Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and DevelopmentCooke, George Willis
History
Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and Development
Cooke, George Willis
Unitarianism -- United States
is born into it and is to be trained as a member by nature and by right.
There has also been a marked change in the forms of Sunday worship,
especially in the general adoption of responsive readings or more elaborate
rituals. The tendency has been away from the bare and unattractive service
of the Puritan churches, which was the acme of individualism in worship,
towards the more social conception that brings the whole congregation to
join in the act and in the spirit of devotion. This social conception of
worship had its first distinct expression in a Unitarian church when James
Freeman Clarke organized the Church of the Disciples, in 1843.[11] His
example was a potent force in introducing into many churches a richer and
more expressive form of worship. Another influence was that of Samuel
Longfellow, who became the minister of the Second Unitarian Church in
Brooklyn, in 1853. He soon after introduced vesper services in place of the
second sermon in the afternoon, making them largely devotional in their
character. "His own taste and deep feeling were largely a condition of the
full success of the vespers," says his biographer, "which were seldom
elsewhere so impressive or seemed so genuine as a devotional act. They
needed, for their perfect effect, the influence of a leader with whom
worship was an habitual mental attitude, and who, combined with the
instinct of religion the art of a poet and of a musician."[12] The form of
service thus initiated was adopted in many other churches, and slowly had
its influence in giving greater beauty and spiritual expressiveness to
worship in Unitarian churches.
About 1885 the tendency to adopt a more social and a more aesthetic form of
worship came to assert itself more distinctly. To its furtherance Rev.
Howard N. Brown gave, perhaps, greater emphasis than any other person; but
there were others who took an active part in the movement. The old
Congregational demand for simplicity, however, was very great; and there
was strong feeling against anything like ritualism. The use of some kind of
liturgy became quite general in the face of this objection, and a
considerable number of books of a semi-ritual character were published. The
most elaborate work of this nature was compiled by a committee appointed by
the Unitarian Association, and published by it in 1891. What is to be
recognized in this tendency is not the more general use of liturgies,
however simple or however elaborate, but the growth in Unitarian churches
of the worshipping spirit. With the development of a rational theology
there has been a corresponding evolution of a simple but earnest attitude
of devotion.
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