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M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00084 0964
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Trinity Church IN THE CITY OF BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS 1733-1933
Boston PRINTED FOR THE WARDENS & VESTRY OF TRINITY CHURCH 1933
1774471
TRINITY CHURCH
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BOSTON. TRINITY CHURCH. -
Trinity church in the city of Boston, Mas- sachusetts, 1733-1933. Boston, Printed for the wardens & vestry of Trinity Church, 1933. x,219 , [1]p. plates,ports. 25cm.
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D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON
Contents
I. THE BEGINNINGS 3
BY JEFFREY RICHARDSON BRACKETT, PH.D.
II. HISTORICAL SERMON
29
BY REV. PHILLIPS BROOKS, D.D.
III. RT. REV. MANTON EASTBURN, D.D. 53 BY RT. REV. WILLIAM LAWRENCE, D.D.
IV. REV. PHILLIPS BROOKS, D.D.
67
BY RT. REV. WILLIAM LAWRENCE, D.D.
V. REV. E. WINCHESTER DONALD, D.D. 93 BY REV. WILLIAM H. DEWART, L.H.D.
VI. REV. ALEXANDER MANN, D.D. 113 BY RT. REV. HENRY KNOX SHERRILL, D.D.
VII. REV. HENRY KNOX SHERRILL, D.D. 133
BY REV. ARTHUR O. PHINNEY
VIII. REV. ARTHUR LEE KINSOLVING, D.D. 153
BY JEFFREY RICHARDSON BRACKETT, PH.D.
IX. THE FUTURE OF TRINITY CHURCH 167
BY REV. ARTHUR LEE KINSOLVING, D.D.
X. MEMORIALS OF PHILLIPS BROOKS 177
XI. THE CHURCH PLATE 181
XII. DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCH 185 BY HENRY H. RICHARDSON
XIII. A LIST OF MINISTERS AND OFFICERS 201
INDEX 213
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List of Illustrations *
TRINITY CHURCH, SUMMER STREET, OPENED FOR
Facing page WORSHIP IN 1735 3
From an old woodcut.
REV. WILLIAM HOOPER, SECOND RECTOR OF TRINITY CHURCH (1747-1767) 8
From a portrait in mezzotint, drawn and executed by PETER PELHAM in 1750.
REV. WILLIAM WALTER, THIRD RECTOR (1767-1776) II From a portrait by MATHER BROWN, in the possession of the Hon. ROBERT WALCOTT, Cambridge.
REV. SAMUEL PARKER, FOURTH RECTOR (1776-1804) I 2 From a miniature, by an unknown artist, belonging to the Hon. PHILIP S. PARKER, Brookline.
TRINITY CHURCH, SUMMER STREET, LOOKING TOWARD WASHINGTON STREET; OPENED FOR WORSHIP IN 1829 29
From a painting in water color by N. VAUTIN, after a draw- ing made by SARAH HODGES in 1846. Reproduced, by per- mission, from the original in the possession of the MAS- SACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
REV. JOHN SYLVESTER JOHN GARDINER, FIFTH RECTOR (1805-1830) 39
From the portrait by GILBERT STUART in the MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, Boston.
REV. GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE, SIXTH RECTOR (1831-1832) 41
From a portrait formerly in the collection of FRANK BULKELEY SMITHI, Worcester; present owner unknown.
REV. JONATHAN MAYHEW WAINWRIGHT, SEVENTH RECTOR (1833-1838) 42
From a portrait by THOMAS HICKS.
*A careful search for a portrait of the Rev. Addington Davenport, the first rector, has been unsuccessful.
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
RT. REV. MANTON EASTBURN, EIGHTH RECTOR (18.42- 1868) 54
From a photograph in the collections of the BOSTON ATHENAEUM.
TRINITY CHURCH, SUMMER STREET, OPENED IN 1829; DESTROYED BY FIRE IN 1872 67
From a photograph in the collections of the BOSTON ATHENAEUM.
REV. PHILLIPS BROOKS, NINTH RECTOR (1869-1891) 70 From a photograph in the collections of the BOSTON ATHENAEUM.
REV. PHILLIPS BROOKS 8 1
From a photograph taken by Dr. SAMUEL J. MIXTER in the Clarendon Street rectory.
REV. E. WINCHESTER DONALD, TENTH RECTOR (1892- 1904)
From a photograph. 94
REV. ALEXANDER MANN, ELEVENTH RECTOR (1905-1922) 114 From a photograph taken in 1922.
REV. HENRY KNOX SHERRILL, TWELFTH RECTOR (1923- 1930) 134
From a photograph taken about 1923.
REV. ARTHUR LEE KINSOLVING, THIRTEENTH RECTOR (1930-) 154
From a photograph taken in 1933.
TRINITY CHURCH, COPLEY SQUARE, OPENED FOR WORSHIP IN 1877
185
From a photograph taken in 1933.
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I THE BEGINNINGS BY JEFFREY RICHARDSON BRACKETT, PH.D. