John Adams - Fifty Notable Years

"2. To assume our appropriate position in relation to these reforms; to exert our legitimate influence in them; and to show in our actions the practical conclusion of Universalist premises, – that he who believes in God's universal Paternity and the Brotherhood of the race cannot in any way countenance War, Intemperance, Slavery, or Capital Punishment, but consistently opposes and strives to abolish them all.

"The time of holding the meeting, too, deserves consideration. It is on Anniversary Week, a week when almost every moral question now agitating the civilized world is represented and discussed in Boston. Hitherto we have sent out no such influence on this occasion as we believe we may exert if our power shall be concentrated and put in operation. We see not why our Reform meetings may not be among the most interesting of all now held during this well-known season." 27 27 This circular was signed by the sub-committee, Rev. J. G. Adams and Rev. E. H. Chapin.

And they were. They began successfully, and were steadily and profitably held, up to 1859, during years when these vital moral questions were more intensely considered and debated in New England and throughout our land than at any previous period. Very carefully prepared and able reports were year by year presented to the Association, and resolutions involving the merits of these reformatory topics freely and amicably discussed. Often in other meetings, conventions, associations, conferences, where ecclesiastical matters claimed the chief attention, the introduction of these reformatory subjects would cause uneasiness and elicit much fault-finding on the part of those opposed to the introduction of such agitative themes into these meetings of the church. But at the yearly assemblings of the Reform Association the largest liberty was taken by all who desired to express their opinions on these great questions of the day.

The first meeting was a success. It was held in the Second Universalist Church, School Street, on Thursday, May 27, 1847. Four addresses were given on these subjects, Peace, Criminal Reform, Temperance, and Human Freedom, and appropriate resolutions discussed and adopted. In connection with this session a social festival was held on Friday morning, and was an occasion of unusual enjoyment to all who took part in it. The historian, Richard Frothingham, Esq., presided, and made an admirable opening address. He was followed by others, among them Chapin, then of rising fame. Pretending to have in hand only "skirts and fragments of ideas," he magically forms them into completeness, and endues them with power. He speaks of Christianity and Reform: —

"Christianity has not changed or added anything to itself. But we find in it latent truths; we discern new meaning in old truths. His eye had rested that very morning upon the passage which Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.' What a profound meaning does this passage receive now, in the light of these stirring reforms! How does the truth open before us, vast and deep as the blue heaven over our heads! Christianity authorizes and animates these social movements. Its social spirit and its labors of love make us live more in a year than elsewhere in a lifetime. The early fathers of our faith began their labor in the early morning, when the light of the truth they announced just tinged the mountain-tops; and now, as they are about vanishing from our horizon, the full effulgence shines upon their gray hairs, and makes them a crown of glory!"

The venerable Ballou made the concluding speech. His words were modest, sweet, and patriarchal. From that ancient saying of Jesus, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened," he brought out fresh and comprehensive words inspired by the scenes of yesterday and to-day, and eloquently urged home the admonition to his denominational children around him, that they should seek to accomplish all their reformatory work in the spirit of Christian love. He concluded, and at the word of the president "The Brave Old Oak" was sung, and responded to by the applause of the audience.

From year to year, as these meetings occurred, there was a strong interest in them. They were meetings where freedom of speech was welcomed and enjoyed. The most searching inquiry was invited, and the pro et contra of every resolution offered was presented in all the earnestness in which the debaters deemed it their privilege to indulge. The resolutions at the first meetings of the Association indicate its Christian basis. They are expressive of "gratitude to God in view of the development of our faith in all the great reform movements of the time; that we recognize the Word of God, especially the New Testament scripture, as the basis of all genuine reform; that an age as prolific as is the present in schemes for the improvement of the race, including such variety, from the most reasonable to the most Utopian, demands of every Christian the most candid and prayerful discrimination, that all his endeavors may be wisely directed; that in these movements we discern the promise of a better time coming, and of the kingdom of God upon the earth; that as religious sentiment is the controlling element of man's life, therefore the only true reform is that which seeks to influence men through the medium of religious faith."

In discussing topics involving the morals of politics and the great interests of the American Republic, the members of all political parties were regarded as on equal ground. The minister in these meetings had no hesitancy in preaching the morals of politics as he understood them, whatever the opinions of his parishioners at home might be. The religion of Christianity was "mixed" with politics as the larger quantity, and wrong, as wrong, arraigned wherever it might be found in church or state, in social or individual habit or life. Our public servants in their high places were deemed subjects of note and animadversion, if their conduct seemed to call for it, in the spirit of the prayer offered by the elder Dr. Beecher in Faneuil Hall: "O Lord, preserve us from speaking evil of our public servants, and especially save them from such wrong conduct as may call for such speaking on our part!" A resolution passed at the first meeting of the Association states "that, while the early Christians were only subjects , American citizens are the constituents of civil government; and in all ages Christians are bound to act the Christian principles in all their relations."

During the anti-slavery excitement, when the hunters for fugitive slaves were desecrating the ground of New England, and members of Congress in their interests were repealing the Missouri Compromise, and many of the ministers of New England were bold enough to remonstrate with them for such action, these most emphatic resolutions were freely debated and unanimously adopted by the Association.

" Resolved , That the clergymen of New England, in their Protest against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, have pledged themselves anew to freedom and the laws of God; that this Association cordially approve the course of those who signed the Protest, or otherwise labored to prevent the desecration of that vast territory which had been consecrated by solemn compact to liberty forever; and we request those Christian ministers who refused to sign that Protest to review their position in regard to this subject.

" Resolved , That the men from the North, and especially from New England, who have voted for the iniquitous Nebraska Bill, have proved themselves traitors to the cause of freedom and to the most hallowed traditions of our fathers, and that their conduct deserves the united, unqualified, perpetual reprobation of all friends to human rights, which reprobation should be emphatically expressed at the ballot-box."