Beecher was called to Boston to stem the rising
tide of Unitarianism, with its easy notions about conviction of sin
and other cardinal elements of a true faith. To be thrown into the
fervors of a crusade was just the experience which Harriet's heated
brain did not need. Her life at this period was divided between
Hartford and Boston, but her heart went with Dr. Beecher to his great
enterprise in Boston, or, as Mrs. Fields says, "This period in Boston
was the time when Harriet felt she drew nearer to her father than at
any other period of her life."

It will not be necessary to go farther into this controversy than to
show what a cauldron it was for the family of Dr. Beecher. In his
autobiography, Dr. Beecher says, "From the time Unitarianism began to
show itself in this country, it was as fire in my bones." After his
call to Boston, he writes again, "My mind had been heating, heating,
heating. Now I had a chance to strike." The situation that confronted
him in Boston rather inflamed than subdued his spirit. Let Mrs. Stowe
tell the story herself. "Calvinism or orthodoxy," she says, "was the
despised and persecuted form of faith. It was the dethroned royal
family wandering like a permitted mendicant in the city where it once
held high court, and Unitarianism reigned in its stead. All the
literary men of Massachusetts were Unitarians. All the trustees and
professors of Harvard College were Unitarians. All the elite of wealth
and fashion crowded Unitarian churches. The judges on the bench were
Unitarian, giving decisions by which the peculiar features of church
organization, so carefully ordained by the Pilgrim Fathers, had been
nullified. The dominant majority entered at once into possession of
churches and church property, leaving the orthodox minority to go out
into schoolhouses and town halls, and build their churches as best
they could."

We can hardly suppose that Harriet had read the decision of the court,
or that she deemed it necessary; she knew it was wrong by instinct,
and the iron entered her soul. The facts appear to have been as
follows: The old parishes in New England included a given territory
like a school district or a voting precinct. Members of a given
parish, if they were communicants, formed themselves into a "church"
which was the church of that parish. The court decided that this
church always remained the church of that parish. Members might
withdraw, but they withdrew as individuals. They could