Henry Ware, Jr. (1794-1843), was the son of Professor Henry Ware, who held the chair of Divinity in Harvard College for thirty-five years. He himself became professor of Pulpit Eloquence and Pastoral Care in the same institution in 1830. The pastor for thirteen years of a prominent Unitarian church in Boston, he never wavered in his faith in the deity of Jesus Christ. How otherwise could he have written that triumphant Easter hymn: “Lift your glad voices in triumph on high, For Jesus hath risen, and man cannot die; Vain were the terrors that gathered around him, And short the dominion of death and the grave.” William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), America’s first great poet, wrote five hymns for Henry D. Sewall’s Unitarian Church hymnal in 1820. He was a member of the First Congregational Unitarian Church in New York City. Yet in 1865 he could write a hymn containing the following stanza: “Lo! in the clouds of heaven appears God’s well-beloved Son; He brings the train of brighter years; His Kingdom is begun; He comes, a guilty world to bless With mercy, truth, and righteousness.” In 1875 he could still write in a hymn on “The Star of Bethlehem,” “Yet doth the Star of Bethlehem shed A luster pure and sweet; And still it leads, as once it led, To the Messiah’s feet.” An even more remarkable Unitarian was Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), the great physician, but even greater poet. He had the reputation of being rather radical in his religious views; he was a humorist whom human life rather amused than impressed seriously (though he was tender enough to human suffering), but, when a hymn seemed an appropriate close for one of his genial essays, he could write, “Lord of all being, throned afar, Thy glory flames from sun and star; Center and soul of every sphere, Yet to each loving heart how near.” But unless in the deeper depths of his soul there still lingered faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, how could he write, “O Love divine, that stooped to share Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear, On thee we cast each earthborn care; We smile at pain while thou art near.” Especially that last verse of unshaken faith: “On thee we fling our burdening woe, O Love divine, forever dear; Content to suffer while we know, Living and dying, thou art near.” What might not Oliver Wendell Holmes have done for Christian hymnody, had he had Charles Wesley’s evangelical experience and piety?