Rev. Olympia Brown was a Universalist
minister. She was the first woman
minister to receive full denominational
ordination in the United States. The year
was 1863.
minister. She was the first woman
minister to receive full denominational
ordination in the United States. The year
was 1863.
Page Contents:
Our North Carolina Universalist Heritage
by Peggy Ward Rawheiser
Early Universalism in Milford MA:1785
by James J. Buckley
A Word to the Elect
by Anne Bronte
REDISCOVERING OUR INNER UNIVERSALIST
by PATRICK MURFIN
R.E. Moves West by Mail and Train R-XYZ
by Eugene B. Navis
___________________________________________________
Our North Carolina Universalist Heritage
by Peggy Ward Rawheiser
The project that I am working on to re-organize, update and add to the "History of Universalism
in North Carolina." is much more than just names and dates. It is a social history too. So much
of the feeling that I get from reading these old records is not appropriate to include in the book
but I feel compelled to share it with others.
The Civil War destroyed much of the livelihood and way of life for most of the Universalists in
North Carolina. General Sherman was not kind to the state as he and his men passed through.
The majority of the Universalists were farmers or at least depended on farms for their way of
life. Money was an almost unknown quantity.
The ministers, in the earliest years of mid-19th Century and into the 20th Century traveled
from meeting place to meeting place on foot, on horseback, buggy, river boats and trains.
Sometimes the minister was away from home for a month at the time. In one case where the
minister had only the suit of clothes on his back, his hostess told him to take it off and get into
bed and her maid washed and pressed his suit so he would look more respectable at church
the next day. I suspect that this was not unusual for him to only have one suit of clothes.
Homes had no closets because people had nothing to hang in a closet. My Grandmother's
house only had pegs on the wall to hang any extra clothes on if a person was lucky enough to
have extra clothes.
The members of the churches were asked to pledge $1 per year to the North Carolina
Convention which paid the local part of the ministers' salaries. Each year's Convention minutes
include a plea for the churches to get their members to pay that $1 per year. Tucked in the
record book for the church that my father joined as a young man, I found an offering envelope
with his name and identifying this as his $1 contribution for the year and gave his address as a
student at North Carolina State College.
Most of the pay for the ministers came from the National Women's Missionary Association so
representatives of that organization came down from Boston every year to attend the State
Convention to encourage the members of the churches and to be sure their money was being
spent wisely. One year as the ministers each made their report to the Convention for the year,
one of the ministers announced that his church had hoped to become self supporting that year
but the price of cotton and tobacco plunged to new lows so the farm income was greatly
reduced so the situation looked pretty grim..
The State Convention meetings lasted from Thursday evening through Sunday evening. In
that span of time, the delegates and friends heard from 4 to 6 sermons which were preached
by the ministers in the state and by visiting ministers, some of whom were well known all across
the country. The delegates arrived by horse and buggy and were entertained in the homes of
the members of the host church as well as meals being provided for them.
It was usual for the Convention to contribute $10 to the local church to cover their expenses
for the event. (No, I did not leave out any zeros in that number.) A plate offering was taken to
pay this and the remainder of the $15 or $20 (on a good day) would go into the Convention
General Funds. The ladies of the Universalist churches were all good cooks and so the food
was all contributed by the members of the host church and everyone ate royally. This practice
carried over into the second half of the 20th Century so that as I was growing up, I think I
connected church meetings with wonderful food.
When the Universalist General Convention asked for contributions for the missions in Japan, it
took several years to get the $100 which the North Carolina Convention had pledged for that
cause. In the end, each member of the Executive Board contributed $5 and the remainder was
paid out of the Convention Treasury. The same generosity of spirit was seen when the Inman
Chapel Church pledged money for missions when they had almost no money to pay their
minister.
When a new church was being built, the Convention would contribute anywhere from $10 to
$50 to the new building and specify that this amount should pay for the roof on the building. It
can be assumed that much of the material were donated by the members of the churches for
the churches that I knew in my growing up years were constructed of hand hewn beams and
rough lumber which probably was from trees donated by members.
Many of the church groups met in Community Meeting Houses which were used by other
church groups in the community. If an itinerant preacher were passing through the area, he
might preach several nights in a row, not necessarily on the weekend. Many of these church
groups were very loosely organized and revolved around one or two families for focus and
when those people died, the church did too. This lack of organization was the largest fault of
the early Universalist preachers in North Carolina. Some of the names of these men were
spoken of in reverence as I first heard their names at Red Hill Church. In communities where
the churches formed an organization with leadership, they were much more successful in
surviving.
The delegates each year passed resolutions on social issues, often the same issues were
voted on for a number of years in a row. Some of these were Capital Punishment, need for
Juvenile prisons separate from the adult prisons, Temperance and treatment of the defective
(mentally ill.) The hospital in North Carolina for the mentally ill is named Dix Hill. Dorothea Dix
was a Universalist but not from North Carolina.
Each year there were recommendations that encouraged publicity to spread the "good word"
of Universal Salvation and of the need to have Sunday Schools so that the children would
learn of this beloved religion. The ministers encouraged each church to have an annual revival
with a series of meetings for a week and they tried to exchange pulpits for this with ministers in
the surrounding states. People of all persuasions in the community would come for a revival
but most never came back again.
The problems that were discussed at every Convention Session could have been written in this
day and time. They were desperate efforts to get the churches to do more advertising and
public relations, begging the churches to increase their financial contributions, discussing ways
to increase membership and pleas for disarmament and world peace. Each year the officers
made a plea for the churches to get their annual reports in before the Convention and they
often discussed trying to design forms for the churches and the ministers to use for making
their annual reports so that they would include all the necessary elements. The passing of
ninety or one hundred years has not change things much.
Peggy Ward Rawheiser is a 4th generation Universalist.
Early Universalism in Milford MA:1785
by James J. Buckley
In the summer of 1785, a Universalist congregation was formed in Milford MA, making it one of
the first to do so in the U.S. It is no accident that it was formed there. That community had
struggled for almost 100 years to be freed from the control of Mendon so that it could form its
own independent Congregational Church and be able to govern itself. The length of this
struggle that ended with Milford’s incorporation in April 1780, encouraged dissenters of all
kinds to conclude that eccentric behavior and aberrant religious opinions were tolerated there.
To a certain extent such a conclusion was accurate. The minister of the Milford Congregational
Church Rev Amariah Frost, who served in that capacity for forty-nine years, was a strong-
willed and forceful shepherd of that separatist congregation who readily tolerated the existence
of outspoken dissenters in his town. For example, one of the signers of the Milford
Universalists’ incorporation papers was Noah Wiswall. He seldom made any effort to hide his
beliefs and opinions, many of which flew in the face of Congregational orthodoxy. Indeed,
according to Milford and Universalist historian, Adin Ballou, Wiswall was the most zealous of
the Milford Universalists. Yet Rev. Frost agreed to marry him and his bride Susanna, albeit
some years before 1785.
In time, Wiswall played a pivotal part in the creation of what was called in the incorporation
documents, “The Independent Christian Society commonly called Universalist.” It was he who
encouraged Adams Streeter to become the preacher of this embryonic congregation.
Adams Streeter(whose first name was his mother’s maiden name) began to preach his
unorthodox beliefs in Milford in 1781.His career as a preacher was both diverse and colorful.
He became a lay Baptist evangelist around 1760 and preached in that capacity in Charlton
MA. His preaching abilities made him so popular in that region of the Bay Colony that he
continued to fulfill that role for fourteen years. Because of his demonstrable success as a
preacher, the Baptist Society in Douglas MA called him in 1774 to be its minister.
During the years between 1774 and 1781, Streeter’s beliefs began to verge farther and farther
away from the tenets of the Baptists, such as their belief in the Final Judgment and Divine
Retribution. Consequently he soon became the target of scathing criticism from members of
his congregation and more importantly, from the leaders of his denomination. Such criticism
intensified when he began to champion such unorthodox beliefs as universal salvation. When
his Baptist congregation and his superiors could tolerate his behavior no longer and feared
that he was becoming a troublesome and divisive force in the Baptist denomination, he was
formally accused of advocating heretical beliefs. He was ejected from his Baptist congregation
and defrocked as a Baptist minister.
Bereft of his role as a Baptist preacher after having filled that role for over 21 years, he
eventually decided after much soul-searching to preach his dissenting religious opinions to like-
mined residents of the Milford area. His selection of Milford as the place to begin his new
ministry was not capricious. The struggle the citizens of Milford had recently undergone to win
control of their own church and become an independent community made it a likely place in
Streeter’s opinion to share his dissident religious ideas. As a result he became a self-ordained
preacher in the Milford and in the distant community of Oxford MA, preaching at both places at
least once a month.
Apparently he achieved some success in that regard because in November 1781, he was
asked by Wiswall to serve the Milford adherents of Universalism and in particular, Universal
Salvation. He answered that call by moving his wife Dinah and their seven children to Milford.
A primary reason why he did so was because he had found the life of an itinerant preacher- in
contrast to his prior position as Baptist minister- to be harsh and financially unstable. So he
welcomed the opportunity to move to Milford especially because Noah Wiswall had invited
Streeter and his large family to move into the Wiswall household located not too far from the
center of that town. Wiswall has been described as being a generous-hearted, enterprising,
public-spirited and charitable citizen. Certainly his willingness to house a family of nine
indefinitely proves that such a description was justified.
In the years before 1785,Elder Streeter preached in private homes, at first in Noah Wiswall’s
house but later in the homes of the other ten co-signers of the 1785 incorporation papers.
The signers of the Milford Incorporation papers included some men of substantial means who
generously supported the infant congregation. Ebenezer Sumner was the owner of a
considerable parcel of rich farming land and therefore was a prominent member of the Milford
community. John Claflin was the sire of nine children and a large land -owner as were
Ebenezer Wheelock and Samuel Bowker. Thus from the outset, the Milford Universalist
Congregation did not have financial problems and soon became financially solvent. As a result
of their prominence in their community and their favorable financial status, these men were
immune to any adverse reaction from their neighbors about the founding of the denomination.
Other signers were not as fortunate. Samuel French was a member of an illustrious, large and
financially comfortable family. His father was a deacon of the Milford Congregational Church.
That meant that words were exchanged between father and son when Samuel expressed his
belief in the Universalists’ tenets. But Samuel’s riff with his father did not deter him; he
persisted in his commitment to the newly created group. Eventually he too became a
landowner of considerable means.
One of the signers, Nahum Clark, reaped the whirlwind of condemnation for having signed the
incorporation papers. He was condemned for having expressed beliefs contrary to those held
by the local Congregational Church. When he maintained that he had committed no sin, he
and his wife were summarily ejected from that congregation.
But the most colorful of the signers was undoubtedly Noah Wiswall. Throughout his lifetime,
Wiswall manifested Christian charity despite the antagonism generated against him. Illustrative
of this point was the reaction of a member of the Congregational Church when Noah brought
him a load of much-needed wood. When the needy recipient met Parson Frost the next day,
the man described Wiswall’s act in the following fashion: “The good Lord yesterday sent me a
load of wood by the hands of the Devil!”
Part of the reason for such a harsh description was the fact that Wiswall had become an
adherent of Universalism. But another reason was the eccentric behavior he manifested
throughout his lifetime.
A commitment is not valid nor sustainable if it has not been tested and has survived the
testing. The commitment of the signers to the incorporation papers to universal fellowship and
charity toward one’s fellow man was sorely tested by the behavior of Wiswall.
Toward the end of his life, Noah Wiswall built a stone tomb on a plot of land where the first
Catholic Church was eventually erected in Milford. Then, in unconscious or perhaps deliberate
imitation of a penitential monastic order, he began to spend each night sleeping in the tomb.
Although he did not announce to anyone what he was doing, it did not take long for his
neighbors and friends to discover where he was spending his nights. Some condemned his
actions, describing them as blasphemous. But even though some of his fellow Universalists
were uncomfortable with his nocturnal habits, they nevertheless supported his eccentric
behavior and thereby demonstrated their commitment to these words in the incorporation
papers:
“That we mutually agree to walk together in Christian fellowship, building up each other in our
most holy faith, and rejoicing in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free and to no more be
entangled by any yoke of bondage.”
Immediately after the religious pioneers of the Milford (MA) Universalist Society decided in late
August 1785 to incorporate what they referred to as
” The Independent Christian Society of Universalists”, they became involved in a whirlwind of
denominational activities. Somehow, despite the absence of most of the means of
communication that we enjoy today, the news of that incorporation reached Rev.John Murray
in Gloucester(MA) in less than a week. Known as a man of strong convictions and decisive
action, and undoubtedly fully aware of the fact that Rev. Adams Streeter was the preacher of
the infant congregation, Rev. Murray immediately accepted the Milford Universalists as bone
fide adherents of his beliefs. In a letter that arrived in Milford in late August,1785, he invited
them to attend what was consistently referred to by him and others as the “First General
Convention “ of the denomination. He indicated that the Convention was scheduled to be held
on September 14,1785,less than a month after the signing of the Milford Incorporation papers.
In addition, the letter from Rev. Murray indicated a “desireing (that) the Society would send a
commity of one or more persons to Oxford (MA) to sit in an Association to act upon Matters
that they shall deem proper.”(Minutes of the Milford Universalist Society:1785-87)
Although some of the Milford Universalists were undoubtedly amazed by the rapidity with which
they had become recognized by Murray and by his unexpected invitation to attend what was
one of the first (if not the first) conventions ever convened by American Universalists, they
rose to the challenge. Many of the members were committed to other tasks on that date but,
after much discussion, three members were selected to represent Milford: Ebenezer Sumner,
Samuel French and Noah Wiswell, the man who had been instrumental in bringing Adams
Streeter to Milford.
It was later reported to the Milford congregation that thirteen men had attended this meeting of
what was called “The Second Religious Society”: Elder John Murry, Rev. Elhanan Winchester,
Shipia Townsend of Acton, Abijah Adams, Daniel Fish, Francis Lyscomb, Daniel Nelson,
Jonathan Lasell, the three Milford delegates, Laban Bates of Mendon and Rev.Caleb Rich.
(ibid).Apropos, it has been said the Rich was the first to proclaim that there would be no
punishment after death.
Imbued with the spirit and political beliefs of the new nation’s founding fathers that only in unity
is there strength, it was recommended and so adopted that “its few infant societys organize
and affiliate.”(ibid).It was also recommended and approved that their congregations form
themselves in a way that is “most happifying and secure in the matters of Religion and
morality.” .(ibid)
Rather than appear to dominate the convention, Rev. Murray stepped aside and suggested
that others assumed leadership of this embryonic group. As a result, Rev.Elhanan Winchester,
a minister so imbued with the spirit of independence that he had by then composed sixteen
Revolutionary War hymns, was selected to be moderator and Dr.Daniel Fish became its Clerk.
