Some of you may have heard the following excerpt from our church records from the year 1878:

“Our Partialist friends in the surrounding country, becoming much disturbed and alarmed at the spiritual condition of their ‘awful neighbors’ in the Valley, occasionally send a ‘screaming Moses’ to warn us of the wrath to come.”

I had never heard the term “Partialist” before I heard that quote some years ago. I thought it was an amusing name for non-Universalist Christians, and I assumed that the term had been coined by one of our Sheshequin ancestors. I have since learned that “Partialist” is what Universalists everywhere called orthodox Christians in the early 1800’s.

The term “Partialist” referred to the orthodox Christians’ belief that only a select few people would go to heaven after they died, and that everyone else would burn in hell forever – what the Universalists called “the doctrine of endless misery.” Universalists often talked about “God’s impartial grace” as a foundation of their own faith. They believed that God would not condemn any of his children to eternal suffering.

During the early 1800’s, there were many revival meetings in New York and Pennsylvania. Revivals, which usually lasted from a few days to a few weeks, featured the orthodox “hell fire and damnation” preaching. According to the Universalist periodicals of the day, some individuals who had attended a revival apparently became so despondent about their fate that they committed suicide. The Rev. George Sanderson, a Universalist and son-in-law of Sheshequin stalwart Joseph Kingsbury, even compiled a pamphlet detailing 156 cases of suicide or insanity caused by hearing the doctrine of endless misery. The book, entitled “Mirror of Partialism,” was published in 1837.

Universalists – including the gentle poet of Sheshequin, Julia Kinney Scott – roundly condemned the preaching of the revivalists – not just because they didn’t agree on points of doctrine.  Universalists believed that it was cruel to tell people that they were damned for eternity.

One Universalist minister wrote that his denomination didn’t send missionaries to foreign countries because there was too much work to do at home. The Universalists’ mission was to bring the life-saving message of God’s love to their Partialist neighbors.