
 God’s perfection] in the provincial life of Jesus ... is to 
 
 order to be loyal to him or of questioning him ‘What would Jesus do?’ 
 when the real question is, ‘What should I do?’ ... It is Jesusism that 
 we must be done with, Jesusism is to us what Mosaicism was to Jesus, 
 the same overburdened orthodoxy rendered lifeless by traditions and 
 conflicting interpretations.” C.R. 1917:415. 
 
 “What the human race needs is not redemption but education. What 
 the sinful man needs is not redemption but recovery. . . . Redemption 
 is external, something done for us. Recovery is natural, something done 
 by ourselves. . . . Nothing can be wiped out that has ever been. Some 
 effect of it must remain. Every thought, word, deed, becomes a cause 
 of something else which in its turn becomes a cause and so on. There 
 is no end of it. The past lives on forever. In scientific literalness it 
 cannot be rubbed out.”— Rev. Minot Simons, Redemption or Recovery, 
 3-6. “We have no prayers that beg God to do it all. You cannot think 
 of a Unitarian congregation singing ‘Jesus paid it all, all the debt I 
 owe.’ We have no hymns in our books that cry, ‘Great God, how in¬ 
 finite thou art, what worthless worms are we.’ ”— Rev. George Kent, 
 C.R. 1919:181. 
 
 Rev. Maxwell Savage thinks of Christianity as an easy way to com¬ 
 bine sin and salvation. “The old faith is at best magic, make-believe, 
 and involves short cuts and individual salvation. . . . The gods in 
 Valhalla are reported to have feasted and drunk and then risen and 
 fought, hacking each other to pieces; then a little magic and they were 
 made whole again, to resume their feasting and drinking. So it seems 
 to me it has been under the old religious teachings. People could enjoy 
 the pleasures of life, they could live selfishly, they could hack to pieces 
 their own happiness and the happiness of others and then in the 
 name of religion a little magic and they were made whole.” 
 C.R. 1915:973. 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 69 
 
 imagine as unworthily as it is possible for men of natural intel¬ 
 ligence to do. . . . It is not less than impious to specialize and 
 isolate him as he has been specialized and isolated in the theology 
 and worship of the Christian church. The first born of many 
 brethren! That he may have been in Joseph’s narrow house but 
 in the countless family of God he was not the first. Millions of 
 brethren had preceded him. . . . Today our criticism, science, 
 and philosophy welcome him into the largeness of humanity. 
 Let us be patient. Let us give him time and thus rescued and 
 restored he shall yet be the object of a more sincere affection 
 Of the doctrines of grace Chadwick says: “Nothing is surer 
 than that could Jesus have encountered [them] he would have 
 said, ‘Depart from me; I never knew you.’ ” 3 
 
 Unitarian Sunday-schools are provided with a Catechism of 
 Liberal Faith by the Rev. Dr. Dole. “What made it easy for 
 early men to think of Jesus as the son of God?” he asks, and 
 the answer comes, “Men had already been used to thinking of 
 their heroes as sons of God.” 
 
 Q. Did Jesus ever claim to be more than a true man? 
 
 A. There is no evidence that he ever made such a claim. 
 
 Q. Did Jesus intend to establish a new religion? 
 
 A. There is no evidence that this was his intention. 
 
 Q. Did he teach new doctrines? 
 
 A. No, he appealed to what was already in the thought of his people. 
 
 Q. Have other great teachers of religion taught like Jesus? 
 
 A. Yes, many of the noblest teachings of China, India, Persia, Greece 
 and Rome are like Jesus’ words. 
 
 Q. What is the working of sin in the moral realm? 
 
 A. Sin, as soon as it shows its really repulsive character, urges men to 
 avoid it and to seek moral health and life. 
 
 Q. To what may we liken the lessons of “evil”? 
 
 A. They are like the stops, the dots and the dashes in writing which if 
 it went on smoothly in one continuous line would give us no sense. 
 
 Q. What gospel may we tell to “the bad” ? 
 
 A. It is a gospel that the bad life is not man’s true nature. It is a 
 gospel that he can forsake and ought to forsake the evil way and 
 that he will then become like a new creature as soon as he lets the 
 electric touch of good will move his soul. 4 
 
70 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 The American Unitarian Association conducts a large propa¬ 
 ganda chiefly among members of Christian churches by the dis¬ 
 tribution of free pamphlets.* There are some three hundred 
 on its list. I suppose it would be fair to say that the purpose 
 of these publications above all others is to break down the central 
 teaching of historic Christianity regarding redemption through 
 a divine Saviour. 
 
 It is noticeable that they make no refutation of Romanism, 
 grown to such proportions in Boston, or of Christian Science, 
 the milk sister of Emersonism and bred in the full light of New 
 England’s ville-lumiere. Indeed of this delusion the President of 
 the American Unitarian Association says, “Its general influence 
 is undeniably wholesome” 3 and his father, President Eliot, seems 
 to feel it and other similar sects to be precious auxiliaries in 
 breaking down the hated evangelical faith. In an address on 
 The Religion of the Future, after dwelling with satisfaction 
 on the fact that millions of Americans now find their practical 
 religion in Masonic lodges, granges, Odd-fellows’ lodges and 
 trades unions he continues: “The spiritualists , Christian Scien¬ 
 tists and mental healers of all sorts manifest a good deal of abil¬ 
 ity to draw people away from the traditional churches and to 
 discredit traditional dogmas and formal creeds 
 
 Any claptrap, then, is looked upon indulgently or with indif¬ 
 ference but when it comes to the redeeming work of Christ the 
 whole depth of bitterness begins to stir. In Symphony Hall 
 (Feb., ’17) the elder Eliot put this teaching in the forefront of 
 his attack. “We have come hither in mass first to rejoice and 
 give thanks together for our deliverance from all the creeds 
 and dogmas of the older churches . . . and from those concep¬ 
 tions of Deity which are implied in the words *propitiation / 
 * expiation and ‘vicarious atonement* ” 7 
 
 In the catalogue of this official literature of Unitarianism one 
 finds in hundreds of numbers perhaps one or two which combat 
 
 *Some years a million pamphlets go out from the American Unita¬ 
 rian Association. Local parishes also send them out continually by the 
 thousands. C.R. 1920:157. 
 
Unitarian Skepticism arid Unitarian Schemes 71 
 
 materialism and atheism. But on the whole one gets the impres¬ 
 sion that Unitarians would far rather see Christians lapse alto¬ 
 gether, even from belief in God and immortality, than abide in 
 evangelical Christianity. Thus in a recent tract From Authority 
 to Freedom in Religion * Dr. Rainsford’s autobiography and 
 Dr. McConnell’s Confessions of an Old Priest are reviewed 
 with delighted satisfaction. But Dr. Rainsford apparently has 
 no confidence in a life after death 9 and Dr. McConnell’s account 
 of his spiritual shipwreck is unsurpassed in distressing hopeless¬ 
 ness. 
 
 “We do not call him the Saviour,” says Dr. A. M. Rihbany, 
 in one of these official tracts, “because we are certain that 
 humanity has had as many saviours as it has had truly good men 
 and women. ... No man can be transformed from bad to good 
 vicariously any more than he can be healed from an illness 
 through another’s receiving medical treatment for him. . . . 
 Nor would we lapse into the unwarrantable mystical mood and 
 implore the long-departed Jesus to do for us that which we only 
 can and must do for ourselves. We would no more do this 
 than we would pray to Washington and Lincoln. . . . What a 
 glorious world this would be ... if it were really true that 
 Jesus and his Gospel are the small things of the past, outgrown 
 and antiquated. Imagine a world whose manhood transcends 
 that of Jesus as his transcended the manhood of the cave man.” 10 
 
 “We do not believe it possible,” echoes E. E. Hale, “for 
 any substituted being to take the consequences of a man’s sin or 
 to turn over to him a fixed quota of blessedness.” 11 
 
 In an address on the “Religion of the Future” delivered by 
 President Eliot in 1909 to the Harvard Summer School of 
 Theology, there went along with the usual anti-creedal fulmina- 
 tion a practical abdication of the hope of a future life. Yet the 
 speaker describes Unitarianism elsewhere as “a blessed faith to 
 live by and die by.” 12 
 
 “To a human soul lodged in an imperfect, feeble, or suffering 
 body,” he says, “some of the older religions have held out the 
 expectation of deliverance by death and of entrance upon a rich, 
 
72 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 competent and happy life—in short have offered a second life 
 presumably immortal under the happiest conditions. . . . Can 
 the future religion promise that sort of compensation for the ills 
 of this world any more than it can promise miraculous aid 
 against threatened disaster? A candid reply to this inquiry 
 involves the statement that in the future religion there will be 
 nothing supernatural. ... It is obvious, therefore, that the 
 completely natural quality of the future religion excludes from it 
 many of the religious compensations and consolations of the past. 
 . . . The new religion will not attempt to reconcile men and 
 women to present ills hy promises of future blessedness either 
 for themselves or for others . Such promises have done infinite 
 mischief in the world by inducing men to be patient under suf¬ 
 ferings or deprivations against which they should have inces¬ 
 santly struggled .” 13 
 
 “We leave heaven to the sparrows” was the more compact 
 utterance of Heinrich Heine. What have either Eliot or Heine 
 in common with those whose hearts are fixed on the words, “I 
 go to prepare a place for you” ? 
 
 President Eliot has for decades delighted to pace in public 
 places defying the armies of the living God. The profound 
 aversion of Unitarians for the Christian church finds expression 
 in his bitter sentences. t( The established and conventional 
 churches manifest little power to promote either love to God or 
 love to their neighbor. . . . The effective organizations for such 
 pitifully small relief as can be given [for suffering Europe] are 
 for the most part not religious but secular. . . . The effective 
 works of mercy are performed not chiefly by representatives of 
 the churches . . . but by men and women who understand how 
 to get food to the starving. ... In former times the Christian 
 churches were the almoners for the poor and desolate and the 
 chief works of mercy were carried on by men and women espe¬ 
 cially commissioned by the Christian church. Now secular soci¬ 
 eties administered by laymen carry on many of the principal 
 movements for the improvement of society.” As representative 
 of these charities Eliot mentions among others the Y. M. C. A. 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 73 
 
 and the Y. W. C. A., actually asserting that they with hospitals, 
 etc., are supported by people “whose motive power is not 
 derived from the churches.” Of course the exact contrary is 
 true . 14 
 
 The speculative opinions of one who can so grossly misrepre¬ 
 sent a matter of simple fact are bound to be of small conse¬ 
 quence. With this aged Sadducee the old watch-cry about the 
 Fatherhood of God seems to have fallen into the background. 
 “Thoughtful people have dismissed the ideas of God as monarch, 
 king, or lord of hosts. . . . Twentieth century people recognize 
 God chiefly in the wonderful energies of sound, light, electricity, 
 in the vital processes of plants and animals, in human loves and 
 aspiration and in the evolution of human society.” So does 
 Unitarianism run into the sands of a pantheistic materialism . 15 
 
 Rev. C. F. Potter revolts against the idea of a King eternal, 
 immortal, invisible, only wise God. “The laymen of the present 
 day recognize that the time of kingship is passed, that it is no 
 longer a compliment to call God, King of Kings and Lord of 
 Lords. Those who believe in liberty and democracy and law 
 as essential to human progress are much further on the road 
 to real religion than the supine suppliants of a monarchic 
 God /' 16 
 
 Naturally when God is stripped of all might and majesty he 
 no longer invites to prayer. Man becomes the central point in 
 the universe and God “the supine suppliant.” Through long 
 centuries mankind has prayed to God,” the Rev. C. W. Casson 
 tells us, “to establish right and justice on the earth. But there 
 grows the conviction that through long centuries God has 
 prayed to man this self-same prayer and that the stirring of 
 humanity today toward the attainment of right and justice is 
 but the answer at last to the prayer of God .” 17 Nor, according 
 to M. J. Savage, is it good taste to sing hymns or utter words 
 of praise to an infinite being. For it belittles our idea of him to 
 think such fulsome flattery acceptable to him! 
 
 The step from such utterances to stark atheism is indeed short 
 and has been taken by a considerable fraction of the Unitarian 
 
74 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 ministry. The polite name given it is “humanism.” Dr. C. W. 
 Reese [a one-time Baptist] is quoted as saying that “as far as 
 he is concerned the idea of God plays no important part in his 
 religion. . . . Theism is philosophically possible but not religi¬ 
 ously necessary .”* 19 
 
 Of utterances of this type the Unitarian Dr. Dodson says, 
 “We find that theism is being denied by men who speak as 
 representatives of our movement and who feel that they have a 
 right to do so since we stand for nothing but the liberty to stand 
 for anything or for nothing at all. A speaker at the Western 
 Conference in May declared in a clear, sincere and forceful 
 address that theism must be given up, that the thought of God 
 will have to go, that the long evolution of the idea of God is to 
 end in no idea at all and that the future belongs to an atheistic 
 humanism. 
 
 “When a protest was made to the Western secretary 
 stating that such addresses ought not to be given under cir¬ 
 cumstances in which they will naturally be regarded as repre¬ 
 sentative he defended his action, saying we stand for nothing 
 but liberty. 
 
 “Consider what this means. A man whose business is largely 
 that of securing ministers for churches repeatedly states that he 
 
 *Mr. C. B. Lockwood writes: “Every honest man knows that there 
 is no supernatural regeneration, conversion, or salvation. ... As well 
 talk of a supernatural God. . . . There is no getting religion but by 
 living it and that is man’s job and not God’s. . . . The kingdom 
 God is in humanity and unless w T e find it there we shall never find it.” 
 C.R. 1919:317. “Liberalism must remain undogmatic in regard to God. 
 It is building a religion that would not be shaken even if the old 
 thought of God were outgrown.” 1920:984. Prof. F. C. Doan, “Our 
 sons will look on humanity as the center of this evolving life. . . . 
 They will see perfection as a quality that has only just come to pass 
 in the souls of men. ... The life of the world has become pregnant 
 and divine in humanity. They will name God as the world-democrat, 
 the eternal Man. They will bow down and worship him. Today he is 
 a man; one day who knows if we shall any longer call him a man? 
 All this is democracy.” 1912:984. In Religion and the Modern Man 
 Prof. Doan declares God to be essentially and simply just the spirit of 
 humanity. 65. . . . “We and he [i. e., God] being perishable in our 
 origin will surely die the death, will surely subside into the great, the 
 very amorphous, the very cosmic formless beast whence we and he 
 arose.”—112, Quoted in C.R. 1910:156. 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes IS 
 
 does not consider theism as essential but is satisfied with men 
 who preach the gospel of atheistic humanism. 
 
 “The public will be still more puzzled by a religious fellow¬ 
 ship in which atheism and faith in God are preached side by 
 side. And ministers the joy of whose life is to preach a theistic 
 faith naturally cannot be enthusiastic in winning men and 
 women to a church other ministers of which regard that faith as 
 a superstition. . . . The question presses whether the time has 
 not come when Unitarian churches must take some position. 
 . . . If atheism is to be preached in our name no money . . . 
 can save us from the extinction which confusion and negation 
 deserve .” 20 
 
 Another ex-Baptist, Mr. Pinkham, declares that these whom 
 Dr. Dodson mentions are “among our most successful pastors. 
 Their humanistic point of view gives freshness and power to 
 their pulpit messages. It is the real God that they proclaim, the 
 wisdom and goodness that dwell in humanity .” 21 One of these 
 humanists is the Rev. J. H. Dietrich of the Minneapolis Uni¬ 
 tarian church. 
 
 “The character of man’s life upon this planet” says Mr. 
 Dietrich, “depends not upon divine interventions nor upon 
 prayer but upon what we ourselves are and what we ourselves 
 do.” “We do not believe in that friendly providence which the 
 other religious sects feel sure will establish the Kingdom of 
 God.” Our Unitarian faith “does not need more priests and 
 prayers and holy books. . . . But it does need the never-ending 
 voice of the prophet going up and down the land crying, ' Pre¬ 
 pare ye the way of mankind and make its way straight * ” 
 
 “The God of the Christian theology has been taken away. 
 . . . This personal God with the big stick has been taken away. 
 Not only has the cruel personal God been taken away but the 
 idea of God as a father and loving guide for his children has 
 been taken away. The many cases in which individuals have to 
 suffer . . . forces us to give up the idea that we are under the 
 protection of an external and beneficent Providence. In its 
 place we recognize a mighty evolutionary force . . . the Great 
 
76 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Unknowable. Modern knowledge has also taken away the Bible 
 as the Word of God . . . and when you realize what a cruel 
 and foolish Word of God that was you surely are not sorry.” 
 
 “Along with the idea of the Christian God has gone the belief 
 in the power of prayer. Another thing which has been taken 
 away is the theory that Jesus is saviour alone of humanity. 
 ... In his place we put a whole shining galaxy of men and 
 women whose smile is the light of the centuries. . . . And along 
 with belief in endless punishment has gone the theory of the 
 Christian heaven. In its place modern thought has not been 
 able to put anything definite. ... So I wish very much for the 
 sake of humanity to stop men from yearning after the great 
 undiscovered future.” 22 
 
 On the March 13, 1919, cover of the Christian Register 
 [nailed to the very masthead] a quotation is printed from 
 another address of Mr. Dietrich and the editor assures us that 
 it represents the opinion of many Unitarians. The need of our 
 day is said to be “a religion which teaches that the hands which 
 have heretofore been raised in supplication must be turned to 
 the tasks about us.” The Unitarian Laymen’s League declares 
 that “we worship the living God, our Father and our Friend,” 
 but the theoreticians of their denomination have got far beyond 
 these naive ideas. “Democratized religion,” says E. H. Ree- 
 man, “will take God out of the clouds and place him definitely 
 in the heart of man. He walks with the crowds of Chicago by 
 the shores of Michigan as surely as he walked by the shores of 
 Gennesaret. He suffers and triumphs in the trenches of the 
 battlefield as surely ... as on the cross of Calvary.” 23 Of 
 G. W. Cooke who develops similar ideas in The Social Evolu¬ 
 tion of Religion Dr. Dodson says, “It would seem better frankly 
 to avow atheism than to dress it in a religious garb. If there 
 is really no God, if we are orphans, if we are being pushed up 
 and on by some blind, groping, cosmical force instead of being 
 lifted into communion with the Father who is perfect, by all 
 means let us know it and endure it as well as we can. . . . 
 A purely immanential view of God which equates God with 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 77 
 
 humanity leaves us nothing higher than a humanity to worship. 
 We cannot worship either ourselves or other people.” 24 
 
 One finds repeated intimations of atheism in the Unitarian 
 organ. “As God is not the foundation principle of our faith 
 why,” asks Mr. J. C. Allen, “insist on conformity. ... 7/ 
 would be better if we had to choose between them to believe in 
 Man and not in God than in God and not in Man /' 25 “Mod¬ 
 ern religion is frankly humanistic rather than theistic,” writes 
 the Rev. Earl F. Cook, “There have been many gods in history 
 which have only cultural reality like Zeus and Thor. . . . 
 Modern religion says that its conception is more mature than 
 these but it does not say that its idea of what men call divine 
 . . . is any more free from decay and death than former con¬ 
 ceptions. . . . Even if the thought of God disappeared and no 
 longer bothered and blessed mankind modern religion would not 
 be hampered in its essential work ” 2Q Dr. J. H. Holmes writes 
 that <( most of us would say we believe in God . . . but some of 
 us don t and they are as welcome to our church as any others. 
 We regard it as foolish to define religion in terms of a theism- 
 atheism controversy as in terms of a Unitarian-Trinitarian con¬ 
 troversy.” 27 
 
 And another Unitarian, Mr. Tandberg, remarks sympatheti¬ 
 cally, “It is intensely interesting to contemplate that in the 
 remarkable experiment of Mr. Holmes and the Community 
 church we have actually witnessed the establishment of a church 
 without a God." 28 
 
 To present-day Unitarians the death of our Lord has no 
 unique or doctrinal significance. In the Unitarian Anniversary 
 Week of 1913 Dr. Edward Cummings proposed the star of 
 Bethlehem as a more suitable emblem for the Christian faith 
 than the cross. The Rev. L. B. Weeks, in reporting the 
 incident, described it as an “outburst of that long-smothered 
 conviction that the gospel of Jesus as against the effete religion 
 of the cross is the only remedy yet known for the world’s woe 
 and sorrow.” 29 It is not surprising, then, that Mr. Weeks 
 should transform the communion into a memorial for departed 
 
78 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 friends and church members. “The name of Jesus should have 
 only a relative and incidental place in the order of service while 
 the superstitious and traditional incidents which characterize the 
 verbiage of the historic communion should not be allowed to cor¬ 
 rupt the simplicity and purity of our holy service/' 30 
 
 In many Unitarian churches the communion is no longer 
 observed; in others rarely. In some water takes the place of 
 wine as if to emphasize the rejection of the precious blood. In 
 some churches the elements are placed on the table, the organ 
 plays “He was rejected of men” from the “Messiah” and the 
 congregation is dismissed without partaking. 31 “The com¬ 
 munion,” writes a Unitarian minister, “is very repulsive to me. 
 The ideas of sacrifice and atonement are barbarous and inhuman. 
 . . . As liberals in religion why should we commemorate the 
 death of Jesus? . . . Jesus is not the centre of our religion . 
 . . . Why do not we commemorate the life of Emerson or 
 Socrates or of Immanuel Kant? . . . Many men and women 
 who might otherwise be loyal recruits and helpful workers in 
 the church are kept from association with the church by the 
 presence of the communion service. As here celebrated four 
 times a year among a small number of people it holds a very 
 precarious position in our forms of worship.” 32 
 
 When a Unitarian woman complained in the Christian Reg¬ 
 ister that at Easter for three years the Easter Scripture story 
 was not read nor Easter hymns sung, the Rev. G. T. Ashley 
 retorted in an open letter. “Why should the Easter story in 
 the Bible be read as the basis of religious worship in a Unitarian 
 church when all Unitarians look upon it as a myth, and not a 
 harmless myth either, but one that has been a fruitful source 
 of a large part of the world’s superstition. . . . Easter is not 
 of Christian origin but pagan.” 33 Dr. Dietrich celebrates 
 Christmas “as an old heathen custom. It is a human holiday. 
 I emphasize the natural fact on which this old mid-winter fes¬ 
 tival is founded not because I love Jesus less but that 1 love 
 what is older and greater and grander than Jesus more. . . . 
 Why should we not pay our respects to the sun at this time , the 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 79 
 
 sun upon whom man and all living creatures are dependentf 
 For generations we have been taught that we were created and 
 sustained by an unseen hand, but when we face the real fact, 
 whatever power may be back of the phenomena of the universe, 
 the sun is that by which we live. ... To the early fathers of 
 the race the sun was a living being, a god, and in view of the life 
 he begets in us and awakes anew and afresh each year in the 
 world this seems far nearer the truth than the view that is com¬ 
 monly taken. Why fear then to recognize our dependence upon 
 the sun? Why hesitate to look up and bless him? Why fail to 
 praise him? Our life and all earthly life depends upon him. If 
 he dies we die. 
 
 “This is not banishing divinity from the world. It is putting 
 divinity into the world instead of viewing it as the sole occupant 
 of empty space.” 34 
 
 Here we have the terminal bud of a paganized Unitarianism. 
 
 More and more this New England Sadduceeism repudiates the 
 hope of a life to come. Such a personal hope is now often rep¬ 
 resented as selfish and petty. Its establishment in the fact of 
 Christ’s resurrection is altogether gone. In reading the grave¬ 
 stones of notables in the Unitarian necropolis at Mt. Auburn 
 I have been struck with the fact that not in a single instance 
 observed is a line of Scripture to be found on them. That 
 comfort and support has vanished. Further in reading Uni¬ 
 tarian biography I fail to find [and this is true of non-Christian 
 deaths generally] a single record of a triumphant death-bed. 
 Patience and stoicism, no doubt, but never the sight of the 
 heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right 
 hand of God. No cries of “victory,” “glory,” “joy,” “heaven,” 
 “Christ.” D. L. Moody came out of a Unitarian home. 
 Does any one believe that if his life had been spent in expound¬ 
 ing the perniciousness of creeds instead of winning souls to 
 Christ the beatific vision of his last hours would have been his?* 
 
 I suppose there was never a better friend of man in New 
 
 *The Rev. Edward Cummings speaks of heaven as “that ridiculous 
 spiritual roof-garden in the next world.” C.R. 1913:779. 
 
80 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 England than Dr. Samuel G. Howe, the helper of the blind, the 
 deaf, the slave, the needy. Certainly if human merit could give 
 assurance of life hereafter this Unitarian philanthropist ought 
 to have had it in his last hours. Yet his biographer prints two 
 letters which read: 
 
 “It was very dark during a week. I saw no light or hope 
 for this world and was uneasy and unhappy about the next.” 
 And again, “Why cannot we two mourning fathers enjoy the 
 hope of reunion in full assurance and faith without the damning 
 doubt. I vainly hope against hope.” 
 
 Then he goes on to say that his only stay is the instinct of 
 immortality implanted in all men. 
 
 Another great philanthropist of the time had a firmer rock to 
 build on. 
 
 “I am come to that stage of my pilgrimage,” wrote Mrs. 
 Beecher Stowe, “that is within sight of the river of death and I 
 feel that now I must have all in readiness day and night for the 
 messenger of the King. I have sometimes had in my sleep 
 strange perceptions of a vivid spiritual life near to and with 
 Christ and multitudes of holy ones and the joy of it is like no 
 other joy. It cannot be told in the language of the world. 
 What I then have I know with absolute certainty yet it is so 
 unlike and above everything we conceive of in this world that 
 it is difficult to put it into words. The inconceivable loveliness 
 of Christ! It seems that about Him there is a sphere where the 
 enthusiasm of love is the calm habit of the soul and that without 
 words, without the necessity of demonstrations of affection, heart 
 beats to heart, soul answers soul, we respond to the Infinite 
 Love and feel his answer in us.” 35 
 
 That men should believe in a Christ who is to come again to 
 judge the quick and the dead arouses many Unitarians to a fury 
 bordering on hysteria. The Christian Register declares it “a 
 doctrine more heinous and rotting to the soul than polygamy, 
 witch-burning and slavery combined.” It calls on “the capable 
 men in the tainted churches to assail this thing with the sublime 
 wrath of Jesus, to utterly destroy it by the flaming truth and 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schernes 81 
 
 passion of pure religion.” Those who believe in it are a religious 
 Ku Klux, night riders, diabolical persons. Its awfulness, its 
 bloody sweep, surpasses the most gruesome pictures of the book 
 of Revelation. At the Ford Hall forum, so it tells us, after 
 calling on the Baptist churches to head off the impending 
 Protestant Inquisition he “aroused his very large audience by 
 his appeal to the churches to save their people from the Second 
 Coming doctrine of force, violence, and fanaticism.” Mr. 
 Weil, another Unitarian minister, calls this teaching of our 
 Lord “a mediaeval gospel of blood and the devil, a hydra-headed 
 monster that has crawled out of the Dark Ages.” And the 
 Rev. Maxwell Savage characterizes it as “the debauching Sec¬ 
 ond Coming enormity.”* 36 
 
 * * * 
 
 In 1905 a Unitarian delegation headed by President Eliot 
 went from Boston to the initial meeting of the Federal Council 
 
 *A chapter might be written on the religious solecisms of Unitarian- 
 ism, its irreverences and absurdities. I have just dipped into M. J. 
 Savage’s Ministers’ Handbook. In his service for the burial of the 
 dead are quotations from Socrates, the Buddhist Scriptures, Pythagoras, 
 the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Then from Cicero (Roman), Jesus 
 Christ (I srae ^ te )> Plutarch (Greek), Thomas Paine (American), 
 Benjamin Franklin (American) and J. P. Richter (German). 
 
 Or think of the sense of perspective in this announcement: “Dr. 
 D. will preach at 11 a.m. Subject: The evolution of religious con¬ 
 ceptions from Abraham to Jesus and from Jesus to Channing.” 
 
 Or of the historical intelligence of this statement from Dr. Wendte: 
 ,r The whole period prior to the Council of Nicea may be regarded as 
 the Unitarian epoch of Christianity during which the predominant 
 opinion, however highly it exalted Christ, stopped short of the ascription 
 of proper deity to him.”— IVhat Do Unitarians Believe? 25. 
 
 Or of the denominational megalomania which in the official story 
 of Jesus for Unitarian Sunday-schools compares John the Baptist with 
 “Starr King who saved California for the Union and whose memorial 
 window is in Dr. Hale’s church” and which enlarges on the religious 
 experiences w r hich turned Robert Collyer from the anvil to the [Unita¬ 
 rian] pulpit, comparing them with those wffiich turned Jesus from a 
 carpenter into a messenger of God’s truth. In these comparisons Jesus 
 is also placed alongside of “Schlatter, the Denver healer” with no sense 
 of incongruity.— Rev. Florence Buck, The Story of Jesus, 11 and 26. 
 “At dinner at Eliza Cabot’s,” says another Unitarian, “the resemblance 
 of Dr. Channing in countenance to Jesus Christ was a topic of dis¬ 
 course.” (E. P. Peabody, Reminiscences of W. E. Channing, 118.) Even 
 one with the antecedents of Dr. C. E. Park can speak of “the Unitarian 
 stone which the builders rejected becoming the headstone of the corner.” 
 C.R. 1914:157. 
 
82 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 of Churches at Carnegie Hall, New York, to ask for the seating 
 of Unitarian representatives. No constituent church of the 
 Council would admit President Eliot to its membership nor 
 would he wish to join any of them. Further, no man in the 
 country has spoken more injuriously than he of the teachings 
 which the churches cherish. The Council refused the appli¬ 
 cation.* 
 
 “Unitarians are on all the important committees of the 
 Massachusetts Federation of Churches,” wrote the President 
 of the American Unitarian Association, Dr. S. A. Eliot, some 
 years ago. For sixteen years he himself has been on its execu¬ 
 tive committee. At the present time Samuel A. Eliot is presi¬ 
 dent of the Massachusetts Federation and C. W. Eliot [a free¬ 
 thinker if there ever was one] is Honorary Vice President. 
 
 Yet they are not satisfied with local influence. “Liberals,” 
 says the Christian Register speaking of crypto-Unitarians in the 
 churches, “ought to realize that this [attempt to get into the 
 Federal Council] is their fight and that the sooner they get into 
 it the better. A certain measure of self-respect hampers Uni¬ 
 tarians. They have been kicked out of the front door . . . 
 and do not like to ply the knocker very vigorously in an endeavor 
 to get back. But there are others inside who would do well to 
 see to it that Unitarians do get back. Otherwise their time for 
 ejectment will pretty surely come.” 37 
 
 There can be little doubt that the presence of Unitarian 
 churches in the Massachusetts Federation has been a factor in 
 alienating important church groups from the Federal Council. 
 Evangelism will ever be looked on as the church’s chief mission 
 and this is rendered nugatory by their presence in the Federa¬ 
 tion. When Dr. Goodell of the Federal Council’s Department 
 on Evangelism addressed three hundred ministers in Boston in 
 1921 the watchful Unitarian editor immediately stigmatized 
 his address as “a reversion to type in evangelical Protestantism.” 
 
 *It would not be possible to admit Unitarians to the Federal Council 
 under the present constitution, the preamble of which reads, “Whereas 
 in the providence of God the essential oneness of the Christian churches 
 in America in Jesus Christ as their divine Lord and Saviour. . . .” 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 83 
 
 “Is it possible today in an assembly of ministers of all denomi¬ 
 nations that the prevailing note should be that mankind is under 
 condemnation for sins and must be washed in the blood that 
 flowed from Calvary? If this is allowed to prevail liberalism 
 will have to re-enter the lists .” 38 
 
 The Greater Boston Federation of Churches by article 3 of 
 its constitution at first gave to churches and religious and civic 
 organizations “desiring to be associated with the Federation 
 without necessarily endorsing the Christian basis” associate 
 membership without votes. In 1924 this limitation was broken 
 down and church, synagogue, and neutral charity were given 
 full voting rights. In other words the specifically Christian 
 character of the Federation is abandoned. So we have Keith 
 Theatre services with Unitarian speakers under Federation aus¬ 
 pices and “Institutes for parish evangelism” for assorted groups 
 —Congregational-Unitarian, Episcopalian-Greek-Lutheran, etc. 
 “No committee,” says the Massachusetts Federation’s organ “is 
 more enthusiastic and united [than the evangelistic one] though 
 including representatives of all the denominations from Adven¬ 
 tist to Unitarian. . . . Our very denominational differences 
 thus help in finding ‘all means to save some.’ ” 39 
 
 But would one not find it difficult to listen in on union evan¬ 
 gelistic services to that leading Unitarian official who, reporting 
 the Northern Baptist Convention of 1922, wrote: “The most 
 objectionable feature of the convention was the obnoxious exag¬ 
 geration of the uplifted Christ, the abnormal emphasis on the 
 place of the cross in the religious life, the monotonous regularity 
 with which the musical director selected Christological 
 songs.”* 
 
 The Federation, however, if it is paralyzed for genuine evan¬ 
 gelism by the Unitarian intrusion, can at least give religious 
 
 *Dr. Dieffenbach, official editor of Unitarianism, preaches at times 
 under the auspices of the Greater Boston Federation Sunday Evenings 
 at Medford Hillside Radio Station. He speaks as follows of the radio 
 utterances of Dr. Massee of Tremont Temple, Boston (C.R. 1923:1131) : 
 
 “What awful stuff I And the great radio station of one of the stores 
 in Boston is a broad-casting accomplice in this wretched business. Into 
 thousands of homes the evil things about a fiendish, murderous God 
 
84 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 plays with Unitarian and other ministers as actors whose set¬ 
 ting Prof. Bade approves of as “keeping close to the historical 
 situation as revealed by modern scholarship.” And with its 
 “citizenship honor roll” it can “help to get out the vote.” 40 
 
 The Unitarians have their own National Federation in which 
 they are banded with Reform Jews, Universalists, Hicksite 
 Quakers and whatever else is alien to evangelical Christianity. 
 Strange that they should so strenuously seek to break into the 
 Federal Council in whose constituency they are so unwelcome. 
 But recognition by the Federal Council of Churches would pave 
 the way for admission to the administration of the Y. M. C. A. 
 and Y. W. C. A. and Unitarians have sought for this even 
 more insistently.* In this way they secured entrance into the 
 Interchurch Movement in Massachusetts. 41 I suppose that it 
 also accounts for the fact that the Massachusetts S. S. Ass’n 
 has voted to admit Unitarian schools under conditions 42 and that 
 the report of the American Unitarian Association for 1918 con¬ 
 gratulates its constituency on “the admission for the first time of 
 a Unitarian delegate to the meeting of the International S. S. 
 Association.” 43 
 
 The Young Men’s Christian Association was first organized 
 in Boston in 1851. Memories of the Unitarian defection were 
 still fresh in the minds of the founders and their plan of organi¬ 
 zation was unquestionably determined thereby. In order to 
 forestall diversion of their gifts they confined the administration 
 of the institution they were establishing to men of the evangelical 
 point of view, and provided in case this stipulation should be 
 disregarded that Association property should go to the American 
 
 are poured in the name of the religion of Christ. It is terrible. We 
 should as lief hear a minister advise a maiden to yield her chastity, a 
 youth to steal a purse, as to have people taught as they are taught by 
 Dr. Massee.” 
 
 *Mrs. W. H. Robey, speaking for a modification of the Y. W. C. A. 
 test at the 1924 convention put her finger on this point: “We face a 
 situation anomalous, divisive, and to many seemingly unjust. The 
 Y. W. C. A.’s are placed in the position of debarring as electors many 
 who are taken into full fellowship by their local federation of churches.” 
 —Y. JV. C. A. report, 1924, 73. 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 85 
 
 Bible Society. An inactive mortgage of $600,000 on the Hunt¬ 
 ington Avenue property, I am told, passes to that society in case 
 of the abandonment of the evangelical basis.* 
 
 Mr. Russell Sturgis was active in securing this precaution. 
 Mr. James Stokes of New York, one of the most generous Asso¬ 
 ciation patrons, sought to protect his gifts “from insidious Uni¬ 
 tarian views” by the creation of a trust to which his residuary 
 estate was to go. The income was designated for Y. M. C. A. 
 pensions, support of training schools [that at Springfield ex¬ 
 cepted] and the like, so long as the Association stood on its 
 historic basis. The will closes, 
 
 “I desire that the work for which the fund is hereby created 
 shall be consecrated and used to and for the furtherance of the 
 Christian doctrine of the complete atonement for sin through the 
 blood of Jesus Christ once offered and that secretaries and 
 teachers may be selected who are sound in the faith, believing 
 in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures and the deity of 
 Christ.” 
 
 Writing to Mr. Weidensall Mr. Stokes spoke of the “destruc¬ 
 tion with which work of this kind is threatened when it becomes 
 successful, rich, and prosperous;” and to Jim Berwick, freight 
 conductor and evangelist, “As I grow older I appreciate the 
 great foundation on which our Association is built, namely 
 belief in the essential truths of the Bible and in the scheme of 
 salvation which means sin, salvation and a Saviour. Some smart 
 young fellows and others have decided that the Bible is not 
 quite what it ought to be and they spend more time in finding 
 out what it is not than what it is. I do not believe they can 
 injure the Bible by any of their foolish talk and action. But 
 it has injured a great many young men and it has crept into 
 our Associations in some places and into one or more of our 
 
 *So determined were these Boston Y. M. C. A. founders to keep out 
 Unitarians from their directorate that they adopted the following by¬ 
 law: “Any member of the board changing his denominational connec¬ 
 tion shall be deemed to have resigned and the vacancy so created shall 
 be filled as hereafter provided.” 
 
86 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 schools.* I take ground that if there is no sin then there is 
 no need of salvation or Saviour and what is the use of the 
 Y. M. C. A. anyhow in that case. There lies the foundation 
 of all our work and all my work. May God bless and keep 
 you in it.” 44 
 
 The year after the founding of the Boston Association, Uni¬ 
 tarians organized a club for men on similar lines under the name 
 of the Young Men’s Christian Union, membership in which was 
 [and is] by article 2 of its constitution open to ‘‘all young men 
 of good moral character and claiming to believe in the truths 
 of Christianity The Union had the backing of Boston society. 
 On its roster of life members are the names of Alexander 
 Agassiz, C. F. Adams, Oakes Ames, Oliver Ames, the Crockers, 
 Beebes, Dexters, Hunnewells, Thayers, Kidders, Minots, 
 
 *The Association College in Chicago is in close relation to the 
 University of Chicago. Young secretaries take courses under Profs. 
 Mathews, Soares, and Artman, and among the occasional lecturers one 
 notes G. B. Smith, E. S. Ames, and Clarence Darrow, atheist and 
 attorney for the University of Chicago degenerates, Loeb and Leopold. 
 Arrangements have been made by which the University of Chicago 
 correspondence-courses may be taken in the Y. M. C. A. colleges. These 
 courses are in Old and New Testament, Systematic Theology, Compara¬ 
 tive Religion, etc. Chicago University grants degrees jointly with the 
 Y. M. C. A. College .—Association College Bulletin, 1923, 38. 
 
 The catalogues of these Y. M. C. A. colleges contain interesting 
 announcements. The college at Springfield in order to prepare secre¬ 
 taries for “Americanization work” offers a course in modern European 
 erotic literature with readings from Flaubert, Balzac, de Maupassant, 
 A. France, Brieux, Schnitzler, Hamsum and Strindberg. (Catalogue 
 1922-23, 59.) The Southern Y. M. C. A. college gives a course on 
 religious conversion, religious epidemics and the crowd mind, divine 
 healing and mysticism. “The student will be referred to the waitings 
 of James, Starbuck, Pratt, Coe, and Stanley Hall.” A course on the 
 Social Teachings of Jesus “seeks to discover the social emphasis of 
 Jesus w T hich, with the new scientific and social knowledge, may help 
 toward an understanding of the spirit and method of life as reinterpret¬ 
 ing the new facts of religious and social needs of our own time.”— 
 Catalogue 1924-25, 46. 
 
 Of a course in genetic psychology announced at Springfield it is 
 discreetly said: “The evolution of the human soul in its complex en¬ 
 vironment furnishes examples of a serious nature when accurately 
 observed and understood.” Religious instruction is here “based on a 
 study of biology, psychology and sociology.” 
 
 “Perhaps,” wrote Mr. Stokes referring to these schools, “there is 
 some need for men who are founders like you and me to lift up our 
 voices and cry aloud; or perhaps you might be right in saying that 
 we can only cry aloud to God Almighty for his salvation.” 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 87 
 
 Peabodys, Shaws, Shattucks, Sears, Sturgises, Bowditches, 
 Wiggles worths, Thorndikes, and Welds. 
 
 The Union has had an honorable and uneventful history. It 
 trudges along on Boylston Street and has not ventured even into 
 other New England cities. The Association belts the globe. 
 In the United States alone it numbers 900,000 members and is 
 easily the greatest men’s organization on earth. What a lump 
 for leavening! 
 
 The line taken is “injustice to Unitarians.”* The great body 
 of Roman Catholics, non-church members and Jews do not seem 
 conscious of any injustice. Tens of thousands of them enjoy 
 the privileges of membership and are satisfied with the con¬ 
 summate administration provided. From one quarter alone 
 comes the outcry and that in all notes and tones—ridicule, blus¬ 
 ter, and threat. “With quiescence and acquiescence on the part 
 of so many Unitarians and Universalists,” writes the Rev. Dr. 
 Reccord [Unit.], “the change [in the constitution of the Y. M. 
 C. A.] will not come soon. This policy is not only dictated by 
 
 *R. R. McBurney believed that the perpetuity of the Y. M. C. A. 
 depended on the retention of evangelical control and Mr. Richard C. 
 Morse also. “Early in the seventies there was a good deal of protest 
 against this test,” writes Mr. Morse. “In not a few cities attempt was 
 made to organize and carry on the work without it. But experimenta¬ 
 tion by local associations invariably brought the Association back to 
 the evangelical basis. It was the Associations with this test that secured 
 secretaries and buildings, in other words, the men and money necessary 
 to carry on the work. The Associations attempted upon other tests 
 failed in the direction of both men and money .”— Doggett, Life of 
 R. R. McBurney, 186. 
 
 So Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall thought that the prosperity of the 
 Y. M. C. A. “is primarily owing to its strong and clear position on 
 evangelical lines.”— McFarland, Progress of Church Federation, 240. 
 
 Mr. Justice Taft has a larger vision than the “leaveners.” He de¬ 
 scribes the Y. M. C. A. as one of the greatest agencies for helping 
 young men. “In those to whom it offers its encouraging facilities it 
 makes no distinction of creed or religion. It is non-denominational 
 except that by one of the rules of its original organization its directors 
 must be members of an orthodox Protestant evangelical church. This 
 has been made the basis for severe criticism of its narrowness. I cannot 
 share this view. . . . When I think that in China mandarins who are 
 Confucianists or nothing contribute generously to the Y. M. C. A. estab¬ 
 lishments because of the good it does in the large cities of the far 
 Orient I don’t think it is for a Unitarian to withhold his aid and 
 encouragement merely because he is not eligible to its directing manage¬ 
 ment.”— The Religious Convictions of an American Citizen. 
 
88 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 laymen who are as devoid of theological training as they are 
 instinct with theological prejudice. When patients determine 
 the policy of physicians and clients dictate the methods of law¬ 
 yers then it will be time for laymen to sit in judgment upon 
 churches and ministers alike and dictate the theology of the 
 American people.”* 45 
 
 “If the officials of the Y. M. C. A. find that Unitarians are 
 'easy/ ” scolds another, “and will make no protest against being 
 pilloried as non-Christians and will still give money to support 
 the organization which casts aspersion upon them, then those 
 officials will make but little effort to remedy the injustice and 
 bigotry. . . . But if boards and central boards see that offering 
 to Unitarians the use of libraries, gymnasiums, etc., is not 
 enough and that Unitarians stand resolutely and self-respect- 
 ingly for equality of Christian character in full Y. M. C. A. 
 fellowship, then they will have their better natures quickened 
 and will make greater haste to extend full Christian fellowship 
 to those whose money they so steadily and persistently seek.” 48 
 
 Another complainant speaks of “voluntary taxation without 
 * representation.”! It would seem as if the best way to rectify 
 this “voluntary” injustice would be to have done with “volun¬ 
 tary” giving to the Y. M. C. A. and therewith with the 
 attendant clamor. But would this fit in with the Unitarian 
 plan of campaign? This insistent attempt to break down the 
 constitution of the Y. M. C. A. is accented by an occasional 
 gift to the Association’s great work for the education and help 
 
 *Mr. Reccord lets out another dreadful secret. “It may not be gen¬ 
 erally known that the officers of the National Association have not only 
 dictated its policy for nearly fifty years in spite of the fact that the 
 leading New England Associations and many outside New England 
 are opposed to it but they are trying to reach out and control the teach¬ 
 ing in the schools in which Association secretaries and physical directors 
 receive their training.” C.R. 1913:608. 
 
 +Rev. John Snyder: “When we in the exercise of the right of private 
 judgment reach different theological conclusions you shut us out of full 
 citizenship in that Kingdom of God which in our humble fashion we 
 are helping you to create. Many of us are voluntarily taxed without 
 representation.” C.R. 1912:392. 
 
 There is a suggestion of persecution complex in these complaints 
 against the Y. M. C. A. That this is a possible trait among Unitarians 
 is suggested by an article by the Rev. J. T. Sunderland, who complained 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 89 
 
 of the general public. As a matter of fact I am told by the 
 best informed Y. M. C. A. official in Massachusetts that Uni¬ 
 tarian laymen regard the Y. M. C. A. membership test as a 
 heaven-sent protection against solicitation of subscriptions. 
 
 One hundred and fifty millions have been invested in the 
 Y. M. C. A. on the strength of its evangelical management. 
 During the war Unitarians in the fire and fervor of the time 
 contributed $75,000 for Y. M. C. A. war-work in France. 
 A number of Unitarian ministers were sent abroad under the 
 Red Triangle. The camel’s nose was at last in the tent and 
 the president of the American Unitarian Association now felt 
 enough at home to pass judgment on the Association’s religious 
 life. The Y. M. C. A. hymn-book he told the public, was “a 
 compilation of musical slang and literary trash. Chaplains and 
 Y. M. C. A. secretaries, who have some real religious sensibility 
 or a fair share of good taste, welcome our [Unitarian] hymn 
 pamphlets.” “Ministers who persuade the boys to come to 
 Jesus and save their souls are religious demagogues” and their 
 preaching “immoral nonsense.” 47 [Eliot fils is indeed the 
 spiritual son of Eliot pere.~\ Dr. John W. Day complained of 
 the shock which he felt when Christian clergymen at Camp 
 Zachary Taylor actually prayed to Christ. It was “a kind of 
 blasphemy.” 48 I will not quote Dr. Dieffenbach on Y. M. C. A. 
 religion. It is unquotable. It ends with “I give this parting 
 thrust to a fleeting shame [Y. M. C. A. evangelical teach- 
 
 after visiting various evangelical churches that his ears were offended 
 by mention of the Trinity. “Six different times the Trinity idea was 
 thrust upon us. . . . Into the service were brought still other things not 
 in harmony with the faith of Unitarians, as prayer to Christ as God, 
 frequent use of such expressions as ‘our Lord’ applied to Jesus or ‘our 
 Lord Jesus Christ/ petitions for mercy or for salvation ‘for Christ’s 
 sake.’ This actually happened in a large Congregational church reputed 
 to be particularly liberal! If a guest comes into our home we do not 
 show our welcome by saying to him at once things which we know will 
 grate on his feelings, things concerning which we know he holds rad¬ 
 ically different views from our own. But this is just what a Unitarian 
 attending an orthodox church usually finds himself confronted with.” 
 Mr. Sunderland contrasts with this the breadth and courtesy of Unita¬ 
 rians. C.R. 1912:1117. 
 
 One can imagine from this what would befall evangelical religion 
 if “liberals” had their way in the Y. M. C. A. 
 
90 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 ing]. It will soon be gone. We are coming into new days. 
 The last days of evangelical test in the f Y' are with us. ... I 
 have spoken to men who have made and are now making the 
 Association s history. They know / M9 
 
 That there are men in the Association who would betray 
 the donors of the past is probably true. There were those in 
 the Congregational churches who sold out the founders of 
 Andover. President Doggett of the Y. M. C. A. College at 
 Springfield talks of “the dead hand” and “dogmatic shackles” 
 in the approved fashion of the Andover endowment raiders. 50 
 The student associations are the point of primary attack. In 
 the University of Michigan the ruse used was to revive a de¬ 
 funct organization, “the Students’ Christian Association,” admit 
 Unitarians and then merge the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. 
 with it.* In the University of Wisconsin, Protestants, Catholics, 
 Buddhists, and non-church members are admitted on the same 
 basis. 51 
 
 The Y. W. C. A. is also kept in a state of intermittent 
 fever by the efforts to alter the basis of active membership. 
 In reading the reports of the last three national conventions one 
 is conscious of the real meaning of this agitation. Mrs. Dwight 
 Morrow, for example, in supporting modification used this 
 conclusive argument: 
 
 “Having been brought up to believe that Presbyterians get 
 the highest seats in heaven I have been obliged to sit at the 
 feet of some Unitarians whose boots I am not worthy to black.” 
 
 Miss Shanks made this statement: “I want to quote what 
 was said in my presence a few months ago by one of our 
 leaders. A person of prominence in one of our large institutions 
 
 *This would presumably leave the Association open to the influence 
 of professors in the Unitarian church at Ann Arbor, Prof. H. F. Good¬ 
 rich for example, President of the Western Unitarian Conference, who 
 I judge referred to his own opinions in describing the modern layman 
 as “one who has left the past entirely behind, who had no very clearly 
 defined religion of life, who is none too sure of the existence of God” 
 (C.R. 1922:1102) ; or of Prof. Roy B. Sellars, a quondam student at 
 Hartford Theological Seminary, now atheist philosopher of the Uni¬ 
 versity of Michigan, who speaks of Paul’s god as a cad.—The Next 
 Step in Religion, 181. 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 91 
 
 in the Middle West, a Unitarian , said to him , 'Ten years ago 
 we set out to capture the large universities of the land and we 
 have practically done it and now we are setting about to capture 
 the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W, C. A! " 
 
 Mrs. Gladding: “The student test for voting and therefore 
 controlling membership proposes a statement of good intention 
 capable of several interpretations. When a girl says, ‘It is my 
 purpose, etc.,’ it does not follow that she acknowledges Jesus 
 Christ as her God and Saviour. Only last Sunday in New York 
 a well-known Unitarian clergyman arraigned the Inter-church 
 Movement for not admitting Unitarians. ‘We too believe in 
 and follow Christ/ he said, ‘but we do not require belief in 
 the deity of Jesus/ If a Unitarian clergyman believes and 
 follows Jesus why may not Unitarian girls not conscientiously 
 take the student declaration?” 
 
 Mrs. J. E. Marshall: “Can you imagine yourself sitting 
 with a board of directors planning a distinctly Christian pro¬ 
 gram with those who deny Christ's divinity f We dare not 
 expect God’s blessing. A little leaven leaveneth the whole 
 lump. If this is a Christian Association it must be funda¬ 
 mentally for Christ.” 
 
 Mrs. H. C. Swearingen: “It will be impossible to put over 
 this religious program [for girls] with people who differ from 
 us or even if they are indifferent,” adding, with a homely ref¬ 
 erence to the servant-girl whose Catholic presence suddenly 
 checks Protestant conversation at the dining table: “Some such 
 conditions I fear will prevail, especially in our board meetings. 
 Our womanhood and our self-respect will not allow us to 
 speak against those who are working with us. . . . The thing 
 that I fear is that we are bringing amongst us discord or else 
 apathy.” 
 
 Finally one blunt delegate remarked: “I love to think of the 
 church as being a home. We have windows and doors in our 
 houses to let in God’s eternal sunshine and ventilation but we 
 have screens to keep out dust and flies. We must keep out 
 things that don’t help us.” 52 
 
92 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 What is the motive back of this continual drive to get into 
 the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A., the Federal Council of 
 Churches, and other organizations of American Christianity? 
 The answer is fairly given by a Unitarian editor: 
 
 “Our doctrines are especially good for budding and grafting 
 on older stock . If the name is sometime repellant the substance 
 when transplanted and allowed to spread by inoculation has a 
 wonderful power of expansion. We are sometimes astonished 
 to see how our position on the virgin birth, miracles, etc., has 
 been incorporated into the body of an old faith. To be sure 
 these new and vigorous branches are of a nature to render the 
 reinainder of the tree of but little value. . . . We should 
 frankly confess that our unadulterated doctrine, the honest 
 truth frankly utteredj does not appeal to the masses but when 
 a strong flavor of it appears in an old stock it is often welcomed 
 with enthusiasm. Then it appears under the enticing name of 
 liberalism. 
 
