Fifty Notable Years

The Universalist Church has all along been aware of this need of a substantial basis of Christian faith in order to its vitality and success. When the Rationalism of Mr. Parker was attracting the attention of the public, a vigorous discussion came up in the Universalist journals of the time, whether a man should be sustained as a Christian minister who denies the peculiarly divine character of Christ and the account given of his miracles in the Scriptures, and of his resurrection from the dead.24 The adjourned session of the "Boston Association" at Cambridgeport in December, 1847, gave special attention to this subject. The resolution presented at a former session a few months before at Lynn, and now again reported, was this: —

"Resolved, That this Association express its solemn conviction that, in order for one to be regarded as a Christian minister with respect to faith, he must believe in the Bible account of the life, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ."

The resolution was sustained by a very large majority of the clergy and laity. It was a plain and honest utterance, and gave the Christian world to understand the position of the Universalist Church in regard to authoritative Christianity.

As might have been expected, there was still much discussion as to the grounds of true Christian fellowship. It was followed up quite earnestly for a time by Universalists. The question of chief interest was, "Is not the faith of the heart (affections) of more importance than the faith of the intellect?" Shall not the good man have Christian fellowship whatever his theological opinions may be? In the light of the apostolic statement, "The letter killeth, it is the spirit that giveth life," is not the spirit of primary interest, and the letter comparatively inconsequential? To which it was replied that the spirit of a religion is to be most clearly understood by the letter which explains it; that the faith of the intellect and that of the heart should correspond, in order to the most perfect Christian discipleship; that the good man may be found in all religious communities, but that a good Mohammedan or Brahman could not properly claim Christian fellowship, not receiving Christ as the pre-eminent teacher of divine truth. Dr. A. P. Peabody, of the Unitarian Church, very fairly stated the subject in a discourse given by him at the time of which we speak: —

"One question is, whether those who take opposite views of the authenticity of the Christian miracles shall recognize each other as good men; and the other, whether they shall give each other countenance as Christian teachers. The former question I am prepared to answer with a cordial yes; the latter, with an unhesitating and an unqualified no."25

About the same time there appeared in the "Universalist Quarterly" for October, 1846, from the pen of its able editor, Rev. Dr. Hosea Ballou, an article on "The Faith requisite to Christian Fellowship." The subject is sounded to its depths, and presented in all its bearings, clear as light, and plain and conclusive as logic can make it; and all in a spirit of the utmost candor. It has never been answered.

It may not be improper to speak in this connection of one who, in the beginning of his public life, appeared as a minister in the Unitarian communion, but who afterwards very conscientiously left the ministry and became a literary author and public lecturer, and who acquired a fame everywhere acknowledged in the civilized world as one of its eminent lights and leaders, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. As an author, lecturer, and reformer he has made an indelible impression on the minds of men during the last half century. The foremost thinkers acknowledged their indebtedness to him. In his earlier days many of his statements indicated pantheistic opinions. His discourse before the Divinity School in Harvard University in 1838 – so clearly and ably replied to by Rev. Dr. Ware – seemed a singular questioning of the personality of God, and his statements in reference to the personal immortality of the soul hardly indicated a strong Christian hope of this blessing. But in his later expressions of opinion we are differently taught. His biographer says of him:26 "He is not a sceptic or a rationalist in the philosophic sense, and has no real affinity with any of these schools of thought." His own words, indicative of the Deity, are: "Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the Creator breaks in everywhere. There is no chance, no anarchy in the universe." Of the divine beneficence he says, "We see the steady aim of benefit in view from the first. Melioration is the law. The evils we suffer will at last end themselves, through the incessant opposition of Nature to everything hurtful." And of immortality, "All great natures delight in stability; all great men find eternity affirmed in the very promise of their faculties. The being that can share a thought and a feeling so sublime as confidence in truth is no mushroom; our dissatisfaction with any other solution is the blazing evidence of immortality." And of the divine ruling: "Every wrong is punished; no moral evil can prosper at last; the good is absolute, the evil only phenomenal." And of the significance of Christ, this language is emphatic: "You must not leave out the word Christian, for to leave out that is to leave out everything."

All these declarations, as we apprehend them, are in perfect accord with the teaching, spirit, and assurance of the Universalism of the New Testament. In the grandest conceptions to which their author has given utterance, we know of nothing that reaches beyond this, and it is for this that we welcome him as a witness to the truth of the Christian Gospel.

CHAPTER VII.

REFORM MOVEMENTS AND UNIVERSALISM

"Universalism is the ultimate of every expansive thought, of every comprehensive sympathy, of all action that embraces man as man, and works in faith for the world's redemption." – Rev. E. G. Brooks, D. D.

