CHANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY, American Unitarian minister. Channing was born on April 7, 1780 in Newport, Rhode Island, of a distinguished family. He entered Harvard College in 1794, graduated in 1798, and was elected a regent of Harvard in 1801. He began his lifelong ministry at Boston's Federal Street Congregational Church in 1803. Channing defended the liberal Congregationalist ministers in 1815 against an attack in The Panoplist by Jedidiah Morse, who accused them of covertly holding the views of the English Unitarian Thomas Belsham, who held that Christ was strictly human in nature, with human imperfections. Channing replied that the liberals were Arians and hence believed that Christ's character included intellectual, ethical, and emotional perfection. Thrust into prominence by this defense, Channing was asked to prepare a manifesto for the liberals, which he did in "Unitarian Christianity," his 1819 ordination sermon for Jared Sparks in Baltimore. This sermon unified the liberals around Channing's...