It was also decided that “the several societies adopt the name of Independent Christian
Societys commonly called Universalists.”(ibid)
Furthermore, it was voted that each of the Committees recommend to their several societies
that together with the name they adopted,”…they will also consider themselves as one
semented body consequently bound by the ties of love and friendship to assist each other at
any and all times when occations shall require.”(ibid)
In order to make certain that it became “one semented body” in deed as well as word, it was
voted that the several societies represented at the convention appoint committees of
correspondence that would share with its congregations the proceedings of the convention
and which would foster and bind the ties of love and friendship and mutual assistance through
regular correspondence with each other and through periodic meetings. When thee
agreements appeared in printed form, they were referred to as “
The Charter of Compact.”
It soon became apparent that while Rev. Murray acted decisively and quickly, the Milford
denomination was unaccustomed to doing so. At a meeting held on December 5,1785, almost
three months after the convention, the articles adopted at the Convention were laid before the
members for their individual and collective perusal .After acknowledging the presentation of
the articles, the Milford congregation decided not to take any action. It was not until February
21,1786 that the convention articles were adopted by the Milford Universalists. It was also
somewhat belatedly decided at that meeting that given the fact the congregation had become
part of a larger body and had accepted articles that now governed them, they should formally
renew their agreement with Elder Adams Streeter. They therefore invited him “to preach with
us” once a month and agreed to pay him by contribution. He agreed to conduct monthly
meetings to be held at each of the members’ houses on a rotating basis. Considering the fact
that Elder Streeter had been ministering to their religious needs for at least four years, this
agreement was somewhat overdue.
Alas, according to the minutes of the Milford Universalist Society, Elder Streeter died exactly
seven months later, “to the great lementation of all his hearers.”(ibid).
Rev. Streeter’s death gave the Milford congregation an opportunity to demonstrate the love
and friendship that they had committed themselves to in the Charter of Compact they had
agreed to the year before. Rev. Streeter had sired seven children and now they and their
mother were without any means of support. In those days, no governmental aid was available
to widows who found themselves in such a situation. And few if any employers felt obligated to
be of any assistance. But Milford’s enlightened Universalist congregation thought otherwise.
Without prompting, it was decided to pay Rev. Streeter’s widow his salary for the remained of
1786 and beyond, if necessary. This gave his widow ample time to decide where she and her
children would make a permanent home. By December 1786, she and her family left Milford
and moved in with some of her relatives.
As a consequence of Elder Streeter’s death, this new congregation lost their mainstay and was
left to prematurely fend for itself. Fortunately they were able to engage Rev. Zephaniah Lathe
shortly thereafter to preach to them once a month, but this time, they specified the amount of
his salary; he was to receive twenty dollars that year. Apparently this man did well during his
one year of preaching; the next year he received twenty-five dollars.
As before, many of the monthly meetings were held in the home of Noah Wiswall who received
ten dollars a year to defray any expenses he may have incurred for doing so.
In the years and decades to come, this congregation was shepherded by some illustrious
ministers. These included Thomas Whittemore who was a prolific writer, editor and hymnologist
and who was an energetic advocate of abolition and an ardent foe of the Fugitive Slave Law,
Ebenenzer Fisher who left the Milford congregation to become the first president of what
became the St. Lawrence University and Theological Seminary, and of course Adin Ballou who,
after serving the congregation for six years, established a religious commune in the Hopedale
section of Milford called “The Hopedale Community” that was to become a model for similar
religious organizations.
Although it has undergone several permutations during the subsequent decades and
centuries and has been confronted with type of the problems many other congregations have
had to cope with and triumph over, the Unitarian-Universalist congregation in Milford still exists
to this day.
It was thus that the Milford Universalist congregation became involved in the very beginning of
Universalism in our newly formed nation.
James Buckley holds an Ed.D. from Harvard and has written over 1300 published articles in
the field of History.
A Word to the Elect
by Anne Bronte
(The original manuscript, dated May 28, 1843, is titled, "A Word to the Calvinists."
You may rejoice to think yourselves secure;
You may be grateful for the gift divine -
That grace unsought, which made your black hearts
pure,
And fits your earth-born souls in Heaven to shine.
But, is it sweet to look around, and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness
Which they deserve at least as much as you -
Their faults not greater, nor their virtues less?
And, wherefore should you love your God the more,
Because to you alone His smiles are given;
Because He chose to pass the many o'er,
And only bring the favoured few to Heaven?
And, wherefore should your hearts more grateful prove,
Because for ALL the Saviour did not die?
Is yours the God of justice and of love?
And are your bosoms warm with charity?
Say, does your heart expand to all mankind?
And, would you ever to your neighbour do -
The weak, the strong, the enlightened, and the blind -
As you would have your neighbour do to you?
And, when you, looking on your fellow-men,
Behold them doomed to endless misery,
How can you talk of joy and rapture then?-
May God withhold such cruel joy from me!
That none deserve eternal bliss I know;
Unmerited the grace in mercy given;
But none shall sink to everlasting woe,
That have not well deserved the wrath of Heaven.
- - -
And oh! there lives within my heart
A hope, long nursed by me;
(And should its cheering ray depart,
How dark my soul would be!)
That as in Adam all have died,
In Christ shall all men live;
And ever round His throne abide,
Eternal praise to give.
That even the wicked shall at last
Be fitted for the skies;
And when their dreadful doom is past,
To life and light arise.
I ask not how remote the day,
Nor what the sinners' woe,
Before their dross is purged away;
Enough for me, to know
That when the cup of wrath is drained,
The metal purified,
They'll cling to what they once disdained,
And live by Him that died.
REDISCOVERING OUR INNER UNIVERSALIST
BY PATRICK MURFIN
CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH
For fifty years, from the mid-1930s to the mid-1980s this congregation was known as the
Congregational Universalist Church. Beloved and accomplished Universalist ministers filled
our pulpit. We sit here today the heirs of a great tradition of a warm hearted and embracing
liberal tradition, yet most of us hardly know of its existence apart from the mysterious
persistence of the name as the second “U” in the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Many things have contributed to this state of affairs. We will examine them today.
Universalism shrank from the seventh largest denomination in the United States in the years
before the Civil War to the runt half of the merger with the American Unitarian Association and
then was nearly swallowed up by the power of the Unitarians, then in the hay day of Humanist
dominance.
Today, even though most members of UUA congregations continue to identify themselves as
Humanist, the hard edges of that philosophy have been knocked off. No longer do most
congregations rise up in revolt if a minister dare incorporate “God talk” into Sunday services.
Just about everyone, Humanists included, yearns for greater spirituality in their lives and
embrace those light touches of ritual in worship which comfort our need for a connection to
The Greater. Rev. William Sinkford, President of the UUA stirs up some controversy and much
discussion when he declares a need to develop “a language of reverence” among us, but he is
not driven out with brick bats and torches.
The current move to spirituality among us has many sources. We have rediscovered the
Transcendentalism of Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller. Our emerging environmental
awareness has led us not only to the nature writings of New England sages, but to Earth
centered traditions from around the world. Feminism has displaced the old patriarchal model
of God, that fierce and jealous creature rejected by Humanists, and opens the possibility of a
more nurturing spirit. The meditative practices of Eastern religions bring peace to many.
Yet quietly, almost without notice, that homey and wholesome Universalist tradition has begun
to re-assert itself. Forty years after the formation of the Unitarian Universalist Association it
may be that Unitarianism won the head of the movement, but Universalism has reclaimed and
redeemed its heart and soul.
Properly speaking, universalism with a small u is a tendency within Christianity that has sprung
up repeatedly and independently like a hearty weed in every corner of Christendom from its
earliest days. The basis of this tendency is quite simple. It is the discovery by thinking men
and women that scripture does not validate a vengeful God judging and consigning souls to
either salvation or eternal damnation. In general it has held that a loving God would not turn
his back on any of his children, but somehow find a way to reconcile all souls to him. The
precise mechanisms of this reconciliation may vary according to time and culture, the ultimate
result does not.
Nineteenth Century Universalists were eager to show that their faith is rooted in a long tradition
stretching to the earliest days of the Church. Their scholars did some of the most important
and original research into early Church records to document their claims. The early Church
had no settled doctrine of salvation and damnation. There is much evidence that the
prevailing opinion, at least among gentile converts in places like Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria and
Asia Minor, embraced the idea that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice ultimately redeemed all souls.
Among the great fathers of the early church who embraced and expounded this view were
Clement of Alexandria, his great pupil Origen, influential bishops like Diodorus of Tarsus and
the founders of the Eastern Nestorian sect.
The early church tolerated many interpretations of the message of Jesus. But that began to
change as the followers of Paul began to assert theological hegemony over dissenting Bishops.
After Constantine proclaimed the Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, he and
his successors determined to force conformity on the Church so as to make it a better and
more effective agent of social control. By 544 a Church Council under the control of the
Emperor Justinian denounced the teaching of Origen, the most influential proponent of
universal salvation., Subsequent councils made clear that universalism in any guise was rank
heresy . The tendency was suppressed ruthlessly, disappearing except at the fringes of
Empire and Church control.
But it never really vanished. Over the years many would come to the same conclusions as
those early Church fathers. It cropped up in the writings of Archbishop Germanus in the
Eighth Century and in the preaching of the early reformer Clement in Germany and France.
Adherents found refuge in isolated monasteries throughout Europe.
The emergence of the printing press made the Bible widely available to the laity for the first
time. People were able to read and study for themselves, to interpret the Word of God without
the intervention of priests, doctrine, or the heavy weight of Church tradition. The Protestant
Reformation was the natural result of this new technological revolution.
Soon among the Reformers many were adopting a theology of universal salvation. It spread
and took hold among some of the German mystics collectively known as the Anabaptists, the
ancestors of the Dunkers, Mennonites, Amish and other sects which settled in new world. It
percolated through the Low Countries. In Britain it developed among some Methodists,
Quakers and other dissenters. It was popularized in one form by the writing of James Relly in
his 1759 book UNION.
In later years universalism would also emerge independently in many places and in many
guises. It would pop up among convert people in the great colonial empires, Catholic and
Protestant alike. Even today it is being rediscovered and preached by some Evangelicals in
America, including some high profile televangelists.
In most places, in most times universalism would remain a tendency within other religions or as
with the Anabaptists just a part of a wider dissenting tradition. In America it would become the
central identify characteristic of its own denomination.
If you have been around this congregation for a while you may be familiar with the foundation
story of Universalism in America. It has been dramatized in Church School pageants and
retold from the pulpit. It may be all you know about that side of our heritage. The oft told tale
goes like this:
In 1770 a failed and embittered Englishman, a disciple of universalist James Relly, departed
the old world after the death of his wife vowing never to preach again. Determined to make a
new start, he sailed for the new world. After his ship wrecked off the coast of New Jersey at a
place called Good Luck Point, he came ashore and was taken in by a farmer named Thomas
Potter. Potter had built a small chapel on his land and was waiting for a universalist preacher
to speak there. Murray took this to be an unmistakable sign from God and preached his first
new world sermon on universal salvation. From there he went on preaching this gospel up and
down the East Coast. He would go on to be appointed by General Washington a Chaplin in
the Continental Army, settle in Gloucester, Massachusetts where he would establish the first
Universalist Church in America, and found the first Universalist Conventions. He would take as
a wife Judith, the beautiful and brilliant widowed daughter of the influential and powerful
Sergeant family. Together they would build Universalism into a force in American religion.
The beauty of this foundation myth is that it is essentially true in its details. But it is not the
whole story. The German Anabaptists who settled in Pennsylvania were already well disposed
to universalism. The brilliant young Dr. George de Benneville had been preaching and
teaching universalism around Bucks county Pennsylvania and surrounding areas since 1741.
Although he established a chapel in his home, he did not attempt to establish a separate
denomination, but preached to the Dunkers, Mennonites, Universal Baptists, and some
Quakers receptive to his message. He arranged for the publication of a German language
Bible with passages supporting universal salvation highlighted in 1743. In a career that
spanned decades he influenced many including members of the semi-monastic sect called the
Ephrata Society in New Jersey who in turn introduced universal salvation to English speaking
Baptists like Thomas Potter. De Bennville’s followers in Philadelphia, particularly a young
preacher named Elhanan Winchester, founded a Universal Baptist church there in 1786, the
first church in the country to take the name “Universalist.” This church would become the
spiritual home of the Revolutionary leader Dr. Benjamin Rush and would latter offer the English
Unitarian preacher/scientist Joseph Priestly his first American pulpit.
Meanwhile, in the frontier counties of western Massachusetts, Vermont and the Hampshire
Grants, a group of primitive Baptists were independently arriving at a theology of universal
salvation. Caleb Rich struggled with Calvinist predestination. Despite efforts to restrain
himself and remain orthodox, he gradually came to believe that Christ had redeemed all souls.
Denied fellowship by the Baptists, he and his extended family began to preach on their own. In
1774 he established his first fellowship at Warrick, the first openly universalist society in
America pre-dating both Murray’s Gloucester Church and the Philadelphia congregation. This
brand of Universalism was rougher around the edges than Murray’s carefully reasoned
intellectual approach. It was firmly in the Evangelical tradition and appealed to struggling
pioneer farmers, small tradesmen and eventually the emerging working class. It was visceral
and emotional—and highly appealing. It spread rapidly via circuit riding missionaries
throughout Western New England and into upstate New York.
Soon Caleb Rich and his associates and John Murray became aware of each other. Despite
differences in social class, style and nuances of theology, they recognized a kinship. In 1793,
with congregations scattered over New England and outposts in Pennsylvania, Virginia and
points south to the Carolinas, Murray, Rich and his associates joined by Elhanan Winchester,
met in Oxford, Massachusetts to found New England Universalist Convention. Regional
conventions in Pennsylvania, Upstate New York and other areas soon followed. Universalism
was off and running as a distinct religious movement.
Even in its infancy the upstart sect made waves. From the beginning John Murray and his
Gloucester congregation objected to paying taxes to support the local Standing Order church.
This battle for separation of church and state would continue into the 19th Century pitting the
Universalists and other dissenters against the tax supported established congregations, which
after 1820 mostly aligned themselves with the new Unitarians. It was a fight the Universalists
won at long last when Massachusetts finally ended tax payer support of parishes in the 1830’
s—the last state to do so.
The Universalists, driven by a fervor to share the good news spread rapidly. Often through
inter-connected extended families they pushed deep into New York State, west and south.
Their self-taught preachers competed with Baptists, Methodists, and the more conventional
Presbyterians leaving the Unitarians, Congregationalists, and Anglicans with their highly
educated clergy and comfortable middle to upper class congregations far behind. Preachers
often debated orthodox ministers and were famous for their ability to turn Biblical passages to
their advantage. In the era of revivalism sweeping the new nation following the Revolutionary
War, the Universalists stood in stark contrast to the usual hell fire and damnation and grew at
a pace that outstripped their abilities to settle ministers or establish permanent congregations.
They were aided by an active tract ministry and a plethora of local and national periodicals. In
these pages Universalism grew and evolved.
The Rellian universalism of John Murray had accepted the Calvinist idea of pre-destination
believing that through Christ the predestined fate of all souls was eventual reconciliation with
God after a period of punishment for sins. Elhahan Winchester in his book DIALOGUES ON
UNIVERSAL SALVATION advanced a different argument, one which also resonated with the
frontier preachers. He rejected both Calvinist pre-destination and original sin arguing instead
for a loving God, who like a Father forgave the excesses of his wayward Children. In return,
he argued that grateful people should strive to make their lives worthy of such a generous and
forgiving Lord by striving to model their behavior on the example of Jesus himself.
