Rev. Dr. Gerhard Uhlhorn, of Germany, in his able work, "The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism," speaking of the early development of Christianity in the Roman Empire, calls it the first step to its universalism. "Itself passing out from the ancient narrowness into a world-wide breadth of thought and life, the old world became capable of accepting the Universalism of Christianity."[4] The old world and the new have yet many steps forward to take in this pathway of a continually increasing brightness.
[1] Oration of Governor Long before the municipal authorities and citizens of Boston, July 4, 1882.
"Universalism is a living movement, organized out of the grandest ideas and spiritual facts of the universe; gathering into itself the richest and mightiest moral forces, and working towards the most positive practical ends; and a man is a Universalist, and is the better off for being a Universalist, only as some sense of what Universalism thus is, and of the force of its motives, and the reality of its work, flows down, a quickening power, into his being."--E. G. BROOKS, D. D.
The name _Universalism_, as connected with Christianity, has been especially notable during the present century. But the principles which it implies were averred by the Christian church in its earliest days. It signifies God's unchanging paternal interest in all his children; an interest insuring his just dealing with them for their obedience or disobedience of his beneficent laws, and their final release from sin, and life in righteousness. Under its present name, Universalism is comparatively recent; its special church history being comprehended in something more than a century. But its principles and doctrines are as old as the Christian records, and are found in the Old Testament teachings. Just as all the sects in Christendom, though belonging to modern times, profess to trace whatever they may deem essential back to the Apostles, so believers in Universalism make the same reference, as one of their number has well stated it: "If we have no business here because we came so late, our neighbors must fall under the same condemnation. In mere assumption we are neither younger nor older than they."