Unitarian Affirmations...

This from a review in the "Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine" of a book of sermons called "Unitarian Affirmations" which is a collection of seven sermons delivered by various Unitarian ministers on the basics of the faith in Washington DC in 1879: 

"If we should attempt a still further condensation of these affirmations, we might, omitting some repetitions of the same thoughts, obtain something like the following statement of faith : —

I believe in Christianity; in its basis of universal religion in the soul of man; in the Father it reveals in God; in the Divine Sonship of Christ, the type and •witness of the sonship of humanity ; in the Holy Spirit, the present life of God in the life of the world and in the souls of men.

I believe that the heart of man has everywhere sought after God, if haply it might find him; and that in the Bible we have the record of that seeking in the race to which God's providence vouchsafed the earliest place in the large unfolding of Himself, and of which, according to the flesh, Christ came, for the power of whose life and the comfort of whose gospel as witnessed in the New Testament, God be blessed forever.

I believe in human nature, the capacity of man to overcome the evils of this world and the sins which beset and debase him, and to come to the standard of God's purpose in the fulness of Jesus Christ.

I believe in the Christian Church, the fellowship of faith and hope and love. in the truth and work and spirit of Jesus, to declare the forgiving and renewing love of God; and in the communion of all holy souls in the divine life, the service of humanity, and the faith of the coming kingdom of heaven.

I believe in the everlasting faithfulness of God; the eternity of his recompensing law; the ceaseless woe of sin; the overcoming might of goodness; the one rule of God in all worlds; and the life everlasting."

Blessings

Most faithful when most tried...

Today's devotion from "Daily Praise and Prayer"

"WHO shall separate us from the love of Christ ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ?
As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long ; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Lord, make us timely wise,
To know thy call of grace,
And with the moment, as it flies,
Run our appointed race; —

Still keep the end in view,
Tarry nor turn aside ;
Perils, allurements, bonds, break through,
Most faithful when most tried !

Thus, till we reach the goal,
All else to count but loss ;
Nor, till we gain the prize, — our soul,—
Grow weary of the cross.

HELP us, O our Father, this day to be perfect as thou art perfect; according to our light and strength, to be true and kind and upright and just. May we do our work cheerfully, accept our joys gratefully, and endure our trials with patience. With alacrity may we serve thee and our fellow-men, welcoming every opportunity to assist those in need, and faithfully keeping our souls in harmony with thy holy law. Guide and govern us through this day by thy good Spirit, and may its close find its work faithfully done, its lessons learned, and its journey straightly travelled on the road that leads to heaven and thee. Amen."

Have a blessed Sabbath everyone

solemn and grave looks...

I was somewhat surprised by this from "The Christian Teacher's Manuel" 1829.  The article is "OBSERVATIONS ON THE EXPEDIENCY OF PERMITTING CHILDREN TO ATTEND PUBLIC WORSHIP WITH ADULTS," which is explanation enough for the question. What do you think?

"Now to us we confess, the practise of sending children to church, seems not only injudicious but somewhat cruel. Judging from our own childhood we know of no place less congenial to the buoyant spirits and active frame of that period of life, than the church. There the child must sit erect—compose his features into solemn and grave looks, without receiving anything as a reward for his torture. The hymns do not suit the taste of the nursery—the language and the ideas of the prayers, are above his comprehension—and the sermon is all Greek—and very dull Greek to him. This .is no exaggeration, we believe it may be said without fear of contradiction, that not one tenth part of the services of the sanctuary, are at all intelligible to children. This indeed is acknowledged by many parents, who nevertheless urge the propriety of sending their children to church, that they may acquire an habitual regard for the place, and for sacred things. We do not like such reasoning. A habit of attending church, or any other religious observance, is the last habit we would wish a child to form. We fear to run the slightest risk of making religion a thing to be done at a certain time and in a certain way. We fear very much, any practice which has the remotest tendency to overestimate forms and festivals, time and places. And does not the experience of almost every one prove that these fears are far from groundless ? Can we not, do we not refer much of our mere formal attendance upon public worship, to the fact that such an attendance has become a matter of course; a thing done without the feelings being at all interested in it ? Why then entail the same coldness upon our children ? Why educate them in the same outward acknowledgment of, and inward indifference to public worship ? We repeat, we believe it a melancholy truth, that the bodily and mental comfort of children are sacrificed in many instances, to a mere outside display of reverence for the Sabbath. Of this practice of making the holy day a weary and gloomy one to the young, were it consistent with our present design, we could adduce much evidence. We have no doubt of the sincerity of those who rule children with the rod on Sundays—and tax their memories with unintelligible lessons, and torment them into the anxious wish that " the sun would go down" and relieve them from Sabbath thraldom—but it is the sincerity of superstition. But we must remember that it is no more possible and proper to rule the free-born thoughts of the child than of the man; both must be led by the light chain of reason."