 “The Unitarian body is constantly grafting new thought, 
 purpose, and method on the older churches. ... By indirection 
 a large part of the finest and subtlest work is accomplished. 
 . . . The purpose of its very existence is to widen the area of 
 liberal thought by a movement without which the old churches 
 might have fossilized. ... No great landslide from the old 
 ranks as was once predicted has taken place, but it is one thing 
 to tear down a structure with tremendous noise and dust and 
 another to transform it vitally or to assist the spirit of the age 
 in this great work.” 53 
 
 In this work of transforming Christian churches and insti¬ 
 tutions, Unitarians are depending on the co-operation of crypto- 
 Unitarians in evangelical churches. “A good many Unitarians/' 
 says Dr. J. W. Day, a leading Unitarian minister, “are doing 
 more good where they are than they could do anywhere else. 
 They are undoubtedly capturing strongholds that we could 
 never carry by direct attack. They are the modernists of Prot¬ 
 estantism who are working from within the fold. . . . We want 
 more of them and we want them where they are .” 54 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 93 
 
 So effective is this co-operation in Unitarian eyes that the 
 editor of the Christian Register feels justified in speaking of the 
 fight against evangelical Christianity as already won though 
 many do not realize it. “Every little while we read of some 
 belated inhabitant of a remote locality who does not yet know 
 how the Civil War turned out.” 55 
 
 These intriguers do not want a too speedy withdrawal of 
 the neo-Unitarians from the Christian churches. They are not 
 interested in unendowed theological wraiths like Dr. Crapsey.* 
 Any such abandonment of present associations, “not to speak 
 of invested interests” writes Prof. F. G. Peabody, “would 
 demand a sacrificial heroism which might seem ill-advised or 
 premature Far better is “a gradual process of spiritualiza¬ 
 tion (!) penetrating the existing churches as spring comes in 
 New England.” 56 
 
 The ultimate hope is of a landslide bringing into Uni- 
 tarianism modernist ministers, churches, people, endowments, 
 institutions. “A hundred years ago,” said President Eliot 
 in Ford Hall in 1920, “the Unitarian denomination took 
 in rather suddenly a large number of ministers who had been 
 up to that time connected with the Congregational church; 
 but there was a phenomenon then which does not recur in our 
 time. We should be very glad to have it recur. There was a 
 large expansion of the Unitarian fellowship in those days be¬ 
 cause when a minister came over from another denomination 
 he generally brought his church with him or at least the major 
 part of it. . . . We would like to have that experience repeated 
 
 *“I am as badly off as a nameless man. I cannot do business in the 
 religious world. Apparently I am nothing and belong nowhere. One 
 who has not this isolation can have no notion of what it means.”— 
 Crapsey, The Last of the Heretics, 292. 
 
 Prof. F. G. Peabody congratulates him “on the privilege which is 
 given to you through the bearing of others’ burdens to fulfil the law 
 of Christ.” Another Harvard Unitarian, Col. Higginson, wrote in 
 similar vein. Dr. Palmer, the editor of the Harvard Theological Re¬ 
 view, wrote: “One may almost envy you the opportunity of pouring 
 out blood (!) for that” [i. e., the hastening of the time when similar 
 Unitarian views will be held in the church]. 
 
 Crapsey writes, “Again I exhort my brethren of like belief to stay 
 where they are.” 280. 
 
94 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 in our generation. It would be an admirable mode of recruiting 
 the Unitarian fellow ship.” * 57 
 
 Base as all this seems there is no doubt that it is the present 
 program of Unitarianism. Let me add more evidence. 
 
 “Liberals, unhatched Unitarians, are in all the churches,” 
 says the Rev. Minot Simons. “Some way must be found to 
 bring them together and to organize them on the basis of 
 liberalism. To be suspected of Unitarianism would discredit 
 them with their associates. . . . If we believe that we are the 
 leaven then we must get busy on the whole lump. . . . Let us 
 subordinate every other interest to this." f 58 
 
 “Oh, that I might see the leaven working more rapidly,” 
 sighs one correspondent in the Christian Register ,* 59 and on the 
 next page a Unitarian “missionary” visiting “hide-bound Nash¬ 
 ville” explains why his advertisements were headed “Truth, 
 Worship, Service” [rather than a frank Unitarian announce¬ 
 ment]. 
 
 “To have led a direct assault upon those orthodox fortifica¬ 
 tions would have aroused unnecessary antagonism at the start 
 and shut the doors of the city in our faces. I certainly should 
 not have had three invitations to address the Y. M. C. A. at 
 Vanderbilt University and a local Methodist church which 
 
 *For a century there have been next to no accessions to American 
 Unitarianism. They are, therefore, watching the disturbances in the 
 churches with the sharpest of appetites. The Christian Register (24: 
 282) has its eye on the Old First Presbyterian Church on Lower Fifth 
 Avenue. Will it withdraw from Presbyterianism and become an inde¬ 
 pendent church? “Such a step would without doubt make a great up¬ 
 heaval throughout Presbyterianism. There are literally hundreds of 
 liberal Presbyterian ministers who with their congregations would need 
 only some such heroic example as the historic First Church to cause 
 them to follow the lead. What an exodus to liberalism there might be!” 
 And among the Methodists too! 
 
 It adds that the legal provisions protecting the church property 
 “might stop the whole movement.” The glorious army of liberal mar¬ 
 tyrs! But cases have been known where legal stipulations have been 
 successfully evaded by liberal theologians. 
 
 fFew people read Unitarian literature. If they should they would 
 be struck with the constant reiteration of this figure of speech: “What 
 could Unitarianism hope to achieve?” asks Dr. E. A. Horton, “To per¬ 
 meate other churches with liberal tendencies ... to leaven the lump 
 of modern Christianity.” Dr. Putnam is then quoted as saying, 
 
Unitarian Skepticism arid Unitarian Schemes 95 
 
 furnished the entering wedge.” Then he adds: “Suggestion 
 is admissible, letting the truth slip into the back door of the 
 mind unawares when the front entrance has been barri¬ 
 caded.” 60 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Crothers of Cambridge uses another figure 
 but the meaning is the same. It is a frank confession of prose- 
 lytism. “Our task is very largely a task of transplanting the 
 religion which has grown up on traditionalism, transplanting 
 it into the new soil . . . prepared for it by true thinking.” 61 
 
 “The name ‘Unitarian* I care little for in itself,” says the 
 Rev. F. A. Farley, “and while I see the thing which it denotes 
 doing its work and leavening the mass I am content.” 62 
 
 Dr. Slaten of the West Side Unitarian Church, New York, 
 explains the method. He had been a Baptist minister for 
 twenty-one years but during the last ten of them accepted the 
 Unitarian position [i. e. without avowing it]. During this 
 period he was the Baptist pastor at the University of Michigan, 
 professor in the Y. M. C. A. College in Chicago, and Bible 
 instructor in William Jewell College. His Unitarianism be¬ 
 came so obvious that the trustees of the latter institution re¬ 
 quested his resignation. Whereat pandemonium in the press 
 of the country. The Inquisition was again at work; Slaten a 
 martyr in shirt of flame. What he says of his tactics is this: 
 “In some of the churches at least , the very principle of freedom 
 on which the denomination is based guarantees him [the crypto- 
 Unitarian] his right to remain. It is strategic to remain and 
 work from the inside. Many others are doing it successfully 
 and the gradual permeation of the orthodox denominations with 
 
 “Unitarianism considered as a lump is very small but considered as a 
 leaven it is vast and omnipresent. As an organism it is feeble; as an 
 influence it is irresistible.” 
 
 “I find in this fact,” continues Horton, “that we are leaven and 
 not the lump, nothing that should exalt or depress us. ... I do not 
 see why other churches should exhibit feeling if we claim this position 
 and this work. They have other and more tangible trophies; we are 
 virtually contributing to their greatness and power. By our sacrifices 
 they are fed. In our poverty is their richness. We cut a path: they 
 walk in it. We inaugurate a philanthropy; they enjoy it,” etc.— 
 Unitarianism, 7, 8. 
 
96 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 liberal ideas disseminated by trusted leaders of their own ap¬ 
 pears to them the best procedure. Until recently this has been 
 a procedure that was comparatively easy to follow. Now it is 
 uncertain and dangerous," 63 
 
 Then follow the reasons why, concluding with a greeting 
 from the secure fold of Unitarianism, “Brother and comrade, 
 come over.”* 
 
 This is in the best style of Canisius and the Ingolstadt Jesuits 
 and it is the recognized procedure of Unitarians, their his¬ 
 torical modus operandi. “The formation of Unitarian societies 
 in some of our towns and villages where there seemed to be 
 an opening for them was discountenanced,” writes the Unita¬ 
 rian historian of the early days in New England, “on the ground 
 that it was better for ‘liberal persons’ to retain their connection 
 with the orthodox societies with the expectation of gradually 
 modifying the creed.” 64 
 
 In No. 223 of the official tracts of the American Unitarian 
 Association, the Rev. W. S. Morgan describes his passage to 
 Unitarianism. “A liberal brother from a neighboring town 
 came to see me. He had said some radical things from his 
 pulpit to which objections had been made. Don’t label your 
 heresy, was my advice. Do as I do. Give them heresy in such 
 a fashion that the very saints will not suspect it. Bad ethics, 
 you say! 1 say, very bad! But this is the only way in which 
 hundreds of orthodox pulpits can be held. JVhen it was whis- 
 
 *Prof. Slaten in a sermon in the West Side Unitarian church, N. Y., 
 made this aside: “I understand a representative of William Jewell 
 College is in the city today to raise $60,000. I hope he gets it. The 
 conservatives cannot halt the march of progress and ultimately that 
 money will pay those who teach the things now proscribed.” C.R. 
 1923:458. 
 
 What this coming religion is for which we are subscribing money 
 he defines as follows (N. Y. Times, Nov. 9, 1925): “Where the aid 
 religion made the supreme object God the new makes it humanity; 
 where the old controlled conduct by the assumed favor or disfavor of 
 the Deity the new makes the effect of one’s conduct upon social well¬ 
 being the controlling consideration; sociology takes place of theology 
 and the world-hope of an improved social order replaces the belief in 
 a blessed immortality. . . . The great question has been, ‘Where will 
 you spend eternity?’ The great question now is, ‘Where and how will 
 you spend the rest of your life?” 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 97 
 
 pered abroad that in my ministry of three years I had not 
 preached a sermon on the blood of Jesus cleansing us from all 
 sin I saw clearly that I was discovered ” Mr. Morgan was a 
 Baptist minister educated at the Yale Divinity School. 
 
 In the same official tract the Rev. Thomas Clayton tells a 
 similar story. When he became a Unitarian, he says, " 1 was 
 advised to stay where I was and keep some of my opinions to 
 myself , gradually to sow the seeds of liberalism and wait until 
 the time was ripe for more aggressive agitation ” This it will 
 be remembered is essentially the advice of Prof. Peabody’s Yale 
 Review article. 
 
 Alexandre Morel, in his studies of butterfly life, tells how 
 he searched for cocoons of a magnificent and rare butterfly in 
 the Haut Valais, hoping to raise some of the purple and silver 
 beauties. He finally succeeded in finding five chrysalides in 
 perfect health on a certain Alpine plant which attracts them. 
 But when the time of birth came, out of the first crawled an 
 ichneumon; out of the second another; out of the third still 
 another. Only the fifth and last produced a butterfly. 
 
 What had happened? The ichneumon fly had deposited its 
 egg in each of the living caterpillars. The ichneumonized 
 caterpillar lived as if nothing had happened,—ate, grew, con¬ 
 structed its cocoon. The unfortunate caterpillar did not realize 
 it was possessed, that under its skin it carried a perfidious enemy, 
 which while letting it live, slowly destroyed it or rather trans¬ 
 formed its destiny altogether. In fact this mysterious substance 
 which should have given birth to a butterfly passed altogether 
 into the body of the little larva and became an ichneumon. 
 
 Dr. Theodore T. Munger, a leader of Congregationalism in 
 the last generation, wrote of Unitarianism, “I feel more than 
 ever the terrible lack in that denomination. There is a great 
 gulf between them and us.” 65 But thirty years of “permeation” 
 has brought a distinct change in the situation. A prominent 
 Congregationalist with Unitarian sympathies, Dr. A. W. Ver¬ 
 non, said ten years ago, “I hope that I shall live to see the 
 day when it shall be as hard to distinguish our two branches 
 
98 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 of Congregationalism from each other as it is to tell twin 
 daughters apart who have forgotten to tie up their braids with 
 a blue and a red ribbon. I fear that our extremists will dis¬ 
 cover that in spite of their violent efforts to divide us there 
 is one who is our Master and all we are brethren .” 66 
 
 The Old South church, Boston, now admits Unitarians to 
 membership and dismisses its members to Unitarian churches.* 
 Dr. G. A. Gordon appears at the Theodore Parker centenary 
 and when his own anniversary comes around grateful Unitarians 
 of the Laymen’s League apply to him the salutation, “Thou 
 art my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” The Con¬ 
 gregational and Unitarian clubs hold on occasion joint dinners.! 
 Both denominations have summer conferences on the Isle of 
 Shoals! and Unitarians have had book counters at the Con- 
 gregationalist bookstore. Dr. S. A. Eliot records Congregational 
 and Unitarian churches “worshipping together” at Taunton, 
 Uxbridge, Peabody, Berlin, and Pepperell. The Central 
 Church, Boston [Congregational], summers with the First 
 Church [Unitarian] ; the Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, with 
 neighboring Unitarian churches. “In Lowell they are making 
 history these days,” writes the Christian Register. “The High 
 Street Congregational united with the local Unitarian church 
 to form All Souls church.” The fusion church directly at- 
 
 *Thus fulfilling the ideal of the Unitarian J. W. Chadwick—a grad¬ 
 ual disappearance of orthodoxy in all denominations “until dividing 
 lines shall offer as little obstruction to . . . going back and forth among 
 them as the equator offers to the cruiser’s gliding keel.”— Old and New 
 Unitarian Belief, 240. 
 
 fForefathers’ Day, Dec. 20, 1920, Dr. N. Boynton said to the gathered 
 Unitarians and Congregationalists, “No nobler monument could be 
 reared to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the landing of the 
 Pilgrims than the closing of the insignificant and principally past par¬ 
 ticiple differences between these common communions and the shaking 
 of hands together and the recognizing before the whole great world of 
 truth that these two fellowships, once together, are together again for the 
 glory of God and the salvation of the world, saying to the world, 
 Sirs, we are brethren.” C.R. 1920:1266. 
 
 !“Let the candle-light procession [a Unitarian function on the Isle 
 of Shoals] lengthen until it unites the Unitarians and Congregationalists 
 in one fellowship of light and be a sign and wonder to all other sects 
 and denominations.”— Dr. Rihbany, C.R. 1915:1211. 
 
Unitarian Skepticism and Unitarian Schemes 99 
 
 tached itself to the Unitarian Association of Middlesex County. 
 Again it records with satisfaction, “For the first time in their 
 history the Congregational and Unitarian conferences of Cape 
 Cod met in joint session.” The Middlesex Association of Con¬ 
 gregational ministers has held a joint meeting with the Uni¬ 
 tarian to consider closer relations. The ministers of the two 
 denominations in Dedham in 1923 issued a statement declaring 
 that what they “held in common was greater than the things 
 we hold in difference. ... We are not representatives of 
 rival enterprises but comrades of a common quest.” 67 
 
 What these rapprochements mean is obvious enough. They 
 represent no church union in the sense in which the Presbyterian 
 churches in Scotland united in 1900. They are a flat surrender 
 of the faith to anti-Christianity. Thus when a union of this 
 sort was arranged in the country town of Francestown, N. H., 
 the Unitarians sent thither as minister Dr. G. W. Cooke, an 
 outright atheist. 68 When in 1917 the shortage of coal led to 
 “union services” in some fifty-four places in New England the 
 annual report of the Unitarian Association (1918) admonished 
 its constituency to " beware of any permanent union which is 
 based on compromise. They must not sacrifice any of their 
 hard-won simplicity of faith.” 
 
 REFERENCES TO CHAPTER IV 
 
 1. C.R. 1911:298. 2. Emerton, Unitarian Thought, 269, 254, 169, 165, 170, 
 
 190, 191, 172, 42, 119. 3. Chadwick’s Old and New Unitarian Belief, 155, 
 
 212, 160, 214, 190. 4. Dole, Catechism of Liberal Faith, 39, 42, 44, 87, 82, 
 
 110. 5. Liberal Christianity in the U. S., 12. 6. Eliot, Religion of the Future, 
 
 23. 7. A Free and Open Christian Church, 3. 8. J. M. Wilson, From Author¬ 
 ity to Freedom in Religion, 7, 9. 9. Rainsford, The Story of a Varied Life, 
 
 458. 10. Rihbany, Jesus and His Place in Christian Thought, 12, 16, 18. 
 
 11. E. E. Hale, The Unitarians. 12. C.R. 1914:417. 13. Eliot, Religion of the 
 
 Future, 12, 14. 14. Eliot, Crying Need of a Renewed Christianity, 14, 13, 12, 
 
 15. 15. Eliot, Twentieth Century Christianity, 3, 4. 16. Potter, The New 
 
 Unitarian Statement of Faith, 11. 17. Casson, Three Great Words of Modern 
 
 Religion, 19. 18. Savage, The Signs of the Times, 109. 19. C.R. 1920:945 and 
 
 1921:827. 20. C.R. 1921:751. 21. C.R. 1921:825. 22. C.R. 1921:1015 and 
 
 1924:438. 23. C.R. 1920:670. 24. C.R. 1920:506, 603. 25. C.R. 1921:899. 
 
 26. C.R. 1923:7. 27. C.R. 1919:876. 28. C.R. 1920:294. 29. C.R. 1913:582. 
 
 30. C.R. 1914:20. 31. C.R. 1913:307, 319. 32. C.R. 1916:657. 33. C.R. 
 
 1922:976. 34. C.R. 1921:1206. 35. Sanborn, Life of S. G. Howe, 336-40; 
 
 H. B. Stowe’s Memoir, 298. 36. C.R. 1922:170, 336, 332, 248. 37. C.R. 1919: 
 699. 38. C.R. 1921:104. 39. Facts and Factors, Jan., 1925. 40. Federation 
 
100 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Bulletin, Jan., 1924. 41. C.R. 1919:1220. 42. C.R. 1921:880. 43. Report of 
 
 Am. Unit. Assn. 1918, 57. 44. James Stokes, 704, 228, 200. 45. C.R. 1913: 
 
 608. 46. C.R. 1916:891. 47. C.R. 1918:173; 1917:1156. 48. C.R. 1918:1138. 
 
 49. C.R. 1919:824 and 966. 50. C.R. 1922:1137-8. 51. C.R. 1920:117 and R.E. 
 8:73. 52. Natl. Reports of Y. W. C. A., 1924:85; 1920:72 and 45; 1923:77-79; 
 
 1924:72. 53. C.R. 1910:339. 54. C.R. 1912:314. 55. C.R. 1915:76. 56. Yale 
 Review, 1924:439. 57. C.R. 1917:126. 58. C.R. 1915:1018. 59. C.R. 1916:605. 
 
 60. C.R. 1916:606. 61. C.R. 1917:155. 62. C.R. 1915:661. 63. C.R. 1923: 
 548, 95, 317-18. 64. Ellis, The Unitarian Controversy, 44. 65. Bacon, T. T. 
 Munger, 131. 66. C.R. 1914:1139. 67. C.R. 1919:459, 1910:641; 1917:403; 
 
 1915:751; 1911:1206; 1917:1204; 1925:716; 1918:646; 1923:640; 1921:595; 
 
 1914:427; 1922:184. 68. C.R. 1923:477 and 1920:506. 69. Report of the Am. 
 
 Unit. Assn. 1920:55. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 
 
 They cackled (how they cackled!) crying everything was 
 new; 
 
 The old truths were all false, the new lies were true. 
 
 —Alfred Noyes. 
 
 T HE Religious Education Association was founded by 
 President W. R. Harper and the theological school 
 of his university has furnished to it its quota of 
 leadership. There has been a slight smoke-screen of evangelical 
 membership but this seems less noticeable than formerly. Radi¬ 
 cals and rabbis [Dr. S. S. Wise, Dr. Judah Magnes] gather 
 at its meetings and aid substantially in its finances. Thus the 
 free-thinker, Paul Carus, publisher of The Open Court , was, 
 when living, one of the larger subscribers to its funds, and 
 Profs. Leuba, Stanley Hall, and Starbuck, all of whom are 
 listed in McCabe’s Dictionary of Rationalists , have read papers 
 at its sessions. Prof. Starbuck, in an essay published by 
 the American Unitarian Association [ Religious Education in 
 the New World View], presents what is palpably the Unita¬ 
 rian opinion regarding the organization: 
 
 “Salvation by education is coming to be the great watchword 
 of this generation. . . . Any passing observer must be con¬ 
 vinced that the Unitarian clergy generally are among 
 the warmest friends of better religious education. . . . The 
 Unitarian church has cordially entered upon this task as 
 one of its greatest privileges. Here is the rarest oppor¬ 
 tunity opening up before the liberal churches. Happily we are 
 accepting it.” 
 
 So they are and the whole Unitarian phalanx is lined up in 
 the Association. Prof. F. G. Peabody is a former president. 
 
 101 
 
102 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 President Eliot was a speaker at its Chicago Convention, Dr. 
 Dole at Cleveland, Drs. Rihbany and J. H. Holmes at Boston. 
 Dr. S. A. Eliot is director at large and most of the other 
 Unitarian leaders are members. “No association could come 
 nearer the ideals of our own churches than this,” says a writer 
 in the Christian Register (Unit.) : “It is an association devoted 
 entirely to aims identical with our dearest loyalties. . . . 
 Unitarians can do no better work for their own cause . . . 
 than to enter into cordial relation with the brave enterprise so 
 splendidly carried on by the Religious Education Association.” 1 
 “It is doing our work to an extent that we little realize,” 
 writes the Unitarian Dr. Minot Simons. “It is one of the 
 great liberalizing forces of the modern world.” “A prophetic 
 organization” rhapsodizes another Unitarian, “the most im¬ 
 portant religious movement of the age.” 2 
 
 The reports of the Association overflow with radical utter¬ 
 ances. I quote in the note below from a paper of Prof. Leuba 
 of Bryn Mawr.* Such extreme expressions of unbelief are 
 not common. On the other hand one would have to hunt long 
 through the twenty-three arid volumes of reports to find a 
 
 *“The assumption of a personal cause back of the physical universe 
 has no scientific value. It is true that it silences the child’s questionings 
 for a while, perhaps for all time, but this is not good; it is an evil. 
 . . . From the point of view of the understanding of physical phenom¬ 
 ena the belief in God is not one of the steps through which a child 
 needs pass for it would not help him to ascend to modern scientific 
 ideas about nature. 
 
 “It might be maintained that this God has an ethical value for the 
 child. . . . Can we not do better for the moral and religious welfare 
 of our children than trust to the influence of a miracle worker who, 
 being omnipotent, does good and evil or at least permits evil ? Could 
 not everyone of the religious feelings be more adequately stimulated 
 by the relations of the child to his parents, to society, and to nature? 
 
 “It is a harmful perversion of a truth, obvious to the child, to teach 
 him that ‘God’ gives him his food, his clothing, and his bed. And it 
 19 of advantage neither to his intelligence nor to his morals for him to 
 be allowed to think at any time of his life that rain and sunshine, 
 health and sickness, depend upon the will of an invisible, all-powerful 
 being.” — J. H. Leuba, Children’s Conception of God. R.E. Vol. 12:13. 
 
 In R.E. Vol. 6:268, is a paper on Conversion and Moral Distinctions. 
 Conversion is assimilated to savage rites on attaining puberty as at the 
 initiation of Bechuana youth. Since conversion is more or less discred¬ 
 ited a sort of civic ceremony should be instituted to take its place with 
 civic oaths and festivals. 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 103 
 
 gracious and loyal word about Christ. I must confess that I 
 have not come across one. 
 
 The Association definitely renounces fresh organization. Its 
 plan is to advise and co-operate with existing ones. This means 
 the conscious and systematic infiltration of the institutions of 
 the church with the opinions which the Association really stands 
 for even though it disavows allegiance to any particular school 
 of thought. The channels for this canalization have been dug 
 in every direction. Commissions and councils and committees 
 of great variety have been set for the devising and execution 
 of programs. The whole Sunday-school system of America is 
 to be transformed.* “Fifteen years ago a group of men, chief 
 among whom was President W. R. Harper, saw that the hope 
 of success for the great reconstruction movement in religion 
 and theology then imminent lay in the on-coming generation. 
 The Sunday-school, which up to that time had received small 
 attention from such men, assumed at once a new significance 
 as furnishing the natural medium for inculcating new formu¬ 
 lations of old truths. The results of the original and con¬ 
 structive thought of this man are seen in many of the newer 
 organizations for religious efficiency” [Georgia Chamberlain, 
 University of Chicago], 3 notably in the Religious Education 
 Association which Profs. Sanders, Kent, and other Harperides 
 have led since Dr. Harper’s death. To this end the Con¬ 
 structive Course of Bible Lessons (28 vols.) has come from 
 the University of Chicago and the Graded Series of the Bible 
 Study Union (Scribners). The Blakeslee Bible Study Union 
 Lessons are edited under similar auspices, Messrs. Kent, 
 Coe, Sanders, and Horr being the Board of Consulting 
 Editors. 
 
 *A Commission on Sunday School Associations was appointed in 1909 
 by the Religious Education Association. On it were Messrs. Coe, Cope, 
 Sanders, Starbuck, Soares, Votaw, Mutch. I suppose a sentence of 
 Prof. Starbuck’s, when the commission was announced, would fairly 
 express their point of view. “The present defect which stands in the 
 way of real spirituality is the implicit assumption that the end of relig¬ 
 ious teaching is to put such and such an amount of Scriptural teaching 
 into the minds of the recipient.” R.E. 1909:426. 
 
104 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 “Between 1908 and 1914,” writes A. A. Brown ( History 
 of Religious Education in Recent Times, 183), “a battle royal 
 was on in the Sunday-school world. . . . The outcome was 
 the International Graded Lessons and the organization of the 
 Sunday School Council of Evangelical Denominations in 1910. 
 This new organization was composed of the official representa¬ 
 tives of the several denominational agencies for Sunday-school 
 promotion, the editors and publishers being strongly predomi¬ 
 nant,” was radical in sympathy and formed apparently because 
 radical opinions were not able to get a foothold in the Inter¬ 
 national Sunday School Association.* After much opposition 
 it succeeded in effecting a merger with the older association 
 under the title of the International Sunday School Council of 
 Religious Education [disregarding the convention vote for the 
 title “of Christian Education ”] and Prof. Athearn, who stands 
 in close touch with the Religious Education Association, was 
 made chairman of the Committee on Education. 
 
 Later the name of the joint organization was quietly changed 
 “in the interest of brevity and simplicity” into the International 
 Council of Religious Education. We are told in the official 
 year book of this Council (51 )f that “the Religious Education 
 Association has decided to maintain advisory relations only with 
 
 *This S.S. Council of Evangelical Denominations has worked ami¬ 
 cably with the R.E.A. in the past. Prof. Kent speaking of certain 
 college courses in Bible, said: “The proposed courses here outlined 
 are presented in behalf of a joint committee representing the Association 
 of College Instructors in the Bible, the Religious Education Association, 
 the Student Y. M. C. A. and the S.S. Council of Evangelical Denomina¬ 
 tions.” R.E. Vol. 8:457. 
 
 fThis International Year Book of Religious Education advertises 
 Van Loon’s Story of the Bible thus: 
 
 “This wonderful book is of a type with the classic of John Foster, also 
 the Story of the Bible, which has served generations of Sunday School 
 pupils. While every part of the Bible is written about with great and 
 thrilling beauty the part devoted to the life of Jesus will undoubtedly 
 stand out as one of the greatest and most reverent biographies of 
 Christ ever written. This noble enduring master-piece is truly called 
 the Spiritual Story of Mankind.” 
 
 The book is a “free-thought” paraphrastic summary of the Bible. 
 Yet its advertisement appears in the official organ of the Sunday schools 
 of America. 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 105 
 
 the [/wow] committee of the Council in view of the fact that it 
 comprehends within its scope religions other than the Christian 
 religion.”* 
 
 *The Sunday school teachers are to be taken in hand. Dr. R. L. 
 Kelly of the Council of the Church Boards of Education writes: “Now 
 that the merger between the Int. S.S. Assn, and the S.S. Council of 
 Evangelical Denominations has actually been achieved this demand 
 [for trained teaching] will no doubt be accentuated and rationalized.” 
 C.E. Oct., 22:29. The R.E.A. has long been planning for this con¬ 
 tingency. Prof. Kent has been chairman of the R.E.A. sub-committee 
 on Sunday school teachers’ training courses in colleges and universities. 
 (R.E. Vol. 7:101.) The Teachers’ Training Commission of the R.E.A. 
 reports on training Sunday school teachers (83): “At least one-third 
 of the first year’s work should be given to the study of texts of the 
 nature and scope of Gilbert’s Students' Life of Christ ” R.E. Vol. 7, 83. 
 
 At the Garden City Conference of Agencies of Christian Education, 
 1921, at which Messrs. Cope, Sanders, Kent, and the others of the 
 familiar company were present, “particular emphasis was laid upon 
 the significance of the proposed consolidation of the Sunday School 
 Council of Evangelical Denominations and the International S.S. 
 Association and it was urged that the strength of the whole group of 
 agencies in this conference should be put behind this movement." R.E. 
 Vol. 16:288. 
 
 That the R.E.A. has from the first aimed at the Sunday schools 
 of the nation is clear enough. President King of Oberlin writes: “It 
 [the R.E.A.] could not wisely undertake the publishing of Sunday 
 School courses because ... it would surely cut it off from the much 
 larger task of suggestion, of guidance, and of cooperation concerning 
 all their varied agencies and interests.” R.E. Vol. 2:10. 
 
 Messrs. H. H. Meyer and G. H. Betts are prominent among the 
 Religious Education Sunday school theoreticians. In Mr. Betts’ How 
 to Teach Religion [dedicated to the two million teachers in our church 
 schools] we are told (119): “If the story is properly told the child 
 does not have to be taught that the Bible myth or legend is a myth or 
 legend: he accepts it as such without troubling to analyze or explain.” 
 On 120, “But once a sufficient proportion of Bible stories is provided 
 for, stories should be freely drawn from other fields. An abundance 
 of rich material possessing true religious worth can be found in the 
 myths, legends, folk-lore and heroic tales of many literatures.” 
 
 Mr. Meyer’s The Graded Sunday School in Principle and Practise 
 [in Modern S.S. Manuals, edited by Kent and Winchester] makes the 
 same suggestion, 78. “From the lowest to the highest grades the S.S. 
 curriculum, while giving first place to Bible instruction, will also utilize 
 much extra-biblical material. . . . Fairy tales, myths, folk-lore, and 
 legends all have a place here,” 75. . . . Mr. Meyers says of the Bible, 
 “It is not a sorcerer’s book, the separate verses and sentences of which 
 are surcharged with mystical import and power.” 
 
 Mr. Athearn’s point of view can be perhaps gathered from his com¬ 
 mendation of the Beacon Series [Unitarian] of the S.S. Lessons as 
 “the best in the world, those of the University of Chicago being second.” 
 C.R. 1911:472. He would have the R.E. Association “join with the 
 Int. S.S. Association in a crusade of agitation for the establishment 
 
106 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 The Young Men’s Christian Association has been the subject 
 of Religious Education Association operations.* “The Religious 
 Education Association,” we are told with perfect assurance, 
 “is steadily accomplishing precisely those purposes which were 
 outlined for it at the first convention. In the Y. M. C. A. it 
 {the R. E. A.] has led to the more general adoption of 
 thorough, scholarly courses of Biblical study.” 4 The Rev. R. C. 
 Knox is even more specific. Speaking of college Y. M. C. A.’s 
 and Y. W. C. A.’s he says: “Above all in their Bible study 
 they should have the historical viewpoint. . . . Men like King, 
 Kent, Jenks, Fowler, Bosworth, and others have woven into 
 the instruction of Christian Associations the strong fibre of 
 thorough and unbiased scholarship.” 5 Prof. Artman, former 
 dean of the Y. M. C. A. College, Chicago, now of the 
 Religious Education department of the University of Chicago, 
 describes the objective of the rationalizers. “As a movement 
 within the Protestant church the Y. M. C. A. shared some 
 of the weaknesses inherited by the Protestant from the Catholic 
 church, such, for example, as the bondage of abstract theology, 
 the goal of individualistic salvation, legalism, and the casuistry 
 which always goes with it, all of which still bind and enthral 
 the brotherhood sadly. Along with church leaders the leaders 
 of the Association are gradually freeing themselves from these 
 weaknesses and frankly adopting the socialization of man as 
 the Christian goal.” 6 
 
 Chautauqua which with its “heathen” Methodists is, as we 
 have seen, a foreign mission field of Boston Unitarianism, was 
 in the days of Bishop Vincent a center of genuine religious 
 instruction and help. Its department of religious work is now 
 
 in our colleges of departments of Religious Education.” R.E. 1911:80. 
 The [Unitarian] Christian Register calls Drs. Cope, Weigle and Ath- 
 earn “the hope of the children of America.” 1922:415. 
 
 *Report of the International Committee of the Y. M. C. A., 1924:40: 
 “The Religious Work Department of the Y. M. C. A. also [is] to 
 maintain relationship with the Religious Education Association and 
 the National Association of Bible Instructors, 35. Boys Work. Impor¬ 
 tant relationships are to be maintained with [among others] the Relig¬ 
 ious Education Association. 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 107 
 
 in charge of Dean Shailer Mathews of the University of 
 Chicago. A pastor at Chautauqua writes: “Dean Mathews 
 is one of the ultra new theologians and a very talkative one 
 at that. Result, complete drying up of the fervent spiritual 
 zeal and evangelistic fervor of the old days. Old Chautauquans 
 come back each year and seek by religious meetings to kindle the 
 fire anew, but in vain.” 7 A delegation from the University of 
 Chicago has carried on religious education: Mathews, New 
 Testament; Willett, Old Testament; and Miss Chamberlain, 
 stories in religious teaching. Religious Education Association 
 Weeks are held with Messrs. Coe, Votaw, Cope, I. F. Wood, 
 Sanders, and Starbuck as speakers, the last a one-time psycholo¬ 
 gist of the American Unitarian Association [registered as we 
 have seen in McCabe’s Dictionary of Rationalists ], discussing 
 “Character Development Through the Sunday School.” 8 Prof. 
 Peabody, the Harvard Unitarian, has been a member of the 
 Chautauqua faculty of religious education; also Prof. Hoben, 
 a radical of Chicago University. Dr. H. Augustine Smith, 
 director of the Department of Fine Arts in Religion of the 
 Religious Education Association, has charge of Chautauqua 
 music. He is the editor of the Century Company’s Hymns 
 for the Living Age* which attempts to tune our tongues to 
 Unitarian psalmody, every eighth hymn in the book coming 
 from that source. [“If a man w’ere permitted to make the 
 
 *This hymnal and The Hymnal for American Youth which the 
 Century Company also publishes fairly bubble with “leaven.” One 
 thinks of a packed caucus when one observes these strange faces in a 
 supposedly evangelical hymnbook. John Haynes Holmes appears with 
 four hymns, Hosmer with five, Samuel Longfellow with fifteen [more 
 than any other contributor] and Longfellow’s old co-worker in the 
 compilation of Unitarian hymnbooks, Samuel Johnson, with four. Long¬ 
 fellow’s biographer tells how the “two Sams” eliminated from their 
 “Hymns of the Spirit” such numbers as “attributed a peculiar quality 
 and special authority to Christianity and recognized a supernatural 
 element in the personality of Jesus.” Then we have a raft of medioc¬ 
 rities—Bulfinch, Tarrant, Chickering Williams, Wile, Clute, Freckle- 
 ton, Blatchford, Burleigh, Page Hopps, Russell and Wreford. Vague 
 fustian abounds, “Marching wuth the heroes, comrades of the strong,” 
 “Life of ages richly poured,” and the like. Everywhere the emphasis is 
 on the epigeia rather than on the epourania. Christ is mentioned 
 by name but once in these 67 Unitarian hymns and allusions to Him 
 are to be found in but four or five others. 
 
108 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 hymns of a church he need not care who should make its 
 theology” The Church of the Spirit, F. G. Peabody (15)]. 
 Mr. Smith stands for modernism in music. Hear him on 
 “Fine Arts in the Curriculum”: 
 
 “New subjects claim the attention of both church and state. 
 Armistice Day, Church Federation Day, City Beautiful Week, 
 World Peace and Brotherhood Education Day. New texts, 
 new ritual, will work wonders in displacing imprecatory psalms, 
 slashing sections out of canticles and chants, sluffing off vain 
 repetitions and pagan wailings. . . . The fine art of community 
 ritual is a direct protest against ecclesiastical worship. The 
 latter has been built upon theological tenets, on the prophets 
 and ecclesiastics of old, on tradition and smug prejudice.” 9 
 
 The Bible chairs in the colleges are dominated by men who 
 are in close touch with the Religious Education Association. 
 The National Council of Bible Instructors has in its organiza¬ 
 tion a large part of the three hundred or more college Bible 
 teachers.* Its president up to his recent death was Prof. C. F. 
 Kent of Yale. As his voluminous writings are used by most 
 of his colleagues it will be worth while to examine at least 
 one of them. Prof. Kent speaks of the criticism he favors as 
 “an exact science.” The impression one rather gets from his 
 Life and Times of Jesus is of the most uncritical romancing. 
 
 The resurrection evanesces into mere illusion. “Pursued by 
 fear and anxiety Peter would easily reach the sea of Galilee 
 on the third day from Jerusalem. . . . With the eye of faith 
 he saw the Friend and Master.” 
 
 What then became of Christ’s body? 
 
 “Many hold that the body was removed some time between 
 the close of the Jewish Sabbath and sunrise of the first day 
 of the week at the command of Joseph who had offered the 
 
 *A New York conference of this organization at Columbia Univer¬ 
 sity, sixty Bible teachers in colleges and Y. M. C. A.’s being present, 
 was opened by Dr. Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation with the words, 
 “Science has rendered an enormous service to religion by stripping the 
 life of Christ of the myths and legends and imagery by which it has 
 been covered.” R.E. Yol. 7:707. 
 
The Religious Education 'Association 
 
 109 
 
 tomb as a temporary resting-place. Naturally Joseph would 
 wish to reserve the tomb for the use of his own family. 
 
 “In any case the problem of what became of it was of sig¬ 
 nificance chiefly to those who shared the current Jewish belief 
 in a bodily resurrection.” 
 
 This is historical criticism! Kent tells us that “many modern 
 New Testament scholars are inclined to interpret the resurrec¬ 
 tion stories as visions without objective reality.” If Christ be 
 not risen your faith is vain, was Paul’s categorical affirmation. 
 The Yale professor thinks differently. 
 
 “This view, far removed as it is from the current doctrines 
 of the church, does not undermine the historical foundations 
 of Christianity. The essential elements in the Gospel are what 
 Jesus was and taught and these corner-stones stand quite in¬ 
 dependent of the resurrection stories.” 
 
 Jesus’ mighty works were not so mighty after all. Even the 
 miracles of healing were not always permanent. . . . Matthew 
 12:43 suggests that certain of these acts of mental healing 
 were only temporarily effective and that a recurrence of their 
 maladies sometimes left the poor victim in a more pitiable state 
 than before. The cure of leprosy was presumably merely the 
 relief of “a curable skin disease.” The daughter of Jairus was 
 in fact not dead but sleeping and Jesus assured Himself of this 
 before He undertook to raise her up. In general one gets the 
 impression from this book that Christ’s cures were mere auto¬ 
 suggestion. They are compared with those of the Holy Coat 
 of Treves. 
 
 Of course our Lord’s power over the forces of nature cannot 
 be allowed. “Jesus words, ‘Peace, be still,’ are even more 
 appropriate if originally addressed to His perturbed disciples 
 rather than to the troubled sea. The feeding of the multitudes 
 is to be thought of as a spiritual feeding.” 
 
 The whole Scripture is trimmed to the materialistic dogma 
 of the impossibility of the miraculous. There can be no such 
 thing as prediction. “The Christian apocalypse in Matthew 
 24 must have been written about a decade after the destruction 
 
110 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 of Jerusalem for it reveals an intimate familiarity with that 
 event.” This assumption makes of Prof. Kent a late-dater in 
 spite of the fact that “modern criticism” in the person of Har- 
 nack assigns Luke to the sixties and the other Synoptics 
 earlier. 
 
 Incident after incident in gospel history is set aside as untrue. 
 Our Lord could not have walked on water. “An account of 
 how Jesus in the blackness of the night waded out to meet 
 His disciples has been unintentionally clothed with a miraculous 
 splendor.” “The statement of the Fourth Gospel that Jesus 
 was arrested by a cohort of soldiers numbering many hundreds 
 and that they first fell to the ground at the sight of Him has 
 all the characteristics of later tradition.” The Transfiguration, 
 it is suggested, is a lost account of Jesus’ resurrection appearance 
 to Peter. So is the New Testament turned topsy-turvy as by 
 Poltergeister. As the incidents of the Passion are assimilated 
 to the stories of Caesar’s death [Virgil in his Georgies states 
 that, “at the death of Caesar there was an eclipse from the 
 fourth to the ninth hour”], so the miraculous in His ministry is 
 compared with Gautama’s incarnation, temptation, and feeding 
 of multitudes. Here is apparently nothing more than mytho- 
 poeic fancy. 
 
 Our Lord’s “conception of Fatherhood” we are told strongly 
 suggests that Joseph was wise, just, and considerate. . . . Un¬ 
 like many oriental fathers he apparently took his children and 
 especially his eldest son Jesus into his confidence and thus 
 established that relation of paternal comradeship which is pres¬ 
 ent in Jesus’ teachings.” So from this source comes our Lord’s 
 lofty teaching concerning the Father. He is not the eternal 
 Son of the eternal Father but earthly son of a just man and 
 good parent. Nor did He owe His divine wisdom to the Father. 
 In Nazareth, Jesus had ample opportunity to study intimately 
 the varied phases of human life so that in time it was unnec¬ 
 essary that any should tell Him “for he knew what was in 
 the heart of man.” The account of His boyhood visit to the 
 temple discloses one “who for the lack of a better term we 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 111 
 
 are wont to call a genius . . . but from another point of view 
 Jesus was simply a normal boy.” 
 
 And the deepest meaning which Prof. Kent can find in 
 Christ’s life and death is that of teacher. He was the saviour 
 because He was the teacher of man. . . . Having learned the 
 value of service He taught men how to find their life by losing 
 it in behalf of their fellow-men. . . . Jesus’ death was the 
 supreme demonstration that the one unfailing way in which 
 sinners may be saved is the way of love and complete self- 
 sacrifice [i. e., of their own love and self-sacrifice]. This is, 
 according to Prof. Kent, the meaning of Jesus’ death. As to 
 Jesus’ saying, “For the Son of Man came not to be ministered 
 unto, . . . and to give his life a ransom for many,” he makes 
 this a mere comment of Mark under Pauline inspiration, in no 
 way representing Christ’s point of view. So jauntily does he 
 juggle documents in the name of historical criticism. 10 
 
 Of this criticism he observes elsewhere, “Those who catch 
 this spirit become infected with an enthusiasm almost Pente¬ 
 costal. It is destructive only of superstition which in former 
 times obscured the real spiritual greatness of the Biblical 
 writers.” 11 
 
 “A new day has opened for the presentation of the Christian 
 religion,” says the Unitarian reviewer of this book, “a day in 
 which many men hitherto divided will clasp hands and work 
 together in spiritual ardor.” 12 
 
 The Bible chairs in American colleges were established by 
 men and women with an earnest interest in the development of 
 Christian faith and character. Never in the world would they 
 have countenanced such frivolous and perverted teaching as we 
 have just quoted. But it is just such teaching that is dominant. 
 
 That great pioneer of women’s education, Mary Lyon, when 
 connected with Derry Academy made so much of Bible teaching 
 that the trustees objected. So she went with her green velvet 
 collecting bag among the farmers of Western Massachusetts 
 until she had secured enough to found an institution [Mt. 
 Holyoke] which should be “perpetually Christian.” The out- 
 
112 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 put of useful women which followed through the century has 
 had no parallel. They were trained by her in the Scriptures 
 and in Butler’s Analogy and were followed to distant lands by 
 her prayers, the tenderness of which was a tradition of the 
 school. 
 
 Prof. Laura H. Wild, who now teaches the Bible at Mt. 
 Holyoke, has little of the old spirit in spite of her past as a 
 Congregational preacher. Her views are “dynamic, not static.” 
 President Wooley introduces her to the public as “a re-inter¬ 
 preter of evangelical Christianity for the young men and wo¬ 
 men of the student classes who cannot be held by an outworn 
 phraseology.” 
 
 This lady tells her young women at South Hadley that the 
 Apostles’ Creed is but “a kind of shibboleth, a necessary pass¬ 
 word to the orthodox but totally without meaning in as far 
 as real living is concerned. College students do not care to waste 
 their time examining into such an historic document when life 
 is so full of interesting questions which they cannot begin to 
 compass in four short years.” 
 
 It takes a modern broom, indeed, to make such a clean sweep 
 of the past. 
 
 “Shall we,” she asks, “be followers of the interpretations of 
 modern scholars or of interpretations evolved in the less 
 enlightened days of church history?” The question answers 
 itself. 
 
 “Christian democracy is the keynote of the modern inter¬ 
 pretation of Jesus’ teachings.” It’s “a much more worth-while 
 effort than to exert oneself to get into the body of the elect.” 
 The sin against the Holy Ghost is “refusal to co-operate with 
 the vital principle of betterment.” Those who “substitute 
 whole-hearted service of the Socialist cause” for such “ecclesi¬ 
 astical rites as the Holy Communion” compel our admiration. 
 “Sad to say,” however, “some good church members are not 
 ready to shift their emphasis from the Nicene creed to the 
 brotherhood of man.” “It’s no wonder that the majority of 
 young people are puzzled.” “The evangelical terminology 
 
The Religious Education Association 113 
 
 seems to have been stranded in a lagoon; the currents of life 
 are passing it very swiftly.” 
 
 “Jesus the Great Teacher is the divine messenger of this 
 good news of brotherhood . . . the one great and apparently 
 only saving idea for the progress of humanity.” “The most 
 effective appeal of the present day seems to be far different 
 from the appeals of the past that have ‘converted’ many 
 souls.” 
 
 Professor Wild has also written of “The Evolution of the 
 Hebrew People.” One would say a Buckle rediva. “Born in 
 the tropics, as we believe, from the find of the first man in 
 Java , man would always have remained an infant in that 
 steaming, enervated climate had he not wandered.” Old 
 Testament religion can certainly be accounted for on natural 
 grounds. 
 
 “The monotonous surroundings [of the Semites] coupled 
 with some of the most marvelous effects of sky and 
 landscape due to the dryness of the atmosphere, account un¬ 
 doubtedly for much of their religious fervor, at the same time 
 narrowing them down to a few great ideas.” God had little 
 to do with Israel’s history, at least directly. “There were three 
 factors that entered into their [the Hebrews] development, the 
 land, their outside enemies and their native genius. Some would 
 add a fourth, the help of God, but God’s providence manifests 
 itself through the first three in shaping destiny. Therefore in 
 beginning the study of Bible history our first consideration 
 must be the land.” 
 
 The great word, “in the beginning God,” goes into the dis¬ 
 card together with the Apostles’ Creed. 
 
 After this we can look for anything. The story of the Pass¬ 
 over’s institution is legend. The Abraham, Joseph, and David 
 cycles of stories, fictitious. The first is compared with the 
 Greek myth of Iphigenia; the second with Ali Baba and the 
 Forty Thieves. “Paul’s writings,” we are told, “are not espe¬ 
 cially in vogue today. We are more or less out of touch with 
 his mode of expression.” “The church has been affected too 
 
114 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 much by Pauline theology. It is easier to understand the 
 Sermon on the Mount than the doctrine of Justification by 
 Faith.” We are advised to compare Galatians with other 
 “essays” such as Emerson On Self-reliance and Dr. Cabot’s 
 What Men Live By. 13 
 
 The first book recommended for collateral reading in Biblical 
 History IB at Mt. Holyoke College is the Outline of History by 
 the free-thinker and king of sciolists, Mr. H. G. Wells. Bade, 
 Fowler, Cornill and the rest follow. 
 
 Who could believe that from training of this sort women 
 would be developed such as those who founded the Huguenot 
 college at Wellington, South Africa, the daughter college of 
 Mary Lyon’s Mt. Holyoke? 
 
 Yet in 1923-24, Prof. Wild was sent to Ginling College, 
 Nanking, a union college for girls operated jointly by Presby¬ 
 terians, Baptists, and Disciples to spend a sabbatical year teach¬ 
 ing young Chinese girls. This was one of the women’s colleges 
 which benefited by the three million fund for the higher edu¬ 
 cation of women on mission fields raised the preceding year 
 among American Christians. 
 
 Flenry F. Durant, the founder of Wellesley College, was a 
 man of the world, Harvard-trained, leading pleader at the 
 Suffolk bar. He was converted to Christ and became a lay 
 preacher. A visit with D. L. Moody to Mt. Holyoke interested 
 him in women’s education. He presented that college with a 
 library building and in 1871 laid the corner-stone of the new 
 college at Wellesley. In that corner-stone he placed a Bible 
 in which was written, 
 
 “This building is humbly dedicated to our Heavenly Father 
 with the hope and prayer that He may always be first in 
 everything in this institution; that His Word may be faithfully 
 taught here and that He will use it as a means of leading 
 precious souls to the Lord Jesus Christ. Except the Lord 
 build the house they labor in vain that build.” 
 
 Mr. Durant refused to have his name given to the college 
 or to permit a portrait of himself in the buildings. “The 
 
The Religious Education Association 115 
 
 college belongs to God not to me,” he would say, and in his 
 family was wont to pray, “O Lord, bless Thy college.”* 14 
 
 Miss Helen M. Gould founded a professorship in biblical 
 history in Wellesley College. It is now filled by Prof. Eliza 
 H. Kendrick, who is prominent in the Religious Education 
 Association. Prof. Kendrick appeared at the 1917 convention 
 of the R. E. A. with a pupil who read a paper on the effect 
 of the two years required Bible study at Wellesley. It de¬ 
 scribes an unenlightened girl coming to college “into a com¬ 
 munity where independence of thought is developed.” 
 
 “She enters a class in biblical history. One by one she sees 
 them go—the facts which to her were the very foundation of 
 her religious life. She can no longer believe in the creation 
 of the world as told in the Old Testament or in the story of 
 Moses and the burning bush. As she goes on into the study 
 of the New Testament higher criticism lays bare to her the 
 fact that the story of Jesus’ birth is not authenticated, that 
 the feeding of the five thousand and Christ’s walking on the 
 sea cannot be taken literally and that possibly even her belief 
 in the Resurrection is groundless. In fact all the mysterious 
 and supernatural gifts of Jesus which had formed the core of 
 her spiritual life now seem either based on unhistorical facts 
 or disapproved by the workings of natural laws. . . . Her loss 
 of faith in everything divine first stuns her but leaves her at 
 last, as she styles herself, ‘a regretful agnostic.’” 
 
 The testimony of other students is given. One who had 
 expressed her hope that the college would “leave her the 
 divinity of Christ untouched” has become reconciled to her 
 loss. “I have learned to judge Jesus by what I found him to 
 
 *“Mr. Durant preached today. If only you could have heard him, 
 all of you. It seems as if some great strange thing had happened and 
 we must speak and walk softly as when some one has died. There was 
 an atmosphere of sacredness about it all. It is enough to break one’s 
 heart to see his grand white head among these hundreds of girls and 
 hear him plead wdth them for ‘noble, w r hite, unselfish womanhood,’ to 
 hear him tell of his hope and happiness in them and his longing that 
 the blood of Jesus Christ should cleanse them from all sin. That was 
 his text. I never heard and never shall hear anything quite like it for 
 clear logic and tender appeal.”— Alice Freeman Palmer, 110. 
 
116 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 be, not by some vague ideas banded down to me.” It should * 
 not be forgotten that all Wellesley students are required to 
 pass through this Unitarianizing mill; also that there is no 
 corrective in outside Bible study. “Because of this study [in 
 the class-room] the Christian Association has a definite back¬ 
 ground on which to base its voluntary Bible study classes. The 
 aim of these voluntary classes can be to work out the principles 
 already attained in required biblical history study into a code 
 for every day life.” 15 Wellesley College conducts a Community 
 School of Religious Education for training its students to 
 popularize what they have learned. It may be added that Prof. 
 Kendrick spent her sabbatical year in mission institutions in 
 the Far East in 1923, as Prof. Wild in 1924. 
 
