CHAPTER XIX.

SKETCHES OF MINISTERS.--_continued._

"Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ."--2 COR. v. 20.

Rev. Rufus Spur Pope, pastor of the First Universalist Society in Hyannis,

Mass., died in that place June 5, 1882. He was born in Stoughton,

Mass., April 2, 1809. His father removed from Stoughton to Dorchester,

and thence to Marlboro, where the son spent his youthful days in

agricultural pursuits. He received his education in the common schools

and in the Marlboro Academy. While young he was drawn toward the

ministry, and his love for it continued to the end. He spent some time

in theological studies with the late Rev. Sylvanus Cobb, D. D., in

Malden; and in 1833 preached his first sermon, in South Dedham.

Besides his settlement in this place, he had pastorates in Milford,

Sterling, and Hardwick, covering a period of ten years. In 1843 the

society in Hyannis invited him to be their pastor. Accepting the call,

he labored in this place faithfully thirty years. After closing his

work here, he ministered to the church in Orleans three years, and

briefly supplied some other parishes. His health has been gradually

failing for some years.

Mr. Pope was a public man in more than one sense. He served Barnstable

for years very faithfully and acceptably as one of its school

committee, and was for two years representative from the town in the

State Legislature. He filled for some time the office of Register of

Probate for Barnstable County, and was for several years postmaster of

Hyannis. He was an active and much respected member of the Masonic

fraternity.

Rev. WILLIAM M. DE LONG was born in Pittsfield, Otsego County, N. Y.,

Sept. 2, 1815, and died in Binghampton, N. Y., Oct. 30, 1877, aged

sixty-two years. He was the youngest of a family of five brothers and

nine sisters. When he was nine years old the family moved to Hastings,

Oswego County. His mother became entirely blind by an inflammation in

her eyes, and by reason of afflictions, of hard times and many

children to provide for, the family was reduced to abject poverty. The

father died soon after removing to Hastings, and the family was broken

and scattered. The mother moved to Clark's Mills, near Utica, where

she died in 1830, when William was fifteen years old. He lived a year

in Sanquoit, with a friend of the family, and while there heard Rev.

W. Bullard and Rev. Dolphus Skinner preach a few Universalist sermons,

in which young De Long became deeply interested, as well as in reading

the "Magazine and Advocate," and for this reason was dismissed from

the machine-shop at Unadilla Forks by its proprietor, a Mr. Abel

Stillman, who, however, reconsidered his unreasonable conduct, and

reinstated Mr. De Long, who worked there long enough to acquire the

money to pay for a year's tuition at Hartwick Seminary. He afterwards

attended the New Berlin Academy. His faith in Universalism grew with

his increased facilities for study, and in August, 1835, he preached

his first sermon. He was ordained July 20, 1837, and preached under

different engagements at Lebanon, Oran, and Binghampton, in New York.

In 1841 he joined Rev. George Rogers in a missionary tour through Ohio

and Indiana. For many years he itinerated over a large circuit in New

York and Pennsylvania. He was twice married, first to Miss Mary Ann

Ashcroft, who died in 1870, and in 1871 to Miss Mary Jane Swart, an

acceptable preacher of the Universalist faith, who survives him. There

is a good account of her in "Our Woman Workers," by Mrs. Hanson.

In 1873 Mr. De Long began to suffer from a paralytic affection, from

which he could get no relief. These sentences, written and signed by

him a short time before he had lost the power of guiding his pen, show

the strength of his faith: "I know that God is, that my Redeemer

liveth, and that we have a house not made with hands, eternal in the

heavens. This is the source of my consolation."

Rev. W. B. LINNELL was born in Birmingham, England, in 1804, and died

in Indianapolis, Ind., Sept. 6, 1868. His first settlement in the

ministry was in Springboro, Ohio, in 1844, where he continued for

seven years. He afterwards had a settlement in Fairfield, Ind.; Mt.

Pleasant, Ia.; and Oquawka, in which last place he remained until the

breaking out of the war. He then enlisted in the service of his

adopted country as chaplain of the 10th Illinois regiment. Health

failed him, and he returned to his home, after enduring the hardships

of camp life for nearly a year. After recovering his health, he took

charge of the church in Vevay, Ind. He was one of the pioneers of

Universalism in the West, and did good service as a Christian

minister. Having much of the missionary spirit, his appointments were

always numerous, and they were made many weeks ahead. As a preacher,

though not particularly brilliant, he was always efficient. He

inherited the traditional shrewdness and humor of the Yorkshire

people, who were his ancestors, in such a degree as to make him a

marked character among his brother ministers. He was kind and

tender-hearted to a fault, yet his will was unbending, and when his

mind was once made up it was difficult to change him.

Rev. JOSHUA BRITTON came from Westmoreland, N. H., where he was born

Aug. 14, 1803. His early life was spent upon a farm, where he had but

limited opportunities for attending school. But he diligently improved

those that offered, and at the age of eighteen began a successful

career as a teacher, which extended over ten years, pursuing his

studies at the same time, and still adding to his stores of knowledge.

He had from youth a serious and devout mind, and was always a regular

attendant on public worship. He was inclined to the faith of the

Presbyterian Church until about the age of twenty-three, when he had

opportunities for hearing the doctrines of Universalism advocated and

defended by the late Rev. Dolphus Skinner, and others. He became

deeply interested, and his intelligent mind eagerly drank in the new

views presented. His faith grew stronger with the lapse of time, and

he finally resolved to enter the ministry. He preached his first

sermon in 1831, and was ordained at Burlington Flats, N. Y., June 6,

1832. He was settled over parishes in the State of New York till 1839,

when he was in Chesterfield, N. H., for a year. He spent the next ten

years in Dudley and North Chatham, Mass.; then three years in Stoddard

and Richmond, N. H. He removed to Vermont in 1853, and preached in

Brattleboro, West Concord, Lyndon, and Bradford for the next fifteen

years, when he went to Fort Atkinson, Wis., which was his home for the

remainder of his life. He was a faithful and excellent pastor; he had

a mild and loving heart, and won many friends. If not one of the

greatest ministers intellectually, he was one of the best spiritually,

and his life was a pure and useful one. He died at Fort Atkinson,

Wis., Oct. 30, 1878.

An instance illustrative of the orderly habits of the man was, years

ago, related to the writer. The books in his library were always

exactly in their places, and the backs of them in a straight line. At

one time an exchange minister, who had the free use of the library

during a Sunday's tarrying, had failed to replace the volumes he had

taken down according to the rules of the proprietor. When Mr. Britton

entered the study on his return home, while his brother was yet there,

the first kindly salutations were scarcely over when the projecting

volumes were all noted and quickly adjusted by their owner. A singular

and timely suggestion.

Rev. GEORGE MESSENGER was originally from Berkshire, Mass., removing

from thence to the State of New York, and afterwards, in 1838, to

Springfield, Ohio, where he ever after lived, a widely known and

highly respected citizen. He was licensed as a preacher at Madison,

N. Y., in 1824, and ordained, at Eatonsbush, N. Y., Oct. 12, 1826. He

was an itinerant preacher, and much interested in the prosperity of

the church where he resided. As one of the trustees of Buchtel

College, he gave much of his time and attention to the supervision of

the erection of the college building. For the last few months of his

life he was very hard at work at Akron, and while thus engaged

contracted a sickness which terminated in death. "It may be said of

him," wrote the editor of "The Star in the West," "that he died a

martyr to the work which had enlisted his sympathies, namely,

establishing Buchtel College on a permanent basis. He subscribed

largely and liberally to the fund for its erection, and was an

unceasing worker in its behalf. His widow, since his death, has been a

substantial helper to the institution. She endowed the chair of Mental

and Moral Philosophy, in memory of her husband, to the amount of

$25,000; and has also contributed largely to the expenses of the

institution, and given again and again for various special

purposes."[49]

Rev. JOHN TEMPLE GOODRICH, of Middlefield, Otsego County, N. Y., born

in 1815, studied theology with Rev. Stephen R. Smith. In 1836, when

less than twenty-one years of age, he was settled as a preacher in

Oxford, Chenango County, N. Y., where he remained about twelve years.

In 1850 he was called to the pastorate of the Universalist Church at

Canton, N. Y., where he remained for five years, doing good work there

and in neighboring places. An affection of his throat induced him to

accept a call to Reading, Pa., where he labored two years, and where

his influence was strong and extended as it had been elsewhere. After

this he was persuaded to return to Canton, and take the agency of the

new Theological School and College projected at that place, and served

in that capacity for five years, successfully, preaching in the mean

time in Canton and elsewhere. It was largely through his efforts that

the New York Legislature appropriated $25,000 to the Canton schools.

Released from this work, he became pastor of the Eighth Street Church,

Philadelphia, where he remained four years, when he left them out of

debt and himself out of health. After an interval spent in travelling,

he went to Wilmington, Del., and supplied that missionary station for

about two years.

While he lived in Canton, he held an oral discussion with Rev. Mr.