Hosea Ballou, who as a very young minister had been present at the founding Conference,
also dissented from Murray’s view. He had been influenced not only by Winchester, who had
ordained him, but by the radical Deism of Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allan, who declared
that “Reason was the only oracle of man.” Ballou kept Winchester’s flame alive after the
formers early death in 1797 radicalizing it even more with Allan’s rationalism.
Conflicts were sure to arise. The young Ballou was invited to preach to Murray’s congregation
while the old man was on one of his evangelical tours. After giving his views of universalism
Murray’s formidable wife, Judith Sargent Murray, arose, announced, “The doctrine preached
here is not the one usually heard from this pulpit,” and brought the service to a premature end.
Murray continued to be revered as a founder, but his views were rapidly fading from general
acceptance. In 1803, meeting at Winchester, New Hampshire the Convention adopted a three
point Profession of Faith as the basic doctrine of the church. In general it reflected Murray’s
concern for scriptural primacy, and support of the Trinity. But it was loose enough in its
explanation of universal salvation, “…there is one God, whose nature is Love, revealed in one
Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of Grace, who will finally restore the whole family of
mankind to holiness and happiness,” to accommodate both Murray’s view in temporary
punishment and Ballou’s belief that there would be no punishment after death. Despite
reluctance of some delegates to require any binding creed, it continued to serve, changed
very little through the coming century.
In the early years of the 19th Century, Ballou, articulate and charismatic, emerged as the
acknowledged leader of Universalism. In 1805 he published his famous A TREATISE ON
ATONEMENT. It represented a dramatic breakthrough in religious imagination. In it he argued
that God would not have endowed humanity with the ability to reason if he did not trust us to
use that gift and that he would not make any “revelation” at odds with reason. In his view
Jesus was not a redeemer of damned sinners, but rather the messenger sent to reveal God’s
love. Christ suffered not because of men, but for them and that God need not be reconciled to
humanity rather that humans need to be reconciled to God. God’s power and love were
infinite and it was impossible for men to frustrate that power and love. This stood Calvinism on
its head. Ballou also rejected the Trinity as irrational. He could hardly have been more radical,
yet his ideas resonated across the nation.
Within a decade Trinitarianism and Biblical literalism had virtually disappeared from
Universalist teachings. In many ways Ballou’s Universalism anticipated by 15 years the liberal
views that his great rival in Boston, the Unitarian William Ellery Channing would expound in his
great “Unitarian Christianity” sermon. Yet despite their obvious kinship as liberal, dissenting
movements, they often remained at odds, deeply suspicious of one another. This was not so
much a matter of doctrine as a matter of style and most importantly class. The Boston
Unitarians represented the respectable upper and middle classes and were served by Harvard
educated scholars given to dispassionate discourse. The Universalists found their strength
among farmers, laborers, mechanics, and the lesser tradesmen and shopkeepers of the cities
and towns. Their preachers might study with one another for a short while, or they may simply
feel the call and go out until the strength of their efforts would be recognized by ordination by
their peers. And although they relied on rationalism, they expressed it in homey metaphors,
not classical allusions. They unabashedly appealed to the heart as well as to the head.
Ballou’s influence was enormous. Not only did he preach, but he influenced Universalist
opinions as editor and publisher of the Universalist Magazine and as a frequent contributor to
dozens of other national, regional and local publications. He could be contentious. Welcoming
Channing’s famous “Unitarian Christianity” sermon for its embrace of reason in Biblical
interpretation, he disputed Channing’s characterization of humans as “incorrigible sinners.”
The two great leaders often battled back and forth in print, although never in person, over
issues such as tax support for established congregations and the supposed depravity of
universal salvation.
Ballou also took on all comers among orthodox critics. Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians and
Congregationalist united to denounce universal salvation. They argued that without fear of
punishment people would have no restraint on their passions and would commit all manner of
crimes and abominations. That the perfectly pious lives of thousands of humble Universalists
belied the charges had no effect. Some states even banned Universalists from elective office
or sitting on juries under the supposition that they had no restraint to prevent corruption.
Ballou fought back with ever more vigorous declarations of God’s limitless love. His view of
immediate reconciliation with God upon death became known as Ultra Universalism and
derided as a faith of “Death and Glory.”
By the 1830’s a group of younger ministers, including close associates and disciples like
Thomas Whitmore were gently disputing the old man. They advanced a theory of limited
punishment before final restoration to the Lord. As the dispute continued it became mixed with
personal issues and ambitions. The denomination began to take sides. Most supported
Ballou out of loyalty. His nephew Hosea Ballou 2nd defended him. But in his heart the
younger man sided with those who became known as the Restorationists. A handful of the
dissidents tried to leave the denomination and start a new movement, but returned to the fold
in a very few years. Ballou may have won the immediate struggle, but he lost the longer war.
Most ministers quietly accepted the Restorationist view and it was general in the denomination
within twenty years.
Theological disputes aside, Universalism was a growing and vital faith. You could almost watch
it advance behind the ever expanding frontier line. It had strong appeal for both of the great
ethnic stocks of American pioneers. It flourished with the New England diaspora as they
pushed gradually west through New York State and into the Upper Midwest after the opening
of the Erie Canal. Sons of Yankee stone farmers broke ground along the Upper Hudson.
Their sons and daughters pushed west into Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Universalist
ministers and lay preachers like Jonathan Chapman seemed to be there almost as soon as
they raised their barns—or in Chapman’s case maybe even before--as he spread apple
seedlings along with gospel in Ohio becoming the legendary Johnny Appleseed.
By the same token, working south from Pennsylvania into the back country of Virginia and the
Carolinas it appealed to the sturdy Scotch-Irish stock whose rough and tumble independence
put themselves ever on the edge of civilization seeking “elbow room.” Close knit families would
produce preachers who over generations would serve tiny country cross road chapels.
On the strength of these forces Universalism naturally arrived in McHenry County, where both
strands of pioneer stock met and mingled. Itinerant ministers were visiting the county soon
after the area was opened for settlement after the Black Hawk War. Competing largely with the
Methodists and Baptists who also employed saddle bag missionaries, Universalists would hold
meetings in various halls and establishments when ever they could. Daniel Parker Livermore,
a Universalist minister and editor and his wife Mary included Woodstock in trips out from
Chicago in the 1850’s. They held periodic meetings in halls over saloons despite being ardent
abstainers. Mary Rice Livermore would go on to a long career as a writer, speaker, heroic
Civil War nurse, and women’s rights crusader. Her story is featured in a framed picture
hanging in the church.
Members of the extended Pingry (sometimes spelled Pingree) family who’s various brothers
and cousins had been preaching in towns west from Ohio, settled around Crystal Lake and its
twin village Nunda and were holding regular house worship during the same decade.
There were soon enough Universalists to begin establishing permanent congregations in the
county. The Rev James R. Mack organized a church in McHenry in 1853 which erected a
building the following year. The Church persisted until 1929. The building still stands and is
currently occupied by a Pentecostal congregation. The simple frame structure is the oldest
church building in the county still in use.
The good people of Woodstock formed their church two years later. It served the city for more
than sixty years before disbanding in 1912. I have found passing references to shorter lived
Universalist congregations in Union and Marengo. There were undoubtedly other attempts at
forming churches that failed in a year or two for lack of regular ministerial leadership.
Meanwhile, despite its small town roots, Universalism was also establishing itself in many
cities. A more regular and establish clergy began to be developed and the denomination
began to developed colleges and seminaries to feed its need. Among the schools Tufts
University, St. Lawrence University, Lombard College, and ancestors of Akron University and
Cal Tech stood out. In Illinois Galesburg College opened as a Universalist institution providing
an education for, among others, Carl Sandburg.
Since the days of Rush and Winchester in Pennsylvania, Universalists had always been
interested in social and political issues of the day. They felt a duty to improve society. The
Philadelphia Convention under the influence of Rush had resolved to oppose slavery as early
as 1790, the first religious body in America to do so. Although that condemnation of slavery
was not universal among them, even in the South many Universalists--mostly hard scrabble
back country farmers resentful of the Tidewater aristocracy and fearful of slave competition for
employment--opposed the peculiar institution. The story told in the book and movie COLD
MOUNTIAN is based on the true tale of just such a Universalist family. The tiny country church
erected by the hero’s brother, Inman Chapel, is still standing. At a time when some Unitarians
were vocal abolitionists, many affluent merchants and manufactures in the pews with economic
ties to king cotton and slavery tacitly supported the institution. Opposition to slavery was far
more wide spread among Universalists.
Universalists were also early and voracious opponents of capital punishment and proponents
of prison reform. They spoke out against Jacksonian Indian removal policies and a wide range
of other issues. Yet another Ballou, a distant cousin named Adin, became the nation’s leading
advocate for peace and pacifism. His writings against war were widely influential around the
world. It was Adin Ballou’s words as much as Thoreau’s theory of Civil Disobedience that
influenced the work of the Christian pacifist Count Leo Tolstoy which in turn informed the
thinking of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Adin also took up the cause of utopian socialism
and founded one of the longest lasting experimental communities at Hopedale. After the
community dissolved he stayed on as minister to a local Unitarian congregation.
Because Universalism naturally implied equality among all people, it appealed strongly to
members of the emerging Women’s movement. Not only were women like Mary Livermore
acknowledged lay leaders, the denomination pioneered in the ordination of women. In 1863
Olympia Brown became the first woman in America to receive both full ordination and regular
employment as a parish minister. She served churches in Weymouth, Massachusetts;
Bridgeport, Connecticut where P. T. Barnum was the leading parishonier; and the Racine,
Wisconsin congregation that now bears her name. She was also a key leader of the
movement for women’s suffrage and the only one of her generation to live to cast a ballot.
Another Universalist woman, Clara Barton revolutionized battle field nursing care and went on
to found the American Red Cross.
In the years following the Civil War, Universalism seemed secure. True, it was no longer
experiencing the explosive growth of earlier years, but it achieved a level of both structural
stability and respectability long denied it. Governed principally by state and regional
conventions it finally found a national organizational base in the Universalist General
Convention, re-organized and institutionally strenghtened in John Murray’s home town of
Gloucester in 1870. It was a weak structure, but a structure none the less. The General
Convention would eventually become the Universalist Church of America in 1947.
Meanwhile the Unitarians, led by Dr. Henry Bellows were reorganizing themselves with
congregations formally united for the first time in the National Conference. Bellows and some
Universalist leaders, each yearning for a stronger, more “universal” church even began vague
discussions about merging the two liberal traditions. In the face of old rivalries nothing was apt
to come of it at the time.
Universalists also pioneered new forms of organization. The Women’s Association of
Universalists became the first continental organization of religious women. Soon other
denominations were following suit. In 1889 the first national religious youth group, the Young
People’s Christian Union was formed.
Rapid industrialization and advances in science were providing twin challenges to Universalists
and to many churches. Many young men were being lured from the agricultural villages at the
heart of Universalism into the dismal, smoke choked cities in search of work. Cut off from
family and cultural ties many fell away from the church.
Others were challenged by the new discoveries of science, Darwinism in particular.
Universalists, however were better prepared than most to face this new world. Their belief in
rationalism and rejection of Biblical literalism freed them from the constraints of many
churches. They could embrace the new discoveries as new revelations of God’s plan and
method. Because they did not rely on Bible fairy tails for proof of faith, they were better able to
roll with the punches. The Universalists became the first American denomination to officially
embrace Darwinism. This belays the frequent image of Universalists as simple and
unsophisticated Christians.
The 1893 the World Parliament of Religion held in Chicago in conjunction with the Columbian
Exposition was a wake up call for many Universalists. Delegates came from all over the world.
For the first time Americans could hear directly from the great religions of Asia—Hinduism,
Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism, Zorastorism—as well a practitioners of local native
cults and the wide variety of Christian, Jewish and Islamic practitioners. For some Universalists
it was a stunning development. They recognized a certain universality in the teachings of all
religions and observed how each functioned in the context of a traditional culture. Perhaps,
they began to surmise, Jesus Christ is not an essential agent, just one of many messengers of
God’s greater truth. And if indeed all humanity was reconciled to God upon death, then the
form of worship practiced on earth was not a critical matter.
Out of this insight a new Universalism began to be born, a Universalism beyond mere sectarian
Christianity which strove to be to truly Universal and inclusive. The very meaning of the term
began to change to reflect this new insight. In 1895, just two years after the Parliament, the
General Convention adopted a statement that “We believe in the universal Fatherhood of
God, and in the universal Brotherhood of Man. We believe that God, who hath spoken
through all of His Holy Prophets since the world began, hath spoken to us by His son Jesus
Christ, our Example and Savior. We believe that Salvation consists in spiritual oneness with
God, who, through Christ, will finally gather into one the whole family mankind.”
The following year appalled traditionalist voted to rescind the statement, but it was too late to
put the genie back into the bottle. Unitarians led by Jenkin Lloyd Jones of the Western
Conference of Unitarians and principle organizer of the World Parlaiment, were going through
much the same process at the same time.
By the early Twentieth Century a young minister named Clarence Skinner would take the
process even further. Imbued by a new sense of the common bonds of humanity and the
tradition of the Social Gospel movement Skinner was among those pressing for a new social
vision for his denomination. The country was at the time riven by a virtual class war between
an entrenched industrial oligarchy and militant unionists, a war in which quarter was seldom
given and was marked by the bullet, bayonet, and bullpen detentions. In response Skinner
published his seminal book, THE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF UNIVERSALISM in 1915. Like
John Jayne Holmes among contemporary Unitarians he called for bold solidarity with the
oppressed. These ideas were adopted by the General Convention of 1917 as “Declaration of
Social Principles.” A reading of these principles reveals a clear influence over what is now in
the UUA’s Seven Principles.
The horrors of the First World War did much to shatter the simple faith of millions of
Americans, including many Universalists. What kind of a loving and merciful God would, after
all, allow such waste and carnage? That tough question impelled many clergy and religious
thinkers to embrace emerging Humanism, which rejected all systems which relied on
supernatural power and authority. These thinkers believed that the salvation of humanity lay
only in the hands of mankind and that it must act in its own behalf. This was a new kind of
liberal religion advocated by some Universalists and Unitarians alike—a religion not only with
out Jesus, but without God.
Yet this was not a satisfactory answer for many, who yearned for faith and surer, simpler
times. Poor and working class men and women who had once responded enthusiastically to
Universalist Gospel began to turn instead to the sureness promised by a new brand of
Christianity—Fundamentalism. At the same time industrialization and the automobile were
wiping out the agricultural villages where universalism had thrived. Where hamlets of a couple
of hundred people clustered no more than a mornings brisk walk from surrounding farms in the
19th century and country market towns and county seats like Woodstock were spread out half
a day’s ride by horseback across the Midwest, new roads and automobiles made them nearly
obsolete. One historian studying Ohio, once rich with Universalist congregations, noted that
scores of them disappeared and the villages they once served vanished from the map.
