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 UNITAS

156

UNITED

acknowledged leader of the denomination. Under his auspices the American Unitarian Association was founded at Boston in 1825 for the promotion of Uni- tarian interests.

After his death the radical element became predom- inant under the direction of Theodore Parker (1810- 60), who succeeded him in influence. The authority of the Bible acknowledged by the old school was, under Parker, largely sacrificed to the principles of a destructive criticism, and Unitarianism drifted rapidly into RationaUstic speculation. The activity of Chan- ning and Parker was supplemented by the more general and far-reaching influence of the Unitarian poet -philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82). Although he resigned his charge of the Second Con- gregational Church at Boston after a short period (1829-32), he continued to preach for many years and his popularity as a writer and lecturer could but lend additional prestige to the advanced religious views which he defended. The interests of the Unitarian propaganda were also served by the foundation of the Western Conference of Unitarians in 18.52 and that of the National Unitarian Conference in 1865. Of a more universal character was the International Council of Unitarians and other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers, which was organized at Bos- ton in 1900. It has held sessions in London (1901), Amsterdam (1903), Geneva (1905), Boston (1907), and Berlin (1910). At the last -mentioned convention the official title was changed to International Congress of Free Christians and Other Religious Liberals. The purpose remains the same, namely: "to open com- munication with those in all lands who are striving to unite pure religion and perfect liberty and to increase fellowship and co-operation among them."

III. Propaoand.\; Educational Institutions; Statistics. — The Unitarian body sent a missionary to India in 1855, and since 1887 has carried on an active propaganda in Japan; however, its missionary efforts in foreign lands, viewed in the aggregate, have not been considerable. In accordance with it s general indifferent attitude towards dogma, it endeavours to advance the cause of Christianity without emphasiz- ing its own specific tenets, and its members have in the past liberally contributed to the missionary funds of other denominations. Their efforts, moreover, are more concerned with the dissemination of literature among civiUzed nations than with the sending of missionaries to non-Christian lands. This method of gaining adherents has proved successful, partly owing to the Liberal, Rationalistic, and excessively individ- uaUstic tendency of the present age, but largely also to the number of eminent men and capable writers who have adhered to or defended Unitarian doctrines. Financial resources for propagandist purposes were provided for by the rich Jamaica planter, Robert Hibbert (1770-1849), through the creation of the fund which bears his name. Out of it grew the well-known Hibbert Lectures, and the more recent "Hibbert Journal". An organization unique in its character is the Post Office Rlission which, by means of corre- spondence and the distribution of books and periodi- cals, seeks to bring courage to the despondent and joy to the suffering.

The Church has made no determined effort to organize benevolent institutions of its own. A proj- ect is on foot to erect at, Washington, in connexion with the contemplated national church of the Uni- tarian body, the Edward Isvcrett Hale parish-house. This establishment, named after the late Unitarian chaplain of the United St;Ues Senate, is to be the headquarters of the pliilanthropic work of the denomination. A considerable number of the Uni- tarian ministrj; (to which women are admitted) receive their training in the educational institutions of other sects. The Church, however, maintains the following special .schools for this purpose: in Hungary,

the Unitarian College at Kolozsvar; in England and Wales, the Unitarian Home Missionary College at Manchester; the Manchester College at Oxford; the Presbyterian College at Carmarthen; in America, the Harvard Divinity School at Cambridge, Massachu- setts; the MeadviUe Theological School at Meadville, Pennsylvania; and the recently established Pacific Unitarian School at Berkeley, CaUfornia. In the United States the denomination maintains, beside these training-schools for the ministry, seven acade- mies situated, with but one exception, in the New- England States. The number of persons holding Unitarian views cannot be determined, even approxi- mately; for many undoubtedly reject the doctrine of the Three Divine Persons and retain the belief in a uni-personal Godhead without ever affihating with the Church. Among these must be reckoned not only a large number of Liberal theologians and advanced critics, but also some religious denominations which, either in their entirety, as the Hicksite Friends, or at least in many of their members, as the Universalists, are distinctlj' anti-Trinitarian. According to the "Unitarian Year-Book" (Boston, 1911) there are nearly 80,000 LTnitarians in Hungary. Great Britain has 374 places of worship, 29.5 if which are in England, 38 in Ireland, 34 in Wales, and 7 in Scotland. In the United States the Unitarian body numbers, accord- ing to Dr. H. K. Carroll ("Christian Advocate," New York, 25 Jan., 1912), 533 ministers, 492 churches, and 70,.542 communicants.

I. — On doctrine consult Martineau, Channing, and other Unitarian writers mentioned above; Hedge, Reason in Religion (Boston, 1SG5); Clarke. Essetitials and Non-Essentials in Relig- ion (Boston, 1878); Idem, Manual of Unitarian Belief (Boston, 1884); Allen, Our Liberal Movement in Theology (Boston, 1882); Emerton, Unitarian Thought (New York, 1911). II A. — Bonet- Matjry, tr. Hall, Early i:^ources of English Unitarian Chris- tianity (London, 1884). B. — Allen, Hist, of the Unitarians in the United States in Am. Church Hist. Series, X, 1-249; Cooke, Unitarianism in America; Hist, of its Origin and Development (Boston, 1902). For a Catliolic point of view, see Kohlmann, Uni- tarianism, theologically and philosophically considered (Washing- ton. 1821); Hitchcock, Religion of Unitarianism in Martindale, Hist, of Religions, IV (St. Louis, 1910) ; Idem, Present Stale of Uni- tarianism in Irish Theol. Quart. IV (Dublin, 1909), 158-80.

N. A. Weber. Unitas Fratrum. See Bohemian Brethren.

United States of America, The. — Boundaries AND Area. — On the east the boundary is formed by the St. Croix River and an arbitrary line to the St. John, and on the north by the Aroostook High- lands, the 45th parallel of N. lat., the St. Lawrence, and the Great Lakes. West of Lake Superior, the Rainy River, Rainy Lake, and the Lake of the Woods form the boundary; thence to Puget Sound the 49th parallel. Thereafter it drops down to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, leaving Vancouver Island to the Dominion of Canada. The Atlantic Ocean washes the entire eastern shore. On the south the Gulf of Mexico serves as the boundary to the mouth of the Rio Grande del Norte. That river separates the United States from the Repubhc of Mexico until at the city of El Paso it turns northward; from that point to the Colorado River an arbitrary line marks the boundary of the two republics. The Pacific Ocean forms the western boundary. The total area is 3,026,789 sq. miles. The United States is divided into two unequal parts by the Mississippi River, which flows almost directly south from its source in a lake below the 49th parallel. The portion east of that great river is subdivided into two parts by the Ohio and the Potomac Rivers. The section west of the Mississippi is divided into two very unequal parts by the Missouri River.

In a physiographic view, however, the area of the United States may be divided into the Appalachian belt, the Cordilleras, and the central plains. The first of these divisions includes the middle Appa- lachian region, or that between the Hudson and the James Rivers; the north-eastern .\i)palachian region.