Fellowship

Benjamin Fay Mills_{( 1857-1916 ).} The story of Reverend Benjamin Fay Mills is to a great extent the story of liberal protestantism in the post-Civil War period. He was successively an advocate of revivalism, the social gospel, Unitarianism and free religion. Beginning his ministry in the orthodox Congregational Church, he turned full circle and ended as a revivalist in the Presbyterian denomination.

Mills was a nationally known evangelist,
the son of a well-known Presbyterian minister, and himself a Congregationalist from his ordination in 1878 until 1898, when he became a Unitarian in Boston. From the 1890s, and even earlier, Mills had made love the center of his Christian gospel. Loving one's neighbor, having sympathy for one's fellow, and extending the gospel of love in the unhappy or impoverished corners of society were recurring themes. His California sermons were no exceptions. When Mills preached on loving one's neighbor, he argued not from biblical commandment or social necessity but from metaphysics:

The inner reason why a man should love his neighbor as himself, is because his neighbor is himself. In the largest sense, all that can possibly touch our lives . . . is a constituent part of our greater selves. . . . All the enemies you can recognize are a part of you. . . . You are both a part of the manifest God and neither one can be complete without the other. He is appropriate to your present state of development.

He was born in Rahway, N.J., June 4, 1857.
Evangelical Minister, 1878-1897.
Liberal Minister, lecturer, writer and social reformer, 1897.
Founded The Fellowship, representing "Religion Without Superstition," 1904.
Lived in California 1875-6, 1899
Author: God's World. The Divine Adventure. Twentieth Century Religion. The New Revelation. Editor Fellowship Magazine.

Victory through surrender; a message concerning consecrated living (1892)

The object of this little book is to endeavor to point out, in the briefest and simplest possible manner, by the suggestions of Scripture and observation and experience, the method appointed by God, by which we may enter such a " highway of holiness," and continue therein.

The Divine Adventure(1905)

California Birthdays, an anthology of quotes and poems(1909)

The Way Of Life(1895), “AS THEY WENT” By B. FAY. MILLS. Page 69

Power from on high (1890)

DO WE NEED IT?
WHAT IS IT?
CAN WE GET IT?
An address delivered at the Ninth International Christian Endeavor Convention.

Prior to 1907, W. K. Jones was a leading pioneer in making the New Thought known in Portland, Oregon. In 1907, Benj. Fay Mills held a series of meetings and classes on Emerson, Whitman, and the Bhagavad Gita. From these classes there followed a society known as the Fellowship Society of Portland, Oregon, with the late Clara Bewick Colby as president. There was also a council of five appointed, Dr. J. J. Story, Perry Joseph Green, Mrs. O. N. Denny, Dr. Mary Thompson, and T. O. Hague, with Florence A. Sullenberg, secretary. Tuesday evenings were set apart for the study of Emerson's Essays, and out of these groups came the present Emerson Study Circle, which meets at the Metaphysical Library. Other centres developed from the Fellowship Society and adopted the name New Thought. Chapter 11 - OTHER ORGANIZATIONS-A History of the New Thought Movement by Horatio W. Dresser 1919

The Desert News
Feb. 14, 1908

The New York Times
May 2, 1916