From the address given by Horace Wadlin (noted architect, longtime member of our church) at the laying of the cornerstone for our building, September 9, 1923:

 

“Today in laying this material cornerstone we are not…beginning a new enterprise. We are indeed seeking to perpetuate and carry still farther what was done in the Reading of the [eighteen] thirties, when a few earnest souls found themselves no longer satisfied with the interpretation of the faith received from the fathers. They felt that the letter obscured the spirit–that the essential thing for them was not intellectual hair-splitting over phrases, but that same inner spirit which aloe gives phrases life and warmth; that church fellowship should not be restricted to those who believed or assented to certain doctrinal statements, but ought to be broad enough to encircle and enfold all of good will. That the pulpit ought to be open to all teachers who had a helpful word to speak about the divine message, and so they asked the old Church to receive and welcome all ministers who exemplified in character the teachings of the Master irrespective of differences in the interpretation of certain doctrinal creeds; and failing to receive an affirmative response to their request, they joined here to establish a Church founded upon conduct and character, rather than upon the binding acceptance of any cre[e]dal statements as a condition of Christian fellowship…–a Church which as they phrased it, aimed ‘to promote pure and evangelical principles of practical religion and morality.’

“These were our forebears. We are, by descent, their people…They simply held aloft a torch, beneath whose flickering light those in sympathy with them might gather. The light of the torch went down at last, burned dim, went out. But only for a moment. Again…it was re-lighted and raised aloft until, finally, it shone clear and white, and this time, under its light a material foundation stone was set [the cornerstone of the old building in Reading Square], and this we relay today in the block which we place in this building, a building which is to stand for us and for our descendants** as the Christian Union stood for us and for our predecessors.”   (**UUCR in 2023!)