 Prof. Kent, a dozen years ago, when reporting as chairman 
 of the R. E. A. sub-committee on Sunday school teachers* 
 training courses in colleges, said that “in equipment and variety 
 of courses the women’s colleges are far in advance of other 
 institutions.” 16 And a kindred spirit, Prof. I. F. Wood of 
 Smith, gives weighty reasons why “women’s colleges ought to 
 give special attention to religious education . . . because the 
 religion of the future is more in the hands of women than of 
 men. ... In the main the women’s colleges have responded to 
 the demand. . . . Most of them present the Bible in the light 
 of modem conceptions.” 17 
 
 Sophia Smith left in her will $375,000 to found an “evan¬ 
 gelically Christian” college for women at Northampton, Mass. 
 The third article of her will read, “Sensible of what the 
 Christian religion has done for myself and believing that all 
 education should be for the glory of God and the good of man, 
 
 I direct that the Holy Scriptures be daily and systematically 
 read and studied in said college and that all the discipline 
 shall be pervaded by the spirit of evangelical Christian religion.” 
 In order the more carefully to fulfil the wishes of the founder, 
 a Unitarian woman preacher, Rev. Margaret B. Crook, has 
 been made associate professor in biblical literature at Smith 
 College. Miss Crook comes from the Octagon Chapel, Nor- 
 
The Religious Education Association 117 
 
 wich, England, associated with the Martineaus, and employs 
 her leisure time in doing “missionary work” in the Middle 
 West, lecturing on “The Challenge of Fundamentalism for 
 Liberal Christianity,” etc. Prof. I. F. Wood, the head of the 
 Bible department, is a “modern” of the conventional type. 
 
 In his inaugural address at Bryn Mawr, President Rhoads, 
 speaking of the founder of the college, Dr. Joseph Wright 
 Taylor, said: 
 
 “As in the case of almost all of our institutions of learning 
 Bryn Mawr was founded in motives of Christian benevolence. 
 Dr. Taylor desired that it should ever maintain and teach an 
 evangelical and primitive Christianity as set forth in the New 
 Testament and the trustees will endeavor to carry out this 
 trust in the spirit in which it was imposed.” A letter from 
 an English Friend, Mr. J. Bevan Braithwaite, was also read 
 at these exercises. “We well know,” it ran, “that Dr. Taylor 
 had especially at heart in its establishment an education hal¬ 
 lowed and ennobled by the wisdom, the truth, and the love of 
 God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ... It was his prayer that 
 Bryn Mawr should become in the highest and most blessed 
 sense a school of Christ in which the students should learn 
 of Him under the training and gracious discipline of his Holy 
 Spirit the lessons of His truth and love. It was his joy to 
 devote his property to the noble purpose of preparing Christian 
 woman to take her just place of influence in the sin-stricken 
 and self-seeking world. . . . He would have the college ever 
 prove the presidency of the divine Master in a continual illus¬ 
 tration of the word which seemed like the keynote of his humble 
 and devoted life. ‘God forbid that I should glory save in the 
 Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ ” 18 
 
 That consummate scholar and saint, Dr. Rendel Harris, was 
 the ideal Bible teacher for Bryn Mawr. He was succeeded 
 by Prof. G. A. Barton. In running through Barton’s Jesus of 
 Nazareth [in the Great Leaders (!) Series] one recalls the 
 early German rationalists whom Strauss so unmercifully man¬ 
 handled. 
 
118 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 The leprosy which Jesus healed was presumably a curable 
 skin-disease. “In the moonlight [at Gethsemane] the per¬ 
 spiration looked like drops of blood.” On Galilee our Lord 
 rebuked the storm, saying “Peace, be still.” “One cannot help 
 wondering whether the words were not addressed to the com¬ 
 plaining disciples, but the wind, as so often happens there, 
 subsided as quickly as it had risen. . . . The disciples thought 
 that the blowing had ceased in obedience to their master’s 
 command.” “The contortions and cries of the mad man” was 
 that which scared the Gadarene swine into the sea. Jesus’ 
 prediction of a resurrection in three days was simply a prophecy 
 of a final resurrection, for the words “after three days” may 
 mean “in the future.” 
 
 The story of the Transfiguration “expresses in oriental 
 imagery the impressions made on uncritical minds.” “The 
 modern observer” would not have been so easily duped. “The 
 rainy season was not over and a dark cloud floated by. Perhaps 
 it thundered. . . . Now the thunder, if thunder it was, seemed 
 to the disciples to proclaim and confirm the fact that Jesus 
 was the Messiah, God’s own chosen Son.” The fish from whose 
 mouth the coin was taken by Jesus was really sold and the 
 proceeds paid the tax for Peter and his Lord. The miraculous 
 embroidery came in later time. The roots of the Communion 
 run into the fetishistic past. “Early men in many parts of the 
 world have thought that by eating the flesh of gods or heroes 
 they gained something of the spirit and power of the beings 
 whose flesh they consumed. Jesus in instituting the Communion 
 chose a symbolism which had been employed from the times 
 of the cave-dwelling men.” 19 
 
 And much more of the same sort. 
 
 It is hard to see how this old-fashioned rationalism can come 
 under the heading of that “evangelical Christianity” which 
 the founder intended should characterize the life of Bryn 
 Mawr. When we come to Prof. Leuba we have an unpardon¬ 
 able case of violation of a testator’s wishes. Leuba is an atheist 
 who glories in the prevalence of atheism in American college 
 
The Religions Education Association 
 
 119 
 
 faculties. The conclusion from his questionnaire [in “The 
 Belief in God and Immortality”] is “that disbelief in a personal 
 God and in personal immortality is directly proportional to 
 abilities making for success in the sciences.” Most of these 
 atheists, he tells us, “are teachers in schools of higher learning. 
 There is no class of men who on the whole rival them for 
 the influence exerted upon the educated public and upon the 
 young men from whom are to come most of the leaders of 
 the next generation.” That their influence is breaking down 
 Christian faith of students is registered by Prof. Leuba as a 
 matter of course. 
 
 “The student statistics show that young people enter college 
 possessed of the beliefs still accepted in the average home of 
 the land and that as their mental powers mature and their 
 horizon widens, a large percentage of them abandon the car¬ 
 dinal Christian beliefs. It seems probable that on leaving college 
 from 40% to 45% of the students with whom we are concerned 
 deny or doubt the fundamental dogmas of the Christian religion. 
 
 “The difference between these young people, the flower of 
 the land,” continues this professor of psychology in what was 
 founded to be a Christian college, “who turn to God when 
 they need him, and the Zulus who think of the spirits of their 
 forefathers only when they go to war, is that the savages never 
 disbelieve in the existence of these forefathers whereas in their 
 calm moments college men and woman do deny the God on 
 whom they call in time of their need.”* 20 
 
 *A death that ends all Leuba thinks “a satisfactory, even a desirable 
 goal.”. . . “Many of the most distinguished moralists condemn the be¬ 
 lief [in immortality] as ethically wrong,” 313. Yet “much is made of 
 it among benighted Christian populations,” 313. 
 
 Prof. Leuba has the fanatic spirit of Soviet atheism. He would tear 
 down all that reminds of God. The Thanksgiving Proclamations should 
 be discontinued. “From an expression of genuine belief this custom has 
 become an objectionable tradition which, the sooner it is abandoned, 
 the better for those who keep it up and for those to whom it is addressed. 
 It w 7 ere better instead that we should be taught to realize our depen¬ 
 dence upon each other and the gratitude we owe to the millions who 
 strive, often in material distress, in order to build our material and 
 spiritual prosperity .”—Belief in God and Immortality, 324. 
 
 President Garfield of Williams tells of “an attempt made during 
 
120 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 In Matthew Vassar’s address at the first meeting of the 
 board of trustees of Vassar College he insisted that “the train¬ 
 ing of our students should never be intrusted to the skeptical 
 or the irreligious. ,,21 Prof. Durant Drake is a member of 
 the council of the Religious Education Association. The 
 American Unitarian Association publishes his tract, What 
 Religious Education Might Be. 
 
 “The so-called religious education of today,” he tells us, 
 “consists chiefly of bits of the history [or pseudo-history] and 
 literature of the Jews. ... I raise the question whether the 
 Old Testament legends and chronicles or even the gospel inci¬ 
 dents and the missionary journeys of Paul are the directest and 
 most vital means of awakening or reinforcing the religious life 
 of youth. To try to awaken interest in the religion of today 
 through a study of the Psalms and sermons and anecdotes of the 
 Jews of two thousand years ago is a curious pedagogical inver¬ 
 sion.” He deprecates spending time in “the exegesis of old Jew¬ 
 ish legends and of the hasty letters which an early Christian 
 missionary wrote to his infant churches instead of grappling by 
 day and by night to understand the extremely complex problems 
 of today.” The account of the life and character of Jesus given 
 by most Christian churches is described as “naively unhistorical. 
 This embroidery of miracles, this acceptance at their face value 
 of the biased and na'ive chronicles of the Jewish and Christian 
 writers, is one of the baneful aspects of modern Bible teaching.” 
 
 the year to place before students through the morning chapel readings 
 some conception of the development of the idea of God . . . from the 
 conception of Jehovah as a tribal deity, jealous and revengeful, to a 
 righteous and merciful God of all nations.” C.E. Nov. ’24:29. To 
 Prof. J. B. Pratt who is the successor of that great Christian educator, 
 Mark Hopkins, in the chair of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at 
 Williams we owe the following sentences: “The Bible has lost all hold 
 on the leaders of thought and certainly is destined before many years 
 to become one of the curiosities of the past. . . . The inspiration of 
 those who spake a ‘Thus saith the Lord’ is of only a little higher type 
 than that of the whirling dervishes and heathen medicine men.” 
 
 Mr. H. S. Dulaney, a trustee of Goucher College, in resigning, wrote 
 “I am led by my own investigations to the conclusion that the Bible 
 teaching in the classes of Goucher college . . . calls into question and 
 casts doubt upon the inspiration, credibility, and integrity of the Bible.” 
 —H. P. Sloan, The New Infidelity, 37. 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 121 
 
 Prof. H. T. Fowler has the chair of Biblical History and 
 Literature in Brown University. His Origin and Growth of 
 the Hebrew Religion is a University of Chicago publication in 
 Religious Education. The Jehovah of the Old Testament is 
 in his opinion a tribal deity, a god with a small “g” (171) 
 in contrast to the universal God whom Israel discovered in 
 polytheistic Babylon. The religious evolution was from “a 
 nomad god recognized by a small confederation of tribes” to 
 one with “the more complex functions of the deity of an 
 agricultural nation,” his “sphere of influence” having been 
 “transferred to the land of Canaan.” “But it required the 
 experience of exile, the widened view of the world below and 
 the starry heavens above, such as came after years of life amid 
 the culture of ancient Babylon, to bring to conscious expression 
 the definite doctrine of God as the creator of all things.” 
 And Israel owed as much to the idolaters of Canaan as to 
 those of Babylon even if the “the starry heavens” above Pales¬ 
 tine had no lesson for them. “There was a genuine enrichment 
 of the Mosaic religion from the elements absorbed [from Can- 
 naanite religious practices]. It was impossible for the mass 
 of the people even to come to know the great and awful Deity 
 of Sinai’s thunderclouds . . . except by the road they traveled 
 of first mingling with his worship, that of the agricultural 
 Canaanites. 
 
 “Much of the Canaanite ritual was preserved in purified 
 form in the religion of Israel and its ceremonies became 
 a mighty force. They played a great part in preserving through 
 darkest days faith in a God not made with hands, eternal in 
 the heavens.” Ahab and Jezebel then might be conceived of 
 as supporters of Israel’s faith as the Marcu9 Aurelius on the 
 Brown University campus that of the Christians of Lyons and 
 Vienne. 22 
 
 Prof. Fowler has been chairman of a committee of the 
 Religious Education Association, one purpose of which seems 
 to be to devise the best means of breaking to high school boys 
 the fact of the impossibility of miracles. 23 
 
122 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Amherst was founded with a profound Christian and mis¬ 
 sionary purpose. The motive of the founders in the dedication 
 of their gifts is said to be “commiseration for our destitute 
 brethren” and “obedience to the command of our divine Saviour 
 to preach the Gospel to every creature.” The first building 
 was dedicated to Christ and his Church, an allusion, no doubt, 
 to the college it was to succeed in the Christian leadership of 
 New England. A Bible chair at Amherst has been filled in 
 late years by one who was at the center of the movement 
 culminating in the betrayal of Andover to Harvard and who 
 declares that the time has now come for the reunion of Con¬ 
 gregationalism with Unitarianism. 
 
 Prof. Peritz teaches the Bible in Syracuse University and 
 is prominent in the councils of the R. E. A. His Old Testa - 
 merit History is a favorite textbook in college Bible courses. It 
 is dedicated to his teacher, Prof. Toy of the Harvard Divinity 
 School. Prof. Peritz thinks that “the uncritical use of the 
 Bible in taking everything just as it stands has led in a large 
 measure to a distortion of God’s way in dealing with man.” 
 He will not be guilty of this mistake. He tells us that “later 
 generations of Hebrews, conscious of what Moses had done 
 for them as a nation, delighted to weave about him strange 
 happenings much as we do about Washington.” So, for example, 
 we are to think [after the manner of Dr. Paulus] of Jehovah 
 “in connection with a volcanic mountain whose symbols were 
 the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, terrible 
 to behold or approach.” 24 
 
 Dr. W. J. Mutch of Ripon College [Congregational] active 
 in the R. E. A., tells us that “the religion of the Williams 
 College of the days of the historic haystack prayer-meeting or 
 of the Mt. Plolyoke of Mary Lyon’s time” has become extinct. 
 It was a type that was “consciously Christian without much 
 analysis of the factors of its character.” 25 Dr. Mutch does 
 not grieve over this change. Another R. E. A. leader, Prof. 
 Votaw of the University of Chicago, looks for the time when 
 the hold of Christian contributors on the institutions they 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 123 
 
 founded shall be altogether a thing of the past. In Religious 
 Education, 1910, 299, he says, “The American college began 
 as an institution of religion. This status is passing. Some 
 denominational colleges have discontinued their ecclesiastical 
 connections and others will do so in the future on the same prin¬ 
 ciple that the public schools are free from church control. Our 
 educational institutions have the right to self-determination 
 when they have achieved their majority. This will on the whole 
 prove best for all progressive interests.” 
 
 These notes will perhaps suffice to show how generally the 
 Bible departments in church colleges have been perverted from 
 the evangelical wishes of their founders. The great state 
 universities though owing much to Christian ministers [those 
 of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and California were 
 founded by such] and bearing the marks of Christian influence 
 [the seal of the University of Kansas being a burning bush 
 and that of the University of Indiana an open Bible] cannot 
 in the nature of the case undertake Christian instruction. The 
 churches, therefore, have established outside their walls foun¬ 
 dations, university pastorates, and even Bible schools for the 
 religious instruction of their studying youth. Now it is impor¬ 
 tant that the quarter of a million young people in the ninety 
 higher state institutions of America also receive a coat of mod¬ 
 ernist paint. This is especially so in view of the benighted 
 beliefs of the households whence they come. 
 
 “A large proportion of the students in tax-supported universi¬ 
 ties,” wrote Prof. C. F. Kent in 1923, “come from homes where 
 the instruction in religion has been of the sectarian and funda¬ 
 mentalist type. ... It is not strange, therefore, that thousands 
 of these students when they realize how impossible is the seven¬ 
 teenth century faith taught them in their childhood, make the 
 fatal mistake of discarding all religion ." 20 
 
 Obviously this must be remedied. A National Council of 
 Schools of Religion has been organized of which Prof. Kent was, 
 as of so many of these enterprises, the leader. On its com¬ 
 mittee appear most of the ultra-moderns, Fosdick, Jenks, 
 
124 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Merrill, Willett, Mathews, Bade, Soares, Barton, Wild, Merri- 
 field, Athearn, Faunce, Sanders, Hocking, Wood, Cadbury. 
 President Eliot is an active member of the General Advisory 
 Committee of the Council. The Unitarians have for years 
 subsidized Unitarian churches at university centers. The time 
 is come to fill them with young people from Christian homes. 
 I know of course that the scheme is “non-sectarian” in the old 
 sense, Jews and Catholics being among its incorporators, but it 
 represents its own special sectarianism. We have, indeed, 
 nothing else here than a modernist drive at the state uni¬ 
 versities. 
 
 In 1921 Kent was despatched to the West to reconnoitre. 
 His friends described him as “the circuit-rider” of the new 
 evangelism. His mission was guided by the Council of the 
 Church Boards of Education and was thus given a quasi-official 
 endorsement of the chief churches of the country. 27 This did 
 not prevent his giving great offense to the western obscurantists, 
 as for example when he told them that “one might as well speak 
 of the wool of the Lamb as of the blood of the Lamb.” 
 
 In 1924 the first formal move was attempted. The Univer¬ 
 sity of Michigan was chosen as initial field of operation. A 
 strong committee of Detroit capitalists was organized [with 
 society patronesses and dinners at the Statler which would cer¬ 
 tainly have amazed an old-time circuit rider like Asbury with a 
 salary of $80 per annum]. A drive for $1,200,000 was insti¬ 
 tuted. Prof. Kent explained in his promotional literature that 
 the moment had arrived when “if the religious needs of our 
 present civilization can be properly presented, the youth of 
 America can be depended on to respond to the call to become 
 apostles of the faith first proclaimed by the prophets and sup¬ 
 plemented today by the findings of our great poets, clergymen, 
 scientists, and men of action. ... A creed formulated when 
 everyone believed that the earth was flat and that the sun re¬ 
 volved about the earth does not satisfy this normal craving. 
 Hence the wide-spread revolt of youth against mediaeval 
 theology and its unnatural vernacular.” 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 125 
 
 What they really crave, he went on to say, is a faith which 
 embodies “the highest visions of truth and reality vouchsafed 
 to the noblest prophets of the race whether it be Confucius, 
 or Buddha, or Plato, or Isaiah, or Jesus.” 28 
 
 At the date of writing the Michigan School of Religion is, in 
 the words of Prof. Kent’s co-worker [Dr. O. D. Foster, univer¬ 
 sity secretary of the Council of Church Boards of Education], 
 in an “ethereal and embryonic” stage “born in a manger but 
 still struggling with its swaddling clothes.” 29 Dr. Foster has 
 explained the status desired for these schools. They “should 
 be independent and yet affiliated with the university, perhaps 
 through an interlocking directorate. The dean should be the 
 full equal of the deans of the university.” 30 “It is not impos¬ 
 sible,” wrote Prof. Kent, “that many of these schools of re¬ 
 ligion will in time be made regular departments of the state 
 colleges or universities. Already plans are being considered at 
 two or three centers to make the school of religion from the 
 first a regular department of the state university.” 31 Later 
 systematic investigations of the legal situation “have made it 
 clear” we are told “that in most states religious instruction 
 can be offered in the curriculum itself. The report published 
 as Bulletin V of the Council has shown that a majority of the 
 institutional and legal provisions supposed to make religious 
 instruction impossible are directed against sectarianism but not 
 against religion itself.” 32 
 
 In other words, to a state university where no religious tests 
 can be established a school of religion is to be attached, to all 
 intents and purposes a great established institution of religion.* 
 
 ♦“Theoretically these institutions are not supposed to teach religion 
 and in the main they do not, but gradually courses, religious and semi¬ 
 religious, are beginning to permeate their curriculum .”—Bulletin of the 
 Nat. Council on Religion and Higher Education, IV, 3. 
 
 It may be asked why objection is not raised against the present rep¬ 
 resentation of the churches at the University as a violation of the 
 American tradition of the separation of church and state. The answer 
 is obvious. Their status is wholly private and they have been placed 
 there not to conduct propaganda but to shepherd the membership of the 
 churches they represent. On the other hand Professor Kent distinctly stated 
 the purpose of these Schools of Religion to be propaganda: “The main 
 
126 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 It is to be directed by a group of men representing certain defi¬ 
 nite religious opinions, or as many would think, anti-religious 
 opinions ;* it is directed as Prof. Kent has intimated in so many 
 words, against the evangelical faith and for propaganda among 
 those who hold such a faith. Any other religious organization 
 could hardly be established in competition with it in view of 
 its priority and prestige and financial endowment. It would 
 monopolize the ground and this is no doubt intended. Its pro¬ 
 moters hope to bring into it wherever possible all the existing 
 church foundations at state universities. 33 
 
 According to the Michigan Alumnus , Dec. 20, J 23, “a work¬ 
 ing arrangement with the Michigan Agricultural College is also 
 planned to carry the religious influence of the school to remote 
 communities of the state by development of workers for their 
 social welfare in a religious non-sectarian [read Unitarian-mod- 
 ernist] way.” Apparently instructors in religious education for 
 the day schools of Michigan are also to be trained in these 
 schools of religion. “The last annual conference of the R. E. A. 
 was devoted to week-day religious education and proved to be 
 
 objective in a modern state school of religion is to expose” [as to an 
 infection!] “the undergraduates in the state universities to courses in 
 religion that will meet the vital needs of which the majority are now 
 only dimly conscious” C.E. April, 1923:354. 
 
 In Christian Education (1924:192) we are told that in the Depart¬ 
 ment of Religious Education at the University of Oklahoma “the instruc¬ 
 tors enjoy all the rights and privileges of the regular members of the 
 faculty. The chief difference between them and the other members of 
 the faculty lies in the fact that the churches nominate the professors 
 and provide their salaries, w r hich pass through the treasury of the 
 University. The scheme gives dignity and standing which could not 
 well come in an affiliated or independent school.” 
 
 It would seem about time to call for injunctions! 
 
 *The Commission of the Religious Education Association to investi¬ 
 gate the preparation of religious leaders in universities and colleges 
 issued a report (R.E. Vol. 7:338) signed by Drs. Fosdick, Starbuck, 
 Doggett and others. This quotes the president of one of our most 
 dignified universities “w T ho prefers not to have his name quoted.” “The 
 time is, I believe, at hand when all intelligent Protestant bodies must 
 accept the new and higher criticism which makes the Bible glow with 
 a new light. They must also accept the psychology of religion which 
 begins with nature worship . . . and works up to the worship of human¬ 
 ity. .. . This sort of thing my own experience with students convinces me 
 they want more than anything else and cramming with dogmas and 
 ecclesiastical attitudes repels the natural mind.” 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 127 
 
 a time of great enthusiasm for the cause. The question of 
 providing for the college training of instructors in this field 
 was faced frankly and intelligently. ,, 
 
 The inimitable Dr. Foster tells us in speaking of these schools 
 of religion that “the New Jerusalem has not gotten out of the 
 clouds though glimpses of it are being had here and there.” 34 
 These glimpses reveal Rockefeller money set apart for develop¬ 
 ing leaders for the schools. Twenty-four holders of fellowships 
 are in training chiefly at the Harvard, Union, and University 
 of Chicago divinity schools. The administrators of this fund 
 are H. E. Fosdick, C. F. Kent and H. W. Rogers. At the 
 University of Michigan itself $300,000 endowment has already 
 been secured and a special fund of $25,000 yearly for three 
 years subscribed to launch the project. The first two lecturers 
 under its auspices are Prof. Lake, a thorough-paced sceptic from 
 the Harvard Theological School, and Prof. Case of the Univer¬ 
 sity of Chicago, who would run him a close second. The 
 courses count for degrees as any other in the university. The 
 names on the commission to select libraries for these schools 
 reveal the thoroughly partisan character of the movement. 35 
 
 The Council of the Church Boards of Education has taken 
 the lead in organizing Schools of Religion as well as an Asso¬ 
 ciation of Schools of Religion.* The Council is supported by 
 subsidies from the denominational educational boards.f “It 
 brings into co-operative relation,” wrote Prof. Kent (Scribners, 
 March, ’23), “the educational resources of twenty leading 
 Protestant denominations [and is] a potent constructive force 
 
 *“The guidance of the growth of the schools of religion has been for 
 many years one of the greatest challenges of our Council. . . . We are 
 being looked to more and more as the central bureau for Protestant 
 schools of religious instruction. Patience and perseverance will see won¬ 
 ders done here during the next decade.” C.E., Jan. 1925:144. 
 
 fThe Baptist educational secretary, Dr. Padclford, recommends a 
 foundation to finance this Council. He sees “tremendous possibilities” 
 in the Kentian Schools of Religion at state universities. C.E., 1923:336. 
 Wiser is the judgment of an unnamed college president on the Bible 
 teaching in colleges, “I believe that much teaching is today not only 
 a failure to do what needs to be done but is an assault on the essentials 
 of Christian faith.” C.E., 1922:146. 
 
128 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 through the educational institutions for training the church 
 leaders of the future.” The public knows little of it. “Its 
 work has been steady and quiet,” says Mr. Micou, its president, 
 “without much publicity.” Prof. Kent has been co-editor of 
 its organ, Christian Education. Dr. R. L. Kelly, the secretary 
 of the Council, is active in the Religious Education Association 
 and has lately served on its committee of five to formulate 
 constitutional modifications. Other important positions held by 
 him are membership in the Administrative Committee of the 
 Federal Council of Churches and chairmanship of the sub-coni' 
 mittee on student work of the Y. M. C. A. and of the Y. W. 
 C. A. Commission on the Approach to the Churches. These 
 relationships give him the confidence of wealthy Christians. 
 “More and more information and recommendations are sought,” 
 he writes, “by foundations and philanthropists who wish to con¬ 
 fer financial benefits to institutions. During the year the Coun¬ 
 cil has responded to requests for information of this sort con¬ 
 cerning no less than fifty colleges and seminaries and we have 
 been assured that many of these institutions have been listed 
 for financial benefits either in the form of gifts or inclusion in 
 wills.” 36 
 
 This Council serves as a liaison, more or less definite, between 
 the Religious Education Association and the evangelical 
 churches.* It is working out with the R. E. A. courses in 
 religious education for “colleges upon religious foundations.” 
 The R. E. A. has further drawn up a memorial on Bible as 
 a college entrance credit to be presented to college and univer¬ 
 sity authorities jointly by the R. E. A. and the Council of the 
 Church Boards of Education. The Council has also set “a 
 
 *Dr. Cavert, Sec’y of the Federal Council of Churches, writes in 
 The Teaching Work of the Church, 224: “In any educational council 
 of the Protestant churches the Religious Education Association ought 
 to have representation at least as an advisory body so that its facilities 
 for research and for wider discussion may be more fully utilized by 
 the churches. If some way could be found for bringing the offices of 
 the Religious Education Association and the central offices of the needed 
 educational council of the churches into close physical proximity . . . 
 it would be a most advantageous arrangement.” 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 129 
 
 commission to define a unit for secondary schools.” Prof. Wild 
 of Mt. Holyoke and Prof. Willett of the University of Chicago 
 [with the late Prof. Kent] are on this commission and Dr. 
 Kelly is its chairman. 
 
 That the Religious Education Association with its Jews and 
 Unitarians, its Leubas and Starbucks,* should actually be en¬ 
 gaged in drawing up a religious-educational scheme for the 
 Christian institutions of the country is perhaps the last word 
 in effrontery. Yet this is the case and its department of uni¬ 
 versities and colleges of which the free-thinker Prof. Starbuck 
 has been executive secretary has a committee for the standardiza¬ 
 tion of college and university biblical departments which has 
 been at work seven years and has classified about three hundred 
 of the colleges. And the official representative of the evan¬ 
 gelical churches [the Council of the Church Boards of Educa¬ 
 tion] is co-operating. “More and more,” says President Micou, 
 “it is appearing that our chief task is to unify all the religious 
 educational forces at work in normal schools, universities, pro¬ 
 fessional schools, and theological seminaries.” “The serious 
 attempt to standardize such departments has begun,” writes Dr. 
 Kelly. This is naturally awakening protest. “The complaint,” 
 he continues, “is sometimes made that the modern teacher of 
 the Bible ‘upsets’ his students; that his teaching tends to unsettle 
 the faith of their childhood. . . . Prof. Wood of Smith answers 
 that the happier conception of religion which it is the business 
 of the biblical departments to develop is far more frequent 
 among students than it was a few years ago.” 37 
 
 “Out of these centres [the universities] will come a new inter¬ 
 pretation of life and religion,” says Dr. Foster, Secretary of the 
 
 *Prof. Starbuck in his Psychology of Religion takes the super out of 
 the supernatural in Christian experience. “The facts of conversion are 
 manifestations of natural processes,” 143. “The religious experience 
 known in theological terms as sanctification lends itself readily to psy¬ 
 chological analysis,” 375. “The central thing underlying all these phe¬ 
 nomena [conversion] seems to be the birth of the reproductive life,” 
 147. Conversion is compared to overcoming dislike to onions or ba¬ 
 nanas. Diagrams are given on page 84 representing the “feelings at 
 the time of conversion,”—circles with segments of circles and lettering, 
 imposing constructions- 
 
130 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Council. “The church teachings cannot be cast into the mould 
 of antiquated ecclesiastical dogma and command respect. They 
 must undergo the most thorough-going criticism and be brought 
 before the bar of reason to answer for themselves. . . . The 
 university provides with its scientific method. . . comparative 
 freedom from religious bias. Adequately equipped union schools 
 of religion at the great universities should be in a most favorable 
 position to give to the world what it has never really enjoyed— 
 a scientific theology. . . . All these needs cannot be met without 
 great sums of money. It is a most solemn fact that unless the 
 church expects to bid adieu to a large percentage of her most 
 promising young people she must meet this challenge.” Christian 
 Education (1921), the Kent-Kelly-Foster organ, counts up with 
 delight the gigantic sums in process of extraction from the Chris¬ 
 tian public for allegedly Christian education. It totals two hun¬ 
 dred and forty millions of which seventeen millions are for 
 theological seminaries .* “To succeed,” continues Dr. Foster, 
 “the proposed schools of religion must have a recognized agency 
 to foster them [presumably the Council of which he is the 
 secretary] . . . assurance of donors . . . and security from 
 unnecessary sectarian attacks.” 38 
 
 There is the scheme in a nutshell. The money for these 
 enterprises at the universities and elsewhere which the Religious 
 Education Association and the Council of the Church Boards of 
 Education are so interested in, is to be given by the churches 
 and those who give it are to be forbidden to criticize the wildly 
 rationalistic religion which is to be injected into the studying 
 youth of the churches. 
 
 Dr. Foster is also related to the recently established inter¬ 
 denominational university pastorates. “No chart or charter for 
 anything of this kind existed,” we are told. “Without any code 
 
 *These people are materialists to the fingertips. “We used to hear 
 it said,” remarks a prominent leader in the Religious Education Asso¬ 
 ciation, “that the best thermometer of the church’s spirituality is the 
 prayer-meeting. We do not hear this saying any longer.” The test 
 suggested to take its place is the amount of money devoted to religious 
 education by the church. 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 131 
 
 except personal confidence and a fraternal spirit, Baptist, Con¬ 
 gregational, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Disciple official 
 moneys have been pooled in a common purse and the state 
 agricultural schools of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
 Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, California, Montana, 
 and Idaho have been provided with pastorates.” 39 Secretary W. 
 F. Sheldon of the Methodist Board thinks that pastors to fill 
 these positions should be chosen by representatives of the educa¬ 
 tional boards and of local interests under the guidance of the 
 University Committee of the Council of the Church Boards of 
 Education of which the very aufgeklaert Dr. Foster is secre¬ 
 tary. 40 
 
 During the past twenty years conference centers for college 
 young people have been established at Silver Bay, Estes Park, 
 Asilomar, Geneva, Blue Ridge, and Seabec to strengthen the 
 Christian life with Bible study. The Council of the Church 
 Boards of Education has apparently been given a certain leader¬ 
 ship in these conferences. The deans of the men’s conferences 
 receive their appointment at the hand of the Council. Of the 
 women’s conferences Dr. Foster says, “If the way opens for me 
 to get into one or more of these conferences in a vital way I 
 shall take advantage of the opportunity after which we may be 
 in a position to recommend something more definite another 
 year. In time we shall arrive at more satisfactory relation¬ 
 ships.” 41 In one year 2,163 students have attended these con¬ 
 ferences, 604 coming from foreign countries.* 
 
 The literature which has been poured into the market by 
 religious educationists is ordinarily marked by an uninspiring 
 dullness. In reading it one is too often reminded of Artemus 
 Ward’s old jibe about selling “Punch” by the pound. One 
 wonders, for example, of many of these publications of the 
 
 *The Council of Church Boards of Education has drawn up 24 
 recommendations for the conduct of these conferences. No. 19 urges 
 “that serious attention be given to the presentation of Christian funda¬ 
 mentals in a manner consistent with modern scholarship and learning.’’ 
 No. 22 “that the two representatives appointed by the Council of Church 
 Boards of Education be members of the committee which builds the 
 program of the conference. One of these should he as far as practicable 
 
132 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 University of Chicago if they would ever see the light of day 
 save for the kindly offices of a non-commercial press. The 
 Religious Education Association and its related organizations 
 are active in commending to a reluctant market the literature of 
 its members. 
 
 A commission has prepared two lists of “the most impor¬ 
 tant books in the field of religion,” one of 500 volumes 
 for smaller universities, colleges and Y. M. C. A/s; the other 
 of 1,500 for schools of religion and larger colleges.* For sec¬ 
 ondary schools we are told that the library should have at least 
 fifteen of the following, Buck’s Life of Jesus (Unitarian), 
 Peake’s New Century Bible , Soares’ Heroes of Israel and the 
 works of Sanders, Mathews, Willett, Gilbert, and Kent. A 
 report on Standardization of Biblical Departments in Colleges 
 by Profs. Kent, Sanders and Wild issues a list of 250 books 
 authorized (!) by the Association of Bible Teachers in Col¬ 
 leges. 42 It is standardized along the same line of authorship. 
 A graded course in the life of Jesus commends for children 
 from twelve to fourteen —Lives of Jesus by Gates and Forbush; 
 for those between fourteen and eighteen, Lives by Burgess and 
 
 the university secretary of the Council,” i. e., Dr. O. D. Foster! A 
 similar series of recommendations is to be worked out in the Y. W. C. A. 
 C.E. 1921:8, 9. 
 
 ^President Micou says of the Council of Church Boards of Education: 
 “We have now a group of three women students who can act as liaison 
 officers in dealing with the national boards of the Y. W. C. A. as our 
 various university secretaries have been for some years dealing with 
 the International Committee of the Y. M. C. A.” C.E. ’22:9. 
 
 Northfield has caught the infection and the Northfield School of 
 Sunday school Methods has changed its name to the Northfield School 
 of Religious Education with a modernist, Dr. N. E. Richardson, in 
 charge. The Unitarian religious education leader, Dr. W. I. Lawrence, 
 in commenting on this “transfer of emphasis” says, “The theme for it3 
 next session is Religious Education and Reconstruction and its aim is 
 to present the great call of the reconstruction task. Here is religion 
 attempting to function not in mere religion but in better society.” R.E. 
 Vol. 14:190 and C.R. 1919:492. 
 
 The churches too are to serve as outlets for this literature. “Every 
 church may reasonably be expected to provide the necessary tools for 
 its workers in religious education and hence to maintain a library of 
 the most useful books on the subject [Kent, Wild, Coe, Betts, Peabody 
 are named]. The school should hold at least one membership in the 
 Religious Education Association ($4 yearly).” R.E., Vol. 15:53. 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 133 
 
 Bosworth; over eighteen the writings of Burton, Mathews, 
 Jenks, and Kent’s Life and Teachings of Jesus , 43 
 
 A Declaration of Principles of Religious Education prepared 
 by Messrs. Sanders, Kent, Votaw, Coe, Soares, and others 
 “presses on the conscience of the church that missionary 
 societies, theological seminaries, and training schools for 
 missionaries unite to provide expert leaders in religious edu¬ 
 cation for mission service and that schools for the training of 
 lay workers in religious education be established in all parts of 
 the country.” 44 
 
 Dr. Sanders, an old-time Wellhausen popularizer, is sec¬ 
 retary of the Board of Missionary Preparation, which is 
 supported jointly by the chief foreign mission boards and 
 has its function, apparently, to provide a sort of finishing 
 course to those who are starting to the foreign field. In 1924 
 a Joint Advisory Committee on Methods and Materials for 
 Religious Education on the Foreign Field was established with 
 Prof. Luther Weigle as chairman. [Prof. Weigle, with Prof. 
 Starbuck, is mentioned in the 1917 report of the American 
 Unitarian Association as preparing a series of textbooks for 
 Unitarian Sunday schools.] This committee is to provide a 
 single centre from which to make available to Sunday school 
 associations, curriculum committees, lesson writers, and other 
 workers in religious education in foreign lands, the experience 
 gained in the development of religious education in the United 
 States. 
 
 To attempt to follow all the plans for training Religious 
 Education leaders and teachers would carry us far afield. A 
 new profession we are told has been brought into being. Direc¬ 
 tors of Religious Education are being appointed by the churches 
 to have full charge of Sunday school and Christian En¬ 
 deavor. 
 
 “These are not assistant pastors but expert advisors and execu¬ 
 tive heads of the department of Religious Education.” Groups 
 of churches are invited to unite in hiring one of these new offi¬ 
 cials in case they cannot finance him alone. 
 
134 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Then there are to be directors of week-day and vacation 
 schools of religion, field directors of religious education for 
 Christian Associations, educational superintendents for denomi¬ 
 national boards, professors of religious education in church col¬ 
 leges, directors of community schools for religious education, 
 educational and evangelistic leaders in foreign mission fields—a 
 whole hierarchy of office holders and supernumeraries to “eat the 
 church,” to use the Chinese expression. One thinks of the 
 multitudinous “workers” of the mediaeval church—brown 
 friars, black friars, white friars, gray friars. Follow a proces¬ 
 sion o'f Americanization workers, settlement workers, directors 
 of forums, story tellers, women trained in the fundamentals of 
 social engineering, workers to transform the rural school and 
 church into centers of community welfare. “During the past 
 two decades there has developed a well-defined body of knowl¬ 
 edge regarding the development of religion in children and 
 adults and of pedagogical methods of teaching religion [I am 
 quoting from the Bulletin of the School of Religious Education 
 in Boston University , 47].* A very definite technique is being 
 formulated—scales, score-cards, and standards of measurement 
 for measuring the processes of religious growth. Already liter¬ 
 ally thousands of persons are employed as experts in the appli¬ 
 cation of this specialized knowledge to the spiritual needs of 
 human beings. Almost without our knowledge a new profession 
 equipped with all the elements necessary for professional service 
 
 *Prof. F. L. Strickland gives courses in the Foreign Mission depart¬ 
 ment of the Boston University School of Religion. In his book, "The 
 Foundations of Christian Belief,” he says (196): “It is not very long 
 since the opinion prevailed among intelligent Christian people that the 
 non-Christian religions are altogether false and unworthy of any con¬ 
 sideration. The religions of the world were confidently divided into 
 two classes,—the true religions, which included Judaism and Christi¬ 
 anity and the false religions, which included all others. But this dubious 
 and provincial way of thinking about God’s relation to the greater part 
 of the human race began to undergo transformation when the great 
 non-Christian religions became better known.” Prof. Strickland has 
 no old wives’ notions about prayer. He says on 234: “Religious books 
 written by pious people . . . filled with a lot of anecdotes of miracu¬ 
 lous answers to prayer [may be] of some interest and cause us to won¬ 
 der as we read them, but they are not convincing.” This is a textbook 
 used in the school. 
 
The Religious Education 'Association 
 
 135 
 
 has sprung Minerva-like into existence. The new profession 
 is here. The question is shall the graduate schools of the land 
 standardize this new profession and make its practice safe and 
 trustworthy?” 
 
 All these “workers” are being duly tinctured with Kent and 
 Sanders and Shailer Mathews, as a glance at the reserved shelves 
 of the Boston University School of Religious Education shows. 
 And they are going to carry their modified and modernized 
 Gospel to the uttermost ends of the earth. “The period of 
 world reconstruction is calling for foreign missionary leader¬ 
 ship such as no previous age has witnessed. The newly democ¬ 
 ratized nations of the world are demanding Christian teachers, 
 preachers, and social workers more rapidly than they can be 
 adequately trained. Methodist boards are asking for six hun¬ 
 dred new missionaries each year. ... If the church is 
 to build up a system of religious education which will 
 spiritualize the ideals of democratic world-society there must 
 be raised up a vast army of religious teachers, administrators, 
 and editors. 
 
 Nor is this all. “It is the profound conviction of this school 
 that the church must again become the mother of artists and 
 the generous patron of their works. As a contribution toward 
 the preparation of leadership in this important field an unusual 
 group of outstanding artists has been assembled as a permanent 
 faculty for a distinct department of fine arts in religion.” An 
 American Pageant Association has been founded in Boston. 
 “Workers” in this department are offered a course in the evolu¬ 
 tion of the drama, expounding its laws as formulated by Lope 
 de Vega, Racine, Lessing, Goethe, Brunetiere, Shaw, and Archer. 
 A course in the technique of pageant accompanies it with instruc¬ 
 tion in the making of hats and properties and simple background 
 together with the writing of plays and pageants, adapted to 
 church or social “work.” The bulletin tells us that “students 
 must not allow their evangelistic fervor to wane while they are 
 acquiring vocational technique.” They are to keep themselves 
 “God-intoxicated!” as if that would be possible to the most 
 
136 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 k 
 
 experienced mystic in such an atmosphere of spiritual disper¬ 
 sion.* 45 
 
 Nor are pre-college maidens to be forgotten. A committee 
 of the National Association of Bible Instructors in American 
 Colleges is studying with the Headmistresses Association the 
 problems of biblical and religious education at the girls’ prepara¬ 
 tory and finishing schools. A modernist heads the education com¬ 
 mittee of the Boy Scouts. Reading courses for ministers have 
 been laid out; city Bible institutes [as in Providence and New 
 Haven] instituted with Profs. Kent, Sanders, Bacon, Moore, 
 Tyson and others lecturing. The religious week-day teaching 
 in public schools is to be pre-empted and one thinks of religious 
 educationists waiting on its emergence as cutworms on garden 
 greens.f 
 
 Yet they are not indeed waiting idly. The state normal 
 schools have not been neglected. In Religious Education (Vol. 
 11: p. 110) is a paper by Prof. G. A. Coe, entitled “A General 
 View of the Movement for Correlating Religious Education 
 with Public Instruction.” From it one learns that the State 
 Normal School of Greeley, Colorado, has been inveigled into 
 giving credit for the study of Kent’s Historical Bible and other 
 modernist literature. “Here evidently the methods and the 
 products of scholarly study are frankly assumed.” Consequently 
 
 ^President Micou of the Council of Church Boards of Education 
 says: “The church is being won rapidly to dramatics and pageantry.” 
 C.E., ’22:179. Again in speaking of the university pastors, after explain¬ 
 ing that they have to meet the opposition of the local pastors to their 
 “high-grade religious education” he says: “The fact that the local com¬ 
 mittee does not permit student pastors to have dancing makes the cleav¬ 
 age very great.” C.E., 1922:7. 
 
 fWhat is in store for the children in the public school comes out 
 in some sentences of Prof. J. M. Artman of the Department of Religious 
 Education in the University of Chicago which appear in Cope’s Week¬ 
 day Religious Education. “The methods of Jesus, of Paul, of Moses, of 
 Mahomet (!) are to be studied with open minds. All those using the 
 Bible as the text either as literature or for -purposes of dogmatic doc¬ 
 trinal teaching miss entirely the scientific method. The only foundation 
 for a course in religious education is life itself.” 103-4. “It would seem 
 wise to utilize all the great Bibles, all literatures, all histories, the arts 
 and sciences, because science certainly has given us great help in liv¬ 
 ing,” 110. 
 
The Religious Education Association 
 
 137 
 
 “the Sunday-schools” where the normal-trained teachers will 
 perhaps teach on their rest day will be stimulated to take up 
 in earnest their own proper task of producing understanding, 
 appreciation, and character.” Prof. Coe disapproves of the 
 North Dakota plan, “which aims, directly at least, at nothing 
 but a certain degree of intelligence concerning the Bible” (115) 
 whereas “the controlling conception in Colorado is the religious 
 needs of the high school pupils.” “How many Sunday-schools 
 will use this [North Dakota] non-historical syllabus ... as 
 an opportunity to keep alive anti-critical interpretations of the 
 Bible and merely traditional conceptions of piety,” 114. The 
 sectarian purposes of Religion Educationists in public institu¬ 
 tions are clearly enough indicated in these words. 
 
 REFERENCES TO CHAPTER V 
 
 1. C.R. 1912:282. 2. C.R. 1913:306. 3. R.E. Vol. 8:61. 4. R.E. Vol. 3:74. 
 S. R.E. Vol. 4:582. 6. R.E. 1919:322. 7. Bible Champion, 1923:402. 8. R.E. 
 
 1909 iv June. 9. C.E. 1923:403. 10. Kent, Life and Times of Jesus, 309, 299, 
 
 104, 105, 236, 107, 30, 271, 222, 282, 236, 290, 49, 50, 54, 315, 297, 247, 
 
 11. R.E. 8:455. 12. C.R. 1915:740. 13. Wild, A Present-Day Definition of 
 
 Christianity, 42, 11, 12, 34, 37, 39, 40, 55, 53, 37. The Evolution of the Hebrew 
 People, 46, 178, 131. A Literary Guide to the Bible, 8. 14. Charlotte H. 
 
 Conant, Address in Memory of H. F. Durant. 15. R.E. Vol. 12:325, 329. 
 16. R.E. Vol. 7:106. 17. R.E. Vol. 11:483. 18. Inauguration of Bryn Mawr 
 College, 17. 19. Barton, Jesus of Nazareth, 358, 210, 212, 304, 292-4, 298, 354. 
 
 20. Leuba, Belief in God and Immortality, 279, 277, 280, 205. 21. Vassar by 
 
 J. M. Taylor, 26. 22. Fowler, Origin and Grozuth of the Hebrew Religion, 
 
 171, 471, 132, 44, 45. 23. R.E. Vol. 11:68. 24. Peritz, Old Testament History, 
 15, 67, 88. 25. Journal of Religion, May, 1923. 26. C.E. 1923:351. 27. C.E. 
 
 1922:8, 17; 1923:350; 1922:17, 8; 1924:178. Bulletin of Natl. Council of 
 Schools of Religion 1:5. 28. Bulletin Natl. Council of Schools of Religion II: 
 
 12, 13. 29. C.E. 1922:202. 30. C.E. 1922:202. 31. Bulletin of Natl. Council 
 
 of Schools of Religion 11:9. 32. 1924 Yearbook of Natl. Council of Schools 
 
 of Religion in Higher Education, 3. 33. C.E. 1924:178. 34. C.E. 1922:202. 
 
 35. Yearbook of N. C. R. H. E. 1924:8, 14. 36. C.E. 1923:233. 37. C.E. 
 
 1922:4, 22, 25. 38. C.E. 1921:63, 66, 67, 23, 25. 39. C.E. 1923:254. 40. C.E. 
 
 1923:262-3. 41. C.E. 1923:243-4. 42. R.E. 12:146. 43. R.E. Vol. 8:513. 
 
 44. R.E. Vol. 7:119. 45. The School of Religious Education, Boston Univ., 
 
 July, 1923, 47, 12, 11, 20, 88, 10. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE LOOTING OF ANDOVER 
 
 He was a Unitarian and meant to assist in the teaching 
 of his own faith and not another. And we know of no 
 school either of theology or of jurisprudence in which these 
 two systems of faith were ever considered essentially the 
 same. From the early days of Christianity they have always 
 been deemed, as they have been in our day, antagonistic 
 systems.—Princeton vs. Adams. 
 
 Where money was left to support “Christ’s Holy Gospel” 
 the court held that no Unitarian could partake of her 
 bounty.—Attorney-General vs. Shore. 
 
 "^HE march of theological liberalism is ordinarily accom¬ 
 panied by more or less pillaging. The looting of 
 Andover will always be a classic example. Dr. H. M. 
 Dexter, the historian of New England Congregationalism, said 
 of the breach of trust in the case of the five professors, “It out- 
 sizes anything else of the sort in the annals of a by no means 
 unspotted century,” 1 and certainly the scandal has not grown 
 less as the years have passed. Andover Seminary at the start 
 was founded because of violation of trust.* The Hollis pro¬ 
 fessorship at Harvard trained the Congregational ministers of 
 New England before the Unitarians seized it. It was a foun¬ 
 dation of Thomas Hollis, an English Calvinist Baptist, who 
 stipulated that the man chosen to fill the chair should be of 
 “sound and orthodox principles.” In 1747 additional funds 
 
 *“01d foundations established by the Pilgrim Fathers for the perpetu¬ 
 ation and teaching of their views in theology were seized upon and 
 appropriated to the support of opposing views. A fund given for 
 preaching an annual lecture on the Trinity was employed for preaching 
 an annual attack upon it and the Hollis Professorship of Divinity at 
 Cambridge was employed for the furnishing of a class of ministers 
 whose sole distinctive idea was declared warfare with the ideas and 
 intentions of the donor.”— Mrs. H. B. Stowe in Autobiography of Lyman 
 Beecher, Vol. 2, 110. 
 
 138 
 
The Looting of Andover 
 
 139 
 
 were given, also with the stipulation that the person occupying 
 it should “profess and teach the principles of the Christian 
 religion according to the well-known confession of faith drawn 
 up by the synod of the churches of New England.” 2 This was 
 of course never done after the Unitarian Henry Ware was (in 
 1805) seated in the professorship. 
 
 The Phillipses in establishing the famous academies at 
 Andover and Exeter made, as far back as 1778, certain pro¬ 
 visions for the theological education of their graduates at the 
 Andover Academy. It was natural, then, that the evangelical 
 Congregationalists ousted from Harvard, should turn to this 
 embryo theological department, the more so as the legislature 
 having Unitarian sympathies was not, in their opinion, likely to 
 favor the granting of a charter to an orthodox theological semi¬ 
 nary. 3 [The opposition made to a charter for Amherst and the 
 bitter propaganda centering at Harvard against that “priest 
 factory” make this understandable.] 4 Samuel Abbott, a 
 wealthy retired merchant of Boston, revoked a bequest of 
 $20,000 to Harvard because of its defection from Puritanism 
 and turned the money over to Andover. 5 In his will he insisted 
 that every person elected to be professor should make a solemn 
 declaration of his faith in the fundamental doctrines of the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ and “if at any future time, which may 
 God forbid, the trustees of said academy should become so 
 regardless of these my regulations and of my true object in 
 them as to choose or continue in office a professor whose prin¬ 
 ciples in divinity shall not be sound and orthodox in the sense 
 aforesaid or shall not make, subscribe, and repeat the declaration 
 herein just required ... as often as such deplorable event may 
 occur my will is, that the salary shall be forfeited to the use of 
 the South parish in Andover. . . .” 6 
 
 A group of business men in Newburyport and Salem, John 
 Norris, William Bartlett and Moses Brown, associated them¬ 
 selves with the undertaking. Norris’ special interest was foreign 
 missions. He took ten thousand silver dollars from the bank, 
 put them in firkins and devoutly consecrated them to God for 
 
140 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 a seminary in which missionaries should be trained. 7 These 
 “Associate Founders” remembering how the Hollis Foundation 
 had been perverted, determined to safeguard their own property 
 from a similar fate and to that end drew up the famous “Asso¬ 
 ciates’ Creed” with an almost incredible degree of caution to 
 prevent the institution or any professor deriving his salary from 
 the Associate Foundation from teaching opinions regarded as 
 unsound. 8 Every professor was obliged to subscribe publicly 
 every five years to this declaration of his faith and purpose as a 
 teacher. Prof. Park did this for forty-five years, not merely 
 as to substance but as to detail. 6 
 
 Article 2 of the Associate Statutes provided that “every pro¬ 
 fessor on the Associate Foundation shall be ... an ordained 
 minister of the Congregational or Presbyterian denomination 
 ... an orthodox and consistent Calvinist. . . . He shall on the 
 day of his inauguration publicly make and subscribe a solemn 
 declaration of his faith in divine revelation and in the funda¬ 
 mental and distinguishing doctrines of the Gospel as expressed 
 in the following creed.” 10 Of this I quote only eight clauses: 
 
 Article 2. I believe that the Word of God contained in the 
 Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the only perfect 
 rule of faith and practice. 
 
 Article 4. That in the Godhead are three persons, the 
 Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these Three are One 
 God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. 
 
 Article 12. That the only Redeemer of the elect is the eter¬ 
 nal Son of God who for this purpose became man and continues 
 to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person 
 forever. 
 
 Article 13. That Christ as our Redeemer executeth the office 
 of a Prophet, Priest, and King. 
 
 Article 14. That agreeably to the covenant of redemption the 
 Son of God and He alone by His suffering and death has made 
 atonement for the sins of all men. 
 
 Article 16. That the righteousness of Christ is the only 
 ground of a sinner’s justification, that this righteousness is re- 
 
The Looting of Andover 
 
 141 
 
 ceived through faith and that this faith is the gift of God so 
 that our salvation is wholly of grace. 
 
