MY PARTING MESSAGE TO THE UNITARIAN SCHOOL.


During my third year at the Meadville Unitarian Theological School,
after I became thoroughly convinced that the Unitarian position was
untenable, and I had found my way back to Christ, it so happened that
it was my turn to read a paper and to preach to the school, as the
members of the higher classes preached before the school in turn. In
these parting messages I frankly and sincerely presented my change of
viewpoint, and argued against the Unitarian position as strongly as I
could at the time. The school is open, on equal terms, to anybody
wishing to study for the ministry, no matter what their views, or
what religious body they belong to. Everybody is supposed to be
perfectly free to hold and express his honest religious opinions. In
the spirit of this generosity, I patiently listened to all the school
could offer me in presenting what it believed to be the truth, and
gratefully accepted every help it could give me in my search for the
truth. I felt I was acting in entire harmony with the spirit of the
founders of the institution when I used the knowledge and culture
imparted to me in kindly contending for the truth as I saw it, even
when it was against the truth as held by the teachers of the school.

Most of my sermon on "The Proper Method of Inquiry in Religion" has
been lost or mislaid. But I have the paper read before the school,
and the last part of the sermon. I give these here because it shows
how the matter looked to me at that time, and how I treated it in the
presence of the keen, intellectual audience of students and
professors.