shed a beneficent lustre upon the entire country.
Its students have never ceased to be ornaments to the American pulpit,
while some of the number, proving themselves worthy successors of Carey,
Marshman, Coke, and Ward, have labored in heathen lands with apostolic
zeal.

The celebrated controversy between Drs. Channing and Worcester,
occasioned by a pamphlet which appeared in Boston in 1815, under the
title of _American Unitarianism_, led to the withdrawal of the
Unitarians from the orthodox, and their formation into a distinct
organization. Pursuing an aggressive policy, they organized
congregations in various parts of New England, and in the cities of
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Charleston. This was the heroic
age of the Unitarian church of America.

Channing became immediately the leader of the new sect. He represents
the best type of Unitarianism. Pure in life, ardent in his attachments,
and heroic in spirit, he was well adapted to advance the cause which he
had espoused. He had no taste for controversy, but the circumstances
connected with the prevalent theology made such a deep impression on his
mind that he felt it his duty to aid in the revival of what he deemed a
more liberal faith. Not indorsing the extreme Unitarianism of Priestley
and Belsham, he took a middle ground between it and New England
Calvinism. He was attentively heard in his church at Boston, and was
listened to by large audiences wherever he preached or lectured.

His writings embrace a variety of topics, the chief of which, apart from
religious themes proper, are slavery, temperance, education, and war.
Within a few years his views have attracted increased attention in
Europe. In France, MM. Laboulaye, de Remusat, and Renan have discussed
them at length. Of his mental transitions, an admiring writer says:
"From Kant's doctrine of the reason he derived deeper reverence for the
essential powers of man; by Schelling's intimations of the Divine Life,
everywhere manifested, he was made more devoutly conscious of the
universal agency of God; and he was especially delighted with the heroic
stoicism of Fichte and his assertion of the grandeur of the human will.
But for his greatest pleasure and best discipline he was now indebted to
Wordsworth, whom he esteemed next to Shakspeare, and whose '_Excursion_'
came to him like a revelation. With Wordsworth's mingled piety and
heroism, humanity and earnest aspiration, with his all-vivifying
im