 Article 32. And furthermore I do solemnly promise that I 
 will open and explain the Scriptures to my pupils with integrity 
 and faithfulness. 
 
 Article 33. That I will maintain and inculcate the Christian 
 faith as expressed in the creed by me now repeated together with 
 all the other doctrines and duties of our holy religion so far 
 as may appertain to my office according to the best light God 
 shall give me and in opposition not only to atheists and infidels 
 but to Jews, Papists, Mohammedans, Arians, Pelagians, 
 Antinomians, Arminians, Socinians, Sabellians, Unitarians and 
 Universalists and to all heresies and errors, ancient and modern, 
 which may be opposed to the Gospel of Christ. 
 
 That every professor is required to adopt each several article 
 of the creed is evident from the emphatic language of Article 
 27 in the Associate Statutes. This reads: “It is strictly and 
 solemnly enjoined and left in sacred charge that every article 
 of the above said creed shall forever remain entirely and iden¬ 
 tically the same without the least alteration, addition, or diminu¬ 
 tion. . . .” No statute makes allusion to any “substance of doc¬ 
 trine” modifying in any manner the strict interpretation of the 
 creed. 
 
 Down through the nineteenth century rich bequests continued 
 to come to Andover. The remembrance of the Unitarian breach 
 of trust seems to have been in the minds of most of the donors. 
 Mr. N. Pike, in bequeathing $1,000 to Andover, wrote “but 
 should that creed cease to be professed and practiced upon in 
 said Institution the said fund shall revert to my heirs forever.” 
 Moses Brown leaving $25,000 by will for a professorship in 
 ecclesiastical history made similar specifications. Samuel Hitch¬ 
 cock gave the seminary $15,000 with the stipulation “that none 
 who in the judgment of the faculty and trustees of the institu¬ 
 tion hold or express doctrinal views in any essential points incon¬ 
 sistent with this creed be allowed to enjoy the benefits of this 
 endowment.” A second gift of $50,000 was received by the 
 
142 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 trustees with the declaration that he [Mr. Hitchcock] “may 
 rest assured that our board will most gladly and faithfully hold 
 the same in grateful trust in accordance with his desire.” “Posi¬ 
 tive evangelical faith” was required of the holders of the Rice, 
 Draper, and Prudence Holbrook scholarships. 11 
 
 The seminary was still further strengthened by the institu¬ 
 tion of a Board of Visitors, similar to the Boards of Overseers 
 of Harvard and of Bowdoin. It was to be a permanent insti¬ 
 tution, “to continue as the sun and the moon forever.” Election 
 of professors required their ratification. They were supreme 
 over the trustees, the representatives of the founders in the over¬ 
 sight of the seminary, in the protection of its funds, in the re¬ 
 moval of professors for heteredoxy or neglect of duty. By the 
 ninth article of the additional statute it was provided that “the 
 Visitors should take the same pledge as the professors and should 
 repeat it every five years. 12 
 
 The substance of instruction was also indicated. In the 
 eighth article of the Constitution it w^as required that “under 
 the head of Christian theology shall be comprehended lectures 
 on divine revelation, on the inspiration and truth of the Old 
 and New Testaments as proved by miracles, internal evidence, 
 fulfilment of prophecies and historic facts . . . more particu¬ 
 larly on the revealed character of God as Father, Son and 
 Holy Ghost; on the character, offices, atonement and medi¬ 
 ation of Jesus Christ ... on the Scripture doctrines of 
 regeneration, justification, and sanctification; on the eternity 
 of future rewards and punishments as revealed in the 
 Gospel. 13 
 
 The State of Massachusetts formally ratified these arrange¬ 
 ments. When in 1889 the seminary applied for “right to hold 
 an increased amount of property” this was allowed “provided 
 the income of said estate shall always be applied to the objects 
 and purposes of the said institution and agreeably to the will of 
 the donors.” 14 
 
 Three-quarters of a century of unexampled prosperity fol¬ 
 lowed. “No school of the kind had a nobler history or lent 
 
The Looting of Andover 
 
 143 
 
 more glory to its benefactors. . . . Students flocked to Andover 
 from all lands and all Protestant churches. Her professors for 
 nearly a century shed immortal honor on her, on theological 
 science, and the whole church of Christ. Her light went out 
 into all the world. Through the Bibliotheca Sacra she taught 
 the best English-speaking clergy of all lands. Andover’s pub¬ 
 lishing house of Draper sent the best theological books into the 
 study of every ambitious minister. Her missionary spirit was 
 vigorous. Her graduates from the very beginning went forth 
 into heathen lands. . . . christianized and civilized whole races 
 and later went also into our own West and planted academies, 
 colleges, and theological schools, built churches and evangelized 
 large portions of our land. She became the model of every 
 theological school in America. 
 
 “Yes, she had a glorious history. And it was the outgrowth 
 of the theological and religious spirit of the founders, of that 
 vital and vitalizing faith which came to them from Christ, Paul, 
 the Reformation, Puritanism—the tremendous energy of that 
 evangelicism which founded modern missions and modern re¬ 
 form. The American Educational Society, the American Tract 
 Society, the American Temperance Society, the plan of the 
 oldest religious newspaper in America, and really, though indi¬ 
 rectly, both the Congregational and Baptist Missionary societies, 
 all had their origin on that dear and famous Hill. After nearly 
 a century and a quarter the pulsations of her heart are still felt 
 in the energies of a thousand churches.” 16 
 
 The story of “liberal” jockeying with the Andover consti¬ 
 tution and repudiation of the wishes of the founders is too long 
 to relate in detail. The five professors who broke down the old 
 order were charged with affirming that “the Bible is not the only 
 perfect rule of faith and practice but is fallible and untrust¬ 
 worthy even in some of its religious teachings; that Christ in 
 the day of his humiliation was merely a finite being limited in 
 all his attributes, capacities and attainments” and fourteen other 
 departures from the creed. Professor Smyth denied all and in¬ 
 sisted that the creed could be “interpreted” to cover the opinions 
 
144 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 of himself and associates.* Their lawyers made use of the usual 
 ad captandum arguments of liberalism caught red-handed in 
 other people’s property. 17 
 
 “It is monstrous to bribe men to teach what they do not be¬ 
 lieve. . . . The Phillipses, Browns and Abbotts, noble in their 
 intention and sincere Christians but erring in sound judgment, 
 bedded their little institution on the hills of Andover among 
 the mud and rubbish of extinct controversies.” (Dwight.) 
 “This is a prosecution for non-conformity to a certain creed. 
 Its logical outcome is that you are asked to decide that false¬ 
 hoods may be taught at Andover (Gaston.) “Whatever the 
 professors have published in ‘Progressive Orthodoxy’ or ‘The 
 Andover Review’ has no bearing; only what they teach their 
 pupils is relevant.” (Dwight.) Prof. Simeon Baldwin insisted 
 that “to understand the creed one must read between the lines” 
 as if one could interpret a will after such a fashion. 18 
 
 The Board of Visitors found that “E. C. Smyth maintains 
 and inculcates beliefs inconsistent with and repugnant to the 
 creed of said institution and contrary to the true intent of the 
 founders and adjudged and decreed that he be removed from the 
 office of Brown Professor of Ecclesiastical History.” 19 The 
 trustees defended the professors and expressed their sympathy 
 with them. Smyth sat tight, t The court failed to uphold the 
 Visitors’ decision. In 1899 the Board of Visitors who by the 
 constitution had themselves to take the Associates’ Creed decided 
 
 ^Consider the fine phrases. “I hold that the creed of the seminary 
 does not bind the institution to an antiquated phase of belief but leads 
 logically to those adjustments of thought and belief which are now 
 necessary and leaves an open path for such as the future may require. 
 ... At certain points its silences are even more expressive than its 
 utterances. ... I desire to secure for others after me the rights of a 
 reverent scholarship in the study of God’s word. . . . The creed was 
 not intended to forbid progress; it invites to progress. ... Is the 
 seminary committed to the maintenance of transient opinion or is there 
 a truer interpretation of the creed?”— Prof. E. C. Smyth, The Andover 
 Creed, xviii, xxii. 
 
 t“The action of the visitors in deposing Prof. Smyth was not taken 
 seriously. . . . When Prof. Smyth went on with his work as if nothing 
 had taken place his course seemed natural and consiste-nt.”—W. J. 
 Tucker, My Generation, 159. 
 
The Looting of Andover 
 
 145 
 
 that the trustees of the seminary had a right to dispense with 
 public subscription and the trustees nothing loth abolished it. 
 No change was made in the seminary constitution. The whole 
 destructive procedure was by way of interpretation. Professors 
 were henceforth to be held to “substance of doctrine” merely. 
 
 The only bright spot in the whole episode appears in a letter 
 of Prof. J. H. Thayer who resigned his Andover chair and 
 betook himself to the Harvard Divinity School. In the Con¬ 
 gregation alist of June 14, 1882, he wrote: 
 
 “The statutes of the seminary require a rigid assent to the 
 letter of the Creed on the part of all persons subscribing to it; 
 the boards of administration, however, accept a general and 
 approximate belief in the doctrines of the Creed as the sufficient 
 prerequisite to subscription. But the honesty of such general 
 and approximate subscription has of late been publicly and 
 extensively called in question; yet the trustees are disinclined 
 publicly to acknowledge and vindicate it. 
 
 “To remain in my office, therefore, would be to remain con¬ 
 stantly exposed to the charge or the suspicion of dishonesty 
 without the prospect of open vindication and with the certainty 
 that whatever I might say in my own defence would be largely 
 neutralized. . . . 
 
 ”But it is asked , 'Why do you not remain at your post and 
 labor there to bring about a changeV 
 
 “1 reply , 'Because my obligation to be and be known to be an 
 honest man outweighs all other obligations to trustees or semi¬ 
 nary. . . . “Yours truly, 
 
 “J. Henry Thayer,” 20 
 
 How unique a statement in the history of theological liberal¬ 
 ism! 
 
 The fate of Andover constitutes a brilliant illustration for 
 a remark made to Pastor Quistorp by the late Prof. Troeltsch. 
 “We cannot use force on the evangelical church but we have 
 another weapon in order to overpower it. That is to appoint 
 the greatest possible number of radical and liberal professors 
 and then it will of itself and from within go to pieces.” The 
 
146 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 founders of Andover had feared, as they expressed it, “the 
 changing of the fountain of living waters” into “a river of 
 death.” 21 The course of Andover after its capture by new 
 theology justified their fears. The number of students began 
 to dwindle. Back in the sixties Dr. Northrop, pleading for 
 funds to establish a Baptist seminary in Chicago, pointed to 
 Andover as an illustration of what a great evangelical seminary 
 could mean for church and nation. “I was present at com¬ 
 mencement and saw there at least a thousand men, trained in 
 that school, who had come thither from all parts of the land. I 
 felt then, as never before, the power of such an agency.” But 
 these days were now over for Andover. 22 The trustees, Drs. 
 G. A. Gordon, N. Boynton, C. L. Noyes and others decided 
 to transfer the seminary to Cambridge with the desperate idea 
 of attracting students from the large student body of Harvard. 
 This course they justified by the following considerations: 
 
 1. The steady falling off in attendance amounting at the 
 present time to a practical desertion of the seminary by students 
 for the ministry. 
 
 2. The consequent unproductive use and so far waste of 
 funds and endowments solemnly consecrated by donors to the 
 great ends of religion. 
 
 3. The failure, therefore, to fulfil the true design of the 
 Institution by “increasing the number of learned and able 
 defenders of the Gospel as well as of orthodox, pious and 
 zealous ministers of the New Testament 
 
 Who wrote these words is not known to the public. He 
 must have thrust tongue in cheek when he set them down! 
 
 The sale of land and buildings at Andover was made with¬ 
 out submitting the question of removal and affiliation with 
 Harvard to the Visitors and consequently without obtaining 
 their approval. 23 The splendid Andover site with its beautiful 
 lines of elms, fine campus, historic buildings, splendid Brechin 
 library and all its venerable associations with the past was 
 abandoned and the old seminary tagged to the two little build¬ 
 ings which constituted the Divinity School plant at Harvard. 
 
The Looting of Andover 
 
 147 
 
 In grateful recognition President Lowell at the Harvard 
 Commencement of 1909 conferred an honorary degree upon 
 one of the Andover trustees active for the affiliation, in the 
 following phrases: “Charles Lothrop Noyes, pastor and 
 preacher, who in these latter days has helped to bring nearer 
 together those whom the blindness of man had put asunder.” 24 
 
 The optimism of those who advised this action seems in the 
 light of subsequent developments little short of hare-brained. 
 Dr. A. P. Fitch declared that “Andover at Cambridge has the 
 greatest opportunity of a generation to do that for the lack 
 of which the American church is languishing at this very mo¬ 
 ment—intelligently to interpret and justly to exalt the person, 
 authority, and message of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” 
 Prof. Evans, who holds the Abbott Chair in Christian Theology 
 which Prof. Park honored through long years, is an Hon. 
 Vice-President of the National Federation of Religious Lib¬ 
 erals. Naturally he has none of the foolish qualms of the 
 Samuel Abbott who, as we have seen, withdrew money ear¬ 
 marked for Harvard because of its Unitarianism. “We have 
 no occasion to fear her [Harvard’s] influence but rather to 
 rejoice that she has proved to be our great co-worker in helping 
 young men to find and keep the faith.” 25 Again the tongue 
 is in the cheek! The Congregationalist (Mch. 27 :09) joined in 
 approval, 
 
 “Those who have taken these responsibilities of training 
 ministers for the churches realize that they are heirs of a great 
 past. . . . Andover has a noble mission yet to be fulfilled. . . . 
 Andover goes to Cambridge to develop there further its own 
 type of evangelical Christian faith. So the new Andover will 
 be the old Andover growing in the knowledge of our Lord 
 and Saviour Jesus Christ, cherished in the affections and 
 prayers of the churches and sending forth their choice youth to 
 preach the Gospel in all the world.” 
 
 This rhetoric was but the flowers sent to a funeral. 
 
 The next act of the drama was soon staged. Dr. W. J. 
 Tucker, himself one of the five professors of the trial in the 
 
148 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 eighties, stated what everyone knows: “If Andover Seminary 
 was established to oppose and counteract any influence it was 
 that of Unitarianism. . . . This is an historic fact which none 
 will dispute.” 26 But the trustees were not embarrassed by 
 scruples on that score. In June, 1922, they proceeded to merge 
 the seminary with the Harvard Divinity School. The Visitors 
 asked Judge Crosby for an injunction. It was refused! 
 
 According to the terms of the new arrangement it was stated 
 that “the continuity and distinct existence as an institution of 
 Andover Theological Seminary shall be maintained, all of its 
 trusts being executed as heretofore.” Then with what seems 
 like mockery the public was informed that, 
 
 “The president and fellows of Harvard College and the 
 trustees of Andover Theological Seminary shall join to form 
 a non-denominational theological school with single faculty , roll 
 of students, administration and catalogue What actually was 
 in mind comes out in the following clause, 
 
 “Each corporation in determining whether any chair on its 
 foundation shall be filled or left vacant, will endeavor so far as 
 practicable to take such action as may best contribute to the 
 symmetry and efficiency of the school as a whole Z' 27 The 
 theological symmetry aimed at, we may be sure, was not to 
 be evangelical in the sense of old Andover nor in the remotest 
 degree to approximate it. 
 
 Andover can still nominate its professors but appointment 
 rests solely with the governing boards of Harvard University. 
 “In other words no one can teach in the new school without 
 the official appointment of Harvard University, thus as a 
 practical matter taking the whole thing out of the hands of 
 the Trustees and Visitors of Andover.”* 28 
 
 ^Referring to the appointment of Andover professors by Harvard, 
 President Lowell said before the alumni of Andover, June 13, ’22: 
 
 “This is of course necessary because the new school is a part of 
 the University and is as completely under its control as every other 
 department. It is a school of the University, by the University and 
 for all God’s people.” C.R. 1922:586. 
 
 The Associate Statutes provided that “no student in this seminary 
 shall ever be charged for instruction” and for a hundred years this 
 
The Looting of Andover 
 
 149 
 
 The Andover property brought to the Harvard School of 
 Theology amounts to more than a million dollars; its contri¬ 
 bution to the joint library was over 70,000 volumes. [The 
 Harvard Divinity School had 46,000.] One could have wished 
 for the honor of that human nature which is so highly esteemed 
 in “liberal” circles that some Unitarian voice might have been 
 heard protesting, “These funds should not be pooled! It is trea¬ 
 son to the explicit agreements made with the donors.” But not 
 a whisper was perceptible. Dr. Samuel A. Eliot, in the 1923 
 report of the American Unitarian Association, says: “The 
 combination of the Harvard Divinity School and the Andover 
 Theological Seminary has preserved two noble traditions and 
 provided a liberal professional school exceptionally rich in equip¬ 
 ment.” What it has done is to complete the destruction 
 of a noble tradition. The new school is rich in equipment, 
 ignobly rich. In student body it is as impoverished as 
 ever. 
 
 The bust of Prof. Edwards A. Park stands aloft in the 
 Gothic library of Andover Hall where I suppose it gravely 
 listens on occasion to “Kind Mother of Truth,” the school 
 hymn of the old Unitarian seminary, wafted from the near-by 
 chapel. I recall, as a boy, sitting opposite the great theologian 
 at the table in my father’s home. He was speaking in the 
 course of his conversation of the sufferings of Christ and found 
 himself unable to control his emotions. But the author ©f 
 “Kind Mother of Truth,” a professor-emeritus in the joint 
 school, can bring himself to write of our Lord Jesus Christ as 
 “a man of sin.” 
 
 The Theological School of Harvard University is “non¬ 
 sectarian.” This word has in connection with the Harvard 
 Divinity School a significant history. In the last century the 
 
 was the case. It is no longer so. The tuition is $150. Scholarships 
 funds were in most instances given for “needy and indigent 5 ’ students. 
 They are now used for fellowships and scholarships [two of $800 and 
 two of $700] for students of highest standing. Tuition in every case 
 is first deducted so that money intended for poor students is used to 
 pay salaries of professors .—Brief for the Visitors, 77 and 12. 
 
150 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 presence of the Unitarian Divinity School at Harvard was felt 
 to be a distinct disadvantage to the college as hindering the 
 recruiting of college students. The University, therefore, at¬ 
 tempted to break the connection between itself and its theo¬ 
 logical incubus, but was prevented by the courts.* 30 So the 
 Unitarian school was declared “non-sectarian” and at times 
 professors, whose theology made their departure from evan¬ 
 gelical schools desirable, became the nominal representatives 
 
 *The Massachusetts courts extended a sheltering wing over the Uni¬ 
 tarian Divinity School (Harvard Coll. vs. Soc.) “The court cannot 
 . . . direct the withdrawal of the funds above described and others of 
 like character from the supervision and trust of that permanent cor¬ 
 porate body to which they were instructed by their donors for the 
 purpose of maintaining a theological school as a branch of the uni¬ 
 versity and commit them to an independent board of trustees to be 
 appropriated to maintaining a separate theological school. ... A con¬ 
 trary decision would furnish a precedent dangerous to the perpetuity 
 and sacredness of our great public charities, leaving the question of the 
 management and supervision of our public charities to be the subject of 
 change with every fluctation of popular opinion as to what may be the 
 more expedient and useful mode of administering them.”— Brief for 
 Visitors, 85. 
 
 The following two passages appear in the same number of the 
 Christian Register, 1922:586 and 583 : 
 
 President Lowell loquitur. “The process of making the Harvard 
 Divinity school non-sectarian has been going on for many years. It 
 was heartily fostered by President Eliot and it went so far that on 
 May 20, 1906, he and the corporation assured the Carnegie Foundation 
 that “in Harvard University no denominational test is imposed . . . 
 nor any denominational tenets or doctrines taught to students.” 
 
 Dr. Dieffenbach loquitur. [He is speaking of President Lowell’s 
 Jewish policy.] After dwelling on Harvard’s unvarying hospitality 
 to all races and creeds he says of the Unitarians’ theological blood- 
 brethren, the Jews, “It is obvious that some method must be devised 
 that will keep the number of Jews within such limits as will assure 
 for the student body and institution as a whole a reasonably united 
 and harmonious community. ... If the Jews cannot be fully accom¬ 
 modated there is opportunity for them in institutions where they may 
 have training as good as that in Harvard.” 
 
 A fund of $150,000 has been given for the maintenance of religious 
 work in Harvard University upon the principles now adopted in the 
 administration of Appleton Chapel. If these change the endowment 
 is to revert to the American Unitarian Association. C.R. 1915:220. 
 
 In order to secure the benefits of the Carnegie Pension Fund, Bow- 
 doin College turned over to Andover Theological Seminary $56,118 
 of the Stone bequest which had been received by the college to be used 
 as long as it represented the religious and doctrinal views of the ortho¬ 
 dox Congregational churches of New England. This money is now in 
 the control of the Harvard Theological School! 
 
The Looting of Andover 
 
 151 
 
 of other churches than the Unitarian on the “non-sectarian” 
 faculty. On the strength of this dubious “non-sectarianism” 
 the professors of this essentially Unitarian school have been 
 eligible to pensions from the Carnegie Fund, pensions 
 which could never be obtained by theological professors else¬ 
 where. 
 
 The magnitude of the, at least, implicit prevarication which 
 has accompanied the Andover “capture,” is such as to be almost 
 humorous. The Andover trustees and the president and fellows 
 of Harvard College say that the instruction given in the theo¬ 
 logical school at Harvard University by Andover professors is 
 orthodox and is consistent with the Westminster Assembly’s 
 Shorter Catechism and with the creed set out in the Associate 
 Statutes of Andover Theological Seminary,* as said confession 
 and creed have for many years been interpreted and applied 
 by the plaintiffs, and that such instruction is not different in 
 its theological tendencies from that given for many years past 
 in Andover Theological Seminary. As to the instruction given 
 in the Theological School in Harvard University by persons 
 other than Andover professors, these defendants say that, so 
 far as such instruction has any theological complexion, “the same 
 is for the most part substantially the same as that of the in¬ 
 struction given by the Andover professors/' 31 f 
 
 *Yet the present trustees state to the Massachusetts Supreme Court 
 “that the Andover Theological Seminary is not now and never has been 
 subject to any denominational or sectarian control or committed, to the 
 propagation of any particular doctrines except that by the terms of 
 certain donations referred to in the will the professors or students who 
 receive the benefit thereof are required to be Congregational or Presby¬ 
 terian or to hold certain doctrinal views none of which requirements 
 are in any way affected or impaired by the Plan of Closer Afiliation" 
 with the Harvard School.— Visitors vs. Trustees, 53. 
 
 When, however, money is to be raised the shoe is on the other foot. 
 The Master in Equity calls attention to the fact that “in 1921 when 
 efforts were made by the trustees of Andover Theological Seminary 
 to raise an endowment the appeal was limited to Trinitarian Congre- 
 gationalists." — Master's Report, 103. 
 
 tVisitors of the Theological Institution at Andover vs. Trustees of 
 Andover Theological Seminary and others, Exhibit C. 
 
 Statement of Andover Trustees: “Its [Harvard Divinity] faculty has 
 been composed of Trinitarians.” [e. g., Prof. G. F. Moore!] “Prof. 
 
152 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Paris is worth a mass! 
 
 In the words of Mr. Weston, attorney for the Visitors, “We 
 have Andover Theological Seminary founded by orthodox 
 Trinitarians bound to a specific creed which cannot be varied; 
 founded for the purpose of combatting Unitarianism and other 
 doctrines by the founders regarded as unorthodox. We have 
 the Harvard Divinity School founded as a Unitarian school 
 and until recently continued as such; and of late years a sup¬ 
 posedly non-sectarian school pledged in the strongest language 
 to the Carnegie Pension Fund that no creed or sectarian doc¬ 
 trine of any kind is or can be taught. These two institutions 
 agree that there shall be ‘no rivalry or competition.’ Andover 
 must teach according to the creed, Harvard cannot teach accord¬ 
 ing to the creed; they cannot in the nature of things be anything 
 but rivals and competitors. If the Andover professors are to 
 live up to these requirements and their oaths of office, how can 
 they teach in harmony with an institution linked to the Carnegie 
 Pension system ? 
 
 “The intention of the founders of Andover Theological 
 Seminary w~as for the teaching of a certain well-defined 
 and carefully described kind of theology, that is orthodox, 
 evangelical, Trinitarian, in accordance with the Westminster 
 catechism and the Andover creed; not a comprehensive scheme 
 of theological education. The Constitution is most specific. 
 The Founders were not interested in general theological non¬ 
 sectarian or undenominational education. To them the partic¬ 
 ular, important thing was the combatting of certain ideas along 
 theological educational lines which Harvard and the professors 
 of divinity in Harvard stood for, to which they were most 
 strongly opposed.” 32 
 
 Unitarians themselves know how to appraise this “non-sec¬ 
 tarianism.” While “the president and fellows of Harvard 
 
 Kirsopp Lake belongs to the Church of England. Prof. La Piana is a 
 Catholic priest of modernist type. While the evidence did not disclose 
 the denominational connection of Profs. Ford and Davison it appeared 
 that both of them were regular attendants at Appleton Chapel ”!— 
 Report of the Master in Equity, 109. 
 
 Fine old Calvinists one and all! 
 
The Looting of Andover 
 
 153 
 
 University deny that the Divinity School is teaching or has 
 for many years taught the doctrines and principles of the 
 Christian denomination or sect called or known as Unitarian,” 33 
 Dr. S. A. Eliot affirms that “the Unitarian churches have for 
 a hundred years largely depended upon the Harvard Divinity 
 School for the supply of churches.” 34 “No one can rightly 
 think that the school has ceased to be Unitarian because it is 
 no longer a Unitarian school,” said Dr. J. W. Day in reviewing 
 the hundredth anniversary of the Harvard Divinity School. 35 
 “Manchester College at Oxford calls itself non-sectarian,” 
 writes Rev. G. C. Cressey [Unitarian], “but it is really more 
 Unitarian than ever . . . . So with the Harvard Divinity School 
 and practically with the newly-formed theological school in 
 Harvard University.” 36 And an editorial in the Christian 
 Register says: “The Unitarian church may be sure the spirit 
 in the theological school at Harvard University is in harmony 
 with the Unitarian spirit and needs.” 37 
 
 But is not the dean of the joint school a Congregationalist ? 
 It’s the old shell game. Dean Sperry is a Congregationalist 
 and vice-president of the Free Religious Association which 
 represents the radical wing of the Unitarian body. 38 Regarding 
 Andover, Dean Sperry has recently written: 
 
 “In general, members of the orthodox or Trinitarian branch 
 of Congregationalism are humbly and gratefully mindful of 
 the fact that it was Unitarians who over all the middle of 
 the last century bore the brunt of the attack upon a more 
 and more incredible Calvinism and won, not only for them¬ 
 selves, but for their more laggard brethren of orthodoxy, that 
 victory. Unitarianism might well claim that to the victors 
 belong the spoils .* ... In this closer affiliation at Harvard, 
 the Divinity School has generously welcomed the sons of ortho¬ 
 dox Andover into the places of freedom and has waited and 
 
 *“Andover at Cambridge/’ wrote an alumnus of Andover to the 
 Report of the Committee of Conference of the Andover Alumni Asso¬ 
 ciation, Dec. 1906, “will bear the same relation to the old seminary 
 that a scalp at the belt of an Indian bears to the man from whose 
 head it was taken.” 
 
154 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 watched with patient good humor the legal difficulties into 
 which Andover has been plunged by founders who tried to 
 be wiser than posterity.” 39 
 
 “To the victors belong the spoils.” Having stripped the 
 prostrate form, the victors proceed to dance upon it. The 
 Unitarian ministers directly after the merger took place, with 
 incredible tactlessness, went to Andover to hold their Insti¬ 
 tute. They were in fine fettle. In the assignment of rooms 
 in the old Andover dormitories, cards were used with such 
 jocose names as Tophet, Canaan, Babylon, the Dead Sea. A 
 mock trial, “the most elaborate and hilarious w~e ever saw,” 
 was staged in which Albertus Carolus Dieffenbachus was finally 
 acquitted of the charge of “Fundamentalism.” “In the early 
 days a Unitarian meeting on the Hill would have been incon¬ 
 ceivable,” 40 wrote one reporter, and another with upward roll 
 of eyes, “I feel sure that if the sainted Andover theologians 
 could have walked among us, those devout and scholarly men 
 who made this school of learning famous, would have given 
 us of the other wing of Congregationalism their blessing. They 
 now see with larger eyes than when they were here in the 
 flesh, and we are one in the unity of the spirit.” 41 
 
 The hunter had hardly disappeared in the distance with the 
 dead swan on his back, when the geese, too, were seen nibbling 
 the bait. In the’catalogue of the Harvard Divinity School are 
 listed students from the Episcopal School, Cambridge, from 
 the Boston University School (Methodist), and from Newton 
 Theological Institution (Baptist). The Harvard theological 
 seminarist must pay $150 per annum; students in these outlying 
 schools may take Harvard theological courses without charge. 
 Indeed the Harvard authorities with an artless munificence' 
 have even thrown open to Newton students what President 
 Horr calls “the famous Williams scholarships of $500 each”— 
 famous no doubt from the fact that the founder was a Boston 
 rum-seller in an earlier day. King’s Chapel [Unitarian] has 
 organized a “seminary week,” at which President Horr appears 
 on “Newton day,” and the representatives of Harvard, Boston 
 
The Looting of Andover 
 
 155 
 
 and the Episcopal School at appointed times,* but even the most 
 accomplished effrontery could not go through the mockery of 
 an Andover day. President Horr lectures in the Unitarian 
 summer school for ministers at Harvard, and Newton pro¬ 
 fessors are frequent preachers at King’s Chapel and Arlington 
 St. [Unitarian churches]. 42 Drs. Peabody, Fenn, Jacks, and 
 Dieffenbach, appear on Newton Hill and President Lowell of 
 Harvard is picked as the prominent figure of the Newton 
 centenary celebration in 1925. When the Baptist theological 
 professors of the country held a conference in Boston the 
 Harvard Divinity School proffered them a dinner, 43 and in 
 
 ^President Lowell of Harvard before the Boston Baptist Social Union: 
 “It is a great pleasure to speak before the Baptist Social Union and 
 more especially on this night which is devoted to the Newton Theo¬ 
 logical Seminary, because that Seminary and Harvard and Andover 
 and the Episcopal Theological School and the School of Theology of 
 the Boston University have all been very close together of late years 
 and acting in harmony. 
 
 “President Horr says I brought together members of a lot of different 
 denominations. It was he who did it. He was the liaison and I was 
 the camouflage. Seventy-four different schools were represented on that 
 occasion. . . . President Horr discovered that all Protestant ministers 
 are on the same side and he proved it”—Commencement Bulletin, 
 Newton Theo. Institute, Vol. 12, No. 1. 
 
 At the 75th anniversary of the Unitarian Seminary at Meadville 
 Prof. Rowe appeared as “fraternal delegate” from Newton. President 
 Southworth, a former Baptist, in recognition of this gesture remarked, 
 “The world moves. . . . All this is a foreshadowing of the time when 
 the intrusion of the sectarian spirit into theological training will become 
 a sin against the Holy Ghost. The ministerial training schools of the 
 different denominations [are] much nearer together than the denomina¬ 
 tions themselves, for scholarship knows no sectarian limitations.”— 
 Report of the Anniversary , 208. [Published by the University of 
 Chicago.] 
 
 The Nevoton Bulletin No. 4, Vol. 9, 3, remarks: “It is well to proclaim 
 the estimate which Harvard puts upon the quality of Newton’s instruc¬ 
 tion and faculty as seen in the announcement that Newton students are 
 admitted to Harvard courses without conditions and that Harvard 
 requests for her students the same freedom to take courses at Newton, 
 thus making the relation reciprocal.” Three pages later announcement 
 is made that the degree of Master of Theology has been conferred on 
 C. F. Potter. 
 
 A little later Mr. Potter passed into Unitarianism. In the Funda¬ 
 mentalist, May 15, ’24, he is reported as saying that “on his graduation 
 a half dozen of the leading men of the class met in his room after 
 the exercises were over and in a comparison of views all agreed that 
 they were Unitarian in belief. Five of them stated that they would 
 
156 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 recognition of this courtesy, President Horr with Unitarian 
 help rounded up the representatives of all the seminaries at 
 a Harvard summer conference, which the Christian Register 
 declares “an historic meeting of American Christendom.” 44 In 
 the atmosphere of good-feeling of these “union movements,” 
 the divisive truths of Christianity naturally drop in the back¬ 
 ground and this no doubt is the purpose of Unitarian 
 strategists. 
 
 When it was announced that Boston University students 
 were to be permitted to take part of their course in the 
 Harvard Divinity School, the organ of New England Method¬ 
 ism declared: “We confess we are not a little disturbed. When 
 proposals were made by Harvard some years ago, looking to¬ 
 ward the removal of Andover to Cambridge, evangelical circles 
 were profoundly stirred and pained.” It insisted on the un¬ 
 wisdom of having “men in the formative period of their theo¬ 
 logical career under the influence of the theological atmosphere, 
 which admittedly predominates at Harvard. . . . The union 
 
 stay in the Baptist denomination and try to put their views across/’ 
 but Mr. Potter came out into the open. 
 
 Nor did the founders of the Episcopal School anticipate any teaching 
 in it or to its students which would be congenial to Harvard Unita¬ 
 rians. The trust deed states with definiteness what the school was to 
 stand for. 
 
 “The instruction and teachings of the School and of its professors 
 and lecturers shall always be in conformity with the doctrine, ritual 
 and orders, discipline, and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 in the United States of America as set forth in the book of Common 
 Prayer and the Canons of the church and shall at all times embody and 
 distinctly set forth the great doctrine of Justification by Faith alone in 
 the Atonement and Righteousness of Christ as taught in the Articles 
 of Religion commonly called the Thirty-Nine Articles [Scriptures alone 
 being the standard] as adopted at the Reformation. . . .” 
 
 More than fifty years ago Harvard Unitarians invited the Methodist 
 Theological school to establish itself under the eaves of their college. 
 The invitation was declined. C.R. 1911:421. Roman Catholics also 
 complain of these “leavening” manipulations. The Sacred Heart Re¬ 
 view, Jan. 13, 1900, wrote: “There are those, having the means of 
 knowing, who say that for years back the head of Harvard University 
 has systematically labored by every means in his control to bring about 
 a condition w r hich would compel all Catholic young men in this section 
 of the country who are desirous of a college education to go to Harvard 
 for it.” 
 
The Looting of Andover 
 
 157 
 
 in this way of the two institutions is certain to cause serious 
 concern and deep grief to many devout souls . . . loyal to the 
 distinguishing characteristics of Methodism. They will see in 
 this alliance a radical departure from those theological affirma¬ 
 tions that are dear to them as their very lives. What would 
 our Methodist fathers say to such a combination?” 45 
 
 These affiliations one naturally interprets as a part of that 
 campaign of infiltration which Unitarians so often declare to 
 be their mission. It should be noticed that at the very time 
 that Newton Institution was entering upon these relationships, 
 American Baptists were being called on to raise one hundred 
 millions for church purposes, the gigantic slice of $800,000 
 being assigned to the Lilliputian school on Newton Hill. What 
 protection is there against the Andoverization of these endow¬ 
 ments in the next generation? The Christian Register already 
 lists Newton as “scientific,” one of the few seminaries in the 
 country with “the new atmosphere in which religious teachings 
 are given by men who are thoroughly open-minded,” putting it 
 in brackets with Harvard, Union, and that hearth of piety, the 
 Divinity School of the University of Chicago. 40 Dr. S. A. 
 Eliot expresses the hope that “the co-operative goodwill that 
 animates the theological schools in Berkeley, California, may 
 some day become an actual combination as in the case of Har¬ 
 vard-Andover.” 47 The schools referred to are: Baptist, Con¬ 
 gregational, and Unitarian. 
 
 REFERENCES TO CHAPTER VI 
 
 1. The Andover Case, 107. 2. Eddy, The Unitarian Apostasy, 23. 3. The 
 
 Andover Case, vii. 4. Annals of Amherst College, 11 and 56. 5. Wood’s 
 
 History of Andover Theological Seminary, 59. 6. Id. 61. 7. Id. 76. 8. Id. 
 
 238. 9. Prof. Park and his Pupils, 113. 10. Woods, Id. 257. 11. Statement 
 
 of Th. Weston, attorney for the Visitors. 12. Woods, 250-3. 13. Woods, 236. 
 
 14. Acts of 1889, ch. 55. 15. The Andover Case, 208. 16. Faulkner, Bibliotheca 
 Sacra, 1923, 458, “The Tragic Fate of a Famous Seminary.” 17. Andover 
 Case, xiv, xix, xvii. 18. Id. 7, xxv, xviii, xxiv. 19. Id. 191. 20. Id. 151. 
 
 21. Id. 105. 22. Address in Behalf of a Christian University and Seminary 
 in Chicago, 1867. 23. Brief for Visitors, 51. 24. Religious History of New 
 England, 133. 25. Addresses at Induction of Drs. Evans and Fitch, 26 and 21. 
 26. The Andover Defence, 277. 27. Statement of Th. Weston for Visitors. 
 
 28. Brief for the Visitors, 77. 29. One Hundredth Anniversary of Harvard 
 
 Divinity School, 84. 30. Report of Committee of Overseers of Harvard College, 
 
158 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 185S. 31. Visitors of Andover vs. Trustees, 84-86. 32. Brief for the Visitors, 
 
 72. 33. Visitors of Andover vs. Trustees, 93. 34. C.R. 1923:371. 35. C.R. 
 
 1916:978. 36. CR. 1923:369. 37. C.R. 1922:582. 38. C.R. 1916:525. 39. C.R. 
 1924: Oct. 16. 40. C.R. 1922:681-2. 41. C.R. 1922:684. 42. C.R. 1921:330. 
 43. C.R. 1918:802. 44. C.R. 1918:773. 45. Quoted from Zion’s Herald in 
 
 CR. 1915:263. 46. C.R. 1924:1067. 47. C.R. 1922:759. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE APOSTATE SEMINARIES 
 
 Und eure Weisheit macht den irren Geist noch irrer. 
 
 —Lessing. 
 
 T HE men who founded Union Theological Seminary 
 were Puritans as were the founders of Andover. Absalom 
 Peters organized the American Missionary Society and 
 was the greatest promoter of home missions of the time. Edu¬ 
 cation also was a major interest with him. It was he who 
 started the American Journal of Education. William Patton 
 gave the initial impulse to the Evangelical Alliance, which held 
 its first session in London in 1846. Joseph Otis was the founder 
 of the Seamen’s Friend Society and the Seamen’s Bank for 
 Savings. Others were active in educational and missionary en¬ 
 terprises. Among the early directors were men like Albert 
 Barnes, Anson G. Phelps, Jr., John Center Baldwin and Wil¬ 
 liam E. Dodge. At the start the seminary had a hard struggle 
 and Prof. Henry B. Smith used to declare that he dreaded 
 calling on the treasurer for his salary, so often had he gone 
 home empty-handed. 2 Collections were made in the churches 
 and solicitors even went into factories and to farms for sub¬ 
 scriptions of a dollar upward. 3 But with the res angustae went 
 high thinking and piety. Union, as Andover, trained a splendid 
 contingent of missionaries. Its theologians were among the 
 great figures of the Christian life in America; Edward Robin¬ 
 son, Henry B. Smith, Profs. Shedd and Schaff, and President 
 William Adams. 
 
 In order to ensure the evangelical loyalty of the seminary 
 in years to come the directors in 1853 added to the consti¬ 
 tutional clause, which gave them the power to alter the con¬ 
 stitution, an amendment limiting this power to change “to 
 
 159 
 
160 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 consistency with the doctrinal basis as now subscribed by the 
 directors.” 4 It was made an irrevocable part of the constitution 
 that every director and professor should declare his approval 
 of the Westminster Confession. Each member of the faculty 
 was required to subscribe to the following statement triennially 
 and in the presence of the Board: 
 
 “I believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to 
 be the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and 
 practise; and I do now in the presence of God and the directors 
 of this seminary solemnly and sincerely receive and adopt the 
 Westminster Confession of Faith as containing the system of 
 doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures. I do also in like manner 
 approve of the Presbyterian form of government and I do 
 solemnly promise that I will not teach or inculcate anything 
 which shall appear to me to be subversive of the said system 
 of doctrine. ... so long as I shall continue to be a professor 
 in this seminary.” 
 
 Refusal to repeat this statement on the part of the professor 
 meant immediate dismissal. 
 
 In 1870, Union Seminary gave to the General Assembly of 
 the Presbyterian church the right to veto appointments to its 
 faculty. When, however, the Assembly attempted to use this 
 right in the case of Prof. Briggs, it promptly withdrew it 
 (1892), and in 1905 substituted for the standards which had 
 prevailed for fifty years, the colorless statement that “all mem¬ 
 bers of the faculty shall satisfy the board of their Christian 
 faith and life.” 5 
 
 Whereat, up in Cambridge, President Eliot rubbed his hands 
 exultingly. [Eliot. More Harvard Graduates for the Ministry, 
 29.] 
 
 “This action,” [abolishing subscription to the Westminster 
 Confession], observed President Francis Brown, “must not be 
 understood as a departure from the original principles of the 
 seminary. On the contrary, it was their natural consummation. 
 If subscription was abolished, it was not that we wished to 
 believe less, but that we might be free to believe more. w<5 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 161 
 
 Certainly it has not worked out that way! 
 
 In the winter of 1925 a student at Union committed suicide 
 and the report went out that in his Bible was found written 
 opposite one of the great resurrection passages: “It’s not all 
 
 bunk as Professor-says.” It is hard to think of the head 
 
 of an historic theological seminary expressing doubt as to a 
 future life. Yet one can with difficulty interpret otherwise the 
 words of President McGiffert, at the twenty-fifth anniversary 
 of the founding of the divinity school of the University of 
 Chicago. 
 
 “During all the Christian centuries [the doctrine of immor¬ 
 tality] has been regarded as a fundamental doctrine of religion 
 of such a character, that doubt of it must destroy religious 
 faith altogether. But in recent years as a result of many influ¬ 
 ences, among which the scientific tendency not to transcend the 
 limits of experience is one, the belief in immortality has become 
 less and less controlling. Theologians are not so inclined as 
 they once were to dogmatize upon the subject. The very title 
 of a recent work upon immortality, The Christian Hope , by a 
 colleague of mine, illustrates the modern attitude. Or one 
 may go still further and say that many Christians, because 
 the life after death lies beyond the range of experimental 
 proof, have grown indifferent about it and are turning their 
 attention to other things of more immediate and practical 
 concern.” 7 
 
 Equally cloudy is Dr. McGiffert’s testimony regarding 
 theism. In his N. W. Taylor lecture at Yale, 1922, on “The 
 God of the Early Christians,” he defends the strange thesis 
 that “the early Gentile converts to Christianity may well have 
 taken Christ as their Lord and Saviour without taking his 
 God and Father as their God.” 
 
 “There was no antecedent reason,” he continues, “why the 
 Gentile Christians should accept the God of the Jews whom 
 Jesus worshipped any more than the Jewish ceremonial law 
 which he observed and the Jewish practices in which he was 
 brought up.” 8 
 
162 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 / 
 
 The only motive for such a strained construction seems to 
 be that which Prof. Machen finds. “Dr. McGiffert is seeking 
 a precursor in early Christianity for the non-theistic modernism 
 which he himself holds." 9 
 
 It was President McGiffert’s Christianity in the Apostolic 
 Age which gave Dr. Rihbany his first push into Unitarianism. 10 
 This book scissors the New Testament history into shreds. Let 
 us look at a few passages. 
 
 Of the Lord’s Supper, Dr. McGiffert says: “It is not abso¬ 
 lutely certain that Jesus himself actually instituted such a sup¬ 
 per and directed his disciples to eat and drink in remembrance 
 of him as Paul says in 1 Cor. 15 :24.” 
 
 But what has set this fact in uncertainty? 
 
 The answer comes, “Expecting as he did to return at an 
 early day he can hardly have been solicitous to provide for the 
 preservation of his memory.” 
 
 The writer of the Acts was far removed from the time and 
 “could hardly avoid investing even familiar occurrences with 
 marvel and mystery.” 
 
 So of the account of Elymas. “It was natural that Luke 
 finding in his sources, as he probably did, a reference to Paul’s 
 meeting such a man should picture the scene as an exhibition 
 of the superior power of Christianity in the very field in which 
 Bar Jesus and his kind were most skilful” [in other words, 
 should concoct an appropriate story]. “He could hardly con¬ 
 ceive of Paul as coming into contact with such a man and not 
 giving convincing evidence of his mightier control over the 
 forces of nature and it may have been a denunciation 
 by Paul of the spiritual blindness of the Magian that led 
 him to suppose that the apostle inflicted physical blindness upon 
 him.” 
 
 Tradition one would think should, other things being equal, 
 be entered upon the credit rather than on the debit side of 
 historical conclusion. But this natural presupposition is re¬ 
 versed in these circles: “The tradition which makes Luke the 
 author of the third Gospel and of the book of Acts can hardly 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 163 
 
 be maintained.” “It is altogether improbable that the epistle 
 to the Hebrews . . . was addressed to Jewish Christians at 
 all. It is true that ‘pros Hebraious* is found in all our Mss. . . . 
 But no weight can be attached to it.” “It seems necessary to 
 conclude that the author of the Acts was not identified with 
 the eyewitnesses who appear in certain parts of his book. . . . 
 The admonitions to Timothy and Titus in the pastoral epistles 
 were not really intended for them. It looks very much as if 
 they were simply lay figures and the two letters were intended 
 not for them but for the church at large.” 11 
 
 So the sands shift. Nothing is certain. Discussion is inter¬ 
 minable as among the schoolmen of mediaeval Paris and its un¬ 
 supported assertionalism finally brings one to an impatient clos¬ 
 ing of the book. 
 
 Prof. Lyman’s theism is as little like New Testament theism 
 as President’s McGiffert’s. In his inaugural address in 1918 
 he insisted that “the God of a democratic theism will not have 
 sovereignty as his chief attribute. He will be like Jesus, some¬ 
 times denied, sometimes betrayed. . . . The postulate of a 
 democratic God as the supreme power in the universe can be 
 verified from the facts of experience. . . . The verification 
 consists in the trend of evolution towards world democracy. 
 ... If we feel in our hearts a passion for democracy as the 
 richest, noblest form of human life; if we are gaining some 
 clear, convincing insight as to how a better democracy than 
 we now possess may be achieved . . . then we are already 
 having the kind of experience that belongs to a life with God, 
 with the only kind of God in whom, as the defenders of the 
 democratic ideal, we ought to believe. 
 
 “If, as we look abroad upon human society, we see there a 
 mighty purpose to defend the democracy we already have and 
 to develop a new and better one . . . then we have all the 
 material we need for the experience of actually co-working 
 with God in the world. And this experience so far as it brings 
 new strength and insight for social service supplies cumulative 
 evidence for the reality of a democratic God.” 12 
 
164 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 The address at the opening of the 87th seminary year was 
 delivered by Prof. Fagnani. The Pharisee of the gospel was, 
 for self-satisfaction, not “in it” a moment with this Sadducee. 
 “What is our greatest and most fundamental personal need? 
 I say this with all possible emphasis. It is that we should have 
 a sense of our individual importance and of the wealth of our 
 latent capacity, an impressive recognition of our personal worth 
 and consequence. 
 
 “This indispensable faith in ourselves is a profoundly religious 
 thing, for it is simply faith in God our Heavenly Father re¬ 
 duced from abstraction and vain aspiration to practise and 
 actuality. For a man to say he believes in God and at the 
 same time to despise himself and feel only contempt or despair 
 for his own possibilities of good and achievement is a contra¬ 
 diction in terms.” 
 
 If, then, man is such an admirable creature, it were folly 
 for him to concern himself with salvation from his sins. “It 
 might be subject to question,” continues this theologian, “how 
 far one was entitled to call himself a Christian in any complete 
 and adequate sense whose religion is chiefly concerned with his 
 personal salvation in another world and with doctrines, assent 
 to which he therefore calls fundamental.” 13 
 
 In the old evangelical days, professors at Union had at times 
 literally to “raise” their own salaries, but the present has a broad¬ 
 er margin for its page. The toilsome life in the English Gothic 
 buildings on Morningside is relieved by periods of travel abroad. 
 Prof. G. A. Johnston Ross, returning from delightful sabbatical 
 saunterings in the Far East, spoke of his observations there in 
 an address at the opening of the seminary in 1921. The re¬ 
 ligions of China and Japan had made a profound dint on his 
 thinking. He declared himself “deeply impressed by the var¬ 
 iety of stimuli used by the Chinese toward the achievement of 
 a goodness which in numberless cases is unanswerably authentic 
 and real.” 
 
 Among these he lists the cult of the dead, the wor¬ 
 ship of Kwannon [the Chinese Goddess of Mercy] and of 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 165 
 
 Gautama Euddha. “I believe,” he quotes approvingly, “that 
 long ago the Christ and the Buddha have met in that large 
 world of the spirit and I cannot but believe that it was a 
 meeting marked by mutual love and veneration. . . . The 
 triumph of Christ would mean not the defeat of Buddha, but 
 the perfecting of that which Buddha began.” 
 
 Naturally, “the monstrous menace of the Bible Union 
 League” should “be driven from the mission field.” It would 
 imperil all such religious harmonies. 
 
 Naturally, too, conversion is as unnecessary for those at 
 home as for the Chinese. After referring to the free-thinkers 
 Starbuck, James, and Leuba, he continues: “We older men 
 see that religion by convulsion is to give way to religion by 
 education. ... I shall never forget—only elderly men here 
 can remember—the shock first of Starbuck and next of James. 
 At first these people seemed to be doing something worse than 
 botanizing on one’s mother’s grave. They seemed to be im¬ 
 piously endeavoring to dissect not even a human body, but the 
 divine spirit. Yet slowly, slowly, the new learning began to grip. 
 One’s faith in cataclysmal religion began to fail. One grew 
 ashamed of associating religion with abnormal psychic states.” 
 
 Current theology, he concludes, quoting Prof. Leuba, bears to 
 psychology a relation similar to that of alchemy to chemistry. 14 * 
 
 One can but think of that great Christian layman who so 
 largely made it possible for the present staff at L T nion to live, 
 
 *Prof. Ross thinks that we must “secularize God” (Horsch, Mod¬ 
 ern Religious Liberalism, 121). President McGiffert is quoted (R.E., 
 June, ’19, 161) : “Democracy demands a God with whom men may 
 co-operate, not to whom they must submit.” In his sermon at the 
 dedication of the seminary buildings Prof. Coffin remarked: “We have 
 lost in reverence. The Old Testament phrase ‘them that fear Thy 
 name’ seems scarcely applicable to our religious experience. We have 
 lost the tone of authority which conscience had when men connected 
 it directly with Him that sitteth upon the throne. And above all we 
 have lost that definite consciousness of our personal relationship with 
 God which comes very near to being the essence of vital religion. 
 Indeed, there is much Christianity which it would not be wholly false 
 to describe as godless. 
 
 “They whose legatees you and I are were not worshippers of an 
 unnamed deity. They knew him far too personally for that.” 
 
166 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 the elder Wm. E. Dodge, a Union director for twenty-seven 
 years. Dr. Prentiss, the historian of the seminary, says of 
 him: 
 
 “He cherished a profound conviction of the reality and 
 desirableness of revivals. He constantly prayed for them and 
 when he found himself in the midst of them, his whole mind 
 and heart were stirred. The evangelistic labors of such 
 men as Nettleton, Finney, and Moody, had his warmest sym¬ 
 pathy.” 15 
 
 The protagonist of these psychological theories at Union is 
 Prof. G. A. Coe of the department of religious education and 
 psychology. His point of view is quickly determined' by ref¬ 
 erence to two books, The Religion of a Mature Mind and 
 The Psychology of Religion. God is immanent, hence “there 
 can be no higher destiny or duty for us than just to be our 
 whole selves.” Naturally, then prayer for help from without 
 becomes a futile thing. “In God’s order the world is to be 
 made over into the kingdom of Christ not by the easy way 
 of begging the Almighty to do the work, but by the vastly 
 harder road of doing it ourselves.” There can be no talk here 
 of the school of prayer. Even though “prayer is one of the 
 characteristic facts of the life of Jesus, yet the increasing assim¬ 
 ilation of his teaching of the fatherhood of God takes the em¬ 
 phasis out of our own prayers.” “The belief in the immanence of 
 God,” says Prof. Coe, “has a wondrous power of dissolving 
 things.” Sure enough and here are some of the things which 
 have gone into the crucible. “We have learned that Monday 
 is as holy as Sunday; that doing the duties of life is as religious 
 as prayer; that God is as near to us in the merchandise as in 
 the communion cup.” The sense of sin, too, is gone. “One 
 may be pardoned for doubting whether it ever did work the 
 great good that has been attributed to it.” This “is not to be 
 interpreted as a hardening of conscience. The decline in the 
 sense of sin and a growth in the sense of Christian duty” have 
 an essential relation. It is “the displacement of a lower by a 
 higher type of Christian experience.” 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 167 
 
 “The Christian consciousness is moving toward a point where 
 the supreme question of life will be not, ‘Am I saved?’ but, 
 r What am I good for?’ . . . The modern man cannot be 
 scared by the thought of death or judgment. Naturally, then, 
 we do not catch our breath at the thought of what may be. 
 
