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 THE 
 
 
 
 UNITARIAN 
 
 
 
 CHURCH 
 
 
 
 Its History and Characteristics 
 
 
 
 A STATEMENT 
 
 , 
 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. Joseph Henry Crooker, D.D. 
 
 
 
 TjOAUJUA "to H«- Lifrvw^ 
 
 
 
 VM 
 
 
 
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 - 
 
 
 AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 
 
 
 
 BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 
 
 S 
 
 
ju^H^ 
 
THE 
 
 ^tutorial* <£fmrt& 
 
 A STATEMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. JOSEPH HENRY CROOKER, D.D. 
 
 These churches accept the religion of Jesus, holding, 
 in accordance with his teaching, that practical religion is 
 summed up in love to God and love to man. 
 
 Adopted by National Conference, 1894. 
 
 AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
HntiKrm'tjr Press J 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE purpose of this pamphlet is to give briefly and 
 clearly certain information about the Unitarian Church ; 
 its history, its characteristic convictions, its achieve- 
 ments, its hopes. In preparing it, the author has had 
 in mind the needs of inquirers who have come to him 
 in the course of a fruitful ministry seeking the infor- 
 mation which is here set down. Dr. Crooker has had 
 the privilege of serving two churches situated at the 
 seats of two great state universities, — the University 
 of Wisconsin at Madison, and the University of Michi- 
 gan at Ann Arbor. In these academic communities he 
 has won the confidence and lasting affection of a large 
 number of young men and women who have become 
 and are to become influential members of the communi- 
 ties in which they live. He writes this statement out of 
 this unique and happy experience. 
 
 The statement does not represent a narrow sectarian 
 view or a boastful spirit. With all his fellow citizens in 
 this free household of faith, Dr. Crooker recognizes that 
 Unitarianism is not now, and probably never will be, the 
 one universal religion. It is rather a particular form of 
 the religious life. It is not so much a system of thought 
 as it is a habit of mind and a principle of conduct. The 
 
IV 
 
 representative expression of this habit of mind is to be 
 found in the constant witness- borne to the present life 
 of God in the present life of man. Every true Unitarian 
 seeks to cultivate the religious spirit that includes all 
 truth, and the religious sentiment that embraces all men. 
 Therefore Dr. Crooker's aim has been to affirm the great 
 spiritual ideals of the human soul. He has been more 
 intent on winning the doubtful, relieving the distressed, 
 and inspiring the indifferent in matters pertaining to 
 religion, than on criticising creeds, or controverting out- 
 grown dogmas. He has written in warm appreciation of 
 all forms of sincere piety, and has endeavored to speak 
 the truth in love. 
 
 The mission of Unitarian teaching and work is " not 
 to destroy but to fulfil." Its purpose is not to antag- 
 onize other forms of faith, but to satisfy some of the 
 longings which those other forms of faith express ; to 
 discover and emphasize the permanent and universal 
 elements of religious thought and life, and lead such 
 powers on to nobler employment. It preserves the his- 
 toric continuity of the progressive spiritual life of the 
 Christian centuries. What Dr. Crooker has written is 
 heartily commended to all who wish to know something 
 of the nature of the religious movement which seeks 
 thus to re-affirm the religion of Jesus Christ, holding, in 
 accordance with his teaching, that practical religion is 
 summed up in love to God and love to man. 
 
 SAMUEL A. ELIOT. 
 
The Unitarian Church: 
 
 ITS 
 
 HISTORY AND CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 I. HISTORY 
 
 I The Unitarian Gospel began with the discovery 
 
 Beginnings ^at wg jj ye j n a jj n i verse% jts original affirmation 
 
 was the unity of God. The great teachings of science respect- 
 ing the unity of energy, the unity of life, the unity of humanity, 
 are confirmations of that early conviction. 
 n The prophetic writings, such as those by Amos, 
 
 Hebrew Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah, represent the spiritual 
 
 and enduring elements in the Old Testament. In 
 their protest against sacrifice, idolatry, formalism, injustice, 
 and selfishness, and in their teaching of the unity, holiness, 
 and goodness of God, they set forth what are now the essen- 
 tial Unitarian principles. Their plea that righteousness is what 
 God demands and what man needs, — that righteousness is 
 blessedness, — is our plea. 
 
 m We claim to teach what was central and essential 
 
 Jesus j n j.jjg messa g e f j esuS- We lay our emphasis on 
 
 the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule, the Law of Love (Matt, 
 xxii. 34-40). We find the way of salvation described in 
 his parables, where purity is set forth as the condition, growth 
 the method, love the motive, character the fruitage, and 
 service the expression of Eternal Life, or the kingdom of 
 heaven. 
 
 ry We do not appeal to the New Testament as a 
 
 Apostles document of final and infallible authority, and we 
 
 do not claim that the Unitarian Gospel is merely an echo 
 
of apostolic Christianity. But we do claim to represent its 
 spirit and ideal. When Peter declared, " Of a truth, I per- 
 ceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation 
 he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted 
 with him," he proclaimed the Unitarian faith. When he 
 described the ministry of Jesus to consist in " turning every 
 one of you from his iniquities," he spoke like a Unitarian. See 
 Acts iii. 26 ; x. 34, 35. 
 
 When Paul preached, " In God we live and move and have 
 our being," and when he wrote, " And now abideth faith, hope, 
 love, these three ; and the greatest of these is love," he stood 
 on ground now occupied by Unitarians. See Acts xvii. 28; 
 1 Cor. xiii. 13. 
 
 And when it was written by John or in the name of John, 
 " Let us love one another, for love is of God ; and every one 
 that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God " (1 John iv. 7), 
 the writer defined the Unitarian position. There are other 
 things in the New Testament, but these teachings made the 
 glory and strength of early Christianity, and they are the 
 things that are eternal and that we lay to heart. 
 V In the primitive churches there were beliefs in 
 
 Early Church reS p ect to the messiahship and second coming 
 of Jesus, superstitions respecting baptism, and uses of the Old 
 Testament, which are no part of our religion. But it is 
 generally conceded by modern scholars that the original Chris- 
 tianity was not the acceptance of a creed but the adoption of 
 a spirit like that of Jesus, and that the early churches were 
 democratic in form, each independent, with no elaborate 
 ceremonials and no radical distinctions between clergy and 
 laity. 
 
 Great scholars representing many different denominations 
 agree to-day that the deification of Jesus, as found in the 
 Nicene and trinitarian creeds, has no adequate warrant in 
 Scripture, and does not represent the original faith, but that it 
 was a slowly developed philosophical afterthought, which was 
 
rooted, not in the words of Jesus or the beliefs of his disciples, 
 but in the mystical speculations of Alexandria. 
 
 It is also admitted that the so-called "Apostles' Creed" 
 does not accurately report the ideas of primitive Christianity. 
 It was not set forth by the Apostles themselves, but was slowly 
 evolved under the stress of many controversies, and reached 
 its present shape after the fourth century. 
 
 No modern church exactly reproduces the original Chris- 
 tian faith, polity, or ritual (it is not necessary that they should 
 be reproduced) ; but what we claim is, (i) That many of 
 the dogmas made prominent in the creeds of Christendom 
 have no warrant in the teachings of Jesus; (2) That the 
 spiritual and eternal elements of primitive Christianity are 
 affirmed by Unitarians. Confirmation of these statements 
 may be easily found in the oldest church manual in existence, 
 "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles " (distributed/r^ in an 
 English translation by the American Unitarian Association), 
 or in the two works by the great Oxford scholar, Rev. Dr. 
 Edwin Hatch (Episcopal), " Organization of the Early Chris- 
 tian Churches " and " Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages." 
 Y! At the first general council at Nicsea in 325, Arius 
 
 Aria" 8 denied the doctrine that was finally adopted — 
 
 the Nicene Creed (forced through by the imperial pressure of 
 Constantine) — that Jesus, the Son or Logos, is " very God of 
 very God " (same substance — homoousion) , and he asserted 
 that Jesus was a being more than man, but separate from 
 God, of similar but not identical substance (homoiousion) , not 
 begotten from eternity but created in time. This Arian view 
 of Jesus as a separate and subordinate being has been widely 
 held by the forerunners of modern Unitarians. The fact that 
 Arius could truthfully appeal to Scripture .and tradition 
 against his opponent Athanasius shows that a belief similar to 
 this had been the ancient and common view. 
 
 The Arians were at times very numerous, and they were 
 often active in good works. Witness the missionary labors of 
 
8 
 
 Ulfilas among the Goths (died 383). But Arianism was not 
 a successful solution of the problem respecting Jesus' nature 
 and rank. It neither saved the pure humanity of Jesus nor 
 brought mankind into immediate contact with the infinite God 
 our Father, while it subjected the Arians to the charge of wor- 
 shipping a creature, — an intolerable situation. Unitarians a 
 century ago largely held Arian views ; fifty years ago this posi- 
 tion had been generally abandoned. It is now held by few, 
 if any. 
 
 vn Many early Protestants approximated the Unitarian 
 
 Reformation p OS ition, and four great men among the reformers 
 of the sixteenth century set in operation forces in the reli- 
 gious world that resulted in a liberal form of Christianity. 
 In 1553 Servetus (a fugitive from Spain, his native land; 
 burned at the stake in Geneva, 1553, Calvin consenting) pub- 
 lished his " Restoration of Christianity," a plea for a simplifi- 
 cation of the Christian faith. It was not a profound work, 
 but it provoked discussion and stimulated more rational 
 thinking. Faustus Socinus labored in the same general direc- 
 tion — a disciple of Laelius Socinus, his uncle (both Italians). 
 He spread his views widely in Poland (15 75-1604), where 
 they flourished for about a century, but were finally stamped 
 out with great cruelty. About 1560, Francis David estab- 
 lished even more radical doctrines, in Transylvania, where 
 the movement which he inaugurated still survives. His disci- 
 ple, John Sigismund, gave the people a charter of religious 
 liberty (1568) — one of the first and greatest documents of 
 religious freedom. 
 
 The prominence of Laelius and Faustus Socinus in this 
 movement for a more rational interpretation of Christianity 
 gave the name Socinian to those who denied the absolute deity 
 of Jesus and the total depravity of man, and affirmed the 
 unity of God and a spiritual, rather than a sacrificial, interpre- 
 tation of Jesus. The name, however, has long since ceased 
 adequately to describe Unitarians. 
 
Arius, Servetus, and Socinus had this in common, — they 
 denied the dogma of the Trinity. But we must note these 
 differences : Arius dealt only with the rank and nature of 
 Jesus, making him an intermediate being between God and 
 man. Servetus was a free lance, somewhat erratic and wholly 
 critical. He made Jesus not so much a separate being as a 
 peculiar manifestation of God. Socinus effected a more posi- 
 tive and comprehensive reconstruction of Christianity. He 
 was more humanitarian in his view of Jesus than the others, 
 looking upon him, not so much as a unique being, as a 
 " divine man." He also denied total depravity, vicarious 
 atonement, and endless punishment. 
 
 vm By 1600 these liberal views began to take hold of 
 
 England some thoughtful minds in England. Some Eng- 
 
 lish Liberals were, however, Arians rather than Socinians. But 
 anything like a popular movement in this line was made impos- 
 sible by cruel measures of repression. Unitarian literature 
 was burnt, and denial of the Trinity was made punishable by 
 death. In 1662, John Biddle died in prison from starvation 
 under charge of teaching against the trinitarian doctrine. The 
 last heretics to die as martyrs in Great Britain were Unitarians. 
 Unitarians were not properly recognized by law in England 
 until the year 1813, when the penalties attaching to disbelief 
 in the Trinity were abolished. And yet, three of the greatest 
 Englishmen of the seventeenth century were Unitarians of the 
 Arian type — John Milton, Sir Isaac Newton, and John Locke. 
 
 During the eighteenth century, there was a broadening of 
 religious thought among certain Presbyterian churches in 
 England, — those whose chapels were held on " open trusts," 
 not tied to a fixed creed, like the Presbyterian churches 
 in Scotland ; and by the middle of the century some of 
 them had come to be Unitarian in belief. Joseph Priestley 
 (Socinian rather than Arian), the discoverer of oxygen, was 
 minister of one of these churches in Birmingham (1780). His 
 work on the " Corruptions of Christianity" (1782) exerted a 
 
IO 
 
 wide influence. In 1774, Rev. Theophilus Lindsey (formerly 
 an Episcopal clergyman) established a Unitarian chapel in 
 London (where the Unitarian Headquarters are now lo- 
 cated — Essex Hall). To this nucleus slowly gravitated 
 many of these Presbyterian and other progressive churches. 
 
 The movement now had a centre and a name. The 
 British and Foreign Unitarian Association was organized in 
 1825. In connection with this movement during the past 
 century, small in numbers and cramped by many forms of in- 
 tolerance and persecution, we find the names of such hymn 
 writers as Sir John Bowring (" In the Cross of Christ I Glory ") 
 and Sarah Flower Adams (" Nearer, my God, to Thee ") ; such 
 leaders among women as Frances Power Cobbe, Florence 
 Nightingale, Mary Somerville, and Mary Carpenter ; such 
 scientists and scholars as Sir Charles Lyell, Dr. William B. 
 Carpenter, Francis W. Newman, Samuel Davidson, Stopford 
 A. Brooke, and James Martineau, — a group of immortals out 
 of all proportion to the size of this religious body ! 
 jx The seeds of Unitarianism were brought over to 
 
 America America in the Mayflower. They were planted 
 
 wherever a church was organized in New England with a 
 covenant instead of a creed. The successive steps of growth 
 are indicated by the following names and dates : 
 
 In 1 7 15 Rev. John Wise, of Ipswich, Mass., the father of 
 American Democracy, published a powerful and popular book, 
 " Government of the New England Churches," which was a 
 stirring plea for democracy, progress, and reason in religion. 
 It insisted on the absolute independence of the local church, — 
 a pure Congregational Polity, in contrast with Presbyterian and 
 Episcopal hierarchies. It effectually kept the door open for 
 growth and progress. This made it possible for Rev. Dr. 
 Ebenezer Gay, ordained pastor of the First Parish in Hing- 
 ham, Mass., 171 7, to advance to a Liberal Theology a few 
 years later and still keep his pulpit. Others advanced along 
 the same line. 
 
