Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Feb 15, 1906

THE church-federation idea is spreading rapidly. The churches left out of the great gathering in New York City in November last, have determined upon a federation of their own, and there will be two inter-church conferences in the year 1908, representing the Unitarian as well as the Trinitarian beliefs. The Unitarian conference will include the Universalists and some other “liberal” bodies, and will be a world conference. A press telegram from New York says:—

British Unitarians are taking a foremost place in the plans for the American meeting, and are raising a special fund to be applied on expenses. They expect to send fully two hundred delegates to Boston. A number of delegates will come from France, and one of them is likely to be Pastor Charles Wagner, famed as the author of “The Simple Life.” There will be a large German delegation, including Harnack, whose theological writings have made him famous. Other foreign countries to be represented by delegates are Hungary, where Unitarianism was born in the sixteenth century, and where it now flourishes with an episcopal form of government; Switzerland, where the liberal churches are strong; Holland, which has a number of scattered congregations; and Japan. Rev. Charles W. Wendte, one of the Unitarian secretaries, has been appointed to promote the interest of the coming meeting, to which fully five hundred delegates are expected.

Every religious body which does not depend for power upon union with God alone, will naturally be led to seek power by this plan of a religious confederacy.