SOME four years ago, I found myself becoming increasingly disenchanted with what I was hearing from the pulpit of my local Baptist church.

I had long felt that all religions had something good to offer and that no particular one was superior to any other.

The attitude - at that time at least - towards other faiths seemed to be downright dismissive and this troubled me so much that eventually I felt I had to leave.

Not long afterwards, I came upon a leaflet about the Unitarians. I was intrigued and impressed by what I read and, after some investigation, I discovered, to my surprise, that a town the size of Blackburn did not have a single Unitarian chapel.

The nearest one I found was the Nazareth Unitarian Chapel in Padiham - so off I went. Displayed prominently upon the notice board outside were three words: Freedom, Reason and Tolerance.

This was some three and a half years ago now and I have since become a member of the chapel and have learned more about these three words that impressed me so much at the time. Here I have found complete mental freedom in religion, rather than bondage to creeds and confessions, the unrestricted use of reason in religion rather than reliance upon external authority or past tradition and tolerance of other religious views and usages rather than insistence upon uniformity in doctrine, worship or policy.

I feel I have 'come home.'

So, if there are any others out there who feel they need spirituality, are fed up with dogma and want to think for themselves and would like to choose their own way towards personal growth and development without an imposed creed, then we at the chapel issue an open invitation to our events, all of which are broadly based on our principles of Freedom, Reason and Tolerance and include inter-faith events, services and visiting speakers, complementary therapies, yoga, T'ai Chi, mediation, art classes, drama, etc.

FRANK ARKWRIGHT, Lynwood Road, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.