THE increasing interest awakened by the discussion of such topics of reform as peace, temperance, human freedom, the treatment of criminals, and others involving the moral uplifting and advancement of mankind, very naturally had its effect upon the Universalist Church. There were not a few in it who saw very clearly that the great Gospel in which they believed was in the world to do a regenerative work with the human family; that its first word to every one to whom it came was the call to reformation of character and life; that it was a direct and perpetual opposition to all that hinders this work, and that therefore they who profess to be its friends and advocates should embrace every opportunity of applying its heavenly forces to the diminishing of human wrong and the establishing of the reign of righteousness in the earth. As other churches were awakened and agitated on these reform questions, so was this one, and in due time it took its stand and made its manifestations in a way creditable to its profession, and in accordance with its hopeful and catholic faith.

One of the organizations for the furtherance of this work of Christian reform instituted by this church was that of the Universalist Reform Association. The first direct action taken in reference to the subject was at the session of the Massachusetts Universalist Convention in Hingham, June, 1846, when the following resolution offered by Rev. C. H. Fay, of Roxbury, was unanimously adopted: —

"Resolved, That this Convention recommend to the Universalists of New England to form an Association to be known as the New England Universalist Reform Association, which shall meet annually in Boston during 'Anniversary Week,' having for its object the collection of such statistical information relative to the various reform movements of the age as illustrates not only the progress of Christianity as we understand it, but the best means of promoting and applying it."

A committee was chosen to carry the resolution into effect. An appointed sub-committee issued a circular, urging upon all interested, attention to the main objects of the Association, which were: —

"1. To consider the influence of Universalist sentiments in the various reform movements of the age. It must be evident that these sentiments are not essentially confined to the sect which openly professes them. We hold that they lie at the foundation of every true effort for the prevalence of Temperance, Love, Peace, Freedom, and all movements which recognize the Paternity of God and the Brotherhood of Man. To establish the truth of the ultimate connection of these doctrines with all the philanthropic action of our age, to collect statistics and facts which demonstrate it, and to exchange sentiments upon the subject, constitute one great object of the Association.

"2. To assume our appropriate position in relation to these reforms; to exert our legitimate influence in them; and to show in our actions the practical conclusion of Universalist premises, – that he who believes in God's universal Paternity and the Brotherhood of the race cannot in any way countenance War, Intemperance, Slavery, or Capital Punishment, but consistently opposes and strives to abolish them all.

"The time of holding the meeting, too, deserves consideration. It is on Anniversary Week, a week when almost every moral question now agitating the civilized world is represented and discussed in Boston. Hitherto we have sent out no such influence on this occasion as we believe we may exert if our power shall be concentrated and put in operation. We see not why our Reform meetings may not be among the most interesting of all now held during this well-known season."27

And they were. They began successfully, and were steadily and profitably held, up to 1859, during years when these vital moral questions were more intensely considered and debated in New England and throughout our land than at any previous period. Very carefully prepared and able reports were year by year presented to the Association, and resolutions involving the merits of these reformatory topics freely and amicably discussed. Often in other meetings, conventions, associations, conferences, where ecclesiastical matters claimed the chief attention, the introduction of these reformatory subjects would cause uneasiness and elicit much fault-finding on the part of those opposed to the introduction of such agitative themes into these meetings of the church. But at the yearly assemblings of the Reform Association the largest liberty was taken by all who desired to express their opinions on these great questions of the day.

The first meeting was a success. It was held in the Second Universalist Church, School Street, on Thursday, May 27, 1847. Four addresses were given on these subjects, Peace, Criminal Reform, Temperance, and Human Freedom, and appropriate resolutions discussed and adopted. In connection with this session a social festival was held on Friday morning, and was an occasion of unusual enjoyment to all who took part in it. The historian, Richard Frothingham, Esq., presided, and made an admirable opening address. He was followed by others, among them Chapin, then of rising fame. Pretending to have in hand only "skirts and fragments of ideas," he magically forms them into completeness, and endues them with power. He speaks of Christianity and Reform: —

"Christianity has not changed or added anything to itself. But we find in it latent truths; we discern new meaning in old truths. His eye had rested that very morning upon the passage which Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.' What a profound meaning does this passage receive now, in the light of these stirring reforms! How does the truth open before us, vast and deep as the blue heaven over our heads! Christianity authorizes and animates these social movements. Its social spirit and its labors of love make us live more in a year than elsewhere in a lifetime. The early fathers of our faith began their labor in the early morning, when the light of the truth they announced just tinged the mountain-tops; and now, as they are about vanishing from our horizon, the full effulgence shines upon their gray hairs, and makes them a crown of glory!"

