Our Unitarian GospelSavage, Minot J. (Minot Judson)
Religion
Our Unitarian Gospel
Savage, Minot J. (Minot Judson)
Sermons; Unitarianism
There is a very bright saying in connection with this old church, which
I will pause long enough to repeat, because there is a principle in it
as well as a great deal of wit. They kept there the old English church
service, except that it was purged, according to their point of view,
from all Trinitarian belief. It is said that Dr. Bellows, who was
attending a service there some years ago, had with him an English
gentleman as a visitor. This man picked up the service, looked it over,
and, turning to Dr. Bellows, with a sarcastic look on his face, said,
"Ah I see that you have here the Church of England service watered."
Whereupon Dr. Bellows, with his power of ready wit, replied, No, my
dear sir, not watered, washed. King's Chapel, then, was the first
Unitarian church in this country. But the number grew rapidly, and in a
few years perhaps half, or more than half, of the old historic Puritan
and Pilgrim churches in New England had become Unitarian, including in
that number the old First Church of Plymouth.
Now, before I go on to discuss the principles underlying our movement,
I wish to call your attention to a few more names; and I trust you will
pardon me for this. There is no desire for vain-glory in the
enumeration. I simply wish that people should know, what only a few do
know, who have been Unitarians in the past, and what great names,
leading authoritative names in the world's literature and science and
art, find here their place.
Among the Fathers of the Revolution, all the Adamses, Dr. Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, and many another were avowed Unitarians. And, when we
come to modern times, it is worth your noting that all our great poets
in this country, Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, and in
this city Stedman, are Unitarian names.
Then the leading historians, Bancroft, Motley, Prescott, Sparks,
Palfrey, Parkman, and John Fiske, are Unitarians. Educators, like
Horace Mann, like the last seven presidents of Harvard University,
Unitarians. Great scientists, like Agassiz, Peirce, Bowditch, Professor
Draper, Unitarians. Statesmen and public men, like Webster, Calhoun,
the Adamses, the Hoars, Curtis. Two of our great chief justices,
Marshall and Parsons. Supreme Court Judges, Story and Miller. Literary
men, like Whipple, Hawthorne, Ripley, and Bayard Taylor; and eminent
women, such as Margaret Fuller, Lydia Maria Child, Lucretia Mott, Helen
Hunt Jackson, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe.
I mention these, that you may know the kind of men, ethical,
scientific, judicial, political, literary, who have been distinguished,
as we think from our point of view, by being followers of this grand
faith of ours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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