II 
 
 About 1 740 Rev. Dr. Charles Chauncy, minister of the 
 First Church, Boston, led the broadening religious thought of 
 the time in a work, "Seasonable Thoughts,'' directed against 
 Jonathan Edwards and the revivals of the day. Later (1784) 
 he published a notable book, "Salvation of All Men," one of the 
 most forcible affirmations of the " Largest Hope " ever printed. 
 
 Soon after the close of the Revolution many . ministers of 
 the old First Parishes (Congregational churches) in Eastern 
 Massachusetts had come by quiet growth to occupy Unitarian 
 ground. They had abandoned the Trinity for the Fatherhood 
 of God, total depravity for the native capacity of man, the 
 teaching of dogma for emphasis on righteousness, the deity of 
 Christ for the divinity of Jesus ; and, using the Bible more 
 rationally and spiritually, they rescued the humanity of Jesus 
 from neglect, interpreted religion as the spirit of a noble life, 
 and advocated freedom and growth. Unitarianism was now 
 in the air, partly as the result of the liberal thought imported 
 from England and France, partly as the product of the culture 
 of Harvard College, but chiefly as the natural outcome of the 
 principles inherent in New England Puritanism. 
 
 The first overt act was, however, the ordination of James 
 Freeman, a decided Unitarian, as rector of King's Chapel, 
 Boston (1787), — the first Episcopal church established in 
 New England. The ritual of the church was modified by the 
 excision of Orthodox phrases and the parish became Congre- 
 gational or independent. In 1796, in Philadelphia, under the 
 influence of Priestley, who had fled to America to escape vio- 
 lent persecution, a distinctly Unitarian church was established. 
 When Henry Ware, known to be a decided Liberal, was 
 appointed (1805) professor of divinity at Harvard, the separa- 
 tion among the New England churches and ministers began in 
 earnest. Two parties, Orthodox and Unitarian, were soon 
 arrayed against each other in theological debate. In the score 
 of years following, nearly all the old churches in Boston and 
 many of the First Parishes in that vicinity became Unitarian in 
 
12 
 
 theology, but without changing their name or organization ; and 
 'they remain to this day the leaders in all Unitarian activities. 
 During these years a great teacher came forth, Rev. Dr. William 
 Ellery Channing (i 780-1842), minister of the Federal Street 
 Church (now Arlington Street) , Boston ; and his sermon at Bal- 
 timore in 1819, at the ordination of Jared Sparks, became the 
 Unitarian Declaration of Independence. In 1825 followed at 
 Boston the organization of the American Unitarian Association. 
 x At the present date there are in America about 
 
 5™:! 611 ? four hundred and fifty Unitarian churches, a maior- 
 
 Churches ity being east of the Hudson river, and many of 
 these latter being the original churches of the early settlers, 
 like those at Plymouth, Salem, Boston, Watertown, and 
 Cambridge. In Great Britain and Ireland there are about 
 four hundred churches in the Unitarian fellowship, with various 
 names — Presbyterian, Free Christian, General Baptist, Non- 
 subscribing as well as Unitarian. In Transylvania, with 
 Kolozsvar as a centre, there are some one hundred and 
 twenty-five Unitarian congregations. 
 
 n There are many religious bodies in general sym- 
 
 Simiiar pathy with the Unitarians who do not take our 
 
 Movements name< Tne Universalist churches in America are 
 almost identical with the Unitarian in religious position and 
 theological teaching. The Hicksite Quakers and Progressive 
 Friends, carrying out the spirit of William Penn (who forcibly 
 opposed trinitarian and dogmatic Christianity in " Sandy 
 Foundation Shaken," 1668) are in general harmony with the 
 best Unitarian thought. The Liberal Protestants in France 
 and Switzerland have practically the same beliefs. In Ger- 
 many there are many Liberals among Lutherans and Evangeli- 
 cals, associated in the Protestanten Verein, who are in general 
 agreement with Unitarian views. The progressive movement 
 among the Jews, Reformed Judaism, is in substantial accord 
 with the Unitarian spirit. There is a large and influential 
 party in Holland, with the University of Leiden as its centre 
 
13 
 
 of culture, which is Unitarian in everything but name. The 
 Brahmo Somaj of India, a noble band of Theists who represent 
 the advance guard of religious progress in that land, are in 
 closest fellowship with English and American Unitarians. 
 
 It would be easy to make a long list of eminent 
 Friends men and women from all parts of the world who 
 
 Without have shown great appreciation of the Unitarian 
 
 movement or who have occupied a similar position. 
 Dean Stanley, of Westminster, wrote some twenty years ago : 
 " The Unitarian church, including within itself almost all the 
 cultured scholarship of America in the beginning of this 
 century, was unquestionably at the summit of the civilized 
 Christianity of the western continent." 
 
 The great Spanish reformer and statesman, Castelar, made 
 this declaration : " The simple religion of the future will be 
 a religion whose dogmas are summed up in the two funda- 
 mental ones of the existence of God and the immortality of 
 the soul, completed by the purest morality, which breathes 
 forth a disinterested love of goodness for its own sake," — 
 precisely the spirit and ideal of Unitarians. 
 
 Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, used these words to 
 Professor Kovacs, his fellow-countryman, a Unitarian : " I rejoice 
 over your connection with the English and American Unita- 
 rians. Spread their ideas and faith as widely as you can in 
 Hungary. Their faith is the only faith which has a future ; 
 the only one that can influence the intelligent and interest 
 the indifferent." 
 
 Prof. David Swing represented a large multitude who have 
 never taken our name but who share our general views of 
 religion and life. His own words were just what are preached 
 from every Unitarian pulpit : " From such a dark estimate of 
 God and Christ as this old notion [of Calvinism] involves, it 
 is sweet to return to the thought that the law of salvation by 
 morality is not a lottery, but, like the law of industry, it lies 
 open for all." 
 
14 
 
 The interpretations of life and religion set forth in the great 
 works of fiction by George Eliot and Mrs. Humphry Ward — 
 the greatest novelists among women — are essentially Unitarian. 
 Both of these distinguished authors have been very closely 
 associated with the Unitarians. Many eminent clergymen in 
 Scotland, nominally Presbyterian, practically occupy our ground, 
 — such men as Rev. Dr. George Macdonald in his stories, Rev. 
 Dr. Robert H. Story in his sermons, and Rev. Dr. Walter C. 
 Smith in his poems. Two of the greatest literary influences 
 during the last century among English-speaking peoples were 
 Thomas Carlyle and Matthew Arnold ; and both, while they 
 cannot be called Unitarians, were, in the essence of their 
 messages, really pleading for the things central in our Gospel. 
 Three of the men who, in various ways, have most adorned 
 and enriched the life of the Orient in recent years have been 
 our approving friends, — Ram Mohun Roy, founder of the 
 Brahmo Somaj, Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, the celebrated Parsee 
 philanthropist, and Yukichi Fukuzawa, " the grand old man " 
 of Japan. 
 
 The four men, all profoundly religious, who were the great- 
 est interpreters of human life among our poets during the 
 nineteenth century were in general harmony with our spiritual 
 ideals, — in fact, their words have contributed to the making 
 of modern Unitarianism, — Goethe and Victor Hugo, Browning 
 and Tennyson. We would not try to narrow these great 
 geniuses to any sectarian position ; but we do claim that the 
 great essentials in their messages are the things that we 
 emphasize. 
 
 Count Tolstoi, the greatest living literary genius at the 
 present time, has recently given expression to the follow- 
 ing views : " It is true I deny an incomprehensible Trinity 
 and the fable regarding the fall of man, which is absurd in our 
 day. It is' true I deny the sacrilegious story of a god born of 
 a virgin to redeem the human race. But God-Spirit, God- 
 Love, God the sole principle of all things, I do not deny. 
 
i5 
 
 I believe in eternal life, and I believe that man is rewarded 
 according to his deeds here and everywhere, now and forever. 
 I believe that the will of God was never so clearly, so precisely 
 explained as in the doctrine of the man Christ. But one can- 
 not regard Christ as God, and offer prayers to him, without 
 committing the greatest sacrilege." This is really a summary 
 of the Unitarian faith. 
 
 II. CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 i. Covenants not Creeds 
 
 Unitarians in America use as the basis of their churches a 
 covenant, the »declaration of a spiritual purpose, or a life 
 promise. Their bond of union is not a creed, — a set of 
 beliefs, — but a statement of religious motives. In this they 
 follow the early Congregational Polity, or method of church 
 organization, which was formulated by Robert Browne in 
 England, late in the sixteenth century, adopted by the English 
 Independents, brought over to this country by the Pilgrims, 
 and used by the original churches in New England. The 
 covenant of the Pilgrim church at Plymouth (adopted in 1602 
 before leaving England for Holland) is substantially as follows : 
 
 " We, the Lord's free people, join ourselves by a covenant of the 
 Lord, into a church estate in the fellowship of the Gospel, to walk 
 in all his ways, made known or to be made known unto us, accord- 
 ing to our best endeavors." 
 
 That of the church in Salem, Massachuetts, the first Protestant 
 church organized in America (1629), is similar : — 
 
 "We covenant with the Lord, and one with another, and we 
 do bind ourselves in the presence of God to walk together in all 
 his ways according as he is pleased to reveal himself unto us in his 
 blessed word of truth." 
 
 Several very important facts are evident at a glance: 
 (1) Though these people were Calvinists, they did not make 
 
i6 
 
 their Calvinistic beliefs the basis of their church organization 
 or the test of their Christian fellowship. (2) This is not a 
 promise to believe alike, but a promise to help one another to 
 live better ; " to walk together," not to think alike, — a simple 
 and spiritual covenant, not a creed; an aspiration of the soul, 
 not a theological confession. (3) These men of sturdy faith 
 left the door open for progress. The anticipation of growth, 
 and the expectation of larger wisdom, speak in every phrase of 
 rnese covenants. Here we find the guarantee of liberty and 
 the pledge of growth. 
 
 In after years, dogmatic and reactionary leaders in many 
 New England churches overlaid these covenants with elaborate 
 creeds. But on the ris/s of Unitarianism, nearly,a century ago, 
 those creeds were abandoned by these liberal churches and 
 emphasis was laid once more ' upon the original covenants. 
 The Plymouth and Salem churches, and many others, which 
 have long been Unitarian in thought and fellowship, still have 
 their original organization with the first covenants unchanged. 
 
 It is interesting to note that two of the most significant 
 events in religious affairs in America during recent years 
 represent a movement in the same direction. The Old South 
 Church (Trinitarian Congregational), Boston, has set aside its 
 outgrown and dogmatic creed and substituted in its place a 
 simple covenant. Even Andover Seminary, founded (1807) 
 to oppose and demolish Unitarianism, no longer demands that 
 its professors subscribe its drastic theological confession. It 
 is satisfied with the mere declaration of a Christian purpose. 
 
 Unitarians ask no one to sign a creed, because they 
 affirm that dogmas are neither central in religion nor essen- 
 tial to salvation ; and also, because it is wrong to tie the 
 mind to finalities when progress is the true law of life. They 
 do not reject creeds because they believe' so little. They believe 
 so much that they do not attempt to define and confine their 
 faith within narrow and rigid bounds. The use of a creed 
 (though it may contain many elements of truth) injures reli- 
 
17 
 
 gion by diverting attention from reverence and righteousness 
 (the essence of piety) to mere opinions that are often remote 
 from life. This creed-system enslaves reason and arrests 
 growth. It fosters duplicity and insincerity by leading people 
 to pretend to believe what they really reject ; to use old 
 phrases in a new sense, misrepresenting the past and disguising 
 the fresh revelation. And it also injures religion by tempting 
 people to quibble about words and wear masks when they 
 ought to be frank and explicit and clear. 
 
 Unitarians have very strong convictions ; but they strive to 
 keep them vital and practical by fitting them continuously to 
 the facts of life as they are discovered. A creed is too often 
 a tombstone set up to mark the point where men stopped 
 growing. Instead of making truth authoritative, it turns the 
 religious teacher into an apologist. Truth is no paralytic that 
 needs to walk on dogmatic crutches. As in science, so in 
 religion, life means growth, and growth means larger views and 
 nobler sentiments. Fixed moral principles and an expanding 
 theology go hand in hand as friends. Unitarians oppose 
 creeds, not alone because they are wholly or largely false, but 
 because the method is inadequate and injurious. 
 
 A covenant that is coming into increasing favor among us 
 is the following : " In the love of truth and the spirit of Jesus 
 Christ, we unite for the worship of God and the service of 
 man." All earnest, reverent, loving men and women can 
 stand on this platform ; and no narrower basis is adequate. 
 The church ought to include all who desire to be good and to 
 do good. We as Unitarians insist on strong convictions and 
 positive religious instruction, but all this can exist without the 
 use of a formal dogmatic creed. 
 
 2. Beliefs 
 
 It must always be borne in mind that no answer to the 
 question, " What do Unitarians believe? " can be an adequate 
 description of the Unitarian Gospel. While we are great 
 
believers, we insist that beliefs at best are only fractional, and 
 often only secondary, elements of life ; and we hold that re- 
 ligion is a life. We have beliefs that are very dear to us, con- 
 victions that are very powerful with us, but we stand for 
 something larger and more vital than these beliefs and 
 convictions. 
 
 Moreover, we hold that many theological beliefs, or specu- 
 lations, are too remote from the motives and ideals of daily 
 life to have any moral or spiritual value. We have aspirations, 
 sentiments, and principles, that seem more important than 
 our doctrinal theories. Certainly they are more important 
 than the dogmas, like election and justification, which deal 
 with metaphysical problems that are no more a part of vital 
 piety than the atomic theory or the binomial theorem. 
 
 We can put no brief dogmatic statement into any person's 
 hand and say : " If you believe this you are a Unitarian." 
 Whether a man is a Unitarian is determined by a different 
 measurement : " What is your life ? " The briefest definition 
 of a Unitarian is, " The Fatherhood of God and the brother- 
 hood of man applied." This language does not mean that we 
 claim to be better than other people. We simply affirm that 
 the spirit of the life is itself " religion." No particular belief 
 about baptism or communion, the Bible, or even the rank of 
 Jesus, by itself makes any one a Unitarian. 
 