The venerable Ballou made the concluding speech. His words were modest, sweet, and patriarchal. From that ancient saying of Jesus, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened," he brought out fresh and comprehensive words inspired by the scenes of yesterday and to-day, and eloquently urged home the admonition to his denominational children around him, that they should seek to accomplish all their reformatory work in the spirit of Christian love. He concluded, and at the word of the president "The Brave Old Oak" was sung, and responded to by the applause of the audience.

From year to year, as these meetings occurred, there was a strong interest in them. They were meetings where freedom of speech was welcomed and enjoyed. The most searching inquiry was invited, and the pro et contra of every resolution offered was presented in all the earnestness in which the debaters deemed it their privilege to indulge. The resolutions at the first meetings of the Association indicate its Christian basis. They are expressive of "gratitude to God in view of the development of our faith in all the great reform movements of the time; that we recognize the Word of God, especially the New Testament scripture, as the basis of all genuine reform; that an age as prolific as is the present in schemes for the improvement of the race, including such variety, from the most reasonable to the most Utopian, demands of every Christian the most candid and prayerful discrimination, that all his endeavors may be wisely directed; that in these movements we discern the promise of a better time coming, and of the kingdom of God upon the earth; that as religious sentiment is the controlling element of man's life, therefore the only true reform is that which seeks to influence men through the medium of religious faith."

In discussing topics involving the morals of politics and the great interests of the American Republic, the members of all political parties were regarded as on equal ground. The minister in these meetings had no hesitancy in preaching the morals of politics as he understood them, whatever the opinions of his parishioners at home might be. The religion of Christianity was "mixed" with politics as the larger quantity, and wrong, as wrong, arraigned wherever it might be found in church or state, in social or individual habit or life. Our public servants in their high places were deemed subjects of note and animadversion, if their conduct seemed to call for it, in the spirit of the prayer offered by the elder Dr. Beecher in Faneuil Hall: "O Lord, preserve us from speaking evil of our public servants, and especially save them from such wrong conduct as may call for such speaking on our part!" A resolution passed at the first meeting of the Association states "that, while the early Christians were only subjects, American citizens are the constituents of civil government; and in all ages Christians are bound to act the Christian principles in all their relations."

During the anti-slavery excitement, when the hunters for fugitive slaves were desecrating the ground of New England, and members of Congress in their interests were repealing the Missouri Compromise, and many of the ministers of New England were bold enough to remonstrate with them for such action, these most emphatic resolutions were freely debated and unanimously adopted by the Association.

"Resolved, That the clergymen of New England, in their Protest against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, have pledged themselves anew to freedom and the laws of God; that this Association cordially approve the course of those who signed the Protest, or otherwise labored to prevent the desecration of that vast territory which had been consecrated by solemn compact to liberty forever; and we request those Christian ministers who refused to sign that Protest to review their position in regard to this subject.

"Resolved, That the men from the North, and especially from New England, who have voted for the iniquitous Nebraska Bill, have proved themselves traitors to the cause of freedom and to the most hallowed traditions of our fathers, and that their conduct deserves the united, unqualified, perpetual reprobation of all friends to human rights, which reprobation should be emphatically expressed at the ballot-box."

The annual festivals held in those days in Boston by the Universalists were essentially pervaded by the spirit of this Association. The sentiments, songs, and speeches on these occasions were alive with the reformatory inspiration of the Christian Gospel. The signs of the times were clearly recognized by the speakers, and whatever the especial excitement of the day might be, it was sure to find a sympathetic tongue and ear at the festival table. The festival in 1854 occurring about the time of the rendition of Anthony Burns, the anti-slavery feeling was at white heat. When the company entered Faneuil Hall and were taking their seats, some sensitively conservative brethren could not suppress the expression of their wishes that no allusion might be made to that event in the addresses about to follow. But the current was so irresistibly in one direction that these fearful pleadings were as the smallest eddies therein. The notes of freedom made the old hall ring.

CHAPTER VIII.

NEW ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. – UNIVERSALIST PROTEST

"What concord hath Christ with Belial." – 2 Cor. vi. 15.

