Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and Development

by George Willis Cooke

Dr. Samuel K. Lothrop continued as the president of the Unitarian Association until the annual meeting of 1858, when Dr. Edward Brooks Hall was elected to that position for one year. After short pastorates in Northampton and Cincinnati, Dr. Hall had been settled over the First Church in Providence in 1832, which position he held until his death in 1866. At the annual meeting of 1859 Dr. Frederic H. Hedge was elected president, and he was twice re-elected. His interest in the Association was active, and he often spoke at the public meetings. One of the ablest thinkers and theologians that has appeared among Unitarians in this country, he always rightly estimated the practical activities of organized religious movements. He was succeeded in 1862 by Dr. Rufus P. Stebbins, who held the office for three years. After a settlement in Leominster, Dr. Stebbins was the first president of the Meadville Theological School from 1844 to 1856. Then followed a pastorate in Woburn, after which he went to Ithaca and opened a mission for the students of Cornell University, which grew into the Unitarian church in that town. From 1877 he was pastor at Newton Centre until his death in 1885.

The secretary of the Association from 1850 to 1853 was Rev. Calvin Lincoln, who had been settled in Fitchburg for thirty-one years, and who was the minister of the First Church in Hingham from 1855 until his death in 1881. He was succeeded in 1853 by Rev. Henry A. Miles, who continued in office until 1859. Dr. Miles was settled in Hallowell and Lowell before serving the Association, and in Longwood and Hingham (Third Parish) afterward. His little book on The Birth of Jesus has gained him recognition as a theologian of ability and a critic of independent judgment. For three years Rev. James Freeman Clarke was the secretary; and in 1861 he was succeeded by George W. Fox, who served in that capacity until the annual meeting of 1865. Mr. Fox wrote the annual reports from 1862 to 1864, and efficiently performed all the duties of the secretary which could devolve upon a layman, with the exception of editing The Monthly Journal, a task which was continued by James Freeman Clarke.[[7]]

Publications.

In spite of its restricted income during this troubled period, the Association was able, owing to its invested funds,[[8]] to increase its publishing operations to a considerable extent. The number of tracts published, however, was much smaller; and their monthly issue was discontinued in order to publish The Quarterly Journal of the American Unitarian Association, the first number of which appeared in October, 1853. During the first year each number contained ninety-six pages, which were increased to one hundred and ninety-two in 1854, but reduced to one hundred and thirty the following year. In 1860 this publication became The Monthly Journal; and it was continued until December, 1869, each number containing forty-eight pages. The Journal was sent to all subscribers to the funds of the Association, to life members, to all churches contributing to its funds, as well as to regular subscribers. Its circulation in 1855 was 7,000, and it increased to 15,000 before it was discontinued. It was used largely, however, for free distribution as a missionary document.

The Journal served an important purpose during the seventeen years of its publication, as a means of bringing the Association into touch with its constituency and of making the people acquainted with its work. It published the records of the meetings of the executive committee as well as of the annual meeting, it gave numerous extracts from the correspondence of the secretary, it contained the news of the churches, and all the denominational activities were kept constantly before its readers. In its pages were frequently published biographies of prominent Unitarians, notable addresses were printed, sermons appeared frequently, and able theological articles. During the editorship of James Freeman Clarke it contained the successive chapters of his Orthodoxy: Its Truths and Errors. It also printed one or more chapters of Alger's History of the Doctrine of the Future Life. The secretary of the Association was its editor, and he made it at once a theological tract and a denominational newspaper.

The increase in demand for Unitarian tracts and books had been so large that early in 1854 the executive committee of the Association decided that a special effort should be made to meet it. They called a meeting in Freeman Place Chapel on the afternoon of February 1, which was largely attended. An address was given by Dr. Lothrop, the president, who said that Channing's works had reached a sale of 100,000 copies, and Ware's Formation of Christian Character 12,000, that there was an urgent call for liberal works that would meet the spiritual needs of the age. A large number of prominent ministers and laymen addressed the meeting, and expressed themselves as thoroughly sympathy with its objects. A committee was appointed to consider the proposition made by Dr. George E. Ellis, that a fund of $50,000 be raised for the publication of books. This committee reported a month later through its chairman, George B. Emerson, in favor of the project; and it was voted that the money should be raised. It was easier to pass this vote, however, than to secure the money from the churches; for in 1859, after five years of effort, the sum collected was only $28,163.33.

The money secured, however, was immediately utilized in the publication of a number of books. Three series of works were undertaken, the first of these being The Theological Library, in which were published Selections from the Works of Dr. Channing; Wilson's Unitarian Principles Confirmed by Trinitarian Testimonies; a one-volume edition of Norton's Statement of Reasons for not Believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians concerning the Nature of God and the Person of Christ, with a memoir of the author by Dr. William Newell; a volume of Theological Essays selected from the writings of Jowett, Tholuck, Guizot, Roland Williams, and others, and edited by George R. Noyes; and Martineau's Studies of Christianity, a series of miscellaneous papers, edited by William R. Alger. The Devotional Library, the second of the three series, included The Altar at Home, a series of prayers, collects, and litanies for family devotions, written by a large number of the leading Unitarian ministers, and edited by Dr. Miles, the secretary of the Association; Clarke's Christian Doctrine of Prayer; Thomas T. Stone's The Rod and the Staff, a transcendentalist presentation of Christianity as a spiritual life; The Harp and the Cross, a selection of religious poetry, edited by Stephen G. Bulfinch; Sears's Athanasia, or Foregleams of Immortality; and Seven Stormy Sundays, a volume of original sermons by well-known ministers, with devotional services, edited by Miss Lucretia P. Hale. A Biblical Library was also planned, to include a popular commentary on the New Testament, a Bible Dictionary, and other works of a like character; but John H. Morison's Disquisitions and Notes on the Gospel of Matthew was the only volume published.

A Firm of Publishers.

In May, 1859, a young business man of Boston, James P. Walker, established the firm of Walker, Wise & Co., for the publication of Unitarian books. In 1863 Horace B. Fuller joined the firm, and it became Walker, Fuller & Co. This firm took charge of all the publishing interests of the Association, and the head of the house was ambitious of bringing out all the liberal books issued in this country. Among the works published were: The New Discussion of the Trinity, a series of articles and sermons by Hedge, Clarke, Sears, Dewey, and Starr King; Lamson's Church of the First Three Centuries; Farley's Unitarianism Defined; Recent Inquiries in Theology, essays by Jowett, Mark Pattison, Baden Powell, and other English Broad Churchmen, edited by Dr. F.H. Hedge; Alien's Hebrew Men and Times; Dall's Woman's Right to Labor; Muzzey's Christ in the Will, the Heart, and the Life; Ichabod Nichols's Sermons; Martineau's Common Prayer for Christian Worship; Cobbe's Religious Demands of the Age; Ware's Silent Pastor; Frothingham's Stories from the Patriarchs; Clarke's Hour which Cometh and Now Is; Parker's Prayers; a second series The Altar at Home; Hedge's Reason in Religion; Life of Horace Mann by his wife, as well as certain novels, historical works, and books for the young. The demand for liberal books was not large enough, however, even with the aid of the Association, to make such a business successful; and in the autumn of 1866 the publishing firm of Walker, Fuller & Co. failed. In part the business was carried on for a time by Horace B. Fuller.