And Universalism appeal as an alternative to rigid Calvinism was no longer unique. Most
mainline Protestant denominations had abandoned Calvinism in fact if not in theory by the new
century. They, too, were talking about a loving God filled with compassion and eager to
forgive. Hell fire and damnation faded from Sunday morning services. If these churches could
not promise universal salvation, they could offer something mighty close, a universally
available salvation which could be had pretty much for the asking and a tip of the hat to Jesus.
The experience of Universalism in McHenry County was typical. By the mid-Twenties all of the
old churches were gone, their members scattered through other congregations. In Woodstock
many of the remaining members of the Universalists came to the liberal First Congregational
Church, where they were welcomed with more or less open arms. But some yearned to re-
establish the old faith. One family left a $5000 bequest to who ever could form a new
Universalist church in the County. The promise of that money would play a crucial roll in
changing this congregation forever.
Church attendance for all denominations plummeted during the Roaring Twenties. Then the
Great Depression delivered a devastating economic blow. A dwindling number of members
tried to continue to support a minister and church on drastically reduced incomes. Churches
all over the country went into crisis. Many closed their doors forever. In Woodstock the same
pain was felt by the Congregationalists, by the Presbyterians from whom the local
Congregationalists had split in 1865 and the Baptists. In desperation the three self-governing
congregations began discussions aimed at a merger and the creation of “Federated
Community Church” without strong denominational ties. The Congregationalist and the
Presbyterians voted to proceed with the merger. The Baptists vetoed the plan killing it. All
three struggled to stay afloat. It was then that former Universalist recalled the bequest for a
new congregation. What if the First Congregational Church would also affiliate with the Illinois
Universalist Convention? What if, in a show of good faith, they would call a Universalist
minister to their pulpit? Then would they be eligible to receive the $5000 bequest and save
the church?
On such mundane and decidedly unspiritual consideration was a new foundation laid. The
church received its fellowship into the Universalist Convention on May 1, 1938. The name was
changed to the Congregational Universalist Church and within a year Rev. Merton Aldridge, a
Universalist was called to the pulpit.
Aldridge was an outstand pastor. Despite the fact that litigation to claim the coveted $5000
dragged on until the early 1960’s, Aldridge was able to pull the congregation together and by
the thinnest of margins, save it. For the next ten years he ministered to the congregation.
Without emphasizing denominational affiliations, he none the less modeled the open
heartedness of Universalism. Soon some of the long time Congregationalists in the pews were
embracing Universalism. New members came on the basis of Aldridge’ reputation. After he
died in 1949, it was natural to continue to call Universalist ministers.
In the years after the Second World War the decline of Universalism had become precipitous.
Churches were disappearing at an alarming rate. Whole state and local conventions were
failing as membership plummeted. Much of what survived the aftermath of the First World War
could not survive the Second.
The Universalists cast around for new approaches to turn the tide. A group of young
graduates from Tufts divinity school in 1946 began meeting to find ways of reviving their
denomination. Known as the Humiliati, this group would meet for years and explore
possibilities. They distinguished themselves by adopting clerical collars, then rare in Liberal
churches. Despite this outward sign of traditionalism, the Humiliati broke new ground. They
sought out a new spiritualism to re-enforce Skinner’s Social Principles. A whole new
generation of leadership would emerge from this small group.
In Boston, headquarters of the Universalist Church, there was no active congregation by the
late 1940’s. The Massachusetts Convention under the leadership of State Superintendent
Clinton Lee Scott, decided to experiment with the planning of a new congregation in the city.
They called Kenneth Patton, a humanist minister with a reputation for creativity do be the
minister of the new Charles Street Meeting House. He would emphasize the new Universalism
by introducing elements from many religions and cultures into the worship. He also integrated
music, visual, and performance art into services in a new and bold way. He wrote whole new
liturgies, breaking the constricting mold of the traditional Protestant service. Patton’s words
and poetry are still the most prolific in the UUA hymnal. Kenneth Patton changed liberal
worship forever. The Charles Street Meeting House may have eventually failed, but what
Patton created lives on.
Meanwhile the Unitarians, rooted largely in urban areas and around college campuses were
experiencing growth, a renaissance attributable to the vigorous Humanism which was then its
dominant theology. Cooperation between the two faiths had been growing for decades. The
youth groups had already merged and the religious education and publishing functions of both
denominations had been consolidated. A joint commission studied further cooperation and
recommended consolidation in 1957. In 1960 the two denominations voted to merge and the
following year Unitarian Universalist Association was born.
Many Universalists feared that the larger Unitarians would swamp the older partner and wipe
out its unique identity. In many ways their fears were justified. Despite an agreement between
Universalist General Superintendent Philip Giles and Unitarian President Dana Greeley that
neither would seek the presidency of the new association, Greeley ran for and was elected to
the post. He proceeded to create a structural clone of the old American Unitarian Association.
The Universalist state conventions were wiped out. Some, like Ohio, had considerable
resources which were absorbed by the UUA. The two denominations together now had too
many seminaries. A commission recommended closing the Universalist schools at Tufts and
St. Lawrence while leaving the Unitarian institutions of Meadville-Lombard and Star King in
California untouched.
New churches took the Unitarian Universalist name but many established ones, particularly the
historically Unitarian ones, kept their old identification. In many cities Universalist churches
were absorbed into Unitarian Congregations. The general tone of the denomination
resembled more closely the militant Humanism dominant among the Unitarians than the more
spiritual version favored by Universalists. Both the public and members in the pews often
spoke simply of Unitarianism, dropping the Universalist appellation entirely.
In Woodstock by the early 1970’s ministers were trained in the Unitarian tradition, not products
of Universalist seminaries. When the congregation decided to overhaul their by-law in the
1980’s, leaders figured that no one knew what Universalism meant anymore, but that people
did recognize the term Unitarian. The name of the congregation was changed again, this time
to the Congregational Unitarian Church in hopes of making it clear that this was a liberal
church.
Yet not long after the adoption of the new name, the winds of change began to blow again, as
they have so often in the history of both of our great faith traditions. The rise of feminism and
the spread of women clergy in the denomination encouraged a more spiritual view. Ecological
awareness played its part, as did awareness of eastern meditative practices. It was not that
Humanism was being rejected out of hand, but that it was being softened and deepened by
new understandings. In the search for spirituality, many are re-examining our Universalist roots.
No less a figure than Forrest Church, minister of the prestigious All Soul’s Church in New York
and perhaps our most prolific writer and most influential figure, has called for a New
Universalism. He has been echoed by others. A new wave of historic scholarship is re-
examining our Universalist heritage. Social activists look to the inclusiveness of Universalism
as an antidote for a perceived class and caste arrogance that persists among us.
Universalism not only answers Bill Sinkford’s call for greater reverence, but recent General
Convention resolutions advocating economic justice.
There is something lovable about the Universalists, warmth where the intellectual pretensions
of the Unitarians can leave us cold. In the end we need both traditions. Each compliments the
weaknesses of the other. Together they can build something new under the sun.
But today, let’s go with in ourselves and retrieve the Universalist buried within.
R.E. Moves West by Mail and Train R-XYZ
by Eugene B. Navis
Last August I was waiting to conduct a service in the Universalist Church of Barnard, VT, where
Hosea Ballou once preached, when I came upon some ghosts of R. E. past. In the bottom
drawers of an old bookcase, amidst mouse droppings and munchings, was a treasure trove of
Myrtles, Sunday School Helpers, and Sunday School Searchlights, the weekly, monthly,
quarterly kind of supports mailed out to Universalist homes, Sunday Schools, and R. E.
Leaders across the continent.
The Myrtle, for children, published 52 weeks a year from 1851 to 1924, sold for 50_ a year in
1915. Universalist parents read the stories to younger children around the fire, or the kitchen
table or at bedtime, posed the questions and engaged the children in the puzzles. Older
children read, pondered, puzzled and discovered for themselves. The Myrtle was popular. In
churches, teachers adapted it for the entire lesson or supplemented other curriculum with The
Myrtle. It was a good sized eight pager, filled with vivid drawings and photos, poems and
dramatic stories and added enigmas, word squares, and all manner of brain teasers including
those that called for Biblical knowledge.
And wonderful illustrations: The issue of September 2, 1916 shows a speeding roadster
scattering bicycle riders on its way to the beach, driven by a nice young gentleman who is
taking a lonely boy named Joe on a great outing.
The Myrtle cautioned children to be gracious receivers as well as generous givers. A boy with
sick eyes recovering in a dark room discovers how much his ears can tell him. There is a poem
about a water lily boat on a pond, and always a page of puzzles and brain teasers. Here's an
enigma. First one to get the right answer wins a prize.
"At milking time," said Farmer Redds, "in my barn were twenty heads." Twenty heads and
seventy two feet That was the number, all complete, How many cows and how many men Were
in the barn at milking time, then?
Answer: 16 cows and 4 men
And good stories - stories of children around the world: American Indians, Alaskan Eskimos,
Africans, Asians, all presented as God's children with whom we need be friends. The words
"religion", "God", "Universalism", don't appear very often but curiosity is honored, and
kindness, truth, honesty and the affirmation of the different ways people are.
In addition to The Myrtle were copies of The Helper, lesson plans mailed quarterly for
teachers, and The Search Light with advice for R. E. leaders. If we were together in a
workshop, I'd give out copies samples of these, including my favorite The Onward for young
people.
The Onward, published twice a month, was the organ of the Young Peoples Christian Union.
Founded in 1889 and continuing in unbroken line, the YPCU merged with its Unitarian
counterpart, originally named Young People Religious Union (YPRU), in 1953 as LRY, Liberal
Religious Youth.
The history of YPCU and the ardent journalism of The Onward tell us why Universalists in that
era did not suffer what we call "The GAP" today, that period after junior or senior high school
when young people left our churches to return decades later, if at all. YPCU groups or unions,
as they called them, started with high schoolers and young adults, later adding junior high
unions. Unioners were to live an earnest Christian life, dedicate themselves to useful service
and be undergirded by spiritual development.
The Onward recounts how the unioners served others through their commitment to the "Two
cents a Week" program that paid for the building of new churches and the salary of a
Universalist Minister in Japan. Universalist missions were not to save the world from sin or hell,
but rather to share the good news of how Jesus showed us the ways to lead a good life daily
through helping other people.
News from the Universalist missions in Tokyo flooded the periodicals for Sunday School
children and youth, making real the cause for which they gave their pennies. Likewise The
Onward reported on the money raised and the architects sketches of the plans for the new
YPCU sponsored churches in Atlanta and Chattanooga. When such buildings were dedicated,
members of the YPCU were there taking part. Leadership training, worship, and visions for and
by
youth were a vital part of YPCU, and so summer conferences and rallies were held at Ferry
Beach, Maine, Murray
Grove, New Jersey and far more.
In 1915, with World War I raging in Europe, the work of YPCU unioners engaged in relief work
for destitute Belgians was reported regularly by Dr. John Van Schaick, Jr., his wife, and Van
Schaick's brother.
The issue of February 15, 1915 was titled "The Current Events Number" with the lead article
on "The Abolition of War" followed by a passionate article on "Equal Suffrage" and in good
Universalist fashion an equally passionate article "From the Anti-Suffrage Camp".
Devotionals... Every issue of The Onward contained materials for junior and senior
devotionals. The devotionals often started with a Biblical passage or reading and then made a
bridge to some current topic. The Junior devotional on January 10, 1915 involved the children
in thinking of how they could make recent immigrant children feel welcomed here. The senior
devotional had a range of topics from the current suffering of the Polish People in a time of
war, to a plea for schools for Indian boys and girls in California, to "the Separation of Negroes
among Federal employees at Washington."
Russell Miller, in The Larger Hope tells it this way: "when it celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in
1939 the YPCU had compiled a record of contributions to the Universalist church which was
nothing short of phenomenal. It had either assisted in or been primarily responsible for building
five churches; and there were, as well, "the scores of men and women we have given to our
ministry, the hundreds of laymen we have trained, the thousands of youth we have enrolled in
mission study classes... the nearly one hundred thousand dollars we have raised for
missionary projects …the missionary vision and enthusiasm we have engendered, the long,
long line of those who were always among the good and the true, and often the beautiful."
Surely, The Onward, like other Universalist periodicals was important in sharing and cementing
the faith of many Universalists. Many denominations had newsletters, lesson series, teacher
helps, and periodicals for the home from the mid 19th century into the twentieth; some of them
borrowing materials from one another. Of the limited number I've seen, The Onward seems
among the most original.
My second miraculous discovery was not in the mouse inhabited storage drawers in Barnard,
but on my own bookcase. Thinking of Universalist R. E. moving west, I recalled a song book
called "Songs Along the Way", written in 1915, when Universalists trekked across the continent
to hold the "United Universalist Conventions" in Pasadena and Los Angeles. United meant that
for the very first time Universalists were having a general assembly when all of the autonomous
and fiercely independent organizations would meet together: The Women's Missionary Society,
The General Sunday School Association, the YPCU and the General Convention- the delegate
body - mostly male of course - meeting together for the first time.
Years of preparation resulted in an incredible plan for a splendiferous gathering in July 1915.
A Pullman train was hired which started in Boston on July 1, picking up passengers from New
York in Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, before chugging on to Cleveland and Chicago,
where they embarked for a banquet at the nearest Universalist Church. And now there were so
many conferees that a second Pullman was needed to add the passengers all along the way
through Denver and Salt Lake City to the coast.
Provisions were made to make the journey pleasurable. There were worship services in the
cars, chaplains for the troubled, song leaders, copies of the song books for each person, a
huge map on which to trace progress - pasted on the side wall of the dining car, a well
equipped mimeograph machine, and editors and typists and -earns of paper to report each
day's' news. Mind you that the women missionaries and the young Universalist Christians and
the stodgy gray
bearded conventioneers and the Sunday School superintendents were mingling for three
thousand miles and six days.
The newsletter titled the "Daily UGCWUMAYPCUSS", called itself "a journal of fact, fellowship
and frivolity". Rules were listed - among them "Tete-a Tetes shall not begin earlier than 7 a.m.
in the Sleeping Cars." and "Do not use your credential cards for butter spreaders in the dining
Cars."
There were, of course, songs for the occasion. We might do the last chorus of one printed in
The Onward in March 1915 before the grand trek. "It's a Long, Long Way to California" a la
"Tipperary", by the Rev. Elmo Robinson of Anderson, Indiana:
It's a long way to California
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to California, But the railroad rates are low.
Goodbye, Massachusetts,
Farewell, Illinois,
It's a long way to California,
But I'm going, 0 Joy!
And lastly one hymn of vision, passion and high resolve which they sang as they headed to
this grand assembly. Here's a verse from "New Age Vision" in Songs Along the Way. Words by
Henry Victor Morgan, Universalist Minister, Tacoma, Washington Tune: The Battle Hymn
My soul has seen the coming of a race
from sorrow free
Of an age of faith and science, Truth
and love and liberty,
And I sing of love's great triumph in
that year of jubilee.
God's truth is marching on! (Chorus
ends with "God's truth is marching on!']
