a social environment where a majority believed in the hopelessness and depravity of human nature.

(3) It also is evident that the Unitarian attitude towards human life and God, and the relations between the two, must have had a certain quality that was peculiarly its own. As one studies carefully the great educational and social influences that shaped public thought and accomplished great achievements where Unitarianism was most in evidence, he will come to the conclusion that the quality which distinguished this religious movement was Initiative. Unitarians, out of all proportion to their numbers, possessed this quality. It was shown in the large cities, through their political leaders, their judges, their educators, their inventors and their philanthropists. It was shown in the smaller towns where Unitarianism had free course, in their teachers, preachers, selectmen and publicspirited citizens. The literature of New England was almost wholly produced during the nineteenth century by writers of Unitarian antecedents. They were the poets, historians, philosophers and essayists of their time.

Highly crystallized theories of life such as real orthodoxy calls for, stultify the human mind. Unitarianism released the imagination, and sent it forth upon new paths of moral and spiritual insight. Nearly all of the New England poets, the Longfellows, Lowell, Emerson, Bryant and Holmes, belonged to the Unitarian wing of New England Congregationalism. It was as if the long pent forces of the human mind had been ushered into an entirely new world. Scholars and scientists of the Unitarian faith were the first to study and accept the great generalizations of Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer, while the progressive. statesmen of that faith and the · authors and essayists are too numerous to be enumerated here. Unitarians announced "the freedom of the city" and the emancipated soul

fared forth into every possible avenue of discovery.

Unitarians took the initiative in every line of human welfare, for they had arrived at the consciousness of being co-workers with God. They had come to an experience of the spirit of truth, and that experience had made them free.

(4) Unitarianism is not, however, a mere intellectual cult, as is so often remarked, suited only to people of pedantic and academic habits of mind; it is especially significant because of its simplicity. It has great mystical possibilities, as may be readily seen by a careful study of its abundant hymnology, but it has often been called and is, the religion of commonsense. Indeed, it has often failed to appeal to the wonder-loving and miracle-seeking tendencies of the public, simply because as an interpretation of Christianity, it is based upon such homely and practical teachings as the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, the Two Great Commandments, and the Parables of Jesus. It might have arrayed itself in the garments of ecclesiastical authority and occultism, and thus appealed to those who desire to have the common laws of righteousness and faith enveloped in mystery, but had it done so, it would have forfeited its claim to intellectual freedom and tolerance. It has chosen rather to call things, so far as possible, by their right names, to reduce religion to its simplest terms and to make its appeal

to the individual conscience as it met the realities of life.

It is a favorite pastime of the opponents of Unitarianism to perpetually predict its disappearance as a denomination from the field of Christian activity. All such statements are inspired by the wish, rather than by any tendency in that direction. It was never so much alive as it is today. Through the well-systematized efforts of the American Unitarian Association it has outgrown its New England swaddling clothes, and has established itself in many