ws so clearly and so beautifully the love and forgiveness of God,
and with what tender pity he looks on us when we have sinned.
'Unitarian Christianity believes that God speaks to his children now as
truly as he did to the Prophets of old and to Jesus Christ, comforting,
strengthening, enlightening them. Conscience itself is his holy voice.
'Unitarian Christianity sees in Jesus Christ a supremely beautiful life
and character, a marvellous inspiration for us all, an ideal after which
we may strive; and it loves to think of him as our Elder Brother, of the
same nature as ourselves.
'Unitarian Christianity does not believe that God will plunge any of his
children into everlasting woe. Such a thought of God is a contradiction
of his Fatherhood. He is leading us all, by different ways, towards the
pure and holy life for which he brought us into being.'
Along with this may be taken the declaration adopted, as a result of
somewhat protracted discussions, at the National Conference of
Unitarians in America, 1894; it would probably be accepted in all
similar assemblies.
'These churches accept the religion of Jesus, holding in accordance with
his teaching that practical religion is summed up in love to God, and
love to man; and we invite to our fellowship any who, while differing
from us in belief, are in general sympathy with our spirit and our
practical aims.'
UNITARIANS AND OTHER RELIGIOUS LIBERALS
The broadly sympathetic spirit which has been observed at work in the
foregoing story has led to interesting relationships between Unitarians
and some other religious bodies. The Universalists, who are strongest in
the United States, are cordially fraternal with them; and a large
proportion of the 'Christians'--a non-dogmatic body--are equally close
in sympathy. The Hicksite Friends, named after Elias Hicks, who early in
the nineteenth century avowed Anti-trinitarian views, and some other
religious bodies less conspicuous are more or less directly included in
the Unitarian forces, though not organically in union. With the French
Liberal Protestants there has been warm co-operation for many years, and
the same is true of Dutch, German, and Swiss reformers. Since the visit
of Rammohun Roy, the Indian reformer, in 1833, the English in particular
have developed kindly relations with the Indian theist movement, and
students from India and Japan are regularly educated at Oxford for the
ministry of free religion in
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