Eugene Navias is a faithful Herald reader in Dorchester, Massachusetts who prepared this
essay for the Religious Education History Group Program at the 2004 General Assembly
Our North Carolina Universalist Heritage
by Peggy Ward Rawheiser
Early Universalism in Milford MA:1785
by James J. Buckley
A Word to the Elect
by Anne Bronte
REDISCOVERING OUR INNER UNIVERSALIST
by PATRICK MURFIN
R.E. Moves West by Mail and Train R-XYZ
by Eugene B. Navis
___________________________________________________
Our North Carolina Universalist Heritage
by Peggy Ward Rawheiser
The project that I am working on to re-organize, update and add to the "History of Universalism
in North Carolina." is much more than just names and dates. It is a social history too. So much
of the feeling that I get from reading these old records is not appropriate to include in the book
but I feel compelled to share it with others.
The Civil War destroyed much of the livelihood and way of life for most of the Universalists in
North Carolina. General Sherman was not kind to the state as he and his men passed through.
The majority of the Universalists were farmers or at least depended on farms for their way of
life. Money was an almost unknown quantity.
The ministers, in the earliest years of mid-19th Century and into the 20th Century traveled
from meeting place to meeting place on foot, on horseback, buggy, river boats and trains.
Sometimes the minister was away from home for a month at the time. In one case where the
minister had only the suit of clothes on his back, his hostess told him to take it off and get into
bed and her maid washed and pressed his suit so he would look more respectable at church
the next day. I suspect that this was not unusual for him to only have one suit of clothes.
Homes had no closets because people had nothing to hang in a closet. My Grandmother's
house only had pegs on the wall to hang any extra clothes on if a person was lucky enough to
have extra clothes.
The members of the churches were asked to pledge $1 per year to the North Carolina
Convention which paid the local part of the ministers' salaries. Each year's Convention minutes
include a plea for the churches to get their members to pay that $1 per year. Tucked in the
record book for the church that my father joined as a young man, I found an offering envelope
with his name and identifying this as his $1 contribution for the year and gave his address as a
student at North Carolina State College.
Most of the pay for the ministers came from the National Women's Missionary Association so
representatives of that organization came down from Boston every year to attend the State
Convention to encourage the members of the churches and to be sure their money was being
spent wisely. One year as the ministers each made their report to the Convention for the year,
one of the ministers announced that his church had hoped to become self supporting that year
but the price of cotton and tobacco plunged to new lows so the farm income was greatly
reduced so the situation looked pretty grim..
The State Convention meetings lasted from Thursday evening through Sunday evening. In
that span of time, the delegates and friends heard from 4 to 6 sermons which were preached
by the ministers in the state and by visiting ministers, some of whom were well known all across
the country. The delegates arrived by horse and buggy and were entertained in the homes of
the members of the host church as well as meals being provided for them.
It was usual for the Convention to contribute $10 to the local church to cover their expenses
for the event. (No, I did not leave out any zeros in that number.) A plate offering was taken to
pay this and the remainder of the $15 or $20 (on a good day) would go into the Convention
General Funds. The ladies of the Universalist churches were all good cooks and so the food
was all contributed by the members of the host church and everyone ate royally. This practice
carried over into the second half of the 20th Century so that as I was growing up, I think I
connected church meetings with wonderful food.
When the Universalist General Convention asked for contributions for the missions in Japan, it
took several years to get the $100 which the North Carolina Convention had pledged for that
cause. In the end, each member of the Executive Board contributed $5 and the remainder was
paid out of the Convention Treasury. The same generosity of spirit was seen when the Inman
Chapel Church pledged money for missions when they had almost no money to pay their
minister.
When a new church was being built, the Convention would contribute anywhere from $10 to
$50 to the new building and specify that this amount should pay for the roof on the building. It
can be assumed that much of the material were donated by the members of the churches for
the churches that I knew in my growing up years were constructed of hand hewn beams and
rough lumber which probably was from trees donated by members.
Many of the church groups met in Community Meeting Houses which were used by other
church groups in the community. If an itinerant preacher were passing through the area, he
might preach several nights in a row, not necessarily on the weekend. Many of these church
groups were very loosely organized and revolved around one or two families for focus and
when those people died, the church did too. This lack of organization was the largest fault of
the early Universalist preachers in North Carolina. Some of the names of these men were
spoken of in reverence as I first heard their names at Red Hill Church. In communities where
the churches formed an organization with leadership, they were much more successful in
surviving.
The delegates each year passed resolutions on social issues, often the same issues were
voted on for a number of years in a row. Some of these were Capital Punishment, need for
Juvenile prisons separate from the adult prisons, Temperance and treatment of the defective
(mentally ill.) The hospital in North Carolina for the mentally ill is named Dix Hill. Dorothea Dix
was a Universalist but not from North Carolina.
Each year there were recommendations that encouraged publicity to spread the "good word"
of Universal Salvation and of the need to have Sunday Schools so that the children would
learn of this beloved religion. The ministers encouraged each church to have an annual revival
with a series of meetings for a week and they tried to exchange pulpits for this with ministers in
the surrounding states. People of all persuasions in the community would come for a revival
but most never came back again.
The problems that were discussed at every Convention Session could have been written in this
day and time. They were desperate efforts to get the churches to do more advertising and
public relations, begging the churches to increase their financial contributions, discussing ways
to increase membership and pleas for disarmament and world peace. Each year the officers
made a plea for the churches to get their annual reports in before the Convention and they
often discussed trying to design forms for the churches and the ministers to use for making
their annual reports so that they would include all the necessary elements. The passing of
ninety or one hundred years has not change things much.
Peggy Ward Rawheiser is a 4th generation Universalist.
Early Universalism in Milford MA:1785
by James J. Buckley
In the summer of 1785, a Universalist congregation was formed in Milford MA, making it one of
the first to do so in the U.S. It is no accident that it was formed there. That community had
struggled for almost 100 years to be freed from the control of Mendon so that it could form its
own independent Congregational Church and be able to govern itself. The length of this
struggle that ended with Milford’s incorporation in April 1780, encouraged dissenters of all
kinds to conclude that eccentric behavior and aberrant religious opinions were tolerated there.
To a certain extent such a conclusion was accurate. The minister of the Milford Congregational
Church Rev Amariah Frost, who served in that capacity for forty-nine years, was a strong-
willed and forceful shepherd of that separatist congregation who readily tolerated the existence
of outspoken dissenters in his town. For example, one of the signers of the Milford
Universalists’ incorporation papers was Noah Wiswall. He seldom made any effort to hide his
beliefs and opinions, many of which flew in the face of Congregational orthodoxy. Indeed,
according to Milford and Universalist historian, Adin Ballou, Wiswall was the most zealous of
the Milford Universalists. Yet Rev. Frost agreed to marry him and his bride Susanna, albeit
some years before 1785.
In time, Wiswall played a pivotal part in the creation of what was called in the incorporation
documents, “The Independent Christian Society commonly called Universalist.” It was he who
encouraged Adams Streeter to become the preacher of this embryonic congregation.
Adams Streeter(whose first name was his mother’s maiden name) began to preach his
unorthodox beliefs in Milford in 1781.His career as a preacher was both diverse and colorful.
He became a lay Baptist evangelist around 1760 and preached in that capacity in Charlton
MA. His preaching abilities made him so popular in that region of the Bay Colony that he
continued to fulfill that role for fourteen years. Because of his demonstrable success as a
preacher, the Baptist Society in Douglas MA called him in 1774 to be its minister.
During the years between 1774 and 1781, Streeter’s beliefs began to verge farther and farther
away from the tenets of the Baptists, such as their belief in the Final Judgment and Divine
Retribution. Consequently he soon became the target of scathing criticism from members of
his congregation and more importantly, from the leaders of his denomination. Such criticism
intensified when he began to champion such unorthodox beliefs as universal salvation. When
his Baptist congregation and his superiors could tolerate his behavior no longer and feared
that he was becoming a troublesome and divisive force in the Baptist denomination, he was
formally accused of advocating heretical beliefs. He was ejected from his Baptist congregation
and defrocked as a Baptist minister.
Bereft of his role as a Baptist preacher after having filled that role for over 21 years, he
eventually decided after much soul-searching to preach his dissenting religious opinions to like-
mined residents of the Milford area. His selection of Milford as the place to begin his new
ministry was not capricious. The struggle the citizens of Milford had recently undergone to win
control of their own church and become an independent community made it a likely place in
Streeter’s opinion to share his dissident religious ideas. As a result he became a self-ordained
preacher in the Milford and in the distant community of Oxford MA, preaching at both places at
least once a month.
Apparently he achieved some success in that regard because in November 1781, he was
asked by Wiswall to serve the Milford adherents of Universalism and in particular, Universal
Salvation. He answered that call by moving his wife Dinah and their seven children to Milford.
A primary reason why he did so was because he had found the life of an itinerant preacher- in
contrast to his prior position as Baptist minister- to be harsh and financially unstable. So he
welcomed the opportunity to move to Milford especially because Noah Wiswall had invited
Streeter and his large family to move into the Wiswall household located not too far from the
center of that town. Wiswall has been described as being a generous-hearted, enterprising,
public-spirited and charitable citizen. Certainly his willingness to house a family of nine
indefinitely proves that such a description was justified.
In the years before 1785,Elder Streeter preached in private homes, at first in Noah Wiswall’s
house but later in the homes of the other ten co-signers of the 1785 incorporation papers.
The signers of the Milford Incorporation papers included some men of substantial means who
generously supported the infant congregation. Ebenezer Sumner was the owner of a
considerable parcel of rich farming land and therefore was a prominent member of the Milford
community. John Claflin was the sire of nine children and a large land -owner as were
Ebenezer Wheelock and Samuel Bowker. Thus from the outset, the Milford Universalist
Congregation did not have financial problems and soon became financially solvent. As a result
of their prominence in their community and their favorable financial status, these men were
immune to any adverse reaction from their neighbors about the founding of the denomination.
Other signers were not as fortunate. Samuel French was a member of an illustrious, large and
financially comfortable family. His father was a deacon of the Milford Congregational Church.
That meant that words were exchanged between father and son when Samuel expressed his
belief in the Universalists’ tenets. But Samuel’s riff with his father did not deter him; he
persisted in his commitment to the newly created group. Eventually he too became a
landowner of considerable means.
One of the signers, Nahum Clark, reaped the whirlwind of condemnation for having signed the
incorporation papers. He was condemned for having expressed beliefs contrary to those held
by the local Congregational Church. When he maintained that he had committed no sin, he
and his wife were summarily ejected from that congregation.
But the most colorful of the signers was undoubtedly Noah Wiswall. Throughout his lifetime,
Wiswall manifested Christian charity despite the antagonism generated against him. Illustrative
of this point was the reaction of a member of the Congregational Church when Noah brought
him a load of much-needed wood. When the needy recipient met Parson Frost the next day,
the man described Wiswall’s act in the following fashion: “The good Lord yesterday sent me a
load of wood by the hands of the Devil!”
Part of the reason for such a harsh description was the fact that Wiswall had become an
adherent of Universalism. But another reason was the eccentric behavior he manifested
throughout his lifetime.
A commitment is not valid nor sustainable if it has not been tested and has survived the
testing. The commitment of the signers to the incorporation papers to universal fellowship and
charity toward one’s fellow man was sorely tested by the behavior of Wiswall.
Toward the end of his life, Noah Wiswall built a stone tomb on a plot of land where the first
Catholic Church was eventually erected in Milford. Then, in unconscious or perhaps deliberate
imitation of a penitential monastic order, he began to spend each night sleeping in the tomb.
Although he did not announce to anyone what he was doing, it did not take long for his
neighbors and friends to discover where he was spending his nights. Some condemned his
actions, describing them as blasphemous. But even though some of his fellow Universalists
were uncomfortable with his nocturnal habits, they nevertheless supported his eccentric
behavior and thereby demonstrated their commitment to these words in the incorporation
papers:
“That we mutually agree to walk together in Christian fellowship, building up each other in our
most holy faith, and rejoicing in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free and to no more be
entangled by any yoke of bondage.”
Immediately after the religious pioneers of the Milford (MA) Universalist Society decided in late
August 1785 to incorporate what they referred to as
” The Independent Christian Society of Universalists”, they became involved in a whirlwind of
denominational activities. Somehow, despite the absence of most of the means of
communication that we enjoy today, the news of that incorporation reached Rev.John Murray
in Gloucester(MA) in less than a week. Known as a man of strong convictions and decisive
action, and undoubtedly fully aware of the fact that Rev. Adams Streeter was the preacher of
the infant congregation, Rev. Murray immediately accepted the Milford Universalists as bone
fide adherents of his beliefs. In a letter that arrived in Milford in late August,1785, he invited
them to attend what was consistently referred to by him and others as the “First General
Convention “ of the denomination. He indicated that the Convention was scheduled to be held
on September 14,1785,less than a month after the signing of the Milford Incorporation papers.
In addition, the letter from Rev. Murray indicated a “desireing (that) the Society would send a
commity of one or more persons to Oxford (MA) to sit in an Association to act upon Matters
that they shall deem proper.”(Minutes of the Milford Universalist Society:1785-87)
Although some of the Milford Universalists were undoubtedly amazed by the rapidity with which
they had become recognized by Murray and by his unexpected invitation to attend what was
one of the first (if not the first) conventions ever convened by American Universalists, they
rose to the challenge. Many of the members were committed to other tasks on that date but,
after much discussion, three members were selected to represent Milford: Ebenezer Sumner,
Samuel French and Noah Wiswell, the man who had been instrumental in bringing Adams
Streeter to Milford.
It was later reported to the Milford congregation that thirteen men had attended this meeting of
what was called “The Second Religious Society”: Elder John Murry, Rev. Elhanan Winchester,
Shipia Townsend of Acton, Abijah Adams, Daniel Fish, Francis Lyscomb, Daniel Nelson,
Jonathan Lasell, the three Milford delegates, Laban Bates of Mendon and Rev.Caleb Rich.
(ibid).Apropos, it has been said the Rich was the first to proclaim that there would be no
punishment after death.
Imbued with the spirit and political beliefs of the new nation’s founding fathers that only in unity
is there strength, it was recommended and so adopted that “its few infant societys organize
and affiliate.”(ibid).It was also recommended and approved that their congregations form
themselves in a way that is “most happifying and secure in the matters of Religion and
morality.” .(ibid)
Rather than appear to dominate the convention, Rev. Murray stepped aside and suggested
that others assumed leadership of this embryonic group. As a result, Rev.Elhanan Winchester,
a minister so imbued with the spirit of independence that he had by then composed sixteen
Revolutionary War hymns, was selected to be moderator and Dr.Daniel Fish became its Clerk.
It was also decided that “the several societies adopt the name of Independent Christian
Societys commonly called Universalists.”(ibid)
Furthermore, it was voted that each of the Committees recommend to their several societies
that together with the name they adopted,”…they will also consider themselves as one
semented body consequently bound by the ties of love and friendship to assist each other at
any and all times when occations shall require.”(ibid)
In order to make certain that it became “one semented body” in deed as well as word, it was
voted that the several societies represented at the convention appoint committees of
correspondence that would share with its congregations the proceedings of the convention
and which would foster and bind the ties of love and friendship and mutual assistance through
regular correspondence with each other and through periodic meetings. When thee
agreements appeared in printed form, they were referred to as “
The Charter of Compact.”