 . . . God is an ideal socius, rather than monarch.” 
 
 There is nothing sacrosanct in religion which “science” is 
 not justified in examining and explaining. It has “no claim to 
 exemption from this taking to pieces.” All can be accounted 
 for on anthropological genetic grounds. Baptism is a residual 
 of lustration, the Lord’s Supper of the totemistic eating of the 
 god. “From purification ceremonies intended to remove the 
 effects of broken taboo grew the notion of a purification of the 
 heart. Spells and incantations grew into prayers for favor; 
 these grew into aspiration for universal righteousness.” It is as 
 plain as the nose on the face. “Christians who refuse to pray 
 except in the name of Jesus display [benighted creatures] an atti¬ 
 tude that is obviously a survival of the magical use of names.” 
 
 Repentance and conversion are susceptible to psychological 
 explanation. “The twice-born type which is characterized by 
 acute and persistent feeling of powerlessness to unify one’s life 
 with consequent yielding up of self to some supposedly external 
 ‘redemptive’ person ... is probably determined by some per¬ 
 sistent, though not yet defined, physiological depression.” The 
 joy which often accompanies conversion, this materialist com¬ 
 pares with the feeling of exaltation which follows awakening 
 from anaesthesia. “It is nothing more or less than the effect 
 of religious laughing gas.” 
 
 Prof. Coe minimizes conversion at every point. The regen¬ 
 eration of down-and-outs at the Water Street mission is merely 
 the resurgence from the subconscious of the religion of child¬ 
 hood. Here as elsewhere the subconscious explains all. Re¬ 
 ligious impressions such as that this or that is one’s duty, that 
 God is personally present, that this or that is the witness of the 
 Spirit, are reduced to subconscious products. The conviction 
 of answered prayer is really auto-suggestion. Prof. Coe 
 
168 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 describes the stages of self-hypnotization. “He begins with some 
 idea of God . . . received from instruction or from current 
 tradition. He commonly retires to a quiet place or to a place 
 having mental associations of a religious cast in order to ‘shut 
 out the world.’ This beginning of concentration is followed 
 by closing the eyes which excludes a mass of irrelevant im¬ 
 pressions. The body bows, kneels, or assumes some other posture 
 that requires little muscular tension and that may favor exten¬ 
 sive relaxations” . . . and so on. 
 
 “Religion is wholly within the natural psychological order,” 
 is the affirmation of Prof. Coe. The supernatural in Paul’s 
 career [perhaps in our Lord’s too] is reducible to psychopathic 
 explanation. There are “signs of neurotic make-up in Paul 
 and Mohammed” far more abundantly than in Jesus. “Paul 
 had a luxuriant experience of the sort of automatisms that 
 might have made him a great leader of the shamanistic type. 
 [Shamans are Mongolian devil priests and exorcists.] Though 
 he [Jesus] appears to have experienced some automatisms that 
 he interprets as special divine impartations, these were not the 
 staple of his reliance for himself or for others. That is, of 
 shamanism there are only minor traces . Neither Jesus nor 
 Buddha was made weak or inefficient by automatisms that he 
 may have experienced; neither trafficked in them after the 
 manner of the Shaman.” 
 
 Prof. Coe is engaged in preparing teachers in religion for 
 the young of the country. He is one of the lights of the 
 Religious Education Association. 16 
 
 I wonder if Prof. Scott had his colleague Prof. Coe in mind 
 when he remarked, “The new intellectual currency consists for 
 the most part of raw theories and catchwords which have just 
 about the same value as Russian paper money. There is a 
 general feeling that all our counsellors are lying to us. . . . 
 even professors. ... It is only the New Testament that speaks 
 the truth.” 
 
 Yet what kind of a New Testament does Prof. Scott leave 
 us? In his inaugural in 1919 he declared it “a fact no longer 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 169 
 
 to be questioned” that “some of our cherished Christian be¬ 
 liefs are in part a heritage from ancient paganism.” “We can¬ 
 not unreservedly accept the testimony of the fourth Gospel on 
 any matter of historical fact.” “The fourth evangelist was not 
 one of the original witnesses of the life of Jesus.” This gospel 
 “lacks the warm colors and definite outlines of personal rem¬ 
 iniscence.” Just what Profs. Torrey and Montgomery, how¬ 
 ever, do find in it. “It is not the life of Jesus which is set 
 before us but the history of the Logos.” . . . The stories of 
 the baptism, the temptation, the agony, the cry from the cross 
 “could not be reconciled with the theory of the Logos and had 
 therefore to be omitted. Place is given to the mystical ideas 
 which had already begun to grow up around the Lord’s Supper 
 under the influence of Greek and Oriental theosophy.” 17 
 
 “It is sometimes with a pang that we see. conclusions which 
 it took a century to reach, going back into the melting pot,” 
 says Prof. Scott. Union has for a generation been a centre for 
 this futile theorizing. “The God of all grace who hath called 
 us into his eternal glory . . . establish, strengthen, settle you.” 
 That’s the ideal for a school set to train leaders for the church. 
 
 It was an ideal up to which the great Andover master John 
 Adams lived and which ennobled the career of his son, President 
 W. A. Adams of Union. Prof. Wm. Adams Brown is in the 
 blood succession of these two saints. He teaches theology in 
 present-day Union. In an article in the Harvard Theological 
 Review he tells us how he once walked the midnight streets 
 of New York with Dr. Grenfell in earnest discussion. Sud¬ 
 denly Grenfell stopped abruptedly with the words, “I wish I 
 were back in Labrador. It is much easier to know what is 
 right in Labrador than it is in New York city.” 
 
 No wonder he was confused. Back in the fifties Prof. Henry 
 B. Smith had said, “The great alternative of our time is Christ 
 or Spinoza.” Prof. Brown by affirming that “God is not 
 thought of as separate from the universe, but rather as its im¬ 
 manent law” definitely aligns himself with the Amsterdam Jew. 
 The consummatum est of Calvary has no meaning for him. 
 
170 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 “Salvation is not an act wrought once for all in some tran¬ 
 scendent realm. It is a process going on through the ages and 
 rooted as truly as sin itself in the nature of man. Atonement 
 is not the great exception. It is the universal law of true liv¬ 
 ing.” 18 One cannot better characterize the theology of present- 
 day Union than in the inaugural words of Prof. H. B. Smith 
 in 1855: “The terms of specific Christian truth may be retained, 
 but their soul is eaten out by a strange fire. ... A parasitic 
 naturalism is feeding its own life with the grace which it 
 supplants.” 19 
 
 Prof. H. S. Coffin, in an address at the seminary, speaks of 
 the denial of the Virgin Birth as “an absurdly unimportant 
 heresy.” 20 Prof. Fosdick’s rejections of Christian truth are 
 public property. A stenographer sent into his class room brought 
 out a flat repudiation of the resurrection of our Lord. 
 
 “Wheresoever the carcass is. . . .” The bones of Andover 
 have been picked white. The Unitarians are now gathering 
 about Union. One notices announcements of lectures by Drs. 
 W. L. Sullivan and F. G. Peabody; of John Haynes Holmes, 
 J. H. Randall and S. A. Eliot conducting prayers in the sem¬ 
 inary chapel. President Eliot’s name appears on the letter-head 
 of the new endowment campaign. The English free-thinker 
 Conybeare is invited to lecture to Union students; also Prof. 
 Lake of the Harvard Theological School. 
 
 Out of this atmosphere and saturated with teaching such 
 as has been quoted come the youngsters to plague the church. 
 Knowles Taylor, a Union founder, wrote in the early days, 
 “When you become an old gray-headed Elder and meet in the 
 General Assembly the men who received their education at 
 our seminary and hear them magnify the Word of God and 
 see that they are sound and faithful Bible teachers, you will 
 rejoice and bless God for what you see and hear.” 21 How 
 different the fact! Union graduates are the perplexity of or¬ 
 daining councils.* Yet they make their way into the strategic 
 
 *“I am about to be graduated from an undenominational seminary,” 
 writes one of these Union seniors, the Rev. A. A. Hunter in the Century 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 171 
 
 places of the church. The alumni catalogue gives their present 
 status—presidents and professors of mission colleges, teachers 
 in theological seminaries, Bible professors in colleges, directors 
 of religious education, Y. M. C. A. leaders. One of the ob¬ 
 jectives of the recent four million dollar drive has been the erec¬ 
 tion of buildings to accommodate thirty missionary families home 
 on furlough. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The first two chapters of the official history of the University 
 of Chicago describe with unedifying detail the patient steering 
 by which the goldfish was finally landed. When news of the 
 Rockefeller gift came to the Baptists gathered in national con¬ 
 vention at Boston the entire assembly rose with the doxology 
 on its lips and Dr. Henson exclaimed, “I scarcely dare trust 
 myself to speak. I feel like Simeon when he said, ‘Now, Lord, 
 lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have 
 seen thy salvation.’ ” 22 
 
 The gift called for additional givers. To clinch the $600,000 
 a general collection of $400,000 was required. Appeals were 
 sent to 1,200 Baptist pastors throughout the West. The second 
 Sunday in April was made “University Day.” “Preach the 
 sermon if your salary is in arrears and finances lagging,” was 
 the mot d’ordre. “Contribute to the cause of Christian culture.” 
 
 The promise dangled before the country churches was “a 
 great Christian university” to counteract the materialism of 
 the Middle West. The churches responded admirably. “Not 
 only have the well-to-do given liberally, but those of lesser 
 means, and even the poor out of their hard-won savings.” 
 Baptist people in Chicago subscribed $233,000, one church 
 
 Magazine, June 1923. “I hate stiff-necked doctrine just as cordially as 
 do the rest of us who are under thirty. . . . We find ourselves curiously 
 bold in our irreverence. ... As one hoping to enter the ministry I 
 should leave the church if I thought it would prove to be such a hope*- 
 less embalming institution,” etc. Mr. Hunter, who has been six years 
 in the Y. M. C. A. in the East and who praises Chinese students because 
 of their apostolic zeal for science, speaks of our Lord as “one who met 
 men eating and drinking, quick with redemption, exuberant with laugh¬ 
 ing humor, gesturing with immense great jollity as he made fun of the 
 pious sticklers who strained at a gnat only to swallow a camel.” 
 
172 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 giving $80,000, another $50,000, another $20,000, and a fourth 
 $7,000, and all the rest in proportion to ability. 23 
 
 If they could have but looked forward to Foster and Case; 
 to Dewey’s philosophy and Watson’s “Behaviourism” ;* to Loeb 
 and Leopold! 
 
 Dr. Augustus H. Strong, who was influential in the promo¬ 
 tion of the university for Christian ends, gives in some un¬ 
 published notes the impression of his first contacts with it. The 
 buildings were being constructed on Sundays as well as on week¬ 
 days; in chapel during the summer of ’93 the services were 
 punctuated by the thunder of trunks of World Fair guests 
 coming from and going to Sunday trains. At the Y. M. C. A. 
 he heard Prof. Shorey explaining that “the Greeks had all 
 that was important to religion and in fact that Socrates and 
 Plato were in some respects in advance of Christ.” Materialism 
 early soaked into every nook and corner of the university. 
 President Harper confessed this: “The problem of the uni¬ 
 versity’s religious life,” he saj^s, “weighed on me more heavily 
 than any other connected with the office which I have been 
 called to administer. I have noticed that with each recurring 
 year it has required a greater effort on my part to undertake 
 this kind of service [chapel talks]. I have asked myself whether 
 as a matter of fact it was growing more and more difficult to 
 deal with subjects of this kind in a university atmospherc.”t 
 
 The Baptists of the West had their well-established theo¬ 
 logical seminary with a student body of 190 and assets amount- 
 
 *J. M. Aldrich writing in the Christian Register, 1922:251, says of 
 Prof. Watson: “John Broadus Watson was from a strong Baptist family 
 and a South Carolina college. I presume he kept his religion at least 
 that far. Then he went to the University of Chicago and specialized 
 in psychology, getting a doctor’s degree and losing his religion some¬ 
 where on the way. In his book Behavioristic Philosophy he announced 
 that he had found the term consciousness unnecessary. Well, it happened 
 that his book was just nicely before the public when the papers carried 
 the announcement that the trustees of Johns Hopkins university had 
 accepted his resignation for cause. It is not a pleasant story.” 
 
 tPresident Harper no doubt did his share in opening the dikes but 
 he regretted the consequences all in apparent unconsciousness of what 
 he had done. 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 173 
 
 ing to a half million, the Baptist Union Seminary at Morgan 
 Park. Its president was Dr. Northrop, an able and devout 
 theologian. Mr. E. Nelson Blake, who had secured its con¬ 
 siderable endowment, was an evangelical Baptist and Bible 
 teacher of sixty years standing . 24 
 
 Unfortunately by the terms of the Rockefeller gift this 
 seminary was incorporated into the university. “Mr. Rocke¬ 
 feller builded if not better, yet more broadly than he knew,” 
 is the Unitarian comment . 25 Precautions were indeed taken to 
 ensure the denominational character of the university. Three- 
 fifths of the trustees were to be Baptists and the title to the 
 land on which the University is built, was to revert to the 
 Baptist Education Society if this clause were violated. “In this 
 particular this charter shall be forever unalterable .” 26 
 
 The trustees have remained Baptist but hardly the theolo¬ 
 gians, save in name. Prof. G. B. Foster while teaching in this 
 Baptist seminary was pastor of the Unitarian church at 
 Madison, Wisconsin . 27 Prof. Haydon* has succeeded him at 
 
 “It would be curious and something very sad,” he wrote, “if the 
 institutions founded by our fathers as training schools for Christian 
 service should come to be centers of influence destructive to that same 
 Christianity. The first purpose of the college was the defense of Chris¬ 
 tianity together with the education of men to foster its interests. No 
 one will deny that this purpose has been most effectively realized during 
 the past two centuries of church and college history. 
 
 “But what is the situation today? Is it true that there has been a 
 remarkable decrease in the actual teaching of Christian truth while 
 a large and growing emphasis has been placed upon the teaching of 
 branches which are altogether devoid of religious character? Yes. Is 
 it true that of the students who enter college only a meagre few look 
 forward to Christian service of any kind, the larger number having as 
 a matter of fact but the slightest interest in religious matters? Yes. Is 
 it certainly a fact that many men and women who enter college aa 
 Christian workers in their home churches take little or no active part 
 in church life after they have completed their college work? Yes. 
 
 “There has been a peculiar and a fatal lack of proper religious 
 instruction for the young during the past twenty years and we are just 
 beginning to feel its terrible effects .”—Religion and the Higher Life, 132. 
 
 *At the annual meeting of the Western Conference [Unitarian], 
 1922, Prof. Havdon began his address by stating that he was a member 
 of the Hyde Park Baptist church, pastor of the Madison Unitarian 
 church and devoting his life to teaching the non-Christian religion of 
 the future. C.R. 1922:601. 
 
174 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Madison while lecturing on comparative religion in the sem¬ 
 inary. A third Baptist, Prof. Merrifield, occupies a chair 
 in the New Testament and on Sundays is preacher in All 
 Souls Unitarian church . 28 Prof. Soares, who is a favorite in 
 Unitarian pulpits and Unitarian lecture courses, is quoted in 
 the Christian Register as saying of himself, “Why should a 
 person withdraw from his denomination? To withdraw means 
 that his denomination means something to him when it does 
 not .” 129 “The organ of the seminary, The Biblical World!' 
 also remarks the Christian Register , “is as far from conformity 
 to Baptist doctrines as the deliverances from Ford Hall .” 30 
 The Unitarian seminary at Meadville, Pa., transfers its whole 
 student body summer times to the University of Chicago and 
 is to be merged with the Baptist divinity school as soon as 
 the objections of certain Unitarians are overcome . 31 These 
 circumstances naturally make the school useless for evangelical 
 Christians and this is practically acknowledged in a signed 
 statement of Dr. Burton and Dr. Padelford, president and 
 secretary of the Northern Baptist Board of Education: 
 
 “The Divinity School of the University of Chicago is largely 
 a graduate school. Only a small percentage of its students are 
 preparing for the pastorates of our churches. Moreover this 
 school frankly and unequivocally represents only one group of 
 churches in our denomination. This group is large and import¬ 
 ant and must have a school for the adequate training of its 
 ministry. 
 
 “On the other hand the great majority of our churches in 
 the Middle West are of a conservative type and they need and 
 have a right to an institution which shall train ministers for 
 their churches. . . . We believe that if by some wise measures 
 such an institution could be established, the denomination 
 would stand back of it with men and money. 
 
 “Baptists will always need different types of schools because 
 such a denomination as ours will always be composed, as it 
 always has been, of people of different types of thought. . . . 
 By our very constitution we cannot dictate the thinking of 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 175 
 
 our scholars and our teachers. We should cease to be Baptists 
 if we did, but we must always insure that the great groups 
 among us have adequate institutions for the thorough training 
 of a ministry. The Board of Education hopes the denomination 
 will give serious heed to this suggestion.” 32 
 
 In other words, their Middle West seminary having been, 
 to all intents and purposes, Unitarianized, Baptists are officially 
 urged to collect funds to establish a new one to take its 
 place. 
 
 In 1921 a committee was appointed by the Northern Baptist 
 Convention to examine into the religious conditions prevailing 
 in schools founded and controlled by the denomination.* This 
 would seem to be a legitimate procedure in view of current 
 complaints regarding them, but the committee had to report 
 that on every side they were characterized as “inquisitors.” 33 
 The Unitarian organ was especially violent concerning these 
 internal affairs of the Baptists. The heads of the schools, how¬ 
 ever, gave frank and cordial answers with the exception of 
 President Faunce of Brown, who declared the inquiry “an 
 attack both upon education and religion.” “Never since the 
 days of Roger Williams,” he continued, “has so open an 
 attempt been made to force under financial penalty the Baptists 
 of the country to adopt a series of dogmas in writing.” 
 
 The Divinity School of the University of Chicago defined 
 itself as “the contribution of the Baptist denomination to the 
 theological education of the country,” rather than as a denom¬ 
 inational institution, certainly an accurate confession. As to 
 its general attitude toward the Christian faith it affirmed that 
 
 *“It was alleged that many of our young men and women brought up 
 in Christian ways and full of Christian zeal have gone to college and 
 at the completion of their course have returned home with their Chris¬ 
 tian faith impaired and their confidence in the Scriptures shattered; 
 that many of the young men appearing before councils for examination 
 with a view to ordination to the ministry have shown an utter lack of 
 conviction concerning the very things they were to preach . . . that 
 often the teachers in schools endowed by Baptist money, supported by 
 Baptist influence and contributions, have shown scant respect for what 
 has always been the rule of faith and practise among Baptist people.”— 
 Annual of Northern Baptist Convention, 1921, 40. 
 
176 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 “we teach our students to study the Bible reverently. ... We 
 bring them directly to the Bible in order that with the guidance 
 and help of the Holy Spirit they may experience its inspiration. 
 . . . We teach our students to recognize and conserve the 
 truth expressed in this historic document.” 35 
 
 A Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion is a joint 
 production of this divinity faculty and gives a fair measure 
 wherewith to test its answer to the denomination on whose 
 past self-denials it lives. One is struck with the lack of Chris¬ 
 tian insight displayed; at times, too, with the writers’ hostility 
 to the obvious. These men have no perceptible love for Christ. 
 Their whole interest in him seems to be in the problems which 
 he starts or may be made to start. Sometimes their theorizings 
 are sheerly frivolous. Dean Mathews speaks about the “bour¬ 
 geois social mind” as controlling the Christian interpretation 
 of the past generation. “There resulted from the interplay of 
 Christianity with this new spirit an emphasis on the atonement 
 largely in commercial terms which was to have much the same 
 influence in religion as the bourgeois movement has exercised 
 in politics.” 36 This theory belongs to the category of the 
 Kaivorepov , indeed, but not of the true. No serious man would 
 think of defending it. To J. M. Powis Smith we are indebted 
 for this gem: “The Hebrews were never far removed from 
 starvation. It may well be that this lack of things material 
 contributed much toward the development of spiritual riches.” 
 Any way but by divine inspiration to account for Old Testa¬ 
 ment religion! “The Hebrews were given no extraordinary 
 or abnormal aids or advantages not within the reach of other 
 men then as now,” 37 is Prof. Smith’s ipse dixit. The adoption, 
 the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, and all the 
 rest in Paul’s list, were no aids to sanctity compared with 
 short rations. Like intellectual parvenus generally these Chicago 
 theologians ever choose that which is most paradoxical and 
 furthest from tradition. It’s a poor method for getting at truth. 
 
 It would be hard to find anything more supercilious than 
 the attitude which Prof. Case assumes towards our Lord. In 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 177 
 
 his book, The Millennial Hope, he speaks of him as “an im¬ 
 pressive individual,” and in another passage, “To this mighty 
 Christ the angelic choir renders fulsome praise, ascribing to 
 him honor and glory and eternal dominion.” 38 Yet he grants 
 that “Jesus’ actual contribution to the rise of Christianity is 
 really more significant than might at first appear,” and then, 
 adjusting his glasses, “There is much to prove that his life 
 was one of rich spiritual attainments.” 
 
 “Jesus,” he tells us elsewhere, “is commonly regarded as the 
 founder of the Christian movement.” But one should be on 
 one’s guard against attributing too much to him. There was 
 a “natural disposition to seek the authority of Jesus” for later 
 developments. When baptism was made a feature of church 
 life he was represented as having “accepted baptism by John.” 
 “The last meal which Jesus had eaten informally with the 
 disciples now came to be viewed [falsely, of course] as the 
 deliberate establishment of a Christian rite. . . . Similarly, 
 after the leaders of the new movement rather tardily arrived 
 at the conviction of a world-wide mission, they felt assured that 
 Jesus himself had intended this result and had in fact com¬ 
 missioned them to make disciples of all nations.” 
 
 Pauline Christianity made large drafts upon contemporary 
 paganism. The resurrection of Jesus was but a reflection of 
 similar myths related of pagan gods and heroes. The worship 
 of Lord Serapis and Lady Isis gave the pattern for the dei¬ 
 fication of Jesus. The “simple recipe ‘If thou shalt confess with 
 thy mouth Jesus as Lord and shalt believe in thy heart that 
 God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved’ ” echoes 
 the formulas of pagan cults. “Our sources of information re¬ 
 garding Jesus are all interpretive in character” and “if we 
 are to get at the picture of the historical Jesus which lies buried 
 beneath this mass of accretion, we must use rigid critical 
 processes.” 39 
 
 And so forth. 
 
 In a Religious Education Association address (R. E. 1910: 
 84) Dean Shailer Mathews told his fellow educationists, “The 
 
178 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 theology of democracy has yet to be written. Whereas, Calvin¬ 
 ists spoke of God’s election of man, the democrat speaks of 
 man’s election of God. The democratic spirit of the age is 
 demanding that the church abandon sovereignty as the con¬ 
 trolling concept of its theology and leaven itself with democ¬ 
 racy.” 40 This shrill note and Lilliputian gesture appear in most 
 of these liberal disquisitions. 
 
 Thus Prof. G. B. Smith, systematic theologian of Chicago 
 University, tells us that “the phrase, the sovereignty of God, 
 harks back to the days of belief in the divine right of kings. 
 But today we believe in a democratic form of government 
 which allows citizens to call rulers to account. If criticism is 
 a valuable moral asset in our political life can we exclude it 
 from religious thinking? May we not demand that God shall 
 be required to receive the moral approval of men? This spirit 
 of democracy with its insistance on the rights of men is re¬ 
 sponsible for the current protests against such ideas as . . . that 
 he has a right to insist on some rigid plan of salvation purely 
 because he has chosen this rather than any other plan.” 
 
 The Bible has no authority for our day. It has ceased to 
 be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. “It has been 
 assumed,” says Prof. Smith, “that a study of the Bible would 
 adequately prepare one to live a moral life.” Nothing is further 
 from the truth. “So long as we are pursuing the devious ways 
 of attempting to solve modern moral problems by a study of 
 precepts addressed to other times and other occasions, we shall 
 reap the harvest of moral confusion.” 41 
 
 Redemption is, according to another of these Chicago pen - 
 seurs , Prof. Soares, an obsolete fancy. “We no longer think 
 of salvation as dependent upon the acceptance of certain re¬ 
 demptive facts.”* The Bible is not to be thought of as “a 
 
 *Prof. Albion W. Small writes: “This is a vicarious world, but not 
 as stupidly conceived by mediaeval theologians, who located the one 
 vicarious act of importance in the death on the cross. Life is vicarious 
 in that its processes begin, continue, and end with exchanges of sacrifice 
 wherever there are moral beings.”—Quoted in Ellwood, Reconstruction, 
 178 . 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 179 
 
 repository of redemptive facts.” “The idea that the principal 
 business of the church is to get people converted or committed 
 to the Christian life,” is properly branded. “As if anything 
 significant were accomplished by this one moment of decision.” 
 Who would be so unenlightened as to think that the conversions 
 of Paul and Augustine and Luther and Bunyan and Wilber- 
 force had any meaning for human history. “The great Sunday- 
 school world is getting away from the idea of evangelizing 
 children”; and most significant of all “the great Student Move¬ 
 ment throughout the world has given up the old appeal en¬ 
 tirely.” Prof. Soares thinks of revelation as self-deception. 
 “The message which is ‘received’ is usually a body of ideas 
 suggested to the mind by the current state of affairs. It is 
 in other words a sub-conscious inference from situations.” 
 To this is “Thus spake the Lord” reduced in south Chi¬ 
 cago. 42 
 
 The Finality of the Christian Religion , by the late George 
 B. Foster, can be considered as a sort of official pronouncement 
 of the theology of this divinity school since it was issued in 
 commemoration of the first decade of the university’s existence. 
 It is a book which would have warmed the bloodless heart of 
 Voltaire. “An intelligent man who now affirms his faith in 
 miracle can hardly know what intellectual honesty means.” 
 The hypothesis of God has become “superfluous in every science, 
 even that of religion itself.” The supernatural Christ is com¬ 
 pared to Santa Claus. “Ontologically Santa Claus is unreal, 
 but morally, so to speak, he is the most real being in the world, 
 since he is the embodiment and personification of the most real 
 and most worthy sentiments and services of the human heart. 
 Similarly the Messianic idea stood for realities which supplied 
 the dynamic for a people’s whole career.” 
 
 “Jesus did not transcend the limits of the purely human. 
 He did not put himself alongside the Almighty God. He never 
 thought of ascribing a pre-mundane existence to himself: nor 
 did he claim to be judge of the world.” It is doubtful if he 
 ever “called himself the Son of man.” 
 
180 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Foster speaks of the “wooden conception of his abstract sin- 
 lessness.” “Jesus confronts us as knowing what sin was, know¬ 
 ing too not from divine omniscience. . . . The idea of the 
 absolute sinlessness of Jesus is no result of historical study. 
 It is simply sanctimonious superficiality to spirit away his 
 words, ‘Why callest thou me good ?’ ” “He did not con¬ 
 sider his own nature to be different in essence from that of other 
 men.” 
 
 The New Testament story of supernatural birth, miracle, 
 resurrection, is “an antiquated affair, a relic that is worthless 
 to the cultivated classes [Prof. Foster was a West Virginian 
 poor white living by collecting ginseng before he became a 
 Chicago pundit.] “Christological dogmas really signify for 
 many children of our time a sarcophagus of the personality of 
 Jesus. . . . One flees from it as from a ghost. . . . Historical 
 science must repudiate the entire supernaturalist position” in 
 the matter of the resurrection of Christ. The task of historical 
 science is “to blast and tunnel through the solidified Pauline 
 construction to the real Jesus of Nazareth.” But “not only 
 in primitive Christianity, but even in the words and ideas of 
 Jesus there is a plus which does not belong to the eternal and 
 essential gospel. ... To erect independently of experience the 
 sayings of Jesus as such into a norm of life for every time 
 and place is immoral 
 
 “The picture which Jesus inherited of the world and its 
 processes is gone forever. We cannot entice it from the Dead 
 Sea of the past and we would not if we could. . . . We have 
 at length learned that to have faith does not mean to hold a 
 set of opinions; does not even mean to think what Jesus 
 thought.” 
 
 “Jesus knew nothing of many of the moral and social tasks 
 which today we cannot escape. He had a view of the world 
 which made him indifferent to the great historical future of 
 society.” He was in other words a provincial with all sorts 
 of limitations, “a child of his time, a merely human Christ 
 who does no more and no less than interpret to us the eternal 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 181 
 
 revelation of God in human nature.” To this shrivels the Lord 
 Jesus Christ whom Foster impertinently describes as “this super¬ 
 human entity with his epiphany and his performances.” 
 
 All of which is the stalest Unitarianism.* 43 
 
 Prof. E. S. Ames is pastor of the Hyde Park church of the 
 Disciples as well as professor. His utterances are of the same 
 type, but expressed in psychological phrasing. The traditional 
 God is an impossible concept. “No such static, transcendent, 
 non-empirical reality is conceivable by usT i. e., by the “leaders 
 of modern thought.” 
 
 “In a despotic society, where sovereignty is idealized, to 
 think of God means to humble one’s self, to take on the posture 
 and employ the phrases which a menial uses in the presence 
 of his lord. . . . But where the idea of God is the em¬ 
 bodiment of ideals arising from democratic social move¬ 
 ments, its presence in the mind expresses itself in motor 
 reactions indicative of respect for the welfare of all members of 
 society.” 
 
 When we pray, we are really praying to a secondary per¬ 
 sonality within the recesses of our human being. “Prayer is a 
 natural expression of the social character of all consciousness. 
 . . . The conscious life of the individual is largely an interplay 
 between the different selves of his different attitudes and habits. 
 These argue, confer, advise, and contend, with each other, quite 
 as actual people do. These selves may be exalted moral beings 
 with which the lesser selves of one’s actual temper and deeds 
 seek communion and from which they petition aid of every 
 kind. 
 
 *It was of this book that a Chicago daily wrote: “We are struck 
 also with the hypocrisy and treachery of these attacks on Christianity. 
 This is a free country and a free age and men can say what they choose 
 about religion but this is not what we arraign these divinity professors 
 for. Is there no place in which to assail Christianity but a divinity 
 school ? Is there no one to write infidel books except the professors of 
 Christian theology? Is a theological seminary an appropriate place for 
 a general massacre of Christian doctrines? . . . We are not champion¬ 
 ing either Christianity or infidelity, but only condemning infidels mas¬ 
 querading as men of God and Christian teachers.”—Quoted in Horsch, 
 Modern Religious Liberalism, 276. 
 
182 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 ‘‘One particular type of self often becomes the standard 
 for the individual and this self is largely or solely formed upon 
 the model of some definite historical or imaginary character. 
 Where this is true, prayer may attain all the vividness of per¬ 
 sonal communion, even including hallucinations and visions in 
 which the ideal personality speaks to one or intervenes in one’s 
 behalf.” 
 
 If theism evanesces into mere egotheism, all the phenomena 
 of Christian experience will naturally be explained as psychic 
 reaction. So Prof. Ames tells us that “hysteria and other nerv¬ 
 ous and circulatory disorders are common causes” of the sense 
 of sin. “The methods and many conversions of revivals are 
 essentially the methods and effects of hypnotism.” The Spirit 
 of God does not mould and appeal to human hearts. There 
 is no Spirit of God as commonly understood. “In a certain 
 sense the religious life is an irradiation of the reproductive 
 instinct.” Conversion is a phase of adolesence. “One of the 
 most significant and best established facts which the new science 
 of psychology of religion has discovered is that conversion be¬ 
 longs primarily to the years between ten and twenty-five.” 
 “The expression, ‘The word of the Lord came unto me,’ 
 represents experience common to automatism, trances, etc., in 
 primitive religions. Paul was probably a neurotic; Augustine 
 a sensualist with a highly developed nervous temperament. It 
 is apparent that there were very special individual reasons for 
 their dramatic conversions.” 44 
 
 The physicists, the astronomers, the biologists, are making 
 discoveries. The liberal theologians must not drop behind. So 
 we have the “new science of the psychology of religion.” Prof. 
 Sylvanus Thompson remarks of a psychologist of vogue, “The 
 new psychologists, of whom we have in William James the 
 most shining example, tickle our ears with the jargon in which 
 they dress up half-ascertained, half-known facts on the borders 
 of our consciousness and manufacture an exact science out of 
 the very elements of inexactness.” I wonder what he would 
 say of Professors Coe, Ames, and Starbuck. 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 183 
 
 Prof. H. L. Willett is in the divinity school of the Disciples 
 affiliated to Chicago University. He holds to the conventional 
 opinions and to quote him would be but to repeat. “Every 
 miracle and every prophecy could be eliminated from the 
 Scripture and its supreme values would not be disturbed,” he 
 writes in “Our Bible.” Our Lord expounded to the two on 
 the Emmaus road in all the Scriptures the things concerning 
 Himself. But he was mistaken in his fancies. “There is not,” 
 says Prof. Willett, “an instance in the New Testament of any 
 such incident in the life of Jesus that holds to any Old Testa¬ 
 ment passage the relation of fulfilment to prediction.” Prof. 
 Willett holds low views of the Decalogue. In “The Moral 
 Leaders of Israel” he tells us that “the first commandment 
 inculcates the intolerance of Jehovah which is characteristic 
 of the Hebrew religion.” Novel interpretations are worked out. 
 The still, small voice is not that of the Spirit of God. “Wind, 
 earthquake and fire—spasmodic violence—should give way to 
 a quiet planning. The new way to dispose of Baalism is a 
 series of well-laid and executed plots.” 45 
 
 The lofty, patronizing note is heard in Prof. Goodspeed’s 
 Story of the New Testament. “Though Christians in increasing 
 numbers may no longer attach to it [the New Testament] the 
 dogmatic values of the past, they will never cease to prize it 
 for its inspiring and purifying power and for its simple and 
 moving story of the ministry of Jesus.” The Gospel of Matthew 
 was written by a Jewish Christian who preferred to remain 
 unknown, not by the apostle; First Peter by a Christian elder 
 of Rome, it is not possible otherwise to say whom; John by 
 that elder of Ephesus who wrote the three letters, not by the 
 apostle, and so on. The modes on the current fashion plates 
 are strictly followed in Chicago.* 48 
 
 ♦The University of Chicago seminary is preparing a foreign export 
 business in these ideas. With the Chicago Congregational seminary, now 
 closely attached to it, it “is building up a School of Missions second 
 to none in the country. It is significant that over sixty missionaries and 
 their wives have been in residence during all or part of the current 
 year. Especially attractive are these courses to students planning to 
 
184 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Such is the teaching which the theologians of the University 
 of Chicago seek to inject into the churches. As it becomes 
 clearer what they are up to, opposition increases. The Rev. 
 A. W. Wishart, trained in this seminary, declared at a Re¬ 
 ligious Education Convention, “If all the seminaries were 
 suddenly to become thoroughly modern in spirit and teaching, 
 most of their graduates would find themselves without charges. 
 In all probability, organized opposition to the seminaries would 
 arise and new seminaries would be established to supply the 
 churches with the kind of ministers they desired. . . . We 
 need more advanced ministers with religious fervor and broad 
 training who will lovingly, but firmly, brave opposition of the 
 misguided masses in the struggle to promote true religion among 
 men. 
 
 The pigs must be driven into the right pens. 
 
 But suppose the churches prove incorrigible ? One way would 
 be to insist by law that the ministers receive the right kind of 
 training. The Rev. Allan Hoben, a former member of the 
 Chicago divinity faculty and now president of the Baptist 
 college at Kalamazoo, makes a suggestion of this sort. There 
 are too many graduates from those dreadful Bible institutes 
 in the ministry. “Public opinion, which is becoming increasingly 
 sensitive to the inutility and costliness of a ministry over¬ 
 crowded by those who are unfit and therefore obstructive to 
 a united community effort for good, will demand, perhaps by 
 law, a more adequate education for the professional religious 
 teacher. ... The assumption of a social task as a life-calling 
 must not be the presumption of ignorance or weak sentimen¬ 
 tality, but the rational service of an enlightened and trained 
 mind. 
 
 “If from the viewpoint of democracy the church is a public 
 utility, collecting large sums of money and aiming to render 
 
 devote their lives to educational missions.” (Chicago Theological Sem¬ 
 inary Register, 13, 26.) It has (as Union and Harvard) devised 
 "elaborate plans for drawing into its enrolment choice students from 
 all parts of the earth.”— Kelly, Theological Seminaries in America, 104. 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 185 
 
 services from which the state deliberately refrains, has the state 
 the right to demand anything by way of standardization or 
 efficiency of those services and to expect a wise and reasonable 
 use of the money solicited from the citizens?”* 48 Obviously, 
 yes! Fair play to givers has ever been the historical enthusiasm 
 of these Chicago University divines. 
 
 The first $7,500 for their divinity school was collected by 
 Nathaniel Colver, a powerful Puritan figure, who because of 
 lack of early opportunity used to describe himself as “a graduate 
 of the brush-heap.” Before teaching at the seminary, he organ¬ 
 ized training classes for prospective ministers in his own home, 
 and among his students were D. L. Moody and H. C. Mabie. 
 
 *This book is a University of Chicago publication in religious educa¬ 
 tion “to be used by thoughtful parents and in midweek meetings.” Dr. 
 Hoben believes that the prevention of sins “is more important than 
 their forgiveness and that prevention is in a very large measure pos¬ 
 sible,” 141. Well-done work by a child in poultry raising, etc., presents 
 “a way of expressing his obedience to God in terms which are for him 
 perhaps more suitable than public prayer.” The Benedictines with their 
 laborare est orare have nothing on the president of Kalamazoo College. 
 Of children’s gardens he says: “Probably there is no more satisfactory 
 and timely religious exercise for the child of this age than to co-operate 
 with God in producing the food that is necessary to life,” 39. On page 
 116 he suggests that there should be a program of better social diversion 
 “to redeem the dance.” The president of Kalamazoo stands shoulder 
 to shoulder with the emerited president of Harvard who closes an 
 essay on the Wise Direction of Church Activities with the super-wise 
 remark, “I was once asked if there was any study which I should be 
 willing to have required of every student in Harvard College. After 
 a moment’s reflection I said I thought there was one, dancing.” 
 
 “Here is one of the most serious things. We are letting into the 
 Baptist ministry a very large percentage of men who have no ability 
 to discriminate between science and literature,” says one of the denom¬ 
 inational shepherds, Dr. Shailer Mathews, to the assembled theologians 
 at Rochester Seminary. The churches must be taught to select the 
 approved brand. At the same conference Dr. Padelford complained 
 that in two training schools in Chicago last year there were 151 Baptist 
 men preparing for the ministry, more than the total student body of 
 Colgate, Rochester, and Berkeley combined. These scabs must learn 
 their place. “Some drastic action may be necessary before this condition 
 can be cured. If we would set up a definite standard of admittance 
 to our ministry and require men to secure a thorough training before 
 they could be ordained we should reduce the over-supply and eliminate 
 many unqualified men; we should create a healthier attitude in the 
 churches towards the ministry.”— Rochester Theological Bulletin, 68th 
 year, No. 1, 42 and 53. 
 
186 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 His ministerial institutes in the Middle West were famous. 
 Dr. Clough modelled similar ones for the Telegus upon Col¬ 
 vin’s lines. Work at Richmond, Va., for education of negro 
 ministers filled his last years with usefulness. 40 
 
 But Colvin would have received scant tolerance from the 
 theologians who now dominate the school he founded. Indeed, 
 the educational machine of the denomination is moving in a 
 way to weed out such men and to give Baptists a theological 
 closed-shop. A two years course of study is proposed for all 
 candidates for ordination. State conventions are asked to pass 
 resolutions refusing financial aid to churches which shall not in 
 the future conform to these educational standards. Ministerial 
 passports are to be required for those moving from one Asso¬ 
 ciation to another. There are to be committees appointed, in 
 each state convention, on ministerial standing to make inquisi¬ 
 tion as to the educational status of ministers. Ministers who 
 have failed to comply with minimum requirements for ordina¬ 
 tion are to be refused aid from ministers and missionary benefit 
 funds. 50 
 
 The full import of this scheme is obvious in the recom¬ 
 mendation that state conventions avail themselves of seminary 
 help in preparing and directing pre-ordination courses of study 
 for those who have not had seminary training. The nature 
 of this training can be fairly judged from the reading courses 
 which these seminaries have drawn up for ministers. 
 
 Ten years ago Newton Theological Institution published one 
 such in its official bulletin [Vol. 6, No. 2, Feb. 1914] “for 
 Newton students and alumni and Baptist ministers generally” 
 with the expressed “hope that these recommendations will lead 
 to wider and more intelligent reading and will add many 
 permanently valuable books to pastors’ libraries.” This list is 
 a sort of theological toxicology; also an appropriate comment 
 on the trustees’ insistence that it is “immoral” to question the 
 evangelical loyalty of the teaching in Newton seminary. Toy, 
 Driver, Moore, Peake, Sabatier, Duhm, C. F. Kent’s His¬ 
 torical Bible, are all commended—Kent’s Life and Teach - 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 187 
 
 ings of Jesus as “the best brief exposition of the more liberal 
 view.” Then there is Fowler’s History of the Literature of 
 Ancient Israel [“exceedingly fascinating”], O. Holtzmann and 
 Bousset [“very suggestive”], the Philosophy of Religion of the 
 Danish free-thinker Harald Hoffding [“valuable”], the Psy¬ 
 chology of Religion by the free-thinker Starbuck [“in the study 
 of conversion experience, this book stands unrivalled”], the 
 works of the atheist Leuba, Ames’ Psychology of Religious 
 Experience [“an illuminating and scholarly work”], the works 
 of G. A. Coe [“all his books repay careful reading”], Pratt’s 
 Psychology of Religious Belief . Hinckley Mitchell and G. A. 
 Gilbert, both tipped out of seminaries as theologically impos¬ 
 sible, find favor in the Newton book list.* 
 
 The Rochester Theological Seminary prints its list also 
 [R. T. S. Bulletin , 73rd year, No. 1], With most of the 
 
 ♦The Newton faculty recommends to Baptists the book which caused 
 the departure of Prof. Gilbert from the Congregational seminary in 
 Chicago. “Almost everything in the narrative of the birth and infancy 
 of Jesus, the resurrection and various of the narratives of the ministry 
 are relegated to the realm of legend.” Yet after his dismissal Prof. 
 Gilbert was chosen to lead the New Testament courses in the Biblical 
 World of the University of Chicago and his offending book receives 
 Newton’s commendation. C.R. 1912:1070 and 1913:38. 
 
 Of The Man of Nazareth by Prof. F. L. Anderson of Newton the 
 Christian Register says, “If a Trinitarian wrote these chapters the most 
 critical Unitarian will not discover it. Even the chapter on the finality 
 of Jesus . . . contains nothing which the readers of the Christian 
 Register would not call perfectly good Unitarianism.” 1913:87. 
 
 What valuation of the Lord Jesus Christ do the following banal 
 sentences suggest? “Jesus seems not to have had the slightest trace 
 of our modern neurasthenia,” 190. “Jesus knew God as well as he 
 knew his mother,” 169. Of the double nature of Christ Dr. Anderson 
 says: “This Jesus, now God, now man, is thus alien to us and we 
 instinctively feel that he cannot truly sympathize with us in our temp¬ 
 tations, struggles, and sorrows. . . . This dictum of fourth century 
 theologians cannot be made binding on free Protestant Christians and 
 is entirely out of tune with modern feeling and conceptions.” 
 
 These are the tactics which Methodist modernists also are using. 
 The obligatory study course prescribed for Methodist ministers has 
 been their point of attack. A thousand men take this annually and 
 nearly 750 are graduated from it into the pulpits of Methodism, many 
 more than all the Methodist seminaries together send out each year. “If 
 the rationalist element can control these courses,” writes Dr. Harold 
 Paul Sloan, “they will quickly control the preaching emphasis of Meth¬ 
 odism and practically destroy the church’s doctrinal foundation.” 
 
138 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Newton favorites, one gets in addition Troeltsch, G. B. Foster 
 [excluded from the Chicago Baptist ministers’ association for 
 his anti-Christianity], Piepenbring, K. Lake, Wernle, Morgan. 
 Of the free-thinker H. G. Wells’ Outline of History , this 
 bulletin says, “Its tremendous suggestiveness makes it indis¬ 
 pensable to the modern minister.” Case’s Millennial Hope 
 “will prove of great value.” A special list by Prof. Moehlmann 
 commends the History of New Testament Criticism by the 
 free-thinker Conybeare, and What Jesus Taught by Prof. 
 Slaten, of whose crypto-Unitarian mole-work we have spoken. 
 
 The selection of books is in the hands of a commission appointed 
 by the Methodist board of education. Of this commission Prof. H. F. 
 Rail is described as the leading spirit. [“Dr. Rail has been the high- 
 priest of the course of study which has given conservative Methodists 
 so much concern. He is a very skilful gentleman and enjoys the right 
 of way with the Methodist Book Concern and the church official papers 
 so as to publish everything he wants to favorable to the new theology 
 propaganda.”— Dr. Ridout in Pentecostal Herald, June 22, 1921.] 
 The books chosen have been chiefly of the ephemeral “modern” sort— 
 Elwood, Soares, Rauschenbusch, Faunce, Hyde, Rail, McGiffert, W. N. 
 Clarke, Betts, Meyer, Weigle, Coe, Athearn, E. C. Hayes, Gladden, 
 W. Walker. 
 
 The general Conference of 1920 adopted Dr. Sloan’s resolution re¬ 
 quiring that “only such books as are in full and hearty accord w T ith 
 these doctrines and that outline of faith established in the constitution 
 of the church . . . shall be included in the conference course.” Certain 
 of these books have been withdrawn; others remain in violation of the 
 express decree of the General Conference. When Dr. Sloan made his 
 statement regarding the course of study all the Methodist papers excepf 
 the Methodist Review refused to print it and Zion’s Herald, so Dr. 
 Sloan tells us, while attacking the writer, declined to publish the crit¬ 
 icism which was the subject of the attack. There is no doubt where 
 the official machine stands.— Sloan, The New Infidelity, 24. 
 
 Protests have come to the bishops from conferences in many parts of 
 the country. They complain of a study course for preachers, class-leaders, 
 and deaconesses with no history of Methodism, no book on Scripture 
 interpretation, no book on the discipline; which omits Wesley’s sermons 
 altogether and which chiefly stresses the fad literature of the day in 
 sociology and pedagogy. Some petition the bishops to resume control 
 of the course. 
 
 “What our church wants to know,” writes one keen Methodist leader, 
 “is whether our deaconesses through these new studies will know how 
 to find in Isaiah the right chapter to read and to explain to a dying 
 woman with an unbelieving husband and heart-broken children at her 
 bedside, rather than to discuss whether there w r ere one, two, or three 
 Isaiahs.” 
 
 But the arid doctrinaires of modernism never think of such situations. 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 189 
 
 The trivial little book of W. N. Clarke, Sixty Years with the 
 Bible, receives extravagant praise in Prof. Parsons’ list. 
 
 These are the seminaries whose greedy hands were stretched 
 out to take $800,000 (Newton) and $500,000 (Rochester) 
 from the self-denial and missionary zeal of Baptists in the years 
 
 1919-24* 
 
 Rochester Theological Seminary was built up into a power¬ 
 ful and useful institution by Dr. Augustus H. Strong, backed 
 by a group ©f laymen, Messrs. Trevor, Milbank, Ployt, and 
 the elder Rockefeller. For many years it provided the Baptist 
 churches with loyal pastors and missionaries. But a change 
 has come over its teaching. In his unpublished autobiography, 
 Dr. Strong lays this at the door of Prof. George Cross. “The 
 result of the election of Dr. Cross,” he says, “has been the 
 resignation of some members of the committee and the with¬ 
 drawal of others from active service. I regard that election 
 as the greatest calamity that has come to the seminary. It 
 was the entrance of an agnostic, skeptical, and anti-Christian 
 element into its teaching, the results of which will be only 
 evil. The election of Dr. Cross was followed by that of Pro¬ 
 fessors Robins, Parsons, and Nixon, who sympathized with 
 these views. These men, with Prof. Moehlmann, soon gave 
 evidence in their utterances that a veritable revolution had 
 taken place in the attitude of the seminary towards the funda¬ 
 mentals of the Christian faith.”f 
 
 *So in the Newton Bulletin, Vol. 8, No. 4, p. 4: “We need $100,000 
 to endow a department of religious education. Its services in our 
 churches should be the contribution of the seminary to the work of 
 raising the standard of Sunday school instruction in our New England 
 churches. The work of such a man w’ould be of inestimable value to 
 our churches.” The productive assets of Newton are about one million; 
 of Rochester nearly two. Newton receives a yearly grant of $10,000 
 from the Northern Baptist Convention. 
 
 fThe Rev. Russell Brougher, graduated from Rochester in the class 
 of 1922, told how he had been officially called to account for giving 
 to outsiders points as to the teaching of the seminary. “In the course 
 of this reproof the statement was made that Rochester Seminary was 
 in a war and that to give out facts to those upon the other side was 
 in the nature of spying. Here is indeed a startling situation when a 
 school of the Christian church feels called upon to keep its teachings 
 
190 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 That Dr. Strong has not overstated the facts, is clear enough 
 from a casual reference to Prof. Cross’s Creative Christianity 
 [delivered at Yale on the N. W. Taylor Foundation!] Dr. 
 Cross has the reverence for the “young college people” which 
 liberal theologians often exhibit. “We must make up our 
 minds that their interpretation of the Christian faith, as of 
 life in general, will be very different from that which was 
 given to us by the fathers.” Does he have as great confidence 
 in the sayings of our Lord? Hardly. “If all the teachings of 
 Jesus were brought together in the exact form in which he 
 gave them there might be found among them some that would 
 not commend themselves as fixed and final to the faith of the 
 most intelligent and devout Christians of the present day. 
 Men cannot be called upon to believe things simply because of 
 the name that is attached to them.” 
 
 The great assumption of modernism runs through this book. 
 “Every one so trained [i. e., scientifically] must place a note 
 of interrogation after all the biblical accounts of miracles.” 
 “The scientifically trained college man of today” distinctly 
 disallows the existence of miracles. This “youth of scientific 
 training” would class the miracles of Christ “with the folklore, 
 legends, or mythology he had already found in the traditions 
 of other religious faiths.” 
 
 But why limit this enlightenment to the youth of American 
 colleges? M. Parrot, French mission teacher in Madagascar, 
 has described the convulsions of laughter into which savages 
 of the island went when he described to them the resurrection 
 of Christ. There are naked modernists as well as modernists 
 in shorts and sweaters. 
 
 The picture of Jesus which the New Testament gives us is 
 not actual. It is rather the impression made on his milieu 
 modified by the traditions and fancies of that milieu. The 
 regard of Christ’s following “was not the wondering admiration 
 
 secret and when a student is charged with unfair conduct for making 
 them public.”—H. P. Sloan, The New Infidelity and the New Reforma¬ 
 tion, 10. 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 191 
 
 of some abstractly perfect character, such as recluses of old 
 or sentimentalists of our time might dream of. Nor was it 
 sublime approval of the sentiments he was said to be continually 
 expressing. This would mean little more than to say that he 
 pleased them because he was so much like themselves, as they 
 pictured themselves at their best ” 
 
 “Christ is presented [by the historic theology] as an eternal 
 divine personality whose abode is in a different realm from ours 
 and whose higher nature is an inscrutable mystery to us. His 
 appropriation to himself of an impersonal human nature was 
 in order that in it this divine person whose nature is impassible 
 might suffer redemptively for men. His whole career is inter¬ 
 preted as furnishing evidence that it was so and his death was 
 an event of an order that pertained exclusively to himself. . . . 
 How artificial this entire construction seems to us now. How 
 we miss the humanness of Jesus as he sought to fulfil the im¬ 
 perative of his own self-legislative potencies and felt his way 
 to perfection as we must do. ... We are left in ourselves 
 without the crown of personality when we are made solely 
 beneficiaries of his atonement.” 
 
 The plan of salvation is then a factitious futility. There is 
 nothing to be saved from or saved to. “The attempts to bring 
 the lives of men in this world under control by appealing to 
 the definitely known results in the after life have lost their 
 force in a large measure and in the more intelligent circles this 
 kind of appeal is seldom resorted to.” “The native sphere of 
 the operation of the Christian spirit is in the forms of the 
 community life native to humanity. There we find our better 
 world in making, and if we find it not there we find it no¬ 
 where.” 
 
