denominations, there were three organizations, formed prior to that event,
which have remained intact to this day. In these societies Orthodox and
Unitarian continue to unite as Congregationalists, and the sectarian lines
are not recognized. The first of these organizations is the Massachusetts
Congregational Charitable Society, which was formed early in the eighteenth
century for the purpose of securing "support to the widows and children of
deceased congregational ministers." The second is the Massachusetts
Convention of Congregational Ministers, also formed early in the eighteenth
century, although its records begin only with the year 1748. It was formed
for consultation, advice, and counsel, to aid orphans and widows of
ministers, and to secure the general promotion of the interests of
religion. The convention sermon has been one of the recognized institutions
of Massachusetts, and since the beginning of the Unitarian controversy it
has been preached alternately by ministers of the two denominations. The
Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians and Others in North
America was formed in 1787. The members, officers, and missionaries of this
society have been of both denominations; and the work accomplished has been
carried on in a spirit of amity and good-will. These societies indicate
that co-operation may be secured without theological unity, and it is
possible that they may become the basis in the future of a closer sympathy
and fellowship between the severed Congregational churches.
[Sidenote: Final Separation of State and Church.]
From the beginning the liberal movement had been more or less intimately
associated with that for the promotion of religious freedom and the
separation of state and church. Many of the states withdrew religion from
state control on the adoption of the Federal Constitution. In New England
this was done in the first years of the century. Connecticut came to this
result after an exciting agitation in 1818. Massachusetts was more
tenacious of the old ways; but in 1811 its legislative body passed a
"religious freedom act," that secured individuals from taxation for the
support of churches with which they were not connected. The constitutional
convention of 1820 proposed a bill of rights that aimed to secure religious
freedom, but it was defeated by large majorities. It was only when church
property was given by the courts to the parish in preference to the church,
and when the "standing order" churches had been repeatedly foiled in their
efforts to retain the old prerogatives, that a majority could be secured
for religious freedom. In November, 1833, the legislature submitted to the
people a revision of the bill of rights, which provided for the separation
of state and church, and the voluntary support of churches. A majority was
secured for this amendment, and it became the law in 1834. Massachusetts
was the last of all the states to arrive at this result, and a far greater
effort was required to bring it about than elsewhere. The support of the
churches was now purely voluntary, the state no longer lending its aid to
tax person and property for their maintenance.
Thus it came about that Massachusetts adopted the principle and method of
Roger Williams after two centuries. For the first time she came to the full
recognition of her own democratic ideals, and to the practical acceptance
of the individualism for which she had contended from the beginning. She
had fought stubbornly and zealously for the faith she prized above all
other things, but by the logic of events and the greatness of the principle
of liberty she was conquered. The minister and the meeting-house were by
her so dearly loved that she could not endure the thought of having them
shorn of any of their power and influence; but for the sake of their true
life she at last found it wise and just to leave all the people free to
worship God in their own way, without coercion and without restraint.
Although the liberal ministers and churches led the way in securing
religious freedom, yet they were socially and intellectually conservative.
Radical changes they would not accept, and they moved away from the old
beliefs with great caution. The charge that they were timid was undoubtedly
true, though there is no evidence that they attempted to conceal their real
beliefs. Evangelical enthusiasm was not congenial to them, and they
rejected fanaticism in every form. They had a deep, serious, and spiritual
faith, that was intellectual without being rationalistic, marked by strong
common sense, and vigorous with moral integrity. They permitted a wide
latitude of opinion, and yet they were thoroughly Christian in their
convictions. Most of them saw in the miracles of the New Testament the only
positive evidence of the truth of Christianity, which was to them an
external and supernatural revelation. They were quite willing to follow
Andrews Norton, however, who was the chief defender of the miraculous, in
his free criticism of the Old Testament and the birth-stories in the
Gospels.
The liberal ministers fostered an intellectual and literary expression of
religion, and yet their chief characteristic was their spirituality. They
aimed at ethical insight and moral integrity in their influence upon men
and women, and at cultivating purity of life and an inward probity. In
large degree they developed the spirit of philanthropy and a fine regard
for the rights and the welfare of others. They were not sectarian or
zealous for bringing others to the acceptance of their own beliefs; but
they were generous in behalf of all public interests, faithful to all civic
duties, and known for their private generosity and faithful Christian
living. Under the leadership of Dr. Channing the Catholic Christians, as
they preferred to call themselves, cultivated a spirituality that was
devout without being ritualistic, sincere without being fanatical. The
churches around them, to a large degree, kept zealously to the externals of
religion, and accepted physical evidences of the truthfulness of
Christianity; but Channing sought for what is deeper and more permanent.