It soon became apparent that while Rev. Murray acted decisively and quickly, the Milford
denomination was unaccustomed to doing so. At a meeting held on December 5,1785, almost
three months after the convention, the articles adopted at the Convention were laid before the
members for their individual and collective perusal .After acknowledging the presentation of
the articles, the Milford congregation decided not to take any action. It was not until February
21,1786 that the convention articles were adopted by the Milford Universalists. It was also
somewhat belatedly decided at that meeting that given the fact the congregation had become
part of a larger body and had accepted articles that now governed them, they should formally
renew their agreement with Elder Adams Streeter. They therefore invited him “to preach with
us” once a month and agreed to pay him by contribution. He agreed to conduct monthly
meetings to be held at each of the members’ houses on a rotating basis. Considering the fact
that Elder Streeter had been ministering to their religious needs for at least four years, this
agreement was somewhat overdue.
Alas, according to the minutes of the Milford Universalist Society, Elder Streeter died exactly
seven months later, “to the great lementation of all his hearers.”(ibid).
Rev. Streeter’s death gave the Milford congregation an opportunity to demonstrate the love
and friendship that they had committed themselves to in the Charter of Compact they had
agreed to the year before. Rev. Streeter had sired seven children and now they and their
mother were without any means of support. In those days, no governmental aid was available
to widows who found themselves in such a situation. And few if any employers felt obligated to
be of any assistance. But Milford’s enlightened Universalist congregation thought otherwise.
Without prompting, it was decided to pay Rev. Streeter’s widow his salary for the remained of
1786 and beyond, if necessary. This gave his widow ample time to decide where she and her
children would make a permanent home. By December 1786, she and her family left Milford
and moved in with some of her relatives.
As a consequence of Elder Streeter’s death, this new congregation lost their mainstay and was
left to prematurely fend for itself. Fortunately they were able to engage Rev. Zephaniah Lathe
shortly thereafter to preach to them once a month, but this time, they specified the amount of
his salary; he was to receive twenty dollars that year. Apparently this man did well during his
one year of preaching; the next year he received twenty-five dollars.
As before, many of the monthly meetings were held in the home of Noah Wiswall who received
ten dollars a year to defray any expenses he may have incurred for doing so.
In the years and decades to come, this congregation was shepherded by some illustrious
ministers. These included Thomas Whittemore who was a prolific writer, editor and hymnologist
and who was an energetic advocate of abolition and an ardent foe of the Fugitive Slave Law,
Ebenenzer Fisher who left the Milford congregation to become the first president of what
became the St. Lawrence University and Theological Seminary, and of course Adin Ballou who,
after serving the congregation for six years, established a religious commune in the Hopedale
section of Milford called “The Hopedale Community” that was to become a model for similar
religious organizations.
Although it has undergone several permutations during the subsequent decades and
centuries and has been confronted with type of the problems many other congregations have
had to cope with and triumph over, the Unitarian-Universalist congregation in Milford still exists
to this day.
It was thus that the Milford Universalist congregation became involved in the very beginning of
Universalism in our newly formed nation.
James Buckley holds an Ed.D. from Harvard and has written over 1300 published articles in
the field of History.
A Word to the Elect
by Anne Bronte
(The original manuscript, dated May 28, 1843, is titled, "A Word to the Calvinists."
You may rejoice to think yourselves secure;
You may be grateful for the gift divine -
That grace unsought, which made your black hearts
pure,
And fits your earth-born souls in Heaven to shine.
But, is it sweet to look around, and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness
Which they deserve at least as much as you -
Their faults not greater, nor their virtues less?
And, wherefore should you love your God the more,
Because to you alone His smiles are given;
Because He chose to pass the many o'er,
And only bring the favoured few to Heaven?
And, wherefore should your hearts more grateful prove,
Because for ALL the Saviour did not die?
Is yours the God of justice and of love?
And are your bosoms warm with charity?
Say, does your heart expand to all mankind?
And, would you ever to your neighbour do -
The weak, the strong, the enlightened, and the blind -
As you would have your neighbour do to you?
And, when you, looking on your fellow-men,
Behold them doomed to endless misery,
How can you talk of joy and rapture then?-
May God withhold such cruel joy from me!
That none deserve eternal bliss I know;
Unmerited the grace in mercy given;
But none shall sink to everlasting woe,
That have not well deserved the wrath of Heaven.
- - -
And oh! there lives within my heart
A hope, long nursed by me;
(And should its cheering ray depart,
How dark my soul would be!)
That as in Adam all have died,
In Christ shall all men live;
And ever round His throne abide,
Eternal praise to give.
That even the wicked shall at last
Be fitted for the skies;
And when their dreadful doom is past,
To life and light arise.
I ask not how remote the day,
Nor what the sinners' woe,
Before their dross is purged away;
Enough for me, to know
That when the cup of wrath is drained,
The metal purified,
They'll cling to what they once disdained,
And live by Him that died.
REDISCOVERING OUR INNER UNIVERSALIST
BY PATRICK MURFIN
CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH
For fifty years, from the mid-1930s to the mid-1980s this congregation was known as the
Congregational Universalist Church. Beloved and accomplished Universalist ministers filled
our pulpit. We sit here today the heirs of a great tradition of a warm hearted and embracing
liberal tradition, yet most of us hardly know of its existence apart from the mysterious
persistence of the name as the second “U” in the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Many things have contributed to this state of affairs. We will examine them today.
Universalism shrank from the seventh largest denomination in the United States in the years
before the Civil War to the runt half of the merger with the American Unitarian Association and
then was nearly swallowed up by the power of the Unitarians, then in the hay day of Humanist
dominance.
Today, even though most members of UUA congregations continue to identify themselves as
Humanist, the hard edges of that philosophy have been knocked off. No longer do most
congregations rise up in revolt if a minister dare incorporate “God talk” into Sunday services.
Just about everyone, Humanists included, yearns for greater spirituality in their lives and
embrace those light touches of ritual in worship which comfort our need for a connection to
The Greater. Rev. William Sinkford, President of the UUA stirs up some controversy and much
discussion when he declares a need to develop “a language of reverence” among us, but he is
not driven out with brick bats and torches.
The current move to spirituality among us has many sources. We have rediscovered the
Transcendentalism of Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller. Our emerging environmental
awareness has led us not only to the nature writings of New England sages, but to Earth
centered traditions from around the world. Feminism has displaced the old patriarchal model
of God, that fierce and jealous creature rejected by Humanists, and opens the possibility of a
more nurturing spirit. The meditative practices of Eastern religions bring peace to many.
Yet quietly, almost without notice, that homey and wholesome Universalist tradition has begun
to re-assert itself. Forty years after the formation of the Unitarian Universalist Association it
may be that Unitarianism won the head of the movement, but Universalism has reclaimed and
redeemed its heart and soul.
Properly speaking, universalism with a small u is a tendency within Christianity that has sprung
up repeatedly and independently like a hearty weed in every corner of Christendom from its
earliest days. The basis of this tendency is quite simple. It is the discovery by thinking men
and women that scripture does not validate a vengeful God judging and consigning souls to
either salvation or eternal damnation. In general it has held that a loving God would not turn
his back on any of his children, but somehow find a way to reconcile all souls to him. The
precise mechanisms of this reconciliation may vary according to time and culture, the ultimate
result does not.
Nineteenth Century Universalists were eager to show that their faith is rooted in a long tradition
stretching to the earliest days of the Church. Their scholars did some of the most important
and original research into early Church records to document their claims. The early Church
had no settled doctrine of salvation and damnation. There is much evidence that the
prevailing opinion, at least among gentile converts in places like Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria and
Asia Minor, embraced the idea that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice ultimately redeemed all souls.
Among the great fathers of the early church who embraced and expounded this view were
Clement of Alexandria, his great pupil Origen, influential bishops like Diodorus of Tarsus and
the founders of the Eastern Nestorian sect.
The early church tolerated many interpretations of the message of Jesus. But that began to
change as the followers of Paul began to assert theological hegemony over dissenting Bishops.
After Constantine proclaimed the Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, he and
his successors determined to force conformity on the Church so as to make it a better and
more effective agent of social control. By 544 a Church Council under the control of the
Emperor Justinian denounced the teaching of Origen, the most influential proponent of
universal salvation., Subsequent councils made clear that universalism in any guise was rank
heresy . The tendency was suppressed ruthlessly, disappearing except at the fringes of
Empire and Church control.
But it never really vanished. Over the years many would come to the same conclusions as
those early Church fathers. It cropped up in the writings of Archbishop Germanus in the
Eighth Century and in the preaching of the early reformer Clement in Germany and France.
Adherents found refuge in isolated monasteries throughout Europe.
The emergence of the printing press made the Bible widely available to the laity for the first
time. People were able to read and study for themselves, to interpret the Word of God without
the intervention of priests, doctrine, or the heavy weight of Church tradition. The Protestant
Reformation was the natural result of this new technological revolution.
Soon among the Reformers many were adopting a theology of universal salvation. It spread
and took hold among some of the German mystics collectively known as the Anabaptists, the
ancestors of the Dunkers, Mennonites, Amish and other sects which settled in new world. It
percolated through the Low Countries. In Britain it developed among some Methodists,
Quakers and other dissenters. It was popularized in one form by the writing of James Relly in
his 1759 book UNION.
In later years universalism would also emerge independently in many places and in many
guises. It would pop up among convert people in the great colonial empires, Catholic and
Protestant alike. Even today it is being rediscovered and preached by some Evangelicals in
America, including some high profile televangelists.
In most places, in most times universalism would remain a tendency within other religions or as
with the Anabaptists just a part of a wider dissenting tradition. In America it would become the
central identify characteristic of its own denomination.
If you have been around this congregation for a while you may be familiar with the foundation
story of Universalism in America. It has been dramatized in Church School pageants and
retold from the pulpit. It may be all you know about that side of our heritage. The oft told tale
goes like this:
In 1770 a failed and embittered Englishman, a disciple of universalist James Relly, departed
the old world after the death of his wife vowing never to preach again. Determined to make a
new start, he sailed for the new world. After his ship wrecked off the coast of New Jersey at a
place called Good Luck Point, he came ashore and was taken in by a farmer named Thomas
Potter. Potter had built a small chapel on his land and was waiting for a universalist preacher
to speak there. Murray took this to be an unmistakable sign from God and preached his first
new world sermon on universal salvation. From there he went on preaching this gospel up and
down the East Coast. He would go on to be appointed by General Washington a Chaplin in
the Continental Army, settle in Gloucester, Massachusetts where he would establish the first
Universalist Church in America, and found the first Universalist Conventions. He would take as
a wife Judith, the beautiful and brilliant widowed daughter of the influential and powerful
Sergeant family. Together they would build Universalism into a force in American religion.
The beauty of this foundation myth is that it is essentially true in its details. But it is not the
whole story. The German Anabaptists who settled in Pennsylvania were already well disposed
to universalism. The brilliant young Dr. George de Benneville had been preaching and
teaching universalism around Bucks county Pennsylvania and surrounding areas since 1741.
Although he established a chapel in his home, he did not attempt to establish a separate
denomination, but preached to the Dunkers, Mennonites, Universal Baptists, and some
Quakers receptive to his message. He arranged for the publication of a German language
Bible with passages supporting universal salvation highlighted in 1743. In a career that
spanned decades he influenced many including members of the semi-monastic sect called the
Ephrata Society in New Jersey who in turn introduced universal salvation to English speaking
Baptists like Thomas Potter. De Bennville’s followers in Philadelphia, particularly a young
preacher named Elhanan Winchester, founded a Universal Baptist church there in 1786, the
first church in the country to take the name “Universalist.” This church would become the
spiritual home of the Revolutionary leader Dr. Benjamin Rush and would latter offer the English
Unitarian preacher/scientist Joseph Priestly his first American pulpit.
Meanwhile, in the frontier counties of western Massachusetts, Vermont and the Hampshire
Grants, a group of primitive Baptists were independently arriving at a theology of universal
salvation. Caleb Rich struggled with Calvinist predestination. Despite efforts to restrain
himself and remain orthodox, he gradually came to believe that Christ had redeemed all souls.
Denied fellowship by the Baptists, he and his extended family began to preach on their own. In
1774 he established his first fellowship at Warrick, the first openly universalist society in
America pre-dating both Murray’s Gloucester Church and the Philadelphia congregation. This
brand of Universalism was rougher around the edges than Murray’s carefully reasoned
intellectual approach. It was firmly in the Evangelical tradition and appealed to struggling
pioneer farmers, small tradesmen and eventually the emerging working class. It was visceral
and emotional—and highly appealing. It spread rapidly via circuit riding missionaries
throughout Western New England and into upstate New York.
Soon Caleb Rich and his associates and John Murray became aware of each other. Despite
differences in social class, style and nuances of theology, they recognized a kinship. In 1793,
with congregations scattered over New England and outposts in Pennsylvania, Virginia and
points south to the Carolinas, Murray, Rich and his associates joined by Elhanan Winchester,
met in Oxford, Massachusetts to found New England Universalist Convention. Regional
conventions in Pennsylvania, Upstate New York and other areas soon followed. Universalism
was off and running as a distinct religious movement.
Even in its infancy the upstart sect made waves. From the beginning John Murray and his
Gloucester congregation objected to paying taxes to support the local Standing Order church.
This battle for separation of church and state would continue into the 19th Century pitting the
Universalists and other dissenters against the tax supported established congregations, which
after 1820 mostly aligned themselves with the new Unitarians. It was a fight the Universalists
won at long last when Massachusetts finally ended tax payer support of parishes in the 1830’
s—the last state to do so.
The Universalists, driven by a fervor to share the good news spread rapidly. Often through
inter-connected extended families they pushed deep into New York State, west and south.
Their self-taught preachers competed with Baptists, Methodists, and the more conventional
Presbyterians leaving the Unitarians, Congregationalists, and Anglicans with their highly
educated clergy and comfortable middle to upper class congregations far behind. Preachers
often debated orthodox ministers and were famous for their ability to turn Biblical passages to
their advantage. In the era of revivalism sweeping the new nation following the Revolutionary
War, the Universalists stood in stark contrast to the usual hell fire and damnation and grew at
a pace that outstripped their abilities to settle ministers or establish permanent congregations.
They were aided by an active tract ministry and a plethora of local and national periodicals. In
these pages Universalism grew and evolved.
The Rellian universalism of John Murray had accepted the Calvinist idea of pre-destination
believing that through Christ the predestined fate of all souls was eventual reconciliation with
God after a period of punishment for sins. Elhahan Winchester in his book DIALOGUES ON
UNIVERSAL SALVATION advanced a different argument, one which also resonated with the
frontier preachers. He rejected both Calvinist pre-destination and original sin arguing instead
for a loving God, who like a Father forgave the excesses of his wayward Children. In return,
he argued that grateful people should strive to make their lives worthy of such a generous and
forgiving Lord by striving to model their behavior on the example of Jesus himself.
