A HISTORY OF UNITARIANISM - Starr King School for the Ministry

times far more concerned with the underlying spirit of Christianity in its
application to the situations of practical life than with intellectual formulations
of Christian thought.
Yet though not intending to treat of this movement in any narrow or
sectarian spirit, I do not undertake here to present a history of liberal Christian
tendencies in general, tracing their manifestation in the various confessions or
denominations, Protestant or Catholic. That would be a task quite too broad and
ill-defined. I must content myself with the more modest attempt to follow them
in the narrower stream, flowing in a channel largely separate from the others, in
which the distinctive characteristics of which I have just spoken have therefore
been more fully and clearly developed.
This movement may be said to have some peculiar claims upon our
interest. It has been carried on by bold and adventurous spirits that have
habitually insisted upon being free and independent. Setting small store by
traditions of past ages or the codified opinions of past generations, they have in
the field of religion tended to seek out new truth or new interpretations of old
truths. The interest that their story invites may be compared with that with
which we follow those explorers of a New World who, dauntless and unafraid,
left all familiar headlands behind them and made for the open sea and the ever-
receding horizon. In such a quest for new, worlds, even in the sphere of
thought, there is bound to be, much of dramatic interest. This history, in so far
as it deals with leading personalities, will have to do with some of the bravest,
boldest and most heroic pioneers of religious thought. Perhaps no other extant.
movement in the Christian Church has had a larger proportion of martyrs and
confessors. Until near the beginning of the eighteenth century men suffered
imprisonment or death for this faith, and civil disabilities attended it until