 There is no real distinction between “the saved” and “the 
 unsaved.” Nor is it even necessary that there be any organiza¬ 
 tion whatsoever of the Christian communion as a separate 
 institution. In the natural institutions of men are to be found 
 “the moulds in which this higher spiritual force is to find its 
 most effective mode of action. . . . These are to become the 
 
192 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 organs of the higher life and they are to have the character 
 which the church has been in the habit of claiming for 
 itself.” 
 
 So then, the Church against which the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail is a superfluous thing, and it is through constitutions 
 and political parties, soviets, and Tammany Hall, and trades- 
 unions, that the Kingdom of God is to come. Why, then, does 
 this church-salaried and long-vacationed theological professor 
 not abandon his church position and attach himself to those 
 “moulds of spiritual life,” which are so much more to his 
 liking? 51 
 
 Another Rochester Seminary professor, Dr. W. Rauschen- 
 busch, delivered the N. W. Taylor lectures in 1917. Prof. 
 Rauschenbusch spoke sjunpathetically of “the blessed skepticism 
 of the Age of Enlightenment,” and his own skepticism often 
 bears the eighteenth century stamp. Calvary has no unique 
 significance. “What the death of Jesus now does for us, the 
 death of the prophets did for him. None of the later theories 
 of atonement are taught or even touched on in the sayings of 
 Jesus except perhaps the Lord’s Supper.” He apparently regrets 
 Christ’s death as untimely and premature. “In thirty years of 
 additional life, Jesus could have put the imprint of his mind 
 much more clearly on the movement of Christianity and pro¬ 
 tected it from the profound distortions to which it was sub¬ 
 jected,” i. e., by Paul and the other apostles. 
 
 Nor has the communion any importance in the Christian 
 life. “It is a question whether Jesus’ thought ran beyond the 
 group of his friends when he asked for a repetition of the meal,” 
 as if our Lord never anticipated world-wide discipleship. “The 
 personality of Jesus was an achievement, not an effortless in¬ 
 heritance. . . . The inclination early set in to eliminate the 
 element of temptation, of effort, of vigorous action and reaction, 
 and to show him calm, majestic, omniscient, the effortless master 
 of all forces. In all other cases, we judge the ethical worth of 
 a man by the character he achieves by will and effort. If he 
 has any unusual outfit of nature, we deduct it in our estimate. 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 193 
 
 How can we claim high ethical value for the personality and 
 character of Jesus if no effort of will was necessary to achieve 
 it?” 
 
 “We must democratize the conception of God,” pipes our 
 “social” theologian in the chorus of pygmy professors. " The 
 worst thing that could happen to God would be to remain an 
 autocrat while the world is moving toward democracy . He 
 would be dethroned with the rest.” 
 
 Actually, the man patronizes God. “Some would be willing 
 to think of God as less than omnipotent and omniscient if only 
 he were working hard with us for that Kingdom which is the 
 only true democracy.” 
 
 There is a Voltairean sneer in such a sentence as “faith may 
 shrivel up into something so small as putting a finger on a 
 Scripture text and ‘claiming the promise,’ ” and contemptuous 
 allusions to the mentality of Biblical believers are found here 
 as in all literature of this type. Thus of those who look for 
 the return of Christ, he says, “Eschatology is usually loved in 
 inverse proportion to the square of the mental diameter of 
 those who do the loving.” 52 
 
 Well, Sir Isaac Newton was profoundly interested in escha¬ 
 tology and the most presumptuous theologian has never found 
 fault with his mentality. 
 
 At the Quarter Centennial Celebration of the University of 
 Chicago, Dean Shailer Mathews stated of the graduates of 
 his seminary that they were to be found “not only in significant 
 pulpits of the country, but also in scores of faculties of theo¬ 
 logical seminaries and colleges as well as in the presidencies 
 of colleges and as executive officers of various denominations.”* 53 
 
 *It is no secret that the University of Chicago theology is permeating 
 the Baptist colleges and secondary schools and indeed it is obvious that 
 this is the purpose of its sponsors. In Modernism in Action E. P. Stead 
 gives a picture of Pillsbury Academy, a Minnesota school into which 
 the denomination has put large sums and which is asking for four 
 hundred thousand more. The unbelief which has worked into the 
 school-faculty and the pulpit of the town-church would gratify the 
 most ardent Unitarian if we may trust this pamphlet. Equally signifi¬ 
 cant are the reports of moral degeneracy. “"Teachers and students 
 
194 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Rochester Seminary is a case in point. Of its faculty, Cross, 
 Robins, Parsons, Moehlmann, Erb, Vichert, have had Chicago 
 training. They show it. One has but to turn to the R. T . S. 
 Bulletin where they are discussing entre nous. Take No. 3, 
 73rd year, for example. Prof. Moehlmann takes large space 
 to show a la Reuss the numerous contradictions of Scripture. 
 Prof. Cross ridicules the Christian notion that there is any 
 innate hostility between Christ and the world. “The religion 
 that taught that the natural world was under a curse, that the 
 good man was but a stranger here, and the only hope of hu¬ 
 manity lay in the discovery or disclosure of another world to 
 which men might flee and escape the tasks and trials of this 
 world [is] directly controverted by the Protestant principle. 
 . . . The world and the human mind [are] friends. . . . The 
 facts and forces of the universe are working in sympathy with 
 the Christian spirit.” Prof. Robins, after a discussion of magic, 
 tabu, etc., remarks, “Our own religion roots in exactly this 
 soil, and the sacred book which preserves to us as Christians 
 the records and traditions of our faith was initiated under 
 exactly such circumstances.” [ R . T. S. Bulletin , 75th year, 
 No. 1.] The Israelites owed much to the Canaanites. (“That 
 the experience of contact with superior culture, and such that 
 of the Canaanite and Philistines was, should quicken the life 
 of the conquerors of Palestine is not surprising.”) This member 
 of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Board appears to 
 have the Chicago theory of “democratizing God.” “Time was 
 when the conception of God as the universal monarch met all 
 requirements, for monarchy supplied the pattern of the state 
 to which the religious thinker subscribed. But now that he 
 
 swearing and smoking together in a downtown bowling alley; lying 
 boosting of the school in prospectuses; Pillsbury Pool and Poker Club; 
 petty thieving; the single Pillsbury ministerial student a cigarette fiend 
 and snoose-chewer. A divinity student of the University of Chicago 
 fills the village pulpit. He thinks Christ divine as we all are divine 
 [snoose-chewers included] and that the Virgin Birth is a matter of 
 opinion; agrees to avoid preaching negations but must stand by his 
 [Chicago] divinity school as he has received a very wonderful training 
 there.” 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 195 
 
 has reached quite another conception of the state what shall 
 we do with the controlling notion of God as monarch ?” 
 
 “The theological seminaries of almost all our denominations 
 are becoming so infected with this grievous error that they are 
 not so much organs of Christ as organs of Antichrist,” said 
 Dr. A. H. Strong shortly before his death. 54 There is no 
 reason to suppose that he would have excepted his own 
 Rochester. 
 
 Or Colgate, if Prof. Frank A. Starratt of the chair of Chris¬ 
 tian theology is representative of that faculty. In the congenial 
 atmosphere of the Religious Education Association convention 
 (1918), Prof. Starratt, after speaking of the democratization 
 of knowledge announced: 
 
 “Through this process, there has come about the renunciation 
 of all dependence upon some supra-human world for the solu¬ 
 tion of life's problems , a recognition of the fact that man must 
 rely upon his own powers to meet life’s perplexities and also 
 the insight that the individual does not stand alone in isolation, 
 but in a social complex through which there is constant inter¬ 
 communication and in which he finds correction as well as 
 support and confirmation. This is the very essence of democracy 
 which looks not beyond the sphere of human experience for 
 light and authority, but within. Autocracy, on the other hand, 
 rests ultimately upon the belief that light and authority have 
 their origin outside human experience and reach man only 
 through specially prepared channels. 
 
 “This would not foreclose the question as to whether man 
 stands related to an extra-human spiritual world or not. That 
 question might be answered either way, so far as the principle 
 of democracy is concerned. It would preclude, however, every 
 notion of special privilege or of an esoteric body of knowledge 
 coming to man through special channels. If there be such a 
 world open to man, it is open to man as man. If there be 
 contacts with that world, then it will be discovered where 
 all other contacts are discovered, in the conscious experi¬ 
 ence.” 55 
 
196 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Dr. Padelford likes to tell the story of “the little group of 
 men at Hamilton who laid their thirteen dollars upon the 
 table at Deacon Olmstead’s and thus began the work of that 
 Baptist seminary.” But what is Dr. Padelford doing in his 
 influential position as secretary of the Board of Education of 
 the Northern Baptist Convention to prevent such essential 
 atheism as the above being taught in the seminary which has 
 grown out of that meeting at Hamilton? 56 
 
 The Unitarians are following the apostasy of the Protestant 
 seminaries with delighted expectancy, and when their organ 
 says, “The progressive, liberal elements absolutely control 
 Crozer,” 57 we can well believe Crozer to be far gone. Here, 
 too, the University of Chicago influence is obvious. Profs. 
 Matthews, Lewis, Norton, Cole, and Webster, bear the stamp 
 of study there, Norton and Matthews having also taught in 
 Chicago. In reviewing a book of Prof. Vedder, the Christian 
 Register declared: “The church truly is awakening when it 
 is possible for a teacher of church history to declare explicitly 
 against the old doctrine of the atonement.” 59. 
 
 That was written eleven years ago and Prof. Vedder still 
 holds a chair in Crozer. 
 
 Passages in this book, The Fundamentals of Christianity t 
 might well have dropped from any “infidel” press. What would 
 Dr. H. G. Weston and Mr. Samuel Crozer, who worked so 
 intimately to build up this institution, have said to the fol¬ 
 lowing? 
 
 “Paul's idea of law, of penalty, of expiation, offends the 
 modern sense of justice and contradicts our ethical values at 
 every point of contact. Without caricature it may be compared 
 to ideas that prevail in certain police circles today. A sensational 
 crime is committed; the public is greatly aroused and demands 
 detection and punishment of the criminal. This the police are 
 unable to accomplish, but obviously something must be done to 
 silence public clamor; so they ‘frame up’ a case against someone 
 who can plausibly be made the scapegoat. He is convicted by 
 perjury, the public cry is silenced, the majesty of the law has 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 197 
 
 been vindicated, justice is satisfied. But we are no longer con¬ 
 tent with that brand of ‘justice.’ We insist that the guilt of 
 the guilty cannot be expiated, justice cannot be satisfied by the 
 punishment of the innocent. Yet our theology continues to 
 teach that the Almighty could find no better expedient to save 
 men than ‘to frame up’ a case against His own Son and put 
 to death the innocent for the guilty. And that which fills us 
 with horror when done by man to man, we praise and glorify 
 when done by God to God. 59 . . . Paul appeals to a state of 
 mind that has forever passed away —at least among civilized 
 peoples—though his theology may be still helpful to African 
 savages.” 
 
 Prof. Norton’s Rise of Christianity is described by the Uni¬ 
 tarian reviewer as “a remarkable illustration of how far modern 
 scholarship has traveled from the old supernatural toward the 
 new natural explanation of the rise of Christianity.”' 60 Dr. 
 Frank Lewis writes [ Homiletical Review , Feb. 1922], “We 
 understand as our Baptist forefathers had not yet occasion to 
 see that the Bible is not noiu and has not been in the past, an 
 authority in any real sense of the term.” Naturally, then, the 
 old biblical sanctions which found expression in Puritan Chris¬ 
 tianity are no longer valid. The Crozer professor of religious 
 education, Prof. Stewart Cole, declares that “Puritanism has 
 lost its reputation as a humanizing agent for building men of 
 moral force capable of moral leadership. So far as the rank 
 and file of young people are concerned, not only have the old 
 values of conduct crumbled, but the authoritative social attitude 
 of Puritanism has collapsed.” 
 
 This from a Chicago University-trained professor of religious 
 education when the Loeb-Leopold murder is still fresh in our 
 memories! 
 
 Instead of Christ’s categorical imperative, “Ye must be born 
 again,” we get the following vague jargon: 
 
 “Youth have not lost religion; they have turned from the 
 program of Puritanism to a quest for wholesome life relations 
 within their thrilling and social cosmic world. They are as 
 
198 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 religious as ever, only their religion is of another color and 
 quality. The dynamic of such a religious interpretation based 
 on free moral inquiry into the social and cosmic facts of life 
 and spontaneous and wholesome response to the stimuli arising 
 out of the world in which they are searching, affords a religious 
 control which they will be glad to employ for more beneficial 
 investment of life.” 61 
 
 Another professor of religious education, Dr. James B. Web¬ 
 ster, erstwhile of Shanghai Baptist College, now of Crozer, 
 writes in the “social” patois of Shailer Mathews [ Christian 
 Education and the National Consciousness in China]. The 
 principles of the Kingdom are those of a “social democracy 
 in which the individual realizes his best self in advancing the 
 welfare of humanity as a whole.” The agency is “education”; 
 “the outcome is no violation of the spirit of Jesus to call ‘the 
 democracy of God.’ ” 
 
 Old methods of missions are in Dr. Webster’s judgment 
 “strongly colored by the egoism and small group interests of 
 the times in which they rose.” Think of charging Judson and 
 the pioneers of the American Board with egoism! Those who 
 regard Christianity as “antagonistic to the ethnic faiths of the 
 world” are unfavorably contrasted with those who consider 
 it “the complement of other religions.” We are told that it 
 is a (< vicious use of [mission] schools simply to teach Christian 
 doctrine.” The task of Christian education Dr. Webster defines 
 as not the bringing of new moral and religious truths to China, 
 but “the vitalizing of moral and religious truths which the 
 Chinese possess. ... It does not seem possible or necessary to 
 bring any new moral truth to the Chinese.”' 62 
 
 Crozer carries on an extension course which has furnished 
 training to a thousand students including a number of mis¬ 
 sionaries in India, Africa, and Latin America. It has two 
 scholarships for Asiatic Christian students bringing in $300 
 each yearly. 
 
 Chicago Theological Seminary is Congregationalist. It has 
 recently affiliated with the University of Chicago. “The renewed 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 199 
 
 life of Andover at Cambridge,” wrote President Davis in the 
 Chicago Theological Register, “is the strongest possible argu¬ 
 ment for university affiliation.” “Chicago Seminary,” he con¬ 
 tinued, “will maintain its strongly evangelical and evangelistic 
 temper at the University.” The same fanfare was sounded, 
 as we have seen, when Andover was to all intents and 
 purposes turned over to the tender mercies of Harvard Unita- 
 rianism. 
 
 This seminary w’as built up in the pioneer days by the Con¬ 
 gregational churches of the Middle West. Its teaching chairs, 
 the Illinois, the Iowa, and the Michigan, professorships, bear 
 witness in their names to the devotion and sacrifices of the 
 frontier churches of these several states. Dr. Pearson gave 
 $400,000 to this seminary, and Dr. Pearson was an evangelical 
 who delighted in Bible teaching in railroad missions. In the 
 Charter and Constitution of the school (p. 9) there is a declara¬ 
 tion of faith in eleven articles. The third reads: 
 
 “I believe that God made all things by the word of His 
 power and that in His righteous providence He overrules them 
 in subservience to His own glory and the highest good of the 
 universe.” 
 
 How this seminary keeps faith with the ideals of its founders 
 and particularly with this article of its constitution appears 
 from Prof. C. A. Beckwith’s The Idea of God. Prof. Beckwith 
 is Illinois Professor of Christian Theology. He thinks that “the 
 traditional idea of God was the product of conditions of the 
 time.” Naturally, therefore, it makes little appeal “to the 
 modern man.” ‘ ( lf the alternative is either that idea of God 
 unmodified or none, then the conclusion must be,—no God.” 
 
 “We cannot without further ado find in the Scriptures cur 
 final idea of God.” Even Jesus does not furnish this. “No idea 
 of God which arises under historical conditions is permanently 
 valid for the rational and religious consciousness.” 
 
 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed 
 by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not 
 made of things which do appear. Not so, thinks Prof. Beckwith. 
 
200 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Greek paganism knew better. “In the nature of the world 
 as we know it, there is not a single thing which argues 
 for an absolute beginning of its existence. The ultimate con¬ 
 stituents of being are eternal.” 
 
 There was no creation nor is there an Absolute God who 
 created the world and who exists apart from it. “The ultimate 
 question is perhaps not so much whether a Being so defined 
 is personal, as whether such a Being exists.” 
 
 “There is no such reality as an undifferentiated universal. 
 The One exists only in and through the Many” [i. e., Man¬ 
 kind]. “So far as the ends are concerned which make for 
 personality, God is as impotent without man as man is impotent 
 without God.” 
 
 “Whether self-hood, self-consciousness, self-control, and the 
 power to know, are true of the Reality which is the indwelling 
 and directive power in the universe, we may not be in position 
 to say. It is not true in any sense which these words bear in 
 our human experience and speech 
 
 The King eternal, immortal, invisible, dwelling in the light 
 which no man can approach unto is reduced, in the fashion 
 of von Hartmann, to unconscious will. “It would be idle to 
 look primarily elsewhere for the personality of God than in 
 the ends which are being realized in our world.” 
 
 Prof. Beckwith assigns to this wraith of God neither “a 
 divine memory nor a divine anticipation, distinct and separate 
 from the world-process.” “No defensible doctrine of revelation 
 could guarantee the validity of belief of an absolute foreknowl¬ 
 edge of all events which lie in the bosom of the future.” 
 
 “Apart from the universe God is unconceivable.” We have 
 arrived at a pantheism which is hardly more than a polite name 
 for atheism. “There is no beyond, no heaven removed from 
 the world as a dwelling-place for the divine.” Solomon’s 
 prayer of dedication, “Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling-place,” 
 is as antiquated as the worship of Olympian Zeus. 
 
 “The idea of God detached from social experiences in which 
 it gets its only meaning and reduced to metaphysical terms, is 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 201 
 
 a pale and worthless abstraction.” Prof. Ames likens it to the 
 image which the child seeks behind the mirror. That glorious 
 thing democracy has hypnotized Prof. Beckwith as so many other 
 theologians. “It will be impossible to preserve the abso¬ 
 lute and irresponsible sovereignty of God when earthly 
 kings have been deposed. . . . Even Fatherhood, if it rep¬ 
 resents simply a paternal instead of an all-pervading min¬ 
 istry of love, will cease to represent God to the democratic 
 society.” 
 
 When one renounces the God of revelation, one naturally 
 lays little value on supposed revelation. “To hold that super¬ 
 natural revelation communicates truth which is otherwise in¬ 
 accessible to the reason is to allege an impossible definition 
 of reason and revelation.” Prof. Beckwith draws the logical 
 consequence and quotes H. G. Wells, Samuel Butler, Whit¬ 
 man's Leaves of Grass , and like modern literature, much more 
 often than the Scriptures . 63 
 
 Prof. Youtz of Oberlin [The Enlarging Conception of God ] 
 is equally scornful of the biblical conception of God. Of the 
 atoning work of Christ, he speaks in such terms as “cheap 
 absolutions.” There is no forgiveness of sin. “The wages of 
 sin is death and the wages will be promptly paid on pay-day. 
 . . . Men are not easily persuaded by religious doctrines which 
 speak of a deity who transcends the moral law or who abro¬ 
 gates it to save men from the consequence of their transgressions 
 or to lift them to heavenly places.” 
 
 So do they count the blood of the covenant a thing of 
 naught in the Oberlin of President Finney and Asa Mahan 
 and J. H. Fairchild. 
 
 “Righteousness cannot be ‘imputed.’ It must be achieved.” 
 “Jesus was not like some prince from a royal household sent 
 to an outlying province with a tacit understanding that the 
 laws were to be suspended for his royalty and that deference 
 must be shown him. . . . He had no mysterious stock of grace 
 to draw on in emergencies to sustain him above common men. 
 . . . And the forces at his command, the legions of angels—I 
 
202 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 do not know what that means, but I believe that the same 
 cosmic forces are at my disposal when I require them.” 
 
 Naturally, “we are not coerced by any presupposition of the 
 uniqueness of the Bible.” “In all history, the tendency to deify 
 holy books is observable. The Vedas, the Koran, and the 
 Christian Bible,* are cases in point.” The Bible is not regarded 
 as a divinely given textbook of religion, a supernaturally ac¬ 
 credited Word of God, a court of last appeal in matters of 
 spiritual controversy. We can rest in no mythological or super- 
 naturalistic account of Jesus’ relationship to life. 64 
 
 The predictive foreshadowings in the Old Testament of the 
 coming Messiah mean nothing to Prof. Kemper Fullerton 
 of the chair of the Old Testament at Oberlin. He does not, 
 as the early church, find Christ in the Psalms. This is “Chris- 
 tologizing the Psalms.” The great evangelical prophecy of the 
 ninth of Daniel on which Israel was waiting at the Advent is 
 mere fancy. “It cannot be too strongly insisted upon,” he tells 
 us in Prophecy and Authority, “that predictive prophecy has 
 always been immediately connected with a non-moral theory 
 of inspiration.” 
 
 Of course, if there was no prediction of the first coming, 
 there is none of a second. “Millennial expectations are vetoed.” 
 Small loss, for they tend to “hysteria and morbidness, manifesta¬ 
 tions of mental disease.” All the repeated promises of a second 
 coming which Christ made and his warnings to wait on it 
 are dissolved into anticipations of “social improvement.” Yet, 
 he says, we can still repeat, “though in a sense somewhat dif¬ 
 ferent,” 
 
 Religion bears our spirits up 
 While we expect that blessed hope, 
 
 The bright appearing of our Lord, 
 
 And Faith stands leaning on his Word . 65 
 
 To another Oberlin savant. Prof. Bosworth, we owe this 
 flash of inspiration. “Jesus had felt himself charged as Messiah 
 with the responsibility of making a success of the world.” 
 [Christ in Everyday Life, 211.] 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 203 
 
 Prof. W. J. Hutchins of Oberlin is now president of Berea 
 College and is introducing the modernist interpretations to 
 Appalachian mountaineers. Their chief textbook in the religious 
 education course is Hutchins’ The Religious Experience of 
 Israel . 
 
 He commends in this book Kent’s Elistorical Bible to his 
 young people and his own point of view is distinctly Kentian. 
 The old pronouncements are all here. “The Hebrews did not 
 generally and clearly attain to the conviction of the one sole 
 universal righteous God until the Babylonian exile.” The sug¬ 
 gestion is offered that the name Jehovah, “the origin of which 
 is unknown,” comes from the word meaning to blow. Thus 
 Jehovah would be originally “the god of the tempest.” 
 
 Abraham’s historicity is doubtful. The stories which gather 
 about him, at least some of them, “are true to truth rather 
 than to history.” The Genesis narrator “thinks of Jehovah as 
 bidding him start upon a great adventure into the unknown.” 
 The narrative doubtless idealizes Abram as one who fights with 
 kings. “Three hundred and eighteen men could scarcely have 
 been a deciding factor in defeating the kings of the most pow¬ 
 erful peoples of Asia.” It is as unbelievable as the story of 
 Marathon’s six hundred. 
 
 Joseph was “rather priggish.” The roots of the Passover go 
 further back than one realizes from Exodus. “Four or five 
 thousand years ago a rude nomad killed the first lamb of his 
 flock and smeered its blood on the tent poles that no angry 
 god might smite him with the plague. He then ate the flesh 
 with the family as a sacrificial meal, thanking his god, who 
 was supposed to be a sharer of his feast.” The date of Daniel 
 Prof. Hutchins can fix to a year. In touching phrase he tells 
 of “the little groups of nameless fighters gathering around 
 Judas Maccabaeus in the chill night air of the wilderness to 
 hear the story of Daniel” [just off the press], “and to warm 
 their hearts at the flames of his defiant, deathless fidelity 
 
 President Hutchins finds another side to Josiah’s reformation 
 with its overthrow of Baal worship. “As it ruined hundreds 
 
204 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 of village shrines it cut away the trellises upon which the 
 religious life of thousands of people had been climbing for years. 
 It meant the financial ruin, the degradation of hundreds of 
 village priests who had cared with patient zeal for their shrines 
 and ministered with real though superstitious comradeship to 
 the religious life of the common people.” 66 
 
 This higher critical “sob-stulf” over the fall of Canaanrte 
 idolatry and nastiness is served up to the young people of Berea. 
 It will help to explain a broadside the writer recently ran 
 across in the Boston Public Library. “John G. Fee,” this 
 declared, “with his eighty-odd years is doing more real mis¬ 
 sionary work among the colored people and mountain whites 
 than all the rest of the faculty at Berea. And yet the president 
 had him retired from his Bible work in the college to make 
 way for favorites. Kentucky needs no Chicago University." 
 Mr. Fee was the heroic founder of Berea. 
 
 The Haskell Lectureship at Oberlin was lately filled by 
 Prof. Lake of the Harvard Theological School. When it is 
 necessary to prove that the Harvard school is “non-sectarian,” 
 Prof. Lake is classified as an Episcopalian; when count is being 
 made of the Unitarians in Who's Who, he heads the list. 
 (C. R. 1925:422.) In an Atlantic article, Aug. 1924, he makes 
 what appears to be a confession of atheism. “The devil,” he 
 writes, “is the ghost of primitive men and God is the unborn 
 life of the world that is yet to be." In the same article he says 
 of prayer, “I do not believe that the religion of tomorrow will 
 have any more place for petition than it will have for any other 
 form of magic.” In 1922 he delivered the Ingersoll Lecture 
 on “Immortality and the Modern Mind.” This is his con - 
 fessio fidei: “I enjoy my own existence. I enjoy all of it: its 
 bad, I fear, as well as its good. But I am not so much intoxi¬ 
 cated by the love of my own individuality as to think it can 
 be or ought to be immortal.” Judicious people “think of eternal 
 death as more comforting than the threat of eternal life.” 68 
 
 So then Prof. Lake who, as far as one can judge, believes 
 neither in God nor devil, prayer nor the future life [in the 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 205 
 
 usual sense of the terms], is a teacher of Andover students, is 
 invited by the theological faculty of Oberlin to lecture there 
 and conducts “prayers” at Mt. Holyoke College and Union 
 Seminary. 
 
 From the Methodist seminaries comes the same story. Bishop 
 Mead has been obliged to call for the resignation of the faculty 
 of the Iliff School of Theology. Professors in this school are 
 acceptable preachers in the Unitarian church of Denver. A 
 transcript of notes taken by students in Iliff classes shows the 
 reason. 69 
 
 “There are no prophecies in the Old Testament that refer 
 to the Christ. Paul and Jesus are opposed to each other. If 
 we want the truth we must get back to Jesus [that is, away 
 from Paul’s interpretation of Jesus’ work]. 
 
 “Judaism gives us a more exalted idea of God than does 
 Christianity as interpreted by Paul, for with Judaism man 
 could approach God directly, whereas, Paul insists that in order 
 to approach God man must have a mediator. 
 
 “The story of the Virgin Birth can be accounted for by the 
 fact that Hebrews believed that children were the direct gift 
 of God, as seen in the story of the birth of Samuel. Such a 
 story grew up round a man after he had become famous. 
 
 “The book of Revelation should not have a place in the 
 Scriptures for its conception of God’s character is heathenish.”* 
 
 Garrett Biblical Institute is the most important of the 
 Methodist seminaries. It was founded by John Dempster, a 
 typical Methodist itinerant who also laid the foundations of 
 the Boston University School of Theology. Its early patron, 
 Eliza Garrett, was converted under the ministry of Peter 
 Borein, of whom it was said, “It never occurred to him to 
 think the sermon ended until the hearer was saved.” 1 * Out of 
 
 *Mr. J. E. Bentley, M. A., S. T. B., M. R. E., of Iliff, is quoted in 
 Grace and Truth for March, 1925, as follows: “‘Ye must be born 
 again/ Certainly I believe this. One day I woke up to find that this 
 was the day that I was to take the hand of a fair lady and make her 
 my wife. That day I was born again. Then one day a little boy was 
 born into our home. I was born again. Surely I believe we must be born 
 again.” 
 
206 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 this school of the prophets and missionaries of Methodism are 
 coming, so we are told, such class-room notes as the following: 
 
 “We have no proof as to the existence of God, but we are 
 inclined to think there should be one if there isn’t one.” 
 
 “We question if Jesus knew if there was a God or not.” 
 
 “Conversion is a matter of education. Only those who have 
 sinned need it.” 
 
 “The wane in the revival spirit is a development, not a 
 decay in religion.” 
 
 “The best way to fight sin is to ignore its power.” 
 
 “The Apostles’ Creed is indeed very inadequate today, for 
 it says things not true and leaves unsaid many things funda¬ 
 mental to a creed today.” 
 
 “The all-important question today is not, ‘What must we 
 do to be saved ?,’ but, ‘What must we do to be of service ?’ ” 
 
 “We do not believe at all in the miraculous as such. It can 
 all be explained on a more intelligible basis.” 71 
 
 Of Watts’ lines, “See from His head, His hands, His feet, 
 Sorrow and love flow mingled down,” one Garrett professor 
 is alleged to have remarked to his class, “That hymn is not fit 
 to be sung in a slaughter house.” 72 “Prof. Davison is described 
 to me by a Garrett student,” writes Dr. Rideout, “as a man 
 with a sneer for nearly everything that pertains to the old-time 
 religion.” 73 Prof. H. F. Rail, who teaches theology, expounds 
 a theology in his Teachings of Jesus which any Unitarian could 
 commend.* 
 
 What the temper of the Boston University School of Theol¬ 
 ogy is, can be perhaps fairly understood from the words of a re¬ 
 cent graduate which are quoted in the official Boston University 
 
 *Review in C.R. 1918:1002. “The book is wholly unorthodox. No 
 reader could gather that the author was a Methodist or had the slightest 
 interest in any of the traditional doctrines of the church. Any Unita¬ 
 rian scholar might have written and have been proud in writing the 
 whole of it not excepting the twenty-third chapter, ‘What Jesus Thought 
 of Himself.’ ... It is to be wished that all Sunday schools, Unitarian 
 or Trinitarian, might include classes working through this manual. 
 The latter schools w r ould miss all the elements which divide them from 
 their liberal brethren.” 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 207 
 
 Bulletin , Jan. 1925, pi4. The Rev. M. A. Morrill is describ¬ 
 ing his divinity school experiences. 
 
 “We met all the bugaboos, not only the Isaiah brothers 
 (there are four of them in the family, if memory serves me) 
 and the documentary hypothesis for the Hexateuch, but the 
 Johannine mystery to boot. 
 
 “It was news that there was a Christian cultus quite apart 
 from Christ. ... It was a novel experience to discover that 
 God has never left himself without a witness. Christianity, to 
 be sure, lost something of its sacrosanctity, but the loss never 
 seemed regrettable. I am not a disciple of Buddha or of Laotse; 
 I am trying to be a follower of Christ, but my Christianity 
 is no longer an isolated phenomenon in the history of my world. 
 . . . Many things are no longer believed—the fundamentalist 
 brethren would be distressed to know how many of the old 
 shibboleths, having lost their vitality, went overboard. . . . 
 But Jesus Christ stands out. From the seminary I go into 
 life feeling that nothing counts but Jesus.” 
 
 The reading list for Methodist ministers which this faculty 
 publishes commends the works of Peake, Gunkel, Skinner, 
 Barton, Bewer, H. P. Smith, Troeltsch, Schweitzer, Fosdick 
 [.Modern Use of the Bible “earnestly recommended”], Kent, 
 Youtz, Pratt’s Religious Consciousness , Simkovitch. It is pre¬ 
 sumably graduates fed on such spiritual husks who fill thirty- 
 two posts as presidents, deans, and principals, of Methodist 
 universities, colleges and schools and seventy-eight professorships 
 in theological seminaries and colleges. . . . This bulletin an¬ 
 nounces Harvard courses in philosophy, theology, and psychol¬ 
 ogy, offered without charge to Boston University theological 
 students [among them those of Profs. Lake and G. F. Moore]. 
 Unlike the other seminaries reviewed, this school is hard pressed 
 for funds and it is perhaps worth noting that it is a Unitarian 
 publicist, Mrs. Mead, who makes appeal in the public press 
 in its behalf; also that children in Methodist Sunday schools 
 are pressed into the service of theological finance. Former 
 students of this Boston school have borrowed from the 
 
208 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Children’s Loan Day Fund of the Board of Education $219,218, 
 of which only $97,360 has been repaid. 74 
 
 “I am not afraid,” wrote John Wesley, “that the people 
 called Methodist should ever cease to exist in Europe or 
 America, but I am afraid lest they should exist as a dead sect 
 having the form of religion without the power. If ever Meth¬ 
 odism is overthrown, it will be at the hands of her scholars 
 who neither believe her doctrines nor practise her polity. These 
 are the unreasonable men from whom it must purge itself or 
 fall by its own weight”; and the Methodist bishops in 1840 
 expressed their doubts as to the expediency of establishing 
 schools of divinity. “The history of such institutions admonishes 
 us that the speculators of human science have but too frequently 
 obscured and adulterated the doctrines of the revelation of God 
 and that in many cases where these have been commenced on 
 evangelical ground they have wandered into the dark regions 
 of ‘rational Christianity.’ ” 75 
 
 One might go on indefinitely quoting this anti-Christian 
 seminary literature. It is easy to imagine from it what the 
 spiritual state of these institutions is. President Horr of New¬ 
 ton acknowledges their failure in Bible training. “Explain it 
 how we will, it cannot be denied that our seminaries have 
 graduated many men who . . . did not know the Bible.” 
 [ Inst . Bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 2, p5.] Hartford Seminary* was 
 founded for “the promotion of revivals [and] the defense of 
 evangelical truth against prevailing error” [Constitution of 
 Pastoral Union], Indeed it can be said to have grown out of 
 
 *One of the Hartford defenders of veritas evangelica, Dr. L. B. 
 Paton, Nettleton Professor of Old Testament, gives a seminary course 
 on magic, myth, and taboo. He finds the roots of Christianity in the 
 primitive cults of the dead. The religion of Jehovah grew out of Baal 
 worship. “The dark holy of holies of Solomon’s Temple with its ante¬ 
 room in which a lamp was kept burning and bread and incense were 
 offered was the counterpart of the ancient Canaanite tomb. . . . Sacri¬ 
 fice is a rite that has meaning only in the cult of the dead. . . . All 
 such sacrifices and libations for the dead were appropriated by Yahveh.*’ 
 —Spiritism and the Cult of the Dead, 11, 18, 19, 20. 
 
 At the semi-centenary of Hartford Seminary in 1884 Prof. Wm. 
 Thompson warned against those who might think the time ripe “to 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 209 
 
 the ministry of the Evangelist Nettleton. A bulletin of this 
 seminary now tells us that “the significance of the polemic 
 clause . . . has decreased with the passing years. The clause 
 respecting ‘revivals’ also no longer implies . . . advocacy of 
 some specific method of quickening religious life.” 76 Little do 
 the “moderns” concern themselves with the salvation of souls. 
 The very phrase is unreal and embarrassing to them. Unbelief 
 is so widespread among theological students as a consequence 
 of their contact with dechristianized faculties that evangelical 
 students headed by Princeton are withdrawing from the Stu¬ 
 dents Association of Middle Atlantic Theological Seminaries 
 and are organizing a new group, one certainly which will have 
 no representation from the Unitarian seminary at Meadville as 
 the older association had.* Years ago (1895) the General 
 Assembly of the Presbyterian church urged churches to debar 
 Union Seminary graduates from their pulpits. 77 When the 
 situation in the seminaries is more generally understood, similar 
 precautions will doubtless be taken against other seminaries. 
 
 It may be added that education at these seminaries is very 
 expensive as well as of little use to the evangelical churches. 
 While the annual per capita cost of education in the public school 
 is $39 per child, in the high schools $127; in colleges and 
 professional schools $466, that at Andover, Hartford, and Ober- 
 lin for example mounts to $2,000 ! 78 
 
 The answer which “the moderns” give when charged with 
 betrayal of the wishes and purposes of founders is that they 
 represent a progress which the advance of knowledge has ren¬ 
 dered inevitable and which the founders themselves would, if 
 
 exchange signals with those who deny the authority of Scripture and 
 the expiatory nature of Christ’s death” [i. e., Unitarians] and called 
 upon the successors of Taylor and Nettleton to a fearless discharge of 
 their trust in case “rationalist speculators attempt to use our consecrated 
 funds” for purposes alien to those for which the seminary was founded. 
 
 *The statement of the Princeton students declares co-operation pos¬ 
 sible only among organizations with a common purpose; insists that 
 certain seminary organizations have repudiated evangelical Christianity 
 while still using traditional phraseology and expresses regret that an 
 organization fostered by conservative leaders and promising great 
 things should fall short of its evangelical standards. 
 
210 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 living, commend and even accompany. This contention is with¬ 
 out support in fact. The men who founded Union and Andover 
 and Oberlin and Rochester were quite familiar with twentieth 
 century dechristianized thought in its eighteenth century dress 
 and execrated it. They built Christian institutions to protect 
 the church against it. All this becomes clear when one ranges 
 the utterances of the present-day “liberal theologian” alongside 
 those of the eighteenth century “infidel.” 
 
 REFERENCES TO CHAPTER VII 
 
 1. Prentiss, Union Theological Seminary, 11, 116. 2. E. F. Stearns, Henry 
 
 Boynton Smith, 149. 3. E. F. Hatfield, The Early Annals of Union Theological 
 
 Seminary, 17. 4. Hatfield, op. cit. 27. 5. Union Seminary and the Church 
 
 of Christ'. Statement of Board of Directors. 6. Address at Dedication of 
 New Buildings, 59. 7. Quarter Centennial Celebration of the University of 
 
 Chicago, 130. 8. The God of the Early Christians, 47. 9. Princeton Review, 
 
 1924, 587. 10. Rihbany, A Far Journey, 328. 11. Christianity in the Apostolic 
 
 Age, 51, 52, 174, 453, 575, 465, 238, 400. 12. Union Theo. Sem. Bulletin, 1918. 
 
 13. U. T. S. Bulletin, 1922. 14. U. T. S. Bulletin, 1921. 15. Prentiss, op cit. 
 
 190. 16. Coe, The Religion of a Mature Mind, 251, 330, 345, 332, 385, 44, 22, 
 
 12, 114, 90. Psychology of Religion, xiv 157, 199, 311, 321, 190, 185, 186. 
 17. The History and Religious Value of the Fourth Gospel, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 
 30, 38, 39, 55, 63, 80. 18. Harvard Theological Review, 1911, 4 and 16. 
 
 19. Inaugural Address of Prof. H. B. Smith, 55. 20. H. S. Coffin, The Sem¬ 
 inary: its Spirit and its Aims, 19. 21. Prentiss, op. cit. 136. 22. Goodspeed, 
 
 History of the University of Chicago, 67. 23. Id. 76-78. 24. University of 
 
 Chicago: Biographical Sketches, E. Nelson Blake. 25. C.R. 1912:247. 26. An¬ 
 nual of the Northern Baptist Convention, 1923:139-141. 27. C.R. 1923:736. 
 
 28. C.R. 1923:209. 29. C.R. 1923:103. 30. C.R. 1914:711. 31. Kelly, Theo¬ 
 logical Education .in America, 104. 32. Annual of the Northern Baptist Con¬ 
 vention, 1920, 136. 33. Annual of the N. B. Convention, 1921:58. 34. Id. 60. 
 
 35. Id. 68-70. 36. Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion, 70. 37. Id. 
 
 128, 155. 38. Case, The Millennial Hope, 116, 146. 39. Guide to the Study, 
 
 268, 263, 267, 282, 258. 40. R.E. 1910:84. 41. Guide to the Study, 516, 
 
 568, 571. 42. Id. 633, 590, 673. 43. Foster, The Finality of the Christian 
 
 Religion, 132, 222, 434, 444, 442, 482, 483, 405, 429, 401, 514, 510, 417, 464, 
 
 134. 44. Ames, Psychology of Religious Experience, 317, 313, 300, 269, 272, 
 
 215, 351, 265. 45. Willett, Our Bible, 173, 156, 143. 46. Goodspeed, Story 
 
 of the New Testament, 144. 47. R.E. 7:31. 48. Hoben, The Church School 
 of Citizenship, 153, 156. 49. Rosenberger, Through Three Centuries, 92, 97, 98. 
 50. Annual of the Northern Baptist Convention, 1922:204. 51. Cross, Creative 
 
 Christianity, 11, 34, 38, 24, 40, 57, 69, 88, 120, 123, 128. 52. Rauschenbusch, 
 
 A Theology for the Social Gospel, 85, 266, 202, 151, 48, 178, 180, 101, 209. 
 
 53. Report of the Quarter Centennial of Univ. of Chicago, 125. 54. A. H. 
 
 Strong, Tour of Missions, 189. 55. R.E. 1918:209. 56. Rochester Seminary 
 
 Bulletin, 68th year, No. 1, 50. 57. C.R. 1922:1111. 58. C.R. 1914:1118. 
 
 59. Vedder, Fundamentals of Christianity, 191-2. 60. C.R. 61. Crozer Quarterly, 
 July, 1924, 334. 62. Webster, Christian Education and National Consciousness 
 
 in China. 63. Beckwith, Idea of God, 3, 8, 4, 282, 330, 301, 299, 270, 266, 
 
The Apostate Seminaries 
 
 211 
 
 61, 33, 16. 64. Youtz, Enlarging Conception of God, 40, 41, 43, 173, 115, 124, 
 131. 65. Fullerton, Prophecy and Authority, 189, 200, 204. 66. Hutchins, 
 
 Religious Experience of Israel, 68, 74, 40, 41, 46, 457, 270. 67. Save Berea 
 College for Christ and Humanity. 68. K. Fake, Immortality and the Modem 
 Mind, 36, 68. 69. Fetter of Wm. Parker to IF P. Sloan, Feb. 9, 1924. 
 
 70. Garrett Biblical Institution, Semi-Centennial Celebration, 139. 71. Quoted 
 
 in The Pentecostal Herald, June 2, 1921. 72. Mss. letter. 73. Pentecostal 
 
 Herald, June 22, 1921 74. Boston University Bulletin, Jan., 1925, 20. 
 
 75. Quoted in Rideout, The Present Crisis in Methodism, 10-17. 76. Hartford 
 
 Seminary Foundation Bulletin, 49. 77. Statement of Board of Directors, Union 
 Theological Seminary. 78. Kelly, Theological Education in America. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MODERNIST ANTIQUES, OR THE OLD AND 
 THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT 
 
 The new-fledged infidel of modern brood 
 
 Climbed the next fence, clapped both his wings and 
 crowed. 
 
 —Timothy Dwight in 1788. 
 
 F old Reimarus (1694-1768) were to come back again,” 
 says Schweitzer, 1 “he might confidently give himself 
 out to be the latest of the modernists.”* The main 
 lines of destructive criticism were laid out long before the 
 nineteenth century opened. Some of the most important fea¬ 
 tures of Pentateuchal criticism appear as far back as the seven¬ 
 teenth century in Spinoza and Astruc. In 1739 Parvish de¬ 
 fended the theory that Deuteronomy was written in the seventh 
 century B. C. His contemporary, the English free-thinker 
 Anthony Collins, elaborating a thesis which the anti-Christian 
 controversialist Porphyry had propounded in the third century 
 A. D., made of the book of Daniel a product of Maccabaean 
 
 *That the term “modernist” applied to 17th and 18th century unbelief 
 is only superficially an anachronism appears from a brief account of 
 V. Weigel (1533-88) by Prof. Gruetzmacher (Moderne Irrtuemer tm 
 Spiegel der Geschichte ). Weigel’s denial of God’s transcendence came 
 probably from the atheism of the Italian Renaissance although Weigel 
 as Christian minister clothed his heresy in Christian phrase. God comes 
 to himself, to personality and activity, first in and with the world. 
 God being immanent in man, human personality is the source of religion 
 and the history of religion is the history of the unaided triumph of 
 the divine in man over evil. It is clear from Grossgebauer’s criticism 
 of Weigel that the seventeenth century had come to much the same 
 discussions and conclusions in biblical criticism as present day modern¬ 
 ism. The age of biblical writings was doubted, they were full of inter¬ 
 polations, the prophecies were written after the events [especially in the 
 case of Daniel], the prophets were in favor as compared with the 
 Pentateuch, the biblical narrative is largely legendary, etc. 
 
 212 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 213 
 
 days. The notion served up to young people in college text¬ 
 books as “modern,” that Ruth was written in protest against 
 Nehemiah’s marriage policies, has passed its century mark. Even 
 older is that of Prof. Fowler that Israel got in Babylon its 
 larger religious outlook. “Now came the era,” wrote Lessing, 
 “when the conceptions of Him should be widened, ennobled, 
 and purified, and this was done during the captivity. . . . The 
 Jews became acquainted with a nation which had a more spirit¬ 
 ual conception of God than the Hebrew people itself had. The 
 Hebrew nation came back from the captivity wiser than it 
 went.” 2 Semler called the story of Esther a myth. Tom Paine 
 insisted that it was “priestly ignorance which imposed this book 
 [Isaiah] upon the world as the writing of Isaiah.” 
 
 John the Presbyter, that shadowy figure of present-day criti¬ 
 cism, was first summoned up by Dionysius of Alexandria [three 
 centuries after Christ]. The modern alogi who seek to discredit 
 John’s Gospel echo those of the second century. 
 
 Chubb, the English deist, describes the God of Israel as 
 “not the Supreme Being but only some tutelary, subordinate 
 god consonant to the pagan idolatry.”* So Prof. Bade of the 
 Congregational seminary in Berkeley: “There is good reason 
 to believe that Jahveh was worshipped among the Canaanites 
 as a local divinity in pre-Israelite times. In that case he must 
 have figured as a local Baal long before the Hebrew prophets 
 began their reform.” 3 
 
 Bolingbroke speaks of Jehovah as “a local tutelary deity 
 carried about in a trunk.” 4 Dr. Fosdick, in the historic First 
 Presbyterian Church, New York, used a variant expression. 
 The Ark of the Covenant is “the box that God travels in.” 
 
 *“Here is the great triumph of the critiques. They believe to see 
 here an entire equality between Chemos, god of the Ammonites and 
 Adonai, god of the Jews. They are convinced that each little people 
 had its own god as each army its general. Chemos, Dagon, Moloch, 
 were different names signifying the same thing, the Lord of the place. 
 Each people fought under the standards of its god as the barbarous 
 people of Europe fought under the standards of their saints after the 
 destruction of the Roman empire. Our unbelievers insist that this fact 
 is fully recognized by Jephtha.”— Voltaire, La Bible enfin explique , 242. 
 
214 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Voltaire, as Prof. Hutchins, ridicules the story of Abraham 
 pursuing the kings as an impossibility. 
 
 The modern puts Paul in opposition to Christ and pits the 
 prophets against the sacrificial system of Israel. So did the 
 deists.* The New Testament contains two different systems 
 according to Bolingbroke, contrary to each other—that of Christ 
 and that of Paul. Only the first is genuine Christianity. 5 And 
 Collins in his Discourse on Freethinking, treating of the Jewish 
 sacrificial system, starts this echo from Bade one hundred and 
 fifty years later. 
 
 “The prophets writ w T ith as 
 great liberty against the estab¬ 
 lished religion of the Jews which 
 the people looked on as the insti¬ 
 tution of God himself, as if they 
 looked upon it all to be impos¬ 
 ture.”— Collins, Leland 1:97. 
 
 “The prophets who had denied 
 that God had instituted sacrifices 
 or could be propitiated by means 
 of them, were condemning an eco¬ 
 nomic abuse as well as a religious 
 superstition.”— Prof. Bade, op. cit. 
 297. 
 
 “The Scriptures cannot be broken,” said our Lord. Boling¬ 
 broke describes them as “coming down to us broken and con¬ 
 fused, full of additions, interpolations and transpositions. They 
 are nothing more than compilations of old traditions and abridg¬ 
 ments of old records made in later times.” Prof. Cross of 
 Rochester Seminary thinks as little of them. “The ultimate 
 originals [of the Gospels] are not documents at all, but stories 
 and teachings circulated by oral transmission . . . from one 
 generation to another, supported and vivified by the florid 
 imagination of the oriental mind.” 6 
 
 Semler (1725-90) would “separate the eternal truth in 
 Scripture from the local and temporary.” This is Dr. Fos- 
 dick’s “decode their [the Gospels’] abiding meaning from 
 outgrown phraseology.” 7 It is the line which the deist 
 Morgan also took.f He inveighs again and again against all 
 
 *Reimarus: “We are justified in drawing an absolute distinction 
 between the teaching of the apostles in their writings and what Jesus 
 himself in his life time proclaimed and taught.”— Schweitzer, Quest, 16. 
 
 tC. F. Bahrdt, a low-living infidel of the Paine type though more 
 learned, insisted that only such passages in the Bible could be accepted 
 as “commended themselves to the thoughtful.” “The thoughtful” too 
 were an eighteenth century phenomenon. 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 215 
 
 historical fact recorded in the Gospels as having nothing 
 to do with the Christian faith. He also distinguishes be¬ 
 tween the religion of the “Christian Jews” and the “Chris¬ 
 tian deists.” The first are “mechanical” ,* the second, “real and 
 moral.” 8 
 
 So are present-day goats divided from the sheep with the 
 terms “static” and “dynamic.” 
 
 But Morgan in this particular was but an embryonic Schleier- 
 macher, and “veil-makers” are now-a-days as common as toad¬ 
 stools after rain. 
 
 “It is not essential to Christianity,” writes “veil-maker” 
 Fitch, “to see [Christ] as the incarnation of historical truth. 
 That is to say, it is beside the point whether every statement 
 regarding external events, whether made by him or about him, 
 corresponds with fact. . . . The infancy narratives, the dogma 
 of the Virgin Birth, the resurrection story, may or may not 
 be true.” 9 
 
 So the deist Collins insisted that “Christianity was true 
 ideally but not historically.” 
 
 In this process of “decoding,” the historical occurrences of 
 the Gospel are resolved into allegory. The story of the miracu¬ 
 lous draught of fishes, Dr. Fosdick suggests, “may be a sermon 
 on the failure of evangelism when carried on without Christ 
 and the success of it when Christ directs. . . . Our occidental 
 minds probably miss many symbolical literary devices in an 
 oriental book and this may be one of them.” 10 “The miracles 
 of John’s Gospel,” says Prof. N. Schmidt, “seem to be intended 
 as allegories. They are exaggerated to such a point as to raise 
 at least the question whether they were at all meant to be taken 
 as narratives of actual occurrences.” 11 
 
 So thought the deist Woolston. 
 
 “Let not these seeming miracles deceive you. That blind man 
 whose sight I have restored, that lame, that leper, that dead 
 person to whom I have given soundness and limb and life itself, 
 are not really and actually cured: whatever I do of this kind 
 is only by way of figure and allegory to denote my much greater 
 
216 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 performances in curing men’s errors and ignorance and want 
 of intellectual knowledge of God.” 
 
 Woolston says of the raising of Lazarus, “It will always be 
 objection enough against this miracle that it was never once 
 mentioned by the first historians nor indeed invented by the last 
 until he was above an hundred years old and everybody dead 
 that should have confuted him.” 12 Prof. Kent repeats this 
 objection and explains the narrative with the help of Wool- 
 ston’s theory of allegory. 
 
 The silence of the synoptic gospels, he tells us, “suggests that 
 the story of the raising of Lazarus was unknown not only to 
 Paul and the twelve but also to the first generation of gospel 
 writers. It was quite possible that the evangelist never intended 
 his account as literal history, but rather as an allegorical illus¬ 
 tration of Jesus’ spiritual power.” 13 
 
 Modernist explanations of miracles might have been lifted 
 bodily out of eighteenth century free-thinkers’ writings. 
 
 “ ’Tis highly probable,” says 
 Woolston of the woman with the 
 issue of blood, “that her distemper 
 was but some slight indisposition, 
 a little bleeding at the nose now 
 and then or some such small evac¬ 
 uation as might have been a means 
 to prolong her life. Her cure is 
 imputed to the touch of the hem 
 of his garment when it was in 
 reality the pure effort of a strong 
 imagination.”—In Sykes, State of 
 the Controversy , 111. 
 
 Prof. G. A. Barton in like 
 phrase: “She touched him. She 
 felt sure her infirmity was gone. 
 It is probable that her trouble was 
 of a sort upon which the mental 
 and nervous reactions of the body 
 have a great influence.”— Jesus of 
 Nazareth , 212. 
 
 I recall hearing one evening in Allahabad a Hindu street 
 preacher denounce Jesus for “the murder of a tree.” The 
 modernists of the eighteenth and twentieth centuries vie with 
 each other in similar expressions of indignation. 
 