Hosea Ballou, who as a very young minister had been present at the founding Conference,
also dissented from Murray’s view. He had been influenced not only by Winchester, who had
ordained him, but by the radical Deism of Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allan, who declared
that “Reason was the only oracle of man.” Ballou kept Winchester’s flame alive after the
formers early death in 1797 radicalizing it even more with Allan’s rationalism.
Conflicts were sure to arise. The young Ballou was invited to preach to Murray’s congregation
while the old man was on one of his evangelical tours. After giving his views of universalism
Murray’s formidable wife, Judith Sargent Murray, arose, announced, “The doctrine preached
here is not the one usually heard from this pulpit,” and brought the service to a premature end.
Murray continued to be revered as a founder, but his views were rapidly fading from general
acceptance. In 1803, meeting at Winchester, New Hampshire the Convention adopted a three
point Profession of Faith as the basic doctrine of the church. In general it reflected Murray’s
concern for scriptural primacy, and support of the Trinity. But it was loose enough in its
explanation of universal salvation, “…there is one God, whose nature is Love, revealed in one
Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of Grace, who will finally restore the whole family of
mankind to holiness and happiness,” to accommodate both Murray’s view in temporary
punishment and Ballou’s belief that there would be no punishment after death. Despite
reluctance of some delegates to require any binding creed, it continued to serve, changed
very little through the coming century.
In the early years of the 19th Century, Ballou, articulate and charismatic, emerged as the
acknowledged leader of Universalism. In 1805 he published his famous A TREATISE ON
ATONEMENT. It represented a dramatic breakthrough in religious imagination. In it he argued
that God would not have endowed humanity with the ability to reason if he did not trust us to
use that gift and that he would not make any “revelation” at odds with reason. In his view
Jesus was not a redeemer of damned sinners, but rather the messenger sent to reveal God’s
love. Christ suffered not because of men, but for them and that God need not be reconciled to
humanity rather that humans need to be reconciled to God. God’s power and love were
infinite and it was impossible for men to frustrate that power and love. This stood Calvinism on
its head. Ballou also rejected the Trinity as irrational. He could hardly have been more radical,
yet his ideas resonated across the nation.
Within a decade Trinitarianism and Biblical literalism had virtually disappeared from
Universalist teachings. In many ways Ballou’s Universalism anticipated by 15 years the liberal
views that his great rival in Boston, the Unitarian William Ellery Channing would expound in his
great “Unitarian Christianity” sermon. Yet despite their obvious kinship as liberal, dissenting
movements, they often remained at odds, deeply suspicious of one another. This was not so
much a matter of doctrine as a matter of style and most importantly class. The Boston
Unitarians represented the respectable upper and middle classes and were served by Harvard
educated scholars given to dispassionate discourse. The Universalists found their strength
among farmers, laborers, mechanics, and the lesser tradesmen and shopkeepers of the cities
and towns. Their preachers might study with one another for a short while, or they may simply
feel the call and go out until the strength of their efforts would be recognized by ordination by
their peers. And although they relied on rationalism, they expressed it in homey metaphors,
not classical allusions. They unabashedly appealed to the heart as well as to the head.
Ballou’s influence was enormous. Not only did he preach, but he influenced Universalist
opinions as editor and publisher of the Universalist Magazine and as a frequent contributor to
dozens of other national, regional and local publications. He could be contentious. Welcoming
Channing’s famous “Unitarian Christianity” sermon for its embrace of reason in Biblical
interpretation, he disputed Channing’s characterization of humans as “incorrigible sinners.”
The two great leaders often battled back and forth in print, although never in person, over
issues such as tax support for established congregations and the supposed depravity of
universal salvation.
Ballou also took on all comers among orthodox critics. Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians and
Congregationalist united to denounce universal salvation. They argued that without fear of
punishment people would have no restraint on their passions and would commit all manner of
crimes and abominations. That the perfectly pious lives of thousands of humble Universalists
belied the charges had no effect. Some states even banned Universalists from elective office
or sitting on juries under the supposition that they had no restraint to prevent corruption.
Ballou fought back with ever more vigorous declarations of God’s limitless love. His view of
immediate reconciliation with God upon death became known as Ultra Universalism and
derided as a faith of “Death and Glory.”
By the 1830’s a group of younger ministers, including close associates and disciples like
Thomas Whitmore were gently disputing the old man. They advanced a theory of limited
punishment before final restoration to the Lord. As the dispute continued it became mixed with
personal issues and ambitions. The denomination began to take sides. Most supported
Ballou out of loyalty. His nephew Hosea Ballou 2nd defended him. But in his heart the
younger man sided with those who became known as the Restorationists. A handful of the
dissidents tried to leave the denomination and start a new movement, but returned to the fold
in a very few years. Ballou may have won the immediate struggle, but he lost the longer war.
Most ministers quietly accepted the Restorationist view and it was general in the denomination
within twenty years.
Theological disputes aside, Universalism was a growing and vital faith. You could almost watch
it advance behind the ever expanding frontier line. It had strong appeal for both of the great
ethnic stocks of American pioneers. It flourished with the New England diaspora as they
pushed gradually west through New York State and into the Upper Midwest after the opening
of the Erie Canal. Sons of Yankee stone farmers broke ground along the Upper Hudson.
Their sons and daughters pushed west into Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Universalist
ministers and lay preachers like Jonathan Chapman seemed to be there almost as soon as
they raised their barns—or in Chapman’s case maybe even before--as he spread apple
seedlings along with gospel in Ohio becoming the legendary Johnny Appleseed.
By the same token, working south from Pennsylvania into the back country of Virginia and the
Carolinas it appealed to the sturdy Scotch-Irish stock whose rough and tumble independence
put themselves ever on the edge of civilization seeking “elbow room.” Close knit families would
produce preachers who over generations would serve tiny country cross road chapels.
On the strength of these forces Universalism naturally arrived in McHenry County, where both
strands of pioneer stock met and mingled. Itinerant ministers were visiting the county soon
after the area was opened for settlement after the Black Hawk War. Competing largely with the
Methodists and Baptists who also employed saddle bag missionaries, Universalists would hold
meetings in various halls and establishments when ever they could. Daniel Parker Livermore,
a Universalist minister and editor and his wife Mary included Woodstock in trips out from
Chicago in the 1850’s. They held periodic meetings in halls over saloons despite being ardent
abstainers. Mary Rice Livermore would go on to a long career as a writer, speaker, heroic
Civil War nurse, and women’s rights crusader. Her story is featured in a framed picture
hanging in the church.
Members of the extended Pingry (sometimes spelled Pingree) family who’s various brothers
and cousins had been preaching in towns west from Ohio, settled around Crystal Lake and its
twin village Nunda and were holding regular house worship during the same decade.
There were soon enough Universalists to begin establishing permanent congregations in the
county. The Rev James R. Mack organized a church in McHenry in 1853 which erected a
building the following year. The Church persisted until 1929. The building still stands and is
currently occupied by a Pentecostal congregation. The simple frame structure is the oldest
church building in the county still in use.
The good people of Woodstock formed their church two years later. It served the city for more
than sixty years before disbanding in 1912. I have found passing references to shorter lived
Universalist congregations in Union and Marengo. There were undoubtedly other attempts at
forming churches that failed in a year or two for lack of regular ministerial leadership.
Meanwhile, despite its small town roots, Universalism was also establishing itself in many
cities. A more regular and establish clergy began to be developed and the denomination
began to developed colleges and seminaries to feed its need. Among the schools Tufts
University, St. Lawrence University, Lombard College, and ancestors of Akron University and
Cal Tech stood out. In Illinois Galesburg College opened as a Universalist institution providing
an education for, among others, Carl Sandburg.
Since the days of Rush and Winchester in Pennsylvania, Universalists had always been
interested in social and political issues of the day. They felt a duty to improve society. The
Philadelphia Convention under the influence of Rush had resolved to oppose slavery as early
as 1790, the first religious body in America to do so. Although that condemnation of slavery
was not universal among them, even in the South many Universalists--mostly hard scrabble
back country farmers resentful of the Tidewater aristocracy and fearful of slave competition for
employment--opposed the peculiar institution. The story told in the book and movie COLD
MOUNTIAN is based on the true tale of just such a Universalist family. The tiny country church
erected by the hero’s brother, Inman Chapel, is still standing. At a time when some Unitarians
were vocal abolitionists, many affluent merchants and manufactures in the pews with economic
ties to king cotton and slavery tacitly supported the institution. Opposition to slavery was far
more wide spread among Universalists.
Universalists were also early and voracious opponents of capital punishment and proponents
of prison reform. They spoke out against Jacksonian Indian removal policies and a wide range
of other issues. Yet another Ballou, a distant cousin named Adin, became the nation’s leading
advocate for peace and pacifism. His writings against war were widely influential around the
world. It was Adin Ballou’s words as much as Thoreau’s theory of Civil Disobedience that
influenced the work of the Christian pacifist Count Leo Tolstoy which in turn informed the
thinking of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Adin also took up the cause of utopian socialism
and founded one of the longest lasting experimental communities at Hopedale. After the
community dissolved he stayed on as minister to a local Unitarian congregation.
Because Universalism naturally implied equality among all people, it appealed strongly to
members of the emerging Women’s movement. Not only were women like Mary Livermore
acknowledged lay leaders, the denomination pioneered in the ordination of women. In 1863
Olympia Brown became the first woman in America to receive both full ordination and regular
employment as a parish minister. She served churches in Weymouth, Massachusetts;
Bridgeport, Connecticut where P. T. Barnum was the leading parishonier; and the Racine,
Wisconsin congregation that now bears her name. She was also a key leader of the
movement for women’s suffrage and the only one of her generation to live to cast a ballot.
Another Universalist woman, Clara Barton revolutionized battle field nursing care and went on
to found the American Red Cross.
In the years following the Civil War, Universalism seemed secure. True, it was no longer
experiencing the explosive growth of earlier years, but it achieved a level of both structural
stability and respectability long denied it. Governed principally by state and regional
conventions it finally found a national organizational base in the Universalist General
Convention, re-organized and institutionally strenghtened in John Murray’s home town of
Gloucester in 1870. It was a weak structure, but a structure none the less. The General
Convention would eventually become the Universalist Church of America in 1947.
Meanwhile the Unitarians, led by Dr. Henry Bellows were reorganizing themselves with
congregations formally united for the first time in the National Conference. Bellows and some
Universalist leaders, each yearning for a stronger, more “universal” church even began vague
discussions about merging the two liberal traditions. In the face of old rivalries nothing was apt
to come of it at the time.
Universalists also pioneered new forms of organization. The Women’s Association of
Universalists became the first continental organization of religious women. Soon other
denominations were following suit. In 1889 the first national religious youth group, the Young
People’s Christian Union was formed.
Rapid industrialization and advances in science were providing twin challenges to Universalists
and to many churches. Many young men were being lured from the agricultural villages at the
heart of Universalism into the dismal, smoke choked cities in search of work. Cut off from
family and cultural ties many fell away from the church.
Others were challenged by the new discoveries of science, Darwinism in particular.
Universalists, however were better prepared than most to face this new world. Their belief in
rationalism and rejection of Biblical literalism freed them from the constraints of many
churches. They could embrace the new discoveries as new revelations of God’s plan and
method. Because they did not rely on Bible fairy tails for proof of faith, they were better able to
roll with the punches. The Universalists became the first American denomination to officially
embrace Darwinism. This belays the frequent image of Universalists as simple and
unsophisticated Christians.
The 1893 the World Parliament of Religion held in Chicago in conjunction with the Columbian
Exposition was a wake up call for many Universalists. Delegates came from all over the world.
For the first time Americans could hear directly from the great religions of Asia—Hinduism,
Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism, Zorastorism—as well a practitioners of local native
cults and the wide variety of Christian, Jewish and Islamic practitioners. For some Universalists
it was a stunning development. They recognized a certain universality in the teachings of all
religions and observed how each functioned in the context of a traditional culture. Perhaps,
they began to surmise, Jesus Christ is not an essential agent, just one of many messengers of
God’s greater truth. And if indeed all humanity was reconciled to God upon death, then the
form of worship practiced on earth was not a critical matter.
Out of this insight a new Universalism began to be born, a Universalism beyond mere sectarian
Christianity which strove to be to truly Universal and inclusive. The very meaning of the term
began to change to reflect this new insight. In 1895, just two years after the Parliament, the
General Convention adopted a statement that “We believe in the universal Fatherhood of
God, and in the universal Brotherhood of Man. We believe that God, who hath spoken
through all of His Holy Prophets since the world began, hath spoken to us by His son Jesus
Christ, our Example and Savior. We believe that Salvation consists in spiritual oneness with
God, who, through Christ, will finally gather into one the whole family mankind.”
The following year appalled traditionalist voted to rescind the statement, but it was too late to
put the genie back into the bottle. Unitarians led by Jenkin Lloyd Jones of the Western
Conference of Unitarians and principle organizer of the World Parlaiment, were going through
much the same process at the same time.
By the early Twentieth Century a young minister named Clarence Skinner would take the
process even further. Imbued by a new sense of the common bonds of humanity and the
tradition of the Social Gospel movement Skinner was among those pressing for a new social
vision for his denomination. The country was at the time riven by a virtual class war between
an entrenched industrial oligarchy and militant unionists, a war in which quarter was seldom
given and was marked by the bullet, bayonet, and bullpen detentions. In response Skinner
published his seminal book, THE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF UNIVERSALISM in 1915. Like
John Jayne Holmes among contemporary Unitarians he called for bold solidarity with the
oppressed. These ideas were adopted by the General Convention of 1917 as “Declaration of
Social Principles.” A reading of these principles reveals a clear influence over what is now in
the UUA’s Seven Principles.
The horrors of the First World War did much to shatter the simple faith of millions of
Americans, including many Universalists. What kind of a loving and merciful God would, after
all, allow such waste and carnage? That tough question impelled many clergy and religious
thinkers to embrace emerging Humanism, which rejected all systems which relied on
supernatural power and authority. These thinkers believed that the salvation of humanity lay
only in the hands of mankind and that it must act in its own behalf. This was a new kind of
liberal religion advocated by some Universalists and Unitarians alike—a religion not only with
out Jesus, but without God.
Yet this was not a satisfactory answer for many, who yearned for faith and surer, simpler
times. Poor and working class men and women who had once responded enthusiastically to
Universalist Gospel began to turn instead to the sureness promised by a new brand of
Christianity—Fundamentalism. At the same time industrialization and the automobile were
wiping out the agricultural villages where universalism had thrived. Where hamlets of a couple
of hundred people clustered no more than a mornings brisk walk from surrounding farms in the
19th century and country market towns and county seats like Woodstock were spread out half
a day’s ride by horseback across the Midwest, new roads and automobiles made them nearly
obsolete. One historian studying Ohio, once rich with Universalist congregations, noted that
scores of them disappeared and the villages they once served vanished from the map.
