Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and Development

by George Willis Cooke

The results of the Japanese mission are especially evident in a general liberalizing of religious thought throughout the country in both the Buddhist and Christian communions, and in the wide-spread approval shown towards its methods and principles among the upper and student classes. Its chief gain, however, consists of the scholarly and influential men who have accepted the Unitarian faith, and given it their zealous support. Among these men are the late Hajime Onishi, president of the College of Literature in the new Imperial University at Kyoto; Nobuta Kishimoto, professor of ethics in the Imperial Normal School; Tomoyoshi Murai, professor of English in the Foreign Languages School of Japan; Iso Abe, professor in the Doshisha University; Kinza Hirai, professor in the Imperial Normal School; Yoshiwo Ogasawara, who is leading an extensive work of social and moral reform in Wakayama; Saburo Shimada, proprietor of the Mainichi, one of the largest daily newspapers of the empire; and Zennosuki Toyosaki, professor in the Kokumin Eigakukwai, and associate editor of the Rikugo Zasshi.[[6]] These men are educating the Japanese people to know Christianity in its rational forms; and their influence is being rapidly extended throughout the country. In their hands the future of liberal religion in Japan is safe; and what they do for their own people is more certain of permanent results than anything that can be accomplished by foreigners. The real significance of the Japanese Unitarian mission is that it has inaugurated a new era in religious propagandism; that it has been for the followers of the religions traditional to Japan, as well as for those of the Christian missions, eminently a means for presenting them with the world's most advanced thought in religion, and that it has been a stimulus to a purer faith and a larger fellowship.

[[1]] First Report of the Executive Committee of the American Unitarian Association, 16. "The thoughts of the committee have been turned to their brethren in other lands. A correspondence has been opened with Unitarians in England, and the coincidence is worthy of notice, that the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, and the American Unitarian Association were organized on the same day, for the same objects, and without the least previous concert. Our good wishes have been reciprocated by the directors of the British Society. Letters received from gentlemen who have recently visited England speak of the interest which our brethren in that country feel for us, and of their desire to strengthen the bonds of union. A constant communication will be preserved between the two Associations and your committee believe it will have a beneficial effect, by making us better acquainted with one another, by introducing the publications of each country into the other, by the influence which we shall mutually exert, and by the strength which will be given to our separate, or it may be, to our united efforts for the spread of the glorious gospel of our Lord and Saviour."

[[2]] Correspondence relative to the Prospects of Christianity and the Means of Promoting its Reception in India. Cambridge: Billiard & Metcalfe. 1824. 138 pp.

[[3]] Christian Examiner, LXIII 36, India's Appeal to Christian Unitarians, by Rev. C.T. Brooks.

[[4]] Some Gospel Principles, in Ten Lectures, by C.H.A. Dall, Calcutta, 1856. Also see The Mission to India instituted by the American Unitarian Association. Boston: Office of the Quarterly Journal. 1857.

[[5]] See Out Indian Mission and Our First Missionary, by Rev. John H. Heywood, Boston, 1887.

[[6]] The Unitarian Movement in Japan: Sketches of the Lives and Religious Work of Ten Representative Japanese. Tokyo, 1900.

XIV.
THE MEADVILLE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL.

In a few years after the movement began for the organization of churches west of the Hudson River, the needs of theological instruction for residents of that region were being discussed. In 1827 the younger Henry Ware was interested in a plan of uniting Unitarians and "the Christian connection" in the establishment of a theological school, to be located in the eastern part of the state of New York. In July of that year he wrote to a friend: "We have had; no little talk here within a few days respecting a new theological school. Many of us think favorably of the plan, and are disposed to patronize it, if feasible, but are a little fearful that it is not. Others start strong objections to it in toto. Something must be done to gain us an increase of ministers."[[1]] This proposition came from the Christians, and their plan was to locate the school on the Hudson.