History of the First Universalist Church in Somerville, Mass. Illustrated; a souvenir of the fiftieth anniversary celebrated February 15-21, 1904

And thus it teaches that at last all, all is for immortality—immortality, the most daring and blessed faith of the soul. The crown and glory of our Universalist faith is that ‘no work begun shall ever pause for death,’ that, indeed, ‘there is no death,’ that this sojourn here is but a first step in a great career, the glories of which ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived.’

Our Methods.—We commend our financial policy to the careful consideration of all reasonable men. We believe it to be nearly ideal—businesslike, modern, and thoroughly Christian. Our worship is supported by voluntary contributions. No price is placed upon any seat or sitting. No fixed tax is asked of any man, each pledging the amount per week that he feels he can afford, and is given his choice of any unoccupied seat. We have no chief seats, and we are not forever calling for money. No one but the treasurer knows what any contributor gives, and a man paying five cents a Sunday may be alongside of him who gives $5 every week.

There is welcome in this method. The smallest wage-earner is as cordially received as is he who counts his fortune by the tens of thousands. Our annual expenses are in the vicinity of $5,000.

Our Needs, and Yours.—We need men as well as women, and we believe that men need the church. The well-known witticism of the Hebrew trader, who, speaking of another, said that if he had any religion, ‘it was in his wife's name,’ applies to many men, both Jew and Christian. And, as an editorial writer in the Boston Herald pointed out some years ago, it is vastly better to have religion in your wife's name than not to have it at all. He tells us that ‘If the wife is uplifted and beautified by her faith, if it enables her to diffuse sweetness and light through the house, the husband is gaining the greatest blessings from hiring a pew he never condescends ’