When Convers Francis became a professor in the Harvard Divinity School, in 1842, the spiritual philosophy had recognition there; and he had a considerable influence upon the young men who came under his guidance. Though of the older way of thinking, George R. Noyes, who became a professor in the school in 1840, was always on the side of liberty of interpretation and expression. For the next two decades the Divinity School sent out a succession of such men as John Weiss, Octavius B. Frothingham, Samuel Longfellow, William J. Potter, and Francis E. Abbot, who were joined by William Henry Channing, Samuel Johnson, David A. Wasson, and others, who did not study there. These men gave a new meaning to Unitarianism, took it away from miracles to nature, discarded its evidences to rely on intuition, rejected its supernatural deity for an immanent God who speaks through all life his divine word. During the interval between the New York convention and the first session of the National Conference, which was held in Syracuse, October 10-11, 1866, the questions which separated the conservatives and radicals were freely debated in the periodicals of the denomination, and also in sermons and pamphlets. The radicals organized for securing a revision of the constitution; and on the morning of the first day Francis E. Abbot, then the minister at Dover, N.H., offered a new preamble and first article as substitutes for those adopted in New York, in which he stated that "the object of Christianity is the universal diffusion of love, righteousness, and truth," that "perfect freedom of thought, which is at once the right and duty of every human being, always leads to diversity of opinion, and is therefore hindered by common creeds or statements of faith," and that therefore the churches assembled in the conference, "disregarding all sectarian or theological differences, and offering a cordial fellowship to all who will join them in Christian work, unite themselves in a common body, to be known as The National Conference of Unitarian and Independent Churches." At the afternoon session Mr. Abbot's amendment was rejected; but on the motion of James Freeman Clarke the name was changed to The National Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches. A resolution stating that the expression "Other Christian Churches was not meant to exclude religious societies which have no distinctive church organization, and are not nominally Christian, if they desire to co-operate with the Conference in what it regards as Christian work," was laid on the table. [Sidenote: Organization of the Free Religious Association.]