at, though you do not stop to prove it,
you know it can be proved any time, whenever a person chooses to take
the time or trouble. For example, if I state the truth of the
Copernican system, or that the earth revolves around the sun, and you
challenge me to prove it in two minutes, I may not be able to; it may
take longer than that; but I know it can be demonstrated to-morrow or
next week or any time, because it has been demonstrated over and over
again.

I wish now to assert the truth of certain fundamental principles; and
these principles, you note, are those which constitute the peculiarity
of the Unitarian people as a body of theological believers. For
example, that this which is all around us and of which we are a part is
a universe is demonstrated beyond question. It is one, the unity of the
universe. The unity of force, the unity of substance or matter, the
unity of law, the unity of life, the unity of humanity, the unity of
the fundamental principles of ethics, the unity of the religious life
and aspiration of the world, these, I say, are demonstrated. And do you
not see that demonstrating these carries along with it the
unquestioned, the absolute demonstration of the unity of the power that
is in the universe and manifests itself through it? The unity of God?
The Lord our God is one! And this is no question of speculation, it is
demonstrated truth. Now, as to any speculative or metaphysical division
of God's nature into three parts or personalities, there is not, and
there cannot be, in the nature of things, one slightest particle of
proof. The unity is demonstrated: anything else is incapable of
demonstration.

Next, the Unitarian contention I say Unitarian, not because we
originated it by any means, but simply because we first and chiefly
among religious bodies have accepted it as to the origin and nature of
man as science has unfolded it to us, thus precluding the possibility
of the truth of any doctrine of any fall. This is not speculation, it
is not whim. It is not something picked up by the way, that a man
chooses because he likes it, and because he does not like something
else. This is demonstrated truth, as clearly and fully demonstrated as
is the law of gravity or the fact that water will freeze at a certain
temperature. Then the question of the Bible. The Unitarian position in
regard to the origin, the method of composition, the authenticity and
the authority of Biblical books, is a commonplace of s