UNITARIANISM.

THROUGH the lack of having made themselves familiar with the matter,
there is a common and, I think, a widespread impression among people
generally that Unitarianism is a new-fangled notion, a modern fad, a
belief held only by a few, who are one side of the main currents of
religious life and advance.

Even if it were new, even if it were confined to the modern world, this
would not necessarily be anything against it. The Copernican theory of
the universe is new, is modern. So are most of the great discoveries
that characterize and glorify the present age.

But in the case of Unitarianism this cannot be said. It is not new: it
is very old. And, before I come to discuss and outline a few of its
great principles, it seems to me well that we should get in our minds a
background of historic thought, that we may see a little what are the
sources and origins of this Unitarianism, and may understand why it is
that there is a new and modern birth of it in the modern world.

All races start very far away from any Monotheistic or Unitarian
belief. The Hebrews are no exception to that rule. The early part of
the Bible shows very plain traces of the fact that the Jews were
polytheists and nature-worshippers. If I should translate literally the
first verse of the Bible, it would read in this way: In the beginning
the Strong Ones created the heavens and the earth. "The word that we