 A description of the Unitarian religion deals only inciden- 
 tally with speculative doctrines ; and it deals with them chiefly 
 to show that they are relatively unimportant. We go deeper 
 into life and ask, " What are your affections and aspirations, 
 your motives and ideals? " Here is the real religion. We 
 need more clear thinking in religion as everywhere else ; but 
 it ought to be first of all clear thinking about the practical 
 problems of the religious life. 
 
 Our chief aim, therefore, is not so much to impose opinions 
 as to cultivate the spirit of a true life, to develop and enrich 
 character and to lead people into helpful services. We do 
 
!9 
 
 not assume that our theories or motives are perfect ; but we 
 feel that they include enough truth and nobility to save those 
 who faithfully put them into practice. All that we can ask is 
 that every one shall live according to his best conviction ; this 
 is the demand of God upon all. And we most heartily grant 
 that those who differ with us possess large elements of precious 
 truth, — sufficient for their need if they are loyal to it. 
 
 Among Unitarians, differences of belief cause no bitterness 
 and occasion no censure. But just because we are so free to 
 handle the facts of life, nearly all of us reach nearly the 
 same conclusions. There is among us that general agreement 
 on essentials that is found in the realms of science. It is, 
 however, a unity in diversity rather than a formal uniformity 
 of opinion. And as among scientists, so with us, those who 
 differ with us are not " heretics," but beloved fellow-workers, 
 whom we are to instruct or from whom we are to learn. In 
 view of these facts, no one can make an " authoritative" state- 
 ment of Unitarian affirmations that must be accepted as final 
 and essential. We can only describe the religious convictions 
 commonly held among us at the present time. 
 
 3. A Progressive Movement 
 
 It is well to remember that Unitarians constitute a pro- 
 gressive movement of religious thought and life. There is 
 movement in all religious dispensations, even those most en- 
 slaved by tradition or most bound by creeds. Where there is 
 life there must be change. There is progress among Episco- 
 palians, Presbyterians, and Catholics. But just at this point, 
 there is a radical difference between us and many other 
 churches. The changes which others resist, we welcome. The 
 progress which they reluctantly accept, we most gladly foster. 
 
 Protestants in general assert and enforce a creed which is 
 presented as a final statement of truth that one must believe 
 to be saved. We put our emphasis on a method of discovery, 
 being always on the lookout for larger and clearer views of 
 
20 
 
 truth and duty. What seems essential to us is not any tran- 
 sient form of opinion, but the method of truth-finding by 
 which progress is made continuous ; and what seems supreme 
 to us is not any particular mode of service, but the sentiment 
 of love which constantly creates more fruitful services. Con- 
 servatives defend the faith once delivered to the saints. In 
 the conviction that God now abounds, and that his oracles are 
 still open, we reverently watch the present heavens and 
 earnestly listen to living voices for the revelation of a still more 
 glorious gospel. 
 
 Dogmatists decry innovations and stand guard on the an- 
 cient walls built around the sanctities of piety by a Luther, a 
 Calvin, or a Wesley. But Unitarians, discarding the rusty armor 
 and leaving behind crumbling traditions, keep in the open 
 field and on the march, feeling that no one is so safe or so 
 strong as he who is in the pursuit of truth ; and feeling, also, 
 that wherever men may tent that spot will be the abode of 
 the living God ! We move forever onward, not because we 
 lack appreciation of past worthies and olden symbols, not be- 
 cause we are disturbed by doubt and distracted by uncertainty, 
 but because we have confidence in the unfolding process, as a 
 divine process, and, also, because we have confidence in the 
 leadership of love and truth, under which we march. There- 
 fore we cease to be Unitarians when we cease to grow ! 
 
 4. More than Negation 
 
 The Unitarian movement is something more than a protest 
 against the creeds of Christendom. If we destroy the old 
 house of worship, it is to build on firmer foundations a grander 
 temple. If we criticise a long cherished belief, it is to create 
 one more in harmony with the truth of things and more pro- 
 ductive of personal righteousness. We deny the less that we 
 may affirm the greater. When Luther laid down the heavy 
 load of mediaeval superstitions he had more power than he 
 possessed before ; he possessed himself, with freedom to use 
 
his strength in more fruitful fashion. The lad who goes away 
 to school loses the petty notions of his neighborhood, but he 
 gains the light and glory of a broad horizon. 
 
 Our affirmations of religious truth may seem very harmful to 
 piety when first heard by many people, because apparently 
 destructive to their long-cherished opinions. But let it be re- 
 membered that it is impossible to preach salvation by character 
 without sweeping aside the theory of sacrificial atonement. 
 To proclaim that God is a divine Father to all his children is 
 a larger and more positive view of Providence than the theory 
 of Calvin ; and yet, it is absolutely destructive of Calvinism. 
 
 It is sometimes carelessly said that we believe little and 
 that our teaching is negative. We do reject many things 
 long considered necessary to salvation, but we do this because 
 we really believe vastly more than our fathers did. We are 
 not living in the eclipse but at the dawn of rational faith. We 
 believe so absolutely in God as goodness that we claim that 
 more than a small fraction of mankind will be saved. We 
 believe so profoundly in the moral law that we hold that only 
 holiness is blessedness. We believe so mightily in the sincerity 
 of Providence that we teach that it is a thousandfold better 
 to bear our own cross than to hide behind the cross of Jesus. 
 We believe so fully in human nature that we assert that it was 
 capable of producing Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 We are not Unitarians because we reject the dogma of the 
 Trinity; we are Unitarians because we have put ourselves 
 under the command of reason and have accepted the modern 
 discoveries of the unity in things and souls. Our disbelief in 
 the trinitarian formula is merely incidental to our sublimely 
 positive convictions respecting God and man. It is what we 
 have discovered about the universe that discredits the Nicene 
 creed. We have therefore put aside this formula, not because 
 it is wholly false and not because we have lost our faith in 
 the Almighty, but because the old words do not adequately 
 describe our thought of the immanent God. 
 
22 
 
 We are not Unitarians because we deny the deity of Jesus ; 
 we are Unitarians because we believe in the unity of history 
 and the divinity of human nature ; and these larger and more 
 positive views of Providence compel us to think of Jesus as 
 infinitely grander and more helpful than a mystical " God- 
 Man." 
 
 We are not Unitarians because we set aside the theory of 
 Scriptural infallibility; we are Unitarians because we trace 
 the revelation of truth and the incarnation of divinity so widely 
 throughout the evolution of humanity that we are able to affirm 
 the universal Fatherhood of God, and having reached this 
 mount of vision, every dogma that denies the immanence of 
 God in all souls seems a profanation, and every creed that im- 
 plies finality in a text seems a rejection of the living God. 
 We do not reject the Bible ; we only reject those irrational 
 uses of the Bible that seem to us to banish God from the pres- 
 ent world. 
 
 UNITARIAN PRINCIPLES 
 
 The position most peculiar and fundamental to 
 Human Unitarians is the view of man himself. We build 
 
 Nature Qur re ijgi ous ideals, methods, and hopes on the 
 
 demonstrable facts of human nature. We begin with facts of 
 human experience and find in them the revelation of a way of 
 life and the demonstration of a divine Fatherhood. We go 
 to the naturalist and accept what he has discovered respecting 
 the origin of man. We go to the psychologist for instruction 
 upon the nature of the soul, — the evolution of conscience, 
 the scope of imagination, the power of sentiment, the authority 
 of reason. We go to the historian and learn what humanity 
 has achieved, tracing the onward sweep of civilization, with 
 law, literature, art, government, commerce, science, and religion. 
 We go to the educator and discover how intellect and heart 
 are trained and unfolded. We go to the philanthropist and 
 watch the creative methods by which defectives and criminals 
 
23 
 
 are improved and reformed. We go to the student of com- 
 parative religion, and listen while he reads from out all the 
 Bibles of the race noble commands for purity, sweet messages 
 of hope, and tender prayers of trust. We listen also as he 
 describes rites and symbols by which the spirit of man has 
 pictured and cultivated the feeling of reverence and the passion 
 for holiness. 
 
 We gather all these facts from the widest circle of experi- 
 ence, and in the light of these truths we affirm that man is a 
 spiritual being, the outcome of nature's highest creative im- 
 pulse. A being, imperfect but progressive, with native capacity 
 for the discovery of truth, for moral development, for religious 
 feeling, and for the outgrowth of sin. 
 
 We accept this truth respecting human nature as the basis 
 and starting point of our religious doctrines and methods. 
 Man has been very imperfect, but he has stumbled on through 
 ignorance and waywardness, sorrow and superstition to higher 
 civilization and nobler character. There is in him more good 
 than evil, otherwise his creation would be a horrible blunder, 
 impeaching the wisdom and goodness of Providence. We 
 discover that there is an essential unity in languages, customs, 
 and institutions, because human nature is everywhere essentially 
 the same. There is no real division of history into natural and 
 supernatural. 
 
 To all men, some truth has been divinely revealed ; to no 
 man has absolute truth been miraculously imparted. Every- 
 where men have loved, found, and incarnated in character and 
 civilization some measure of the true, the good, and the beauti- 
 ful. Sin everywhere and always brings pains and penalties ; 
 but sinners from the first have repented and reformed, for the 
 way out of sin has everywhere been open to all, and in all ages 
 it has been the same, the turning of the penitent heart through 
 divine disciplines to its better estate in purity and peace. 
 Saints, too, have arisen among all peoples because the soul has 
 an inherent capacity for righteousness. 
 
24 
 
 Wherever we find man, there we find a religious effort com- 
 mensurate with his intelligence and conscience. Man has a 
 native impulse toward discovery, for his reason impels him to 
 ask questions and find causes. He has a native sense of justice 
 that reports and enforces the moral law ; and this ethical power 
 enables him to turn from sin and live in purity and integrity. 
 He has -a native capacity for worship, and wherever he goes 
 he builds an altar, at which he worships a divine ideal. From 
 crude idolater to most spiritual theist, the soul feels after and 
 finds somewhat of the common Father. 
 
 n From this thought of man, we pass on to our 
 
 Thought thought of God. Our knowledge of man makes our 
 
 conception of God clear and certain, however in- 
 complete. Because we have discovered the soul, we must be- 
 lieve in God. The finite divinity resident in man reveals an 
 infinite divinity in a Fatherhood from which it flows. Be- 
 cause we have an intelligence that discovers an intelligible order 
 in the universe, we are compelled to affirm an infinite cause that 
 is intelligent. This is the only way by which we can account for 
 ourselves. That parental life which reports itself in us must be 
 akin to that which is highest in ourselves. The conscience 
 within us which reveals and commands moral law, by uncovering 
 what is inherent in the universe and taking its authority from the 
 Immanent Life, constrains us to affirm that the Power in which 
 we live is moral. For, if otherwise, how could we have a 
 conscience ? How have a moral sentiment, unless there is a 
 moral life abroad in nature upon which it can feed? As 
 the eye proves the existence of light, so conscience implies 
 the presence of righteousness in the cosmos, of which we are 
 a part. 
 
 The love which overflows in our souls must take its rise 
 from the mountain heights of Infinite Being outside our- 
 selves. It could not move my breast with such awful 
 and mysterious power, were there not behind it the pressure 
 of the universe. It could not so fill and possess me were 
 
2 5 
 
 it not a constituent of that Universal Life, in which my life 
 is rooted ! 
 
 Therefore, it is when we take our stand within the soul it- 
 self, and survey its sublime and varied elements, — its capacity 
 to discover truth, revealing the nature of the distant star and 
 laying bare the creative processes at work in the flower ; its 
 ability to uncover moral law and also furnish motive power for 
 hero and saint ; its marvellous creations of ideal, affection, and 
 aspiration ; its sense of an Encompassing Divineness which 
 pours itself out in a myriad forms of worship, — it is from 
 these spiritual facts of our own nature that we rise irresistibly 
 to the thought of a Fatherhood, from whom all this springs 
 and by whom it is fostered ! 
 
 Unitarians reach their belief in God by way of the soul. 
 These essential factors, — thought, conscience, love — could 
 not be in our life unless in the Universal Life. What is in the 
 dewdrop is in the ocean. And when we survey human his- 
 tory, and. see how the thought of God has dominated the 
 mind of man, we must conclude that there is an Infinite Real- 
 ity in the universe of which this thought is the report. It is 
 unreasonable to suppose that such a persistent and prominent 
 conviction should have no cause in the nature of things. This 
 belief in God is given in the experience of life. It is forced 
 upon us by the universe itself. We must accept it as grounded 
 in reality, or admit that the universe is a deceptive phantom 
 and our faculties false reporters. But science assumes that 
 our reason is a faithful, if imperfect, discoverer of realities. 
 If it were not so, there could be no science. 
 
 As, therefore, the pressure of the real universe constrains 
 man to say " God," we must accept the report as true in 
 essence however imperfect in form. And just because science 
 traces everywhere in nature a rational order that implies in- 
 telligence and in history a moral order that implies a righteous 
 Providence, we affirm an ideal of God that is best described 
 by the one great word — " Fatherhood." 
 
26 
 
 The thought of God is a commanding necessity of our 
 moral and intellectual life. We cannot free ourselves from 
 it. It is implied in the processes of thinking. We may deny 
 the truth of this or that teaching respecting the Infinite, but 
 somewhere in our interpretation of the universe this Reality 
 will emerge under some name ; somewhere in our explanation 
 of life will the parental Verity be assumed. It is a thought in 
 constant flux ; for life itself, to whose varying limits it is ever- 
 more fitted is an evolution. But while variable in form, it is 
 perpetually present in some form, sometimes wearing a human 
 disguise and sometimes under cover of negation itself. For 
 often we outgrow our real atheism by leaving behind ancient 
 ideals of deity. 
 
 The necessity is not so much, however, that we say " God," 
 as that we make the word mean something worthy Him whom 
 it symbolizes and spiritually helpful to him who uses it. It is 
 a sublimely inspiring word if it is made to comprehend the 
 sublimity of truth and the inspiration of love. But we may 
 lift up reverent hands in the elaborate worship of a vast temple, 
 and yet be near the verge of atheism if we limit the family of 
 God to those who worship in that place. What we need as a 
 tonic atmosphere, in which to grow more divinely strong and 
 beautiful, is a thought of God rooted in a trust deeper than 
 texts, speaking in prayers that are more than petty petitions, 
 creating a reverence commensurate with truth and goodness, 
 inspiring a fellowship which embraces all that is human, and 
 perfecting the hope of a heaven that is more than escape from 
 penalty. 
 
