The totals for the two bodies are as follows: organizations, 4526; edifices, 3415; seating capacity, 991,138; value of church property, $4,937,583; communicants, 225,281.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE UNITARIANS.

UNITARIANISM, as its name indicates, is distinguished from other systems of Christian belief chiefly by its rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity and the deity of Jesus Christ. It denies that three persons-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit-are united in one God, and holds that God is one, that he is uni-, not tri-personal. This view is not modern. Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria in the fourth century, held that Christ, though the greatest of created beings, was not equal in nature and dignity to God.

Unitarian organizations were formed in Poland and Hungary as early as the middle of the sixteenth century, and in the United States and England in the first quarter of the present century. King's Chapel, Boston, a Protestant Episcopal congregation, adopted in 1785 a liturgy so revised as to exclude all recognition of the Trinity, and ordained in 1787, as its pastor, on the refusal of the bishop of the diocese to do so, James Freeman, who was Unitarian in his views. Arian ideas began to influence ministers and laymen in the Congregational churches in New England at the beginning of the present century. In 1805 a Unitarian, Dr. Henry Ware, was elected to the divinity chair in Harvard University, and in 1819 a separate divinity school was organized in connection with the university with a Unitarian faculty.

Those holding Arian views became generally known as Unitarians in 1815, which is usually given as the beginning of the Unitarian denomination in America. In 1819 a Unitarian congregation was formed in Baltimore. William Ellery Channing preached the installation sermon, in which he clearly defined the differences between Orthodox and Unitarian doctrines. Many Congregational churches in eastern Massachusetts, including the oldest, that of Plymouth, the church founded by the Pilgrims in 1620, became Unitarian without changing their covenants or names. the course of the controversy, 120 Congregational churches in New England, founded before the War of the Revolution, went over to the Unitarians. In 1830 there were, in all, 193 churches of the Unitarian faith; in 1865, 340. The present number is 421.

In

The Unitarians acknowledge no binding creed. They contend for the fullest liberty in belief, and exclude no one from their fellowship for difference in doctrinal views. Unitarianism is declared to be "not a fixed dogmatic statement, but a movement of ever-enlarging faith," welcoming "inquiry, progress, and diversity of individual thought in the unity of spiritual thought." In the denomination are included those who stand upon a simple basis of Theism, and are represented in the Western Unitarian Conference, for example, and those who accept the Messiahship of Jesus Christ. In general terms they believe in God as the All-in-All, " in eternal life as the great hope, in the inspiration of all truth, in man's great possibilities, and in the divineness of sanctified humanity."

The Unitarian churches are Congregational in polity, each congregation being independent in the management of its own affairs. There are societies for the conduct of mis

sionary work, such as the American Unitarian Association, organized in 1825, the Western Unitarian Conference, which attends to the general interests of the societies represented in it, and the Western Unitarian Association, whose object is to "diffuse the knowledge and promote the interests of pure Christianity." There are also conferences, national and state and local. The national conference, which is biennial, declares in its constitution its "allegiance to the gospel of Jesus Christ" and its " desire to secure the largest unity of spirit and the widest practical coöperation" in the cause of Christian faith and work. It confines itself to recommending to existing Unitarian organizations "such undertaking and methods as it judges to be in the heart of the Unitarian denomination." It is composed of delegates from the churches and representatives of certain Unitarian organizations. The conference provides for a committee of fellowship, for the consideration of applications of persons not graduates of Unitarian schools to enter the Unitarian ministry.

The 421 organizations report 424 edifices, valued at $10,335,100, and with an aggregate seating capacity of 165,090. Of the 67,749 communicants, or, more properly, members, as the Unitarian custom is to admit any one to the communion, a little more than half are in Massachusetts. New York has the second largest number, 4470; California is third, with 3819; and New Hampshire fourth, with 3252. The denomination has organizations in thirty-two States and the District of Columbia. In the Southern States it has scarcely half a dozen churches.

The average value of its church edifices is very high, reaching $24,725; their average seating capacity, 389. There are 55 halls, with accommodations for 10,370.