Unitarians have borne an influential and honorable part in the life of the nation. Far out of proportion to their numbers they have been represented in Parliament, and distinguished in liberal politics, social reform, philanthropies, education, science, and literature.1 Besides the burdens common to all Dissenters, they have had to bear the additional one of being opposed by all the orthodox Dissenters. If this double burden has somewhat retarded their progress, it has on the other hand intensified their loyalty to their cause. The beginning of the twentieth century found them consisting of about 360 churches in the British Isles, and about a dozen more in the colonies—a number since then somewhat increased. They have long since ceased to entertain their youthful hopes that within a generation or two all England must see the truth as they see it; but on the other hand it is realized more clearly than ever that they have a distinct contribution to make to the religious life of England, without which that life would be poorer. They are doing their part intelligently and earnestly, and they look forward to a future of steady growth and of ever greater usefulness to Christian civilization. 1 Besides persons mentioned in the text it may be enough to mention these distinguished English Unitarians: Sir Charles Lyell the geologist; Sir William Jones the orientalist; William Roscoe the historian; Josiah Wedgwood the potter; Sir John Bowring the statesman; Professor W. S. Jevons the logician; David Ricardo the economist; Erasmus Darwin the scientist; Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. Gaskell and Maria Edgeworth, women of letters; John Pounds, founder of ragged schools; Florence Nightingale and Mary Carpenter, philanthropists. CHAPTER XXXIV THE BEGINNINGS OF UNITARIANISM IN AMERICA, 1750-1805 Thus far we have followed the story of the Unitarian movement on the Continent from its organized beginnings about 1565, and in England from the gathering of the first avowedly Unitarian church in 1774. The movement in America, however, did not begin to take a form distinct from orthodoxy until something like two centuries and a half after the first antitrinitarian churches were organized in Poland and Transylvania, and not until well over forty years after Lindsey began to preach in London. It would be natural to expect, therefore, that American Unitarianism would as a matter of course prove to be simply an outgrowth of these earlier movements across the Atlantic; yet this does not appear to have been the case. 1 It is true that two Polish Socinians are said to have been among the earliest immigrants from England to the new colony of Georgia; 1 but no trace has been discovered of them or of their influence there. In fact, the only American church in which anything like direct Socinian influence may have been felt is one organized in 1803 on the frontier of the wilderness in central New York,2 by two liberal exiles from Holland-a church which later on adhered to the 1 About 1738. See page 190. 2 At Oldenbarnevelt (later Trenton, now Barneveld), by the Rev. Francis A. van der Kemp and Col. A. G. Mappa. |