itarian leader hitherto has displayed more activity, and few, if any,
have possessed greater controversial ability than he. His opinions,
indeed, were in some respects peculiar to himself; he called himself a
Socinian, but it was with a difference, and no Unitarian to-day would
endorse some of his main positions. But his work for the cause was
invaluable, and his personal character is held in the highest esteem.
Originally he would have preferred that the Unitarians should remain as
a 'liberal leaven' in the churches; eventually he became the chief
organizer of Unitarian worship and propaganda.

The first 'Unitarian Church,' however, was due to a clergyman,
_Theophilus Lindsey_ (1723-1808). After long and arduous efforts to
secure relaxation from the doctrinal subscription imposed on the clergy,
Lindsey resigned his living at Catterick, in 1773, facing poverty and
hardship with a courage that elicited warm commendations, though few
were found to imitate the example. In spite of the terrors of the law,
now becoming a dead letter, he opened a Unitarian chapel in Essex
Street, London, in 1774. The service was on the episcopal model, but
with a liturgy adapted to 'the worship of the Father only.' This feature
has been claimed to be the distinctive characteristic of modern
Unitarianism. It will be remembered that Socinus inculcated a sort of
subordinate worship of Christ, and the Arians of course held to the same
practice, Humanitarianism, the view that Jesus Christ was truly a man
and in no sense a deity, obviously made it impossible to offer him the
adoration due to God alone. This view had been slowly spreading since
the days of Lardner; Priestley, Lindsey, and the active men of the party
generally shared it. There were exceptions still, however. _Dr. Richard
Price_ (1723-91), a London Presbyterian divine of great eminence,
remembered as one of the founders of actuarial science, held by his
Arianism to the last; this did not prevent him from lending a hand in
the organization of the Unitarian forces, but there was for a time some
difficulty on the subject. The more ardent professors of the new
doctrine of 'the sole worship of the Father' were for excluding the
Arians from fellowship, and one of the societies then formed actually
adhered to a rather offensive formula on the subject till about 1830.

A considerable number of liberal Churchmen of the laity, including some
of rank, supported Lindsey's movement. An indication