The Unitarian point of view was promulgated through several periodicals: The Christian Examiner was established in 1813, The Christian Register in 1821, The Western Messenger (a periodical of Transcendental as well as Unitarian thought) in 1835.
Through the example of Dr. Channing, Unitarianism was associated with social reform. Channing spoke and wrote about the immorality of slavery, about the cause of peace, about temperance, labor issues, and public education. In this, as in his religious faith, he influenced the Transcendentalists of the following generation. He also devoted attention to literary subjects, foreshadowing the Transcendentalists in his sense of the urgency of creating a national literature.
Emerson and others among the Transcendentalists found much to admire in Channing's liberal Christianity. Channing's concept of "likeness to God" was incorporated into Transcendental philosophy as it evolved. But they could not accept Channing's sense of how to understand this likeness. Channing had declared in his "Unitarian Christianity" sermon:
It [likeness to God] has its foundation in the original and essential capacities of the mind. In proportion as these are unfolded by right and vigorous exertion, it is extended and brightened. In proportion as these lie dormant, it is obscured. In proportion as they are perverted and overpowered by the appetites and passions, it is blotted out.
The notion here set forth owed much to the rationalism of Enlightenment philosopher John Locke. But the Transcendentalists responded to other influences besides rational Unitarianism, in particular to Kant's theory of the intuitive, mysterious, spontaneous nature of knowledge.
