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.378).During his ministerial training he spent several months atHeidelberg University, which furthered his expertise in German phi-losophy.His sharp intellect was also nurtured by a Jewish back-ground.He was ordained in Watertown, Massachusetts, on October25, 1843, where he was settled twice, 1843 47 and then 1862 69.During his first ministry in Watertown he was an outspoken advocateof antislavery opinions and even resigned once from his pastorateover these views, only to be convinced to return by his parishioners.In 1847 he was called to the church in New Bedford, Massachusetts,where he served for 11 years.When he returned to Watertown, he wasactive on the school committee and was one of the founders of thepublic library, being the first chairman of its founding board oftrustees.Weiss was one of the first religious thinkers whose views werepurely natural and scientific, but he had a difficult time making hisviews accessible to any but the most erudite and, thus, never achievedgreat success on the lecture circuit.He was one of a group of radicaltheists who rejected Christian traditions, calling himself a theistic WENDTE, CHARLES WILLIAM (1844 1931) " 509naturalist.This led him to membership in a conversation group calledThe Radical Club and eventually to being one of the founders of theFree Religious Association (FRA) in 1867.Despite his unorthodoxviews, Weiss retained his Unitarian affiliation and served as a direc-tor for the American Unitarian Association (AUA) when otherswere calling for complete withdrawal from the movement.Despitehis loyalty, Weiss felt there was a tendency in Unitarianism to be al-together too slow in adopting more liberal views.His biographerMinot Savage agreed with Weiss that the old radicals had been sacri-ficed so that their doctrines could be safely preached, The process ofkilling them off had opened the eyes and broadened the minds of thecommunity, and so I was enjoying a freedom which their martyrdomhad purchased (M.J.Savage in Eliot, Heralds, III, pp.378 79).During his life he published many volumes of theology and history,including a biography of Theodore Parker.Remembered for hisnervous energy and wit, his classmate Octavius Brooks Frothing-ham said of Weiss, This man was a flame of fire.He was genius, un-alloyed by terrestrial consideration; a spirit-lamp, always burning. WENDTE, CHARLES WILLIAM (1844 1931).An important fig-ure in the international organization of liberal religion.Wendte wasborn on June 11, 1844, in Boston, the son of German refugees.Af-ter his father died, when Charles was young, his mother supportedthe family by teaching German and running a boardinghouse.Theodore Parker was one of her students and became an importantinfluence on Wendte.Unfortunately, Wendte developed tuberculosisand was advised to head west.When he was 14 he moved to Cali-fornia and worked in a store and a bank.He fell under the influenceof Thomas Starr King, who became a minister in San Francisco in1860.During the war he served as a drill sergeant, as his health be-came completely restored.In 1866 Wendte went back east and be-gan to attend Meadville Theological School after discussions withHenry Whitney Bellows and Edward Everett Hale.His success atMeadville convinced officials at Harvard Divinity School to admithim even though he had no college education.He graduated in1869.He was ordained that same year at Fourth Unitarian Societyin Chicago, where the congregation grew and they built a newbuilding. 510 " WENDTE, CHARLES WILLIAM (1844 1931)In 1876 Wendte was invited to be minister at First Unitarian inCincinnati.During his ministry there, one of his parishioners, SallieEllis, began the American Unitarian Association (AUA) s Post Of-fice Mission sending out AUA tracts to persons in the West.AlthoughWendte had a successful ministry, ill health forced him to take a lessdemanding position in Newport, Rhode Island, at Channing Churchfrom 1882 to 1885.With his health restored Wendte was appointedsecretary for the AUA on the Pacific Coast.He then embarked on a12-year ministry of founding and organizing new congregations, in-cluding Salem, Oregon, and Spokane, Washington.He centered hislabors in Oakland, California, where he was the founder and ministerof the first church there.In 1886 he helped to reorganize the PacificCoast Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches.Thatsame year he married Abbie Louise Grant.The idea of establishing a training school for West Coast ministerssurfaced at a Pacific Coast Conference meeting in 1889, and Wendteserved on the committee to explore its formation, but nothing was or-ganized until 1904.Wendte returned to his AUA job, from which hehad resigned in 1889, in 1893 with a new title, superintendent of theAUA of the Pacific Coast, but then he resigned from the Oaklandchurch in 1895.In 1898 he served as supply minister in Los Angeles.In 1900 the International Council of Unitarian and Other Liberal Re-ligious Thinkers and Workers was organized in Boston at the time ofthe 75th anniversary of the AUA.Wendte was named executive sec-retary.International work became the great mission of his life, but hisdream of an international movement died with World War I.He trav-eled for part of every year, trying to extend the liberal message in Eu-rope.He helped support himself by serving churches near or inBoston (Newton Centre, Parker Memorial in Boston, and Brighton)and by being secretary for foreign relations of the AUA.He helpedorganize biennial congresses of the International Council.He also be-came involved as executive secretary of another group, National Fed-eration of Religious Liberals, which he helped organize.They pro-moted tolerance and freedom across denominational lines.Later itevolved into the Free Church Fellowship after Wendte had left itsleadership.After World War I he turned his attention elsewhere
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