 The richest fruitage of the spirit is a thought of God that 
 links itself with all that is beautiful in nature ; that embraces 
 all souls in its providential ministries ; that finds revelation 
 wherever truth is discovered, and divine sen-ice wherever truth 
 is lived ; and this thought of God, in the fulness of love and 
 sympathy, casts out the atheism latent in every form of 
 inhumanity. 
 
27 
 
 m If man is what science defines him to be, and if 
 
 Revelation the thought of God is given in human experi- 
 KWe * ence as described, then we must understand by 
 
 " revelation " a process as natural as human life 
 and as large as human history. All discovery of truth is a 
 revelation of God and all-progress of mankind is incarnation 
 of God. And while some writings become Scripture because 
 of the precious truths which they contain, they are neither 
 supernatural nor infallible. 
 
 We accept and honor the Bible as the best of many similar 
 Scriptures, but all were produced by the same causes and under 
 the same laws. It is the most valuable religious literature in 
 existence, worthy our constant and reverent study. But it 
 must be read for increase of life. Its texts must be handled 
 by the free reason, not to formulate a creed but to enrich 
 character. It has no monopoly of truth. 
 
 The Bible contains some errors and many noble truths ; 
 numerous legends and much inspiring history. No statement 
 is true simply because it is in the Bible, while all its teachings 
 must be tested by experience and subjected to the authority 
 of reason and conscience. 
 
 Revelation is a process that overflows texts, antedates Bibles, 
 and outlives creeds. It lies back of all litanies ; it lights up 
 all symbols ; it clothes the prophet with power ; it gives author- 
 ity to institutions. In this larger view, we lose the Bible as a 
 lumber room for dogma, but we enter it by the new gateway 
 of reason and find it a rich pasture-land for the free soul. We 
 escape from it as a prison, to come back to it as a wonderful 
 treasure house of spiritual things. We cease to use them to 
 club doubt and bind inquiry, but we learn diviner uses : we 
 pile its texts on the altar fires of the heart to create heavenly 
 * motives. 
 
 We must have a theory of the Bible which includes all the 
 facts, and a use of the Bible subject to reason and conscience. 
 The Protestant creed-makers did the best they could ; but 
 
28 
 
 with only one Sacred Book before them and only a i 
 
 limited knowledge of religious history, their opinions resp 
 
 ing revelation and the Bible were necessarily as imper 
 
 as a theory of botany based upon the study of one t 
 
 Science demands that we study all trees and all Script 
 
 and make our theories fit all the facts. We need not 
 
 spise the creed-makers ; we must not neglect the facts. 
 
 may honor the old scholar, while laying away his impel 
 
 notion in the museum of antiquities, along with the stone 
 
 Any theory is injurious to both the Bible and humanity wl 
 
 claims for the Bible more than it claims for itself, and it 
 
 where lays claim to infallibility ; and any theory of revela 
 
 is inadequate which neglects the facts of universal religi 
 
 while all uses of texts are harmful except those that rr 
 
 the soul alive to the presence of God and the hand activ 
 
 helpfulness. 
 
 The Unitarian freely accepts all the assured discoverie: 
 
 Biblical science and gladly adjusts his religious uses of 
 
 Bible to these facts, being perfectly confident that all this 
 
 truth will abundantly enrich piety. 
 
 IV Reason has been the discoverer and revealer f 
 
 Authority the beginning, as love has been the master mo 
 of Reason 
 
 power ; and these are progressive elements ol 
 
 ever-unfolding human nature. Reason cannot explain 
 
 mysteries, but it must be free to investigate them. It does 
 
 create religion, but it must be used to guide religious sentim 
 
 It does not destroy piety, but only that which is false in 
 
 forms of piety. Unitarians demand the right to reason free! 
 
 religion, and they grant all others the same privilege. 1 
 
 strive to have, as far as possible, a perfectly rational religi 
 
 and they use reason and conscience as the supreme author 
 
 in religious matters. 
 
 The authority of tradition and text, of apostle and com 
 
 is simply the authority of some other man. It is worthi 
 
 respectful consideration, but it should never be put betw 
 
20 
 
 us and the living God. The assumption that the Apostles 
 exercised final authority respecting beliefs and ceremonies is 
 neither historically true nor spiritually helpful. 
 V If man is what we discover him to be, Jesus may 
 
 saB be explained as the ripened product of human 
 
 nature without dishonor to him and with clearer appreciation 
 of mankind in general. If we follow the first three and most 
 reliable Gospels, we must believe in the humanity of Jesus. 
 If God is what reason and nature reveal him to be, the asser- 
 tion that Jesus was God is unthinkable. 
 
 The whole world is becoming more and more appreciative 
 of the wonderful excellence and transcendent nobility of Jesus 
 of Nazareth ; but the modem mind and the modern heart are 
 beginning to see and feel that the mysticism of the church 
 which has centred in him and which has grown up about him 
 is in many instances a most unfortunate denial of both the 
 Fatherhood of God and the sonship of man as taught by Jesus 
 himself and as reinforced by modern discovery. 
 
 An atheistic limitation has vitiated dogmatic theology from 
 the first, — an unwillingness to leave Jesus in the sphere of 
 humanity as illustration and evidence of the divine in the 
 human. But just here, and only here, is still his providential 
 office, — not to stand outside the race as a unique and mystical 
 being, mediating between heaven and earth, but to stand within 
 the race as the Witness of God in man by nature, in this 
 way revealing the possibility that is ours, and also helping us 
 to its realization in saintly character. Jesus has been thrust 
 between the soul and God by the theologians as a supernatural 
 agent in touch with only a fraction of mankind ; but if he is 
 to perform any continuing spiritual service for us, it must be 
 by helping us through his example and the inspiration of his 
 spirit to commune with God our Father through a daily life 
 that is loving and lovable. 
 
 The traditional interpretation which insists that all of God 
 walked forth on earth in Jesus, and that he is the only son of 
 
3° 
 
 God, is a most unfortunate limitation of God. It is the nega- 
 tion rather than the revelation of Fatherhood. The " only " 
 son of God ? Is Providence, then, a fiction, and the " Our 
 Father" of the immortal prayer an impertinence? The 
 " only " son of God ? Is there, then, only one point at which 
 divinity and humanity meet and flow together? This sweeps 
 away the fundamental postulate of science that the Infinite 
 Power is everywhere directly and perpetually resident. 
 
 The modern world, in its practical work, assumes an im- 
 mediate association of human and divine. The educator has 
 found a more adequate thought of God than that which limits 
 sonship to Jesus ; for when he penetrates any mind and makes, 
 Godward, a demand for more life, it comes immediately from 
 the fulness of Infinite Life. The educational method, every- 
 where supreme to-day, lays emphasis, not on the propitiation, 
 but the appropriation, of God ! 
 
 There is something infinitely more important than the accept- 
 ance of God in Christ : it is to honor, love, obey, and serve 
 the divine Life everywhere present in human nature. The 
 "only" son of God? How the achievements of the philan- 
 thropist, who actually unfolds the latent divineness of human 
 nature without resorting to Galilee, rebuke this dogmatism that 
 forgets God ! Instead of teaching that all of God walked 
 forth in Jesus and nowhere else, let us rather affirm that some- 
 what of God abides wherever man resides. Let us make some 
 better use of Jesus than to construe his life so as to shut out 
 divinity from the human soul and outlaw as aliens all who have 
 not known him. 
 
 Just here is the serious defect of much of the popular reli- 
 gious teaching of the present day. " The Christ," as a mysti- 
 cal being, is thrust in between the finite soul and the infinite 
 Spirit. The fellowship of human and divine is broken 
 asunder, man is left without adequate parentage, and God is 
 denied immediate access to man. There is a failure of faith 
 to find inherent divineness in human nature, to admit revela- 
 
3i 
 
 tion in all discovery of truth, to see a real Providence hi all 
 history, and to appreciate the incarnation as a fact coextensive 
 with goodness. 
 
 The old mystical assertions respecting Jesus are offensive to 
 the scientific mind and the humane heart, not because love 
 of Jesus is lacking, but because the love of truth and humanity 
 is greater. We crave a God who is at home in India as well 
 as Judea ; who is present with the same love in Moslem as in 
 Catholic ; who is as near to the repentant heart in Africa as 
 in America. Every faith lapses into practical atheism when it 
 becomes selfish, exclusive, and partial. Where, indeed, does 
 God operate if not in all souls ? How does man exist at all if 
 not through heavenly tides of life sweeping every moment into 
 receptive hearts? By what power did the Parthenon rise, 
 Buddha heal human sorrows, and Socrates triumph in death, 
 if not by authority of him who shepherds every soul ? 
 
 As Unitarians, we love Jesus because he was lovable. We 
 believe in him because he so faithfully lived the sublime truths 
 of the moral law which he taught. We follow him because he 
 revealed the true way of life ; and having realized in his own 
 character what is possible for us, he inspires us to live like him 
 and educates us mightily in righteousness. 
 
 But with all our love and reverence for Jesus, we would not 
 assert that he alone is our teacher, or that he represents the 
 only type of life worthy honor and emulation. We cannot do 
 without him ; but we must not ignore the many saints and 
 heroes who also reveal God to us and who ought to serve as 
 guides and examples. As we need all the stars, so let us love 
 all the mighty sons of God. Jesus does indeed reveal the love 
 of God to us. But he is not alone in this. Does not the 
 mother's love also reveal God's love? 
 
 Unitarians shun all dogmatism respecting the rank and office 
 of Jesus, holding that the chief thing is to cultivate the spirit 
 of his life. He ministers unto us most when he moves us to 
 divine service. When we try to think of him as a part of 
 
32 
 
 a mystical Trinity, he vanishes from us. To represent him as 
 propitiating God is to deny his gospel. To assert that we can 
 enter heaven only on his merits is to dethrone the doctrine of 
 the divine Fatherhood which he preached. To do this is, in- 
 deed, to overthrow the moral law itself and also to miss the grand 
 lesson of his life. We affirm that Jesus helps to save us only as 
 he inspires us to fulfil the royal law of love in our daily lives. 
 yj It is astonishing and encouraging to note the 
 
 Humanity of rapid progress, during the last few years, of the 
 s world of religious scholarship toward the humani- 
 
 tarian view of Jesus, long maintained by Unitarians. What was 
 once damnable heresy now walks abroad as most respectable 
 Orthodoxy. A great " book of testimonies " could be made 
 similar to the following statements, which reveal this remark- 
 able advance. And this advance does not represent less but 
 more faith in God, not less but more love for Jesus. The lives 
 of the men holding these humanitarian views respecting Jesus 
 prove, by their increased spirituality and enthusiasm for re- 
 ligion, that there is nothing harmful to piety in them. It is 
 not pretended that these men are Unitarians in all respects. 
 Their words are quoted to show how rapid and general the 
 movement of thought in this direction really is. 
 
 It was not upon his deity nor yet upon the perfection of his 
 humanity, that his [Jesus'] disciples founded the Christian church. 
 The men whom he gathered about him regarded him in neither of 
 these aspects. They thought of him only as the Messiah. . . . 
 He is not represented [in Acts] as a pre-existent, heavenly being, 
 but simply as a man approved of God and chosen by him to be the 
 Messiah aDd then raised by him to the position of Lord. Of the 
 Pauline conception that he had returned to the glory which was 
 originally his [as a being subordinate to God], we have no hint in 
 these early records. 
 
 "Apostolic Age" (1S97), pp. 31, 55. By Prof. Arthur 
 C. McGiffert, Union Theological Seminary, New York. 
 
 Since Jesus prayed, we must believe that he felt a need of 
 prayer. He offered sincere thanks and sincere supplications for 
 
33 
 
 the Father's help. He looked away from himself as one con- 
 sciously dependent. He subordinated his will to a higher will 
 (Mark xiv. 36). He secured inward quietness and strength by 
 casting himself upon the will of God. Now in all these situations 
 Jesus comes before us as a true man. There is the same creaturely 
 dependence that we find in ourselves. Jesus did not have one kind 
 of prayer for himself and another kind for his disciples. As he 
 approached God with the name Father, so he taught his disciples 
 to do. The prayers of Jesus can all be prayed by his followers, as 
 far as their circumstances correspond with his. There is nothing 
 in them that suggests a consciousness other than that of an ideal 
 
 man. 
 
 "Revelation of Jesus" (1899), p. 169. By Prof. 
 George H. Gilbert, Chicago Theological Seminary. 
 
 Read all the books of Christian devotion from the earliest to the 
 latest, and you will find that what they dwell upon, when they are 
 not merely repeating the words of the creeds but speaking in the 
 language of religious experience, is that Christ is divine, just be- 
 cause he is the most human of men, the man in whom the univer- 
 sal spirit of humanity has found its fullest expression ; and that, 
 on the other hand, he is the ideal or typical man, the Son of Man 
 who reveals what is in humanity, just because he is the purest reve- 
 lation of God in man. ... In truth, the attempts of theology to 
 raise Christ above the conditions of human life, and to give him a 
 metaphysical or physical greatness of another kind, really end in 
 lowering him and depriving him of his true position in the religious 
 life of man. 
 
 " Evolution of Religion " (1893), vol. ii. p. 233. 
 By Prof. Edward Caird, Oxford University. 
 
 Another signal example of the ethical development of doctrine is 
 found in conceptions of the person of Christ. The change has 
 amounted to a recovery of his humanity. Until recently, the 
 Christians of America and England, with the exception of the 
 Unitarians, believed that Jesus possessed and exercised all the at- 
 tributes of God. . . . But now, although there are many who re- 
 tain the old view, the theologians, thinkers, and scholars of the 
 church believe that Christ was under the actual limitations of 
 human nature. In knowledge he was not omniscient. He gained 
 information as other men did. He shared the opinions of his 
 time as to the universe, and in other essential respects was truly 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 human. He had wonderful insight, but he did not have omni- 
 science. 
 
 "Moral Evolution" (1896), p. 403. By Prof. George Harris, President 
 of Amherst College. Formerly professor at Andover Theological Seminary. 
 
