Lay Leader Taft

The Unitarians are completing a magnificent edifice on the heights at Sixteenth St., Washington, which is already crowded with churches and embassy buildings. But this Church will be unique in having its pulpit frequently filled by no less a person than William Howard Taft.

Mr. Taft is known as one who has filled the highest executive position in our country, and as one who is now holding the highest judicial position. It is not so widely known that he is the acknowledged leader of the Laymen's Association of the Unitarian Church of America and that he is devoting a large share of his time and talents to Christian leadership. He is even more in the Unitarian Church than Mr. Bryan is in the Presbyterian Church; these two are certainly the outstanding lay-churchmen of the country.

Unitarians hold Jesus Christ to be a mere man, but in their devotion to Him place Him on such a high piano that it is hard to distinguish between them and some Trinitarians, who, while contending that He is a unique part of a triune God, emphasize His manhood rather than His deity.

Historically, American Unitarianism rose in protest against the extreme Calvinism of the Massachusetts theologians. Rhode Island was settled by Baptists; Connecticut, by Thomas Hooker -" liberal" in his theology (1637). For over one hundred years the liberal and the conservative Calvinists remained in the Congregational churches of New England. In 1800, however, in historic old Plymouth, the Unitarians formed a congregation of their own. In 1819. William Ellery Channing set up five points of Unitarianism vs. the five major emphases of Calvinism, and the splitting up of congregations was rapid.

As the most liberal Church in America, Unitarianism has had an influence out of all proportion to its numbers (100,000). It is very weak in missionary endeavor. Some Trinitarians claim that its only missionary to India was converted to Hinduism. " That," Unitarians reply, " showed how broad-minded he was!"

Besides Mr. Taft, famed Unitarians include Garrison, Phillips, Sumner, Eliot, Hawthorne, Lowell, Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson.