John G. Adams
Fifty Notable Years / Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical Sketches

"And I saw that there was an Ocean of Darkness and Death; but an infinite Ocean of Light and Love flowed over the Ocean of Darkness; and in that I saw the infinite Love of God." – George Fox's Journal.

"Universalism was the evening star of the church as the night of the dark ages came on, and appeared as the morning star at the dawn of the Reformation." – Thomas Whittemore, D. D.

PREFACE

Every intelligent reader of that expressive line of Longfellow, "Let the dead past bury its dead," understands that if "the dead past" may be buried, as it deserves to be, the living past will be remembered, recorded, celebrated, honored in all time to come. It is well, always, that we have our eyes open to this fact.

Among the many voices heard in the discussions going on in the religious world during the last half-century, has been that of Christian Universalism. It is still speaking more emphatically and widely than ever. A brief and comprehensive notice of its manifestations is surely worthy of consideration at the present time. It is the intent of this volume to keep in sacred remembrance some of the preachers and defenders of the Gospel of God's impartial grace, who in times when it was frowned upon and misrepresented in and out of the churches, had the Christian courage and loyalty to avow and maintain it. They have made the past not "dead," but gloriously alive in their faith and works.

In addition to the biographical sketches here given, other kindred matter of interest to the general reader will be presented, such as the rise and progress of the Universalist church in America; its growth in agreement with the genius and civilization of our republic; its place in the reformatory work of the last fifty years; its present status; its educational resources and aspects; its definite organized work; its missionary spirit and intent, with an outlook into the future.

The reader will understand that the views here taken are from the standpoint of a New England minister's observation, and do not embrace particulars which a wider survey might have included.

Furthermore, the author would say, that in the account of ministers here given, nothing like a complete biographical encyclopædia is intended; hence, he does not consider himself responsible for what is not in the volume, but presents it as it is, with a thankful heart that he is able in this humble effort to vindicate the faithful dead, and to address the living in behalf of that cause which they honored and promoted.

J. G. A.

Melrose Highlands, November, 1882.

CHAPTER I.
THE WORLD'S PROGRESS

"Even now, after eighteen centuries of Christianity, we may be involved in some enormous error, of which the Christianity of the future will make us ashamed." – Vinet.

"Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns."

Tennyson.

"THE world moves." This is one of the confident sayings of those who believe in human progression. It is an ordination of Divine Providence from the beginning that man should realize mental and moral growth through the successive generations of his earthly life. And this divine purpose has been manifest in the past history of our race. They who think, taking the amplest view of the present condition of mankind, any former time was better than the present, do not rightfully discriminate. "If," says Sydney Smith, "you say that our ancestors were wiser than we, mention your date and your year." Enlightened humanity cannot be content with its present attainments. Its purest and highest aspirations respond to that clarion word of Christian heroism, "Let us go on unto perfection!"

Of all the centuries of human history which have yet been numbered, none have been more notable than the one in which we are living. Since its commencement some of the most remarkable changes that can be recorded of any age or period have taken place. Education, art, science, human government and enterprise, religious thought, all have made progress. Nations have changed, men have changed, if not in nature, yet in convictions respecting man's capability, obligation, and destiny. The Old World and the New have witnessed these transformations.

It is of the changes indicative of human progress within the middle of the present century that I desire to speak in this volume; for during this period there seems to have been a more rapid succession of them than ever, evincing the capability of our race for an advancement to which no philosophy of the past or present has been able to set bounds. There have been, during this time, nobler revolutions than those effected by war, by the downfall of governments and dynasties, – revolutions more excellent and enduring. We mean those wrought by human thought, investigation, discovery, and invention. Apt and forcible are the words of Dr. Norman Macleod, written at the close of the year 1869: "In a few hours the century will have lived its threescore and ten years. I question if since time began, – with the exception of three or four great eras, such as the calling of Abraham, the Exodus, the birth of Christ, the Reformation, the invention of printing, or, it may be, the breaking up of the Roman Empire, the birth of Mohammed or of Buddha, – such an influential period has existed. The invention of the steam-engine, the discovery of gas, telegraph, chloroform, with the freedom of slaves, the British acquisition of India, the opening up of the world to the Gospel, the translations of the Scriptures, will make it forever memorable." Equally expressive are the words recently spoken by the chief magistrate of Massachusetts: "Think of what has been done in the matter of education, of public schools, of universities of learning for both sexes and all races. In science we have unlocked the secrets of the earth, the air, and the sea, and made them not merely matters of wonder, but handmaids of homely use. In all matters of comfort, of use, of elegance, of convenient living, of house and table, and furniture, and light, and warmth, and health, and travel, what thorough and beneficent advance equally for all, shaming the petty meanness with which, unjust alike to the old times and the new, we inveigh against the new times and overrate the old!"¹

And what, more especially, of moral revolution and progress during the last half century? The indications are evidently hopeful and cheering. Human nature is indeed the same, but it has been under new and better influences in modern than in more remote time. Human governments have improved, and even the worst of them are better now than they were fifty years ago. Human laws have been rendered more human and less barbarous. Sympathy for the poor, the degraded, the sinful, has been more truly awakened, and is at this moment in more active operation than at any previous time. The moral obligations of political rulers, and those who sustain them, have been perhaps more vigorously discussed during these years than in any other fifty years preceding; so that there seems now a more favorable opportunity than at almost any previous day this side that of the Jewish Theocracy, to impress this truth upon the public mind, that if individuals should have consciences and a sense of responsibility to God, so should communities; that "righteousness exalteth a nation, while sin is a reproach to any people." Religious toleration also has increased. The rigid sectarianism of the past has been giving way, so that now the hunters of heresy, and the executioners of those who held it, are read of rather than seen. The false deity which even some Christians have worshipped in the past, and the false humanity with which they have supposed themselves endowed, have been in some good degree exchanged for more rational conceptions of God the Father, and of man the offspring. And this change is daily going on; never was it more perceptible than at the present hour.

We should manifest an unpardonable blindness in noting these evidences of human advancement, if we were to leave out of the account the most significant of all forces in it, – we mean Christianity.

This we regard as the foremost power in the spiritual progress thus far realized in our world, and which promises to effect for the race its highest exaltation. Refinement and barbarism have more or less marked the history of the world in the past; they do still; but where does the light of civilization shine brightest among the nations? The answer is, where the Christian religion, in its true spirit, most widely prevails. And it is the increasing prevalence of it which gives us the assurance of that consummation of the Redeemer's work with men, when they all "come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man; unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."²

Christianity is a universal religion. Herein is its pre-eminence. It is for man everywhere and in all time. No other religion has so clearly asserted this claim for itself, and no other promises to do so much for mankind. True, it has had to make its way against the errors and prejudices and corruptions of the world. It has been mixed with human errors, and has been professed, taught, and practised in too many instances by those who have failed to realize clearly the heavenliness of its spirit, and its far-reaching, regenerative, and overcoming power. Its earliest promulgators failed to see at first this grand characteristic of its universality. An able Christian historian has written: "Nothing is more remarkable than to see the horizon of the Apostles gradually receding, and, instead of resting on the borders of the Holy Land, comprehending at length the whole world; barrier after barrier falling down before the superior wisdom which was infused into their minds; first, the proselytes of the gate, the foreign conformists to Judaism, and, ere long, the Gentiles themselves admitted within the pale; until Christianity stood forth, demanded the homage, and promised its rewards to the faith of the whole human race; proclaimed itself in language which the world had as yet never heard, the one, true universal religion."³

Rev. Dr. Gerhard Uhlhorn, of Germany, in his able work, "The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism," speaking of the early development of Christianity in the Roman Empire, calls it the first step to its universalism. "Itself passing out from the ancient narrowness into a world-wide breadth of thought and life, the old world became capable of accepting the Universalism of Christianity."[4] The old world and the new have yet many steps forward to take in this pathway of a continually increasing brightness.

CHAPTER II.
CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM

"Universalism is a living movement, organized out of the grandest ideas and spiritual facts of the universe; gathering into itself the richest and mightiest moral forces, and working towards the most positive practical ends; and a man is a Universalist, and is the better off for being a Universalist, only as some sense of what Universalism thus is, and of the force of its motives, and the reality of its work, flows down, a quickening power, into his being." – E. G. Brooks, D. D.

THE name Universalism, as connected with Christianity, has been especially notable during the present century. But the principles which it implies were averred by the Christian church in its earliest days. It signifies God's unchanging paternal interest in all his children; an interest insuring his just dealing with them for their obedience or disobedience of his beneficent laws, and their final release from sin, and life in righteousness. Under its present name, Universalism is comparatively recent; its special church history being comprehended in something more than a century. But its principles and doctrines are as old as the Christian records, and are found in the Old Testament teachings. Just as all the sects in Christendom, though belonging to modern times, profess to trace whatever they may deem essential back to the Apostles, so believers in Universalism make the same reference, as one of their number has well stated it: "If we have no business here because we came so late, our neighbors must fall under the same condemnation. In mere assumption we are neither younger nor older than they."

The Universalist Church claims the New Testament as the basis of its doctrines. It cites the Gospels, the Apostolic History and the Epistles, Christ, and his first ministers, as authority for its pretensions. After the apostles, its lights appear in the early centuries of the Christian era. Dr. Edward Beecher, in his able work, "The Scriptural Doctrine of Future Retribution," shows that at about the time of Origen, out of the six theological schools in Christendom, four taught Universal Salvation as the faith of the Christian Church, – the one at Cæsarea, the one at Antioch, the one at Alexandria, the one at Edessa. That eminent light of the early church, Origen, who so ably and successfully maintained the claims of Christianity against the abusive attacks of the heathen Celsus, was a Universalist. So was Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, and Gregory Thaumaturgus, bishop of Neocæsarea; and so were the most distinguished by piety and learning of the masters of the great theological seminary of the early Church, the Catechetical school at Alexandria. Doederlein said that "the more profoundly learned any one was in Christian antiquity, so much more did he cherish and defend the hope that the suffering of the wicked would at some time come to an end."⁴ And Hagenbach, commenting on a remark of Augustine, says, "that even that great father of Orthodoxy admitted a relative cessation of damnation." Also, Gieseler affirms, "A belief in the unalienable power of amendment in all intelligent beings, and the limited duration of future punishment, was general in the West, and among the opponents of Origen."⁵ Of the very time when the influence of Origen was so great in the Church, and when, there can be no good reason to doubt, the doctrine of universal salvation was held by many, if not the majority of Christians, Mr. Lecky, in his history of "Morals in Europe," says, "The Christian community exhibited a moral purity which, if it has been equalled, has never for a long time been surpassed."

Dr. Schaff says of the condemnation of Origen, which included the doctrine of universal restoration, "It was a death-blow to theological science in the Greek Church, and left it to stiffen gradually into a mechanical traditionalism and formalism."

The increased light shed upon ecclesiastical history during the present century shows most clearly the growth of this faith from the first centuries of the Christian era to the present time. It has increased with the mental and moral progress of mankind, with its best civilization.

What is written for these pages will represent especially the rise and progress of the Universalist Church in America. It is proper, however, to say that the faith it represents has had growth also in other lands. It has long been known in Great Britain, where a few churches have made a distinct avowal of it, while individuals scattered here and there have had strong interest in it. The Unitarians of England generally avow it. In the Established Church, faith in the doctrine of endless punishment is not demanded as a condition of church-membership, while some of its most distinguished leaders have advocated with marked ability the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God in full agreement with the doctrine of the final reconciliation of all souls to him. We meet with Universalism in its essential elements in Neander, the eminent Christian historian, and in commentators and scholars in England and on the Continent. The faith is expressed in the poetry of Wordsworth, Tennyson, and others.⁶ The able ministers Coquerel (father and son) were advocates of it in the Reformed Church in France (Paris). The leaven of this faith is in individuals; the doctrine is often held and openly avowed from the pulpit and through the press, as well as in private by a large number of persons in various communions, who may have but little knowledge of each other, or of the advocacy of this faith elsewhere through special organizations.

CHAPTER III.
UNIVERSALISM IN AMERICA

"Christianity is recognized as a democratic element, profitable for all conditions of men, as the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are the palladium of our civil and religious rights." – Dr. J. W. Francis, author of "Old New York."