THE New England Anti-Slavery Society was one of the most vigorous and persistent bodies that ever appeared on these western shores as a reformatory institution. Its chief leader was the indomitable Garrison, who had vowed that on the vexed question of American slavery "he would be heard," and whose "Liberator" was making its journeys from a Boston press throughout the land; hailed and patronized by a goodly company in the North, denounced as incendiary at the South, where a large sum was offered for the head of its editor. He had sympathetic companions of a persistency equal to his own: Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy, Samuel E. Sewell, N. P. Rogers, Stephen C. Foster, John Pierpont, Theodore Parker, Parker Pillsbury, Frederick Douglass, and C. L. Remond, among the men of New England, and the Tappans of New York, and representatives at the annual gatherings from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelley (afterwards Mrs. Foster) were among the women expounders of this gospel of freedom, and "Anniversary Week" in Boston was made especially notable by their gatherings at Marlboro Chapel and Faneuil Hall. No matter what other meetings on that week were dull, there was always an exuberance of liveliness at the Anti-Slavery Convention. "Eloquence is dog-cheap at Marlboro Chapel," said Ralph Waldo Emerson; and it was. No better could be heard on the continent. The hardest and boldest resolutions were usually up for consideration, denouncing slaveholders and all their abettors, political, ecclesiastical, of whatever standing or profession. Church and state alike were subjects of their maledictions. Their defiance of all opposition had a clarion ring in it. Nothing pleased them more than to have their positions questioned or assailed. The adventurous wight who was willing to appear as a condemner of their doctrines was the very one for whom they were looking, and for whose presence and opposition they were profoundly thankful. Their meetings were electrifying. Such debates and orations, such questionings and rejoinders! Such hymns and spiritual songs, too, sung often by the Hutchinsons to the old tunes of "Amherst," "Lenox," and "New Jerusalem!" We hear them now; they brought the shouts and tears.

We remember a scene in Marlboro Chapel one afternoon during Anniversary Week. There came up for debate the question: "Does the Constitution of the United States justify slavery?" Rev. John Pierpont took the negative, and very logically maintained it for more than an hour. He appeared in the greatness of his strength, and at the close of his argument proposed to those of his auditors who wished, to question his statements. And never was seen a hungrier company of interrogators than then and there came upon him. But he was unmoved as a sea-rock in the midst of the breakers. His side of the question was not popular with most of the speakers and their sympathizers there, and he was subjected to a most searching cross-questioning. But he came out triumphantly (as it seemed) through it all. When three or four would speak at once, he would say: "One at a time, friends; the miller's rule holds, – first come, first served. I desire to hear you all." The afternoon sunshine suddenly blazing in from one of the windows upon his face, he aptly remarked: "Some subjects are involved in impenetrable darkness; but here we seem to have a super-abundance of light!" When the last inquirer had been answered, the speaker asked: "Are you all through?" And no other one questioning, he said: "And now, after the fashion of the good old divines, I come to the 'Improvement';" under which head he carefully and briefly reviewed the substance of the debate. It was a masterly plea.

But the end was not yet. There was an evening meeting. Again the hall was filled, to listen to a reply to Mr. Pierpont by Wendell Phillips. The orator was in his best mood, and his silvery speech kept the audience spell-bound. It was a complete refutation of the arguments adduced in the afternoon. A clergyman sitting near to Mr. Pierpont said to him: "How can his arguments be answered?" to which the latter replied: "I should like to see the man who could tell me!" So Greek met Greek in those stirring and stormy days.

It was an up-hill movement, this anti-slavery agitation. It called out spirits of more colors than those mentioned in "Macbeth." The opposition was intense. Garrison's life was in peril in the streets of Boston in 1835, and a little company of his sympathizers, including the poet Whittier and George Thompson, the English philanthropist, were closely followed in the streets of Concord, N. H., one evening, that they might be seized by certain mobocratic ones, and subjected to an immersion in some liquid coloring of transient, if not indelible, black; but the hounded ones escaped, preserving white men's complexions. They were not to be put down by mobs nor frightened by any human opposition. They had the spirit of Luther as he went to the Diet at Worms. Though the pro-slavery "devils were thick as the tiles on the houses," they proposed to fight them in the name of God and humanity.

Politicians could do nothing with them, and the churches generally discarded them. There was no love lost, however, between them and the churches. The churches did not give them credit for the good they were seeking to do, and they had no words of approval for the humanity of the churches. Even the National Constitution was denounced as "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell," and the churches were accused as upholders of this covenant. So they reasoned, not always, however, in that charity which the New Testament commends. There were those in the churches as strongly opposed to slavery as themselves, – but they were slow to recognize action against it outside of their own organizations, – who could say, as did Dr. Gannett of the Unitarian Church: —

"In principle I am with you. But there are those with whom you are connected, persons who seem to me so to distrust the goodness of all others who differ from them, and to look down upon all such with so great a consciousness of moral superiority, that I feel myself when in their presence to be in a situation not unlike that of a criminal before his accuser and judge."28

At one time they held an Anti-Sabbath Convention for a few days, in Boston, during which they said many hard things against the sanctity of this seventh-day worship-time, evidently because they could thus castigate the churches for refusing to discuss freely on this day the crying sin of American slavery. It seemed a pity to hear such harsh denunciations by the speakers who were advocating a righteous cause, against an institution that had done so much towards the world's true civilization. But this was one of their methods of carrying on the reform.