 The whole christology of the Fourth Gospel is radically differ- 
 ent from that of the Synoptics, and indicates a long process of 
 evolution. As we have seen, the Synoptic Gospels hold the view of 
 Christ's Messianic character. He is the promised anointed one 
 of David's royal line. There is no hint [in the first three Gospels] 
 of a superhuman pre-existence, or of a Logos doctrine. . . . His 
 [Jesus'] doctrine of God's attitude to man was that of a Father 
 ready to forgive every penitent, not that of an offended Being who 
 demanded a ransom in the way of a bloody sacrifice. Such a 
 view of God is repugnant to him. The later doctrine of a media- 
 tor who comes between two parties that are estranged in order to 
 reconcile them by the shedding of his blood seems never to have 
 
 occurred to him. 
 
 "Evolution of Trinitarianism " (1900), pp. 291, 342. By 
 Prof. Levi L. Paine, Bangor Theological Seminary. 
 
 A short time before his death, Prof. Max Miiller, of Oxford 
 University, published this statement : " What for us can there 
 be higher than a man ? Angels we have never seen, nor any- 
 thing higher than man. That is what Christ himself has 
 taught us ; he calls us his brothers and the sons of the same 
 Father. What can be higher? He does not claim for him- 
 self a nature different from ours. Take his own account of 
 himself, ' I go to my Father and your Father.' We must not 
 make him contradict himself." 
 
 In the " Encyclopsedia Biblica " (vol. ii. 1901) there is a 
 remarkable article on " Jesus " by the late Rev. Dr. A. B. 
 Bruce, of the Free Church College, Glasgow, an eminent and 
 conservative Scotch Presbyterian clergyman. The whole 
 article is very broad, though somewhat timid and indistinct. 
 This paragraph will show its modern spirit : 
 
 The words of Jesus concerning the future show limitation of 
 vision. In other directions we may discover indications that he 
 was the child of his time and people. But his spiritual intuitions 
 
35 
 
 are pure truth, valid for all ages. God, man, and the moral ideal 
 cannot be more truly or happily conceived. Far from having out- 
 grown his thoughts on these themes, we are only beginning to 
 perceive their true significance. How long it will be before full 
 effect shall be given to his radical doctrine of the dignity of man ! 
 
 This great work, the Encyclopedia Biblica, is itself a most 
 promising sign of religious progress. Its leading editor, Rev. 
 Dr. Thomas K. Cheyne, is a clergyman of the Church of 
 England and a distinguished professor at Oxford. Its con- 
 tributors are eminent divines or University professors. But 
 the articles all represent advanced scholarship ; some, like the 
 longest and most notable on the Gospels, are extremely radical, 
 more radical than the positions of many Unitarians. A rational 
 interpretation of religion, including the humanity of Jesus, is 
 everywhere implied or expressed. 
 
 Prof. Adolph Harnack of the University of Berlin, who 
 stands at the head of the scholars of the world in the depart- 
 ment of church history, is a conservative student and a pro- 
 foundly religious man. His opinions, therefore, carry the 
 very greatest weight. He unreservedly admits, in a recent 
 work, the truth of the proposition for which Unitarians have 
 long contended, namely, that the deification of Jesus has no 
 warrant in Scripture or in fact, but was due to his association 
 with the Logos philosophy of Alexandria. It was not an 
 original part of Christianity, but a slow growth beginning in 
 the second century. He writes : 
 
 The identification of the Logos [which had been thought of as 
 an intermediate creative power or person between the Almighty 
 and the Universe] with Christ was the determining factor in the 
 fusion of Greek philosophy with the apostolic inheritance, and led 
 the more thoughtful Greeks to accept the latter. Most of us regard 
 this identification as inadmissible, because the way in which we 
 conceive the world and ethics does not point to the existence of 
 any logos at all ! 
 
 Professor Harnack points out that the purpose of the Fourth 
 Gospel (written at the beginning of the second century, but 
 
36 
 
 not by the Apostle John) was to carry out the identification 
 of Jesus with the Logos. Jesus was given a central place m 
 a philosophy of creation, and this philosophy was provided with 
 a personal realization or historical embodiment. This Gospel 
 contains some noble thoughts and affords many true glimpses 
 of Jesus, but his figure is more or less distorted by the mists 
 of Greek mysticism j and the writing, as Harnack states, 
 "cannot be taken as an historical authority in the ordinary 
 meaning of the word." This assured conclusion of Biblical 
 scholarship is of great benefit to religion in several ways : it 
 frees us from mere speculations, which are now useless; it 
 simplifies religious teaching ; and it enables us to gain a clearer 
 and truer view of Jesus. 
 
 The admiration of Professor Hamack for Jesus is un- 
 bounded, but it is admiration for a purely human character : 
 
 Jesus is certain that everything which he has and everything 
 which he is to accomplish comas from this Father. He prays to 
 him; he subjects himsalf to his will; he struggles hard to find out 
 what it is and to fulfil it. Aim, strength, understanding, the issue, 
 and the hard must, all come from the Father. This is what the 
 Gospels say, and it cannot be turned or twisted. This feeling, 
 praying, working, struggling, and suffering individual is a man who 
 in the face of his God also associates himself with other men. 
 
 " What is Christianity?" (1901), pp. 126, 204. 
 
 Among the most significant " signs of promise " at present 
 maybe mentioned the admissions made in several of the books 
 in the series of "New Testament Handbooks" now being 
 issued under the editorship of Prof. Shailer Mathews, of the 
 University of Chicago. Especially significant because these 
 little treatises are designed for use largely by Sunday-school 
 teachers, and we should naturally expect a cautious and con- 
 servative treatment of all these subjects. 
 
 For years, Unitarians have taught that the story of Jesus as 
 given in the first three Gospels represents him as a real man in 
 loving obedience to God with no claim to deity, that the Book 
 
37 
 
 of Acts reports the belief of the original church as purely 
 humanitarian, and that in the Fourth Gospel we have a theo- 
 logical discussion about Jesus which reflects a late and phil- 
 osophical theory of his nature, with assertions of a divine rank 
 which Jesus did not himself make. All these positions are 
 now accepted by the writer of one of these books, as the 
 following quotations will show : 
 
 " In fact, all the way through [the first three Gospels], the 
 secret of our Lord's life is his communion with God. But just 
 here also is the perfection of his manhood." Of the view of 
 Jesus held by the first Christians at Jerusalem, even after his 
 ascension, as described in Acts, it is stated : " In heaven as on 
 earth he [Jesus] is commended, attested, exalted, empowered by 
 God, but there is no hint of a more intimate relation. . . . The 
 death of Jesus is not regarded by the early disciples as atoning or 
 vicarious." The admission is frank and complete that in the 
 Fourth Gospel we have a mystical doctrine about Jesus, largely 
 speculative and unhistorical : " The proof that the Logos of the 
 Prologue [John i. 1-18] is the Alexandrian Logos is that the word 
 is here hypostatised." 
 
 "Biblical Theology of the New Testament" (1900), pp. 39, 53, 54, 183. By 
 Prof. Ezra P. Gould, Protestant Episcopal Divinity School, Philadelphia. 
 
 When it is admitted that theological mysticism rather than 
 historical accuracy is foremost in the Fourth Gospel, the way is 
 cleared for the humanity of Jesus and a more ethical use of 
 his name. And it is just this admission that is clearly made 
 in another work belonging to this series, the best book so 
 far printed in the English language on the subject which it 
 discusses. The language is this (referring to the Fourth 
 Gospel) : 
 
 "The work as a whole [is] adapted to the author's purpose 
 of theological exposition and interpretation, in a manner wholly 
 incompatible with the clear, historical recollection of an eye- 
 witness. . . . The outline of the career of Jesus is sketched in a 
 manner not merely out of harmony with the triple tradition [of 
 the first three Gospels], but irreconcilable with the historical situa- 
 tion, and with the narrative itself." In other words, the largely 
 
33 
 
 unhistorical Christ of the Fourth Gospel must be surrendered and 
 we must go back to the first three Gospels for the real Jesus. 
 When this is done, the mystical God-Man vanishes and we find 
 ourselves in the presence of a real man, who is vastly more lovable 
 
 and helpful. 
 
 " Introduction to the New Testament" (1900), pp. 252. 260. By 
 Prof. Benjamin \V. Bacon, Divinity School, Yale University. 
 
 We need give only brief attention to a few sub- 
 vn 
 Minor Matters j ects : The stories of Jesus' miraculous birth are 
 
 Respecting poetic legends similar to those that have grown up 
 
 around many other great historic characters. They 
 
 reflect and report the deep impression which he made and 
 
 the noble spirit which he displayed in his life. Jesus was 
 
 undoubtedly born at Nazareth, the child of lawful wedlock, 
 
 Joseph being his real father, as Mary herself declared, Luke 
 
 ii. 48. 
 
 It is needless to spend time in these days in discussing the 
 accounts of wonders wrought by Jesus. They were not, to the 
 people then living, what we call miracles (violations or suspen- 
 sions of natural laws) ; for the scientific conception of nature 
 as a reign of law did not then exist. Jesus probably had 
 remarkable power over people sick in body and mind. From 
 this nucleus of fact, the poetic tendency of the time, under the 
 influence of Scripture (especially the so-called Messianic pas- 
 sages), produced these stories which bear the water-marks of 
 the age in which they sprang up. As Jesus himself invented 
 parables freely to convey his lessons, so his disciples wove these 
 parables about him to symbolize and publish their beliefs in ref- 
 erence to him. This is the general conclusion which the 
 religious teachers of our day are rapidly accepting. When this 
 position shall be fully occupied, then the real Jesus will shine 
 with brighter light and religion will work with greater power. 
 
 Jesus was in no strict sense the fulfilment of the so-called 
 Messianic predictions of the Old Testament, which vary widely 
 in character, while only a few relate to a personal Messiah. 
 He was not the Messiah foretold or expected. He was 
 
39 
 
 immeasurably greater, — a sublimely original character, rooted 
 in Judaism but transcending Judaism. 
 
 The crucifixion of Jesus is the most pathetic and inspiring 
 event in human history. It is the revelation of the divine 
 capacity of human nature and the demonstration of Jesus' 
 spiritual heroism. The cross is not the scene of a payment 
 for our sins, but the evidence of what the soul can achieve ; 
 not a screen to hide our sins from God, but a source of inspira- 
 tion helping us to outgrow our sins. The suffering of Jesus on 
 the cross opens heaven to us only as it moves us to live the 
 heavenly life, — to suffer ourselves that we may enrich the lives 
 of others. The cross did not purchase God's love for us. 
 That is a hateful and immoral doctrine. 
 
 There are insuperable obstacles in the way of believing in 
 the bodily resurrection of Jesus. The first form of this belief 
 was simply that Jesus was risen from the dead (not the 
 "grave") and alive at God's right hand (Acts ii. 22-33, 
 iii. 15, iv. 10). The sepulchre legends grew up later. The 
 belief in the resurrection of Jesus did not create Christianity. 
 The love of the disciples for Jesus — the motive and impulse 
 of Christianity — produced by his lovableness, created this 
 belief, which worked itself out along divergent lines from inci- 
 dents and experiences now beyond our reach. These varying 
 stories at the close of the Gospels, photographed at different 
 stages of growth, cannot be harmonized. All effort to this 
 end is labor wasted. This conclusion, toward which reverent 
 scholarship at present tends, does not degrade Jesus or de- 
 stroy Christianity. It enables us to be at the same time sci- 
 entific and religious, to accept modern discovery and also to 
 keep our love for Jesus. ' 
 
 We cannot for a moment admit that the blood of Jesus 
 made God propitious, or that faith in it releases us instantly 
 from the punishment of our sins. This seems to us an 
 immoral and irrational materialism. We protest against the 
 sacrificial interpretation of Jesus' death. Jesus never intimated 
 
40 
 
 that he must shed his blood to make God love humanity. 
 When the early Christians alluded to his blood, they had his 
 life in mind, for in that age " life " and " blood " were inter- 
 changeable terms. As Ignatius wrote (about 117) : " Be ye 
 renewed ... in love, that is, the blood of Jesus Christ." 
 
 These and many other difficulties vanish as soon 
 Jesus and as we consider Jesus a purely human character. 
 Present Life T}le q UOtat j ons j ust given, all point to this end. 
 They multiply with geometrical ratio as the years pass. They 
 illustrate the irresistible influence and authority of the facts 
 themselves. Sooner or later all religious thinking has to be 
 adjusted to reality. As soon as the facts in the Gospel records 
 are held in the light of the scientific spirit, as soon as Jesus is 
 put clearly on the stage of real history, and as soon as the 
 laws of human nature are applied to this subject, only one 
 conclusion is possible — the humanity of Jesus. 
 
 This is a result to be welcomed rather than resisted, especially 
 by the friends of Jesus and the champions of Christianity. 
 The scientist, to hold to Jesus at all, must fit him to the real 
 universe of law and order. The historian, to keep his faith in 
 human evolution, must recognize in Jesus a natural product 
 of human and historical forces. The philanthropist, to find 
 the largest helpfulness in Jesus as he tells his story to sinner 
 and sufferer, must set him forth as one who reveals the pro- 
 mise and possibility of the human soul. Therefore, if religion 
 is to command the attention of thinkers and vitalize the work 
 of reformers, it must present a doctrine of Jesus that is human 
 and historical. Just so far as the force of these facts is felt, — 
 and sooner or later all must yield to it, — the humanity of 
 Jesus must be accepted. 
 
 The point I wish to emphasize is this : In view of the testi- 
 monies just given, which report the inevitable trend of religious 
 thought, we may confidently affirm that there is no longer need 
 for more debate on this point. The old textual and dogmatic 
 arguments are not only pointless, but practically obsolete. 
 
4i 
 
 This is great relief and gain for both conservative and liberal. 
 The humanity of Jesus may now be assumed like the law of 
 gravitation. It is fast becoming an essential part of the 
 thought of the world. Having, therefore, put behind us the 
 old notions, and having reached a wider outlook upon human 
 life, we find ourselves facing a new field of opportunity in 
 religion. The religious teacher may now devote himself to 
 scores of more interesting and practical themes. He now has 
 more time for the spirit and message of Jesus as they apply 
 to common human experience. He can come down from the 
 vague mysticism of the triune God and press home the plead- 
 ings and inspirations of Jesus to godliness. 
 
