w a
member of Dr. Mason's church in New York city, having joined at the
age of twenty, or soon after the letter in which she says she is not
satisfied on certain points of doctrine. Dr. Mason is described as an
undiluted Calvinist, "who then was the most conspicuous pulpit orator
in the country--a man confident in his faith and bold to audacity."
Miss Sedgwick stands the strong meat of Calvinism ten years, when we
have this letter. "I presume you saw the letter I wrote Susan, in
which I said that I did not think I should go to Dr. Mason's Church
again.... You know, my dear Frances, that I never adopted some of the
articles of the creed of that church and some of those upon which the
doctor is fond of expatiating, and which appear to me both
unscriptural and very unprofitable, and, I think, very demoralizing."

What perhaps stimulated the zeal of Dr. Mason to insist upon doctrines
always objectionable to Miss Sedgwick, was an attempt then being made
to establish a Unitarian church in New York city. She has not joined
in the movement, but does not know but it may come to that. It is a
critical moment in Miss Sedgwick's history, and it happened at this
time she went to hear Dr. Mason's farewell sermon. "As usual," she
says, "he gave the rational Christians an anathema. He said they had
fellowship with the devil: no, he would not slander the devil, they
were worse, etc." Very possibly this preaching had its proper effect
upon many hearers, and they gave the "rational Christians" a wide
berth, but it precipitated Miss Sedgwick into their ranks. She was not
then a thorough-going Unitarian, saying, "there are some of your
articles of unbelief that I am not Protestant enough to subscribe to";
a little more gentleness on the part of Dr. Mason could have kept her,
but she could not stand "what seems to me," she says, "a gross
violation of the religion of the Redeemer, and an insult to a large
body of Christians entitled to respect and affection."

She joined the tabooed circle in 1821, and wrote from Stockbridge,
"Some of my friends here have, as I learn, been a little troubled, but
after the crime of confessed Unitarianism, nothing can surprise them";
she longs to look upon a Christian minister who does not regard her as
"a heathen and a publican." An aunt, very fond of her, said to her,
one day as they were parting, "Come and see me as often as you can,
dear, for you know, after this world we shall never meet again."

These