Work of the First Year
If others were disinclined to action, the executive committee of the Unitarian Association was determined that something should be done. At their first, meeting, held in the secretary’s study four days after their election, there were present Norton, Walker, Tappan, and Gannett. They commissioned Rev. Warren Burton to act as their agent in visiting neighboring towns to solicit funds, and a week later they voted to employ him as a general agent. The committee held six meetings during June; and at one of these an address was adopted, defining the purposes and methods of the Association. “They wish it to be understood,” was their statement, “that its efforts will be directed to the promotion of true religion throughout our country; intending by this, not exclusively those views which distinguish the friends of this Association from other disciples of Christ; but those views in connection with the great doctrines and principles in which all Christians coincide, and which constitute the substance of our religion. We wish to diffuse the knowledge and influence of the gospel of our Lord and Saviour. Great good is anticipated from the co-operation of persons entertaining similar views, who are now strangers to each other’s religious sentiments. Interest will be awakened, confidence inspired, efficiency produced by the concentration of labors. The spirit of inquiry will be fostered, and individuals at a distance will know where to apply for information and encouragement. Respectability and strength will be given to the class among us whom our fellow Christians have excluded from the control of their religious charities, and whom, by their exclusive treatment, they have compelled in some measure to act as a party.” The objects of the Association were stated to be the collection of information about Unitarianism in various parts of the country; the securing of union, sympathy, and co-operation among liberal Christians; the publishing and distribution of books inculcating correct views of religion; the employment of missionaries, and the adoption of other measures that might promote the general purposes held in view.
At the end of the year the Association held its first anniversary meeting in Pantheon Hall, on the evening of June 30, 1826, when addresses were made by Hon. Joseph Story, Hon. Leverett Salstonstall, Rev. Ichabod Nichols, and Rev. Henry Coleman. The executive committee presented its report, which gave a detailed account of the operations during the year. They gave special attention to their discovery of “a body of Christians in the Western states who have for years been Unitarians, have encountered persecution on account of their faith, and have lived in ignorance of others east of the mountains who maintained many similar views of Christian doctrine.” With this group of churches, which would consent to no other name than that of Christian, a correspondence had been opened; and, to secure a larger acquaintance with them, Rev. Moses G. Thomas11 had visited several of the Western states. His tour carried him through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and as far as St. Louis. His account of his journey was published in connection with the second report of the Association, and is full of interest. He did not preach, but he carefully investigated the religious prospects of the states he journeyed through; and he sought the acquaintance of the Christian churches and ministers. He gave an enthusiastic account of his travels, and reported that the west was a promising field for the planting of Unitarian churches. He recommended Northumberland, Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Steubenville, Marietta, Paris, Lexington, Louisville, St. Louis, St. Charles, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati as promising places for the labors of Unitarian missionaries,—places “which will properly appreciate their talents and render them doubly useful in their day and generation.”
During the first year of its existence the Unitarian Association endeavored to unite with itself, or to secure the co-operation of, the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, Piety, and Charity, the Evangelical Missionary Society, and the Publishing Fund Society; but these organizations were unwilling to come into close affiliation with it. The Evangelical Missionary Society has continued its separate existence to the present time, but the others were absorbed by the Unitarian Association after many years. This is one indication of how difficult it was to secure an active co-operation among Unitarians, and to bring them all into one vigorous working body. In concluding their first report, the officers of the Association alluded to the difficulties with which they had met the reluctance of the liberal churches to come into close affiliation with each other. “They have strenuously opposed the opinion,” they said of the leaders of the Association, “that the object of the founders was to build up a party, to organize an opposition, to perpetuate pride and bigotry. Had they believed that such was its purpose or such would be its effect, they would have withdrawn themselves from any connection with so hateful a thing. They thought otherwise, and experience has proved they did not judge wrongly.”