 “This one instance of his curs- “An act of petulant injustice 
 ing the fig-tree in such a rash, even to a tree.”— Prof. G. A. 
 extravagant manner, spoils the Barton, op. cit. 320. 
 credit and sullies the glory of all 
 his other works.”— Woolston, op. 
 cit. 140. 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 217 
 
 Modern attempts to connect historically the sacrificial death 
 of Jesus with Mithraism and other pagan religions have their 
 precedent in deist literature. Thus, 
 
 “The taurobolia or the blood- 
 bedaubing of a man in a pit all 
 over with the blood of a bull 
 which fell on him through holes 
 made in the plank on which the 
 beast was slain was believed to 
 wash away all his s-ins and he, 
 happy man, regenerated to eter¬ 
 nity. . . . Natural religion which 
 puts the whole stress on internal 
 penitence and true virtue in the 
 soul will be despised as allowing 
 no computing or compounding 
 with Heaven.” — Matthew Tin- 
 dal, Christianity as Old as Crea¬ 
 tion, 128. 
 
 Reinhard, an eighteenth century rationalist, interpreted the 
 Kingdom of God as a universal ethical reorganization of man¬ 
 kind. (Schweitzer.) Jesus was a social reformer. Through 
 the attainment of “the highest perfection of which society is 
 capable universal peace was gradually to be brought in.” Kant’s 
 millennarian optimism was of the same type and indeed these 
 were among the dominating ideas of the Aufklaerung. The 
 old liberal apocalyptic, slight as its basis in Scripture or history, 
 has become in America widely prevalent. “I believe in the vic¬ 
 tory of righteousness upon this earth, in the coming of the 
 kingdom of God, but I do not believe in the physical return 
 of Jesus.” 14 
 
 Here again Dr. Fosdick is at one with the deists. 
 
 “Washing in the blood of a 
 sacrificed victim to the washing 
 away of sin was the supreme act 
 of men who were grieved and 
 wearied with the burden of their 
 sins. The Taurobolium and the 
 Criobolium were familiar in many 
 lands. Their essential idea is still 
 a favorite one in many Christian 
 circles. ‘There is a fountain filled 
 with blood.’ ”—S. D. McConnell, 
 The Confessions of an Old Priest , 
 68 . 
 
 “The best interpreters own the 
 apostles were grossly mistaken [as 
 to the Lord’s coming]. If most 
 of the apostles were mistaken in 
 a matter of this consequence, can 
 we be certain that any of them 
 may not be mistaken in other mat¬ 
 ters?”— Tindal, op. cit. 259,262. 
 
 “The facts of history have 
 shown that Paul was in error in 
 his teaching about the coming of 
 the Lord. ... It is a palpable 
 infidelity to truth to affirm that 
 this teaching was true.”— Burton 
 and Goodspeed, A Guide to the 
 Study, 236. 
 
218 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Tom Paine’s leading ideas, which were merely his statement 
 of current eighteenth century ideas in criticism and theology, 
 are now prominent in many Protestant seminaries. Thus, 
 
 “My intention is to show that 
 those books are spurious and that 
 Moses is not the author of them 
 and still further that they were 
 not written in the time of Moses 
 but by some very ignorant and 
 stupid pretenders to authorship 
 several hundred years after the 
 death of Moses .”*—The Age of 
 Reason, 80. 
 
 “The first time the law called 
 the law of Moses made its appear¬ 
 ance was in the time of Josiah 
 about a thousand years after 
 Moses was dead .”—Letter to Mr. 
 Ershine, 171. 
 
 Prophecy is “shooting with a 
 long bow of a thousand years to 
 strike within a thousand miles of 
 a mark .”—The Age of Reason, 67. 
 
 “The presumption is that the 
 books called the Evangelists were 
 not written by Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke and John, and that they 
 were impositions. The disordered 
 state of the history in these four 
 books implies that they are the 
 production of some unconnected 
 individuals many years after the 
 v things they pretend to relate. . . . 
 
 “The fact that certain sections 
 of Deuteronomy laid claim to Mo¬ 
 saic authorship and that much of 
 the law of Deuteronomy was 
 couched in the form of a public 
 address of Moses and purported 
 to have been written down by him 
 was the basis of the Jewish view 
 that he had written the whole not 
 only of the laws but of the five 
 books in which they are contained. 
 This view is not supported by the 
 facts.”—H. L. Willett, The Moral 
 Leaders of Israel, 30. 
 
 “The proofs of the origin of 
 the Deuteronomic law in the days 
 shortly preceding the great refor¬ 
 mation of Josiah are so convinc¬ 
 ing that biblical scholarship in¬ 
 creasingly holds the view.”— 
 Willett, op. cit. 189. 
 
 “The present essay seeks to show 
 that the fact of predictive proph¬ 
 ecy has been maintained only by 
 means of a false principle of exe¬ 
 gesis. . . . The theory of predic¬ 
 tive prophecy must be abandoned.” 
 —K. Fullerton, Prophecy and 
 Authority, xvii. 
 
 “The tradition which connects 
 the Gospel with the name of 
 Matthew is of no weight. ... It 
 is evidently from the pen of a 
 Christian of the second or third 
 generation.” — McGiffert, His¬ 
 tory of Apostolic Christianity, 575. 
 
 “The weight of scholarly opin¬ 
 ion is settling down to a convic¬ 
 tion that the traditional theory (as 
 
 *‘Those who believe that a Levite of the time of the kings is the 
 author^ of Deuteronomy are confirmed in their opinion by this passage. 
 . . . 1 hey have suspected that the whole Pentateuch was written by 
 some Levite 872 years after Moses at the time of King Josiah. This 
 book, then unknown, was found at the bottom of a chest by the high 
 
 priest Hilkiah, when he counted his money.”— Voltaire, La Bible enfin 
 explique, 202. 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 219 
 
 They have been manufactured by 
 other persons than those -whose 
 names they bear.”— The Age of 
 Reason, 126. 
 
 “The Jews have stolen their cos¬ 
 mogony and brought it with them 
 from Babylon on their return.”— 
 Reply to the Bishop of Llandaff, 
 254. 
 
 “It is not difficult to account 
 for the credit that was given to 
 the story of Jesus Christ being the 
 son of God. He was born when 
 the heathen mythology had pre¬ 
 pared people for the belief of such 
 a story. Almost all the extraordi¬ 
 nary men that lived under the 
 heathen mythology were reputed 
 to be the sons of some of their 
 gods.”— The Age of Reason, 29. 
 
 “Not any two of these w r riters 
 agree in reciting exactly in the 
 same words the written inscrip¬ 
 tion, short as it is, which they 
 tell us was put over Christ when 
 he was crucified. We may infer 
 from this that those writers, who¬ 
 ever they w r ere and in whatever 
 time they lived, were not present 
 at the scene.”— The Age of Rea¬ 
 son, 126. 
 
 “A man is preached instead of 
 God; an execution is an object 
 for gratitude. The preachers daub 
 themselves with the blood like a 
 troop of assassins. They preach a 
 humdrum sermon on the merits 
 of the execution.”— The Age of 
 Reason, 148. 
 
 “When men are taught to be¬ 
 lieve that Jesus by his death rubs 
 all off and pays their passage to 
 heaven gratis they become as care¬ 
 less in morals as a spendthrift 
 would be of money were he told 
 that his father had engaged to 
 pay off all his scores.”— Paine, 
 Misc. Pieces, 312. 
 
 to the authorship of John) must 
 be abandoned.” — E. F. Scott, 
 Fourth Gospel, 5. 
 
 “Back of this narrative (Gene¬ 
 sis) lay the old Babylonian story 
 of creation.”— Fowler, Origin and 
 Growth, 145. 
 
 “The virgin birth is not to be 
 accepted as an historical fact. To 
 believe in virgin birth as an ex¬ 
 planation of great personality is 
 one of the familiar ways in which 
 the ancient world was accustomed 
 to account for unusual superiority. 
 Especially is this true of the 
 founders of great religions.”— 
 Fosdick, Shall the Fundamentalists 
 Win? 
 
 “Just what the inscription on 
 the cross over the head of Jesus 
 really was we shall never know 
 though all four evangelists state 
 what it was. But each states it 
 differently.” — Strickland, Foun¬ 
 dation of Christian Belief, 244. 
 
 “Of all the slanders men have 
 perpetrated against the Most High 
 this is positively the most impu¬ 
 dent, the most insulting. No, sin 
 cannot be escaped by a bloody 
 sacrifice. Jesus never taught and 
 never authorized anybody to teach 
 in his name that he suffered in 
 our stead and bore the penalty of 
 our sins.”— Vedder, Lay Sermons 
 (in the Chester News). 
 
 “Guilt and merit are personal. 
 They cannot be transferred from 
 one person to another. We tamper 
 with moral truths when we shuf¬ 
 fle them about.”— Rausclienbusch, 
 A Theology for the Social Gospel, 
 245. 
 
220 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 “The Christian system of re- “Does the orthodox ever think?” 
 ligion is an outrage on common — Vedder, Fundamentals of Chris - 
 
 sense. Why is man afraid to tianity, 192. 
 think?”— Misc. Pieces, 303. 
 
 Paine was a shabby creature with the slightest of training. 
 This did not hinder him from saying, “It does not appear that 
 Jesus had any school education and the probability is that he 
 could not write.” 15 The modernist Dr. McConnell speaks of 
 our Lord, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom, in 
 similar terms. “To the great treasury of human knowledge it 
 cannot be said that he added anything. In science, literature, 
 government, economics, he seems to have been upon the same 
 level as the average uneducated man of his time. He uncovered 
 no secret of nature. He gave no counsel as to the right ordering 
 of human affairs.”* 16 
 
 The German von Ammon did what is so commonly done at 
 present, put the modernism of his day in parallel with its evan- 
 gelicism. Let us compare his modernist column with one of our 
 own time. 17 
 
 “The writings called the sacred 
 Scriptures are not more sacred 
 than the works of Plato or Virgil.” 
 
 “All that is called miraculous 
 ought either to be considered as 
 mythical or to be explained in a 
 perfectly natural manner.” 
 
 “The personality of God cannot 
 be affirmed; it is confounded with 
 the soul of the world.” 
 
 “The gift of inspiration over¬ 
 passes the boundaries of religion. 
 God came to Confucius, to Zoro¬ 
 aster, to men of religion who had 
 no place in either the Old Testa¬ 
 ment or the New.”— Hodges, How 
 to Know the Bible, 14. 
 
 There is a “deadly unreality 
 in our thought of miracle. Preva¬ 
 lent religious thought has taught 
 the modern man to put miracle 
 and law in contradiction.”—Fos- 
 dick, Modern Use of the Bible, 
 154. [See foot-notef on p. 221.] 
 
 “The universe as we see it is 
 God’s body; then God is the soul 
 of the universe.”—J. H. Randall 
 quoted by Fosdick, Modern Use, 
 266. 
 
 *Roehr describes Jesus as “a man, the product of his age and nation. 
 Those who deny this are stupid, servile and literal.” So Kent, “Jesus 
 in his conception of nature, in his apparent belief in a personal devil 
 and in his acceptance of the Jewish tradition regarding the origin and 
 authorship of the Jewish Scriptures showed himself in many respects a 
 ■on of his age and race .”—Life and Teaching of Jesus, 271. 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 221 
 
 “The doctrine of angels has no 
 reality. It is only a consequence 
 of Judaeo-Chaldean myths.” 
 
 “Christ came into the world in 
 the same way as other men.” 
 
 “The future judgment is only a 
 rabbinical vision.” 
 
 ‘The cures which Jesus worked 
 might have been effected by others 
 and those whom he resuscitated 
 were only in a lethargic state.” 
 
 “Mental categories which we no 
 longer use in ordinary life like 
 angelology. . . . When Zoroaster- 
 ism had done its work, the flexible 
 and fluid Hebrew angelology had 
 been frozen into Persian form.”— 
 Fosdick, Modern Use, 89, 123. 
 
 “They phrase it [the advent of 
 Jesus] in terms of a biological 
 miracle that our modern minds 
 cannot use.”—F osdick, The New 
 Knowledge and The Christian 
 Faith. 
 
 The Greeks “did not understand 
 Jewish apocalypticism, its catas¬ 
 trophic arrival of the day of 
 judgment. Must we go back to 
 ways of thinking which developed 
 between the Testaments?”—F os¬ 
 dick, Modern Use, 108, 9. 
 
 Lazarus fell into a comatose 
 state which was mistaken for 
 death. Jesus himself tells us that 
 it was only a sleep.”— Prof. G. A. 
 Barton, Jesus of Nazareth, 266. 
 
 Strauss gathered up in masterly fashion the whole literature 
 of free-thought which preceded his day. It would be a fruitful 
 undertaking to examine whether there is a single objection, 
 argument, sneer, wound in Christ’s body to be found in Amer¬ 
 ican theological literature which cannot be traced back to the 
 Leben Jesu or to Strauss’ minor writings.* 
 
 Dr. Fosdick, for example, repeatedly puts in contrast the 
 new age and the old. “The days come, however, as they have 
 come now, when the church moves out into a new generation 
 with new ways of thinking and new outlooks on the universe. 
 
 t“They blaspheme God when they represent him as angry with his 
 creatures, as punishing the innocent for the guilty and as pacified by 
 the sufferings of the virtuous. They blaspheme the universe because 
 in their zeal to miraculize everything they rest the proof of theology 
 on the interruptions to order rather than on order itself.”— Shaftesbury, 
 Quoted in Stephen’s History of English Thought, 2:27. 
 
 *“These sections (of the Leben Jesu)” says Schweitzer (Quest. 84), 
 “marked out the ground which is now occupied by modern critical 
 study.” 
 
222 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Ideas never dreamed of before , such as scientific law and evolu¬ 
 tion , become the common property of well-instructed minds.” 18 
 In Strauss’ The Old Faith and the New , we get a dissertation 
 on “the modern cosmic conception and the old ecclesiastical 
 one,” quite in Dr. Fosdick’s style, and this is elsewhere illus¬ 
 trated with a statement from Kant which indicates how old 
 the evolutionary “dream” really is. “The resemblance of so 
 many species of animals in regard to a certain general scheme 
 which seems to underlie not only the structure of their skeleton 
 but the arrangement of their other parts as well” . . . seemed 
 to Kant to imply descent and justify the assumption of a grad¬ 
 ual development of organic beings “from man down to the 
 neophyte.” Strauss then quotes Kant’s suggestion that “an 
 orangoutang or a chimpanzee might be enabled to develop his 
 various organs into the human structure, his brain into an 
 organ of thought which might then gradually be further de¬ 
 veloped by social culture.” 19 
 
 Strauss also speaks of modern astronomical science as “dis¬ 
 possessing the ancient personal God of his habitation. He who 
 has a clear cosmical conception in harmony with the present 
 standpoint of astronomy can no longer represent to himself a 
 deity throned in heaven and surrounded by angelic hosts.” 20 
 This was Shaftesbury’s idea also. Prof. Youtz, in his Enlarging 
 Conception of God, plagiarizes it from the past. He speaks of 
 “the pagan conception of heaven where God dwells apart” [as 
 if the idea of an anirna rnundi were not pagan]. “We must 
 not preach him as ‘Lord of all being throned afar,’ but as the 
 power at work in our human world.” 
 
 Prof. Shotwell’s Amherst lectures on “The Religious Revo¬ 
 lution of Today” are highly unoriginal variations on a theme 
 of Strauss. “Although up to a certain point,” says Strauss, 
 “religion and civilization may go hand in hand, this neverthe¬ 
 less happens only so long as the civilization of nations manifests 
 itself in the shape of imagination; as soon as it comes to be a 
 culture of the reasoning faculties and more especially as soon 
 as it is manifested through observation of Nature and her 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 223 
 
 laws, an opposition gradually develops itself which circum¬ 
 scribes religion more and more. The religious domain in the 
 human soul resembles the domain of the Red Indians in Amer¬ 
 ica, which however much we may deplore or deprecate it, is 
 year after year reduced within ever narrowing limits by their 
 white neighbors .” 21 
 
 “One might run over the history of Christianity,” writes 
 Prof. Shotwell, “and watch its superstitions wear away in the 
 light of a steadily dawning intelligence.”* 
 
 “On Ascension day,” says Strauss, “it becomes difficult to 
 refrain from satire. To speak of this event as one of actual 
 occurrence is simply to affront educated people at this time of 
 day .” 22 So Dr. Fosdick: “In such an easily picturable world 
 the farewell of Jesus to the earth could be imagined literally 
 as a physical levitation until he was received into heaven a 
 definite distance above the ground. . . . The marvel is not 
 that such a picture of the Master’s going and return should 
 arise [but] that after that old world had been so long outgrown 
 . . . many folk should still retain the old picture of our Lord’s 
 ascent .” 23 
 
 Dr. Fosdick, as Strauss, derides the Scriptural idea of a chosen 
 nation. “Nations have thought themselves God’s chosen people 
 above all his other children because they seemed so to them¬ 
 selves.” And Strauss: “The one God was . . . not in like 
 manner the Lord God of nations in the fullest sense; only 
 that of the little tribe of his worshippers in comparison to 
 whom he treated the other nations as step-children. From this 
 proceeded something harsh, rigid, irascible, in the whole char¬ 
 acter of this God.” “I knew a village,” wrote the sixty-year 
 Bible student, Prof. W. N. Clarke, “where” [actually!] “the 
 favorite topic of conversation was the return of the Jews to 
 
 ♦Strauss repeats Bolingbroke as Shotwell Strauss: “The clergy will 
 agree,” says Bolingbroke, “that Christianity has been in decay ever since 
 the resurrection of letters. ... As soon as the means of acquiring and 
 spreading information grew common it is no wonder a system was 
 unveiled which could not have been woven with success in any age 
 but those of gross ignorance and credulous superstition.”— Works, 1:185. 
 
224 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Palestine .” 24 “How could God give them that little spot of 
 Palestine for ever and ever from which they have been driven 
 for so long a time?” wrote Voltaire under the impression of 
 the same Zionist absurdity . 25 
 
 One could go on indefinitely putting the interpretations and 
 aphorisms of neo-Straussian “evangelicals” alongside those of 
 Strauss himself. Here are a few culled at random: 
 
 “It is utterly impossible for us 
 to conceive the creator embodied 
 in one single created being. That 
 the deity should reveal itself in 
 all finite beings of the universe 
 together we do readily admit and 
 indeed we are obliged to do so, 
 but that it should descend with 
 all its fullness into one finite be¬ 
 ing,—this appears to us as absurd 
 as that the nature of harmony 
 might reveal itself in one single 
 tone.”— Strauss, Soliloquies, 38. 
 
 “The idea of angels assisting 
 to execute the decrees of God in 
 the world and of a devil endeav¬ 
 oring to frustrate them [are] mere 
 fictions which are inconsistent 
 with the very fundamental doc¬ 
 trines of Christianity and only ex¬ 
 ternally adopted from earlier re¬ 
 ligions. When these and similar 
 prejudices shall have gradually 
 been cleared away will not then 
 the nature of Christianity itself 
 shine forth in greater purity even 
 than it could appear at the tirne 
 of Jesus.”— Strauss, Soliloquies, 
 63. 
 
 “No fear, then, that we should 
 lose Christ by being obliged to 
 give up a considerable part of 
 what was hitherto called Christian 
 creed. He will remain to all of 
 
 “‘The Logos involved the cen¬ 
 tral assertion that God can come 
 into the world which he has made 
 and into man his child. This was 
 the category which the New Tes¬ 
 tament used, not only in the 
 Fourth Gospel but in a disguised 
 form in the Epistle to the He¬ 
 brews and in the great Christo- 
 logical passages in Paul. Jesus 
 was essentially the forthgoing of 
 God himself into his world. This 
 philosophical approach to the un¬ 
 derstanding of Jesus is less con¬ 
 genial with our modern minds. 
 . . . The modern mind often feels 
 positive and indignant aversion 
 against such theological construing 
 of the Master.”— Fosdick, The 
 Modern Use , 243. 
 
 “No intelligent mind can pos¬ 
 sibly enter into demonology as a 
 comprehensive category for hu¬ 
 man sin and misery. . . . Having 
 frankly recognized the outgrown 
 nature of the category we need 
 not be troubled by it when we 
 read the Bible. What we should 
 seek to understand is the abiding 
 experience.” — Fosdick, Modern 
 Use, 121. 
 
 “Nor does this critical and skep¬ 
 tical attitude, discrediting in a 
 sense Jesus’ ideas, require us to 
 lower our estimate of the person¬ 
 ality of Jesus. . . . The modern 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 225 
 
 us the more surely the less anx¬ 
 iously we cling to the doctrines 
 and opinions that might tempt our 
 reason to forsake him.”—S trauss, 
 Soliloquies, 63. 
 
 “It is possible, and I myself 
 have pointed out the possibility of 
 the exclamation, ‘My God, my 
 God, why hast thou forsaken me’ 
 only being attributed to him in 
 order that a psalm considered by 
 the earliest Christianity as the 
 program of the messianic agony 
 might at its very commencement 
 be applicable to him.”— Strauss, 
 The Old and the New Faith, 89. 
 
 man does not value the person 
 and message of Jesus any the 
 lower because Jesus shared the 
 thought of his time on this sub¬ 
 ject.”—G. B. Foster, Finality of 
 the Christian Religion, 41. 
 
 “At certain points in the de¬ 
 scription of Jesus’ crucifixion it 
 ■would seem that not being eye¬ 
 witnesses and lacking exact his¬ 
 torical data the evangelists turned 
 to the Old Testament prophecies 
 for help in completing the pic¬ 
 ture.”— Kent, Life and Teachings 
 of Jesus, 290. 
 
 “We have freed ourselves from that other constituent of 
 religion, ignoble and untrue in comparison with the sentiment 
 of dependence,—the desire and expectation of obtaining some¬ 
 thing from God by our worship ,” 26 says Strauss, which is Prof. 
 Lake’s belief “that the religion of tomorrow will have no more 
 place for petition than for any other form of magic ”; 27 and 
 in general the so-called modern and Unitarian conception of 
 Christ’s work is compactly stated by Strauss: 
 
 “Jesus is not a Saviour by his atoning death but by his 
 teaching and example which exercise an elevating and therefore 
 a redeeming influence upon us all; men are justified not through 
 faith in another’s righteousness but by faithfulness to their own 
 conviction, that is, by the earnest endeavor always to shape 
 action by a recognized standard of duty .” 28 
 
 Interest in personal salvation is represented as ignoble as 
 dependence upon a prayer-answering God. Those who believe 
 that “individual salvation is primary,” says Dr. Fosdick [ Chris - 
 tianity and Progress] “are believers in a narrow, individualistic 
 Christianity.” So Shaftesbury: “A policy which extends itself 
 to another world and considers the future lives and happiness 
 of men rather than the present has made us leap beyond the 
 bounds of natural humanity. The saving of souls is now the 
 horrid passion of exalted spirits.” 2 * 
 
226 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Prof. Lake in scornful antiphon responds to Shaftesbury. 
 
 Of the expectation of a future 
 life, “There may be reason to ap¬ 
 prehend that a temper of this kind 
 will extend itself through all the 
 parts of life . . . creating a stricter 
 attention to self-good and private 
 interest and must insensibly di¬ 
 minish the affection toward public 
 good or the interest of society.”— 
 Shaftesbury, Characters, Vol. 2: 
 58. 
 
 “In past generations to attain 
 salvation was thought to be the 
 object of existence. It is not 
 altogether surprising that people 
 who argued in this way contrib¬ 
 uted little to the improvement of 
 the world.”—K. Lake, Immortal - 
 ity and the Modern Mind, 21. 
 
 And Prof. Elwood takes up the theme which Shaftesbury 
 left to him some two hundred years ago. 
 
 “To be bribed only or terrified 
 into our honest practise bespeaks 
 little of real honesty or worth. 
 . . . How shall we deny that to 
 serve God by compulsion or of 
 interest is merely servile and mer¬ 
 cenary.”— Shaftesbury, Vol. 1:92 
 and 11:272. 
 
 “In the theological ages of the 
 Christian church salvation was 
 often represented to mean essen¬ 
 tially escape from punishment and 
 assurance of bliss in a life beyond 
 the grave. Thus the whole con¬ 
 ception of salvation was degraded 
 to a refined sort of selfishness.”— 
 Elwood, Reconstruction of Relig¬ 
 ion, 144. 
 
 Strauss parrots Plolbach as Holbach parrots the ancients and 
 Profs. Foster and Shotwell parrot Strauss. Thus, “The Epi¬ 
 curean derivation of piety from fear has incontestably a good 
 deal of truth in it.”—Strauss. “If we go back to the beginning 
 we shall always find that ignorance and fear have created 
 Gods.”—Holbach. “The history of religion shows that belief in 
 God dawned in the identification of nature powers exciting fear 
 and awe.”—Foster. “Religion is the reaction of mankind to 
 something apprehended but not comprehended. The ancients 
 made no more profound discovery than that fear created the 
 gods.”—Shotwell. Prof. Paul Elmer More traces from past to 
 present a kindred theory (Bross Lectures, 1921), namely, that 
 religion is but a device of tyranny to enable it to exploit men. 
 “Polybius, the Greek historian of Rome, expressed the idea. 
 Tacitus declared religion an instrumentum regni. So Boling- 
 broke, Holbach, La Mettrie, Leslie Stephen. And at last Mr, 
 Dewey is renewing the old cry and persuading our young men 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 227 
 
 that religion is a fallacy of the reason devised to maintain the 
 more fortunate classes in their iniquitous claims/’ 
 
 The eighteenth century sentimentalized over pagan religion 
 in the best Parliament of Religion style. The Chinaman was 
 the especial idealization of the time. “I am so far from think¬ 
 ing the maxims of Confucius and Jesus Christ to differ that I 
 think the plain and simple maxims of the former will help to 
 illustrate the more obscure ones of the latter,” wrote the deist, 
 Matthew Tindal. Chubb, also a deist, had as lofty an opinion 
 of Islam. “Whether the Mohammedan revelation be of a divine 
 original or not, there seems to be a plausible pretence arising 
 from the circumstances of things for stamping a divine char¬ 
 acter upon it.” 30 To Chubb it mattered not “whether a man 
 adopts Judaism or Paganism or Mohammedanism or Chris¬ 
 tianity,” and he fortifies this opinion with the favorite text of 
 the Enlightenment, “In every nation he that feareth Plim and 
 worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.” “The God who 
 works in Islam [with dripping scimitar] and in Buddhism 
 [the true religious opiate of the East] is the Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ.” (Youtz, The Enlarging Conception of 
 God.) 
 
 So Prof. Strickland, “We dare not declare these great 
 faiths which countless millions of rational beings have professed 
 for thousands of years to be nothing but error and delusion” 31 
 [no, not even if “science” may do so]. 
 
 Not only is the substance of modernist writing a repetition 
 of the unbelief of the past, but attitude, style, and phrasing, also. 
 Shaftesbury insists on his “steady orthodoxy [as Dr. Fosdick 
 on his evangelicism] his submission to the truly Christian 
 doctrine of our holy church” and then proceeds to flout it all 
 along the line. He contends that in rationalizing religion he 
 is “attempting to win atheists to it.” This, too, is a modern 
 claim. 
 
 The Gospel must be made reasonable in order to “hold 
 the college youth to the church.” “I did not, nor do I now, 
 desire to disturb the faith of anyone,” wrote Strauss. “Only 
 
228 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 where these are already shaken, I desire to point out the direc¬ 
 tion in which, according to my conviction, a firmer soil is to be 
 found.” 33 
 
 The True Gospel of Jesus Christ Asserted is the title of the 
 deist Chubb’s work. Both old and new rationalists play the 
 ethics of Jesus against the gospel of redemption. “No system 
 can be more simple and plain than that of natural religion as 
 it stands in the Gospel,” wrote Bolingbroke. “Both the duties 
 required to be practised and the propositions required to be 
 believed are concisely and plainly enough expressed in the 
 original Gospel which Christ taught and which his four evan¬ 
 gelists recorded. But they have been alike corrupted by theol¬ 
 ogy.” 34 So also Semler in Frederick the Great’s day contrasted 
 “religion” and “theology” in the usual present-day style. 
 
 After destroying the Bible’s authority, the rationalists of the 
 eighteenth century praise the ethical residuum. Roehr, a Ger¬ 
 man rationalist, gives us this sentence which might well have 
 dripped from the pen of Sanders or Kent: “I honor the Holy 
 Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the most precious 
 treasure of religious truths from which with the help of a 
 correct grammatico-historical exegesis, can be made a scientific¬ 
 ally ordered vehicle for a pure and genuine religion of 
 reason.” 35 
 
 “While [criticism] has taken away a certain kind of rever¬ 
 ence which after all was merely a sort of superstition,” writes 
 Dr. F. G. Lewis of Crozer, “it has given the Bible worth and 
 power which it could not possess before. In exchange for su¬ 
 perficial sacredness there has been given knowledge, light, and 
 strength.” 36 
 
 A characteristic trick of modernist phrasing of kinship to 
 the past is the use of such terms as “scholars generally,” “the 
 consensus of learned opinion,” etc. One gets this in C. F. Kent 
 on almost every tenth page. “ ‘Many learned men pretend.’ 
 Why do you not name them?” ask the Six Jews of Voltaire. 
 “We have always an ill opinion of these vague quotations. 
 ‘Some critiques maintain.’ What critiques, sir? By not naming 
 
Modernist Antiques 229 
 
 them you give us room to think that you are the only critique 
 in question.” 37 
 
 The same phrases of emancipation are on the lips of the 
 Enlightenment in both centuries. “I invite all timid souls out 
 into the liberty that I have found,” writes the pompous Prof. 
 W. N. Clarke of Colgate. 38 “My end is to hold forth the 
 acceptable light of truth which makes men free, enables them 
 to break the bands of creed-makers and imposters asunder and 
 to cast their cords from them” are the no less pompous words 
 of the deist Annet. 39 “Tolerance” and “enlightenment” were 
 the two watchwords of the time. Pens overflowed with such 
 expressions as duty, common welfare, humanity. Dr. McCart¬ 
 ney, moderator of the Presbyterian church, has described the 
 modernist of Lower Fifth Avenue as “scattering ashes; talking 
 pleasantly about Vision/ ‘service,’ ‘progress/ ‘toleration/ ” Prof. 
 Vischer of Halle urged pastors “to be silent concerning the 
 silly stories of the historical Christ since people of standing 
 no longer believe them.” 40 A century later Dr. Ambrose Ver¬ 
 non of the Harvard church remarked that “people in Brookline 
 will not believe in the Virgin Birth.” 41 “As for us we will 
 continue to turn our faces towards the East,” is a phrase of 
 Roehr’s which in greater or less variation marks modernist 
 literature. Adherents of evangelical Christianity Roehr brands 
 as slaves of ignorance. The evangelical revival a century ago 
 was dubbed “das neues Obscurantentum.” In like manner Dr. 
 Shailer Mathews, “Over against intelligence in religion is being 
 organized anti-intelligence,” and Dr. Fosdick after picturing 
 “fresh young minds holding new ideas, not thinking in ancient 
 [i. e., eighteenth century] terms,” describes “the educated of 
 the Middle West as seeking their religion outside the church 
 because of the presence of fundamentalist opinion within 
 it.” 42 
 
 On the one side science, education, light, progress, freshness, 
 sun-rising, freedom. On the other all that is baroque and 
 gloomy. Even the epithets of the past are revived by the mod¬ 
 ernist theologians of the present. Prof. Youtz of Oberlin 
 
230 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 describes the worship of Jesus as “Christolatry,” repeating a 
 century-old word of Henke. When Prof. G. A. Johnston Ross 
 applies the term “bibliolatry” to an evangelical paper he borrows 
 his witticism from the same ancient source. 
 
 “Science” is of course monopolized by the Enlightenment 
 both old and new. The word falls again and again from Tom 
 Paine as if he really captained its body-guard. But the greatest 
 figures in eighteenth century German science, Euler, the king 
 of mathematicians and A. von Haller, the founder of modern 
 physiology, made public affirmation of their evangelical faith. 
 Euler’s Defense of Revelation against the Attacks of Free- 
 thinking affirms that the alleged difficulties in the Christian 
 religion are not greater than those with which mathematicians 
 have to contend and insists that the refusal to accept the Bible 
 as a revelation of God is an offense of the will. 
 
 These few parallels are the meagre selection from a wholly 
 casual reading. Sometime perhaps a competent historian will 
 work out a careful account of the continuity of anti-Christian 
 thought from the Ebionites and Celsus down to the present 
 faculties of American theological seminaries. Such a work will 
 effectually “outmode” the use of the somewhat inflated term 
 “the modern mind” at least in its present theological con¬ 
 text. 
 
 But it should also be noticed that the tactics of eighteenth 
 century unbelief have been plagiarized as well as its theology. 
 Claus Harms’ 67th Thesis read: “It is a strange demand that 
 there must be freedom to teach a new belief from a chair which 
 the old faith has established and from a mouth which the old 
 faith feeds. The Scripture is fulfilled ‘He that eateth bread 
 with me hath lifted up his heel against me.’ Christians should 
 be taught that they have the right not to suffer non-Christian 
 and non-Lutheran teaching in pulpit and in school.” 43 Calvin’s 
 Theological Academy was wholly in the hands of modernists 
 at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Huguenot endow¬ 
 ments had been perverted to anti-Christian ends as Puritan ones 
 with us. In Francke’s day the theological faculty at Halle was 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 231 
 
 a great Christian faculty as Andover’s once was. In twenty- 
 nine years it sent out 6,000 clergymen besides thousands educated 
 in the Francke orphanage. Through the influence of Wolf 
 and Semler, however, it was “captured” by the Enlighten¬ 
 ment. 
 
 Later in the days of Gesenius and Wegscheider the holiest 
 things of the Bible were held up to ridicule. Wegscheider pro¬ 
 posed the question in his seminary one day whether Christianity 
 ought to be altogether abolished to give way to a better religion. 
 All present voted in the affirmative. Prof. Hengstenberg in the 
 Evang. Kirchenzeitung described the state of things at Halle. 
 His exposure was denounced as an attempt to check the freedom 
 of teaching. “The scientific results of modern investigation 
 would be destroyed by such interference.” The government 
 insisted that theological chairs should be held only by those 
 adhering to the Augsburg Confession. Yet by the familiar 
 jockeying the two professors were retained. “The whole investi¬ 
 gation and the sophistical, even dishonest character of the de¬ 
 fense of the two professors,” says Tischhauser, “makes on the 
 impartial reader the most painful impression.” 44 
 
 When the evangelical Tholuck went to Halle in 1826 the 
 faculty protested against his appointment. “I began my ministry 
 there as a solitary on Patmos.” Students and townspeople were 
 incited against him as against a hypocrite. Haevernik, another 
 evangelical, went to Rostock. The entire class left the room 
 when he gave expression to his evangelical opinions. At Mar¬ 
 burg the professor of dogmatics would read with the observa¬ 
 tion ad futuram oblivionem [to be forgotten] the paragraphs 
 of his textbook which had to do with the person of Christ, 
 justification by faith, the outpouring of the Spirit, etc. Gerok 
 mentions a theological class at Tuebingen in 1834 all but three 
 of whom denied the future life. In Jena professors made fun 
 of the articles of religion which they had pledged themselves to 
 teach. A Halle student testified that they diligently sought to 
 root out all regard for the Bible and its contents; another that 
 he had never in his course heard a quickening, edifying word 
 
232 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 from those in theological chairs.* Kant was praised as a second 
 Christ. 45 
 
 Certainly Continental modernism had “captured” the theo¬ 
 logical schools. Liberal kleptomania is no new phenomenon.f 
 And as evangelical Christians robbed of their seminaries are 
 today establishing new ones in Chicago, Philadelphia, and else¬ 
 where so those who had the good of the church at heart in 
 the early nineteenth century started evangelical schools in Wit- 
 temberg and Herborn in 1817; in Gotha in 1834; in Friedberg 
 and Wolfenbuettel in 1837 and at Heidelberg, Loccum, Han¬ 
 over, and Berlin in 1838. 40 
 
 Creedal obligations, explicit as well as implicit, were disre¬ 
 garded with as little scrupulousness then as now. Eighteenth 
 century rationalists insisted with Semler that Jesus “accommo¬ 
 dated” his statements to the ignorance and prejudices of the time. 
 Why should not they do the same? When Paulus was made 
 
 ^“Parents who sent their sons to the university to listen to such men 
 as Semler, Thomasius, and Paulus had not the remotest idea that insti¬ 
 tutions of such renown for learning and religion were at the very time 
 the hotbeds of rank infidelity. Even the state cabinets that controlled 
 the professional chairs could not believe for a long time that men who 
 had been chosen to teach theology were spending all their power in 
 corrupting the religious sentiment of the land.”— Hurst, History of 
 Rationalism, 251. 
 
 •[Limitations of space forbid any consideration of present-day mod¬ 
 ernist intrigues on the mission field. They have, however, a certain 
 analogy in the “capture” of the early nineteenth century Bible societies 
 of the Continent. These were financed by unsuspecting Christians in 
 England through the British and Foreign Bible Society and while refus¬ 
 ing Scriptures to such apostolic servants of Christ as Neff, Pyt, and 
 Bost, used the circulation of the Bible for Unitarian propaganda. This 
 they did by writing heretical notes, by introducing the Apocrypha and 
 even by inserting mis-translations. The purpose “of the Socinian party” 
 according to Blumhardt of Basel, in binding up the Apocrypha with 
 the Bible was “to obscure and lower the idea of inspiration.” Fifty 
 thousand copies of Bibles with the infidel preface of Prof. Haffner of 
 Strassburg were sent out under the aegis of the British society before 
 the coup was discovered. The Heidelberg rationalist Paulus was active 
 in one Bible society, the persecuting liberals Levade, Curtat, and Chene- 
 viere in those of French Switzerland. Dean Curtat of the Lausanne 
 Bible Society is remembered for his labored apology [in a theological 
 essay] for card-playing on Sabbath evenings. His arguments were 
 drawn from the silence of Christ and his apostles on the subject!— 
 Memoirs of James and Robert Haldane, Ch. 20. 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 233 
 
 professor at Jena he expressed to his colleague Griesbach his 
 perplexity because his theological convictions would not allow 
 him to make the required statement of faith. Griesbach helped 
 him out by saying that in the Confession one indeed expressed 
 his esteem for the Reformation and that one accepted these 
 expressions in so far as they agreed with the true and reasonable 
 content of the Bible. “I promise that I will hold closely to the 
 teaching of the Holy Scriptures as it is expressed in the Con¬ 
 fession of our evangelical Lutheran church, that I will in no 
 particular depart from it, to say nothing of opposing it.” So 
 swore the pastors of Bavaria. Those in Saxony took similar 
 creedal obligations though hardly a dozen in the kingdom be¬ 
 lieved what they said. 47 How familiar the note in Reinhard’s 
 System of Christian Morality : “It is required of no one who 
 takes his oath of office that he shall always hold for true that 
 which he now holds for true. That would exclude all growth 
 in religious knowledge.” “When therefore we recite the creed 
 our first care is not as to whether we believe each article ac¬ 
 cording to the early interpretation, whether we are orthodox 
 in our belief, but whether we express in our lives the 
 belief that we speak.” (Bishop William Lawrence, Fifty 
 Years , 98.) 
 
 The Scriptures were played against the creed as if the latter 
 were not a condensation of Scripture truth. “Protestantism,” 
 continues Reinhard, “recognizes only the Holy Scripture as 
 norm of belief. Consequently the acceptance of the symbol is 
 only so long to be understood as one is not convinced by other 
 considerations.” When in the Northern Baptist Convention at 
 Indianapolis in 1922 an attempt was made to put on record 
 the evangelical faith of Baptists the modernist Dr. Woelfkin 
 substituted a general affirmation of adhesion to the New Testa¬ 
 ment for a statement of belief. 48 This was the old trick of 
 rationalism. Those who scoffed at the historicity and doctrines 
 of the New Testament asked the Prussian government to abolish 
 confessions and make “the New Testament the sole standard 
 of belief.” So in England Blackburne’s agitation culminated 
 
234 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 in a petition to Parliament in 1772 asking for the substitution 
 of a statement of belief in Scripture in place of subscription to 
 the Articles. In this way 18th century free-thought sought to 
 legitimatize itself in the Church of England. 49 
 
 Some years ago there was a professor in the Boston Uni¬ 
 versity School of Theology whose teaching was of such a char¬ 
 acter that the students themselves complained and petitioned 
 for relief. He was finally removed, passed to a Universalist 
 theological school and was ultimately buried from the [Unita¬ 
 rian] King’s Chapel, the minister declaring him a martyr 
 “stoned by the church.”* His autobiography, For the Benefit 
 of My Creditors, is a publication of the [Unitarian] Beacon 
 Press. 
 
 Prof. Mitchell signed the declaration required of all theo¬ 
 logical professors, of his sincere acceptance of the Doctrines 
 and Discipline of the Methodist Church [which includes the 
 Apostles’ Creed] to teach in harmony therewith. He also made 
 the following statement to Bishop Andrews. On page 162 of 
 
 *Prof. Rauschenbusch also, we are told in the Baptist, was “stoned 
 by the Junkers,” although considering his theological opinions one can¬ 
 not but think the indulgence accorded him as professor in a Christian 
 institution more than ample. The free-thinker Bolingbroke, after re¬ 
 marking that he expects to be “treated with scorn and contempt by 
 the whole theological tribe and railed at as an infidel,” declares his 
 purpose “to seek for genuine Christianity with the simplicity with which 
 it is taught in the Gospel of Christ himself.”— Works, Vol. 3, 330 and 
 339. 
 
 In stating the conditions on which he would assume the pastorate 
 of the Rockefeller church Dr. Fosdick insisted that there should be no 
 creedal conditions for membership. When the Rev. George Putnam 
 installed another Mr. Fosdick over the [Unitarian] Hollis Street church 
 two generations ago he said, “There is no other Christian body of 
 which it is so impossible to tell where it begins and where it ends. 
 We have no recognized principle by which any man who chooses to 
 be a Christian disciple and desires to be numbered w T ith us, whatever 
 he believes or denies, can be excluded.” The Hollis Street Church 
 is long since dead and its building a theatre. 
 
 The German rationalist Tzschirner thought that “a Christian church 
 might comprehend all opinions as paganism all classes of divinities.” 
 In the same spirit of comprehension Dr. Fosdick would include in the 
 church all “men and women who give themselves with high spirit to 
 human service in science or philanthropy but who never think of attrib¬ 
 uting their service of love to religious motives .”—Christianity and 
 Progress, 241. 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 235 
 
 his autobiography is published his interpretation explaining away 
 the statement. 
 
 “I accept the Old Testament as 
 divinely authoritative, recognizing 
 a supernatural element manifested 
 in miracles and prophecy. 
 
 “I accept the Gospel statement 
 respecting Jesus’ advent into the 
 world. I believe in the Trinity 
 including the deity of Jesus Christ 
 and the Holy Spirit. 
 
 “I believe that the death of 
 Jesus was necessary for the salva¬ 
 tion of mankind. I have not and 
 never had any sympathy with the 
 doctrines of Universalism.” 
 
 “The first [statement] neither 
 declares nor implies that the entire 
 Old Testament is divinely authori¬ 
 tative. 
 
 “In the second I took care to say 
 that I accepted the teachings of 
 the Gospel, not the Apostles’ Creed 
 or any particular version but the 
 concordant testimony of evangel¬ 
 ical tradition which of course re¬ 
 mained to be determined. 
 
 “The third did not commit me 
 to any particular form of the doc¬ 
 trine of the Trinity. 
 
 “The fourth question was so in¬ 
 definite that I might have an¬ 
 swered in either the affirmative or 
 the negative or in both ways. 
 
 “In my fifth statement I confined 
 myself to the denial of the doc¬ 
 trine of retribution.” 
 
 Of this trifler Prof. Sharp in a foreword to the autobiography 
 says: “If Jesus had a brother and God a second son it was 
 Hinckley Gilbert Mitchell.” < 
 
 Dr. Fosdick, in his farewell sermon at the First Presbyterian 
 church, described himself as “a heretic.” In the early church 
 heretics “went out from us because they were not of us.” The 
 technique of the Enlightenment, both old and new is, as we 
 have seen, very different. Dr. Fosdick’s colleague at Union, 
 Prof. Fagnani, writing In Praise of Heresy , says of heretics: 
 “One who really cares for the church instead of resigning and 
 withdrawing is conscientiously bound to remain in and bring 
 as many of his brethren as possible around to his way of think¬ 
 ing,” the church meanwhile paying his bills while he wrecks 
 it. Dr. Rainsford urges young men to enter the Episcopal min¬ 
 istry, “to stay in it, and fight within to liberalize it.” So David 
 Hume was wont to urge men of free-thinking tendencies to 
 take orders. 50 In 1815 Dr. Jeremiah Evarts writing in the 
 Panoplist describes the method. “They [Unitarians] have 
 clandestinely crept into orthodox churches by forbearing to 
 
236 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 contradict their faith and then have gradually moulded them 
 by their negative preaching to the shape which they would 
 wish. The people after a while never hearing of the atonement 
 nor of special grace or any of the kindred doctrines, forget 
 that they belong to the Christian system and by and by regard 
 a man as a kind of enthusiast or monster who preaches such 
 doctrines. Who does not see that there is great cunning in 
 all this? But the honesty?” 
 
 Just a century ago (1825) Prof. Clausen, a rationalist theo¬ 
 logian of the University of Copenhagen, published a work of 
 800 pages in which he denied the Virgin Birth, the existence 
 of evil spirits, the atonement and the divinity of Christ, quite 
 in the style of modern Sadduceeism. The great Danish critic 
 of the Enlightenment, N. S. F. Grundtvig, called him sharply to 
 task with a clean-cut aut-aut. How familiar the words sound. 
 “As an honest man he should either offer to the Christian church 
 solemn apology for his un-Christian and offensive teaching or 
 lay down his office and discard the Christian name.” 51 
 
 Eighty-eight theological students sent Clausen an address of 
 congratulation as the five hundred buds of Mt. Holyoke College 
 did to Dr. Fosdick. Clausen sued his critic for violation of 
 academic freedom. The professor does not readily share “aca¬ 
 demic freedom” with others. 
 
 The rationalists of eighteenth century Germany altered the 
 old liturgies to suit “modern views.” Biblical expressions were 
 removed and the Gospel gave place to moralizing commonplaces. 
 “It makes a Christian blush,” says Tischhauser, “to read the 
 dry and wordy prayers substituted in a certain Schleswig- 
 Holstein liturgy.” The introduction of these liturgies caused 
 protests which in some cases had to be repressed by military 
 force. 
 
 The creed was in certain instances omitted from the baptis¬ 
 mal formula and the words of institution from the communion. 
 In the communion service one is represented as recovering self- 
 respect. Children were baptized into the imitation of Jesus 
 Christ, the great pattern of all virtue. Allusion to angels, the 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 237 
 
 coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the judg¬ 
 ment were omitted. “They must not think that we laymen 
 do not understand what is happening,” wrote “a Schleswig- 
 Holstein judge” in an anonymous pamphlet. “They explain 
 away, philosophize away, ridicule away one mystery, one proph¬ 
 ecy, one miracle after another, till only a ‘religion of reason’ 
 is left. Formerly our Lord Jesus Christ and his atonement 
 together with his teaching and example, were all. Now one 
 hardly hears of him and his great work on earth is no longer 
 named. 
 
 “Formerly preaching was in biblical language and accord¬ 
 ing to the plain man’s comprehension. Now in many pas¬ 
 sages they teach what Zollikofer, Beier, Bahrdt and the rest 
 inspire whether it agrees with the Bible or not. Formerly 
 nearly every priest had the confidence of his parish. Now there 
 reigns in many parishes doubt and suspicion. Why are they 
 so eager to introduce the [altered] service? Because with the 
 formularies the doctrines are changed. Many doctrines which 
 our fathers and we still hold as essential parts of the Lutheran 
 belief are suppressed or mentioned in such a way that a plain 
 Christian can with difficulty find them while every Unitarian 
 will accept with joy the collects and teaching of the [nezv] 
 service/' 52 
 
 Bishop Neeley has described similar attempts to denature the 
 ritual of the American Methodist Church [The Revised Ritual 
 of 1916 ]. A commission on revision was appointed in 1912 
 which reported in 1916. Fortunately this report was turned 
 over to the bishops by the General Convention at Saratoga 
 in 1920 and many of the worst excisions were restored. But 
 numerous significant mutilations still remain. 
 
 The Apostles’ Creed was dropped from the service of baptism 
 of those of riper years. Substituted therefor was the question, 
 “Dost thou receive and profess the Christian faith as contained 
 in the New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ?” 
 
 In the form for receiving persons into the church the com¬ 
 mission omitted the question, “Do you believe in the doctrines 
 
238 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 of the Holy Scriptures as set forth in the Articles of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church?” This takes from the incoming 
 members of the Methodist church any obligation to accept the 
 articles of religion and it is done without any constitutional 
 change, abrogation, or suspension of the said articles. 
 
 In place of the old question, “Have you saving faith in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ?” is substituted, “Do you receive and pro¬ 
 fess the Christian faith as contained in the New Testa¬ 
 ment?” 
 
 From the order of adult baptism is omitted, “Dearly beloved, 
 forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin and that 
 which is born of the flesh is flesh and they that are in the flesh 
 cannot please God but live in sin.” This statement of the 
 tainted nature of man is not pleasant for neo-Unitarians to 
 read in church.* 
 
 *Dr. Harold Paul Sloan writes in The New Infidelity and the New 
 Reformation, 25: 
 
 “Within six months in a preachers’ meeting in the East a statement 
 was made by a man of prominence in Methodism whose word would 
 be generally accepted if we should publish his name, that twenty-five 
 years ago a group of men met in Boston and agreed together to work 
 for the liberalizing of the Methodist church. He pointed out that their 
 procedure should be along four lines. 
 
 First, the putting of a chair of English Bible taught by a man of 
 rationalist sympathy in the various colleges of Methodism. 
 
 Second, liberalizing the Book Concern. 
 
 Third, liberalizing of the ritual. 
 
 Fourth, liberalizing of the Course of Study. 
 
 Bishop Neeley intimates that this program is being worked out. He 
 writes: “If a fraction of the current statements on this point are correct 
 there is an anti-Methodist school of thought working through a few 
 aggressive individuals to compel the church to accept its view T s and 
 at the present time to accomplish this without constitutionally changing 
 the Articles of Religion or other standards of doctrine. The method is 
 not that of the open and frontal attack but of the sapper and miner. 
 
 “One way is to reach and mis-teach the more than four millions of 
 children and young people in the Sunday-schools through Sunday-school 
 literature. If they can do that for a few years, even five, they will 
 indoctrinate these millions. The few who are manipulating these mat¬ 
 ters are strategists of no mean order and they mean if they can to 
 revolutionize doctrinal Methodism. They are the reds inside the church. 
 
 “Another way is to produce and have spread with the imprint of 
 the church publishing-house, denominational literature containing anti- 
 Methodist teaching which the general and loyal membership will buy 
 and read supposing that, as it comes from the church, it must be sound. 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 239 
 
 From the service for consecration of bishops after the Veni 
 Creator Spiritus the expression is struck out “and the author 
 of everlasting life,” referring to Christ. Also from the prayer 
 in the same passage, “thine only and dearly beloved son Jesus 
 Christ,” the word “only’* as if to change the status which the 
 church recognizes in Christ as the only-begotten son of God. 
 
 The old question to the bishops at ordination, “Are you 
 ready with faithful diligence to banish and drive away all erro¬ 
 neous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s Word and both 
 privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to the 
 same?” was cut out. Also the question, “Will you deny all 
 ungodliness, etc., that the adversary may be ashamed, having 
 nothing to say against you ?” It is not good form in these circles 
 to mention “the adversary” so out he goes from the Methodist 
 ritual. 
 
 Eighteenth century modernists in Germany doctored cate¬ 
 chisms, cutting out the new birth, the atoning work of Christ, 
 and mangling quotations from Luther and the Bible. Mention 
 has been made of Unitarian sun-worship. One of the eighteenth 
 century German catechisms began with, “What is the first and 
 best thing of all?” A ns. “The first and best thing of all is the 
 sun.” “What is the greatest and loftiest of all things?” Ans. 
 “The starry heavens.” 53 In another catechism the passage, 
 “All Scripture is given by God” becomes, “Every book in which 
 God’s will is displayed” is inspired. 
 
 “Another way, but in the course of a few years a very influential 
 way, is to slip into professors’ chairs in various institutions men who 
 both believe and promote anti-Methodist thought. In this way the 
 school-men and educated classes are to be reached and the literary and 
 scientific institutions will send out every year their hundreds of gradu¬ 
 ates, a more or less percentage of whom will spread the un-Methodist 
 instruction they have received. 
 
 “Then as a way of controlling the incoming ministry the Course of 
 Study is to be changed by throwing out sound and standard Methodist 
 books and introducing those that cannot make true ministers. 
 