UNIVERSALISM in America took its rise with the Republic. The coming of John Murray to our shores, and the proclamation of the gospel of universal grace, was but a little time previous to the issuing of the Declaration of Independence by the American colonies. These colonies had come to the full and bold utterance with which the Declaration opens: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Through ages of light and of darkness this sacred truth had had but little growth or power in the human mind. But it was there, and was not to die there. It lived through all the world's change, commotion, and revolution, and the set time had now come when it should have a clearer and stronger expression and demonstration than our old or new worlds had yet known. This declaration of our fathers signified the inestimable value of man – of every man – to himself, his fellow man, and his God. It asserts the doctrine of human equality, not that all men have the same intellectual or moral capacities, or should possess an equal amount of property, or be invested with the same political privileges; but the religious doctrine that all are of "one blood," children of one Father, protected by one Providence, made to aid, to bless and build each other up in truth, justice, and righteousness henceforth while the world stands. It signifies human equality and human rights in their broadest and most rational sense. As wrote Alexander Hamilton: "All men have one common origin, they participate in a common nature, and consequently have one common right. No reason can be assigned why one man should exercise any pre-eminence among his fellow creatures, unless they have voluntarily vested him with it." It was this conviction, based on a principle, that carried our fathers through the Revolution, and gave to us that Constitution which was afterwards the work of their hands.

The object of this Constitution is explicitly declared, "To form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." This signified not the growth and strengthening of a sentiment that would justify the building up of one class upon the subjugation of another. We have a statement of the whole truth in the emphatic language of Mr. Bancroft, as he speaks of the intent of the framers of the Declaration on which our Constitution is based. "The Declaration, avoiding specious and vague generalities, grounds itself with anxious care upon the past, and reconciles right and fact. The assertion of right was made for the entire world of mankind, and all coming generations, without any exceptions whatever; for the proposition which admits of exceptions can never be self-evident. And as it was put forth in the name of the ascendant people of that time, it was sure to make the circuit of the world, passing everywhere through the despotic countries of Europe; and the astonished nations, as they read that all men are created equal, started out of their lethargy, like those who have been exiles from childhood, when they suddenly hear the dimly remembered accents of their mother tongue."⁷

It was meet and right that when this great word went forth to awaken the nations to a new realization, there should be heard at the same time in our land the trumpet notes of that gospel which proclaims the unbinding of the heavy burdens of humanity, liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. As Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (and a believer in Christian Universalism), in a letter to Rev. Mr. Winchester, alluding to Rev. John Wesley, writes: "His writings will ere long revive in support of our doctrine – for if Christ died for all, as Mr. Wesley always taught, it will soon appear as a necessary consequence that all shall be saved… At present we wish liberty to the whole world. The next touch of the celestial magnet upon the human heart will direct it into wishes for the salvation of all mankind."

This new political life, upon which our nation entered, signified the equality, true sonship, brotherhood, capability, and earthly destination of man. It meant democracy, not the democracy of numbers merely, nor of political parties struggling for supremacy and the spoils of the victors, but a democracy having in view a common good – the greatest good of all. It means intelligence, thrift, education, and religion for the masses; it means this for one people, means it for all nations of mankind. Precisely this is signified by the re-affirmation on these western shores of that gospel anciently proclaimed to the Athenians by the Christian apostle: "God, that made the world … hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, … as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."⁸ A common humanity, a common interest and destiny, are declared.

It is a common humanity with which Christ is in sympathy; which makes him who would be highest in the Divine estimation the servant of all; which recognizes the Golden Rule, directs the strong to bear the infirmities of the weak, and men everywhere to be helpers one of another, because their interests are not antagonistic, when the laws that govern their nature are clearly understood. They have unity:

"What binds one, binds all,
Love of things true and right."

Men have, too, a common interest under the Divine guardianship. Wherever there is a man, there is a being in whose soul God has implanted aspirations after himself, a propensity to religion, a feeling after him which may be misled by superstition, or overlaid by ignorance, or elevated by knowledge into purest piety, but which is yet there. Wherever he exists the Sovereign Power holds him in discipline, demands an account from him at his tribunal of impartial justice, and will not permit him to go out of his hands. To whatever heights he ascends, God still encompasses him; into whatever depths he may fall, he is still held by the guardian beneficent power.

One destiny, also, is affirmed of this great body of humanity; a blessing instituted in the beginning, including all families, kindreds, nations. No divine favoritism towards one over another do we see. The law and the prophets point towards this universal grace of God to man. Israel and the Gentile world shall alike share it. The apocalyptic vision opens it up to the eye of faith. "And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I, saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever."⁹ What is this but the fact, and the ultimate completeness and glory of the unity of the race? One Father, Brotherhood, Saviour, Homage, Destiny.

Other theologies had made distinctions and endless separations in representing mankind; had denied, as they still deny, this fraternal relationship, this positive family connection; had represented God rather as an arbitrary sovereign than loving Father, and the Divine government a wilful monarchy instead of a just and merciful dispensation under which each soul is of equal value, and the good of one is the good of all. Unbelief has said, as in the language of Spinoza: "The right extends as far as the force of the natural right or law, jus et institutum naturæ is nothing more than the rules of the nature of each individual." The divisions and contentions, classes and castes, the impositions, frauds, and oppressions which have more or less marked the social relations of mankind, all come of this pernicious error growing out of the unchecked selfishness of the human heart. Christian Universalism forever contradicts this error. It affirms that the great body of humanity is one, and that it is death to sunder it. "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; if one rejoice, all rejoice together; for the body is not one member, but many."¹⁰ In the affirmation of the Gospel, religious bigotry and exclusiveness find a constant reproof; undue boasting, arrogance, and pride are hushed by this grand conviction that "One is our Father who is in heaven, and all we are brethren." The broadest philanthropy is awakened everywhere in man. The world becomes the one great field of effort for the enlightenment, relief, upraising, and perfecting of humanity. In the strong and noble words of another: "Universalism and the Revolution began to rise together. They were rocked together in the same stormy days, in the cradle of American liberty.¹¹ The banner of Universalism is love. Let that banner be lifted up. It shall symbol yet the true idea of the Declaration of Independence, 'All men are created equal.' I look forward to the time when our flag shall wave in unsullied glory, not over smoking ruins, at the mast-head of our battle-ships, on bloody fields, from the parapets of our forts, merely; but the stars and stripes and the white banner together, floating over slaves redeemed, sinners converted, evil statutes abolished, the people united, and the North and the South one."¹²

CHAPTER IV.
EARLY ADVOCACY OF UNIVERSALISM IN AMERICA

"The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." – Isaiah, xl. 3.

REV. JOHN MURRAY, from England, landed on the shore of New Jersey in 1770. He came hither much oppressed in spirit on account of severe afflictions in England, and had determined not to place himself before the public again as a preacher. His published biography tells us how differently the arrangements were made by Providence respecting him. It is a remarkable record, that of his meeting with Thomas Potter, who declared that he had been long waiting for the minister who had now come, that he must preach in the new meeting-house which had been builded for him; and who, in face of the preacher's refusal to comply with his request, declared that the wind would not change for him to leave in the vessel until he had delivered his message. After a severe mental conflict the stranger consented to preach on the following Sunday. Due notice was given, and the house was filled with attentive listeners.

There had been some other preaching of Universalism in different places in America previous to this time, as there were here and there those who cherished the faith and made public avowal of it. Dr. George de Benneville, a fugitive from France because of religious persecution, established himself near Germantown, Pa., as a physician, and being a devout believer in Universalism, took occasion often to advocate it in public, with much effect. This beginning on the part of Mr. Murray, however, opened the way to a systematic, permanent movement, and led to the establishment of Universalist churches. He preached much in New England, and was settled in Portsmouth, N. H., and afterwards in Boston, where he remained pastor of one church for nearly thirty years. In his preaching at first, Mr. Murray did not design to establish a separate sect. He was welcomed by ministers and their followers into orthodox pulpits, until his outspoken views respecting the salvation of the race raised a strong opposition against him, which made him an object of persecution, and marked him as the propagator of a dangerous heresy. Thus excluded from Christian communion and fellowship by other sects, it was but reasonable and just that the believers in Universalism should assume for themselves the rights and privileges of a distinct and independent Christian fraternity; so that other sects were responsible for the separation of this branch of the Christian church from themselves. It has been justly said by another: —

"If there was sin in this schism, in this separate religious organization, it was a sin for which the other sects of those times should bear the blame. They turned us out of doors, because we dared express our earnest solemn opinions, and we had only these two alternatives, – to stay out of doors or go in at those which were hung on Universalist hinges. Does anybody to-day condemn us because we chose the latter? We do not uncharitably condemn them for the course they took; they acted, in most cases, conscientiously; and it was, perhaps, a providential necessity of the times that the two elements should separate; that the two classes of Christians, holding views so opposite, should walk apart for a while. Denied the fellowship of other churches at the start, we have tried to be content with the fellowship of Christ; and we neither desire nor ask for any other until we are deemed worthy of it. That we can endure to be called heretics, even infidels, that we can stand alone, and yet live, and grow, and win the respect of the best part of the world, is already demonstrated. Our great anxiety in the future will be to show to all right-minded people, by our life rather than our word, that we are Christians, that this last form of Protestantism is only more genuine, because nearer the truth, than the first."¹³

Contemporary with Mr. Murray during his early ministry in America were Elhanan Winchester, a highly gifted and effective minister; Thomas Jones, formerly of the Lady Huntington connection in England, and afterwards settled at Gloucester, Mass.; Adams and Zebulon Streeter, Caleb Rich, Thomas Barnes, Noah Parker, Noah Murray, George Richards, William Farwell, Joab Young, Hosea and David Ballou, Edward Turner, – most of these preachers in New England; Abel Sargent in Western Pennsylvania, and a few others. Dr. Joseph Priestley was for a time in Philadelphia, where he advocated the doctrine of the final restoration of all souls; and Rev. Dr. Mayhew and Rev. Dr. Chauncey, although not identified with the work of the ministers already mentioned, had made distinct avowals of this same faith. A remarkable fact in connection with the history of most of these men is, that they were not from theological schools, nor largely endowed with literary qualifications. They were men of clear mental perceptions, were well versed in the Bible, ready and apt in their references to it, of sincere convictions, and of indomitable will. They went forth in readiness for whatever encounters might await them, never fearing what theological forces might appear in their way, so long as they felt assured that "the sword of the Spirit" would not fail them, and that they should be made "strong in the Lord," and victorious in his might. Well has it been written: —

"It will be brave reading when somebody shall display to us how the faith came quietly to exist at far distant points, Pennsylvania, New York, New England, variously born of widely different antecedents, but gradually converging to a general likeness by the time John Murray came to be the nucleus around which all should centre, an organic but unorganized mass, without form but not void. Then will follow the long history of separated and desultory warfare with the established prejudices and partialities of the Christian sects, during which every verse of Scripture was discussed, every doctrine examined from the base, every conventional habit of thought dragged to the light and called to account, every inch of theological ground stubbornly fought over. All this while there were annual meetings called the General Convention and recognized as a centre of denominational union, but they were little more than voluntary mass-meetings; all authority was jealously reserved to societies or local Associations, with the largest liberty of individual preference, and Universalists, like Israel under its Judges, did as seemed good in every man's sight. Men in less deadly earnest, or dealing with doctrines less profound and fundamental, would have formed a close compact early in their history. But it was in the nature of the case that these revolted thinkers should be shy of new bonds, and that these divers searching the deeps should think little of the surface. It was only when there came to be multitudes born in the faith, with intellectual habits and social affinities based on Universalism, with established worship and gathered congregations scattered across the continent, that the imperative need of a firm union for work and discipline was felt; and to reach this point had taken almost a hundred years."¹⁴

As time passes, and new phases of the church representing the Universalist faith appear, and new advocates of it arise, these days of its first advocacy in our land may lose their significance to many minds in the increasing attractions connected with the same church in the present time. But he who would see most clearly the hand of Divine Providence in the breaking of the light of this new dispensation upon our shores, will hold in just and sacred estimation this "day of small things," when these faithful ones stood forth to declare its glad tidings. So graphically have the words of another given the deserved tribute to their works, that we gladly record them in these pages.

"The early defenders of Universalism were plain, earnest men, aroused to the exertion of all their energies by the presence of a great thought. The truth of God's universal love and benevolent purpose in creation possessed them. They saw it everywhere, prefigured in Hebrew types, predicted by the prophets, implied in every word of Jesus, enforced in every letter of his apostles. They taught it in all places, and by all methods, in parish churches and district school-houses, in fields and workshops, in pulpits with stones flying about their heads, in rooms filled with the odor of nauseous drugs, in face of the reckless slander of the undignified and the quiet contempt of the dignified portion of the clergy. They were armed at all points, like the old war engines that, overturned every moment, always stood right side up. They turned the tables upon the literal Calvinistic interpreters, and held a text to floor every opponent. They were not moved by ridicule, for they possessed a keen sense of the ludicrous, and knew well how to expose the absurdities of the piebald theology of the churches. To the threats of their opponents they opposed Hudibrastic rhymes; to their missiles, words like old Murray's, 'While I have a "thus saith the Lord" for every point of doctrine which I advance, not all the stones in Boston, except they stop my breath, shall shut my mouth or arrest my testimony.' To the arguments of their adversaries, a logic like that of Ballou, simple as the talk of a little child, strong as the tramp of a giant. There were varieties of opinion among them; they had not all come up to the mount of their elevation by the same path, but the sublime truth 'God is Love' burned like an undying flame in their souls, and united them like brothers. Thank God that the sleep of the church was awakened by these strong champions. Nobly they spake their words in days when it was a disgrace in the eyes of men!"¹⁵

CHAPTER V.
GROWTH

"Day by day the doctrine of the eternity of evil is being driven into its native night before a higher view of the nature of God, and a nobler belief in Him as the undying righteousness." – Rev. Stopford A. Brooke.

AT the beginning of the present century, thirty years from the time of Mr. Murray's first preaching in America, there were a few more than twenty preachers of Universalism here. By the year 1813 there were forty; in 1840 there were four hundred and sixty-three. At the present time our church "Register" reports the number seven hundred and thirty. And this increase of ministerial force is not the most noticeable fact in connection with the advancement of this faith. Other instrumentalities are to be taken into the account. As the preacher at the centenary meeting of the National Convention stated: "Our lists, latterly, have been more closely pruned; our parishes have been greatly strengthened; our bases of operations have been fortified; our clergy have made great advances in devising liberal things; and our laity, possessing far greater wealth, and holding far higher social positions than formerly, more nobly respond, and with greater alacrity, to the far-sighted demands now so frequently made upon them. There are scores of our parishes in the various sections of our Zion, any one of which can now be moved to a greater work for a worthy object outside its own interests, than could our whole church twenty-five years ago."¹⁶

Educational improvements have also contributed to this favorable change. At first there were no theological seminaries nor academies in aid of this faith. In process of time these grew up and were made serviceable in the promotion of it, so that now not less than seven academies, five colleges, including three professional schools, two of divinity and one of law, having an aggregate property of more than two millions of dollars, are to be counted among its working forces. The publications in the interests of this faith have had large increase. Books, pamphlets, tracts, weekly and monthly journals, and the "Quarterly," commentaries on the Scriptures, together with well-sustained publishing houses, are additional influences constantly in operation to aid the efforts of the ministry. The Murray Centenary Fund, projected in 1869, is designed to aid in the education of the clergy, the circulation of denominational literature, and in church extension. This Fund amounted, Oct. 1, 1880, to $121,757.29. The Woman's Centenary Aid Association was organized in 1869 to assist in raising the Murray Fund, and was incorporated Sept. 18, 1873. It is supported wholly by voluntary contributions and annual memberships. These are all evidences of life and advancement, and indicate a larger increase in the future, which may be realized with a zeal in operation like that which has effected the change already noted.

Of the theological changes realized since the opening of the present century, what shall we say? and all of them indicating an approach to this very faith of which we are speaking. When Murray and his contemporaries entered upon their work in America, the old Calvinistic theology had almost undisputed sway here; and for fifty years afterwards it was more or less so. But since 1830 up to the present time, including the middle of this century, the advancement in theological thought has been as marked as have these other changes and signs of progress to which we have alluded. True, Arminianism came in with the Methodistic movement, and made vigorous warfare upon the old theology, with its "five points" so tenaciously adhered to. But Methodism held fast that abominable dogma, eternal punishment, and failed to see God's purposes any more effective in the final salvation of souls than did Calvinism with its full assurance of the salvation of "the elect" only. The Arminian deity seems to have had no fixed purpose as to the number of the finally redeemed. Though he foreknew, he was not pleased to ordain, or in the words of Dr. Adam Clarke: "I conclude that God, although omniscient, is not obliged, in consequence of this, to know all that he can know."¹⁷ The God of Calvin, though having a determinate will, appeared as a tyrannical sovereign; the God of Arminius, as lacking in purpose and in power. The one made the salvation of a certain number sure; the other left all in uncertainty, because so much depended solely on the will of the creature. The two systems summed up, however, amounted to Universalism. The one affirmed that every soul for whom Christ died would be saved; the other, that Christ, "by the grace of God, tasted death for every man."¹⁸ Opposed as were the two sects representing these theologies, in the beginning, they have settled down into quite a fraternal compromise during the last half century. Pulpit exchanges are free among their ministers, and, although here and there some of the old peculiarities of Calvinism occasionally find utterance, the statement of a noted Congregationalist minister seems to express the thought of both parties, "Election means, whosoever will; reprobation, whosoever wont."¹⁹

It was in face of what were deemed the main errors of both these theologies that Universalism stood forth as the vindicator of God the just and merciful Father of all his children, their Judge and Saviour, through Christ who gave himself a ransom for all, and whose own expressive statement of the result of his ministry was, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."²⁰

It has been during the ministry of this faith in the present century that the leading doctrines of the theology formerly prevalent in our land have been questioned, investigated, and in many minds outgrown. Who now believes in the endless suffering of infants? a doctrine deemed unquestionable in the churches a century ago. Even the existence of it at that time, in face of the most stubborn facts, has been denied by those whose parents and grandparents heard it from the Christian pulpit. Who assents to the doctrine of the total depravity of human nature, its inability "to do a good deed or think a good thought," and its utter odiousness in God's sight? What considerations and reconsiderations are there of that doctrine of atonement which involves the assumption that God was so incensed against his sinful children that Christ, the second and more merciful person in the Godhead, came into the world and died to appease the wrath of God and render it possible for him to be merciful to the delinquents; and how much more emphatic is the conviction finding utterance, so eminently expressive of Christian Universalism, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved."²¹ And the doctrine of endless punishment, how, during the time of which we are speaking, has this been questioned in the churches of our land. It has been seen that the divine character is involved in this doctrine, and that one of the most difficult of all theological works is to vindicate this character in the light of it. Formerly, it was deemed little short of impiety to question the justice of God when this horrible doctrine was represented as an indication and vindication of it. To cite emphatically the passage in Matthew (xxv. 46), "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal," was considered evidence enough that the divine justice could and would be signalized in the utter banishment of great numbers of his children from him, world without end. To question the exegesis of the passage as generally given – the original meaning of the word rendered "everlasting" and "eternal" – was regarded as a direct affront to the human wisdom of the past that had sanctioned it; and to declare such an explanation of it as derogatory to "the Eternal Goodness," was to question the veracity of the High and Holy One! But the thoughts of men have kept at work; inquiry has gone on; the old explanation has been most confidently and emphatically denied, and a more reasonable and consistent one given. Even the most respectable orthodoxy itself has conceded that the aionian punishment here set forth is not necessarily to be understood as implying endless duration, and that in the argument henceforth against the doctrine of universal restoration, this old interpretation of the text need be no longer urged.²² We have reserved a more extended view of this subject, however, for the close of this volume.

CHAPTER VI.
UNIVERSALISM. – UNITARIANISM. – RATIONALISM

"And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." – Eph. ii. 20.

SINCE the growth of the Universalist faith during the present century in our country, that phase of Liberal Christianity denominated Unitarianism has had its rise. It was an outcome of the Arminianism in orthodox churches. It advocated the doctrine of the Unity of God, in opposition to that of the Trinity as held by most of the churches in New England.²³ It also rejected the doctrine of total depravity, affirming that man had within him the germs of goodness, and needed the work of Christian culture to insure his true religious growth and perfection. Respecting the destination of man beyond the grave it had no uniform affirmation. Its leading ministers – Drs. Channing, Dewey, Gannett, and others – were undecided as to this great question. Dr. Channing uttered his protest against "the horrible thought" of interminable suffering, as affirmed by the dominant sects, while his statements respecting the wasted and ill-spent life make it an "impassable gulf from our Creator and from pure and happy beings, – a consuming fire and undying worm." Dr. Gannett has similar opinions: "Self-reproach, exclusion from the happiness of heaven, removal from the favor of God; to live but to suffer, to feel one's self at variance with all that is true and good and beautiful in the universe; what more it is, eternity will disclose." Rev. Mr. Alger thinks no fair critic can say that αἰώνιος, eternal or everlasting, when applied to punishment, means absolutely endless, nor, on the other hand, that it does not so mean. The late Rev. E. H. Sears writes that "it is the average opinion of Unitarians that Restoration is not a doctrine of Revelation." The American Unitarian Association said: "While we do generally hold to the doctrine of the final universality of salvation as a consistent speculation of the reason and a strong belief of the heart, yet we deem it to be in each case a matter of contingency, always depending on conditions freely to be accepted or rejected." The editor of the "Monthly Religious Magazine" – the principal of that class published by Unitarians – writes, in 1870: "Unitarians do not believe in Universal Restoration as a doctrine of Revelation fairly yielded by the interpretation of the Scriptures. This, we mean, is the average opinion. They do not think the Bible gives any verdict as to the final salvation of all mankind." Dr. Dewey, in later times (as in his discourse in the volume of "Pitt Street Chapel Lectures"), has defined the doctrine of the Paternity of God so as to seem in agreement with that of the final salvation of all souls. And at the present time perhaps the largest number of Unitarian ministers would not hesitate to give their assent to this doctrine on philosophical or scriptural grounds.

For the full and clear affirmation of the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, – the former giving assurance of a merciful care of God's offspring, and the latter of the final union, and not separation, of the great human family, – we are indebted to the fathers of Universalism in our land, – Murray, the Ballous, the Streeters, and their contemporaries. The Universalism which they declared and defended was that of the absolute and universal reign of Divine love, – love that is ever calling the child to obedience and happiness, and warning him against the inevitable and dire consequences of transgression; love that sent Jesus Christ into the world as the world's Regenerator, unto whom every knee shall bow, and whom every tongue shall confess to be Lord to the glory of God the Father; love that can and will overcome all hatred, make an end of sin, destroy death, and bring in everlasting righteousness. This is the Universalism that has led the way in this great advance and change of theological thought, in the New England and other churches, which is so widespread at this hour. It did not wait for public opinion to be ready for it, but went out on its mission, confronting as determined an opposition as has ever met any rising sect since the apostolic days. Its first advocates, and most of those who have succeeded them, have had a definite theology, a positive faith to affirm. They have declared it to the world as the best, the pre-eminent faith, standing not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God; and have asked, as they are still asking, all the churches and all the world, to show them a better if they are able to do so.

The sincere believers in this faith of the Gospel are glad to welcome all other Christians who would work with them in the eradication of religious error and the enlightenment of men by "the Word of God, that liveth and abideth forever." For what the Unitarian Churches have done of this work they have reason to be thankful, and would heartily co-operate with them in every effort to this desirable and heavenly end. The literary culture and scholarship contributed by Unitarians to the theological thought of the last half-century, as also the faithful and efficient work which they have accomplished, are, we think, justly appreciated by Universalists. They would render to all their dues, while they would humbly but righteously claim their own. It has been a subject of regret on their part, – this was inevitable, – that in consideration of the Rationalism, so-called, which has so marked this period, Unitarians could not have taken a more positive and united stand in regard to the Divine authority of Christianity, as made known in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Since Rev. Theodore Parker avowed his Rationalism, and began his Sunday worship service in Boston, it has seemed to most Universalists, as it has to not a few Unitarians, that a more definite theology and an avowed basis of its claims have been called for on the part of those who would displace old errors and establish the older truth of the Christian Gospel; so that when the question is honestly asked, as it often may be, "What is the difference between Universalism and Unitarianism?" the answer need not necessarily be another question, "What kind of Unitarianism?" Such a diversity of opinion as must abound where there is no theological basis of Christian fellowship in any sect or fraternity, must fail to give it that concentrated power of Christian truth so evidently needed to turn a perverted world right side up in its religious faith and life.

The Universalist Church has all along been aware of this need of a substantial basis of Christian faith in order to its vitality and success. When the Rationalism of Mr. Parker was attracting the attention of the public, a vigorous discussion came up in the Universalist journals of the time, whether a man should be sustained as a Christian minister who denies the peculiarly divine character of Christ and the account given of his miracles in the Scriptures, and of his resurrection from the dead.²⁴ The adjourned session of the "Boston Association" at Cambridgeport in December, 1847, gave special attention to this subject. The resolution presented at a former session a few months before at Lynn, and now again reported, was this: —

"Resolved, That this Association express its solemn conviction that, in order for one to be regarded as a Christian minister with respect to faith, he must believe in the Bible account of the life, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ."

The resolution was sustained by a very large majority of the clergy and laity. It was a plain and honest utterance, and gave the Christian world to understand the position of the Universalist Church in regard to authoritative Christianity.

As might have been expected, there was still much discussion as to the grounds of true Christian fellowship. It was followed up quite earnestly for a time by Universalists. The question of chief interest was, "Is not the faith of the heart (affections) of more importance than the faith of the intellect?" Shall not the good man have Christian fellowship whatever his theological opinions may be? In the light of the apostolic statement, "The letter killeth, it is the spirit that giveth life," is not the spirit of primary interest, and the letter comparatively inconsequential? To which it was replied that the spirit of a religion is to be most clearly understood by the letter which explains it; that the faith of the intellect and that of the heart should correspond, in order to the most perfect Christian discipleship; that the good man may be found in all religious communities, but that a good Mohammedan or Brahman could not properly claim Christian fellowship, not receiving Christ as the pre-eminent teacher of divine truth. Dr. A. P. Peabody, of the Unitarian Church, very fairly stated the subject in a discourse given by him at the time of which we speak: —

"One question is, whether those who take opposite views of the authenticity of the Christian miracles shall recognize each other as good men; and the other, whether they shall give each other countenance as Christian teachers. The former question I am prepared to answer with a cordial yes; the latter, with an unhesitating and an unqualified no."²⁵

About the same time there appeared in the "Universalist Quarterly" for October, 1846, from the pen of its able editor, Rev. Dr. Hosea Ballou, an article on "The Faith requisite to Christian Fellowship." The subject is sounded to its depths, and presented in all its bearings, clear as light, and plain and conclusive as logic can make it; and all in a spirit of the utmost candor. It has never been answered.

It may not be improper to speak in this connection of one who, in the beginning of his public life, appeared as a minister in the Unitarian communion, but who afterwards very conscientiously left the ministry and became a literary author and public lecturer, and who acquired a fame everywhere acknowledged in the civilized world as one of its eminent lights and leaders, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. As an author, lecturer, and reformer he has made an indelible impression on the minds of men during the last half century. The foremost thinkers acknowledged their indebtedness to him. In his earlier days many of his statements indicated pantheistic opinions. His discourse before the Divinity School in Harvard University in 1838 – so clearly and ably replied to by Rev. Dr. Ware – seemed a singular questioning of the personality of God, and his statements in reference to the personal immortality of the soul hardly indicated a strong Christian hope of this blessing. But in his later expressions of opinion we are differently taught. His biographer says of him:²⁶ "He is not a sceptic or a rationalist in the philosophic sense, and has no real affinity with any of these schools of thought." His own words, indicative of the Deity, are: "Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the Creator breaks in everywhere. There is no chance, no anarchy in the universe." Of the divine beneficence he says, "We see the steady aim of benefit in view from the first. Melioration is the law. The evils we suffer will at last end themselves, through the incessant opposition of Nature to everything hurtful." And of immortality, "All great natures delight in stability; all great men find eternity affirmed in the very promise of their faculties. The being that can share a thought and a feeling so sublime as confidence in truth is no mushroom; our dissatisfaction with any other solution is the blazing evidence of immortality." And of the divine ruling: "Every wrong is punished; no moral evil can prosper at last; the good is absolute, the evil only phenomenal." And of the significance of Christ, this language is emphatic: "You must not leave out the word Christian, for to leave out that is to leave out everything."

All these declarations, as we apprehend them, are in perfect accord with the teaching, spirit, and assurance of the Universalism of the New Testament. In the grandest conceptions to which their author has given utterance, we know of nothing that reaches beyond this, and it is for this that we welcome him as a witness to the truth of the Christian Gospel.

CHAPTER VII.
REFORM MOVEMENTS AND UNIVERSALISM

"Universalism is the ultimate of every expansive thought, of every comprehensive sympathy, of all action that embraces man as man, and works in faith for the world's redemption." – Rev. E. G. Brooks, D. D.

THE increasing interest awakened by the discussion of such topics of reform as peace, temperance, human freedom, the treatment of criminals, and others involving the moral uplifting and advancement of mankind, very naturally had its effect upon the Universalist Church. There were not a few in it who saw very clearly that the great Gospel in which they believed was in the world to do a regenerative work with the human family; that its first word to every one to whom it came was the call to reformation of character and life; that it was a direct and perpetual opposition to all that hinders this work, and that therefore they who profess to be its friends and advocates should embrace every opportunity of applying its heavenly forces to the diminishing of human wrong and the establishing of the reign of righteousness in the earth. As other churches were awakened and agitated on these reform questions, so was this one, and in due time it took its stand and made its manifestations in a way creditable to its profession, and in accordance with its hopeful and catholic faith.

One of the organizations for the furtherance of this work of Christian reform instituted by this church was that of the Universalist Reform Association. The first direct action taken in reference to the subject was at the session of the Massachusetts Universalist Convention in Hingham, June, 1846, when the following resolution offered by Rev. C. H. Fay, of Roxbury, was unanimously adopted: —

"Resolved, That this Convention recommend to the Universalists of New England to form an Association to be known as the New England Universalist Reform Association, which shall meet annually in Boston during 'Anniversary Week,' having for its object the collection of such statistical information relative to the various reform movements of the age as illustrates not only the progress of Christianity as we understand it, but the best means of promoting and applying it."

A committee was chosen to carry the resolution into effect. An appointed sub-committee issued a circular, urging upon all interested, attention to the main objects of the Association, which were: —

"1. To consider the influence of Universalist sentiments in the various reform movements of the age. It must be evident that these sentiments are not essentially confined to the sect which openly professes them. We hold that they lie at the foundation of every true effort for the prevalence of Temperance, Love, Peace, Freedom, and all movements which recognize the Paternity of God and the Brotherhood of Man. To establish the truth of the ultimate connection of these doctrines with all the philanthropic action of our age, to collect statistics and facts which demonstrate it, and to exchange sentiments upon the subject, constitute one great object of the Association.

"2. To assume our appropriate position in relation to these reforms; to exert our legitimate influence in them; and to show in our actions the practical conclusion of Universalist premises, – that he who believes in God's universal Paternity and the Brotherhood of the race cannot in any way countenance War, Intemperance, Slavery, or Capital Punishment, but consistently opposes and strives to abolish them all.

"The time of holding the meeting, too, deserves consideration. It is on Anniversary Week, a week when almost every moral question now agitating the civilized world is represented and discussed in Boston. Hitherto we have sent out no such influence on this occasion as we believe we may exert if our power shall be concentrated and put in operation. We see not why our Reform meetings may not be among the most interesting of all now held during this well-known season."²⁷

And they were. They began successfully, and were steadily and profitably held, up to 1859, during years when these vital moral questions were more intensely considered and debated in New England and throughout our land than at any previous period. Very carefully prepared and able reports were year by year presented to the Association, and resolutions involving the merits of these reformatory topics freely and amicably discussed. Often in other meetings, conventions, associations, conferences, where ecclesiastical matters claimed the chief attention, the introduction of these reformatory subjects would cause uneasiness and elicit much fault-finding on the part of those opposed to the introduction of such agitative themes into these meetings of the church. But at the yearly assemblings of the Reform Association the largest liberty was taken by all who desired to express their opinions on these great questions of the day.

The first meeting was a success. It was held in the Second Universalist Church, School Street, on Thursday, May 27, 1847. Four addresses were given on these subjects, Peace, Criminal Reform, Temperance, and Human Freedom, and appropriate resolutions discussed and adopted. In connection with this session a social festival was held on Friday morning, and was an occasion of unusual enjoyment to all who took part in it. The historian, Richard Frothingham, Esq., presided, and made an admirable opening address. He was followed by others, among them Chapin, then of rising fame. Pretending to have in hand only "skirts and fragments of ideas," he magically forms them into completeness, and endues them with power. He speaks of Christianity and Reform: —

"Christianity has not changed or added anything to itself. But we find in it latent truths; we discern new meaning in old truths. His eye had rested that very morning upon the passage which Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.' What a profound meaning does this passage receive now, in the light of these stirring reforms! How does the truth open before us, vast and deep as the blue heaven over our heads! Christianity authorizes and animates these social movements. Its social spirit and its labors of love make us live more in a year than elsewhere in a lifetime. The early fathers of our faith began their labor in the early morning, when the light of the truth they announced just tinged the mountain-tops; and now, as they are about vanishing from our horizon, the full effulgence shines upon their gray hairs, and makes them a crown of glory!"

The venerable Ballou made the concluding speech. His words were modest, sweet, and patriarchal. From that ancient saying of Jesus, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened," he brought out fresh and comprehensive words inspired by the scenes of yesterday and to-day, and eloquently urged home the admonition to his denominational children around him, that they should seek to accomplish all their reformatory work in the spirit of Christian love. He concluded, and at the word of the president "The Brave Old Oak" was sung, and responded to by the applause of the audience.

From year to year, as these meetings occurred, there was a strong interest in them. They were meetings where freedom of speech was welcomed and enjoyed. The most searching inquiry was invited, and the pro et contra of every resolution offered was presented in all the earnestness in which the debaters deemed it their privilege to indulge. The resolutions at the first meetings of the Association indicate its Christian basis. They are expressive of "gratitude to God in view of the development of our faith in all the great reform movements of the time; that we recognize the Word of God, especially the New Testament scripture, as the basis of all genuine reform; that an age as prolific as is the present in schemes for the improvement of the race, including such variety, from the most reasonable to the most Utopian, demands of every Christian the most candid and prayerful discrimination, that all his endeavors may be wisely directed; that in these movements we discern the promise of a better time coming, and of the kingdom of God upon the earth; that as religious sentiment is the controlling element of man's life, therefore the only true reform is that which seeks to influence men through the medium of religious faith."

In discussing topics involving the morals of politics and the great interests of the American Republic, the members of all political parties were regarded as on equal ground. The minister in these meetings had no hesitancy in preaching the morals of politics as he understood them, whatever the opinions of his parishioners at home might be. The religion of Christianity was "mixed" with politics as the larger quantity, and wrong, as wrong, arraigned wherever it might be found in church or state, in social or individual habit or life. Our public servants in their high places were deemed subjects of note and animadversion, if their conduct seemed to call for it, in the spirit of the prayer offered by the elder Dr. Beecher in Faneuil Hall: "O Lord, preserve us from speaking evil of our public servants, and especially save them from such wrong conduct as may call for such speaking on our part!" A resolution passed at the first meeting of the Association states "that, while the early Christians were only subjects, American citizens are the constituents of civil government; and in all ages Christians are bound to act the Christian principles in all their relations."

During the anti-slavery excitement, when the hunters for fugitive slaves were desecrating the ground of New England, and members of Congress in their interests were repealing the Missouri Compromise, and many of the ministers of New England were bold enough to remonstrate with them for such action, these most emphatic resolutions were freely debated and unanimously adopted by the Association.

"Resolved, That the clergymen of New England, in their Protest against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, have pledged themselves anew to freedom and the laws of God; that this Association cordially approve the course of those who signed the Protest, or otherwise labored to prevent the desecration of that vast territory which had been consecrated by solemn compact to liberty forever; and we request those Christian ministers who refused to sign that Protest to review their position in regard to this subject.

"Resolved, That the men from the North, and especially from New England, who have voted for the iniquitous Nebraska Bill, have proved themselves traitors to the cause of freedom and to the most hallowed traditions of our fathers, and that their conduct deserves the united, unqualified, perpetual reprobation of all friends to human rights, which reprobation should be emphatically expressed at the ballot-box."

The annual festivals held in those days in Boston by the Universalists were essentially pervaded by the spirit of this Association. The sentiments, songs, and speeches on these occasions were alive with the reformatory inspiration of the Christian Gospel. The signs of the times were clearly recognized by the speakers, and whatever the especial excitement of the day might be, it was sure to find a sympathetic tongue and ear at the festival table. The festival in 1854 occurring about the time of the rendition of Anthony Burns, the anti-slavery feeling was at white heat. When the company entered Faneuil Hall and were taking their seats, some sensitively conservative brethren could not suppress the expression of their wishes that no allusion might be made to that event in the addresses about to follow. But the current was so irresistibly in one direction that these fearful pleadings were as the smallest eddies therein. The notes of freedom made the old hall ring.

CHAPTER VIII.
NEW ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. – UNIVERSALIST PROTEST

"What concord hath Christ with Belial." – 2 Cor. vi. 15.

THE New England Anti-Slavery Society was one of the most vigorous and persistent bodies that ever appeared on these western shores as a reformatory institution. Its chief leader was the indomitable Garrison, who had vowed that on the vexed question of American slavery "he would be heard," and whose "Liberator" was making its journeys from a Boston press throughout the land; hailed and patronized by a goodly company in the North, denounced as incendiary at the South, where a large sum was offered for the head of its editor. He had sympathetic companions of a persistency equal to his own: Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy, Samuel E. Sewell, N. P. Rogers, Stephen C. Foster, John Pierpont, Theodore Parker, Parker Pillsbury, Frederick Douglass, and C. L. Remond, among the men of New England, and the Tappans of New York, and representatives at the annual gatherings from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelley (afterwards Mrs. Foster) were among the women expounders of this gospel of freedom, and "Anniversary Week" in Boston was made especially notable by their gatherings at Marlboro Chapel and Faneuil Hall. No matter what other meetings on that week were dull, there was always an exuberance of liveliness at the Anti-Slavery Convention. "Eloquence is dog-cheap at Marlboro Chapel," said Ralph Waldo Emerson; and it was. No better could be heard on the continent. The hardest and boldest resolutions were usually up for consideration, denouncing slaveholders and all their abettors, political, ecclesiastical, of whatever standing or profession. Church and state alike were subjects of their maledictions. Their defiance of all opposition had a clarion ring in it. Nothing pleased them more than to have their positions questioned or assailed. The adventurous wight who was willing to appear as a condemner of their doctrines was the very one for whom they were looking, and for whose presence and opposition they were profoundly thankful. Their meetings were electrifying. Such debates and orations, such questionings and rejoinders! Such hymns and spiritual songs, too, sung often by the Hutchinsons to the old tunes of "Amherst," "Lenox," and "New Jerusalem!" We hear them now; they brought the shouts and tears.

We remember a scene in Marlboro Chapel one afternoon during Anniversary Week. There came up for debate the question: "Does the Constitution of the United States justify slavery?" Rev. John Pierpont took the negative, and very logically maintained it for more than an hour. He appeared in the greatness of his strength, and at the close of his argument proposed to those of his auditors who wished, to question his statements. And never was seen a hungrier company of interrogators than then and there came upon him. But he was unmoved as a sea-rock in the midst of the breakers. His side of the question was not popular with most of the speakers and their sympathizers there, and he was subjected to a most searching cross-questioning. But he came out triumphantly (as it seemed) through it all. When three or four would speak at once, he would say: "One at a time, friends; the miller's rule holds, – first come, first served. I desire to hear you all." The afternoon sunshine suddenly blazing in from one of the windows upon his face, he aptly remarked: "Some subjects are involved in impenetrable darkness; but here we seem to have a super-abundance of light!" When the last inquirer had been answered, the speaker asked: "Are you all through?" And no other one questioning, he said: "And now, after the fashion of the good old divines, I come to the 'Improvement';" under which head he carefully and briefly reviewed the substance of the debate. It was a masterly plea.

But the end was not yet. There was an evening meeting. Again the hall was filled, to listen to a reply to Mr. Pierpont by Wendell Phillips. The orator was in his best mood, and his silvery speech kept the audience spell-bound. It was a complete refutation of the arguments adduced in the afternoon. A clergyman sitting near to Mr. Pierpont said to him: "How can his arguments be answered?" to which the latter replied: "I should like to see the man who could tell me!" So Greek met Greek in those stirring and stormy days.

It was an up-hill movement, this anti-slavery agitation. It called out spirits of more colors than those mentioned in "Macbeth." The opposition was intense. Garrison's life was in peril in the streets of Boston in 1835, and a little company of his sympathizers, including the poet Whittier and George Thompson, the English philanthropist, were closely followed in the streets of Concord, N. H., one evening, that they might be seized by certain mobocratic ones, and subjected to an immersion in some liquid coloring of transient, if not indelible, black; but the hounded ones escaped, preserving white men's complexions. They were not to be put down by mobs nor frightened by any human opposition. They had the spirit of Luther as he went to the Diet at Worms. Though the pro-slavery "devils were thick as the tiles on the houses," they proposed to fight them in the name of God and humanity.

Politicians could do nothing with them, and the churches generally discarded them. There was no love lost, however, between them and the churches. The churches did not give them credit for the good they were seeking to do, and they had no words of approval for the humanity of the churches. Even the National Constitution was denounced as "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell," and the churches were accused as upholders of this covenant. So they reasoned, not always, however, in that charity which the New Testament commends. There were those in the churches as strongly opposed to slavery as themselves, – but they were slow to recognize action against it outside of their own organizations, – who could say, as did Dr. Gannett of the Unitarian Church: —

"In principle I am with you. But there are those with whom you are connected, persons who seem to me so to distrust the goodness of all others who differ from them, and to look down upon all such with so great a consciousness of moral superiority, that I feel myself when in their presence to be in a situation not unlike that of a criminal before his accuser and judge."²⁸

At one time they held an Anti-Sabbath Convention for a few days, in Boston, during which they said many hard things against the sanctity of this seventh-day worship-time, evidently because they could thus castigate the churches for refusing to discuss freely on this day the crying sin of American slavery. It seemed a pity to hear such harsh denunciations by the speakers who were advocating a righteous cause, against an institution that had done so much towards the world's true civilization. But this was one of their methods of carrying on the reform.

A leading spirit in this movement in the "Granite State" was Nathaniel P. Rogers, for a few years the editor of the "Herald of Freedom," issued at Concord, N. H. He was a lawyer of Plymouth, Grafton County, and a member of the Orthodox Church in that town, and was a descendant of him who was burned at Smithfield, and had the martyr spirit of his noted ancestor. He was a scholarly, witty, and affable man, and wielded as facile a pen as any editor in New England. In many of his descriptive sketches he gave to the scenery of New Hampshire a fascination equal to that with which Sir Walter Scott invests the lochs and hills of Scotland. His plea with Mr. Webster, the great Senator from Massachusetts, to let "his lion voice in one Numidian roar" be heard from his place in Congress on the abomination of American slavery and the claims of American freedom, once read, could never be forgotten. When his "Herald of Freedom" was first issued, some of the stage-drivers from Concord refused to carry it out to the subscribers; but this hostility, through the personal influence of the editor, soon ceased. Its columns were opened to all sorts of radical sayings against the churches because of their presumed hostility to human freedom; but as the columns of the paper were free, there were sometimes sound and strong answers to them. Mr. Rogers, worn out with mental toiling and anxiety, was called from the earthly life in the midst of his years.

And so this work of the anti-slavery reformers went steadily forward with increasing momentum, till a more general awakening took place all over the land. The churches were becoming more and more alive to it, and the politicians could in no wise evade it. The seed of "Free-Soilism" sown, "Know-nothingism" sprang up, and one of the two leading political parties became the party of Freedom – of "free soil, free speech, free men." The passage and attempted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, had served to bring about this result. Hence the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, secession, war, the downfall of slavery. These first agitators lived to see the end they had striven for attained. They had been heard, and a stronger than they had heard, and had answered them, and an imploring and struggling nation, "in the day of his power!" Now could one of the first of our poets sing: —

"Ring and swing
Bells of joy! On morning's wing
Send the song of praise abroad!
With a sound of broken chains
Tell the nations that he reigns
Who alone is Lord and God!"

Of course the Universalist churches could not evade this controversy between freedom and slavery. Their very faith invited and encouraged it. The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man are doctrines which forever stand in opposition to the presumption that man can own property in his fellow man. Of all the Christian sects, Universalists were the last who could countenance in the light of their beneficent faith the abomination of American slavery. If other theologies gave cause for the aspersion that "God was the greatest slaveholder in the universe," because it was his intention to keep in spiritual bondage and sufferings great numbers of his offspring world without end, Universalism affirmed that this whole human creation now groaning and travailing in pain shall be delivered from its bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.²⁹ Could this church, bearing its own significant name, be silent, then, when the test time came? Nay, it was a golden opportunity for her to speak and act. She uttered her voice, firmly, freely, faithfully. True, there were conservatives at first in this church as in others, who dreaded the consequences of the agitation of this subject, who deemed it a political question rather than a religious one, and feared not only discord and division in the churches because of it, but a disruption of the national union. This timidity wore off in due time, and this manifesto went forth from the Universalists of Massachusetts and other States in 1845. It is a "protest against American slavery," and is signed by three hundred and four Universalist clergymen. The reasons stated as the basis of the protest are these: —

"1. Because slavery denies the eternal distinction between a man and property, ranking a human being with a material thing. 2. Because it does not award to the laborer the fruits of his toil in any higher sense than to the cattle. 3. Because it trammels the intellectual powers and prevents their expansion. 4. Because it checks the development of the moral nature of the slave; denies him rights and therefore responsibility. 5. Because it involves a practical denial of the religious nature of the slave. 6. Because it presents an insurmountable barrier to the propagation of the great truth of the Universal Brotherhood and thereby most effectually prevents the progress of true Christianity. 7. Because the essential nature of slavery cannot be altered by any kindness, how great so ever, practised toward the slave. 8. Because the long continuance of a system of wrong cannot palliate it, but on the other hand augments the demand for its abolition. 9. Because we would in all charity remember that peculiarities of situation may affect the judgment and moral sense; still, we must not forget that no peculiarity of situation can excuse a perpetual denial of universal principles and obligations."

CHAPTER IX.
REFORMATORY PROGRESS

"The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." – Isaiah, xl. 4.

THE half-century just passed has been notable for the progress of thought in reference to the significant reforms now claiming public attention. Foremost among these is that of

Temperance

In no other period of the past has its work been so marked and cheering. In Great Britain and America its manifestations were almost simultaneous. Intemperance was seen to be a monstrous national vice, and societies were formed for the suppression of it. Abstinence from distilled liquors was at first the pledge taken; but subsequent discussion of the subject induced the next and safer step forward, of total abstinence from all intoxicants. From 1834 to 1838 nearly the whole of the original societies through England and Scotland extended their principles on the new and broader declaration, and worked with renewed enthusiasm.³⁰ The same course was taken in our own country, and similar effects followed. The new pledge was consistent, because it struck at the root of the evil.

The Temperance reform enlisted the sympathies of Universalists in the beginning. It was a vindication of the Gospel of enlightened and pure manhood, maintaining its supremacy over the sinful inclinations and indulgences "that war against the soul." Indeed, one of the first avowed advocates of the practice of total abstinence, as early as 1778, was the well-known and honored Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a firm believer in Christian Universalism. He not only advocated this practice himself, but was especially interested in commending it to the attention of two religious bodies in Pennsylvania, the Episcopalians and Presbyterians, at their annual meetings. When in later days the attention of the Christian churches was called to the consideration of this reform, no more zealous friends of it were found than those among Universalists. The Universalist ministry was well represented, and its services welcomed by others. An instance is remembered of a deserved tribute, given in his peculiar quaintness of speech, by the elder Dr. (Lyman) Beecher, to Rev. Edwin Thompson, at an annual meeting of the Massachusetts Temperance Society. Mr. Thompson was State agent for the Society, and had been very active in its work during the year; so that a speaker alluded to him as having been in that time "the main spoke in the wheel." "Indeed," said Dr. Beecher, "it seems to me that he has been the hub, and all the spokes, and a considerable part of the rim!"

