By Janeen K. Grohsmeyer, in her book A Lamp in Every Corner: Our Unitarian Universalist Storybook (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association, 2004)....

As a child, Joseph Priestley noticed something that would influence the rest of his life: If you keep a bug in a jar for too long, it will die. At the time Joseph Priestley didn’t understand why that was true—nobody did. No one really studied the air; it was something everyone took for granted.

A century ago, when Lotta Hitschmanova was young, she lived with her sister Lilly and their mother and father in a spacious home in the ancient city of Prague....

From the collection Stream of Living Souls. Used with permission. "What do you want for Christmas?" the father asked his daughter. She wrinkled her nose and scrunched her eyes and thought. "Do you want a doll?" "No." "A tea set?" "No." "A pony?" "No, Daddy, I have to think....

Today we will hear about two girls from long ago, who both had the last name of Brown. As you hear the story, see if you can notice other things they had in common, besides a name. Let's go back in time together, about 200 years, to meet Antoinette Brown....

In a time not so long ago and in a place not so far away, there lived a boy named Arthur Lismer. Arthur always had a pencil in his pocket, because Arthur loved to draw. He drew clouds. He drew birds. He drew flowers. He drew many beautiful things. And he drew pictures of stones....

Janeen K. Grohsmeyer, adapted from the story, “Circles of Light: The Flaming Chalice." In the dark nights and the darker days of World War II, guns blazed all over Europe and airplanes dropped death from the sky. Many people tried to escape from the war. These people were called refugees. Some...

James Luther Adams, from "The Evolution of My Social Concern." Used with permission, Herbert F. Vetter, Harvard Square Library....

Excerpted from Worshipping Together with Questioning Minds, by Sophia Lyon Fahs. Copyright (C) 1965 by Sophia Lyon Fahs. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston. Two first-person anecdotes from Fahs' experiences as a religious educator, each followed by her analysis....

Based on multiple sources, particularly a letter from Margaret Fuller to Caroline Sturgis, October 22, 1840. The letter may be found at Houghton Library, Harvard University (call number MS Am 1221 (242))....

Adapted from multiple sources, primarily the Memoir of William Ellery Channing with Extracts from His Correspondents and Manuscripts, in Three Volumes, William Henry Channing, ed. (Boston: Wm. Crosby and H.P. Nichols, fifth edition, 1851)....

Charles Chauncy was the leading opponent of the Great Awakening, the Protestant evangelical movement that swept through the British North American colonies between 1739 and 1745. Chauncy was born into the elite Puritan merchant class that ruled Boston....

Originally published in Stirring the Nation's Heart: Eighteen Stories of Prophetic Unitarians and Universalists of the Nineteenth Century (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, 2010). In the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the year 1858, a young woman entered a...

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a leading 19th-century philosopher, father of the Transcendentalist movement. Before he became a philosophical and literary luminary, he was a Unitarian minister and served the Second Church in Boston between 1829 and 1832. In pursuing ministry, Ralph Waldo followed in the...

A covenant is not a contract, but rather a voluntary relationship. The idea of a covenant has biblical origins and traditionally includes the understanding that the relationship is sacred or blessed....

This is the story of Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister who was determined to do whatever he could to end slavery in the United States. His powerful sermons were legendary. This is also the story of Millard Fillmore, whose actions earned him the contempt of Theodore Parker and abolitionists...

Lydia Maria Child is not as famous now as she was when she lived— famous as a radical and reformer, a brilliant thinker and author, and a tireless advocate for oppressed members of society, specifically Native Americans, children, Africans and African Americans held in slavery, and women. Lydia...

Every religion has factions that disagree about "doctrine"—that is, the official beliefs of that religion. Even ours. Even though Unitarian Universalism is a free religion without a set doctrine or creed, there are plenty of ways to disagree about what it means to be a UU. One such disagreement...

At the opening of Unitarian Universalist worship services, many congregations light a flame inside a chalice. This flaming chalice has become a well-known symbol of our denomination. It unites our members in worship and symbolizes the spirit of our work. The flaming chalice combines two...

Interfaith cooperation was in evidence over a century ago, at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago (also known as the World's Fair) in 1893. The Fair was the world's first major theme park, offering the first Ferris wheel rides, and introducing popular treats such as Juicy Fruit(R) gum and...