 “And now it looks like an effort to control the general membership 
 and the congregations by a revised ritual. 
 
 “Nothing seems to have been overlooked by this little company of 
 designers and if this goes on for a few years more the most disastrous 
 consequences must follow.” 
 
240 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 For the ten commandments they substituted a modern code, 
 “Do good for virtue’s sake” and the like. It recalls Prof. G. H. 
 Betts’ “Ten Purposes,” “I will respect and take care of my 
 body,” “I will take pride in work and thrift,” and the rest. 
 The Shorter Bible of Prof. Kent is no new invention. The old 
 Enlightenment was as bent as the new on cutting out uncon¬ 
 genial doctrines from the Scriptures. Thus in 1790 was printed 
 Schneider’s The Bible of the Old and New Testament in Ex¬ 
 tract According to Ethical Content . Pastor Zerrener of Magde¬ 
 burg issued a Little School Bible for Children Adapted to the 
 Needs of the Time and with the Elimination of All that is 
 Objectionable [i. e., miracles, etc.] In fact so many of these 
 “shorter” Bibles were put into circulation that the Prussian 
 government finally felt called to order that only complete Bibles 
 should be used in the schools. 54 
 
 Unitarian denaturizing of Christian hymns is an old game. 
 I noticed lately in the refrain of “Till we meet again” that 
 the original line “Till we meet at Jesus’ feet” is metamorphosed 
 into “Till we meet in union sweet.” 55 The eighteenth century 
 Enlightenment also doctored hymnbooks. References to char¬ 
 acteristic evangelical ideas were removed. When the Saxon 
 hymnbook was published in 1793 the government expressly 
 forbade doctrinal tampering. On Good Friday in a church near 
 Greifswald it came to a wild tumult when the rationalist 
 Hessian hymnbook was brought in and the excellent evangelical 
 one excluded. In 1807 new and rationalist hymns were forced 
 on the churches of Holland and their use made obligatory. 
 
 Under the lead of Pastor Sintenis of Magdeburg a union of 
 rationalist clergymen not unlike the Modern Churchmen’s 
 League was organized taking the name of “The Friends of 
 Light.” Attempts to popularize the assured results of the Tue¬ 
 bingen criticism were undertaken. “Their advocates openly an¬ 
 nounced,” quite in the manner of the American devotees of 
 “Religious Education,” “that the new critical opinions must 
 conquer a place in home and school.” “It is our duty to pub¬ 
 lish on the housetop what science has revealed to us. If oppo- 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 241 
 
 sition to Christianity is to be effectual it must descend from 
 the heights of science to the ranks of the people.” How the 
 comparison between past and present modernisms covers at 
 every point is seen by comparing Prof. Machen’s Christianity 
 and Liberalism with Prof. August Hahn’s inaugural discussion 
 in Leipzig University in 1827. Hahn shows that rationalism 
 and Christianity were opposing opinions, that the rationalists 
 could no longer call themselves Christians. 56 
 
 Claus Harms’ theses described the confusion which the mod¬ 
 ernism of his day had brought into church life. 
 
 “It brings confusion into the creeds which are nothing but 
 clear universally accepted interpretations of the Holy Scripture; 
 confusion into the authorized church services, hymnbooks, and 
 catechisms to which the public preaching in many places is in 
 sharp and dreadful opposition; confusion among teachers where 
 one teaches the old and the other the new belief; confusion with 
 other churches. Each is founded on the Bible with varying 
 interpretations concerning which they have agreed to say ‘You 
 accept that interpretation and we this and so we can love and 
 esteem each other.’ But rationalists know no interpretation save 
 that which each makes for himself and for the day.” 
 
 It is hard for us of the twentieth century with its powerful 
 evangelicism to realize how completely a Unitarian modernism 
 had captured the churches of eighteenth century Europe. A 
 believer in revelation could hardly be found among the Luth¬ 
 eran superintendents in North Germany. A statement of the 
 consistory of Baden in 1799 remarked that most of the young 
 candidates for the ministry showed strong tendency to dissolve 
 Christianity into a mere naturalistic morality. Christianity was 
 spoken of in the tone of Prof. Shotwell as “an outworn sur¬ 
 vival of the past whose complete disappearance from the face 
 of the earth was greatly desirable.” Serious proposals were made 
 to transform the clergy into school-masters. When in 1811 a 
 Dresden preacher of cultivation and talent dwelt, in an im¬ 
 portant city church, on the divinity of Christ there was uni¬ 
 versal surprise and in all the tea circles it was asked how a man 
 
242 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 of such rare gifts could fall to such oddities. Pastor Pflaum in 
 1816 said [what Dr. Hilary Richardson has recently said of his 
 Unitarian co-religionists in scathing terms] that for decades 
 Protestants had ceased to concern themselves with the Bible. 
 Also that many preachers were profoundly opposed to its study. 
 When the evangelical Lindner was appointed to the chair of 
 exegesis in Leipzig University he was described by the students 
 as the sole representative of an orthodoxy which had been de¬ 
 stroyed by science—a man clinging to a sinking wreck. 57 
 
 In Norway, Bishop Bang tells us, “this rationalism had ob¬ 
 tained a control the extent of which it is now difficult to form 
 any conception. Taught in the University of Copenhagen where 
 the Norwegian pastors were trained, preached from most pul¬ 
 pits, smuggled into the common schools and by papers and books 
 into the villages, it moved as a plague over the whole spiritual 
 life of the nation. Under its supposed ‘enlightenment’ the dark¬ 
 ness was so great that daylight seemed gone forever.” 58 
 
 Wilhelm Beck was the son of a leading Danish pastor, an 
 upright man. “But,” he tells us in his Memoirs , “of Christianity 
 there was no trace in our home,—no prayer, no hymns, no talk 
 about the things of God’s kingdom. I never learnt to pray as 
 a child.” This man, who later renewed the religious life of 
 Denmark, was in his university days an unbeliever and Christ- 
 denier; also a student for the ministry. Rationalist priests 
 preached to empty churches and the week was spent in drinking 
 and dancing. Beck’s fellow-theological students “swore like 
 butchers, were passionate card-players and veritable dance-horses 
 in the exclusive balls of Copenhagen. From the professors we 
 received no Christian impulses for the awakening of the real 
 life of faith.” 59 
 
 The English church was drenched with rationalism although 
 it was giving the world some of the greatest apologists of 
 Christianity, Clarke, Waterland, Butler, Warburton and Paley. 
 Its spiritual life was at the lowest ebb. This period was also 
 “the midnight of the Church of Scotland.” Scotch “Moder- 
 atism” bore a strong family resemblance to American modern- 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 243 
 
 ism. Hugh Miller in his famous defense of Christian missions 
 before the General Assembly described it as “an infidelity that 
 purported to be anti-Christian on Bible authority . While it 
 robed itself in th@ habiliments of unbelief it took the liberty of 
 lacing them with Scripture edgings.” 60 Very many of the clergy 
 were Unitarian, for the infidelity of Hume and Adam Smith, 
 after infecti-ng the universities, had passed into the ministry. 
 Catechisms along Socinian [Le., Unitarian] lines were printed 
 and used in schools. “The dead chill of Socinianism rested on 
 the Presbyterianism of the North of Ireland” and non-conform¬ 
 ist minister there was practically synonymous with Unitarian. 
 In Geneva the successors of Calvin were regarded by the French 
 Encyclopaedists as allies. In 1825 Ami Bost wrote: 
 
 “For more than thirty years the ministers who have gone out 
 of our schools of theology to serve either the churches of our 
 land or of France have not received one single lecture on the 
 truths which exclusively belong to revelation, such as the re¬ 
 demption of mankind by the death of Christ, the justification 
 of the sinner by faith, the corruption of our nature, the divinity 
 of our Saviour. In theology we were taught nothing but the 
 dogmas of natural religion. The extent to which this practical 
 incredulity was carried is clear from this fact, elsewhere un¬ 
 heard of in the annals of the Protestant churches, that excepting 
 for a lecture in the Hebrew language when the Bible was used 
 simply as a Hebrew textbook and not for anything it contained, 
 the Word of God was never used throughout our course; in 
 particular the New Testament never appeared either as a lan¬ 
 guage book or for any other purpose. There was no need of the 
 New Testament whatever in order to complete our four years 
 course in theology.” 61 
 
 The completeness of the victory which modernism had won 
 over the Christian faith is clear from its persecution of it. 
 “Toleration” was the peculiar virtue which the Enlightenment 
 emphasized but it was not toleration for evangelical Christi¬ 
 anity. Those who distributed tracts or held prayer-meetings 
 or gave away Bibles were constantly persecuted by the liberals. 
 
244 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 Especially vindictive was the general superintendent Roehr in 
 Goethe’s Weimar who “as a spider from the middle of his web, 
 watched the least movement at its edge for some traveling 
 Wuppertal student giving out tracts.” A correspondent in the 
 rationalist Allg. Kirchenzeitung reported conversation with a 
 peasant who attended cottage meetings. 
 
 “Why,” he asked, “do the clergy rave against us when they 
 are silent regarding the sins of their fellow worldlings to which 
 they give their approval in word and deed. We know that the 
 church is full of men who describe the Bible as fable, deny that 
 man is made in God’s image, deny that this image must be 
 renewed, that man is fallen. From the universities we can look 
 for no other pastors than these, infected with this poison. There¬ 
 fore unlettered people in city and country who hold to God’s 
 Word have services among themselves with Bible and old evan¬ 
 gelical sermon books. As a consequence we suffer much secret 
 persecution and abuse from parsons and people who call them¬ 
 selves ‘enlightened.’ These set detectives on us and the 
 like.” 
 
 To some this persecution became so unendurable that they left 
 their homes to seek elsewhere the right to worship as conscience 
 dictated. The Kornthal and Wilhelmsdorf colonies were made 
 up of those who would not use the rationalist liturgy of Wuer- 
 temburg and the original South Russian colonies of Swabian 
 pietiests consisted of men who left Germany for the same rea¬ 
 son. Out of this emigration came the great Stundist or evangel¬ 
 ical movement of modern Russia. 62 A vivid chapter for a His¬ 
 tory of Liberal Intolerance could be made up of the persecu¬ 
 tions to which the Christian Reformed seceders from the state 
 church of Holland were subjected at the hands of early nine¬ 
 teenth century Dutch modernists.'* 
 
 In Norway Hauge was imprisoned nine times before his last 
 terrible ten-year imprisonment at the hands of Norwegian 
 
 *In Holland these separatists who had left the state church because 
 of its Unitarianism were at the instance of the synod prosecuted by the 
 government. A clause of the Code Napoleon which forbade the assembly 
 of more than twenty persons for worship without consent of the author-. 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 245 
 
 liberals. These last made no attempt to alleviate his prison 
 sufferings but they provided him with Voltaire’s works in the 
 hope of breaking down his faith in evangelical Christianity. 
 H is followers were tracked and jailed. Meetings were broken 
 up. Evangelicals coming to the communion were driven away 
 by liberal priests, horsewhip in hand. People were arrested for 
 merely reading Hauge’s writings. Finally the government at 
 the instance of the modernist party ordered the surrender of 
 all copies. “I have talked wdth old people,” relates Bishop 
 Bang, “who told me what an impression the command to sur¬ 
 render Hauge’s books made upon them; how many, as the old 
 martyrs, preferred punishment to letting go these precious books 
 which had been such a blessing to them: how they secreted them 
 in garrets and cellars and read them unobserved.” 63 All this 
 happened at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the 
 full blaze of the Enlightenment after a generation of liberal 
 theology had shaped and controlled the churches of Scandinavia. 
 In Sweden liberal fanatics like Bishop Wingard subjected the 
 Schartauan preachers, who were recreating West Swedish re¬ 
 ligious and moral life, to constant persecution, persecution to 
 which, as Schartau’s biographer tells us, a strikingly large 
 number succumbed in early life. 
 
 In 1799 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 
 by unanimous vote prohibited all persons from preaching in any 
 place under their jurisdiction unless licensed. The interpellation 
 which led to this vote described the evangelical preachers [and 
 
 ities gave the necessary pretext for the persecution. Even in the middle 
 of the last century the rationalist clergy of the Danish state church 
 locked the churches against the revival. The people were driven into 
 the woods only finally to build more than four hundred mission houses. 
 The Inner Mission of Baden has just published (1924) a report on 
 the occasion of its 75th jubilee. It states that in 1830 when “a watery 
 and unbiblical catechism” was introduced only seven clergymen could 
 be found in the wdiole electorate to protest against it and when as late 
 as 1848 Pastor Nein in an assembly of seventy-one clergymen affirmed 
 his belief in the divinity of Christ he was greeted with protests and 
 laughter. In 1824 the Baden synod drew up a resolution asking the 
 state to proceed against “pietists” and prevent them from holding 
 meetings. But the Grand Duke Leopold refused. The state church of 
 Baden is today predominatingly evangelical. 
 
246 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 the boorishness is accentuated by the fact that the Haldanes 
 were of the best family connections in Scotland] as “vagrant 
 teachers” and classed “Sunday schools, irreligion, and anarchy” 
 in a common denunciation. 
 
 The procurator of the church was authorized to proceed 
 legally against teachers of Sunday schools on the strength of 
 some obsolete Act of the Scottish parliament. It was not due 
 to “the Moderates,” to the Blairs and Carlyles and Moodies 
 and Hills, that there was not actual persecution. Dr. Hugh 
 Blair who instigated this action was the friend of Hume and 
 other unbelieving philosophers. Even the Relief Synod, quite 
 in the spirit of the present-day Hobens and Mathewses, decreed 
 “that no minister shall give or allow his pulpit to be given to 
 any person who has not attended a regular course of philosophy 
 and divinity in some of the universities of the nation.” 64 
 
 This action called out by the great Christian revival associ¬ 
 ated with the Haldanes was duplicated soon after Robert Hal¬ 
 dane began his ministry in Geneva. By the Reglement of May 
 3, 1817, theological students before they could be ordained 
 were obliged to sign certain articles which committed them not 
 to preach the fundamental Christian doctrines—the deity of 
 Christ, original sin, the doctrine of grace, etc. M. Pyt and 
 M. Guers, two students, when ordered to state their faith did 
 so in the language of the venerable confession of the French 
 church to which so many Huguenot martyrs had sealed their 
 adhesion with blood. The professor declared this evangelical 
 creed enough to make “brigands.” They were denied ordination 
 and with Gonthier, Bost, Empeytaz, Porchat, FHuillier and 
 others driven out of the church. The saintly Malan was de¬ 
 prived of his ministerial and academic offices. D’Aubigne was 
 sent out of Switzerland; Gaussen deposed. Du Vivier, preach¬ 
 ing in the Oratory of Carouge, asserted the divinity of Christ 
 and the doctrine of the atonement. The Venerable Company 
 [the ministerial association of Geneva] denounced this teaching 
 as “scandalous” and ordered that no student should henceforth 
 be allowed to preach unless his discourse had been submitted 
 
Modemist Antiques 
 
 247 
 
 to three professors, one of them the persecuting rationalist Prof. 
 Cheneviere. When Haldane went to the French seminary 
 city of Montauban the Socinians sought the help of the French 
 government against him but this was refused. 65 
 
 Twentieth century modernism confines itself to intrigue. It is 
 not powerful enough to persecute. Yet the spirit of intolerance 
 is not wanting. “One of the radical leaders warned me,” says 
 Dr. Massee, “that it was their purpose, having captured the 
 schools and trained their leadership, having captured the de¬ 
 nominational machinery and controlled its officials, to make it 
 impossible for a conservative theologian or minister to preach 
 in the Northern Baptist Convention.” One rationalist of eight¬ 
 eenth century Germany, insisting that the true path of theo¬ 
 logical education should pass through philosophy to the Bible, 
 adds, “What in the world can we expect of a great part of the 
 future clergy when many theological students reverse this order 
 and use, as key to the Scriptures, tracts from Basel.” He urges 
 the theological professors to intensify their examinations so that 
 these evangelical students may fail to pass and so be kept out 
 of the ministry. Others suggest that students with these con¬ 
 victions be sent to the foreign field [where fevers do their 
 work]. Flow little different the spirit of the Christian Century 
 of Chicago when writing of the Moody Bible Institute, or of 
 Prof. Bacon in his address at the centennial anniversary of the 
 founding of the Yale Divinity School, railing at “Bible insti¬ 
 tutes and similar organizations which are turning out practi¬ 
 tioners by the wholesale. . . . Wild-cat institutions . . . theo¬ 
 logical charlatanism victimizing a helpless public by pretensions 
 on which no competent authority has passed . . . vampires that 
 prey upon the weakness of the human soul.” 
 
 To the triumph of modernism corresponded the collapse of 
 popular morality. The churches of Germany were empty; the 
 services largely omitted. In Mecklenburg the great majority 
 of the clergy were liberals. They had largely given up holding 
 funeral services. The dead were registered by them, fees were 
 paid, names entered in the church books but prayer and funeral 
 
248 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 addresses omitted. Apparently they had no Christian comfort 
 to offer, for “the philosophy of the death-bed is not that of the 
 university.” The six newspapers of Hamburg were constantly 
 attacking pietism and defending paganism and suicide. Indecent 
 matter was freely printed in them. “What a negative period 
 it is,” remarked one of the time. “Everybody steals; nobody 
 gives. Everybody destroys; none builds. There is no earnest¬ 
 ness; all is frivolity; no dignity, no purpose.” Peasants would 
 travel long distances to take the communion from pastors who 
 lived more decently than their own. When Stier was a country 
 pastor he was surrounded by rationalist clergy in all the neigh¬ 
 boring parishes. A number of them gathered to celebrate the 
 communion. After dinner the time was spent in reading vulgar 
 anecdotes. When Stier suggested other reading on so serious 
 an occasion the answer was loud laughter. He took his hat and 
 left. 66 
 
 “Perhaps never since there was an evangelical church,” writes 
 Tischhauser, “was the churchly and religious and moral life 
 so low. Never such looseness in morals, never so widely current 
 a spirit of despair. Everything positive in religious belief and 
 practise was in solution and the foundations of the church were 
 shaken to the depths. In 1786 Nicolai declared that in twenty 
 years the name of Jesus would cease to be mentioned in a 
 religious way. Fichte publicly asserted that in five years there 
 would be no more Christian religion and that his generation 
 was corrupt to the marrow. Arndt charged the leaders of the 
 time who thought themselves to be giving men the purest re¬ 
 ligion with taking religion from them altogether. Emphasis 
 on morality without regard to Christ’s grace had produced 
 demoralization. The Kantian categorical imperative had made 
 a complete fiasco in the life of the German people.” 67 
 
 When the situation seemed darkest the Spirit of God began 
 awakening souls. John Wesley felt his heart strangely warmed 
 in the Aldersgate meeting. Hans Nielsen Hauge, plowing on 
 a bright April day, was suddenly taken with an uplifting to 
 God “that nothing in the world seemed worthy of further 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 249 
 
 interest.” From that hour onward his life was dedicated to 
 the re-Christianization of the Norwegian people. Schartau and 
 later Rosenius did a similar work for Sweden. 68 James and 
 Robert Haldane devoted their wealth and brilliant gifts to the 
 revival of the Christian life of Scotland. The Reveil broke 
 out in Switzerland and France. Devout and powerful person¬ 
 alities were raised up to proclaim the Gospel of grace in the 
 Protestant churches of the French tongue—Cesar Malan, 
 Gaussen, d’Aubigne, Ami Bost, Felix Neff the apostle to the 
 high Alps, Henri Pyt the apostle to the Pyrenees and Bearn, 
 de Gasparin, Vinet, Adolph Monod. In Holland Bilderdyke, 
 Da Costa, Capadose, Groen van Prinsterer restored the evan¬ 
 gelical church and school. Dr. A. Kuyper, who took the torch 
 as it fell from van Prinsterer’s hand, was himself trained in 
 the Leyden classroom of the rationalist Scholten but was con¬ 
 verted to Christ through the testimony of an humble woman 
 in the village in which he was parson. 69 If ever a man could 
 be described as a fundamentalist it was Dr. Kuyper, the mighti¬ 
 est and most exquisitely cultivated intellect of nineteenth cen¬ 
 tury Holland. 
 
 The three hundredth anniversary of the posting of the Theses 
 by Luther turned the attention of the German clergy to the 
 great reformation doctrine of free grace. They began searching 
 the Scriptures. Claus Harms’ Ninety-Five Theses for the New 
 Time came as a trumpet peal. “Reason is,” he cried, “the Pope 
 of our time. It has not been sufficiently investigated how it 
 happens that the religion of reason was so lately discovered. 
 It is as if Reason came belated into the world.” Dr. Fosdick 
 calls his rococo-period theology “the New Reformation.” The 
 phrase is as old as the theology. “With the idea of a Pro¬ 
 gressive Reformation, as the idea is conceived,” said Harms 
 in his third thesis, “Lutheranism is reformed into heathenism 
 and Christianity is reformed out of the world.” The new 
 reformation came rather with the revival of the Reformation 
 doctrines, the new interest in the great Pauline affirma¬ 
 tions. 70 
 
250 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 These were preached with power by Jaenicke and F. Strauss 
 in Berlin, by Rautenberg in Hamburg, by Boos and Gossner in 
 Bavaria, by Henhoefer in Baden, by the brothers Hofacker in 
 Stuttgart, by Krummacher in the Wuppertal, by the von Belows 
 in Pommerania. Men of learning and spiritual wisdom were 
 now to be found in the theological chairs—Neander, Tholuck, 
 Plengstenberg, Julius Mueller, Rothe, Lange, Olshausen, Stier 
 and Luthardt. J. C. G. Kraft, professor in Erlangen, was wont 
 to open his lectures with prayer and a formal confession of his 
 belief won through an intimate experience of sin and grace. 
 Tholuck, Rothe, and Stier owed their impulse to the new life 
 to Baron von Kottwitz, a converted worldling, who became 
 a sort of German Wilberforce to the slaves of poverty of 
 Berlin. 
 
 All over Germany the breath of the Spirit moved men. Re¬ 
 vivals broke out at the same time and in wholly unrelated places. 
 Among the most notable was that at Moettiingen where J. C. 
 Blumhardt preached, accompanied as it was by remarkable 
 miracles of cure and exorcism. To the church, at Stuttgart, 
 where L. Hofacker preached, people came in streams, often 
 from long distances on foot. The visible effect of his preaching 
 is described as of wind billowing a field of grain. “My whole 
 purpose is to drive a wedge into consciences,” he said. “The 
 church has become pagan. It needs preaching that will start it 
 out of sleep.” Russworm, a converted modernist wrote on cur¬ 
 rent plans for raising attendance. “Neither more ritual nor 
 better endowments nor greater intellectual equipment of the 
 clergy can do anything but only the Gospel, ‘God so loved the 
 world.’ ” He then speaks of what the Gospel had done for 
 him. 
 
 “I thank my God that the scales have fallen from my eyes, 
 that I have come to recognize n^self as a lost sinner by nature 
 and Jesus Christ as the true Son of God and my Saviour. 
 For forty years I lay in darkness and unbelief. I saw in him 
 who says, ‘I am the first and the last and behold I am alive 
 for evermore’ only a man who deserved no more regard than 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 251 
 
 Plato or Seneca. But with weeping heart I now cry, ‘Forgive 
 me, my Saviour, I knew not what I did.’ ” 71 
 
 With the Revival came an outburst of joyous song as at 
 the Reformation. The Enlightenment had emasculated the 
 hymns of the church. Original contributions either Christian 
 or permanent in quality it had none to make. But the re¬ 
 affirmation of the good tidings awakened the singers as the sun¬ 
 rise the birds. Charles Wesley, John Newton, Perronet, H. W. 
 Lyte, Heber, Keble, J. M. Neale, Horatius Bonar, Alford, Sir 
 Henry Baker, filled the English nineteenth century with joyous 
 testimony. In Scandinavia Grundtvig and Ingemann and Wal¬ 
 lin and Hartmann and Weyse and Lindeman led the awakened 
 church in song; in Germany Gerok and Knapp and Spitta and 
 Ernst Moritz Arndt. The mutilated German hymns of the 
 earlier times were restored through the care of Bunsen, Stier, 
 and Claus Harms. 
 
 And with a revival of adoration went hand in hand a revival 
 of good works. The old Enlightenment was strikingly like the 
 present Enlightenment in its merely sentimental interest in hu¬ 
 man suffering.* It knew nothing of personal self-sacrifice for 
 others. It talked with Schiller of “die Millioneri’ as its present- 
 day representatives of “the masses” but did little for them, 
 
 *In summing up the “practical results of the Enlightenment” all 
 that Troeltsch can find to its credit are certain educational reforms. 
 There is a thoroughly characteristic note in his words: “The folk 
 schools which pietism had brought into being were seized with the 
 spirit of the Enlightenment.” 
 
 Basedow, the educational reformer of the Enlightenment, was the 
 spiritual grandfather of a family of American religious educationalists 
 of truly Mormon proportions. “Human nature was regarded by him 
 as a germinating seed in which a good and noble impulse dwells, 
 requiring only fostering care. A prime object with him was to build 
 chiefly on the conception of the dignity of human nature.” Here we 
 have the Religious Education Association in ovo. Miss Ethel Cutler, 
 a secretary of the National Y. M. C. A. tells us that “the final aim 
 of Bible study, as Prof. Kent has said, is to make efficient citizens.” 
 R.E. 7:707. This was the Enlightenment’s mark of the high calling. 
 “Instead of hearing what the grace of God can effect in the soul people 
 heard what their duties to their neighbors were, what would render 
 them useful citizens.” 
 
 The French Revolution was affected bv the liberal theologians then 
 as the Bolshevist Revolution in the mildly bourgeois office of the 
 
252 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 exhausting itself in writing. “Its ideal love of Patagonian and 
 Iroquois,” says Hagenbach, “took the place of practical love 
 of neighbor.” 72 But with the Revival came a great efflorescence 
 of practical charity. 
 
 The English antislavery movement was the creation of such 
 evangelicals as Wilberforce, Clarkson, Zachary Macauley and 
 Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. Elizabeth Fry on her conversion 
 took up the ministry of John Howard. The evangelical Lord 
 Shaftesbury is as prominent a figure in nineteenth century evan- 
 gelicism as his sneering forbear in eighteenth century free 
 thought. His labors for better housing, better care of the in¬ 
 sane and factory reform put him at the front in the history 
 of social reform. Chalmers pioneered district charity relief in 
 Glasgow and Edinburgh and the Christian layman van der 
 Heydt codified Chalmers’ experience, so to speak, in the Elber- 
 feld system. Thomas Guthrie worked for poor boys, for cripples 
 and in temperance reform. F. J. Barnado abandoned his pro¬ 
 posed career in foreign missions to spend his life in the rescue 
 of waifs. In forty years 59,384 children passed through his 
 homes. George Muller in his lifetime cared for about ten 
 thousand children in the Bristol orphanages. Quarrier, the 
 Scotch Barnado, has worked with great success on the same 
 lines. 
 
 This type of charity in Germany was pioneered by J. D. 
 Falk. He describes himself in his early years as “one of those 
 who think that when they sit at the writing desk the world 
 is helped thereby. It was a great grace of God that instead of 
 working me up for writing paper He used me as lint and laid 
 me in the open sores of the time.” Falk placed destitute boys 
 in homes—a sort of German C. R. Brace. Christian Heinrich 
 Zeller opened a school for poor boys and indigent school teachers 
 at Beuggen in Switzerland. Over the entrance was written, 
 “Built on the foundation of prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ 
 
 Christian Century, and one cannot but think with a smile of Messrs. 
 Morrison and Willett when he reads that the liberal parsons of the 
 Rhineland were wont to appear in Jacobin caps in the revolutionary 
 days.— Tischhauser, Geschichte d. Evang. Kirche Deutschlands, 138. 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 253 
 
 being the chief corner-stone.” Pestalozzi, one of the few philan¬ 
 thropists of the Enlightenment, after the failure of his institu¬ 
 tion at Neuhoff, visited him and broke out with, “This is just 
 what I •wanted to do.” 
 
 Amalie Sieveking, educated in rationalism, “laid all other 
 books aside and gave herself wholly to the Bible and the Lord 
 let me be found of Him.” She pioneered charity and nursing 
 in Hamburg. In Berlin Gossner organized a men’s union for 
 providing night watchers for the sick poor with five thousand 
 paying members and thirty-eight employed nurses; also a wo¬ 
 men’s union of the same character out of which grew the Eliza¬ 
 beth Hospital. Fliedner, passing from rationalism to biblical 
 Christianity, founded the first German union for prison re¬ 
 form, working especially among discharged women prisoners. 
 The great Kaiserswerth deaconess enterprise which now num¬ 
 bers its nurses by the tens of thousands, was begun in 1836. 
 Fliedner demanded personal religious experience as the first 
 qualification for the deaconess life. Wilhelm Loehe in 1853 
 founded similar work at Neuendettelsau in Bavaria with a 
 department for training male nurses at Polsingen. “The Paris 
 Deaconess Institution, as most of the good works of Parisian 
 Protestantism,” says Georges Appia,* “is related through its 
 founders to the period of the Revival. Intense piety, love for 
 Christ, practical proof of this by love for the brethren, especially 
 the disinherited everywhere—the atmosphere which one 
 breathed in this House was indeed that of the Revival.” 73 
 Besides its Motherhouse with its asylums, houses of refuge, etc., 
 it directs twelve other enterprises in Paris and the banlieue and 
 fifteen in various parts of France—hospitals, rest-houses, 
 orphanages, asylums, etc. So, too, that at Ersta [Stockholm]. 
 To the evangelist Rosenius and his evangelical associates it 
 owed its origin. Begun in poverty and dependence on God for 
 supply of actual necessities it has grown to a noble constellation 
 of institutions. Its sisters work all over Sweden as district 
 
 ♦Brother to Dr. L. Appia, a devout evangelical, who with Henri 
 Dunant founded the Red Cross Society. 
 
254 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 nurses, church nurses, nurses in poor houses, hospitals, asylums. 
 Its history is inseparably bound up with the life of the evan¬ 
 gelical saint Dr. Bring. 74 One should also in this connection 
 mention Cathinka Guldberg who trained in her lifetime 1,400 
 deaconesses in the Deaconess Home in Christiania; also Dr. 
 W. A. Passavant, who in the eighteen forties transplanted the 
 deaconess idea to Pittsburg and himself collected from a poor 
 immigrant church an endowment of over a million dollars, thus 
 throwing absolutely in the shade the tenuous charitable efforts 
 of the Enlightenment in Boston. 
 
 J. H. Wichern, as so many, received his religious impulse 
 from Baron von Kottwitz, who spent and was spent in estab¬ 
 lishing workshops for the unemployed in Berlin. The Rauhe 
 Haus was a work of rescue and education of boys carried on 
 in the spirit of Christ. This ministry, however, was the pro¬ 
 logue to the greater work of the Inner Mission of which 
 Wichern was the founder. This philanthropy has grown to 
 stately proportions, embracing the greatest variety of institu¬ 
 tions—schools, asylums, orphanages, creches, rescue homes, in¬ 
 ebriate homes, etc. The statistics for 1924 give the magnificent 
 total of 3,855 institutions! German Evangelicism in our day 
 has given the world the greatest philanthropist of modern times 
 in the person of Pastor Friedrich von Bodelschwingh. Bethel- 
 Bielefeld has stretched its hands out in relief to all forms of 
 sickness and misery although its great special work is among 
 epileptics. 
 
 Among other developments of Bodelschwingh’s ministry 
 has been an extensive system of inns for out-of-works 
 which complements the Herberge znr Heimat [home inns] 
 founded by an earlier Christian of the Revival, Clemens Perthes 
 of Bonn. The French colony of mercy is at La Force [Dor¬ 
 dogne], the Asiles John Bost, a large complex of homes for 
 epileptics, consumptives, etc. Bost was converted when going 
 up the steps of the Paris Opera as distinctly as Luther on the 
 Sancta Scala and one result of his conversion was this beautiful 
 charity at La Force. 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 255 
 
 Hauge’s preaching in Norway was followed by a remarkable 
 economic expansion, his followers founding mills and trading 
 concerns and other enterprises as he had during his life time. 
 Oberlin at the same time was putting piety into practise in 
 the Ban de la Roche, not at all in the meanwhile losing his 
 interest in Bible societies and foreign missions. In Denmark 
 Grundtvig while fighting modernism started Folk High Schools 
 for the education of country boys, which have proved extra¬ 
 ordinarily successful. Hans Knudsen, invalided home from his 
 mission in India, began work among the cripples of Copenhagen, 
 caring for their orthopedic needs and industrial training. By 
 1886 his society had taken care of more than 1,500 cripples. 
 The remarkable parish relief system in Copenhagen, the para¬ 
 digm for all such work, is recognized as a fruit of the evan¬ 
 gelist Beck’s ministry as also Th. Hansen’s Stefaniforening and 
 the Magdalene Home of Thora Esche. To the last class of 
 social wreckage the Dutch pastor Heldring devoted his life, 
 his Home at Steenbeck in Holland being the model for the 
 world. Josephine Butler’s brave fight against the traffic in girls 
 should be recalled in this connection and the work of Mrs. 
 Bramwell Booth. The Salvation Army with all its Samaritan 
 enterprises is an extension of Methodism and it was the Meth¬ 
 odist revival which broke the grip of the Enlightenment on 
 England. 
 
 In 1821 Prof. J. S. C. Schweiger, a chemist of Halle, 
 founded the Verein zur Verbreitung von Naturkenntniss, 
 nothing less than a missionary society for the teaching of mathe¬ 
 matics and physical sciences to backward lands such as China, 
 Japan, and India. He wrote to Goethe for counsel and en¬ 
 dorsement and after a year of waiting received the following 
 reply: 
 
 “Accept the assurance of my sincere sympathy and a contri¬ 
 bution to your praiseworthy undertaking to which I beg for 
 a closer relation. Commend me to all connected with it and 
 consider me as one who will never forget science and her 
 friends.” The contribution was two Friedrich d’or! So much 
 
256 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 at least was the monarch of the Enlightenment ready to con¬ 
 tribute for “mehr Licht” in darkest Asia. 
 
 This missionary society is the only one of its kind that has 
 yet reported itself and its life seems to have been of short dura¬ 
 tion. It is indeed amazing that the modern world with all its 
 resources of wealth and knowledge has never made any syste¬ 
 matic attempt to “teach all nations.” So utterly lacking, in the 
 last analysis, is this modern world in altruism. 
 
 The liberal theology from 1700 down to 1925 has shown 
 the same self-centered spirit. Never has it initiated any mission 
 of importance,—religious, educational, or medical.* But with 
 the evangelical revival came the greatest voluntary movement 
 which the world has yet seen, a movement which steadily grows 
 from decade to decade and the final purpose of which is to 
 put an evangelized world at the feet of the returning Christ. 
 The Bible Societies, the Church Missionary Society, the Rhen¬ 
 ish, Basel, Leipzig, Berlin, and other German societies, the 
 American Board, the Societe Evangelique de Paris, the great 
 Wesleyan societies, the Scotch missions, the London Missionary 
 Society, the China Inland Mission and literally scores of other 
 great organizations sprang up like good seed of the kingdom in 
 the evangelical springtime which followed eighteenth century 
 rationalism. 
 
 The old rationalism is under a new name rearing its head 
 again. It is aiming at nothing less than the perversion of the 
 entire institutional life of American Christianity. It has up to 
 the present worked quietly and its successes have been both 
 notable and shameful. They may be still more remarkable in 
 the near future. But only for a time. Those who are discon¬ 
 certed and alarmed by this unlooked-for development will find 
 reassurance in the history of the Christian renascence which fol¬ 
 lowed the eighteenth century. Prof. Troeltsch has to record that 
 “the English, Swiss and German revival period created in the 
 
 *The Enlightenment “captured” the Danish Tranquebar mission in 
 India from its evangelical founders but could not secure missionaries 
 to carry it on and was obliged to relinquish it to the Leipzig mission. 
 
Modernist Antiques 
 
 257 
 
 Protestant churches a mighty counter-current which ended with 
 the complete expulsion of the Enlightenment Theology” (Art. 
 Aufklaerung Realencyclopaedie f. Trot . Theologie u. Kirche ). 
 So will it be with us. When the outlook seems most discourag¬ 
 ing we are to look for great manifestations of God’s power. 
 
 “ . . . O Wind, 
 
 If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” 
 
 REFERENCES TO CHAPTER VIII 
 
 1. The Quest, 9. 2. Hagenbach, German Rationalism, 95. 3. O. T. in Light, 
 188. 4. Works, 4:463. 5. Id. 4:328. 6. Creative Christianity, 36. 7. Modern 
 
 Use, 122. 8. Leland, Deistical Writers, 1:153. 9. The Fundamental Beliefs of 
 
 Christianity, 83. 10. Modern Use, 164. 11. Prophet of Nazareth, 215. 12. 
 
 Quoted in Sykes, State of the Controversy, 48, 214. 13. Life and Teachings 
 
 of Jesus, 236. 14. Modern Use, 105. 15. Age of Reason, 39. 16. Confessions 
 
 of an Old Priest, 33. 17. Saintes, History of Rationalism, 331. 18. Modern 
 
 Use, 185. 19. Strauss, The Old Faith and the New, 211-213. 20. Id. 124. 
 
 21. Id. 160. 22. Id. 102. 23. Modem Use, 105. 24. Clarke, Sixty Years zvith 
 
 the Bible, 142. 25. Letters of Certain Jews, 373. 26. Strauss, op. cit. 165. 
 
 27. Atlantic, Aug., 1924. 28. Strauss, op. cit. 44. 29. Shaftesbury, Character - 
 
 istics, 1:18, 19. 30. Chubb, Posthumous Works, 2:40. 31. Foundations of 
 
 Christian Belief, 196. 32. Shaftesbury, op. cit. 3:315. 33. Strauss, op. cit. 9. 
 
 34. Works, 4:290, 294. 35. Tischhauser, Gesch. d. Evang. Kirche Deutschlands, 
 109. 36. F. G. Lewis, Hozv the Bible Grew, ix. 37. Letters of Certain Jews, 
 330, 458. 38. W. N. Clarke, op. cit. 255. 39. Annet, The Resurrection of 
 Christ Considered, 72. 40. Tischhauser, 609. 41. C.R. 1914:581. 42. The 
 
 New Knowledge and the Christian Faith, 15, 19. 43. Tischhauser, 347. 44. Id. 
 624-27. 45. Id. 457, 467, 469, 147-8. 46. Id. 474. 47. Id. 157, 476-7. 48. Id. 
 
 153, 497. 49. L. Stephen, History of English Thought, 1:424. 50. Rainsford, 
 
 Story of a Varied Life, 339; L. Stephen, op. cit. 1:375. 51. Grundtvig, Kirkens 
 Gjenmaele, Introduction. 52. Koch, Oplysningstid i den Danske Kirke, 242. 
 53. Tischhauser, op. cit. 177. 54. Id. 198-9. 55. Boston Herald, April 1, 
 
 1925. 56. Tischhauser, 604. 57. Id. 349, 151, 190, 202, 266. 58. Chr. Bang, 
 H. N. Hauge og bans Samtid. 59. Beck, Erindringer fra mit Liv, 11, 16. 
 60. Memoirs of James and Robert Haldane, 125-6. 61. Quoted in Hurst, His¬ 
 tory of Rationalism, 426; Tischhauser, 416-17. 62. Ziegler, Wilhelmsdorf, 26- 
 
 27. 63. Ch. Bang, H. N. Hauge, passim. 64. Memoirs of J. and R. Haldane, 
 
 234-39. 65. Id. 400-417. 66. Tischhauser, 605, 120, 127, 442. 67. Id. 125-6, 
 269. 68. V. Sodergren, Schartau. 69. Rolfhaus, Dr. A. Kuyper, 20. 70. Tisch¬ 
 hauser, 337, 343. 71. Id. 393. 72. German Rationalism, 189. 73. Georges 
 
 Aprpia, 2:263, 265. 74. Minneskrift t. Sv. Diakonissenanstaltens FemtiSrs 
 
 Jubilaeum. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 THE WILL AND THE FORUM 
 
 Daniel Sharp Ford, publisher of the Youth's Companion, 
 left by will to the Boston Baptist Social Union the sum of 
 $350,000 for the erection of a Baptist Church House, the 
 Ford Building, with auditorium; and as much more for city 
 mission work in Boston. A tablet, which every one entering 
 Ford Hall passes, expresses in the words of this will Mr. Ford’s 
 “desire and hope that these gifts . . . should stimulate the 
 religious interest” of the Social Union members “in promoting 
 the welfare of wage-workers through distinctly Christian 
 agencies /' 
 
 What Mr. Ford meant by this is clear from his activities in 
 life and from the terms of his will. He had generously backed 
 the Ruggles Street church in its evangelistic and philanthropic 
 services to the poor community in which it was situated. His 
 will provided for the continuance of these benefactions at the 
 same place as long as the majority of the members of the Rug¬ 
 gles Street church “should believe in or hold to the religious 
 tenets held by the Baptist denomination A chief purpose of 
 the bequest was to draw “Christian business men into closer 
 personal relation” with wage-workers . . . “in friendly asso¬ 
 ciation and in helpful acts and above all in seeking to bring 
 them to accept Christ and Christ's teachings as the guides of 
 their life." “To this end,” he adds, “I have made these be¬ 
 quests.” 
 
 Under the terms of this will the Ford Hall Forum was 
 instituted to which was granted the free use of Ford Hall 
 auditorium and considerable subsidies for payment of speakers. 
 
 The speaker who has appeared most frequently on this plat¬ 
 form has been Charles Zeublin. Mr. Zeublin died recently. 
 
 258 
 
Appendix 
 
 259 
 
 His original Methodism had so far evaporated during his career 
 at Chicago University as to leave him without hope of a life 
 to come. “I do not know when my redeemer will live or whose 
 redeemer I may be except in the sense that every man is our 
 redeemer. . . . The redemption of the people will be by means 
 of impersonal immortality, the crux of democratic religion.” 
 (The Religion of a Democrat.) Dr. John Haynes Holmes, the 
 next most frequent speaker, is more lucid. His addresses are 
 aimed, as he tells us (Religion for Today), to turn men “from 
 the old religion to the new,” that is, away from what Mr. 
 Ford believed to what he abhorred. “The doctrines . . . which 
 make up the content of Christian tradition,” he goes on to tell 
 us, “are simply not true. They have all been refuted a thou¬ 
 sand times. They are ignored in our schools and colleges and 
 laughed at in our newspapers. . . . The church is disloyal to 
 truth; she is engaged in the business of falsehood and deceit. 
 . . . God if he is to be found anywhere must be found in the 
 heart and mind of humanit)^,” 47 and 65. 
 
 “What wonder,” says this forum star, “that there have been 
 men who have soberly declared that Christianity has been more 
 of a curse than a blessing to the human race and that if every 
 church could be closed today and every pulpit left forever empty 
 humanity would gain immeasurably more than she would lose,” 
 
 35. 
 
 I suppose one could hardly find a more representative col¬ 
 lection of anti-Christian radicals than has appeared on the roster 
 of speakers at this forum during the past fifteen years. The 
 free-thinker Stanton Coit, the unfrocked Dr. Crapsey, President 
 Morgan of Antioch College, Prof. Schmidt dismissed from the 
 Colgate Baptist seminary, the revolutionary Bouck White, the 
 Unitarian matador Dr. Dieffenbach, rabbis to talk about the 
 Jewishness of Jesus and the Bible as literature, Unitarians— 
 Cummings, Rihbany, Sheer, and the atheist Cooke. Even the 
 church-critic McAffee has been brought up from New York 
 to answer the query, “Is religion failing in America?”; also 
 Mr. Villard, the good friend of the Bolshevists. Lately we 
 
260 
 
 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 have had Rabbi Wise and his son, James W. Wise, the latter 
 to tell what young people are thinking of religion. “Liberal 
 Judaism” explains this representative of Jewish unbelief, 
 “affirms unhestitatingly that God does exist, that all depends on 
 his existence and that there is and must be a life after death. 
 And then it wonders why it fails to hold the youth of today 
 with its teachings.” One enthusiastic Unitarian, Dr. Wiers, 
 feels that the forum may possibly “mark the birth of a new 
 religion(Democracy in the Making.) 
 
 However that may be it is surely impossible to find in 
 Mr. Ford’s will or known interests and religious views any¬ 
 thing which would justify the staging of this troupe of 
 Freigeister. 
 
 THE MASSACHUSETTS SUPREME COURT AND THE 
 
 ANDOVER CASE 
 
 The Supreme Court of Massachusetts has enjoined the 
 trustees of Andover and the president and fellows of Harvard 
 in a decision which constitutes a stinging rebuke to all who 
 have had part in betraying Andover to Harvard Unitarianism. 
 This decision would seem to provide precedents for proceeding 
 against the perversion of the Daniel Sharp Ford fund. 
 
 “An owner of property,” says the court, “may give it upon 
 trust to maintain and inculcate any doctrine of Christianity 
 or to promote and extend any particular Christian denomination. 
 ... The obligation is imposed upon the managers of such a 
 charity to adhere strictly to the scheme of the founders. Those 
 who administer the charity have no right to vary, alter, or 
 change its plan. They must execute the purposes of the founders 
 conformably to its true intent. Their ideas of expediency or 
 general utility in conducting the trust are of no consequence. 
 The court in ascertaining the purpose of the founders of char¬ 
 itable trusts and in performing its duty to see that they are not 
 perverted has no concern with the degree of public advantage 
 likely to flow from the trust as founded as compared with some 
 other more or less analogous purpose. 
 
Appendix 
 
 261 
 
 “In applying these principles to a charity established for the 
 training of ministers of religion manifestly not the slightest 
 consideration can be given to the present prevalence of the 
 religious creeds or doctrines to be taught or to our own beliefs 
 concerning them. 
 
 “An undenominational theological school was foreign to the 
 purpose of the founders and alien to their declarations. . . . 
 Those original donors were resolute in their determination to 
 combat liberal religious thought among Congregationalists. . . . 
 It is manifest under the associate and additional statutes that 
 every Andover professor must believe sincerely and be con¬ 
 scientiously convinced of the truth of these distinctive theological 
 doctrines. . . . The plan for closer affiliation with Harvard 
 is not compatible with the foundation of the Andover Theo¬ 
 logical Seminary. 
 
 “The Andover Theological Seminary was established as 
 a separate, distinct, and independent theological school. 
 The instruments of gift which called it into being dis¬ 
 close no express or implied permission that it ever be consoli¬ 
 dated with another kindred institution. . . . The joining of 
 the seminary with another institution to form a non-denom- 
 inational theological school is contrary to the avowed end and 
 aim of the founders.” 
 
 After calling attention to the fact that under the merger 
 “no one can be and remain an Andover professor until appointed 
 by the authorities of Harvard” the court continues: 
 
 “The independence of an educational institution is gone when 
 its teachers must receive their final appointment from some out¬ 
 side authority. . . . Doctrinal and creedal requirements were 
 of the essence of the purpose of the founders of the Andover 
 Seminary. The founders looked forward to no such modifica¬ 
 tions. On the contrary the associate founders enjoined that 
 every article of the creed ‘forever remain entirely and identically 
 the same, without the least alteration.’ . . . These findings 
 cannot abate or qualify the emphasis placed upon the Andover 
 Creed and the Westminster Assembly’s Shorter Catechism in 
 
262 The Leaven of the Sadducees 
 
 the constitution and the associate statutes of the Andover Sem¬ 
 inary.” 
 
 THE STUDENT FELLOWSHIP FOR CHRISTIAN LIFE SERVICE 
 
 This organization runs back apparently to the Student Vol¬ 
 unteer Convention at Indianapolis in 1922 when a group of 
 young moderns demonstrated for new lines of action in the 
 student movement. Its sponsors think of it as enlisting men for 
 home activities as the Student Volunteer Movement for the 
 foreign field. There seems, however, to be little call for the 
 organization and less of weight back of it. Yet at a conference 
 at Delaware Water Gap in April, 1924, it was actually received 
 into association with the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A., the 
 Student Volunteer Movement and the Council of the Church 
 Boards of Education in a five-fold “Continuation Committee.” 
 
 Whether this is but one more Trojan-horse-full of modernists 
 devised this time to break into the Student Volunteer and other 
 established organizations remains to be seen.* Certainly its 
 organ, The Student Challenge , is calculated to awaken the 
 suspicion. Its office is vis-a-vis to that of the Christian Century 
 on South Dearborn Street, Chicago, and one notes names from 
 the Christian Century's staff as contributors; others, too, of 
 the same flavor, John Haynes Holmes, Glenn Frank, Bruno 
 Lasker, H. van Loon, Upton Sinclair, Professors Coe, Ellwood, 
 and C. A. Beard. 
 
 The literature the Student Fellowship commended [“may be 
 secured from any depository of the Methodist Book Concern”] 
 includes the writings of Coe, Dewey, Soares, Fosdick, Wig- 
 gam’s New Decalogue, Well’s Outline. Also 18 volumes of 
 the Christian Century Press “for potential ministers.” The 
 wildest revolt literature (Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Lewi- 
 sohn, etc.), is pushed editorially. The Unitarians find the organ 
 of the Fellowship a congenial medium for advertising and the 
 Meadville Seminary, under the caption of The New Reforma¬ 
 tion, publishes a half page of inducements [ample scholarships, 
 
A ppendix 
 
 263 
 
 fellowships for graduate study in Europe] to students to cast 
 in their lot with this Unitarian institution. 
 
 The tone of the publication is of a piece with the literature 
 it touts. One editorial speaks of “Well-meaning adults prodding 
 young people into one or another ‘sacred’ vocation such as the 
 ministry, the Y. M. C. A., the foreign mission held. Those 
 young people who are alive to the challenge of the modern 
 world are quite likely to turn away in disgust from the fervid 
 emotionalism and musty religiosity of such efforts.” 
 
 Another indulges in this blasphemous banter: “If a skeleton 
 is dug up in Palestine in the near future which apparently dates 
 from the first century A. D. and someone supposes it to be 
 that of Jesus conclusive proof will be given by measurement 
 showing the Nordic conformation of the skull. ...” 
 
 Such is the organ of the Student Fellowship for Christian 
 Life Service. Of the $18,455 which have been contributed to 
 it [chiefly by denominational boards and friends] the students 
 themselves contributed just $137.60. The “insurgents” of the 
 Indianapolis Convention of whom the modernist press wrote 
 so rapturously do not seem to take their new “movement” 
 very seriously. 
 
 A SINECURE FOR A HIGHER CRITIC, OR A FIFTH WHEEL 
 
 TO THE MISSIONARY COACH 
 
 This is the Board of Missionary Preparation which is financed by 
 the chief missionary organizations. It is hard to learn just what it 
 does. Its director is Dr. F. K. Sanders, a literary associate of the 
 late Prof. Kent of Yale. “The preparation of missionaries” appears 
 to consist in Droviding them with rationalistic literature. Thus among 
 the books recommended for reading are such of the critical old guard 
 as Kent, Fowler, Knudson, Barton, Peake, with Pratt’s Religious 
 Consciousness, Frazer’s Golden Bough, Toy’s Introduction to the His¬ 
 tory of Religion, Buddha and Christ by the Unitarian, J. E. Car¬ 
 penter, etc. 
 
 Dr. Sanders has himself published handbooks, “The Life and Re¬ 
 ligion Series,” presumably for the use of young missionaries. In these 
 we get such sentences as: 
 
 “The Hebrew prophetic order grew out of conditions very definitely 
 paralleled in other nations of the same class and period. All early 
 religions had some method of getting the will of the gods, partly by 
 the various methods of necromancy, partly through the supposedly 
 
264 
 
 inspired utterances or conclusions of those who could throw them¬ 
 selves into a state of ecstasy or trance.” 
 
 “The prophets of the eighth century [Isaiah, Amos] were limited 
 by this narrow theory (that Israel was a chosen nation). They do 
 not imagine Jehovah as carrying out his plans except by using the 
 Hebrew nation as his working unit.” 
 
 The notion of inspiration is no longer tenable. Rather “the Hebrews 
 discovered their own genius and gave it play.” 
 
 The year 1918 Dr. Sanders spent in agreeable wanderings in Japan 
 and China. His mission was “to study the peoples of the East” and 
 “to give missionaries an idea of the plans and history of the Board of 
 Missionary Preparation.” Nineteen twenty-four brought into his life 
 a similarly delightful ramble in South America. Dr. Sanders is also 
 a director of the Committee of Reference and Counsel of the Foreign 
 Missions Conference. 
 
 The Missionary Education Movement is led by a graduate of Union 
 Theological Seminary, the Rev. F. D. Cogswell. Of certain of its 
 publications a modernist writer, Miss Adelaide T. Case, says [Liberal 
 Christianity and Religious Education, p. 108] “The Missionary Educa¬ 
 tion Movement’s recent volumes on home missions are conspicuously 
 ‘liberal’ in attitude.” 
 

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