Blessings

on the street where you live...

I grew up in South Dakota in a town of about 400 people named Hecla.  I know not the reason for the name but in this pamphlet by James Freeman Clarke, published in 1880, the naming of towns and streets is given great thought (for the complete work, see here)

"ON GIVING NAMES TO TOWNS AND STREETS.
To Give a true name to a town or a street is not so easy a matter as it may seem. Mistakes are frequently made, because it is thought a thing of little consequence. I shall suggest, in this paper, the importance of care in selecting the proper designation, not only for a city or village, but even for a street. I shall also contend that such designations should not be selected merely as pretty sounds, but as memorials of the past.

Ought we not to regard these names as historic monuments, and choose such as will commemorate the. events and persons belonging to the history of the place ? This appears to be a matter of no small importance for a country like this. In a nation which grows with such unprecedented rapidity as ours, there is frequent need of giving names to new states, towns, streets, and public buildings. Thus far, these appellations have been bestowed almost by accident. It has been a happy accident when a state or town or a street has received a good name: as, for example, in states, Minnesota and Iowa; in towns, Canandaigua, Chicago, Milwaukee; in streets, Bowdoin Street, Federal Street, Chauncy Street. More commonly, the names given have been chosen at random, without any selection, by some hurried official, who took the first appellations which occurred to him, or which met his eye in a classical dictionary or on a map of Europe.

But we ought to consider that to give a name to a place is a very important act, involving no little responsibility; and should, therefore, be confided to judicious and enlightened persons; and that there are certain rules to be followed and objects to be secured in giving names.

Before naming an infant, we hesitate and consider, and very properly; for the name is one which is to designate him through life, and every time it is uttered will make an impression on the hearers corresponding to the character or association which belongs to it. When a child is called " Praise God Barebones," " Be Thankful Maynard," "Lament Willard," or "Search the Scriptures Moreton," is it not evident that he has been saddled with a burden which will weigh him down through life ? For such phrases were not, as Hume erroneously supposes, assumed by the parties themselves, but have been found by Mr. Lower (as he tells us in his work on English surnames) in the baptismal registers. Every time the man weighted with such a name is spoken to or spoken of, a slight sense of ridicule attaches to him in consequence thereof. But, finally, every man dies, and his name with him; but a city, a town, or a street may live a thousand years. During all its existence, if it have an insignificant appellation, or one suggesting unfavorable contrasts or disagreeable associations, the town or street is injured. It may be no great injury, not much each time; but multiply the slight injury its bad name inflicts on each occasion by the number of times the name is spoken, and you see that an inappropriate name may do a place a good deal of harm. If a little rural town is called Rome, Paris, or London, the word inevitably suggests unfavorable comparisons; whereas, if it were entitled Riverside or Greenfield, it would pleasantly suggest its true characteristics."

Blessings

sanctifying, cementing power...

I think that what initially drew me to the "Boston Unitarians" was their good hearted effort to reconcile in a moderate and balanced way, the seemingly contradictory aspects of religious, and of all, life.  This from "The Christian Examiner" 1853.  It comes toward the end of the article, "Christ's Authority and the Soul's Liberty."

 "The great cry of our age and our land is Liberty, liberty for all! There is to this lifted a counter-cry of Law and order ! From our discussion it would appear that, truly understood, there is no contradiction in these cries ; but that they meet in one idea, there being no true liberty but in obedience to just command, and no proper moral law without freedom to act and to obey. Again, there is in one class or another, or from the heart of mankind, a cry for our rights! which the self-renouncing spirit of religion in the soul answers with a lowlier cry to know and do our duties. Here too philosophy and piety unite to teach every creature, man or woman, that the duties are the loftiest and most blessed rights. The poets Coleridge and Herbert, the one appealing to liberty and the other celebrating law, have by Ruskin been contrasted. They should rather be reconciled. For the former addresses the free elements as those that yield homage only to eternal laws ; and the latter but warns against the worst bondage, when he cites the trusty sun and sky for our examples of living by rule, that we may keep company with all God's works.

