A Statement: On the Future of This Church | Page 3

because it had a pulpit. But
other reasons, not so decisive, and yet impressive, persuaded me to this
same end. Thus I saw in the church not only a pulpit but an altar.
Indeed, the pulpit distinguished itself in my mind from a platform or a
teacher's desk, by the fact that it was always associated with the
presence, visible and invisible, of an altar for divine worship. It was
easy for me to picture myself as saying all I wanted to say in [6] college
halls, in theater meetings, in public forums, but I craved for my work
on behalf of truth the atmosphere and environment of spiritual devotion.
It was my desire, in other words, to be not merely a teacher or speaker,
but a preacher; not merely a prophet, but also a priest. This does not
mean that I am a churchman, as such; or that I find any permanent
significance in rituals or other forms of worship. But there is in me that
which seeks the stimulus of praise and prayer, the uplift of conscious
communion with the Eternal, the consolation of appeal to, and trust in,
God. Not only from habit, but from temperament, I find myself at home
amid religious rites. Nothing so moved me on my one trip to Europe, as
the hours I spent under the shadows of the great cathedrals. As a quiet
place of worship, as well as a high place of testimony, the church called
me in those youthful years, and I gave answer.
A third motive for my choice of the ministry must not be forgotten. I
refer to the appeal of the church as a place for action, a service station
on behalf of public causes. My vision of what we mean by public
causes was strangely limited. It scarcely went beyond the Unitarian
denomination, and the works of charity and kindly reform with which it
has always been identified. I was a passionate Unitarian in those days. I
had read, and been deeply stirred by, the story of the achievements
which Unitarianism had wrought on behalf of freedom, fellowship and
character in religion. I reverenced its saints and prophets, and longed to

follow in their train. Hence the eagerness with which I sought
preparation for the Unitarian ministry--that I might serve the
church--advance its glory and magnify its work.
It was with such ideas as these in my heart that I was ordained in
February, 1904. Within two years there came an event which shook my
life to its foundations, revolutionized my thought, and changed the
whole character of my interest and work. I refer to what we have [7]
learned to describe in our time as the social question. This question, of
course, is nothing new. It has burned at the heart of life from the
beginning, and at intervals has flamed forth like the eruption of a
volcano, to the terror and glory of the world. Its latest phase, as we
know it today in the religious field, made its appearance at about the
time I entered the ministry. I recall that the book, which first revealed
the fires so soon to burst upon us--Prof. Peabody's "Jesus Christ and the
Social Question "--was published in 1903, the year before my
ordination. I was not unprepared for what was coming. My deep-rooted
reverence for Theodore Parker, the supreme prophet of applied
Christianity in our time, and my enthusiastic study of his life, had
revealed to me the meaning of socialized religion. But I had caught
only the pure essence of its spirit; I had not thought to apply it to the
social problems of today. Indeed, I was not aware of the existence of
such problems. My whole approach to the question of truth and
experience up to that time, had been along the lines of speculation in
the field of theological, as contrasted with political or social, thought.
In the second year of my ministry, however, I read Henry George's
"Progress and Poverty"; then followed the writings of Henry D. Lloyd
and Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch; then came the deep and prolonged
plunge into the waters of socialism. For several years after I came to
this church, I was in a state of intellectual and emotional upheaval
impossible for me to describe. At last came a conviction which was a
complete reversal of all my former ideas. I was as a man converted; I
was as one who had seen a great light. Henceforth I was a social radical;
and religion, pre-eminently not a testimony to theological truth but a
crusade for social change. Of course, my interest in theology has
persisted; but its place in my life has tended to become ever more
subordinate to other and more directly practical interests. You know

how the character