The reform in our country was quickened by the "Washingtonian" movement, which involved the reformation of the inebriate, and his work to redeem others from the destroyer. Although there were backsliders in this, as in all reformatory movements, yet the number of the saved justified a thousand times the interest taken in the great work itself. It was an indication of what might be done everywhere and in all time by Divine aid, and human will at work relying upon it. It seemed also to emphasize the truth that men, however far overcome by wrong habit, are not to be given over as irreclaimable. It was in accord with the grand idea that there are no lost ones so far astray as to be beyond the mercy which sent Him into the world, who said, "I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick."

Legislation took higher and stronger ground in reference to the evil of intemperance. The subject went into politics more than ever. The doctrine of prohibition gained advocates. A law favoring it was passed in Massachusetts, and afterwards in Maine. Prosecutions and law-suits followed, and appeals went up to the highest courts to test the constitutionality of the law. This was affirmed by them, just as the framers of the law knew that it would be. Despite all sophisms and evasions, the common sense of every man will settle down into the conviction that the people of a nation, if they would be really strong and free, must employ every safeguard against this giant evil, that has so constantly outraged and cursed our world.

The rising of the women of the West, in 1873, to suppress the demoralizing work of the liquor-saloons, was an outspoken, providential protest against these scourges of our civilization. Jeered by the thoughtless, and insulted and cursed by the dealers in the death-poison, it was an indication that made the traffickers in strong drink thoughtful, the friends of woman to take new note of her righteous demands and of her reformatory power, and every true soldier in the temperance army to put on new courage in view of the many instrumentalities which God is able to raise up in aid of His redeeming work with His children. One result of the Woman's Crusade has been the formation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Unions in all parts of our land.

The signs of progress in this reform are more significant than ever. The popularity of the Prohibitory Law in Maine; the Prohibitory clause just put into the Kansas and Iowa Constitutions, and proposed in other States; the numerous Reform Leagues; the proposal to institute in our Congress a thorough investigation in reference to the bearing of this question of liquor-making and vending on the industrial, social, and political welfare of our nation; the continued discussion of the effects of the use of intoxicants by leading statesmen, scientists, and medical professors of our age, and the bringing out of new facts, all showing the vital importance of the Temperance reform; and, also, the evident tendency of these movements, as apprehended by the devotees of the liquor interests themselves, moving them, as at a recent convention of brewers in Washington, to avow their determination to defeat, if possible, by all practicable means, the legal, moral, and especially the religious endeavors put forth against the evil by which they are enriched at the expense of the prosperity, happiness, and peace of so many millions of our land, – these facts are unmistakable indications of still greater achievements in the days and years to come.

Like most reforms, this one must work a long way on to its completion. The evil against which it contends is deep-seated and far-reaching. Appetite, avarice, and the drinking usages of society are its strongholds. But all these are not impervious to the inroads of the right upon them. The public conscience is awake to the demands of this reform as it never was before. When that is more truthfully and generally educated, moral suasion will have freer course, and restrictive laws will find a stronger support everywhere.

Peace

The history of our race is one of warfare. "Wars and fightings" have been realized among men from the beginning, and the world has not outgrown the sanguinary strife. Even during the time of which we are speaking in these pages, when so much has been done for the mental and moral enlightenment of mankind, these murderous human contentions have been going on in the Old World and the New. Our own nation has passed through one of the darkest passages of its history. The war of the Rebellion came of a war that existed previous to the withdrawal of the Southern States of our Union, the war of slavery, – for slavery itself is war always, an outrage on the rights of human beings, perpetrated by members of a common brotherhood. And thus one war opened the way to another. They who were warring upon others could no longer bear to have their wrong-doings questioned, but claimed the right to multiply and perpetuate them. So came secession, so came the fratricidal contest. The majority of the nation did not seek war, did not desire it. But the Unionists of the nation deemed themselves justified in resisting the efforts of the secessionists to dismember the nation, and so through a defensive warfare sought to preserve the Union. It was a terrible ordeal, and although the abomination of slavery was swept away, it was at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, of a vast amount of treasure, of suffering as yet unrevealed, and of a lamentable demoralization. The Almighty brought out of it a new order of things with our nation, by abolishing human bondage and placing freedom in the ascendancy. The new order, however, is not yet fully effected. It will take time, wisdom, patience, mutual forbearance, sympathy, and fraternal help to secure this result.

But one reform aids another. A higher view of the claims of human freedom will tend to effect a clearer perception of the great claims of the human brotherhood. If man is too good to be enslaved by his fellow-man, he is too good to be destroyed by him. If human freedom is sacred, so is human life. And we are sure that this grand conception has been very clearly realized, and as clearly affirmed, during the middle of the present century.

In the midst of the world's conflicts during this time, the advocates of peace principles, on both sides of the Atlantic, have not been inactive. They have had a hearing, if a limited one, in Christendom. Peace associations have been more operative than before, and the pulpit and press have made new appeals to the public for the promotion of peace principles. Excellent publications in essay, sermon, or oration have been issued from the press. We hear of one Sunday, in 1845, when one hundred and twenty peace sermons were preached in the city of London. Our philanthropic countryman, Elihu Burritt, has done much for this cause. One of the ablest and most admirable of appeals in behalf of "peace on earth and good will to men" was given in 1845, in Boston, by Charles Sumner, – who may be justly reckoned as one of the brightest lights among philanthropists and statesmen of the present century, – on "The True Grandeur of Nations." Moved by the threatening aspect of affairs between the United States and Mexico, the orator denounced the war system as the ordeal by battle still unwisely continued by international law as the arbiter of justice between nations, and insisted that this system ought to give way to peaceful arbitration for the settlement of international questions, as the private ordeal of battle had given way to such substitutes in the administration of justice between individuals. "The oration attracted unusual attention, led to much controversy, and was widely circulated both in America and Europe. It was pronounced by Richard Cobden to be 'the most noble contribution made by any modern writer to the cause of peace.'"³¹

The delusion that wars must always be expected more or less with mankind is a vagary of barbarism, and not a true Christian thought. Rather is the poet right, when he says: —

"War is a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at."

Wars may be lessened, may be outgrown in human society. There are better ways of settling human disputes than by an appeal to arms. Facts in the history of our own nation prove it. Here are a few of them: —

In 1794, the question of the Northeastern boundary between the United States and the dependencies of Great Britain was settled by arbitration.

In 1822, the question of restitution or compensation for slaves found on board of British vessels during the war of 1812. The matter was referred to the Emperor of Russia, and his award accepted by both nations.

In 1858, a difficulty between the United States and the government of Chili and Peru, was referred to the arbitration of the King of the Belgians, and settled by his award.

In 1869, the claims of the United States and Great Britain to landed property in and about Puget Sound were adjusted by peaceable reference.

In 1871, the well-known Alabama claim, which caused so much ill feeling between the United States and England, and threatened to involve the two countries in a terrible war. President Grant, referring to the settlement of this claim, said in his message of Dec. 3, 1871: —

"This year has witnessed two great nations, having one language and lineage, settling by peaceful arbitration disputes of long standing, which were liable at any time to bring nations to a bloody conflict. The example thus set, if successful in its final issue, will be followed by other civilized nations, and finally be the means of restoring to pursuits of industry millions of men now maintained to settle the disputes of nations by the sword."

Is this good possible? Assuredly, if good is able to prevail over evil, right over wrong, love over hatred. And what does the Christian Gospel signify but this: "Peace on earth and good will toward men"? This "good will" shall come, if Christians will do their duty by insisting on the practicability of it. The undercurrent of a better feeling is gaining force as the great truth of the Brotherhood of Man is more deeply and extensively realized. If the present toiling-time is dark, there is light beyond it, the unerring prophecy of the time when "nations shall learn war no more."

As said Victor Hugo, at the Congress of Peace in Paris, in 1849: —

"A day will come when the only battle-field shall be the market open to commerce and the mind opening to new ideas; when a cannon shall be exhibited in public museums just as an instrument of torture is now, and people shall be astonished how such a thing could have been. A day shall come when those two immense groups, the United States of America and the United States of Europe, shall be seen placed in presence of each other, extending the hand of fellowship across the ocean, exchanging their produce, their commerce, their industry, their arts, their genius, clearing the earth, peopling the deserts, meliorating creation under the eyes of the Creator, and uniting, for the good of all, these two irresistible and infinite powers, – the fraternity of men and the power of God."

In agreement with the foregoing statements in reference to the reform movements of our time, we may note more briefly certain other indications of the increase of that spirit which would lessen the afflictions and wrongs and promote the well-being of society.

The Treatment of Criminals

has been a subject of much thought and discussion during the generation just passed. It has been, and still is, an open question among the more thoughtful, whether the subject of the proper treatment of criminals has been regarded aright. We may justly plead for benevolent sympathy without being the apologist of crime. Conscience must be remembered as well as the cry of pitying tenderness, and punishment must have a meaning, or the distinctions of right and wrong are lost. "It will be a sad day," as one has truly said, "when those who violate our laws are more pitied than blamed." Christians are bound by their religion to labor for the prevention of crime, and for the strict application of all righteous laws to the criminal; to impress as they can the awfulness of sin on their own and on other's consciences, and to recall the fallen back to virtue, shamed by his sin, and resolute and strong in the working of a regenerated will, thus vindicating and imitating "the goodness and severity of God." The treatment of convicts in our prisons at the present time is generally more in accordance with these considerations than in the past, when severity was deemed more needful as applied to criminals who were subjects of total depravity, than a proportionate mercy, which regarded them not only as lost ones, but as capable of a possible restoration to their rightful Owner and Almighty Friend. The reform schools in our different States are working in this Christian direction. The subject of has elicited much attention during the time of which we are speaking. It has been discussed in newspapers, pamphlets, legislatures, pulpits, and lyceum halls. Some of our States have abolished the gallows, others are agitating this subject in their legislatures. The present governor (Long) of Massachusetts, in his annual messages of the last two years, has recommended the abolition of the death penalty. A large number of ministers of the Universalist Church have constantly affirmed their opposition to it. Rev. Charles Spear published a sensible work on the subject, and Rev. Hosea Ballou, D. D., thirty years since, gave the whole question a very thorough investigation, in reply to Rev. Dr. Cheever of New York, and others.³² Michigan was the first State in the Union to abolish the death penalty, and a late Report makes the statement that, with a population of 1,500,000, no man has been executed in the State during the last thirty-five years, and that a less number of murders have been perpetrated during the last ten years, in ratio to the population, than during the same decade in any other State where public or even private executions have prevailed.³³ Capital punishment has also been abolished in Maine.

Capital Punishment

The Position and Work of Woman

has also been a subject of deep and widespread interest. Christianity has ever given to woman a place denied her by all other religions. As Christian thought has had freer course, and Christian theology and practical work new and brighter development, the relations of woman to the welfare and progress of human society have been more clearly understood and appreciated. Her rights in law are now more plainly and justly defined, and the importance of her equal education with the other sex admitted and emphasized. She is prominent and indispensable as a teacher, all over the land; she is a graduate of the college and a professor there; she is a successful practitioner in the legal and medical professions; she is an ordained minister of the Gospel; she is a merchant, a book-keeper and accountant, an editor, an artist, a mechanic, a farmer, and has more than average success in all these departments of activity. Her right to the ballot is slowly but surely coming to a settlement, which it will take time and thought on her part (for when she asks for the ballot it will be hers), and enlightened legislation to effect. Where she has exercised this right, none but favorable results have been witnessed.³⁴ Our State legislatures are called upon to give attention to the subject, and a committee of our national Congress have just decided to report a proposed amendment to the Constitution, declaring that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex, and giving Congress the power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article." If Congress will agree to propose this amendment, and three fourths of the States will ratify it, woman suffrage will be legalized.

Other Questions

The philanthropic and successful efforts in behalf of the blind, the deaf and dumb, and feeble minded, of fallen women, and orphan children, are becoming more and more apparent every year, all in cheering accord with that restorative mercy and power evinced in Him whose mission was to relieve the sorrows and remove the afflictive evils that beset mankind. And no more unmistakable evidence of the decline of that horrible doctrine of endless suffering for the wicked can be realized, than the instituting and maintaining societies for the suppression of cruelty to animals. Surely, the Father of our spirits will not be less merciful towards any of his children, than these children are justly called upon to be to the inferior creatures of his forming hand! These are some of the signs of Christian progress during the last half-century. Laus Deo!

CHAPTER X.
THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH AND ITS WOMEN

"Help those women which labored with me in the churches." – Paul, Phil. iv. 3.

THE Universalist Church is much indebted to its faithful women. Taking into consideration its comparative numbers, no other church in America has been more signally favored in the genial and healthful influence of its writers who have borne the honorable name of Woman. They have been instrumental in spreading the doctrines of the primitive Gospel and the moral bearings of their religion before the world in most attractive and impressive forms, and have disabused the public in its wrong estimate of the character and ability of the advocates of Universalism and the tendency and influence of its principles.

Among those worthy to be remembered in this goodly company, who have passed from the present life during the last half-century, we may mention the gifted sister poets, Alice and Phœbe Cary, Mrs. Sarah Broughton, Mrs. Julia H. Scott, Mrs. Sarah C. E. Mayo, Mrs. Charlotte A. Jerauld, Mrs. Henrietta A. Bingham, Mrs. Elmina R. B. Waldo, Mrs. Luella J. B. Case, and Mrs. E. H. Cobb.

Among the living we may note the names of Mrs. Catharine M. Sawyer, whose contributions to our church journals are so well known; Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, who in her past connection with our church work and literature has gained such a high reputation with her voice and pen, as well as in her deeds of benevolence and mercy during the war of the rebellion; Mrs. Julia A. Carney, whose hymns and instruction books have made her name so familiar in our Sunday-schools and homes; Mrs. Caroline A. Soule, whose consecrated words and works have secured her a name which the church of her love will hold in righteous estimation; Mrs. Nancy T. Munroe, Mrs. Lathrop (formerly Mrs. Bacon), Mrs. E. M. Bruce, Mrs. J. L. Patterson, Mrs. S. M. Perkins, Mrs. P. A. Hanaford, Miss Carnahan, Miss Remick, Miss Minnie S. Davis, – but it is difficult to know where to draw the line in this counting. Others might be named, would space permit, who have made their contributions to the literature of the church. The older and well known retain "their wonted fires," and the new and younger are coming to succeed and honor them. Some of our women are speaking our best and most practical words in our churches, prayer and conference and missionary meetings; in our Sunday-schools, conventions, and associations; in our pulpits, as evangelists and pastors; in our educational institutions. If the Universalist Church has not at this hour as brilliant a presentation of Christian literature from the pen of its women as it had thirty years since, there never was more of the practical and available talent of woman in it than at the present time; never so much organized effort on their part as now.

This effort seems to have taken new form and life since the Centenary Year of the church came round, – 1870. Previous to that date, the history of many a new movement, many a new parish or church, had been the history of woman's fidelity in the inception, progress, and success of the enterprise. It was but natural, then, that in the inspiration awakened by the approach of this centennial year, the women of the church should be aroused to new and still greater effort. And thus it was that the "Woman's Centenary Aid Association" was organized at Buffalo, N. Y., in September, 1869. The organization was effected, and the main work under it was to aid in the raising of the proposed "Murray Fund," of $200,000. The total amount raised by that Association for this object, in all the States and elsewhere, deducting comparatively moderate expenses, and placed in the treasury of the United States Convention for the Murray Fund, was $35,000. Nearly 13,000 women thus became members of the Association. The fact was a new and cheering manifestation. The "Christian Leader," a Universalist journal of New York city, thus alluded to it: —

"If our women need no eulogy, we need the satisfaction of making a warm, explicit confession of our admiration of their attempt, and our gratitude for what they have done. They can well afford to dispense with the acknowledgment, but we cannot afford not to make it. It becomes us here to raise no question as to woman's fitness for certain employments and political prerogatives, hitherto the prerogatives of the rougher sex. But should we reach what some call 'extreme views' on the several points, and should our zeal bring us onto the platform as a champion thereof, the sledgehammer we should wield is, the work of the Universalist women in their Centenary Year. God bless and make us grateful for our women!"

Since that time the Association has taken the title of the "Womans' Centenary Association" (dropping the word "Aid" used in the beginning in reference to its work in connection with the United States Convention). It has much other work of its own now. Its tract publishing and circulation, its Scotland Mission, its endowment of women professorships in one of our colleges, its special gifts for the aid of theological students, the helping of needy and worthy parish organizations, establishing Sunday-schools in waste places, and assisting to sustain them and other beneficent works, are included in its ministries. Every year's report of its doings has spoken to the public of the utility and effectiveness of its work.

In May, 1875, Mrs. Caroline A. Soule, the first President of the Association, sailed from New York city for Scotland, on a mission of observation, as a company of believers there had for some time received aid and encouragement from the Association. She passed several months in Scotland, preaching in Dunfermline, Glasgow, Larbert, Dundee, and other places, and organized the "Scottish Universalist Convention." She also assisted at the dedication of a little church in Stenhousemuir, the only Universalist Church edifice in Great Britain. Three years afterwards she went, by approval of the Association, as a preacher and missionary. After preaching awhile in Dundee and Glasgow, in 1879 she organized, in the last-named place, the "St. Paul Universalist Church," and established a Sunday-school and church library. Great numbers of tracts and many books (twenty barrels of closely-packed matter) were circulated as helps in her work. The rite of ordination was conferred upon her by the Scottish Convention. During her work in Scotland she has proved, by her fidelity, self-sacrifice, and persistence in her work during many and severe discouragements, her qualifications for a Christian missionary worthy to be recorded among the most devoted of any in the other churches who have been strengthened and honored by the accomplishment of devoted women in their missionary fields. Her work is a noble beginning of that which may continue to be done by the Universalist Church, if it shall possess a zeal commensurate with the magnitude of that pre-eminent Gospel to be "preached to every creature," which it is called of God to maintain. Christian Universalism and woman, "what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."³⁵

CHAPTER XI.
SKETCHES OF MINISTERS

"Insignificant as the denomination of Universalists may now appear in the eyes of the world, it is not to be doubted that the time is coming when it will occupy in this country, and throughout all Christendom, a much more commanding position, and men will ask for the beginning of what they shall then see, and love to read the story of our present struggles and victories." – Rev. T. J. Sawyer, D. D.

IT is within the first century of our national republic, just passed, that this great faith in the universality of God's love and of the work of Christian salvation with man, has gained a prominence in the churches which it had not known since the earlier times of Christianity. It is of the last half century, in connection with the history of this faith, however, that I would more particularly speak, as it is within this period that the work of its promulgation in our own country has been especially realized, its public advocates multiplied, and their ministries extended in many of the States of our Union. Its publications and other educational forces have increased, and, as we have seen, it has identified itself with some of the most significant reforms of the age. Many of its friends and representatives have been among the worthy and excellent of the times in which they have lived, and not a few of its public advocates deserve to be honorably and thankfully remembered in the present and the future for the contributions they have made to the progress of the church in the knowledge of Christian truth and the realization and enjoyment of the Christian life. It is one of the enjoyments connected with the preparation of these pages, that the writer may call them up in memory and speak of them as they appear to him, and note some of their characteristics, and pay them that tribute of respect and honor which they so justly merit.

Though others may appear as their successors in the same high calling, they can scarcely be more faithful or effective in their labors than have these earnest defenders of the Abrahamic faith who have been foremost in its promulgation during the past generation. If many of them now rest from their labors, their works surely follow them, and their names deserve tender and thankful remembrance by their survivors in the church for whose prosperity and honor they so hopefully, bravely, and faithfully taught and wrought.

It should be understood that, in the succeeding sketches of ministers, it is not the intent of the writer to present anything like a full record of all who have faithfully served in this capacity in our country during the time of our church history comprehended in these pages. A complete biographical encyclopædia cannot be compassed in so limited a space. It is from his own particular standpoint of observation and recollection that the writer presents his testimony. Furthermore, it is mainly to those now departed that these references are made.

The Ballous have been conspicuous in this conflict of religious opinions during the present century. Foremost among the family of preachers, most of whom have departed, stands acknowledged Hosea the elder, one of the strongest theologians of the past or present in New England. He lived through half the present century, being nearly thirty years old when he entered it, and was vigorous to the last at the age of eighty-one. The statement of his life-history is not a new one now. The four ample volumes containing it, by Dr. Whittemore, have been extensively read, and will be for years to come. But having known and revered him, it is an unspeakable pleasure to the writer to state his impressions of the man and the preacher.

Hosea Ballou (a native of Richmond, N. H.), came from the home of a worthy Baptist clergyman, whose means of living and supporting a large family were small. He had but meagre opportunities for education, but employed what he had to the best advantage, and became a school-teacher in early manhood. He joined the Baptist Church when quite young, but afterwards grew out of its theology, and became convinced of the truth of Universalism. Discouraged in his first attempts as a public speaker, he grew more confident, and soon attracted much attention, wherever he appeared, as an advocate of his faith. His pastorates were in Barnard, Vt., Portsmouth, N. H., Salem and Boston, Mass. He died in the last-named city, June 7, 1852, after a pastorate of more than thirty years. His two sons, Hosea F., of Vermont, and Massena B., of Stoughton, Mass., have served in the ministry many years.

Mr. Ballou was gifted with great logical clearness, aptness, and force. His preaching was plain, scriptural, and often fervent, and no one could bring home to the hearer the great themes of the Divine Fatherhood and Human Brotherhood more effectively than he. Wakeful indeed must be the theological opponent who could evade the force of his logic. He employed the Socratic method, by drawing the objector out, so that his own statements would confound or confute him. Many valiant ones of the opposite faith were there who could readily assail and denounce his doctrines, where his replies could not reach them, but who would be very sure to keep at a respectful distance from that "sword of the Spirit" which he wielded with such consummate skill.

Of the published works of Mr. Ballou, none have evinced more mental clearness and vigor than his volume on "Atonement," issued in 1805.³⁶ Its plainness and adaptedness to the common reader, its sharp logic, and above all its apt and convincing appeals to the Scriptures, render it a timely helper everywhere and always, in the discussion of the theologies which have assumed the Christian name, and which are now being so closely scrutinized. Every reader and student of theology understands something of the old theory of Atonement so long dominant in the Christian Church, so exceedingly perplexing to honest and independent inquirers, so hard to be vindicated by its ablest advocates, and so surely sowing the seeds of scepticism and infidelity in many minds. Volume after volume has appeared in defence and attempted illustration of it. Sin an infinite evil, being a violation of infinite law, and therefore the law requiring an infinite sacrifice, short of which no atonement could be made; the transgression of Adam bringing the whole human race into the same situation of sin and misery, and subjecting them all to the infinite penalty of an infinite law, which they had violated in their parent before they individually existed. In view of this penalty, which was endless suffering, God himself, to placate his own wrath against the delinquents, assumed a body of flesh and blood, and suffered the penalty of the law by death, – not that God himself actually died, but the human body in which he came, – this is deemed the infinite sacrifice by which it is possible for a part of mankind to be saved. "Divines of the greatest ability," writes Mr. Ballou, "and of the first rank among the literati, have drained the last faculty of invention in plodding through the dark region of metaphysics to bring up a Samuel to explain the solecism of satisfying an infinite dissatisfaction."

Now let us note how the author of "Atonement" quietly sets forth this absurdity. It is all comprehended in a single page of the volume: —

"We will state it as it is often stated by those who believe it, which is by the likeness of debt and credit. The sinner owed a debt to Divine Justice, which he was unable to discharge; the Divine Being cannot, consistently with his honor, dispense with the pay, but says, 'I must have what is my just due;' but as the debtor has not ability to pay the smallest fraction, Divine Wisdom lays a deep, concerted, mysterious plan for the debt to be discharged. And how was it? Why, for God to pay it himself!

"Our neighbor owes us a hundred pounds; time of payment comes, and we make a demand for our dues. Says our neighbor, 'My misfortunes have been such that I am not the possessor of the smallest fraction of property in the world; and as much as I owe you I am worse than nothing.' I declare to him positively that I will not lose so much as a fraction of the interest, and leave him. A friend calls, and asks me how I succeeded in obtaining my dues of my neighbor. I reply, 'My neighbor is not, nor will he ever be, able to pay me any part of my demand.' My friend says he is sorry that I should lose my debt. I answer, 'I shall not lose it. I have very fortunately, in my meditations on the subject, thought of a method by which I can avail myself of the whole, to my full satisfaction; and I think it is a method which no person in the world but myself could ever have discovered.' My friend is curious and impatient to know the secret, never before found out. The reader may guess his confusion on my telling him, 'that as I have that sum already by me, I am now going to pay up the obligation before the interest is any larger!' This has been called the Gospel plan, which contains the depths of infinite wisdom."

What could be plainer, and how could the justness of this representation be questioned? Questioned it was, of course, not by any attempt at elaborate examination and refutation, but by a sermon now and then given out from some Orthodox pulpit, by some honest minister, entrenched behind the prejudices of his hearers, and altogether disinclined to meet the whole question in the broadest daylight of investigation. Out of this plain exposition, and others like it, since made, have come the examinations, and statements, and restatements, and amendments, and improvements of the orthodox doctrine of Atonement, which are keeping astir at this hour the pulpits and schools of theology all over the land and across the seas.

Many are the anecdotes of Mr. Ballou given in the biographies already before the public. Were we to attempt a selection, we should be at a loss where to begin. We have one in mind, given us by Rev. Moses Ballou, which we have never seen in our religious journals. A Mr. Buckman, a relative of Mr. Ballou, had taken it upon him as a matter of conscience, with very little mental preparation, to be a preacher. He had a good deal of self-assurance, and, withal, strong love of approbation. Being in company with Mr. Ballou, at one time, he was anxious to get an approving word from him, and said, "Brother Ballou, I am awfully tried with myself." "Ah!" said Mr. Ballou, "Why so? What is the trouble?" "Why," said Mr. Buckman, "it is this: to think that I should ever try to preach, and know so little. Now, what do you think about it?" "Why," said Mr. Ballou, hesitating a little, "if you really want to know my mind, I think —that – if you knew a little more, you would never try again!"

How welcome was he at the great meetings of the church, – conferences, associations, conventions. He was usually called upon to give the discourse at the close of the meeting. And it was often a feast to hear him, as he would dwell upon the excellency of the divine attributes, the "exceeding great and precious promises," and the plain and reasonable precepts of the gospel. A prophetic word of good cheer would be spoken by him at such times. He would see, and make others see, the clouds receding, and the clear day opening in the blue and golden sky beyond. However acceptably others had preached before him, the expectation was that somehow his discoursing would give finish and sanction to them all. And it was so. At Barre, Vt., where the General Convention met in 1831, excellent discourses were delivered by able ministers present, and so rich and varied were the topics dwelt upon, that the query was somewhat humorously proposed, "What will Father Ballou have to say after all this?" Judge of our interest and delight when the modest man arose, and in the most quiet way proposed for his text the words of Elihu, in Job, xxxvi. 2: "Suffer me a little, and I will show thee that I have yet to speak on God's behalf." And such a vindication of the character of the gracious Father of all in face of the aspersions cast upon it by his weak and erring children! It was simply electrifying.

The late Rev. Theodore Clapp, D. D., of New Orleans, and a minister in the Unitarian Church, once related that, being present in a gathering of Unitarian clergymen in Boston, the conversation turned on the changes which had been effected in the theology of New England, and the question who, of all her great divines, had wrought the most and greatest changes. Of course Channing had the most advocates; but there were some who named Edwards, Emmons, Hopkins, and other doctors of the Orthodox Schools. At last Dr. Clapp, who had remained silent, was appealed to. "Gentlemen," said he, "you have not yet named the man!" "What!" replied all in astonishment, "not named him!" "No, gentlemen, you have not yet named him." "Why, who can it be? We have named every preacher of eminence in New England." "And yet, gentlemen, you have not named the man." "Well, who do you say he is?" With great impressiveness, Mr. Clapp uttered the name. "Hosea Ballou has effected more and greater changes in the theological opinions of the people of New England, than any man dead or living." There was silence for a time, and the discussion was not renewed.³⁷

Mr. Ballou was a vigorous writer. His "Treatise on the Atonement," "Notes on the Parables," and volumes of sermons, are among his best offerings to the public. The first-named book ought to be read throughout Christendom. He was through his professional life a welcome contributor to the periodicals of the church. He has stood and will continue to stand high. His imposing statue at Mount Auburn will look out upon generations mentally and spiritually blest through his truthful ministries.

The eldest son of Mr. Ballou, Rev. Hosea Faxon Ballou, was born in Dana, Mass., April 4, 1799, and died in Wilmington, Vt., May 20, 1881. At the age of thirty he became desirous of entering the ministry, but hesitated from anxiety as to the support of his growing family. He began the study of theology, however, and in 1832, after a few months with Rev. Benjamin Whittemore, preached with success three times in the vicinity of Boston, and was called to Whitingham, Vt. He was ordained at Boston, June 30, 1833. After a pastorate of nearly twenty-five years at Whitingham he went to Wilmington, where he was pastor until, in 1872, the infirmities of age led him to abandon the pulpit, after a ministry of forty years without the loss of a single Sunday. In person Mr. Ballou was tall, erect, and strong, bearing a marked resemblance to his distinguished father in face and form as well as in mental characteristics. His sermons evinced a high order of intellect and cultivation. During the last seventeen years of his residence in Whitingham, he held the office of town clerk, and in Wilmington was twice elected to the Constitutional Convention and once to the State Legislature. He was President of the Wilmington Savings Bank for seven years before his death, and occupied many other positions of honor and trust. He reared a large family of children, and it has been said of him, in truth we may believe, that during the past fifty years no man in Southern Vermont exerted so wide an influence over religious opinions.

Another son of Mr. Ballou, Massena B. Ballou, was pastor of the Universalist Church in Stoughton, Mass., for twenty-five years, and now resides in that town, at an advanced age.

An elder brother of Hosea was Rev. David Ballou, of Munroe, Mass., a man of remarkable acuteness as a reasoner, and quite as sound a theologian as the more distinguished one just noticed, but whose success as a preacher was much less, because of the want of that ease and fluency in the delivery of his discourses which his brother possessed. But those who knew him well have borne witness to the excellence of his character and his great ability as an expounder of the Word of the Gospel.

His son, Rev. Moses Ballou, held a prominent place in our church as one of its talented ministers, and as a writer of more than ordinary ability. He was born in Munroe, Mass., March 24, 1811. Educated at the academy at Brattleboro, Vt., he began preaching at the age of twenty-two. One of his earliest charges was at Bath, N. H. He was subsequently settled at Portsmouth, where he had pastorates twice. He had charge of the churches at Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven, Conn., and in later years removed to New York city, where he was pastor of the Bleecker Street Church. He then came to Philadelphia, and took charge of the Church of the Restoration. Failing in health, he gave up his work in that city, and removed to Atco, N. J. His friends there erected for him a small church edifice, where he held service when able so to do. He died in Philadelphia, May 19, 1879.

He was the author of two books, – one the "Memorial of Rev. Merritt Sanford;" the other, "The Divine Character Vindicated," a review of Rev. Edward Beecher's work, entitled "The Conflict of Ages." This last-named volume indicates the masterly mental strength of the man. Dr. Beecher himself, we are informed, acknowledged it to have been the ablest of any reply made to his work. It has never yet been read by Universalists as it deserves to be. Mr. Ballou was not only a strong and logical writer, but an earnest and eloquent preacher. Dr. T. B. Thayer writes of him: —

"In his best days, when in the vigor of his manhood, physically and mentally, few men could hold a thoughtful and intellectual audience to closer attention than he; and even those who differed from him theologically acknowledged the ability with which he maintained his positions, and were little disposed to enter the lists of controversial argument against them. And at times when the great truths of the Gospel seemed, in the midst of his speaking, to dawn upon him in new and larger revelation, he would break into speech that thrilled his hearers, and lifted them for a space into the fellowship of the angels.

"He knew for a good while that the end was approaching, and he was ready. Death was to him only the door that opened into the new immortal life, which was almost as presently real to him as the life he was living here. And when, at the last, his life-long friend, Rev. James Shrigley, said good-bye to him, he exclaimed, 'Why say good-bye, when we shall meet again to-morrow?'"

Of all the worthies in this company of church leaders of which we are speaking, not one of them is entitled to a higher place than Hosea Ballou, D. D., or "2d," as he was called before the doctorate was conferred upon him. A rare man was he, a clear-headed and closely logical thinker, an untiring student, one of the soundest of preachers, and humblest and noblest of men. We have no fear of using language too strong in our statement of his character, its pre-eminence and worth. An editor of a volume of his discourses has given it, on the title-page, from Laman Blanchard: —

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1

Oration of Governor Long before the municipal authorities and citizens of Boston, July 4, 1882.

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2

Eph. iv. 13.

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3

Milman's "History of Christianity."

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4

Civitate Dei, lib. xxi., chap. 16.

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5

Civitate Dei, lib. xxi., chap. 16.

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6

For evidence of the many utterances of the Universalist idea in the literature of the past, the reader is referred to the volume entitled "A Cloud of Witnesses," by Rev. John W. Hanson, D. D., Chicago, 1880.

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7

Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. viii.

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8

Acts, xvii. 24, 28.

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9

Rev. v. 18.

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10

1 Cor. xii. 14, 26.

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11

When Rev. John Murray first preached in Faneuil Hall, Nov. 26, 1773, he discoursed from this appropriate text: "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." – John, viii. 36.

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12

Rev. T. Whittemore, D. D. Speech at Faneuil Hall Festival, 1858.

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13

Rev. J. H. Tuttle, D. D.

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14

Rev. J. Smith Dodge, D. D.

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15

Rev. A. D. Mayo, Sermon at Funeral of Rev. Thomas Jones of Gloucester, Mass., 1846.

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16

Rev. Dr. A. A. Miner, Discourse at Gloucester, September, 1870.

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17

Comm. on Acts, ii. 23.

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18

Heb. ii. 9.

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19

Rev. H. W. Beecher.

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20

John, xii. 32; 1 Tim. ii. 4.

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21

John, iii. 16, 17.

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22

Dr. Taylor Lewis.

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23

The volume on the Atonement, issued in 1805 by Rev. Hosea Ballou, was the first of any note, in this country, in which the subordination of Christ to the Father was maintained. Dr. Mayhew and Rev. James Freeman, of Boston, had already preached anti-Trinitarian views in that city, and Dr. Priestley and a Mr. Butler had preached them in other parts of the country. But Mr. Ballou's circumstances had not, it is likely, allowed him to know what these men believed and taught. – Rev. Dr. A. P. Putnam, in "Religious Magazine," April, 1871.

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24

Mr. Parker's views were the subject of special note and examination on the part of the Universalist journals. A candid and able review of his opinions was given in "The Universalist Miscellany" of April, 1845, by the editor, Rev. O. A. Skinner. Rev. Mr. Lothrop, of the Brattle Square Church (Unitarian), delivered and published a strong discourse in opposition to the Rationalism of Mr. Parker.

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25

Anti-Supernaturalism, a sermon delivered July 13, 1845, before the Senior Class of the Divinity School, Harvard University.

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26

Biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by G. W. Cook.

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27

This circular was signed by the sub-committee, Rev. J. G. Adams and Rev. E. H. Chapin.

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28

Memoir of Dr. Gannett, by his son, p. 294.

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29

Heb. viii. 21, 22.

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30

Chambers' Miscellany.

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31

New Amer. Enc.

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32

Universalist Quarterly, Vol. VI. No. 4, October, 1849.

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33

"Gospel Banner," Augusta, Me., June 10, 1882.

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34

The Governor of Wyoming affirms that woman suffrage is an unqualified success in the Territory.

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35

For a more ample view of the position and work of the women of the Universalist Church, we refer the reader to the volume recently given to the public by Mrs. E. R. Hanson, entitled "Our Women Workers." Chicago, 1882.

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36

A new edition of this valuable work, with an Introduction by Rev. Dr. Miner, Mr. Ballou's successor in the Boston pastorate, has just been issued by the Universalist Publishing House in this city. It ought to have a new and a larger circulation than ever. The writer owes his conversion to Universalism, by divine grace, to the reading of this book.

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37

Account by Rev. A. B. Grosh.

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