His preference of rationality to the testimony of miracles, spiritual
insight to external evidences, devoutness of life to the rites of the
church, characterized him as a great religious leader, and developed for
the Catholic Christians a new type of Christianity. Whatever Channing's
limitations as a thinker and a reformer, he was a man of prophetic insight
and lofty spiritual vision. In other ages he would have been canonized as a
saint or called the beatific doctor; but in Boston he was a heretic and a
reformer, who sought to lead men into a faith that is ethical, sincere, and
humanitarian. He prized Christianity for what it is in itself, for its
inwardness, its fidelity to human nature, and its ethical integrity. His
mind was always open to truth, he was always young for liberty, and his
soul dwelt in the serene atmosphere of a pure and lofty faith.
[1] Josiah Quincy, History of Harvard University, I. 230, Chapter XII;
Christian Examiner, VII. 64; XXX. 70.
[2] Jedidiah Morse, True Reasons on which the Election of a Hollis
Professor of Divinity in Harvard College were opposed at the Board of
Overseers.
[3] III. 251, March, 1806.
[4] Richard Eddy, Universalism in America, II. 87; Oscar F. Safford,
Hosea Ballou: A Marvellous Life Story, 71.
[5] O.B. Frothingham, Boston Unitarianism, 161.
[6] Josiah Quincy, History of the Boston Athenaeum, 1. "In the year 1803
Phineas Adams, a graduate of Harvard College, of the class of 1801,
commenced in Boston, under the name of _Sylvanus Per-se_, a periodical
work entitled The Monthly Anthology or Magazine of Polite Literature.
He conducted it for six months, but not finding its proceeds sufficient
for his support, he abandoned the undertaking. Mr. Adams, the son of a
farmer in Lexington, manifested in early boyhood a passion for elegant
learning. He adopted literature as a profession; but, after the failure
of his attempt as editor of The Anthology, he taught school in
different places, till, in 1811, he entered the Navy as chaplain and
teacher of mathematics. Here he became distinguished for mathematical
science in its relation to nautical affairs. In 1812 he accompanied
Commodore Porter in his eventful cruise in the Pacific, of which the
published journal bears honorable testimony to Mr. Adams's zeal for
promoting geographical and mathematical knowledge. He again joined
Porter in the expedition for the suppression of piracy in the West
Indies, and he died on that station in 1823, much respected in the
service."
[7] In October, 1888, this society gave up its organization, and the sum
of $1,265.10 was given to the American Unitarian Association for the
establishment of a publishing fund.
[8] Unitarian Biography, I. 40, Memoir by Henry Ware, Jr.
[9] William Allen, Memoir of John Codman, 81.
[10] Thomas Belsham, 1750-1829, was a dissenting English preacher and
teacher. In 1789 he became a Unitarian, and was settled in
Birmingham. From 1805 to his death he preached to the Essex Street
congregation in London. He wrote a popular work on the Evidences of
Christianity, and he translated the Epistles of St. Paul. He was a
vigorous and able writer.
[11] Memoir of W.E. Channing, by W.H. Channing, I. 380.
[12] Among the controversial works printed in Boston at this time was
Yates's Vindication of Unitarianism, an English book, which was
republished in 1816.
[13] The entrance to the vestry of Federal Street Church was on Berry
Street, hence the name given the conference.
[14] Christian Examiner, I. 248.
[15] American Unitarian Biography, Life of Henry Ware, I. 241.
[16] James Walker, Christian Examiner, X. 129; John G. Palfrey, Christian
Examiner, XI. 84; The Divinity School of Harvard University: Its
History, Courses of Study, Aims and Advantages.
[17] Letters on the Ministry, Ritual, and Doctrines of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, addressed to Rev. William E. Wyatt, D.D., in Reply
to a Sermon, Baltimore, 1820.
[18] Comparative Moral Tendency of Trinitarian and Unitarian Doctrines,
addressed to Rev. Samuel Miller, Boston, 1823.
[19] H.B. Adams, Life and Writings of Jared Sparks, I. 175.
[20] Dr. George E. Ellis, in Unitarianism: Its origin and History, 147.
The most prominent instance was that of the First Church in Dedham,
and this was decided by legal proceedings. "The question recognized
by the court was simply this: whether the claimants had been lawfully
appointed deacons of the First Church; that is, whether the body
which had appointed them was by law the First Church. The decision of
the court was as follows: 'When the majority of the members of a
Congregational church separate from the majority of the parish, the
members who remain, although a minority, constitute the church in
such parish, and retain the rights and property belonging thereto.'
This legal decision would have been regarded as a momentous one had
it applied only to the single case then in hearing. But it was the
establishment of a precedent which would dispose of all cases then to
be expected to present themselves in the troubles of the time between
parishes and the churches gathered within them. The full purport of
this decision was that the law did not recognize a church
independently of its connection with the parish in which it was
gathered, from which it might sever itself and carry property with
it." It was in accordance with the practice in New England for at
least a century preceding the decision in the Dedham case, and the
decision was rendered as the result of this practice.