Lose not thyself, nor give thy humors way ;
God gave them to thee under lock and key."

Accordingly, with what beauty, as by an instinct for truth and impossibility of any exposure to narrowness or extravagance, the great Bible speaks of the law of liberty and of that service which is perfect freedom, joined in one seemingly antagonistic principle, as in nature we so often see opposite elements coalesce from their struggle in one simple product. We know of no topic more wholesome than this, especially for the mind of our own country to ponder. In the conflict among us of false extremes that can never be harmonized, boldness of speculation on one side and subjection to creeds on the other, utter individual independence and social servility, political license in the majority with unjust slavery in a weaker race, there is nothing it so becomes us to strive for as that combination of principle with free-will, which has its rise in religion, the fountain-head of all human thought and action, and thence pervades with sanctifying, cementing power all the departments of human life.

Such a consummation will be promoted if an idea can ever find us which will do away the antithesis, in particular, that has always been supposed between Christ's authority and the soul's liberty, and makes that authority and liberty the same, as verily, in the sight of God, we believe they are. We cannot offer a better prayer to God, we cannot breathe a better wish for man, than that this antithesis may be solved in our hearts, and so we be empowered to solve it in the hearts of all whom we may reach. So we shall move forward a little the chariot-wheels of the great God, who is Father and King. So we shall hasten the blessed day when Christ's universal lordship shall prove the emancipation of mankind."

Blessings

intuition and experience...

I have written before of the importance to my own developing Unitarianism of the book, "Ezra Stiles Gannett: Unitarian Minister in Boston."  I came across it at the first UU Church I ever attended.  On a wall shelf in the hall were 10 or so volumes, one of which was "Gannett." It was the only "old" book on the shelf and I later learned that it had never in any-one's memory been moved from its place.  The man revealed in its pages was immediately fascinating to me.  For more on why, see past blog entries here. 
   A conservative, Gannett was not an admirer of the Transcendentalist movement.  The Memoir, written by Gannett's son (who was) is fascinating on the rise of Transcendentalism and its impact on Unitarianism.  An excerpt...

"Viewed as a school of philosophy, the Transcendentalists were simply the little New England quota in the great return of thinkers to Idealism, after the long captivity to Sensationalism. Returns almost inevitably have the exaggeration and one-sidedness of reaction. The new king usurps entire allegiance, whereas allegiance seems due to one who rules at once both kingdoms, Intuition and Experience. As a school of critics, they were the earliest here who boldly used the modern historic method in the study of the Bible. As a school of theology, they dispensed with Mediation, in order to claim for the soul access direct to its Father. They have been credited with bringing the doctrine of the Holy Spirit into the Unitarian "common sense in religion." But more than the common doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and more than Orthodoxy compassed by its faith in Incarnation and the Helping Grace, their thought really implied. It implied a universal law of access and communion. It affirmed abiding contact of the finite and the Infinite in virtue of the very nature of the soul and Over-Soul. Inspiration fresh as well as old; Revelation constant; Miracle but the human spirit's pinnacle of action ; God the living God, not a deity then and there announcing himself with evidence of authenticity, but indwelling here and now in every presence, — this was " Transcendentalism."

Blessings
(for more on the Holy Spirit, see today's post at Wonderful Epoch)

summer is nigh...

June the first began here with a thunderstorm.  I am going to go with the symbolism of cleansing and not upheaval for the coming summer and towards that end offer today's devotion from "Day Unto Day."

"Now learn a parable of the fig-tree: when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. —Matt. xxiv. 32.

" The summer adds new and inexhaustible sources of instruction. Every leaf teems with life; the air is filled with the sounds of animated and joyous existence ; the earth abounds with proofs of divine beneficence, wisdom, and power."

"'Tis Summer, glorious Summer!
Look to the glad green earth,
How from her grateful bosom
The herb and flower spring forth.
These are her rich thanksgivings,
Their incense floats above.
Father, what may we offer?
Thy chosen flower is love."

"As the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.—Isa. lxi. 11."

Blessings