 The task at present before us is to work from this stand- 
 point, and make the character and teaching of Jesus more 
 vital and creative than ever before. We must use his edu- 
 cating personality to chasten every wayward activity and 
 to unfold every dormant human capacity. We must bring 
 to bear his self-control and self-sacrifice to extinguish the 
 animal selfishness. We must apply his spirit to human 
 society as an organic enthusiasm. We must present him as 
 an infinite encouragement to every one in misery, tempta- 
 tion, and despair. We must bring his life to bear upon 
 human hearts to make them pure, heroic, loving, and fruitful 
 in every good work. We must lead men through him to the 
 discovery of God as Father and the recognition of their 
 neighbor as a brother. All the indications of the hour show 
 us that this is coming. The real human Jesus will be more 
 loved, honored, and obeyed than the Christ of the creeds. 
 K The answer to the question, What is salvation? 
 
 Salvation j s involved in the larger question, What is this 
 universe? If we live in a miracle-universe, where God sits 
 just above the clouds as a bookkeeper, making black marks 
 against our names as we sin, and then rubbing them out if we 
 will believe certain things about the sacrificial Christ, then the 
 way of salvation is very easy. But no such universe as that 
 
42 
 
 really exists. The whole scheme is the childish fancy of a far- 
 off time. In the real universe our sins make their mark, but 
 the sinner can turn from his sins. The Infinite Father is 
 always at hand ready to help him repent. He does not 
 demand satisfaction, but righteousness. The old scars cannot 
 be hidden behind the cross, but they can be outgrown. Our 
 sins are not debts for which some one must settle, but defects 
 which we must conquer and outgrow. Jesus does not rescue 
 us from the punishment of our sins, but he helps us shed our 
 sinfulness. 
 
 When men believed in a miracle-universe they imagined 
 that, after doing wrong for a lifetime, they could step, in a 
 moment, under a faucet of supernatural grace and be washed 
 clean, and, by pressing a button, an angel would come with a 
 white robe, and, clothed in the merits of Jesus, they could go 
 triumphantly into heaven ! But that theological dreamland 
 has faded away. No such universe exists. The way to heaven 
 is always open before the sinner. But it opens through repent- 
 ance and righteousness. It runs, not through the blood shed 
 on Calvary, but through the spirit of love which Jesus sublimely 
 illustrated on the cross. The angels are near to robe us in 
 white if we live a white life from the heart out. The way of 
 salvation in the real universe is the way of spiritual growth and 
 beneficent service. Jesus is divine helpfulness to any soul so 
 far, and only so far, as he moves that soul to live as he lived. 
 A Creator who needs propitiation is not Jesus' merciful 
 Father, but a monster. When we represent God as engaged in 
 imputing the merits of Jesus to sinners, and passing them into 
 heaven under cover of his blood, we strip God of the attributes 
 that make him worthy our respect and love. The teaching 
 that God will accept belief in Jesus' self-sacrificing love for 
 loving-kindness itself, is tainted with atheism. If God be God, 
 he will not bargain with himself, nor allow us to hide behind 
 the cross ; he will help man to be the goodness which he 
 demands and which alone is salvation ! From such traffic at 
 
43 
 
 the throne, which was the way of salvation described by the 
 old theologians, it would be a relief to escape into agnosticism. 
 Salvation is not a commercial transaction but the enrichment 
 of life ; it is not an escape from punishment but a growth 
 toward perfection. 
 
 If man is what history declares him to be, there was no fall 
 of Adam, and all the redemptive schemes rooted in that fiction 
 become unreal and needless. If man is what education and 
 philanthropy prove him to be, he has native capacity for 
 progress, reform, and divine service. If man's needs are what 
 our daily experiences illustrate, his way of salvation lies through 
 culture, character, repentance, and self-sacrifice. If God is 
 what the discoveries of science indicate, the talk about sacri- 
 ficial propitiation is little less than profanity. If the declara- 
 tion of moral science is correct that merit cannot be trans- 
 ferred by imputation, the scheme of sacrificial atonement has 
 no basis in reality. If Jesus' teaching is true that God is a 
 divine Father who simply demands repentance and righteous- 
 ness, then salvation is the love and purity which all — Christian 
 and Non- Christian — may possess. And if really a divine 
 Father, God will give all human beings an opportunity to 
 acquire some fraction of these saving graces, whether they hear 
 of Jesus or not. 
 
 As Unitarians, we affirm the glorious gospel of the blessed 
 God, that " character " is salvation. Purity, love, justice, 
 reverence, and mercy are the essentials of religion. We are 
 friends of God so far as we are forgiving, helpful, devout, and 
 truthful. We are in heaven so far as we live the heavenly life. 
 Our spirituality is our salvation. But here it ought to be frankly 
 stated that salvation is not a term in common use among 
 Unitarians, partly because they object to the false views of life 
 so long associated with it (the implications of total depravity, 
 captivity by Satan, and God's wrath), but chiefly because they 
 feel that what man really needs is something much larger than 
 the mere release from punishment, which has too often been the 
 
44 
 
 main thought. They emphasize the necessity of turning from 
 wrong -doing, but the most important dutVyis growth in wisdom 
 and righteousness : the realization of one's divine possibility. 
 X As children of the living God, we feel the assur- 
 
 ortaiity ance f a future life. God gives man this immortal 
 hope. It persists as an irresistible and indestructible convic- 
 tion in the human heart. And as God gives it to man, he is 
 responsible for its fulfilment. God does not give birds wings 
 for flight and no air in which to fly. In yielding ourselves to 
 this great yearning of the heart we lean on the integrity of the 
 universe. God cannot be so cruel as to create in us a false 
 hope. No just parent would raise an expectation in his child 
 merely to deceive it. He who is truth cannot feed men upon 
 lies. Our nature, the workmanship of God, compels this 
 anticipation ; we must trust it. 
 
 Our destiny will be shaped by the quality of our life. We 
 shall import to that heavenly realm whatever heavenly things 
 we shall have imported into our hearts here. The day of 
 judgment is forever in progress, because everything bears fruit 
 and makes a record. We always stand in God's presence, 
 and at the bar of an infinite justice that is infinite love. 
 The divine forgiveness follows the human forgiveness. We 
 are forgiven in so far as we are forgiving, regardless of creed or 
 race or time or place. This is the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 As this life is vastly more than a mere probation, we can- 
 not think of the future opportunity of progress as simply a 
 " future probation." But as the doors are open here for re- 
 pentance and reform, we believe that this will be equally true 
 in the life after death. He who has been our loving Father 
 here, will not become a cruel monster the moment after the 
 transition which we call dying. But it would not pay to sin 
 to-day, if we should have a million chances to repent in the mil- 
 lion years to come. We still insist that sorrow will last as 
 long as sin lasts ; and though the door of heaven shall forever 
 remain open, no one can go in without love and purity. 
 
45 
 
 An eternal hell is impossible in a universe that all belongs 
 to God. To believe in it is so far to deny the Eternal Good- 
 ness. The object of punishment is not vindictive but dis- 
 ciplinary, not retribution but education. If the indeterminate 
 sentence is a wise method for the management of criminals, it 
 is a good policy for the universe in the discipline of sinners. 
 The fear of torment is not the motive that creates heaven ; it 
 may restrain an uplifted hand, but it never commissioned a 
 Good Samaritan. There is surely no encouragement to sin in 
 believing that God will continue to be as good as our own 
 hearts, which would save all. The philanthropic men and 
 women who work to-day to rescue every wanderer can no 
 longer believe that the infinite Love who moves them to com- 
 passion will himself overwhelm the same wanderers with ever- 
 lasting misery because of the sin committed during a fleeting 
 moment or from failure to believe an abstruse dogma. And 
 to say that God cannot save all because the human will may 
 finally resist all his efforts, is practically to abolish God himself. 
 It is to make man infinite and God finite. 
 
 Unitarians do not consider church ordinances as 
 Sacraments sacraments with supernatural saving power. They 
 
 follow here the freedom of the spirit, insisting that 
 nothing shall be done as a mere formality, sacred because 
 ancient. Sanctity inheres only in utility. That only is helpful 
 which educates the soul and represents a vital experience. In 
 many Unitarian churches Communion is observed, but always 
 as a purely memorial service, free from sacrificial reference or 
 symbolism. Adult baptism is practically unknown, but the 
 Christening of children is felt by many to be both beautiful 
 and helpful, emphasizing in an impressive manner parental joys 
 and responsibilities. There are some who feel that both these 
 services are too closely associated with outgrown superstitions 
 to be any longer helpful. 
 
 In joining the church (increasing emphasis is rightfully laid 
 upon the ceremony), the new member signs the Bond of Union, 
 
4 6 
 
 or Covenant, and receives from the minister the Right Hand 
 of Fellowship. By the attendance of sympathizing witnesses 
 and by appropriate remarks, this ceremony is made an im- 
 pressive and helpful event in the life of the individual and the 
 church. The young people of the parish are prepared for it 
 by a Confirmation Class, in which (commonly during Lent) 
 they are taught the principles and trained in the sentiments 
 that constitute our religious movement. 
 
 OUR GOSPEL AS DESCRIBED BY OUR 
 LEADERS 
 
 WILLIAM ELLERT CHAjmUf G 
 
 made this statement : " Unitarianism is in harmony with the 
 great and clear principles of revelation ; with the laws and 
 powers of human nature ; with the dictates of the moral sense ; 
 with the noblest instincts and highest aspirations of the soul ; 
 and with the lights which the universe throws on the character 
 of its author. We can hold this doctrine without self-contradic- 
 tion, without rebelling against our rational and moral powers, 
 without putting to silence the divine monitor in the breast. 
 And this is an unspeakable benefit ; for a religion thus co- 
 incident with reason, conscience, and our whole spiritual 
 being, has the foundations of universal empire in the breast ; 
 and the heart, finding no resistance in the intellect, yields itself 
 wholly, cheerfully, without doubts or misgivings, to the love of 
 its Creator." 
 
 JAMES FSEEMAH CLARKE 
 
 briefly stated in the following words the five leading principles 
 of the Unitarian religion commended by Dr. Channing : 
 I. The Fatherhood of God. 
 II. The Brotherhood of Man. 
 
 III. The Leadership of Jesus. 
 
 IV. Salvation by Character. 
 
 V. Progress upward and onward forever. 
 
47 
 
 JAMES MARTDTEAU 
 
 gave this summary of the Unitarian faith : " We believe that 
 when Christianity shall be reborn from its temporary eclipse 
 it will rise again with two commandments instead of ten — 
 the love of God and the love of man; with the beatitudes 
 in place of the creeds ; with a doctrine of self-sacrifice of the 
 human heart in place of a doctrine of atonement ; with a be- 
 lief in the incarnation of God in humanity in the place of the 
 personal incarnation of God in Jesus Christ ; and that by de- 
 grees when that day shall come, man will be united to his 
 Maker by tenderer, deeper, and more powerful ties than yet 
 have been known, and that religion will assert a power greater, 
 more comprehensive, and more healing to man's differences 
 than the world has ever yet seen." 
 
 PRESIDENT CHARLES W. ELIOT, 
 
 of Harvard University, has forcibly described in these words 
 the conviction commonly held among Unitarians respecting 
 Jesus : " He spread abroad, and commended to the minds of 
 many men, the loftiest ethical conceptions the race had won. 
 He vitalized them by his winning and commanding presence, 
 and sent them flying abroad on the wings of his own beautiful 
 and heroic spirit. In a barbarous age he was inevitably given 
 the reward of deification, just as the Pharaohs and Alexanders 
 and Caesars were ; and his memory was surrounded by clouds 
 of marvel and miracle during the four or five generations which 
 passed before the Gospels took any settled form. The nine- 
 teenth century has done much to disengage him in the 
 Protestant mind from these encumbrances ; and the twentieth 
 century will do more to set him forth simply and grandly as 
 the loveliest and best of human seers, teachers, and heroes. 
 Let no man fear that reverence and love for Jesus will dimin- 
 ish as time goes on. The pathos and the heroism of his life 
 and death will be vastly heightened when he is relieved of all 
 supernatural attributes and powers. The human hero must 
 
4 8 
 
 not have foreknowledge of the glorious issue of his sacrifices 
 and pains ; he must not be sure that his cause will triumph ; 
 he must suffer and die without knowing what his sacrifice will 
 bring forth. The human exemplar should have only human 
 gifts and faculties. If these principles are true, the more 
 completely progressive liberalism detects and rejects the mis- 
 understandings and superstitions with which the oral tradition 
 and written record concerning the life of Jesus were inevitably 
 corrupted, the more will love and reverence grow for the 
 splendors of truth and moral beauty which, as a matter of 
 indubitable fact, have shone from the character and teachings 
 of this Jewish youth." 
 
 BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM 
 
 The assertion is often made : The Unitarians have never 
 done anything to help the world. It is true that we have not 
 done as much as we ought. And in discussing this subject 
 we would not foster an unseemly pride or indulge in boast- 
 ing. But we are willing to let the facts speak for them- 
 selves. The record shows that Unitarians have been fruitful 
 in good works far beyond what could reasonably have been 
 expected of them. 
 
 I Our American churches have never embraced more 
 
 Literature tnan gne two-hundredth part of the population of 
 the United States. If, therefore, our people have contributed 
 one two-hundredth to the various beneficent activities of our 
 country, our faith will show an average fruitfulness. Any larger 
 proportion than this means so much extra credit. Let us 
 then, from this point of view, consider a few facts. 
 
 On the ceiling of the vestibule of the Boston Public Library 
 are the names of some score and a half Americans who have 
 been most eminent in art and literature, in law and science. 
 Of those belonging to the nineteenth century nearly four-fifths 
 are the names of Unitarians — some hundred and fifty times 
 
49 
 
 our proportion ! Chief Justice Coleridge of England, in mak- 
 ing an address at a banquet when in this country a few years 
 ago, referred to the American authors most known and honored 
 abroad. Every one whom he mentioned was a Unitarian ! 
 
 In any list of the thirty most eminent Americans in litera- 
 ture that may be made, we shall find at the head Emerson, 
 and after him will come Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Bryant, 
 Bancroft, Motley, Prescott, Parkman, Margaret Fuller, Miss 
 Alcott, Channing, Julia Ward Howe, Thoreau, Hawthorne, — 
 we will not include Whittier, although he and others, while not 
 nominally Unitarians, yet held Unitarian views in religion. 
 We can claim at least half the names in such a list, however 
 made up, and these by far the most distinguished. Or, in 
 other words, about a hundred times our proportion. 
 
