ith present-day religious and social
problems rather than creeds, dogmas or beliefs. I was profoundly
surprised and much gratified to find a church and people and minister
so broad, so liberal and so fraternal as I found this First Unitarian
Church in Dallas. I soon found that whether I agreed with all other
Unitarians or not, I at least had here a free and cordial fellowship
for the worship of God and the service of man, without any
ecclesiastical harness to put on, or any strings to limit me to
prescribed bounds. A new light dawned upon me. The bondage of
orthodoxy I had broken years ago. But I wandered for years in the
desert of agnosticism, famishing and unfed. I had found in my own
heart the bread of life; but I had no table at which to spread it--and
man being a social animal as well as a religious one, cannot live alone.

My name was soon on the membership roll of this church, where I hope it
will remain until I am translated, no matter where else I may serve and
place it. It was here that I first found my bearings and placed my
feet on the solid rock of rational religion. The supreme satisfaction,
the peace of mind, serene content, and supernal joy of this situation I
shall not attempt to describe. Those that were born in a liberal faith
and have never known anything else can neither understand nor
appreciate it. It is indeed a new birth, a new light, a new life of
freedom, fellowship and fraternity in a common service for God and
humanity.

THE NEW CALL TO PREACH

I have before described what I once interpreted as a "divine call to
preach." It was the new-born enthusiasm of one who felt himself "a
brand snatched from the eternal burning" to proclaim the same
deliverance to what he believed to be a lost and ruined world; to warn
sinners to "flee from the wrath to come." It was then the consuming
passion of a soul on fire with zeal for the salvation of all mankind
from what he believed to be an overwhelming and eternal destruction
that awaited them, and might come upon them at any moment without
warning.

And now, having tasted of the sweets of liberty, I desired "to proclaim
liberty thruout the land to all the inhabitants thereof," the same
liberty to those yet in the bondage of fear from which I had escaped
and to those who were still wandering in the deserts of doubt, looking
for a haven of rest, and not knowing that it was so near. I knew that
the great masses were inside of the houses in