Description
The First Unitarian Society, Minneapolis, Published 1927. Hardcover, 276 pp.; 20 cm; First Edition (no other printings recorded); printed by The Pioneer Printers, Minneapolis.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
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Condition & notes
In Acceptable condition, no dust jacket. Green cloth boards with gold lettering on the spine; the gold remains legible but has rubbed. Boards show moderate shelf wear with nicking and fraying to the cloth at the corner tips and at the head and tail of the spine, some color loss along the edges, and scattered soil marks across both boards. A thin crack runs along the front hinge but the binding is otherwise solid. The front free endpaper has been torn out so that the title page is the first leaf; a previous owner's name appears in ink at the top of the title page. Pages toned but otherwise unmarked. A solid reading copy.Twelve sermons from John H. Dietrich (1878-1957), then minister of the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis (1916-1936) and widely regarded as one of the principal founders of American religious humanism. The biographical addresses (Darwin, Wallace, Spencer, Huxley, Haeckel, Fiske) were delivered as a series on alternate Sunday mornings in the autumn of 1926; the topical addresses on evolution and religion, Christianity, and progress were delivered at other times in the preceding years. Dietrich's January 1927 foreword situates the project explicitly as a response to "these days of dreadful reaction against scientific knowledge and intelligent research" (that is, to the post-Scopes anti-evolution movement).Contents: I. Forefathers of Evolution; II. Charles Darwin; III. Alfred Russell Wallace; IV. Herbert Spencer; V. Thomas Henry Huxley; VI. Ernst Haeckel; VII. John Fiske; VIII. The Story of Evolution; IX. The Proofs of Evolution; X. Evolution and the Supernatural; XI. Evolution and Christianity; XII. Evolution and Progress.