ail the future
conditions of church work which I proposed to establish or to find.
I had intended originally not to make these public, at least all at
once; but rumor has been busy, and exact information, for purposes
of correction, if nothing more, has now become essential.

First of all, therefore, may I say that I made announcement to this
meeting, as I would now make announcement to you, that I have left,
or am planning to leave, the Unitarian denomination, and propose not
much longer to be known specifically as a Unitarian minister. The
reasons for this change in my life, I shall make plain at another
time; this morning I content myself with stating the fact. Almost a
year ago I resigned the office of vice-president of the Middle
States Conference of Unitarian churches, which have held ever since
I came to New York. Two months ago, I resigned from the Council of
the Unitarian General Conference. Two weeks ago, I resigned my
life-membership in the American Unitarian Association. Next May,
when the new list is made up, I expect to withdraw my name from the
official roll of Unitarian clergymen, and thus sever the last strand
which holds me to the Unitarian body. Of course, I shall join no
other denomination, and in [15] this sense shall be independent. But
to me this action means not isolation, but entrance into that larger
fellowship which I so long to share. No barrier will then separate
me from those Episcopalians and Baptists and Methodists and other
men, who are my real spiritual brethren. I shall be at one with all
men everywhere--at home with the family of mankind. I shall not so
much cease to be a Unitarian, as to become a Christian. This matter
is of course personal; and it thus affected only incidentally the
problem which was before our meeting last Monday night. It is easy
to find precedent for the occupancy of a Unitarian pulpit by a
minister not a Unitarian. At the time of the famous Year-Book
controversy, Mr. Potter of New Bedford, Mass., and several of his
colleagues, withdrew from the Unitarian body, but continued to hold
their Unitarian pulpits. The latest instance of which I chance to
know was called to my attention by the death last week of Prof.
George A. Foster, of Chicago University. Dr. Foster was born, bred
and ordained a Baptist; and yet last year was called to fill the
pulpit of the First Unitarian Church church in Madison, Wisconsin;
and died in the service of this church, a Baptist.

Eve