And Universalism appeal as an alternative to rigid Calvinism was no longer unique. Most
mainline Protestant denominations had abandoned Calvinism in fact if not in theory by the new
century. They, too, were talking about a loving God filled with compassion and eager to
forgive. Hell fire and damnation faded from Sunday morning services. If these churches could
not promise universal salvation, they could offer something mighty close, a universally
available salvation which could be had pretty much for the asking and a tip of the hat to Jesus.
The experience of Universalism in McHenry County was typical. By the mid-Twenties all of the
old churches were gone, their members scattered through other congregations. In Woodstock
many of the remaining members of the Universalists came to the liberal First Congregational
Church, where they were welcomed with more or less open arms. But some yearned to re-
establish the old faith. One family left a $5000 bequest to who ever could form a new
Universalist church in the County. The promise of that money would play a crucial roll in
changing this congregation forever.
Church attendance for all denominations plummeted during the Roaring Twenties. Then the
Great Depression delivered a devastating economic blow. A dwindling number of members
tried to continue to support a minister and church on drastically reduced incomes. Churches
all over the country went into crisis. Many closed their doors forever. In Woodstock the same
pain was felt by the Congregationalists, by the Presbyterians from whom the local
Congregationalists had split in 1865 and the Baptists. In desperation the three self-governing
congregations began discussions aimed at a merger and the creation of “Federated
Community Church” without strong denominational ties. The Congregationalist and the
Presbyterians voted to proceed with the merger. The Baptists vetoed the plan killing it. All
three struggled to stay afloat. It was then that former Universalist recalled the bequest for a
new congregation. What if the First Congregational Church would also affiliate with the Illinois
Universalist Convention? What if, in a show of good faith, they would call a Universalist
minister to their pulpit? Then would they be eligible to receive the $5000 bequest and save
the church?
On such mundane and decidedly unspiritual consideration was a new foundation laid. The
church received its fellowship into the Universalist Convention on May 1, 1938. The name was
changed to the Congregational Universalist Church and within a year Rev. Merton Aldridge, a
Universalist was called to the pulpit.
Aldridge was an outstand pastor. Despite the fact that litigation to claim the coveted $5000
dragged on until the early 1960’s, Aldridge was able to pull the congregation together and by
the thinnest of margins, save it. For the next ten years he ministered to the congregation.
Without emphasizing denominational affiliations, he none the less modeled the open
heartedness of Universalism. Soon some of the long time Congregationalists in the pews were
embracing Universalism. New members came on the basis of Aldridge’ reputation. After he
died in 1949, it was natural to continue to call Universalist ministers.
In the years after the Second World War the decline of Universalism had become precipitous.
Churches were disappearing at an alarming rate. Whole state and local conventions were
failing as membership plummeted. Much of what survived the aftermath of the First World War
could not survive the Second.
The Universalists cast around for new approaches to turn the tide. A group of young
graduates from Tufts divinity school in 1946 began meeting to find ways of reviving their
denomination. Known as the Humiliati, this group would meet for years and explore
possibilities. They distinguished themselves by adopting clerical collars, then rare in Liberal
churches. Despite this outward sign of traditionalism, the Humiliati broke new ground. They
sought out a new spiritualism to re-enforce Skinner’s Social Principles. A whole new
generation of leadership would emerge from this small group.
In Boston, headquarters of the Universalist Church, there was no active congregation by the
late 1940’s. The Massachusetts Convention under the leadership of State Superintendent
Clinton Lee Scott, decided to experiment with the planning of a new congregation in the city.
They called Kenneth Patton, a humanist minister with a reputation for creativity do be the
minister of the new Charles Street Meeting House. He would emphasize the new Universalism
by introducing elements from many religions and cultures into the worship. He also integrated
music, visual, and performance art into services in a new and bold way. He wrote whole new
liturgies, breaking the constricting mold of the traditional Protestant service. Patton’s words
and poetry are still the most prolific in the UUA hymnal. Kenneth Patton changed liberal
worship forever. The Charles Street Meeting House may have eventually failed, but what
Patton created lives on.
Meanwhile the Unitarians, rooted largely in urban areas and around college campuses were
experiencing growth, a renaissance attributable to the vigorous Humanism which was then its
dominant theology. Cooperation between the two faiths had been growing for decades. The
youth groups had already merged and the religious education and publishing functions of both
denominations had been consolidated. A joint commission studied further cooperation and
recommended consolidation in 1957. In 1960 the two denominations voted to merge and the
following year Unitarian Universalist Association was born.
Many Universalists feared that the larger Unitarians would swamp the older partner and wipe
out its unique identity. In many ways their fears were justified. Despite an agreement between
Universalist General Superintendent Philip Giles and Unitarian President Dana Greeley that
neither would seek the presidency of the new association, Greeley ran for and was elected to
the post. He proceeded to create a structural clone of the old American Unitarian Association.
The Universalist state conventions were wiped out. Some, like Ohio, had considerable
resources which were absorbed by the UUA. The two denominations together now had too
many seminaries. A commission recommended closing the Universalist schools at Tufts and
St. Lawrence while leaving the Unitarian institutions of Meadville-Lombard and Star King in
California untouched.
New churches took the Unitarian Universalist name but many established ones, particularly the
historically Unitarian ones, kept their old identification. In many cities Universalist churches
were absorbed into Unitarian Congregations. The general tone of the denomination
resembled more closely the militant Humanism dominant among the Unitarians than the more
spiritual version favored by Universalists. Both the public and members in the pews often
spoke simply of Unitarianism, dropping the Universalist appellation entirely.
In Woodstock by the early 1970’s ministers were trained in the Unitarian tradition, not products
of Universalist seminaries. When the congregation decided to overhaul their by-law in the
1980’s, leaders figured that no one knew what Universalism meant anymore, but that people
did recognize the term Unitarian. The name of the congregation was changed again, this time
to the Congregational Unitarian Church in hopes of making it clear that this was a liberal
church.
Yet not long after the adoption of the new name, the winds of change began to blow again, as
they have so often in the history of both of our great faith traditions. The rise of feminism and
the spread of women clergy in the denomination encouraged a more spiritual view. Ecological
awareness played its part, as did awareness of eastern meditative practices. It was not that
Humanism was being rejected out of hand, but that it was being softened and deepened by
new understandings. In the search for spirituality, many are re-examining our Universalist roots.
No less a figure than Forrest Church, minister of the prestigious All Soul’s Church in New York
and perhaps our most prolific writer and most influential figure, has called for a New
Universalism. He has been echoed by others. A new wave of historic scholarship is re-
examining our Universalist heritage. Social activists look to the inclusiveness of Universalism
as an antidote for a perceived class and caste arrogance that persists among us.
Universalism not only answers Bill Sinkford’s call for greater reverence, but recent General
Convention resolutions advocating economic justice.
There is something lovable about the Universalists, warmth where the intellectual pretensions
of the Unitarians can leave us cold. In the end we need both traditions. Each compliments the
weaknesses of the other. Together they can build something new under the sun.
But today, let’s go with in ourselves and retrieve the Universalist buried within.
R.E. Moves West by Mail and Train R-XYZ
by Eugene B. Navis
Last August I was waiting to conduct a service in the Universalist Church of Barnard, VT, where
Hosea Ballou once preached, when I came upon some ghosts of R. E. past. In the bottom
drawers of an old bookcase, amidst mouse droppings and munchings, was a treasure trove of
Myrtles, Sunday School Helpers, and Sunday School Searchlights, the weekly, monthly,
quarterly kind of supports mailed out to Universalist homes, Sunday Schools, and R. E.
Leaders across the continent.
The Myrtle, for children, published 52 weeks a year from 1851 to 1924, sold for 50_ a year in
1915. Universalist parents read the stories to younger children around the fire, or the kitchen
table or at bedtime, posed the questions and engaged the children in the puzzles. Older
children read, pondered, puzzled and discovered for themselves. The Myrtle was popular. In
churches, teachers adapted it for the entire lesson or supplemented other curriculum with The
Myrtle. It was a good sized eight pager, filled with vivid drawings and photos, poems and
dramatic stories and added enigmas, word squares, and all manner of brain teasers including
those that called for Biblical knowledge.
And wonderful illustrations: The issue of September 2, 1916 shows a speeding roadster
scattering bicycle riders on its way to the beach, driven by a nice young gentleman who is
taking a lonely boy named Joe on a great outing.
The Myrtle cautioned children to be gracious receivers as well as generous givers. A boy with
sick eyes recovering in a dark room discovers how much his ears can tell him. There is a poem
about a water lily boat on a pond, and always a page of puzzles and brain teasers. Here's an
enigma. First one to get the right answer wins a prize.
"At milking time," said Farmer Redds, "in my barn were twenty heads." Twenty heads and
seventy two feet That was the number, all complete, How many cows and how many men Were
in the barn at milking time, then?
Answer: 16 cows and 4 men
And good stories - stories of children around the world: American Indians, Alaskan Eskimos,
Africans, Asians, all presented as God's children with whom we need be friends. The words
"religion", "God", "Universalism", don't appear very often but curiosity is honored, and
kindness, truth, honesty and the affirmation of the different ways people are.
In addition to The Myrtle were copies of The Helper, lesson plans mailed quarterly for
teachers, and The Search Light with advice for R. E. leaders. If we were together in a
workshop, I'd give out copies samples of these, including my favorite The Onward for young
people.
The Onward, published twice a month, was the organ of the Young Peoples Christian Union.
Founded in 1889 and continuing in unbroken line, the YPCU merged with its Unitarian
counterpart, originally named Young People Religious Union (YPRU), in 1953 as LRY, Liberal
Religious Youth.
The history of YPCU and the ardent journalism of The Onward tell us why Universalists in that
era did not suffer what we call "The GAP" today, that period after junior or senior high school
when young people left our churches to return decades later, if at all. YPCU groups or unions,
as they called them, started with high schoolers and young adults, later adding junior high
unions. Unioners were to live an earnest Christian life, dedicate themselves to useful service
and be undergirded by spiritual development.
The Onward recounts how the unioners served others through their commitment to the "Two
cents a Week" program that paid for the building of new churches and the salary of a
Universalist Minister in Japan. Universalist missions were not to save the world from sin or hell,
but rather to share the good news of how Jesus showed us the ways to lead a good life daily
through helping other people.
News from the Universalist missions in Tokyo flooded the periodicals for Sunday School
children and youth, making real the cause for which they gave their pennies. Likewise The
Onward reported on the money raised and the architects sketches of the plans for the new
YPCU sponsored churches in Atlanta and Chattanooga. When such buildings were dedicated,
members of the YPCU were there taking part. Leadership training, worship, and visions for and
by
youth were a vital part of YPCU, and so summer conferences and rallies were held at Ferry
Beach, Maine, Murray
Grove, New Jersey and far more.
In 1915, with World War I raging in Europe, the work of YPCU unioners engaged in relief work
for destitute Belgians was reported regularly by Dr. John Van Schaick, Jr., his wife, and Van
Schaick's brother.
The issue of February 15, 1915 was titled "The Current Events Number" with the lead article
on "The Abolition of War" followed by a passionate article on "Equal Suffrage" and in good
Universalist fashion an equally passionate article "From the Anti-Suffrage Camp".
Devotionals... Every issue of The Onward contained materials for junior and senior
devotionals. The devotionals often started with a Biblical passage or reading and then made a
bridge to some current topic. The Junior devotional on January 10, 1915 involved the children
in thinking of how they could make recent immigrant children feel welcomed here. The senior
devotional had a range of topics from the current suffering of the Polish People in a time of
war, to a plea for schools for Indian boys and girls in California, to "the Separation of Negroes
among Federal employees at Washington."
Russell Miller, in The Larger Hope tells it this way: "when it celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in
1939 the YPCU had compiled a record of contributions to the Universalist church which was
nothing short of phenomenal. It had either assisted in or been primarily responsible for building
five churches; and there were, as well, "the scores of men and women we have given to our
ministry, the hundreds of laymen we have trained, the thousands of youth we have enrolled in
mission study classes... the nearly one hundred thousand dollars we have raised for
missionary projects …the missionary vision and enthusiasm we have engendered, the long,
long line of those who were always among the good and the true, and often the beautiful."
Surely, The Onward, like other Universalist periodicals was important in sharing and cementing
the faith of many Universalists. Many denominations had newsletters, lesson series, teacher
helps, and periodicals for the home from the mid 19th century into the twentieth; some of them
borrowing materials from one another. Of the limited number I've seen, The Onward seems
among the most original.
My second miraculous discovery was not in the mouse inhabited storage drawers in Barnard,
but on my own bookcase. Thinking of Universalist R. E. moving west, I recalled a song book
called "Songs Along the Way", written in 1915, when Universalists trekked across the continent
to hold the "United Universalist Conventions" in Pasadena and Los Angeles. United meant that
for the very first time Universalists were having a general assembly when all of the autonomous
and fiercely independent organizations would meet together: The Women's Missionary Society,
The General Sunday School Association, the YPCU and the General Convention- the delegate
body - mostly male of course - meeting together for the first time.
Years of preparation resulted in an incredible plan for a splendiferous gathering in July 1915.
A Pullman train was hired which started in Boston on July 1, picking up passengers from New
York in Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, before chugging on to Cleveland and Chicago,
where they embarked for a banquet at the nearest Universalist Church. And now there were so
many conferees that a second Pullman was needed to add the passengers all along the way
through Denver and Salt Lake City to the coast.
Provisions were made to make the journey pleasurable. There were worship services in the
cars, chaplains for the troubled, song leaders, copies of the song books for each person, a
huge map on which to trace progress - pasted on the side wall of the dining car, a well
equipped mimeograph machine, and editors and typists and -earns of paper to report each
day's' news. Mind you that the women missionaries and the young Universalist Christians and
the stodgy gray
bearded conventioneers and the Sunday School superintendents were mingling for three
thousand miles and six days.
The newsletter titled the "Daily UGCWUMAYPCUSS", called itself "a journal of fact, fellowship
and frivolity". Rules were listed - among them "Tete-a Tetes shall not begin earlier than 7 a.m.
in the Sleeping Cars." and "Do not use your credential cards for butter spreaders in the dining
Cars."
There were, of course, songs for the occasion. We might do the last chorus of one printed in
The Onward in March 1915 before the grand trek. "It's a Long, Long Way to California" a la
"Tipperary", by the Rev. Elmo Robinson of Anderson, Indiana:
It's a long way to California
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to California, But the railroad rates are low.
Goodbye, Massachusetts,
Farewell, Illinois,
It's a long way to California,
But I'm going, 0 Joy!
And lastly one hymn of vision, passion and high resolve which they sang as they headed to
this grand assembly. Here's a verse from "New Age Vision" in Songs Along the Way. Words by
Henry Victor Morgan, Universalist Minister, Tacoma, Washington Tune: The Battle Hymn
My soul has seen the coming of a race
from sorrow free
Of an age of faith and science, Truth
and love and liberty,
And I sing of love's great triumph in
that year of jubilee.
God's truth is marching on! (Chorus
ends with "God's truth is marching on!']
Eugene Navias is a faithful Herald reader in Dorchester, Massachusetts who prepared this
essay for the Religious Education History Group Program at the 2004 General Assembly
History
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