"Fifty Notable Years" by John G. Adams. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
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John G. Adams. Fifty Notable Years
Fifty Notable Years
Table of Contents
PREFACE
LIST OF PORTRAITS
CHAPTER I. THE WORLD'S PROGRESS
CHAPTER II. CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM
CHAPTER III. UNIVERSALISM IN AMERICA
CHAPTER IV. EARLY ADVOCACY OF UNIVERSALISM IN AMERICA
CHAPTER V. GROWTH
CHAPTER VI. UNIVERSALISM.—UNITARIANISM.—RATIONALISM
CHAPTER VII. REFORM MOVEMENTS AND UNIVERSALISM
CHAPTER VIII. NEW ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.—UNIVERSALIST PROTEST
CHAPTER IX. REFORMATORY PROGRESS
Temperance
Peace
The Treatment of Criminals
Capital Punishment
The Position and Work of Woman
Other Questions
CHAPTER X. THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH AND ITS WOMEN
CHAPTER XI. SKETCHES OF MINISTERS
CHAPTER XII. SKETCHES OF MINISTERS—continued
CHAPTER XIII. SKETCHES OF MINISTERS—continued
CHAPTER XIV. SKETCHES OF MINISTERS—continued
CHAPTER XV. SKETCHES OF MINISTERS—continued
CHAPTER XVI. SKETCHES OF MINISTERS—continued
CHAPTER XVII. SKETCHES OF MINISTERS—continued
CHAPTER XVIII. SKETCHES OF MINISTERS—continued
CHAPTER XIX. SKETCHES OF MINISTERS.—continued
Living Ministers
The Birthplace of Hosea Ballou
CHAPTER XX. EDUCATIONAL AIDS
CHAPTER XXI. THE LAITY
CHAPTER XXII. THE PRESENT OUTLOOK
Отрывок из книги
John G. Adams
Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical Sketches
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UNIVERSALISM in America took its rise with the Republic. The coming of John Murray to our shores, and the proclamation of the gospel of universal grace, was but a little time previous to the issuing of the Declaration of Independence by the American colonies. These colonies had come to the full and bold utterance with which the Declaration opens: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Through ages of light and of darkness this sacred truth had had but little growth or power in the human mind. But it was there, and was not to die there. It lived through all the world's change, commotion, and revolution, and the set time had now come when it should have a clearer and stronger expression and demonstration than our old or new worlds had yet known. This declaration of our fathers signified the inestimable value of man—of every man—to himself, his fellow man, and his God. It asserts the doctrine of human equality, not that all men have the same intellectual or moral capacities, or should possess an equal amount of property, or be invested with the same political privileges; but the religious doctrine that all are of "one blood," children of one Father, protected by one Providence, made to aid, to bless and build each other up in truth, justice, and righteousness henceforth while the world stands. It signifies human equality and human rights in their broadest and most rational sense. As wrote Alexander Hamilton: "All men have one common origin, they participate in a common nature, and consequently have one common right. No reason can be assigned why one man should exercise any pre-eminence among his fellow creatures, unless they have voluntarily vested him with it." It was this conviction, based on a principle, that carried our fathers through the Revolution, and gave to us that Constitution which was afterwards the work of their hands.
The object of this Constitution is explicitly declared, "To form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." This signified not the growth and strengthening of a sentiment that would justify the building up of one class upon the subjugation of another. We have a statement of the whole truth in the emphatic language of Mr. Bancroft, as he speaks of the intent of the framers of the Declaration on which our Constitution is based. "The Declaration, avoiding specious and vague generalities, grounds itself with anxious care upon the past, and reconciles right and fact. The assertion of right was made for the entire world of mankind, and all coming generations, without any exceptions whatever; for the proposition which admits of exceptions can never be self-evident. And as it was put forth in the name of the ascendant people of that time, it was sure to make the circuit of the world, passing everywhere through the despotic countries of Europe; and the astonished nations, as they read that all men are created equal, started out of their lethargy, like those who have been exiles from childhood, when they suddenly hear the dimly remembered accents of their mother tongue."[8]
