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.