Wheeler, Baptist, which continued several evenings, and was a marked

success on the part of Mr. Goodrich. In Wilmington he held a written

controversy with Rev. Mr. Hoffman, a Presbyterian minister, a success

also. Years before this, he had held a written and oral discussion

with Rev. Mr. Dyer, a Presbyterian, of Preston, N. Y., which gave the

cause of Universalism an impetus in that place. Mr. Goodrich was not

combative, and would not seek a controversy, nor would he shrink from

one if duty called him to engage in it. He was devotedly attached to

his family, and was anxious to close up his secular concerns, and

settle down over some parish where the labor required was such as his

health would enable him to perform. With this intent he left home on

the 25th of September, 1871; went to Fulton, then to Watertown, to

Rochester, and to Chicago, where he was seen by acquaintances, and

where his name was entered on the register of the Metropolitan Hotel,

for room No. 36, on the 5th of October, and where it afterwards

remained, with bill unsettled. He, with many others, perished in the

dreadful conflagration at that time.

Rev. FRANKLIN CHARLES FLINT was born in Nelson, N. H., June 16, 1836,

and died in Shrewsbury, Mass., March 23, 1876. In 1840 his family

moved to Hancock, N. H., and in 1842 to Shrewsbury, Mass., where he

worked on his father's farm and attended a district school. At an

early age he was quite studious, and desired a classical education. He

went through his preparatory course at Thetford (Vt.) Academy, and in

1857 entered Amherst College. But, after spending two years there, he

left, entered at Tufts, and graduated in 1861, the third in a class of

twelve, with a philosophical oration. He was enabled to work his way

through college by gaining, in a competitive examination, one of the

scholarships granted by the State of Massachusetts to Tufts College,

and by what he could earn in teaching school during his vacations.

Upon graduating, he took charge of the high school in Westboro, Mass.,

and in the mean time turned his attention to theology. He preached his

first sermon at Groton (now Ayer Junction). In 1863 he preached in

Dana and vicinity, teaching meanwhile a select school. In 1864-5 he

taught a select school at Hyannis, Mass., and afterwards was assistant

in the academy at Dudley. In 1865 he removed to Chatham, on Cape Cod,

where he was ordained, July 31, 1866. In 1867 he became pastor of the

Universalist Society in Southbridge, Mass., where he proved himself a

faithful minister, a useful member of the school committee, an

efficient worker in the temperance cause, and by his active interest

and co-operation in every good work, and by his frank and genial

manners, won the respect and good will of the people in and out of his

parish. In 1874 he took charge of the Willow Park Seminary, at

Westboro, Mass., but resigned after one year. He preached for short

periods at Oxford and Rockport. In 1874 he prepared for the press a

memoir of the late Rev. W. W. Wilson, one of his predecessors in the

pastorate at Southbridge. In 1875 he took charge of the Universalist

Society in Attleboro, Mass., but failing health compelled him to

resign the position in March, 1876. His people voted him leave of

absence, hoping he might recover, and he went to his father's in

Shrewsbury, but he rapidly grew worse, until death came to his relief.

His record is with that of "the faithful in Christ Jesus."

Rev. HOPE BAIN was a Scotchman by birth, from Aberdeen. His father,

once an officer in the British navy, removed with his family to

Maryland, and died in Baltimore in 1812. The son served during the war

of 1812, young as he was (fifteen), as a member of a Baltimore company

of volunteers attached to the 5th regiment, and was in the battles of

Bladensburg and West Point. He was at first a Presbyterian, and member

of that church for many years. In 1830 he was appointed an agent to

labor in West Tennessee, and in the valley of the Mississippi, for the

American Sunday-School Union. He became a Universalist in 1847, and

was ordained a preacher at Norfolk, Va., in 1848. He was for fifteen

years a teacher in Virginia. He moved to North Carolina, in December,

1851, and preached, before the war of the Rebellion, in twenty-six

counties, and, after the war, in six other counties. His last sermon

was in Goldsboro, in 1875. Anticipating his approaching departure, he

said that at the age of eighty-one he could not expect to remain here

much longer, nor did he desire to. He was nearing a home where he

should be united to loved ones gone before. He was widely known in

North Carolina. He was a Union man in the strictest sense, thoroughly

loyal to the government during the late war, which alienated from him

many of his former associates and hearers, but he never wavered in

devotion to his country, and to the cause of the Christian Gospel.

Although without pecuniary resources, he continued to preach wherever

there was an opening, and with little or no remuneration labored

faithfully and steadfastly in the ministry as long as health and

strength lasted. His faith uplifted and sustained him as he passed

from these earthly scenes.

Rev. WOODBURY M. FERNALD was for several years a prominent preacher

with the Universalists. He was born in Portsmouth, N. H., March 21,

1813, and died in Boston, Mass., Dec. 10, 1873. He was ordained at

Portsmouth, N. H., in 1836. In 1838 he was pastor at Cabotville (now

Chicopee), Mass. In 1840 and 1841 he was located at Newburyport, and

while there published a volume entitled "Universalism against

Partialism," an able statement of the contrast set forth. He was next

in Stoneham as pastor for three years. In 1854 he removed to Boston,

and becoming interested in the works of Swedenborg and the writings of

Andrew Jackson Davis, he was after a while ordained as a Swedenborgian

minister. He was so fascinated by the New Church doctrines as to

become alienated from his former associates and lost to their

ministry. He published, in 1854, a "Compendium of the Theological and

Spiritual Writings of Swedenborg," and in 1859, "God in His

Providence," in which he implicitly renounced the notion of "the

eternity of Hell," and put forth a Universalist view of human destiny,

turning Swedenborg's principles against the Seer's own conclusions,

and making those principles the ground of an assurance of Universal

Restoration. He published afterwards other works, evincing much

ability. His sincerity was never doubted.

Rev. CALEB PERIN MALLORY was a minister of the Universalist

faith in Canada during most of his life. He died at Huntingville,

P. Q., July 13, 1882, aged seventy-one.

He was born in Eaton, C. E. His early training was under the influence

of the theology after the kind taught by Calvin and Arminius. Being of

a thoughtful and studious disposition, however, he came to see in the

teachings of the New Testament strong and unmistakable evidences of

the Gospel of Universalism. When about thirty years old he appeared

before the public as an advocate of it. Rev. L. H. Tabor, who

officiated at the funeral, gave the following account:--

"As nearly as I can learn, he preached some three years in various

places to good acceptance, and was ordained at Glover, Vt., Sept.

19, 1843, and in just one year from the time of ordination (Sept.

19, 1844), was installed at the request of several brethren residing

in as many of the eastern townships over which he was installed. For

several years he preached regularly at Huntingville and other places

in the vicinity, and for over forty years had attended funerals and

weddings, baptizing children and adults as the disciples of Jesus,

the Saviour of the world. He was a Christian reformer, ready for

every good word and work. No one man could have been taken from that

community whose departure will be felt more. And when we saw the

multitude that gathered at his burial, with weeping eyes, we were

led to say,'Behold, how they loved him.' It was said, by good

judges, that there were a thousand people at his funeral, some

coming the distance of fifty miles.

"Brother Mallory was a man of great energy of character, often

travelling and preaching under such adverse circumstances as would

have discouraged others of less inherent power. His compensation for

services has been comparatively small, but, sustained by the

ministry of the reconciliation, he fainted not, occupying till the

Master came."

In the yearly Universalist "Register," the names of nearly thirty

women are given as ministers,--evangelists or with pastorates,--in the

Universalist Church.[50] Among the number of those who have served in

this capacity, the record is made of the death of the following:--

Mrs. ELVIRA J. POWERS. She came into the ministry from the Canton

Theological School as a licentiate of the New York Convention. At the

end of six months she was compelled to give up her work on account of

ill-health, and was not able afterwards to resume it. During the war

of the Rebellion, in the office of nurse, she rendered good service,

and wrote an interesting book of her experiences, entitled "Hospital

Pencillings." A friend and former pastor speaks of her personal worth

in very strong terms. "In fidelity to her conviction of duty, in her

industry, zeal, and integrity, in her constant sacrifice of the

superficial and temporal for the profound and eternal, her life was a

great success." She died in Worcester, Mass., Sept. 21, 1871.

Rev. FANNY UPHAM ROBERTS, daughter of Frederic and Hannah R. Cogswell,

both of whom were preachers in the "Christian Connection," was born in

South Berwick, Me., in June, 1834. She joined the Congregational

Church in Northwood, N. H., and was for some time a superintendent of

a Baptist Sunday-school. She had, however, from a child been

acquainted with the Universalist faith. In 1870 she began to give

lectures in public on lyceum topics, and not long afterwards commenced

preaching in Kensington, N. H., and Wells, Me. In the spring of 1871

she removed to Kittery, Me. (where she had been ordained), and

preached there until April, 1875, when from loss of voice she resigned

her post, and went to Minnesota, hoping to regain her health. But the

change of climate failed to arrest her disease, and she steadily

declined until death came to her relief. She died in Winona, Minn.,

Aug. 26, 1875. Her friends testify to her vigor of mind, her goodness

of heart, and the graceful modesty and sweet womanly dignity that ever

shone out in her life. An intelligent member of the Universalist

congregation of Portsmouth, N. H., once informed the writer that in

listening to her discourses, as he did occasionally, he was forcibly

reminded of the logical clearness and strength of the elder Ballou.

