The next important incident after the action of King's Chapel was the outcome of a con troversy within the old church at Plymouth. In 1799 the church and parish, voting separately as was the custom, chose the Rev. James Ken dall as minister. The minority, opposed to the liberal or Unitarian views of Dr. Kendall, with drew from the old church and established the church known as the "Church of the Pilgrim age," leaving the church of Brewster and Robinson to become one of the pioneer churches in the Unitarian movement. Thus far the movement had gone along without creating anything more than local dissensions. But signs rapidly multiplied of the coming storm which was to rend New England Congrega tionalism into Orthodox and Unitarian. With the opening of the 19th century the clergy of the stricter sort were writing and speaking more critically and impatiently of the unorthodoxy that was being preached by a considerable num ber of eminent clergy. In one instance it went further than critical words. The Rev. John Sherman (grandson of Roger Sherman), min ister of the First Church, Mansfield, Conn., was expelled (1805) from the Windham County Ministerial Association for his anti-trinitarian ism. In his defense he published the first anti trinitarian pamphlet on this side of the At lantic, the title of which was "One God in One Person Only." The election of the Rev. Henry Ware, known as a Unitarian, as Hollis pro fessor of divinity at Harvard College, was the signal for controversy and open strife to begin. Immediately a war of pamphlets and sermons and periodicals was on and separation came to be ever more and more inevitable. The stricter brethren widened the breach by establishing in 1808 a theological school at Andover to train clergy free from taint of the Unitarian heresy. The men charged with this heresy steadily denied that they were Uni tarians or ad any desire or purpose of being such, but in 1812 Dr. Belsham of England pub lished his life of Theophilus Lindsey and in it he included a chapter on American Uni tarianism which revealed a "much closer alli ance of several Boston liberals with the move ment in England than they had been supposed willing to admit." In 1815 Dr. Jedidiah Morse saw the volume and forthwith gave wide pub licity to the facts. He went further and in his periodical, The Panoplist, virtually charged the exponents of Unitarian ideas in New Eng land with being afraid to come out in the open and acknowledge the real character of their teachings. Whatever the merits of the accusa tion—and the accusation is not without prej udice — it forced the controversy to a crisis which eventually resulted in the severance of New England Congregationalism into "Ortho dox') and (Unitarian" by the withdrawal in many cases frcm the old parish churches of the orthodox party, leaving those of Unitarian ways of thinking in charge of the old church properties and organization. This seems to suggest, what is further borne out by an ex amination of the early New England church covenants, that the Unitarian movement in New England and consequently in America was not a secession from Congregationalism but a de velopment of the principles upon which it was founded.
The men charged with heresy did not hesi tate to show their colors. Such men as Wil liam Ellery Channing settled over the Federal Street Church in Boston in 1813; Edward Everett, who became minister of the church in Brattle street in 1814; Francis Parkman settled at the New North Church 1812 and others met the charges and criticisms by a more definite and outspoken presentation of the things they held to be true. Their position is not correctly described as being mainly anti-trinitarian. They virtually called in question the whole doctrinal structure of orthodoxy. This was made clear by Channing in the sermon — now a his toric landmark in Unitarianism— preached at the ordination of Jared Sparks in Baltimore, Md., in 1819. Dr. Channing used this occasion to give a distinct statement of the opinions generally held by his liberal their mode of interpreting the Scriptures, their views concerning God and Christ, their idea of the nature of his mission and mediation." This ser mon marks the parting of the ways. The fol lowing year, overcoming their repugnance to even appear to favor organizing another re ligious body, the "liberal" ministers organized the Berry Street Conference for discussion among themselves. Five years later (1825) "a club of some 25 liberal-minded and public spirited citizens organized for social and phil anthropic purposes," which had existed in Bos ton for some years, at a meeting held at the residence of Hon. Josiah Quincy, discussed "the advisability of forming an association to publish books and tracts setting forth the opinions and principles of the liberal party in the Congrega tional churches." The outcome was the form
ing, on 25 May 1825, of "a new society to be called the American Unitarian Association." By a chance coincidence the British and Foreign Unitarian Association was organized on the same day. Henceforth Unitarianism is recog nized as one of the religious bodies of America.
In Americ, as elsewhere, Unitarianism has experienced many conflicts within itsel E. The old order of things, the old thoughts were con tinually being challenged. In the early years Unitarians retained much supernaturalism in their belief and forms of worship as is seen in the fact that Ralph .Waldo Emerson felt under the necessity of resigning as minister of the Second Church in Boston because the church refused to "discontinue or radically change the order of communion service." It became more and more clear that the genius of Unitarianism was fundamentally out of har mony with traditional and popular Christianity. This, for the first time, was most conspicuously/ evident when, in July of 1838, Mr. Emerson addressed the graduating class of Harvard Divinity School. This address, on account of its unusually frank criticism of the traditional views of the "Divine Nature, Jesus, Christian ity and of the offices of the church," started a controversy within Unitarianism which was destined not to end until the "traditional" views were practically eliminated. Great impetus was added to this controversy and a division seemed to threaten, when Theodore Parker spoke on "the transient and permanent in Christianity" on 19 May 1841. This was further expounded in the following winter in a series of five lectures which he published under the title of a 'Dis course of Matters Pertaining to Religion ) So acrimonious became the discussion that many of Parker's fellow Unitarian ministers hesitated to call him a Christian. The central principle of Unitarianism which from the first had been the right of private interpretation and freedom of speech was strong enough, however, to pre vent any serious rupture. A few years later the right of a man to think his own thoughts and to speak them in religious matters became some thing of an issue through the attitude of the American Unitarian Association toward Theo dore Parker. His frank departure from tradi tional beliefs and customs prompted the more conservative members of the denomination to scrutinize closely the beliefs of the young men coming into the ministry, and to create an atmosphere uncomfortable to too ad vanced thinkers. The men of the Middle West, while not taking sides in the doc trinal controversy which Emerson and Parker had precipitated, felt there was a distinct menace to freedom of thought and expres sion in the attitude taken toward Dr. Parker, and so when these men of the Middle West organized in 1852 the Western Conference they were stoutly resolved to preserve the right of men to think and speak as they believed. In the following year, in giving advice to the mis sionaries of the conference, it was stated that under no circumstances should they require "subscription to any human creed, or the wear ing of any distinctive name." With the denom inational reawakening which came after the Civil War the question of the basis of fellow ship became an issue. In 1865 the National, now the General Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches, meeting biennially, was organized and the basis of fellowship al though very broad was considered too narrow by some of the more radical, who thereupon organized the Free Religious Association. These conflicts came to an end by the action (1894) of the National Conference in adopting the present preamble to the constitution of that body. That is, Unitarians decided once and for all that within organized Unitarianism there should be absolute freedom of thought and expression. The constitution of the General Conference reads: "These churches accept the religion of Jesus holding, in accordance with his teaching, that practical religion is summed up in love to God and love to man . . . we cordially invite to our working fellowship any who, while differing from us in belief, are in general sympathy with our spirit and practical aims." With this jealous insistence upon f ree om of thought and speech for every individual, or rather the Unitarian churches, have gone along associating themselves together in an increasingly effective organization. Lack a central authority to compel obedience the Unitarian body lacks the driving power essential to conspicuously successful propaganda. Uni tarianism can only appeal to those who are thinking in its direction.