(3) The Chicago Declaration. The "Boston Proposition," amended and adopted by the Gen eral Convention of 1897, at its session in Chi cago, Ill., declares the conditions of fellowship in the Universalist Church to be as follows: 1. The acceptance of the essential principles of the Universalist faith, to-wit : The universal fatherhood of God.
The spiritual authority and leadership of His son, Jesus Christ.
The trustworthiness of the Bible as containing a revelation front God.
The certainty of just retribution for sin.
The final harmony of all souls with God.
The Winchester profession is commended as containing these principles, but neither this nor any other precise form of words is required as a condition of fellowship, provided always that the principles above stated be professed.
2. The acknowledgment of the authority of the Universalist General Convention and assent to its laws.
(4) Organization. The polity of the Univer salist Church is conformed to that of our civil government. The unit is the local parish. Parishes by their delegates constitute State Conventions. Representatives from the State Conventions form the General Convention, which meets once in two years and is the controlling body of the de nomination. A plan of supervision under state superintendents and district missionaries has grown up in recent years, and has culminated this year in the appointment of a "General Su perintendent," or bishop. The denomination planted a mission in Japan in 1891, which has ex panded into many local churches, a theological school, a girls' school and various other organi zations. A publishing house is established in Boston, with a branch in Chicago. Four colleges,
three theological seminaries and five academies have been founded and are maintained by the Church. The Chapin Home in New York and the Bethany Home in Boston are samples of the charities sustained in whole or in part by the Universalist body.
The aims of the Universalist organization may be said to be twofold. (a) To persuadethe Christian world to return to the original princi ples of Christianity: to 'convert the followers of Christ to the religion of Christ. (b) To initiate and gradually institute, in cooperation with other Christian bodies, a religious and moral order on the type furnished by the teaching and the life of Jesus, in which reason shall replace superstition and spiritual ideals shall supplant sensual and material.
The progress of the Universalist Church has not been insignificant either in numbers or in or ganized forces. Vet it must be conceded that its chief work has been wrought beyond its own limits, in modifying the views of God, of man, of religion, and of destiny, held by the various religions bodies and by the general public. Other denominations have uniformly held the doctrines of Universalists to he a valid ground of refusal to fellowship with them, and have not seldom made them a ground of opposition and attack. Sympathy with these doctrines has, however, steadily grown in all the churches, until a much more hospitable feeling prevails. Many signs in dicate the approach of an era in which the same fraternity will be shown towards Universalists by other Christians which Universalists have ever been willing to accord to all the disciples of Christ of whatever name. I. M. A.