Note 2 — Chapter XV · The Pauline Dehumanization of Jesus.
Reading edition
About 1832 the Rev. Ralph Waldo Emerson notified his congregation in Boston (Unitarian) that he could no longer administer the “Lord’s Supper,” and near the same time the Rev. W. J. Fox took the same course at South Place Chapel, London. The Boston congregation clung to the sacrament, and gave up their minister to mankind. The London congregation gave up the sacrament, and there was substituted for it the famous South Place Banquet, which was attended by such men as Leigh Hunt, Mill, Thomas Campbell, Jerrold, and such women as Harriet Martineau, Eliza Flower, Sarah Flower Adams (who wrote “Nearer, My God, To Thee”). The speeches and talk at this banquet were of the highest character, and the festival was no doubt nearer in spirit to the supper of Jesus and his friends than any sacrament.