THE NAME "UNITARIAN.”

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that of accepting, as sooner or later it must come to do understandingly, whatever may be meant in the purely scientific phrase "positive religion," as opposed to that which is doctrinal or institutional. As one of its interpreters has said, "We have walked out into the open daylight, and for us there is no going back."

The name "Unitarian" may not seem adequate to cover so large a range and variety of opinion as is here implied. It was accepted reluctantly and under strong protest by those who led in the religious movement it denotes, who wished to be known as belonging, individually, to the "liberal wing" of New England Congregationalism. Many would greatly prefer that now. Especially the

name has been held unfit to be taken as a corporate name, to describe a church, or the larger communion made up of many churches. churches. In fact, of the four hundred and forty-four churches on the list in 1893, less than two hundred (197) are known by that name in their proper title. On its roll of five hundred and ten ministers (of whom twenty are women) more than one hundred were educated in other forms of belief, and may not be presumed familiar with the Unitarian tradition, or any way attached to it. What leads them to accept the name is the same reason that prevailed over the objections felt at first: not at all that it defines an opinion in which they are all agreed, but that it denotes that very undefined and expanding movement of religious thought, which can be interpreted only by a proper understanding of its history and antecedents.

One chief value of the name at the present day is that it serves as a symbol, or standard, recognized by a far wider range of peoples, dialects, and minds than the scant showing of its organized forces might seem to promise. Under the same title, and under like general conditions, are gath

ered nearly three hundred and fifty (344) congregations in the British Islands. These are well understood to represent, in the main, that same non-dogmatic form of Christianity towards which the movement we have traced has been gradually led. What has been said of the Harvard Divinity School may be said in almost the same terms of Manchester New College, their chief seat of instruction, now established at Oxford, which has been made illustrious in the past by the names of Kenrick, Tayler, and Martineau, and now embraces the freshest European and Oriental learning. Two points are especially noticeable in defining their present position: a tenacious loyalty to the best traditions of English Unitarian Dissent, and a keen sympathy with that tendency in politics which aims at public education, justice, and a better social order. Under special embarrassments, their church life has been comparatively cramped and feeble; but in the wider field they have been honorably known as a positive force in the intellectual and moral sphere.

1

In France about one fifth of the Protestant body are well recognized as Unitarian, though not formally separated from the rest, and without break of the historic continuity that links them with old heroic memories of the Reformation. Their two theological colleges, in Paris and at Nîmes, with a humble but very devout community in the Landes near Bordeaux, testify to their learning and their piety. Prof. Bonet-Maury enumerates, as chief features in their work: (1) the faculty of Liberal Theology established at Paris in 1877 (to take the place of that at

1 The Rev. Athanase Coquerel (père) spoke of himself to me, in 1855, as legitimate successor of the Huguenot leaders of the sixteenth century. The orthodox majority is large and dominant; but dissenters from its creed have never lost their place or standing in the body. See an article by Rev. Narcisse Cyr on The Reformed Churches of France," in the "Unitarian Review" for June, 1889, p. 518.

ON THE CONTINENT.

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Strasburg), which "has remained faithful to the liberal principles of its Alsatian mother, has constantly refused to subscribe to the synod of 1872, and still preserves for its pupils the independence of their opinions"; (2) a religious section, under Albert Réville, in the "École pratique des hautes études," which includes Catholic, Jew, and Buddhist along with Protestant Christians; (3) a liberal Press, whose most significant product is the great Bible commentary of Edouard Reuss, in twelve volumes, "a colossal monument dedicated to the literary, moral, and religious worth of the Scriptures"; (4) a lay organization, or standing board, directed by leading jurists, which "has since 1872 supported the poorer and feebler churches in the departments, and sheltered them from the encroachments and illegal attempts of the orthodox majority"; (5) representative conferences held at Paris, Nîmes, or Montauban, which have secured important advantages to the liberal minority, especially-by the division of Paris into eight ecclesiastical districts-control of the "Oratoire," the chief Protestant church of France. The names of M. Waddington and Jules Ferry are cited among the statesmen who have shown an active interest in the founding of institutes for free religious education.

Among other Continental nations the following evidences may be given. The late Professor Chastel, of Geneva, author of the most considerable church history composed from the Unitarian point of view, was a venerable witness how far that ancient city had departed from its older tradition and gone over to the liberal name and faith. In northern Italy an active Unitarian propaganda has for many years been conducted by Professor Ferdinando Bracciforti, of the Polytechnic college in Milan, and has had friendly recognition from the royal family. The long-established Unitarian community in Transylvania still

exists, as one of the important educational and religious forces of eastern Hungary. In Germany the latitude of speculation admitted by the official Lutheranism gives less emphasis to the name; but several theologians of eminence have both maintained cordial personal relations with Unitarian scholars in America, and have shared as collaborators in their later work. The Dutch school of biblical criticism, so well represented in Leyden by the late Professor Kuenen, may be said to be fully naturalized in their later teaching; while a large part of the theological erudition or speculation current in Continental schools would in England or America be described simply as Unitarian.

What effect this widening and diversifying of the associations belonging to that name may have on the work or fortunes of the body that has borne it for the last eighty years in America, it would be idle to conjecture. As many disclaimed it in the beginning, so there are those who think it is already outgrown and should be set aside. That point it would be futile to argue here. A different view, and probably the prevailing view, is that summed up in the following words of the most genial interpreter of some later passages in the movement that has here been traced: "The new Unitarianism is neither sentimental nor transcendental nor traditional. It calls itself Unitarian simply because that name suggests freedom and breadth and progress and elasticity and joy. Another name might do as well, perhaps be more accurately descriptive. But no other would be so impressive, or on the whole so honorable." "1

1 O. B. Frothingham, "Boston Unitarianism," p. 267.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE.

The following letter, here inserted by permission of Dr. Martineau, was written to accompany some marginal suggestions on pages 149-168, which have been adopted in the revision of the plates. It constitutes an independent chapter, or commentary, of special importance to the understanding of the period there included.

35 GORDON SQUARE, LONDON, W. C., January 13, 1894.

Dear Dr. Allen: I have read your proof-sheet with the greatest interest, and return it with a few marginal notes, indicating the only points at which, as it appears to me, the mode of statement admits of somewhat more precision. These refer to matters of detail, and will, I trust, sufficiently explain themselves.

I am struck, however, with a difficulty which you have to encounter in prefixing to an "American Church History," which is fairly concurrent with American history of Doctrine, an account of our English history of the corresponding Doctrinal development, which ran its course, as its literature shows (witness Locke, Clarke, Whiston, Firmin, Penn, Emlyn), on several ecclesiastical lines, and never gathered itself up into an organized church at all. Prior to the date (Lindsey's change) from which you start, the Unitarian theology had its chief home in our English Presbyterian congregations of Baxterian descent and in the Dublin and Munster Presbyteries, because their fundamental principle of Christian fellowship was devotion to the service of God, in the spirit of Christ, unconditioned by any pledge, actual or tacit, limiting the varieties or checking the development of theological opinion. This utter repudiation of any "orthodoxy" as affecting the disciples' peace with God threw the whole emphasis of the fellow-worshipers' union on righteousness of life and the graces of the Christian mind, and rendered possible the coexistence of many shades of doctrinal thought within one communion.

This feature of doctrinal catholicity rendered the congregations which it characterized very attractive to Protestant exiles from France, Geneva, and Holland, who had suffered from the rigor of Calvinistic tests at home. It drew them especially to Dublin, where there had been nothing to hinder the continuance of the Presbyterian order of church government; whereas in England this order, after being suspended for a generation-between the Act