 Another list of names could be made of those distinctly or 
 essentially Unitarian, that would contain as many distinguished 
 persons as could be found outside our fellowship, such as : 
 Bayard Taylor, George William Curtis, Helen Hunt, Bret 
 Harte, Henry C. Lea, Edwin P. Whipple, William R. Alger, 
 Thomas Wentworth Higginson, ,0. B. Frothingham, Mrs. 
 A. D. T. Whitney, John Fiske, Jared Sparks, George Ripley, 
 Charles Eliot Norton, James T. Fields, Richard Hildreth, 
 J. T. Trowbridge, and many others. And we do not mention 
 here many eminent persons who will appear in some other 
 line of activity. In the series of biographies known as 
 "American Men of Letters," published by Houghton, Mifflin 
 & Co., eleven of the eighteen are the lives of Unitarians, not 
 including the Unitarian Quaker, Whittier. 
 
 We have not been as active in sending preachers to foreign 
 parts to plant churches as other religious bodies. But we 
 have put " books of life " into the hands of millions from the 
 logging camp of Maine to the miner's hut on the Rockies. 
 We would not depreciate the work of others, for there are 
 diversities of divine service ; but we contend that a church 
 which has made it possible to put the poems of Longfellow 
 
 i 
 
So 
 
 and the essays of Emerson into the sod house in Kansas 
 has done as true and noble missionary work as was ever done 
 by circuit rider. Both kinds of work were needed, and let 
 each church honor the other's mission. We do not claim that 
 the literary pre-eminence of these men was solely due to their 
 Unitarian views, nor do we hold that Unitarians are neces- 
 sarily especially gifted with literary genius; but it is fair to 
 appeal to them as an illustration of what Unitarians have done 
 
 for the world. 
 
 H In the " History of Education " by the well known 
 
 Education French author, Compayre, the two names men- 
 tioned in the chapter on the United States are William Ellery 
 Channing and Horace Mann — both Unitarians ! When we 
 add to these the names of Elizabeth P. Peabody, the pioneer in 
 Kindergarten work in America ; William G. Eliot, our apostle 
 of all the humanities at St. Louis and the founder of Washing- 
 ton University ; Ezra Cornell, who made the institution bearing 
 his name possible ; Peter Cooper, who created Cooper Insti- 
 tute, a pioneer in its line ; Jonas G. Clark, who created Clark 
 University ; Dr. Samuel G. Howe, the teacher of the blind ; 
 President Charles W. Eliot, who in reorganizing and developing 
 Harvard University has done a monumental work for education 
 in America, — we have at least a quarter of the names of those 
 most influential in the educational progress of our land during 
 the past century, — a number out of all proportion to our size 
 as a religious body. 
 
 m Some of the activities along these lines have already 
 
 Philanthropies been indicated : but there are others to be added, 
 and Reforms an( j tngy may ^ re p resente( j j,y tne f H ow j n g 
 
 names : Joseph Tuckerman, the first in this country to organize 
 charity work (in Boston) according to what we now know as 
 approved scientific methods; Dorothea L. Dix, the world's 
 greatest philanthropist among women ; Henry Berg, who in- 
 augurated the work for the suppression of cruelty to animals ; 
 John Pierpont, the fiery advocate of all reforms, but more 
 
Si 
 
 especially temperance ; Susan B. Anthony, Mary A. Livermore, 
 Samuel J. May, names that represent some of the noblest 
 efforts ever made for the higher life of the race; Henry W. 
 Bellows, who was the creative and presiding genius of the 
 Sanitary Commission ; Edward Everett Hale, wonderfully fer- 
 tile in suggestion, setting multitudes at work in many ways for 
 human helpfulness. When we add Dr. Channing, who sowed 
 the seed from which a world-wide harvest of humanities has 
 ripened, we have ten in any list of the twenty-five names of 
 the most eminent Americans belonging to this class. Nearly 
 a hundredfold more than our proportion ! S 
 
 ^ No civic movement, in our national history dur- 
 
 (Hvii Service ing recent years, has represented a higher moral 
 Reform impulse or been more beneficial to our political life 
 
 than the reform of our Civil Service. The man who started 
 this agitation, Representative Jenckes of Rhode Island, was 
 a Unitarian. Rev. Dr. James Freeman Clarke and Rev. 
 Dr. Henry W. Bellows (Unitarians) were for a long time 
 the only clergymen of prominence who gave this reform 
 earnest and untiring support. George William Curtis and 
 Dorman B. Eaton (both Unitarians) shared, with Carl Schurz, 
 the leadership of this great movement. The two men who 
 were its most valiant and powerful advocates in the Senate for 
 years were Hoar and Burnside (Unitarians). Though the 
 smallest of churches, we have played the largest part in this 
 vital reformation of our national life. -' 
 
 v In a work just published, "The Men who made 
 
 Statesmen the Nation," by Professor Sparks of Chicago Uni- 
 aad Jurists vers j tV) ^ e contributions of a dozen men to our 
 national life are described. Of these, two were definitely 
 Unitarian, — John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Four others 
 held our religious views, — Benjamin Franklin, Horace Greeley 
 (Universalist), Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln, who, 
 though not wearing the Unitarian name, defined his religious 
 position in exactly the words in which our National Conference 
 
5 2 
 
 describes its platform : Love to God and love to Man. It is 
 universally admitted that Washington, though an attendant at 
 the Episcopal church, agreed substantially with the religious 
 opinions of his Unitarian friends, Adams and Jefferson. Two 
 other Presidents have been Unitarians, — John Quincy Adams 
 and Millard Fillmore. In the catalogue of distinguished states- 
 men who have held our faith, we find these, beside many others : 
 Edward Everett, Charles Sumner, John C. Calhoun, and the 
 great war governors John A. Andrew and Austin Blair. It is an 
 interesting and significant fact that nine of the twenty-eight 
 persons included in the " American Statesmen Series " 
 (Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.) were Unitarians — vastly more 
 than what could reasonably be called our share. 
 
 Among jurists of highest national renown may be mentioned 
 Joseph Story, Theophilus Parsons, Lemuel Shaw, Samuel F. 
 Miller, and John Marshall (the recent doubts raised in refer- 
 ence to his religious position on the Unitarian side are vague 
 and trivial). We have here about a score of prominent 
 Americans who would be included among the hundred most 
 eminent public men in America. Many others, like Thomas 
 M. Cooley, have held our views though nominally connected 
 with other churches. 
 
 _ The mention of five names will show that we have 
 
 Religions not been destitute of powerful advocates of a most 
 " spiritual and affirmative Gospel, — William Ellery 
 
 Channing, called, by Baron Bunsen, " a prophet of the Christian 
 consciousness of the future," whose pages are deserving a far 
 wider study than they receive ; Orville Dewey, the impassioned 
 advocate of a most practical piety ; Theodore Parker, " the 
 Jupiter of the American pulpit ; " Thomas Starr King, regal as 
 a king in pulpit power and brilliant as a star in spiritual illu- 
 mination ; Frederick Henry Hedge, in whose " Ways of the 
 Spirit " thousands have found peace and by whose " Reason in 
 Religion" thousands have been delivered from doubt and 
 superstition. We say it in humility, without boasting : We have 
 
53 
 
 been only a small handful of people, and often accused of doing 
 nothing for the world, but we are willing to match these religious 
 teachers, for eloquence, spirituality, inspiration to philanthropy, 
 and general influence upon the life of the nation, with an equal 
 number of men produced by the largest churches in the land, 
 yj. Unitarians are often condemned as cold and un- 
 
 Hymn spiritual. Many have lacked the gift of enthusi- 
 
 Writers as m. This defect is, however, probably more due 
 
 to the New England temperament than to the Unitarian faith. 
 This form of religious sentiment cannot, however, be destitute 
 of spirituality, for it has produced many of the hymns most 
 popular in all churches. To whatever church we may go, if we 
 look into the hymn-book there used, we shall find hymns by 
 Sears, Johnson, Longfellow (Samuel), Chad wick, Gannett, 
 Hosmer, Furness, Hedge, and others (to refer only to Amer- 
 ican Unitarians), — a fact which reminds us that, while we may 
 have opposed much in the creeds of the other churches, we 
 have made large contributions to their worship. This appeal 
 to the hymn-books shows that what we have done to enrich the 
 songs of the sanctuary is far in excess of our numerical 
 strength. The proportion of hymns in general use and 
 written by Unitarians is everywhere surprisingly large. 
 
 In 1892 appeared an attractive little book, "The World's 
 Best Hymns," by Prof. J. W. Churchill of Andover Theological 
 Seminary, a competent authority who would not, however, be 
 likely to make a selection too favorable to us. The author 
 presents nearly a hundred hymns, ancient and modern, that he 
 considers most worthy of honor. Of those written in the 
 nineteenth century, about one-fifth are the works of Unitarians, 
 some forty times our proportion, showing certainly a reason- 
 able fruitfulness in devotional poetry. 
 
 Recently tablets were dedicated in the Hall of Fame in 
 New York City to twenty-nine distinguished Americans who 
 had been selected for these highest honors by the votes of a 
 largs and competent jury. Of this number, the following 
 
54 
 
 twelve, or eighty-times our proportion, were Unitarians : Emer- 
 son, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Horace Mann, Peter Cooper, 
 Channing, John Marshall, Joseph Story, John Adams, Franklin, 
 Jefferson, and Webster. 
 
 This brief record of things done for the higher life of man, 
 the common life of humanity, is not made for self-glorification. 
 The object has not been to claim superiority over our brothers 
 in other churches. We gladly admit that they can show a 
 long line of saints and heroes. They, too, can decorate them- 
 selves with many illustrious names. 
 
 Our sole purpose has been to make it clear that Unitarians 
 have been reasonably active in good works ; and that this faith 
 cannot be condemned as unfruitful. The record proves that 
 we have done a fair share of the work for the enrichment of 
 human life and the amelioration of its miseries. This form of 
 faith has not destroyed the humanitarian sentiment; rather 
 it has fostered philanthropic efforts of every kind. 
 
 The record in our behalf could easily be made much 
 stronger than it has been stated. Wherever there are Unita- 
 rians they are active in all humanitarian enterprises. They 
 generally take the initiative in many beautiful ministries, like 
 the Flower Mission, the Country Week, the Free Kindergar- 
 ten, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Organization 
 of Charity. Many activities have not here been mentioned, 
 and many distinguished laborers have not been named for lack 
 of space. For obvious reasons chief attention has been given 
 to past rather than present worthies. 
 
 In closing this brief statement, one important fact must be 
 made clear : Unitarians, unlike many other religious people, 
 always work upon the broad platform of universal humanity. 
 We have given most liberally to hospitals, refuges, homes for 
 dependents, and schools ; but this has never been done in a 
 sectarian spirit or for denominational glory. We have never 
 used our benefactions to advertise our creed, nor have we 
 limited our charities to church lines. We have founded no 
 
55 
 
 Unitarian hospitals. That has not been our ideal or method. 
 On this account people in general are often not aware of what 
 we have actually done. 
 
 SLOW GROWTH 
 
 Sometimes the Unitarian church is ridiculed because it is such 
 a small body, and we are tauntingly told that our slow growth 
 proves that our form of religion is unfitted for common people. 
 
 There is, perhaps, some dishonor in being so few in number ; 
 and we have undoubtedly had some faults (deficient warmth 
 and lack of church enterprise) that have done something to 
 prevent a rapid growth. There is, however, nothing so 
 abstruse in our teachings as to place them beyond the average 
 intelligence. Ours is the plainest and simplest Gospel any- 
 where preached. It requires no great effort of head or heart to 
 understand our affirmations. This is fully proved by the fact 
 that thousands of the common people in all Protestant churches 
 substantially believe with us to-day, as every one is aware. 
 
 The chief obstacle in the way of a wide acceptance of our 
 views in the past has lain in another direction. It is this : 
 Those who come to us have to reconstruct their religious opin- 
 ions and ideals. This is always a difficult and often a painful 
 process, — to take down old idols and set up new ideals. This 
 task does require courage, patience, and thoughtfulness. To 
 get rid of inherited notions and prejudices is a difficult work, 
 more difficult than many can perform. But this must be done 
 first. And when done the acceptance of our Gospel is an easy 
 gladness. In a wide experience of a quarter of a century, both 
 among college students and the common people, this fact 
 stands out clear and impressive before me : The difficulty in 
 winning people to the Unitarian position is not inherent in our 
 doctrines. It is the dead-hand of Tradition. It is easy 
 enough to explain our principles ; it is hard for people to rid 
 themselves of prejudice and superstition. 
 
56 
 
 But in a general way Unitarians have reaped as they have 
 sown. We have grown slowly as a denomination because we 
 have not sown sectarianism. We have exerted an influence 
 out of all proportion to our numbers, as the facts in the pre- 
 ceding pages demonstrate ; and we have done this because we 
 have striven to enrich the general life of humanity. We have 
 had missionary zeal, but it has run to nation-making rather 
 than church-organization. Unitarians have elected this larger 
 service, not because indifferent to the church and destitute of 
 love for religion, but because they saw so many other things to 
 do that seemed more important than changing a man's theo- 
 logical opinion, and also because they have never taken a nar- 
 row view of the church as the only agent of salvation. They 
 have loved religion, but they have loved it as something larger 
 and deeper than dogmatic belief or ecclesiastical machinery. 
 
 If the energies that have gone into literature, education, and 
 reform (giving us a harvest in these directions far in excess of 
 what could be expected of us) had been applied to church 
 extension, we should, as Jefferson predicted, have become one 
 of the large religious bodies in the land. But these energies 
 could not work in both directions. Our people were not idle, 
 but their service was humanitarian rather than ecclesiastical. 
 Therefore we must be judged by what we did in our own line, 
 not by what we failed to do along the line of ambition so often 
 followed by other churches. In the very nature of the case, 
 a body suspicious of sectarianism and concerned about 
 humanity in general, could not do great things as a sect. 
 
 The truth is, Unitarians chose to do a national rather than 
 a denominational work, and they must be judged accordingly. 
 While others were out on the frontier organizing churches, our 
 best minds were writing the books that have enriched the 
 homes and filled the libraries of that frontier. While others 
 were giving their money to church enterprises, our rich men, 
 like Amos and Abbott Lawrence, were giving their fortunes to 
 help all other enterprises except Unitarian missions, even 
 
57 
 
 endowing Orthodox colleges ! This was, perhaps, a mistake, 
 but it was not done because they had no interest in their own 
 church. It was because they saw so much to appreciate in all 
 the churches; and also they felt that there was something 
 more necessary in the world than to force their personal theo- 
 logical opinions upon others. 
 
