ABSTRACT
Unitarianism held that God is one person while Trinitarians held that God was one in three mutually indwelling persons. Another early teaching was that a merciful God would not condemn anyone to eternal damnation, a view termed “universalist.” In the sixteenth century, unitarian ideas were part of a growing dissent. In 1791, scientist and Unitarian minister Joseph Priestley had his laboratory burned and was “hounded” out of England. He subsequently moved to the United States where he established Unitarian churches in the Philadelphia area. By the mid-1700s, though, a group of evangelicals were calling for the revival of Puritan orthodoxy. Universalism was a more evangelical faith than Unitarianism. After officially organizing in 1793, the Universalists spread their faith across the eastern United States and Canada. Unitarians such as Dorothea Dix fought to “break the chains” of people incarcerated in mental hospitals, and Samuel Gridley Howe started schools for the blind.
