The period from 1880 to the present time is marked by a growing denominational unity. Gradually Unitarians have come to the acceptance of their fellowship as a religious body, and to a recognition of their distinct mission. The controversy between the conservatives and the radicals was transferred to the west in 1886, and continued to have at its basis the problem of the relation of the individual to religious institutions and traditions. The conservative party maintained that Unitarians are Christians, and gave recognition to that continuity of human development by which every generation is connected with and draws its life from those which precede it, and is consciously dependent upon them. On the other hand, the radical party was not willing to accept traditions and institutions as having a binding authority over individuals. Some of them were reluctant to call themselves Christians, not because they rejected the more important of the Christian beliefs, but because they were not willing to bind any individual by the action of his fellows. It was their claim that religion best serves its own ends when it is free to act upon the individual without compulsion of any kind from others, and that its attractions should be without any bias of external authority. [Sidenote: "The Western Issue."] At the meeting of the Western Conference held in Cleveland in 1882, arrangements were made looking to its incorporation, and its object was defined to be "the transaction of business pertaining to the general interests of the societies connected with the Conference, and the promotion of rational religion." It was voted that the motto on the conference seal should be "Freedom, Fellowship, and Character in Religion," which was the same as that of the Free Religious Association, with the addition of the word "character." These results were reached after much discussion, and by the way of compromise. The issues thus raised were brought forward again at St. Louis, in 1885, when Rev. J.T. Sunderland, the secretary and missionary of the conference, deplored the growing spirit of agnosticism and scepticism in the Unitarian churches of the west. His report caused a division of opinion in the conference; and in the controversy that ensued the conservatives were represented by The Unitarian, edited by Rev. Brooke Herford and Rev. J.T. Sunderland, and the radicals by Unity, edited by Rev. J.Ll. Jones and Rev. W.C. Gannett.