 While the laymen of other churches were laboring heroically 
 to extend their particular Zion, ours, like Dorman B. Eaton 
 and George William Curtis, were using all their energies to 
 reform the Civil Service. Both kinds of work were needed, 
 and the larger churches have done both ; but we gave ourselves 
 so exclusively (perhaps unwisely) to these civic and humani- 
 tarian enterprises that little or no energy was left for church 
 extension. And just because of this fact we are able to show 
 a large surplus of national enrichment to our credit. 
 
 Suppose, for example, that Theodore Parker had used his 
 splendid powers and vast enthusiasm to build up a denomina- 
 tion, as did Alexander Campbell. To-day we should have 
 Unitarian churches by the thousand instead of the hundred. 
 But he worked for other objects : for the freedom of the slave 
 and for the intellectual and spiritual quickening of America. 
 He practically sent out none to found churches ; instead he 
 planted our land everywhere with young men and women who 
 have been leaders in every philanthropic, educational, and re- 
 formatory movement. This certainly was worth doing. 
 
 Peter Cartwright sowed the Mississippi Valley with Metho- 
 dist churches. This was a magnificent work. Thomas Starr 
 King might have planted the seed on the Pacific coast from 
 which hundreds of Unitarian churches would have grown. 
 Instead he saved California to the Union cause. It was 
 better so. The great enthusiasm of Rev. Dr. Henry W. 
 Bellows, if devoted exclusively to church affairs, would per- 
 haps have increased our denomination as fast, proportion- 
 ately, as Bishop Simpson enlarged the bounds of Methodism. 
 But he gave himself to the Sanitary Commission and helped 
 
58 
 
 as much as any general to save the Union. This was worth 
 more than a thousand new Unitarian churches. Thus we see 
 that the chief reason for our slow growth as a sect is in many 
 ways creditable to the Unitarians themselves. 
 
 But our growth as a church has not been as slow in recent 
 years as many suppose. In the score of years from 1880 to 
 1900 the Unitarian churches in America increased 35 per cent, 
 nearly as fast as the growth in population, — a ratio that com- 
 pares very favorably with that of the larger churches. In the 
 same period the contributions to the American Unitarian 
 Association for missionary purposes have doubled. The activ- 
 ities of the Woman's Alliance, of the Sunday School Society, 
 and the Post Office Mission in the free distribution of religious 
 literature are probably over four times as great to-day as they 
 were in 1880. 
 
 But the chief growth of the Unitarian faith has been within 
 what are called the Orthodox churches. The leading thoughts 
 of Channing are preached every Sunday morning in thousands 
 of pulpits that are not Unitarian in name. The views of 
 Parker, Hedge, and Clarke are substantially accepted by 
 hundreds of the progressive ministers in all the Protestant 
 denominations. Hardly a remnant of the old Orthodoxy is 
 left in any prominent city pulpit. It still stands written in the 
 creeds, but it has little or no part in the vital convictions of 
 intelligent people. In the religious newspapers of the land, 
 what have passed as commonplaces among us for years are 
 constantly set forth as discoveries. Frequently an editorial full 
 of Unitarianism stands side by side with a condemnation of the 
 Unitarian church ! Everywhere people boast of their liberality 
 and their indifference to creeds, — admirable when done with 
 sincerity. We, as a church, are not responsible for all of this, 
 though we have done our part to bring it about. It is due 
 largely to the " Time-Spirit." This way of thinking and feeling 
 in religion is now abroad in the land. So that, while our 
 church grows slowly, our ideal is becoming victorious. 
 
59 
 
 On this account some carelessly say : The work of the 
 Unitarian church is done ! Yes, indeed, if its work was ever 
 simply to destroy Orthodoxy as a creed ; for the old Ortho- 
 doxy as a method and system of thought is dead. But no true 
 Unitarian ever so understood or described the Unitarian mis- 
 sion. The task of the Unitarian church has been something 
 infinitely larger and vastly nobler — the cultivation of a rational 
 and spiritual form of piety for the enlargement of humanity 
 in general. From this point of view, the Unitarian church was 
 never more needed than to-day. The growing liberality of 
 other churches no more ends our mission than does the 
 growing enlightenment of the community make the doctor 
 unnecessary. The need was never greater than at present for 
 agencies of ethical quickening and spiritual training. The 
 enemy to be fought is not dogmatism but worldliness. We 
 must use our freedom to establish the noblest ideals in society 
 and in politics. 
 
 OUR SUPREME ASPIRATION 
 
 j The Unitarian strives to represent and embody in 
 
 Hew personal character and civic institution, the New 
 
 Christianity which is rising all about us and which 
 is the simple but mighty gospel of Jesus, enriched by science 
 and democracy, enforced by the philanthropic impulse, and 
 operated through the educational method. It puts character- 
 building above creed-making, deeds of love above dogmas 
 of wrath, service above sacrament, obedience to moral law 
 above belief in theological statements. It makes the Golden 
 Rule central. It uses the Sermon on the Mount rather than 
 the Nicene creed as the chart of life. It appeals to love 
 instead of fear. It encourages growth and discovery rather 
 than conformity of opinion. It pleads for brotherhood and 
 co-operation. It insists on freedom. It uses the Bible, not 
 to make a creed, but to enrich the life. 
 
6o 
 
 The New Christianity finds the service of God in helpfulness 
 to man, the way to heaven in the path of righteousness, the 
 sure salvation in perfected manhood, the only authority in love 
 and reason, an adequate basis of religious organization in a 
 common purpose to be good, and to do good : all truth its 
 scripture, all men its field and fellowship, all loving souls its 
 saints and ministers, a kingdom of heaven for all on earth its 
 ideal and aspiration. 
 
 n We strive to make the Unitarian church the efficient 
 
 Unitarian agent and organic expression of the New Christian- 
 C en ity. We pour into its worship the warmth and 
 
 gladness of an impassioned love for God, the Father of all. 
 We keep our hymns and prayers free from selfish importunity, 
 offensive exhortation, and doctrinal discussion. We make 
 them the simple but earnest outpouring of trustful hearts, 
 wholly intent on personal communion with our Creator. 
 We would shun the trivial speech and flippant spirit 
 that destroy true reverence. We would be free from the 
 mournful tone and affected gravity that spread gloom without 
 bringing solemnity. We would cultivate the dignity and the 
 enthusiasm of a saintly but joyous piety. We would make our 
 worship so catholic, so tender, so vital, that all, of whatever 
 theological opinion, may feel themselves at " the east window 
 of divine surprise." Then tears shall cease, burdens shall 
 fall, and the ecstasy of pure devotion shall fill the soul. 
 
 In the pulpit of this church stands a teacher of sacred things 
 to speak with absolute sincerity, with perfect freedom, and 
 with forceful conviction. He will affirm more than he 
 will deny, using most often words of comfort and of cheer. 
 The pulpit is a watch-tower from which he scans the outer 
 heavens and reports all discoveries that bear upon conduct. 
 To it he fetches out of the depths of his heart, and applies to 
 others for constraint and inspiration, all the spiritual and 
 spiritualizing truths of his own experience. He uses all facts 
 so far as he can make them into a gospel. He is a teacher, 
 
6i 
 
 but a teacher of right living, not intent on making converts to 
 a creed, but anxious only that his message carry repentance to 
 sinners, hope to the sad, and comfort to the suffering, as well 
 as joy and inspiration to the strong and courageous. He 
 administers the spirit of Jesus to enrich and ennoble human 
 life. He tells that wonderful story to make men strong, pure, 
 forgiving, and loving. He uses the Bible to make powerful in 
 human affairs its great lesson of righteousness, — the right- 
 eousness of the heart that brings peace. 
 
 We insist that the church is a precious and paramount insti- 
 tution, because human nature is essentially religious. Religion 
 is not only an important part of life, it is a part that needs 
 wise and careful training. Therefore, those who neglect the 
 church neglect what is highest in themselves and most useful 
 to civilization. Indifference to religious nurture and church 
 service is indifference to our humanity proper. The great 
 spiritual gifts and graces, to cultivate which is the task of the 
 church, are no more likely to spring up in us spontaneously 
 than the mastery of a musical instrument or the command of a 
 foreign tongue. If we are to gather the harvest, we must 
 plant the seed and cultivate the soil. 
 
 We cannot have the beauty and serenity of life in home and 
 neighborhood that are bound up with the Sabbath, unless we 
 maintain the religious uses of this day of rest. And we make 
 the best use of Sunday only when we use it to expand what is 
 best within us, and spend its hours in a manner radically differ- 
 ent than we do the other days of the week. We cannot possess 
 and preserve the great moral and spiritual convictions and 
 enthusiasms which make for peace and righteousness, unless we 
 loyally support this institution — the church — created for the 
 development of the religious life and consecrated to the 
 service of the highest and noblest interests of the human race. 
 
 The neglect of the religious training of children is not only 
 an injury to them but a sin against civilization. We are under 
 a heavier obligation to give our children the best religion that 
 
62 
 
 we have found than we are to have them correctly taught in 
 
 music or mathematics. 
 
 Out of this church, alive with various educational 
 
 The and philanthropic activities, all imbued with the 
 
 Real religious purpose and devoted to religious ends, 
 
 Unitarian . , , , . , ,j 
 
 we strive to send forth into the world to 
 
 be a part of its best life the real Unitarian, a man who 
 demands freedom for himself and grants the same liberty 
 to his neighbor ; who bestows his love broadly regardless 
 of sect, fellowships all seekers for the truth, and labors for 
 man on account of his need rather than his creed ; who fol- 
 lows reason as the authority for truth and conscience as the 
 guide to conduct, allowing no text or tradition to blind the eye 
 or enslave the heart, and always striving to be wiser to-day 
 than yesterday and better to-morrow than to-day. 
 
 The real Unitarian is one who believes that it is diviner to 
 do a deed of love than to subscribe to any form of doctrine ; 
 who holds that religion is spiritual worship, personal righteous- 
 ness, and helpful service ; and who learns from Jesus to be 
 forgiving, merciful, and useful. 
 
 The real Unitarian is one who sees the universe under a law 
 that is love, finds nature interwoven with Fatherhood, and 
 beholds God immanent in all souls; who traces the divine 
 revelation in all discoveries of truth ; and who has faith that 
 Providence embraces humanity, and that all wanderers will 
 some day find their way home to the Infinite Goodness. 
 
 And these great root-truths and imperial sentiments, so 
 widely shared in varying measures by others, being no mo- 
 nopoly of ours, will help us all to march forward through life, 
 serene under abuse, patient in disappointments, heroic in dan- 
 ger, victorious in temptation, helpful with love and cheerful 
 with hope in our little corner, feeling that the dear God is our 
 Father, and that beyond the grave lies in immortal light and 
 blessedness the household of our affections. 
 
63 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 LITERATURE 
 
 he following works are historical, and they tell the story of 
 Unitarian movement : 
 
 A Short History of Unitarianism since the Reformation. $0.50. 
 
 Rev. Frederick B. Mott. 
 Unitarianism since the Reformation. 254 pp. 1.50. 
 
 Rev. Joseph Henry Allen, D.D. 
 Old and New Unitarian Belief. 246 pp. 1.50. 
 
 Rev. John W. Chadwick. 
 Unitarianism: Origin and History. 400 pp. 1. 00. 
 
 Lectures by Sixteen Eminent Unitarians. 
 Heads of English Unitarian History. 138 pp. .60. 
 
 Rev. Alexander Gordon. 
 A Historical Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the 
 
 Unitarian Christian Doctrine in Modern Times. .10. 
 
 he Unitarian Affirmations respecting religion are fully de- 
 Ded in these books, — that by Channing is especially rich 
 ther directions : 
 
 I. Channing, Works. I vol. 1060 pp. $1.00. 
 
 II. Parker, Views of Religion: Selections. I vol. 466 pp. 1. 00. 
 II. Dewey, Works. 1 voL 804 pp. I -°°- 
 
 V. Our Unitarian Gospel. 282 pp. 1. 00. 
 
 Rev. Minot J. Savage, D.D. 
 V. The Power and Promise of the Liberal Faith. 145 pp. -75- 
 
 Rev. Thomas R. Sheer. 
 1. Positive Aspects of Unitarian Christianity. 274 pp. .75. 
 By English Writers with Introduction by Dr. Martineau. 
 [I. Forward Movement Lectures. 99 pp. -4°' 
 
 Rev. Brooke Herford, D.D. 
 
64 
 
 These books can be ordered from the American Unitarian 
 Association, 25 Beacon St., Boston, Mass., and to this body 
 may also be addressed inquiries in regard to Unitarian work 
 and organization. 
 
 The following pamphlets (from 16 to 40 pp.) give the views 
 commonly held by Unitarians upon the subjects of which they 
 treat, and they are sent free on application to the American 
 Unitarian Association, Boston, Mass. : 
 
 (1) The Faith of a Free Church : Rev. S. M. Crothers, D.D. 
 
 (2) What do Unitarians Believe ? Rev. Charles W. Wendte". 
 
 (3) Unitarianism. Rev. Rush R. Shippen. 
 
 (4) Our Gospel. Rev. M. J. Savage, "D.D. 
 
 (5) Unitarian Principles. Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D. 
 
 (6) The Main Lines of Religion as held by Unitarians. By 
 Rev. Brooke Herford, D.D. 
 
 (7) Unitarianism : it is a Positive Faith, and rightly claims our 
 Loyalty. By Rev. Minot J. Savage, D.D. 
 
 (8) The Church of the Spirit. By Rev. Francis G. Peabody, D.D. 
 
 (9) God . . . Rev. Samuel R. Calthrop, LL.D. 
 
 (10) The Real Jesus. Rev. Howard N. Brown. 
 
 (11) The Bible in Theology. Rev. W. W. Fenn. 
 
 (12) The Immortal Hope. Rev. John W. Chadwick. 
 
 (13) The Theology of Unitarians. Rev. Charles C. Everett, D.D. 
 (t4) Incarnation. Rev. William C. Gannett. 
 
 (15) Eternal Punishment. Rev. Thomas Starr King. 
 

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