Image of the Month for November 2006

The First Independent Christian Church of Baltimore, Maryland, was built in 1817 from a design by Maximilien Godefroy. Here on May 5, 1819, William Ellery Channing delivered his famous sermon, published as Unitarian Christianity, at the ordination of Jared Sparks, which laid out the theological views of the emerging Unitarian movement.

For more information, see: Rebecca Funk, A Heritage to Hold in Fee, 1817-1917. Baltimore: Garamond Press, 1962. The library's collection of the papers of Channing includes drafts of the sermon (bMS 100/1). [Photo: bMS 15001/1]

For information on obtaining a copy of this image or using it for publication, see the library's Digital Reproduction Policy.

To see past images of the month, visit the images of people and images of congregations pages.

These images, often buried deep in our collections, are selected by Clifford Wunderlich; please address corrections to him.