trained, to be educated; and so we would as soon refuse to admit an
ignorant pupil to a school as to refuse to admit a person on account of
his belief to our church. We welcome all who wish to come and learn;
and if, after they have studied with us for a year, they do not then
accept all the points which some of us believe, and hold to be very
important, we do not turn them out even on that account.

Unitarians, then, do have a creed, only it is not fixed, it is not
final, and it is not the condition of religious fellowship.

Now I wish to give you some of the reasons, as they lie in my mind, for
the attitude which we hold in regard to this matter.

I do not believe in having a fixed and final statement of belief which
we are not at liberty to criticise or question or change. Why? Because
I love the truth, because I am anxious to find the truth, because I
wish to be perfectly free to seek for the truth.

Our first reason, then, is for the sake of the truth.

Now let me present this to you under three or four minor heads. The
universe is infinite, God is infinite, truth is infinite. If, then, on
the background of the infinite you draw a circle, no matter how large
it may be, no matter how wide its diameter, do you not see that you
necessarily shut out more than you shut in? Do you not see that you
limit the range of thought, set bounds to investigation, and that you
pledge yourselves beforehand that the larger part of truth, of God, of
the universe, you will never study, you will never investigate?

There is another point bearing on this matter. If a man pledges himself