[21] H.B. Adams, Life and Writings of Jared Sparks, gives a most
interesting account in his earlier chapters of the origin of
Unitarianism, especially of its beginnings in Baltimore and other
places outside New England.
[22] James Garrard, governor of Kentucky from 1796 to 1802, was a
Unitarian. Harry Toulmin, president of Transylvania Seminary and
secretary of the state of Kentucky, was also a Unitarian.
VI.
THE AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION.
The time had come for the liberals to organize in a more distinctive form,
in order that they might secure permanently the results they had already
attained. The demand for organization, however, came almost wholly from the
younger men, those who had grown up under the influence of the freer life
of the liberal churches or who had been trained in the independent spirit
of the Divinity School at Harvard. The older men, for the most part, were
bound by the traditions of "the standing order":[1] they could not bring
themselves to desire new conditions and new methods.
The spirit of the older and leading laymen and ministers is admirably
illustrated in Rev. O.B. Frothingham's account of his father in his book
entitled Boston Unitarianism. They were interested in many, public-spirited
enterprises, and the social circle in which they moved was cultivated and
refined; but they were provincial, and little inclined to look beyond the
limits of their own immediate interests. Dr. Nathaniel L. Frothingham,
minister of the First Church in Boston, one of the earliest American
students of German literature and philosophy, and a man of rational insight
and progressive thinking, may be regarded as a representative of the best
type of Boston minister in the first half of the nineteenth century. In a
sermon preached in 1835, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of
his settlement, Dr. Frothingham said that he had never before used the word
"Unitarian", in his pulpit, though his church had been for thirty years
counted as Unitarian. "We have," he said, "made more account of the
religious sentiment than of theological opinions." In this attitude he was
in harmony with the leading men of his day.[2]
Channing, for instance, was opposed to every phase of religious
organization that put bonds upon men; and he would accept nothing in the
form of a creed. He severely condemned "the guilt of a sectarian spirit,"
and said that "to bestow our affections on those who are ranged under the
same human leader, or who belong to the same church with ourselves, and to
withhold it from others who possess equal if not superior virtue, because
they bear a different name, is to prefer a party to the church of
Christ."[3] In 1831 he described Unitarianism as being "characterized by
nothing more than by the spirit of freedom and individuality. It has no
established creed or symbol," he wrote. "Its friends think each for
himself, and differ much from each other."[4] Later he wrote to a friend:
"I distrust sectarian influence more and more. I am more detached from a
denomination, and strive to feel more my connection with the Universal
Church, with all good and holy men. I am little of a Unitarian, and stand
aloof from all but those who strive and pray for clearer light, who look
for a purer and more effectual manifestation of Christian truth."[5]
Many of the Unitarians were in fullest sympathy with Channing as to the
fundamental law of spiritual freedom and as to the evils of sectarianism. A
considerable number of them were in agreement with him as to the course
pursued by the Unitarian movement. Having escaped from one sect, they were
not ready to commit themselves to the control of another. Therefore they
withheld themselves from all definitely organized phases of Unitarianism,
and would give no active support to those who sought to bring the liberals
together for purposes of protection and forward movement. Under these
circumstances it was difficult to secure concert of action or to make
successful any definite missionary enterprise, however little of
sectarianism it might manifest. Even to the present time Unitarianism has
shown this independence on the part of local churches and this freedom on
the part of individuals. Because of this attitude, unity of action has been
difficult, and denominational loyalty never strong or assured.
However, a different spirit animated the younger men, who persisted in
their effort to secure an organization that would represent distinctively
the Unitarian thought and sentiment. The movement towards organization had
its origin and impulse in a group of young ministers who had been trained
at the Harvard Divinity School under Professor Andrews Norton. While Norton
was conservative in theology and opposed to sectarian measures, his
teaching was radical, progressive, and stimulating. His students accepted
his spirit of intellectual progress, and often advanced beyond his more
conservative teachings. In the years between 1817 and 1824 James Walker,
John G. Palfrey, Jared Sparks, Alexander Young, John Pierpont, Ezra S.
Gannett, Samuel Barrett, Thomas R. Sullivan, Samuel J. May, Calvin Lincoln,
and Edward B. Hall were students in the Divinity School; and all of these
men were leaders in the movement to organize a Unitarian Association.
Pierpont gave the name to the new organization, distinctly defining it as
Unitarian. Gannett, Palfrey, and Hall served it as presidents; Gannett,
Lincoln, and Young, as secretaries. Walker, Palfrey, and Barrett gave it
faithful service as directors, and Lincoln as its active missionary agent.
A number of young laymen in Boston and elsewhere, mostly graduates of
Harvard College, were also interested in the formation of the new
organization. Among them were Charles G. Loring, Robert Rantoul, Samuel A.
