The character and aim of the organized activities of the denomination are evidenced by the various departments into which the Amen can Unitarian Association (Boston, Mass.), the executive branch of the denomination, is di vided. The publication department, besides printing and publishing books of a more or less denominational character, aids in the work of Unitarian propaganda by printing and distribut ing tracts to the number of about 400,000 copies annually, while the publicity department "has for its special work the diffusion of Unitarian principles through the medium of the press." The department of comity and fellowship "has jurisdiction over matters connected with inter denominational interests and seeks to substitute co-operation for competitive methods in church work." There is also a department of church extension and a department of community serv ice. The latter aims promote in the churches a study of social problems," and "to cultivate closer and more sympathetic relations between the churches and the wage earners." The committee on new Americans is engaged in missionary work and establishing churches among Americans of foreign •birth and speech. The department of religious education seeks correlate and vitalize the endeavors of the denominational Sunday schools." It issues manuals and lesson helps, conducts Sunday school institutes, provides lecture courses for teachers and aims to introduce and encourage modern methods in religious education in the Unitarian churches. There is a department of foreign relations, not foreign missions. The following quotation expresses the denomina tional attitude: "Foreign missions have never commanded a general interest on the part of Unitarians. Their dislike of the proselyting spirit, their intense love of liberty for others as well as themselves, and the absence of sec tarian feeling have combined to make them, as a body, indifferent to the propagation of their faith in other countries. They have done some thing, however, to express their sympathy with those of kindred faith in foreign lands." As early as 1824 the Unitarians of America took a lively interest in the Hindoo leader Rammo hun Roy, who had "adopted Unitarianism," and also in the work of the Rev. William Adam, a Baptist missionary, who had become converted to Unitarianism in India and in 1826 joined with the English Unitarians in a plan to send a sum of money yearly to aid the work there of the British Indian Unitarian Association. In 1853 the Rev. Charles H. A. Da11 was sent from this country to Calcutta, where he devoted him self to the work of education rather than of preaching. He founded the Calcutta School of Industrial Art, the Useful Arts' School, the Hindoo Girls' School as well as a school for the waifs of the streets. "His influence was especially felt in the education of girls and in industrial training, in both of which directions he was a pioneer." Since the death of Mr. Day the aid given India has been through the natives themselves, particularly through the Brahmo-Somaj, which has societies and houses of prayer all over India, and is engaged in re ligious, educational and reformatory work. In 1884 Yukichi Fukuzawa started a movement in his country, Japan, looking "to the introduction of a rational Christianity" In response to an urgent request from Japanese the Rev. Arthur M. Knapp was sent to Japan in 1889 to investi gate, and later in that year Mr. Knapp was prepared to begin work. In defining the pur pose of his mission Mr. Knapp said, "receive us not as theological propagandists, but as mes sengers of the new gospel of human brother hood in the religion of man." The work of Mr. Knapp and his colleagues was wholly educa tional. "No churches were organized by the representative of the American Unitarian As sociation. Those that have come into existence have been wholly at the initiative of the natives themselves.° In 1896 was organized the Jap anese Unitarian Association, which, through the co-operation of influential and scholarly Jap anese, is helping to liberalize religious thought throughout the country in both the Buddhist and Christian communions. In Italy the Uni tarian work is carried on by the Association of Free Believers. A Unitarian association has been organized in Brazil by Brazilians, and movements Unitarian in everything but name are to be found in Switzerland, Holland, Nor way and Denmark. There are Unitarian churches in the English-speaking countries, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
In the United States and Canada to-day there are about 475 churches and missions. Although the census of the membership of these churches is given in various publications, as a matter of fact there is no official census of Unitarian membership. This is due to the fact that usually Unitarian ministers have little in terest in church membership. Unitarian min
isters are educated at the divinity school of Harvard University, which school "was founded and endowed by Unitarians"; the Meadville Theological School, Meadville, Pa.; the Pacific Unitarian school for the Ministry, Berkeley, Cal. The Christian Register; Unitarian Word and Work, Boston, Mass., are the leading de nominational periodicals.
What Unitarians Popularly a Unitarian is one who does not believe in "the divinity of Christ" or more correctly in the deity of Christ. That is but another way of saying that Unitarians do not believe in the Tri tarian formula expressed in the Athanasian and Nicean creeds and embodied in all Protestant orthodox creeds. Because of this lack of belief in the Trinity, Unitarians are classified in the United States Religious Census as "non-evangel ical," and are usually officially classified by the "Evangelical" bodies as non-Christian. This latter classification was very definitely made at the organization of the Federation of the Chris tian Churches of America in 1905. This officially representative body of "Evangelical" churches decided that to qualify as a "Chris tian" church there must be a complete accept ance of the Trinitarian formula. Unitarians de cline to accept that decision and emphatically insist that it is not necessary to be a Trinitarian in order to be a Christian. To support this contention they point out that, so far as is known, Jesus himself did not teach the doctrine of the Trinity, neither did the Apostles. The only passage in New Testament literature which in any way reflects or embodies the Trinitarian formula is that in 1 John v, 7, so plainly an in terpolation that it is dropped from the Revised Version without any comment. They also point out that it was at least 150 years after the cruci fixion of Jesus before the term Trinity began to be used by Christian teachers, and it was considerably later than this before the Trinita rian formula was decided on as the Christian conception of deity. Unitarians hold that this doctrine, instead of coming from anything Jesus or the Apostles or their immediate successors taught, is altogether of heathen origin, though this is not necessarily anything against it. So they argue that in rejecting the Trinitarian formula and insisting on a pure monotheism they follow much more closely the teachings of Jesus than do the Trinitarians. For this reason they insist that they are entitled to be regarded as Christian. However, Unitarians care little for a name. The important thing is to be Chris tian in spirit. They always speak of themselves as Christians. "But," as Dr. Lowe expressed it when the wisdom of adopting the name as a part of the official title of the national organi zation was being thoroughly debated, aI will oppose, as a test (of fellowship), any definition of Christianity.° That was designed to indicate that Unitarians regarded Christianity, not as a set of definitions of God and Christ, but rather the Christ spirit which a man is under obliga tion to put into his every day life.
Unitarians have no creed, no official theol ogy. They have °statements" of faith, The most popular being: "The Fatherhood of God; the Brotherhood of man; the Leadership of Jesus; salvation by character; the progress of mankind onward and upward forever." But this is in no sense final or authoritative, it is simply an attempt to set forth the things most commonly believed. There are forms for admission into Unitarian church-membership, but in no case is any sort of doctrinal test im posed or implied. This arises not from any lack of religious belief or conviction among Unitarians, but, first, because they hold that be lief in and frequent recital of a creed does not necessarily make a person Christian or even religious; secondly, guided by experience, Uni tarians feel very strongly that no church or council ought or has any right to require any person to commit himself for all time to some particular form of worship, or sacraments or dogmas no matter how true they seem to be. They are not willing to accept as spiritual guides men who had so imperfect an under standing of the world they lived in as did the makers of Christian creeds. Believing in the spiritual imperfection of all persons and insti tutions, past as well as present, Unitarians feel that creeds and sacraments which change not make it impossible or unnecessarily difficult to press forward to a finer spiritual quality in life. Believing as they do that man is a progressively spiritual being in this world, they insist that the last word in religious truth has not been uttered and the goal of spiritual endeavor is still far ahead. For this reason Unitarians refuse to have anything to do with finalities and infalli bilities in religion.