Rev. PRUDY LE CLERC HASKELL was born in Louisville, Ky., Feb. 6, 1844,

and died in Oxford, O., Dec. 27, 1878. In her youthful days she was

thoughtful, intelligent, and studious. Her parents were Universalists

in sentiment, and her mind was impressed by the influences of their

religious faith. An only brother, who had intended to enter the

Universalist ministry, died in a Southern prison during the war, and

she felt herself called to take the place which he would have filled.

She was ordained at Madison, Ind., Oct. 14, 1869, where she preached

two years, and succeeded in gathering the scattered remnants of a

former congregation into a living form. She then went to Mt. Pleasant,

Iowa, and labored there successfully for two years, greatly endearing

herself to the people; but the climate proving unfavorable to her, she

was obliged to leave and return to the home of her parents in Aurora,

Ind. She was afterwards settled at Mt. Carmel, Ind., at Jeffersonville

and Newtown, O., and at Covington, Ky. She was an attractive and

interesting preacher, and very popular as a pastor. While residing in

Covington, she was united in marriage to Mr. Cassius L. Haskell, who

afterwards entered the ministry. She had been married but a single

year when her earthly life ended. The remembrance of an evening with

her at a meeting in Mt. Carmel, O., is very vivid in the mind of the

writer. She had been deeply interested in a new church organization

there, and had induced a good number of young believers to become

members. Her welcome and counsel to them were pervaded with the

Christian spirit.

_Living Ministers._

It has been thought advisable to append to this record of the departed

the names of a few of the living ministers, now advanced in years, who

have earned an honorable reputation by their works during the time

included in the survey here taken. It would have been agreeable to the

writer if the number of such could have been increased, but this was

forbidden by the limits prescribed to this volume. Besides, as already

stated, it will be understood that this historical sketching is by no

means exhausted; that there is another and a larger roll of those

passed on, who have done faithful service in the redeeming army, as

there is a noble company of the living who are yet adding their good

work to the history of the church, and whose names and deeds may in

some future day be truthfully and gratefully given to an appreciative

public. For this brief review we are able to take of the faithful dead

and living, let us be thankful.

One of the most aged living ministers of the Universalist Church is

Rev. CLEMENT FALL LE FEVRE, D. D., of Milwaukee, Wis. He was born in

Berkhamstead, County of Hertfordshire, England, Nov. 12, 1797. He was

christened in the parish church, as was the poet Cowper, who was a

native of the same county. The father of Mr. Le Fevre was a clergyman

and graduate of Oxford University, and was acquainted with the

distinguished poet, and always held his works in high estimation. In

1814 Mr. Le Fevre had a commission in the British navy as second

lieutenant of the Royal Marines, and was appointed to a frigate and

sailed for Halifax. His war record was a short one, however, for with

the peace of 1815 he was put on half-pay. He was never in any

engagement with the enemy, and, as he writes, "my sword was never

stained with American blood, and theirs was never stained with mine,

and that I consider the better." Having no particular employment, he

was for some time adrift as to a life-calling, but subsequently

inclined to his father's profession, and in nautical phrase "bore up

for a parson." His father was educating some young men for the

Universities, and the son joined in their classes. Having by this

means obtained some knowledge of Latin and Greek, he received

ordination, and was adopted by the Society for the Propagation of the

Gospel in Foreign Parts. This was in the year 1821. His appointment

was to a church in Canada, in the diocese of Quebec, where he remained

until the close of the year 1829, when, rejecting the doctrine of the

Trinity and endless punishment for the sins of this life, he withdrew

from the ministry and communion of the Church of England.

He next removed to New York, and made his home at Hempstead, L. I.,

the native place of his wife; and here and at several places on the

island and in the city of New York he frequently preached. In 1830 he

received fellowship of the Universalists, at the New York and

Philadelphia Association, met at New Brunswick, N. J. He was next

pastor four years in Troy, N. Y., six in New York city, four in

Hudson, and six in Milwaukee, Wis. In the last-named place he

purchased a farm and settled down for the enjoyment of a permanent

home. Although having no special pastorate, he has been doing much

missionary work, has constantly attended the meetings of the church,

and often written for its publications. His health at this present

writing is quite firm for one of his years, a slight failure of

eyesight and a partial paralysis of the right hand being his principal

infirmity.

Mr. Le Fevre enjoys a deservedly high reputation. His pulpit talents

have always been appreciated by his congregations. His discourses have

indicated a keen and well-balanced mind, logical force, and ripe

scholarship. In social life he has always exerted a salutary

influence; his wit and humor being admirable accompaniments of his

gentlemanly dignity and sympathetic spirit. He has proved a valuable

acquisition to the church whose pleasure it is to make this truthful

record of him.

[Illustration: Lucius R. Paige.]

Rev. LUCIUS ROBINSON PAIGE, D. D., is, with two exceptions,[51] the

oldest living minister in the Universalist Church. He was born in

Hardwick, Mass., March 8, 1802, and was educated in the public schools

of his native village. On reaching his majority he began his work as a

preacher, and did some effective missionary work as a layman. In 1825

he was ordained, and was settled at Springfield, Mass., where he

remained four years. During this time, his faith being assailed by two

ministers of the Methodist church, Rev. Timothy Merritt and Rev.

Wilbur Fisk, Mr. Paige entered into a controversy with them, and

proved himself an able advocate and defender of the Christian Gospel.

The debate still exists in pamphlet form, and is one of the most pithy

and searching that can be found. The spirit and behavior of the

bigoted opponents of Universalism are strikingly illustrated, as well

as the readiness and efficiency of the assailed one to meet and to

deal with them. Mr. Paige was next minister in Rockport, and removed

from there to Cambridgeport, where he was installed pastor of the

First Universalist Society July 8, 1832. He held this position until

1839, after which he took no pastorate, but continued to preach

frequently for more than twenty years afterwards, and has been active

in the ministry until within a few years.

In 1833 he published his "Selections from Eminent Commentators," a

work showing most conclusively the admission on the part of orthodox

writers of the very ground taken by Universalists in their explanation

of many passages of Scripture supposed to stand in opposition to

Universalism. It was a strong call upon all candid inquirers after

Christian truth, and has made its impress in the progress of Christian

thought since it was issued. In 1838 he published "Questions on Select

Portions of the Gospels," designed for Sunday schools and Bible

classes. His greatest work, however, is his Commentary on the New

Testament, the first volume of which was published in 1844, and the

last in 1870. The work is the result of sound judgment, careful

research and close thought, and is a monument of the steady and

untiring industry of the writer. It has been highly acceptable to

those on whose behalf it was prepared. While engaged upon it, he also

contributed to the denominational papers, and gathered materials for

the history of Cambridge, which was published in 1877.

He has also been actively engaged in secular pursuits. He was town

clerk from March, 1839, to January, 1840, and from March, 1843, to

May, 1846, and city clerk from May, 1846, to October, 1855, and

representative in the General Court in 1878 and 1879. He was treasurer

of the Cambridgeport Savings Bank from April, 1855, to April, 1871,

and has been cashier and president of the Cambridge Bank. He received

the degree of A. M. from Harvard in 1850, and D. D. from Tufts in

1861. Although he has retired from business, during the past few years

Dr. Paige has given much attention to the preparation of a history of

his native town, Hardwick, and after many years of hard work the task

is completed and the manuscript is now ready for the printer. He is a

member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and one of the oldest

on the roll; also of the American Antiquarian and Phi Beta Kappa

societies.

As a Mason he has stood high. He joined the Order in Little Falls,

N. Y., in 1824, became Worshipful Master of the Hardwick Lodge in

1826, having previously been exalted to the Royal Arch degree at

Greenwich, and having joined the Knights Templars in 1824. He is now

the oldest Past Commander of the Knights Templars within the

jurisdiction of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He became Steward of

the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1848, and deacon

in 1850. The year following he was elected right worshipful deputy

grand master. Upon retiring from that position, he became a permanent

member, and is now the oldest surviving permanent member of the Grand

Lodge. In 1861 he received the thirty-third degree Scottish, and was

at once admitted a member of the Supreme Council. Here he served as

Secretary two years, and Minister of State three years. He is now, as

he has been for nineteen years past, resident representative of the

Supreme Council of Belgium.

One of the most noticeable events in the life of Dr. Paige was that of

the celebration of his eightieth birthday, in the vestry of the

Universalist Church in Cambridgeport, on the evening of March 8, 1882.

A large company was assembled, and after a feast at the tables, very

impressive exercises followed. Rev. O. A. Safford, pastor of the

Universalist Church, presided, and introduced Dr. Paige to the

company, who heard from him a very appropriate and affecting address.

The assembly was then addressed by Mayor Fox of Cambridge, Rev. Dr.

McKenzie of the Congregational church, Rev. Drs. Sawyer, Adams, Miner,

and Capen, Rev. C. A. Skinner, J. A. Jacobs, Esq., the city clerk, and

Capt. J. W. Cotton. A letter, expressive of his sincere and hearty

respect for Dr. Paige, was read from Professor Longfellow. A handsome

illustrated copy of Longfellow's Poems was presented to the doctor,

bearing this inscription: "Presented by a few old friends, with their

congratulations and best wishes on the 80th anniversary of his

birthday."

[Illustration: A. A. Miner.

J. H. Daniels Pr. Boston.]

On Monday, May 1, 1882, the Columbus Avenue Universalist Church

celebrated the thirty-fourth anniversary of the pastorate of Rev.

ALONZO AMES MINER, D. D., LL. D., who entered upon his duties as a

colleague of the late Rev. Hosea Ballou, pastor of the Second

Universalist Society in Boston, in place of Rev. Dr. E. H. Chapin,

called to New York. Mr. Miner was born in Lempster, N. H., Aug 17,

1814. His ancestors on both sides were distinguished by good sense and

firm physical constitutions. His remote American forefather, Thomas

Miner, landed at Boston in the same year with the elder Winthrop

(1630), and removed to Connecticut with the company of the younger

Winthrop about 1646. His grandfather, Charles Miner, served in the

Revolutionary War, and removed to New Hampshire soon after its close.

Thomas Miner, his ancestor, was a descendant of Henry Bulman of the

Mendip Hills, Somersetshire, England, who furnished Edward III., when

on his way to embark for the wars of France, with an escort of one

hundred men, selected from his servants and from the men employed in

his mines. For this service the king honored him with a coat of arms,

and changed his name to Miner.

Dr. Miner was so feeble in his youth that it seemed doubtful whether

he would grow up into mature life. But good care and judicious

training wrought a change for the better, which was doubtless aided by

a vigorous will. His education was gained at village schools and

academies in New Hampshire and Vermont. He began teaching between

terms when he was sixteen years of age, and in 1835 took entire charge

of the Scientific and Military Academy at Unity, N. H. His first

discourse in the pulpit was delivered in February, 1838. In 1839 he

received ordination, and was settled in Methuen, Mass. In 1842 he

removed to Lowell, where he became an efficient yoke-fellow with the

pastor of the First Universalist Church, and where they made good

proof of their ministry in the pulpit and through the press. Dr. Miner

remained in Lowell as pastor of the Second Society until the removal

of Rev. E. H. Chapin from Boston to New York, when he was called to

take his place as colleague with Rev. Hosea Ballou at the Universalist

Church in School St. On the death of Mr. Ballou, he became pastor of

the church, which office he still retains. His health failing him

partially in 1851, he visited Europe, and on his return found that his

church edifice had been remodelled during his absence, at a cost of

$20,000. Subsequently, in 1872 the building in School Street was put

to secular uses, and the edifice now occupied on Columbus Avenue was

erected at a cost of $150,000. During his long pastorate, two

colleagues have been settled with him, Rev. Roland Connor, for a short

time, and Rev. Henry I. Cushman, now pastor of the First Universalist

Church in Providence, R. I.

In 1862, after the decease of Rev. Dr. Ballou, President of Tufts

College, Dr. Miner was chosen to this office, and took upon himself

its duties in connection with his work as pastor in Boston. His energy

seemed adequate to this double task for a time, until it became

evident to him and his friends that the interests of both college and

parish required his main attention to be given to but one of them. He

chose the parish, to the great satisfaction of its members, and Rev.

E. H. Capen, one of the alumni of the college, was elected its

president.

Through his past life-course Dr. Miner has been one of the most

indefatigable of toilers. As a Christian minister and reformer he is

widely known. His pulpit talents are of the highest order. His clear,

strong, and readily modulated voice, his sharp logic, often "on fire,"

his good scholarship, his aptness not only in making his points, but

in the elucidation of them; his thorough acquaintance with the

evidences of his faith, and especially with the scriptural proofs of

it; his directness in striking at the wrong, as he perceives it, with

most telling blows, and his uncompromising adherence to what he

considers the right, are sure to gain him a respectful and serious

hearing wherever he comes before the public. His many published

discourses evince his power as a theologian, and his little volume,

"The Old Forts Taken," embodies a searching review of some of the

over-confident statements of Rev. Joseph Cook on the religious signs

of the times. It would have been well for Christian truth, and for

some of the churches professing it, whose representatives so readily

applauded many of the stirring and sensational words of Mr. Cook at

the moment of their utterance in Boston, could they have listened also

to a close and rigid questioning of them by Dr. Miner. The

Universalist Church generally, we think, would be quite willing to

abide by the presentation of its faith and the claims of it, by him.

At a conversation circle, embracing members of the "Radical Club,"

held in Boston within a few years, where all shades of religious

opinion were represented, the question "Is Christianity a Finality?"

or, in substance, can any religion superior to it be given to man? was

proposed for consideration. After various discussions on the subject

from the purest orthodoxy to the most radical "liberalism," Dr. Miner,

who had come in while the subject was under discussion, was invited by

the chairman to speak. His statements were very readily made, viz.

that the Christianity of the New Testament included the best religion

conceivable by man, meeting his deepest spiritual wants, answering his

highest aspirations after the purest life here, and his most anxious

hopes respecting the future of himself and the race. All this is

presented, and its complete fulfilment with all souls assured through

Christ, the promise of whose mission is, that ultimately "God shall be

all in all." If Christianity is true, therefore, it will have no

successor. The discussion was at an end.

As a Christian reformer Dr. Miner has gained a deserved prominence. He

has been outspoken on the subject of Capital Punishment, advocating

its abolishment, and in the Anti-slavery war proved himself one of the

veterans. It is in the Temperance reform, however, that he has taken a

strong and marked interest. As an advocate of Prohibition he is one of

the leaders in the land. The pamphlet on Prohibition, published in

1867, containing his arguments on the subject before the Massachusetts

Legislative Committee in the Representatives' Hall, is one of the most

readable documents of the times.[52] His ready answers to the

questions proposed to him, and his telling questions pressed upon the

advocates of liquor license laws, on that occasion, evinced a mastery

of the situation not often realized. In temperance conventions and

conferences he has often some searching criticisms on the city

officials in their evasions of the laws respecting the liquor traffic;

and on every available occasion when called to speak on the moral

needs of the State and the moral responsibility of the people, he is

quite sure to give a few ringing notes emphasizing the temperance

reform. Dr. Miner has been for ten years past President of the

Massachusetts Temperance Alliance.

As an educator Dr. Miner has done good work. He began it early, and

has never lost interest in it. As president of the college, a member

of the State Board of Education, and Chairman of the Board of Visitors

of the Normal Art School, he has been true to it constantly.

His business talent is well known. He is a safe and far-seeing

financier, to whom the interests of the busy movers "on 'change" are

somewhat familiar. In all financial plans and operations demanding his

action he is especially and effectively at home. He is President of

the Universalist Publishing House, and is still one of the trustees of

Tufts College. The degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by Harvard

College, and that of LL. D. by Tufts soon after his resignation of the

presidency of that institution. He was one of the "Hundred Boston

Orators;" having been called to deliver the oration before the

authorities and citizens of Boston, July 4, 1855.

The positiveness and persistence of Dr. Miner have sometimes had the

effect to alienate rather than conciliate those who might conscientiously

differ from him in their convictions of right and duty. It is to be

lamented, however, that where we find one possessing his degree of

positiveness in what he believes to be right, we are more or less

"troubled on every side" by those who are only half-men because of the

low policies and expediencies by which they are governed. His

confidence in the right seems instinctive; as he says, "A mountain can

be tunnelled; a principle never." A Boston secular journal just now

speaks of him:--

"His honesty nobody has ever questioned. If he hit hard, he hit

where he believed hard hitting was warranted and indispensable. It

is fortunate for the world, perhaps, that he took a liberal side in

theology. Had he been a Calvinist, he would have been as

uncompromising as any one of those Puritan inflexibles who drove

Baptists into Rhode Island and Quakers into eternity; had he

embraced Catholicism, heretics would have fared the worse for it,

and he could hardly have found his fitting place anywhere short of

the college of cardinals, with its possibilities toward the chair of

St. Peter. By the same qualities that make him a terror to his

enemies, he binds his followers to him with hooks of steel."[53]

[Illustration: Thomas J. Sawyer.

F. T. Stuart Boston.]

Rev. THOMAS JEFFERSON SAWYER, D. D., was born in Reading, Windsor Co.,

Vt., Jan. 9, 1804. His father was one of the earliest settlers of the

town, having removed with his father's family from Pomfret, Conn. The

son enjoyed very good advantages for acquiring a common-school

education, and at the age of eighteen had gained such a mastery of the

branches then taught in such schools as to become a teacher, in which

capacity he served three or four months every year until he entered

his profession. He entered Middlebury College in the autumn of 1825,

having completed his preparation after he was twenty-one, and

graduated in 1829. As there were no theological schools to aid him, he

went to study with Rev. William S. Balch, then at Winchester, N. H.,

who was soon called to Albany. Mr. S. remained in Winchester through

the winter, preaching occasionally, reading the Iliad of Homer, and

studying such theological works as he had opportunity to find.

In April, 1830, he went to New York, and took charge of a small

society there in Grand Street. The chapel in which he preached had

been built and was for several years occupied as an Episcopal church.

It was afterwards purchased by the Universalists.

In 1832 Mr. Sawyer entered upon his ministry with his people in a new

place, a church on Orchard Street. The church was built three or four

years before by a small society of the Reformed Dutch Church, from

which the property fell into the hands of two enterprising builders

who had been the contractors for it when it was erected. It was rented

to Mr. Sawyer for two years. He was then a young minister of scarcely

two years' standing in New York, and had entered the ministry only two

years and a half before. He had been married six months and had no

cash investment. Four members of his congregation became his security

for the payment of the rent, and he in turn pledged for their security

the whole income of the church,--pew-rents, collections, and all.

Under the circumstances he was assuming quite a responsibility. The

income of the society had been small, and its receipts now were not

equal to the rents alone. Besides, Universalism in New York had

suffered greatly through the defection of Abner Kneeland, and the

consequences of his lamentable course were still fresh in the memory

of all. Divisions and heart-burnings still existed, and the prospect

was not greatly encouraging to the new adventurers. Yet it was seen

that, if success was to be realized, a new movement, as independent as

possible of the old issues, must be made. Hence this piece of wise

policy in securing a new location, and beginning church-life under new

auspices. It was a bold step, but a good Providence had directed it.

Mr. Sawyer writes of it:--

"I well remember the joy we all experienced when we entered the

Orchard Street Church. The transition from the little Grand Street

chapel which we had previously occupied was striking enough. The

church was large, very large, to my unpractised eyes. True, it had

no side galleries, as it had afterwards, and was in every respect

inferior to what it became, but I doubt if Solomon, when he first

entered his majestic temple, felt more deeply impressed with its

greatness or its awful sanctity than I did on the day when we first

occupied this church. It seemed to me a goodly place, where, as I

hoped, Universalism was to be revived and restored in that great

city."

There were prophecies of failure on the part of some friends, but the

persistence and faithfulness of the young pastor (encouraged by his

companion, whose whole heart was in her husband's work) and his brave

adherents, by God's blessing, wrought success.

In 1832 the city of New York was visited fearfully with the cholera.

It was suggested by some that the church should be closed during the

epidemic, and the members of the congregation were one day desired to

remain after service to express their opinions on the subject. Many

were about to leave the city, and thought the church might be closed

for two or three months and the pastor dismissed to the country. At

last Captain Packard, a somewhat eccentric but warm-hearted and worthy

man, rose and said that he should remain in the city, and if ever he

needed the support and consolations of religion, it was during such

seasons as they had already entered. If the pastor felt alarmed and

desired to leave, he of course would not complain, yet he should

greatly desire to come up to the house of his heavenly Father to

listen to his word and worship at his altar. This settled the

question, and the Orchard Street Church was open regularly, morning

and afternoon, through the whole of that gloomy and trying season. And

in this case, as always, the path of duty proved in the end the path

of greatest advantage. Many--perhaps a large part--of the churches in

the city were closed, and the pastors gone. The minds of the people

were seriously impressed, and the Gospel of infinite grace proved

itself well fitted for such an emergency. The Universalist church was

uniformly well attended, and great good was accomplished by its

ministrations. The society continued to increase. Old friends, whom

circumstances had alienated or caused to stand aloof from the

movement, returned one after another and forgot their former

difficulties and discontent. The best of feeling existed among the

members and greatly encouraged all hearts.

Though the Reformed Dutch Church gave up their new house on Orchard

Street, yet no sooner had it come into the possession of Universalists

than the members of that communion began to express a most lively

concern for the interests of religion. Dr. Sawyer writes:--

"The 'Christian Intelligencer,' their religious journal, soon began

to pay some attention to Universalism; and Dr. Brownlee, one of the

boldest, if not one of their ablest, men and ministers, commenced a

course of lectures against the doctrine. The lectures were repeated

in the Dutch churches in the city, and briefly reported in the

'Intelligencer.' An attempt was made to get them repeated in the

Orchard Street Church, but failed. The Doctor was quite too busy to

permit it. His lectures were regarded by his friends as exceedingly

able and altogether irrefutable. He possessed a great deal of

assurance, and made assertions with vast boldness and emphasis. As a

reasoner he was but a third or fourth rate man. The ad captandum was

his forte, and among those who knew nothing of Universalism, and

undoubtingly believed in endless misery, his reasons were

satisfactory if not convincing."

The lectures were closely examined by Mr. Sawyer before large

congregations. It was a grand opportunity, and he improved it. This

review was afterwards given to the public through the press. The

attack intended to check the spread of Universalism served to increase

and strengthen it. During Mr. Sawyer's subsequent pastorate of

thirteen and a half years, other controversies followed. With Rev. Mr.

Slocum, a Presbyterian clergyman, he held a discussion that occupied

fourteen evenings, and added twenty families to the Universalist

congregation. He answered Rev. Mr. Remington, a Methodist clergyman,

and reviewed Rev. Dr. Parker's lectures on Universalism. These

lectures of Mr. Parker had been preached and published in Rochester

some years before, and were, without essential alteration, repeated in

several churches in New York. Mr. Sawyer happened to possess the

Rochester copy of the production, and very much to the astonishment of

many he replied to the learned Doctor's lecture on the very evening

after he had delivered it in the immediate neighborhood in the

morning. Another debate was also held by Mr. Sawyer with Rev. Mr.

Hatfield, the substance of which was published in a small volume

entitled "Universalism as it is." It was a rule with this sentinel on

the Universalist watch-tower in that city never to allow any

antagonist of "the faith," whose position and character deserved

attention, to pass unnoticed or unanswered.

The Orchard Street Church was emphatically a success. After Mr. Sawyer

left it in 1845, it enjoyed the effective pastorates of Rev. Otis A.

Skinner, since deceased, and Cyrus H. Fay (still useful and honored

among our older ministers), and others. It has probably done more for

the diffusion of Universalism than any other single society in the

State. All the societies in its immediate neighborhood, Bleecker

Street, Murray Street, Fourth Street, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg, were

first formed by members of Orchard Street, and may be regarded as

offshoots from that parent stock. It labored not merely for itself,

its own ease or aggrandizement, but for the good of the cause, a

veritable missionary institution.

In the autumn of 1845 Mr. Sawyer removed with his family to Clinton,

Oneida Co., N. Y., and took charge of the Clinton Liberal Institute.

He succeeded in converting it into a Universalist school, and opened

in connection with it a primitive theological school from which he

sent out about twenty-five students, more than twenty of whom are

still in the ministry well and successfully employed. At the close of

1852 he returned to New York, and, having preached for what was

formerly called the Dry Dock Society a year, he returned to his old

parish and continued with it until the spring of 1861, when, on the

breaking out of the Rebellion, and the volunteering of his oldest son

on his farm at Clinton, and on account of parish affairs in that

distracted time, he resigned and went to Clinton, where he remained,

preaching for the parish there until January, 1863, when he again

returned to New York, and took the editorial charge of the "Christian

Ambassador." This paper was founded by Philo Price in 1831, under the

name of "The Christian Messenger," of which Mr. Sawyer was the

theological editor for several years. It passed under several names,

and is now published at Boston as the "Christian Leader," united with

the Universalist weekly formerly issued in this city.

In the autumn of 1865 he removed his family from Clinton to Star

Landing, N. J., and took possession of a farm he had just purchased

there. Here he remained, managing the farm and preaching occasionally,

until the autumn of 1869, when he came to College Hill, Mass., and

assumed the duties of Professor of Systematic Theology in the Divinity

School, to which he had some time before been elected. He was one of

the original trustees of Tufts College, having called the educational

convention held in New York in 1847, which resulted in the

establishment of the college. He was also chiefly instrumental in

calling the first meeting in New York city to consider the necessity

of establishing a theological school, which resulted in the founding

of the Canton Theological School and the St. Lawrence University, of

which he was also one of the original trustees, and for several years

President of the Board. He received the honorary degree of S. T. D. at

Cambridge, in 1850.

Among the published works of Dr. Sawyer are his Letters to Dr. W. C.

Brownlee and to Rev. Stephen Remington in review of their Lectures

against Universalism; the Occasional Sermon delivered before the

United States Convention of Universalists in New York, September,

1841; "Endless Punishment, its Origin and Grounds Examined, with other

discourses," 1845; Review of Rev. E. F. Hatfield's "Universalism as it

is," 1841; Two Discussions with Rev. Isaac Wescott on Universal

Salvation; "Who is Our God? The Son or the Father?" a Review of Rev.

Henry Ward Beecher, 1859; a preface to the Philadelphia edition of

Petitpierre on "Divine Goodness," in 1843; "Endless Punishment in the

Very Words of Its Advocates," Boston, 1879; an article in the North

American Review, one of a series on the subject of Endless Punishment,

in the March and April numbers of 1878. Besides the Occasional Sermon

already noted, he has preached two others before the United States

Convention, one in Middletown, Conn., and the other at Rochester,

N. Y., in 1876. From the beginning Dr. Sawyer has taken a deep

interest in the literature of Universalism. He has written much for

the "Quarterly" and for the other church periodicals. He was

instrumental in originating the Universalist Historical Society, which

has now a very valuable library at Tufts College.

Dr. Sawyer has been an incessant and faithful toiler; and in all his

work, whether as preacher or teacher, has sought the promotion of the

Gospel of Universal Grace. His adherence to the work and advancement

of the Universalist Church has been steady and unfaltering, and his

defence of the Christian Revelation as an authoritative dispensation

from Heaven through Jesus Christ, clear and unequivocal, in admirable

contrast with the flippant rationalism and scepticism which have in

too many instances found expression under the names of "Liberal

Christianity" and "Free Religion."

There is a church edifice in New York city in 127th Street, near

Lexington Avenue, which represents the Second Universalist Society of

New York, organized in 1828. It was completed two years ago, and is

called the "Sawyer Memorial Church."

[Illustration: Thoˢ B. Thayer.

F. T. Stuart Boston.]

Among the older living ministers who have made themselves specially

and constantly useful in the Universalist Church during the last

half-century, no one is deserving of more grateful notice than Rev.

THOMAS BALDWIN THAYER, D. D. He was born in Boston, Sept. 10, 1812.

Having received the usual rudimentary training and experience of

boyhood, he successively passed through the grammar schools of his

native city, and at an early period in youth he entered the Latin

school under the direction of Mr. B. A. Gould. The young student had

testimonials that his diligence was observed with marked approval. He

entered college at Cambridge, where by permission he was to pursue his

studies for the first year, without college rooms, under the tutorship

of Mr. F. P. Leverett, the distinguished author of the Latin lexicon.

For certain reasons he was induced at the end of his first year to

abandon a collegiate course, and from the duties of a college student

he very soon entered the Hawes Grammar-school in the capacity of an

assistant. Soon after this, Mr. Leverett, resigning his position as

principal of the Latin School in Boston, opened a private institution,

mainly with a view to prepare students for college, and invited his

former pupil to become his assistant, which invitation Mr. Thayer

accepted. It was while connected with this school that his purpose to

devote himself to the work of the ministry was formed.

His first engagement to preach was with the Universalist Society in

South Dedham (now Norwood), where he supplied the pulpit for several

months. This made his work quite arduous. His duties in his school and

those in the growing parish kept him constantly and closely employed.

In June, 1832, Mr. Thayer received Letters of Fellowship from the

Boston Association, and was ordained by the same body in the following

December. In April, 1833, he accepted an invitation from the First

Universalist Society in Lowell, and entered upon a pastorate there,

which he kept for twelve years. While in this city, as another has

written:--

"Encouraged by the large congregations which regularly attended on

his preaching, he was moved to consider whether it were not possible

to meet the inquiring spirit of the people by a course of sermons

under circumstances which would give opportunity to present the

leading doctrines of Universalism to a larger number of persons than

could be accommodated in a church. This thought was communicated to

some of the leading members of the society, and after due

consultation, followed by prompt action, it led to the experiment of

a series of sermons in the capacious City Hall. The immense room was

filled with attentive hearers throughout the entire course. He then

proposed that, in conjunction with his own labors in the church,

regular preaching should be held four or five Sundays in the City

Hall, and that a subscription of fifty cents from each person

friendly to the project should defray the expenses incident thereto.

Rev. J. G. Adams was engaged to supply the specified time. The

result was that to this day the meetings have never been

discontinued. The germ was originated, which, under the ministry of

Rev. Zenas Thompson, developed into the Second Society, now

worshipping in the beautiful edifice on Lowell Street."[54]

From Lowell Mr. Thayer removed to Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1845. His six

years in this city were years of great usefulness to his church and

beyond its limits. He connected himself with the Odd Fellows, and

became editor of the "Golden Rule," a paper published in the interest

of the fraternity. In 1847 he gave a series of lectures on "Social

Progress," which were reported in part for the N. Y. "Tribune," as

also a series of lectures on the "Dangers of City Life," especially in

reference to young men. He was active in advocating social reform, the

efforts for juvenile vagrants, and for the moral elevation of the poor.

Dr. Thayer has remarkable qualifications for a Christian minister,

teacher, pastor, and writer. His sermons are always alive with

thought, easily and earnestly delivered, doctrinally strong and clear,

practically pointed, and plain; a mixture often of forcible

_preaching_ (not reading) from manuscript, and freest extemporaneous

outpouring, sweet and fresh with the heavenly fragrance of the Gospel.

In his Scripture readings at the opening of the church service, he is

usually very acceptable to the hearers, interspersing the reading with

explanatory words and brief practical inferences.

Dr. Thayer is well known as an author. In the early days of his

ministry he published a volume entitled "Christianity against

Infidelity," an able and a timely offering to the public,--a strong

and candid appeal to the reader in behalf of the Christian Gospel from

the Universalist standpoint. The work was some years afterwards

enlarged, embracing the objections to historical Christianity by

Strauss and Renan, and replies to them. A republication of this work

would be timely now, in this season of theological thought, of

religious drifting and doubt, of indifference and scepticism. His

"Theology of Universalism" is a work of great merit, as also his

admirable volume "Over the River." They deserve a place in the library

of every minister, and should find a home in every Universalist family.

His most valuable work, however, has been done as editor of the

"Universalist Quarterly." His qualifications for this service are

striking. In addition to the able discussions in the publications from

the pens of other authors, the department containing the editor's

outlook into the religious world, his notes and comments on the times,

and his discriminating notices of new publications, is of itself a

rich and welcome entertainment to all who are familiar with the pages

of the Quarterly, a review reflecting great honor upon the

Universalist Church, and which the Universalist fraternity cannot

afford to lose or neglect.

After closing his ministry in Brooklyn, Dr. Thayer had a second

pastorate in Lowell with his old society, during which a severe

calamity came to him. He was thrown from a carriage by a frightened

horse, and so badly injured that for some time his survival seemed

very doubtful. His many friends were deeply anxious, and the strain

upon his physical system was intense. But through all this terrible

sorrow his faith and hope sustained and inspired him, and the lessons

of his sickness and Christian endurance were to many souls more

impressive than any they had ever received from his pulpit

ministrations. It was a cheering event to hosts of friends that he was

gradually restored to the calling he so much loved, though with the

effects of the accident upon him which must go with him through life.

He afterwards removed to Boston, and was for a few years the

much-esteemed pastor of the Shawmut Universalist Church in this city.

Since his resignation there he has frequently supplied pulpits in the

vicinity of Boston, always to great acceptance. At the present time he

is engaged principally in his work with the pen.

Notwithstanding the unquestionable qualifications of Dr. Thayer as a

public speaker, he is usually inclined to distrust himself, but no one

of our ministers, when called upon to present any question of

importance at the public assemblings of the church, is more acceptable

than he. His lively musical notes of Christian truth and earnestness

are sure to awaken a response in the souls of the listeners.

Rev. WILLIAM STEVENS BALCH, of Elgin, Ill., is one of the oldest of

the Universalist ministers now in active service. He was born in

Andover, Vt., April 13, 1806. He received fellowship as a minister, of

the General Convention at Saratoga, N. Y., in September, 1827, and

ordination in Claremont, N. H., in June, 1828. His first location was

in Windham County, Vt., boarding in Dummerston, preaching in

neighboring towns one Sunday in each month, travelling on foot to the

several stations, and receiving the payment of five dollars per

Sunday. He remained there preaching in nearly every town in that

region, until invited to his first settlement in Albany, N. Y.,

January, 1831. Being after a time worn down with over-exertion, he

felt obliged to leave, and was settled next in Watertown, Mass., to

which place he had been invited before going to Albany. His health

soon improved, and he found himself in the receipt of a salary of

$450. But again his health failed, and he was induced to remove to

Claremont, N. H., in April, 1832. He preached there half the time, and

supplied in Hartland and Springfield, Vt., and Newport, N. H., until a

new church in Claremont was finished. Here he was very actively

employed, not only as a pastor, but in doing missionary work in every

direction.

In September, 1835, at the General Convention held in Hartford, Conn.,

he was recommended by Rev. Dolphus Skinner to a committee of the

society in Providence, R. I., which was there to find a preacher "not

committed to Restorationism or Ultra-Universalism," in reference to

which _isms_ the parish was quite divided. Mr. Balch consented to

supply three Sundays, not as a candidate, for he desired to live in

the country. He was, however, invited and urged to settle there, which

he did, after some hesitancy, in March, 1836. His ministry proved a

successful one. In two years the large church was crowded, and a

second society was formed in the city. In 1842 he was invited to go as

a candidate to the church in Bleecker St., N. Y. He declined, but soon

after received a call to become the pastor there. Having become

interested in what was known as the "Dorr" movement, and freely

expressing his wish to have a "Republican form of government" by a

Constitution, and seeing a political storm brewing, he accepted the

call from New York, and settled there in November, 1842.

In 1848 he visited Europe, intending to go to Palestine. The troubles

of that year made it difficult to go further than Rome. In 1852 he was

asked by two men, not of his church, with whom a third joined, to go

abroad if he wished, with full permission and means to journey as far

and stay as long as he pleased. He was wise enough to accept the

generous offer, and travelled extensively in Europe, extending his

journey to Palestine, across the Desert, and through Egypt to Nubia.

After seventeen years' hard work in preaching, lecturing, and writing

on religious and moral reform topics, he became quite worn down, and

resolved to take life a little more leisurely for his body's sake, an

exceedingly difficult course for him. He went to Ludlow, Vt., in 1859,

preaching there half the time, and supplying other places, lecturing,

and really working as hard as when in New York city. He then had

another removal, to Galesburg, Ill., where he preached five years, and

again resolved to retire, and removed to Hinsdale in 1870. But he

still preached. In 1871 he was urged to come to Elgin, Ill., where the

minister's work was still before him. In 1877 he entered the plea of

old age and resigned, purposing a visit to California. Meantime he was

invited to preach a Sunday in Dubuque, Iowa. The result was another

pastorate. He refused to "settle," but consented to supply a few

Sundays until the society could obtain a pastor. He continued three

years and three months, not removing his family, but _staying_ there.

His ministry gave great encouragement to the church in Dubuque.

In 1880 Mr. Balch visited California; in 1882 the City of Mexico; and

last winter Florida. At the present time his health is quite firm. As

he writes of himself, "I am comfortably situated, use no glasses

except in dim light; and am fairly content in contemplating the past,

still busy with the present, and hopeful of a happy and immortal

future."

When in Providence, R. I., Mr. Balch gave a course of "Lectures on

Language," which were published in 1838. He also wrote a "Grammar of

the English Language, explained according to the Principles of Truth

and Common Sense," published by B. B. Mussey, Boston, and passing

through four editions. In 1849 his volume "Ireland as I saw it" was

issued, and in 1881 "A Peculiar People," the first edition of which

sold in eight weeks. He is the author of a "Sunday-School Manual,"

published in 1837.

The business capacity of Mr. Balch was evinced in his raising funds

for the Theological School at Canton, N. Y., taking charge of the

location, plan, and rearing of the buildings, and selection of a

principal. He afterwards completed the raising of a large fund for the

institution, obtaining also $10,000 for the library, and securing the

valuable libraries of Dr. Credner, and Rev. S. C. Loveland. He devoted

much time to the business of making the "Christian Ambassador" of New

York a denominational paper, and placing it on a sound financial

basis. His work in these particulars was well and faithfully done.

Mr. Balch has always been a very ready and popular speaker with the

masses. The graces of oratory he has not sought, but his talking power

seems inexhaustible. Although in favor of fraternal organization for

the good of the cause, yet his ideas in reference to creeds and to

centralized authority are not accordant with those of many others of

his brethren, who hold in high estimation the work he has done in the

spirit and in the truth of the Gospel.

[Illustration: W. H. Ryder.

Black. Phot.

H. W. Smith.]

Among the long and successful pastorates in the great city of the

West,--Chicago,--we may note that of Rev. WILLIAM HENRY RYDER. He is

a New England man, having been born in Provincetown, Mass. (the son of

Capt. Godfrey Ryder), July 18, 1822. During the early life of the son

it was supposed that he would become one of the fraternity of seamen,

as his worthy father had been. But this seems not to have been the

Providential intent. The parent did his part in sending the lad to sea

in a vessel bearing his own name, "William Henry," but the experience

of a shipwreck cured the young sailor of what nautical tastes he might

have possessed, and turned his attention in another direction. He

became anxious for the life of a student, and in his eighteenth year

entered Pembroke, N. H., Academy. He was a diligent and progressive

scholar, and while at this institution decided as to the profession

upon which he afterwards entered. At the age of nineteen he preached

his first sermon in Manchester, N. H., and during the year following

he preached frequently in Concord, in the same State.

Leaving the school in Pembroke, he entered Clinton Liberal Institute

(Clinton, N. Y.), then in care of a learned and efficient teacher, Dr.

Clowes. He preached frequently during his stay there. In the autumn of

1843, soon after he was twenty-one, he was invited to take charge of

the Universalist Society in Concord, N. H., to which place he removed,

and in November of that year was united in marriage with Miss Caroline

Frances Adams, who has proved a worthy and faithful helper to him in

all the experiences connected with his profession. His ordination took

place in December, 1843. His ministry here was successful. The society

had been formed under the ministry of Rev. J. G. Adams while doing

missionary work in New Hampshire, in 1834. Faithful men and women had

kept it alive through changes and vicissitudes until it realized a new

prosperity under Mr. Ryder, which has continued to the present time.

After two and a half years of successful labor here, he accepted a

call to the neighboring city of Nashua, a larger and more promising

field, which he occupied to good effect. While giving great

satisfaction to his people, he became deeply impressed with the

conviction that his ability to serve the church in the capacity of a

Christian teacher according to his own ideal would be made greater by

a more thorough course of study than he had yet been able to take, or

than he could take with the cares of a pastor upon him. He therefore

determined to spend a year and a half abroad in study and observation.

Resigning his charge in Nashua, he sailed from New York to England.

Landing at Kinsale, Ireland, and exploring the lake region of

Killarney, he passed on to Dublin, and crossed the channel into

England, where he tarried awhile, visiting places of historic

interest, and making the acquaintance of several persons who were

specially interested in his own faith and profession. While in London

and vicinity, he was cordially greeted by the Unitarian ministers

there, and preached in two of their churches. He soon crossed to the

Continent and came to Berlin, where he applied himself diligently in a

course of study under German instructors for seven months. He next

extended his travels to Palestine, visiting Jerusalem and many other

noted places there. He also visited Athens, Constantinople, Cairo, the

Pyramids, Malta, Naples, Rome, Florence, Geneva, and Paris, from which

last-named place he went again to Berlin. He was absent a year and a

half.

Soon after his return to his native land he was called to the

pastorate in Roxbury, Mass. Here he had a successful ministry of ten

years, not only fully sustaining the high reputation which the church

had long enjoyed, but giving it new inspiration and vigor by the high

and truly evangelical tone of his ministry. In 1860 he was called to

that great city of the West, Chicago, then twenty-seven years old, and

containing 150,000 people. He took charge of St. Paul's Church at a

time when just such a helper and director as he proved to be was

needed. His discriminating mind and firm will and patience and

steadiness of action, worked effectively in building up the cause of

Universalism in his own church, and giving it an honorable reputation

in that great and growing city. And out of the city and through the

State and the whole West the influence of his teaching and work as a

representative of the Universalist Church has been justly acknowledged.

He has done work for the Christian cause that deserves to be kept in

perpetual remembrance. In the pulpit, as a pastor, as an earnest

worker in all matters affecting education, reform, and the public

weal, he has been found constant and faithful.

In 1860 Harvard conferred upon him the degree of A. M., and in 1863

Lombard University the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1868 he made a

second visit to Europe, and brought home many treasures of art which

were subsequently destroyed by fire in the two great conflagrations

with which Chicago was visited. The fire that destroyed St. Paul's and

his own beautiful residence on an adjoining lot imposed great

responsibilities upon him, which he assumed and discharged with

admirable skill. He visited New England and returned with $40,000 with

which to repair the shattered fortunes of St. Paul's Church; and such

has been his administrative skill, that, notwithstanding the heavy

financial reverses to which the parish was subsequently subjected,

their grand church, worth $200,000, is now without an incumbrance. Dr.

Ryder himself suffered great loss by the fires, but it is pleasant to

record what one who knows says of him, that he is still "in possession

of 'enough and to spare.'"

Dr. Ryder's life has been crowded with duties. As a preacher and

pastor and man of business he has made his mark on public opinion and

human life during the forty years just closing. He has thoroughly

identified himself with the faith and work of the Universalist Church.

As an expositor of its faith he has always been clear and positive,

and as an advocate of its work unmistakably emphatic. Organized church

work, State work, national work, mission work--home and foreign, he

has continually urged. The zealous and faithful women-workers of the

church have always found in him a warm, hearty, and outspoken advocate

on all occasions when and where his word of good cheer has been asked.

As a preacher, another has thus truthfully spoken of him:--

"He has rare power. A model pulpit voice, deep, sonorous; a manner

of wonderful impressiveness; a personality behind his words that

makes every word tell; and long years of sagacious work without

mistakes re-enforcing what he says, so that it is safe to say that

no man's word in any Chicago pulpit, on any question before the

people, goes as far as his in impressing the public mind."[55]

Dr. Ryder has what another has termed "an impressive presence," not in

bodily size, but in a pleasant dignity which is attractive rather than

imposing. An indication of cool self-confidence is in every word and

action. He is thoroughly in earnest as a public speaker, and as

thoroughly sincere and fearless in maintaining what he believes to be

the right of the subject under consideration. A capital instance of

this quality in him was given in the discussion of a topic that came

up at the United States Convention during its session in Lynn in 1875.

He had been invited to speak of "The Needs and Methods of Spiritual

Awakening," and used great plainness and force of speech in reference

to what he deemed some of the spiritual failures of professed

Universalists which needed amendment. His matter was well considered,

and his words were stirring and strong. An attempt was made to pass a

vote of censure. He had discharged a duty laid upon him, and deserved

the thanks of his hearers, even though they had not assented to a word

he uttered, if they were convinced--as doubtless all were--that he

honestly believed what he said and discharged a conscientious duty.

His defence and vindication of himself were admirable. The attempt to

censure so significantly failed that the author of the resolution very

readily withdrew it. A chronicler of the occasion wrote that it was

worth a long journey to listen to that "outpouring."

During the war Dr. Ryder was a strong helper of the Union cause,

active, eloquent, and untiring in his support of the government in

manifold ways.

In addition to his other agreeable personal characteristics, Dr. Ryder

is well known to those most intimate with him as a genial, courteous,

and warm-hearted friend and companion. All his pastorates bear

testimony to the love which the children and youth bore him, because

of the interest in their welfare which he so constantly manifested.

In April, 1882, Dr. Ryder resigned his position as pastor in Chicago,

and has since, with his companion, made a voyage to Europe. It is not

his intention to take upon him the duties of another pastorate, but he

will doubtless be always in readiness to aid as he may the interests

of the church to whose prosperity his life thus far has been so

constantly devoted.

_The Birthplace of Hosea Ballou._

In concluding the accounts of ministers here given, it seems

appropriate to add a brief reference to an event of recent occurrence,

to which the attention of the Universalist public had been specially

called. We refer to the meetings held under the direction of the

"Cheshire Association," on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the 18th,

19th, and 20th of August, 1882, in Richmond, N. H., the birthplace of

Rev. Hosea Ballou, and in honor of this distinguished and venerated

man. During these days, discourses were preached by Rev. Quincy

Whitney, Rev. S. S. Fletcher, Rev. Dr. S. H. McCollester, Rev. Dr.

A. A. Miner, and Rev. Dr. G. H. Emerson. Multitudes were in

attendance, and the occasion was deeply impressive, and is

significantly historical. Appended to a special account of the great

gathering, Dr. Emerson, editor of the "Christian Leader," presents the

following description of the birthplace of Mr. Ballou. We are glad to

give it a place in this volume:--

"Stratford-upon-Avon has its one interest for the great world in the

happy fortune of giving to every age the Bard who, in the faculty

for putting an almost inspired wisdom into verse that is not simply

matchless, but at a vast altitude above that of every other poet who

has spoken the Saxon tongue,--William Shakespeare. The little town

of Ayr would be nothing but a Scottish post-village but for the

circumstance that Robert Burns first breathed within its borders.

But first Stratford and then Ayr, for the English-speaking world,

rise to an importance simply unique, above every hamlet upon the

British Isles, London and Edinburgh hardly excepted.

"Those who with us fully believe that the future is to honor Hosea

Ballou with a niche in the temple of fame, as the peer of the elder

Edwards, and as hardly the second of Franklin, who find in the

'Treatise on the Atonement' the quarry where Bushnell has polished a

few boulders, will further agree with us that the gazetteer of the

coming century will put into conspicuous type, and honor with some

detail of description, the New Hampshire farming town where Hosea

Ballou was born. The compiler of Lippincott's did not know its claim

to distinction, when he summarily disposed of Richmond, N. H., as 'a

post-township in Cheshire Co., 53 miles S. W. of Concord.'

"In a recent attendance upon the grove meeting, not the least among

the inducements to make the journey was the opportunity to see the

homestead where Hosea Ballou first took the breath of life, and to

explore some of the vales and hills his boy feet must have trod more

than a century ago.... As we enter this little village, a church at

our right, half a century old, is the Universalist church,--the

members of which have nearly all left, to be good parishioners at

Winchester, Keene, and other more thriving and distant neighborhoods.

"A little farther on, at our left, is a 'meeting-house,'--it is true

to that classic cognomen. It is black with age. It seems hardly

strong enough to keep timber, board, and shingle together. It cannot

be less than a century and a half old. The very sight of it takes us

back to a former and very primitive age. The glass is held to the

sash by bits of tin,--the putty got tired long ago and 'let go.' We

cannot enter, but we can look through the windows. On the north side

is the great, square pine pulpit, possibly one that never knew the

smell of paint. The square pews have high seats from which only

tolerably long limbs can touch the knotty floor. There is no grace

of form, no cunning device of architect, nothing to woo a trained

fancy. In and of itself, it is a hulk that only cumbers the ground.

"Why, then, did we look often, long, and spell-bound upon this

wretched old rookery, and see therein a fascination not to be noted

in the Capitol at Albany or the mammoth and costly post-offices of

New York and Boston? The answer is in the history. More than a

century ago, Rev. Maturin Ballou preached regularly from that pine

pulpit. Among the regular auditors, possibly the most thoughtful of

them all, his little legs dangling from the rough benches, sat his

little son--Hosea.

"On the morning of Sunday, our friend and host, Mr. L. Martin, says

to his pastor of many years, the Rev. E. Davis: 'Take my horse and

carriage, and show these people where Hosea Ballou was born.' 'These

people' include Dr. Miner, Rev. Mr. Stone, of Canton, Rev. Q.

Whitney, and the editor of the 'Christian Leader.' Mr. Davis knows

the way, but in Mr. Bowen, who owns the farm contiguous to the once

Ballou territory, he finds and calls a pilot and village

antiquarian. Perhaps a mile east of the Keene and Richmond road, a

mile and a half from the Universalist church on the hill, right at

the foot of 'Grassy Hill,' we find a strictly modern house, and a

very old barn, and a much older corn-house,--less now by a good

sample than it was before we saw it. It is a one-story house, with

modern windows, and three small chimneys. Mr. Bowen explains: 'That

house contains the frame within which Hosea Ballou was born, and the

form of the interior is substantially the same.' He was confident

that the three chimneys were the same in material as the one big

chimney of the old structure. Of the corn-house near by, Mr. Bowen

says: 'That is just the same, only it is older and is now going to

decay.' Knoll, stream, valley, plain, and high hill to the east,--in

the woods of which run the fence or wall that bounded the Ballou

farm: upon these time can have wrought but little change. We saw

them upon that Sunday morning as Hosea Ballou saw them,--as child,

as boy, as youth, as man. From that quiet spot, so rural, so out of

the way, so completely in the backwoods, almost hidden by precipice

and hill, came the acorn, the oak whereof is now strong and

vigorous,--we trust with healing in its leaves. The little boy

entering that corn-barn to get fodder for his father's horse, cows,

and oxen,--is that the same whose stalwart form first rose before us

in the School Street pulpit forty years ago; whose eloquent tongue

set the blood thrilling in our youthful veins; whose majestic

bearing seemed to us--what it was--that of an Apostle? "It has been

our good fortune to look upon the Forum where Cicero declaimed in

orations that yet thrill; to traverse the Colosseum where Trajan had

a private box; to walk the streets of Pompeii whose pavements were

trodden by resident Greeks and strangers centuries before the advent

of Jesus.

"But there is an ample niche in our memory left. We place therein,

to recall reverently, gratefully, and with weird association, our

visit, on the morning of August 20, 1882, to the birthplace of Hosea

Ballou, Richmond, N. H., 'twelve miles from Keene, due south.' The

town of hill, vale, and forest is largely deserted by man. Farms

that once waved with corn are now covered with forests of pine. The

locomotive has never been seen--hardly heard--within its borders.

But its history is precious. For what it was, for what it

bequeathed, it shall live in history and in song."

[49] "Our Woman Workers," p. 353.

[50] The first Universalist woman who appeared in the pulpit as a

preacher of the Gospel was Miss Maria Cook, who preached before the

Western Association in Bainbridge, N. Y., in June, 1811. She is spoken

of by Rev. Stephen R. Smith, in his "Historical Sketches" (Vol. I.

pp. 31, 32). Notwithstanding the good impressions made by her as a

speaker, there were those who deemed "so extraordinary an undertaking

as an evidence of mental alienation!" A more enlightened and

candid judgment in reference to this subject has since prevailed.

[51] Rev. Thomas G. Farnsworth of Waltham, Mass., ordained in 1822,

and Rev. Alvin Dinsmore of Woodland, Cal., ordained in 1823.

[52] "Argument on the Right and Duty of Prohibition." By A. A.

Miner, April 2, 1867.

[53] Boston Transcript of May 1, 1882.

[54] Rev. G. H. Emerson, D. D., Ed. in "Christian Leader."

[55] Rev. J. W. Hanson, D. D.