Eliot, Leverett Salstonstall, George B. Emerson, and Alden Bradford. All
these young men were afterwards prominent in the affairs of the city or
state, and they were faithful to the interests of the Unitarian churches
with which they were connected.
[Sidenote: Initial Meetings.]
The first proposition to form a Unitarian organization for missionary
purposes was made in a meeting of the Anonymous Association, a club to
which belonged thirty or forty of the leading men of Boston. They were all
connected with Unitarian churches, and were actively interested in
promoting the growth of a liberal form of Christianity. It appears from the
journal of David Reed, for many years the editor and publisher of The
Christian Register, that the members of this association were in the habit
of meeting at each other's houses during the year 1824 for the purpose of
discussing important subjects connected with religion, morals, and
politics. At a meeting held at the house of Hon. Josiah Quincy in the
autumn of that year, attention was called to certain articles that had been
published in The Christian Register, and the importance was suggested of
promoting the growth of liberal Christianity through the distribution of
the printed word. A resolution was submitted, inquiring if measures could
not be taken for uniting the efforts of liberal-minded persons to give
greater efficiency to the attempt to extend a knowledge of Unitarian
principles by means of the public press; and a committee was appointed to
consider and report on the expediency of forming an organization for this
purpose. This committee consisted of Rev. Henry Ware, the younger, Alden
Bradford, and Richard Sullivan. Henry Ware was the beloved and devoted
minister of the Second Church in Boston. His colleagues were older men,
both graduates of Harvard College and prominent in the social and business
life of Boston. The purpose which these men had in mind was well defined by
Dr. Gannett, writing twenty years after the event: "We found ourselves," he
said, "under the painful necessity of contributing our assistance to the
propagation of tenets which we accounted false or of forming an association
through which we might address the great truths of religion to our
fellow-men without the adulteration of erroneous dogmas. To take one of
these courses, or to do nothing in the way of Christian beneficence, was
the only alternative permitted to us. The name which we adopted has a
sectarian sound; but it was chosen to avoid equivocation on the one hand
and misapprehension on the other."[6] The committee, under date of
December 29, 1824, sent out a circular inviting a meeting of all
interested, "in order to confer together on the expediency of appointing an
annual meeting for the purpose of union, sympathy, and co-operation in the
cause of Christian truth and Christian charity." In this circular will be
found the origin of the clause in the present constitution of the Unitarian
Association defining its purposes.
In response to this call a meeting was held in the vestry of the Federal
Street Church on January 27, 1825. Dr. Channing opened the meeting with
prayer. Richard Sullivan was chosen moderator, and James Walker secretary.
There were present all those who have been hitherto named in connection
with this movement, together with many others of the leading laymen and
ministers of the liberal churches in New England.[7] The record of the
meeting made by Rev. James Walker is preserved in the first volume of the
correspondence of the Unitarian Association; and it enables us, in
connection with the more confidential reminiscences of David Reed, to give
a fairly complete record of, what was said and done. Henry Ware, the
younger, in behalf of the committee, presented a statement of the objects
proposed by those desirous of organizing a national Unitarian society; and
he offered a resolution declaring it "desirable and expedient that
provision should be made for future meetings of Unitarians and liberal
Christians generally." The adoption of this resolution was moved by Stephen
Higginson; and the discussion was opened by Dr. Aaron Bancroft, the learned
and honored minister of the Second Church in Worcester. He was fearful that
sufficient care might not be taken as to the manner of instituting the
proposed organization, and he doubted its expediency. He was of the opinion
that Unitarianism was to be propagated slowly and silently, for it had
succeeded in his own parish because it had not been openly advocated. He
did not wish to oppose the design generally, but he was convinced that it
would do more harm than good.
Dr. Bancroft was followed by Professor Andrews Norton, the greatly
respected teacher of most of the younger ministers, who defended the
proposed organization, and said that its purpose was not to make
proselytes. Then Dr. Charming arose, and gave to the proposition of the
committee a guarded approval. He thought the object of the convention, as
he wished to call it, should be to "spread our views of religion, not our
mere opinions, for our religion is essentially practical." The friendly
attitude of Channing gave added emphasis to the disapproval of the
prominent laymen who spoke after him. Judge Charles Jackson, an eminent
justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, thought there was danger in
the proposed plan, that it was not becoming to liberal Christians, that it,
was inconsistent with their principles, and that it would not be beneficial
to the community. He was ready to give his aid, to any specific work, but
he thought that everything could be accomplished that was necessary,
without a general-association of any kind. The same opinion was expressed
by George Bond, a leading merchant of Boston, who was afraid that
Unitarianism would become popular, and that, when it had gamed a majority
of the people of the country to its side, it would become as intolerant as
the other sects. For this reason he believed the measure inexpedient, and
moved an adjournment of the meeting.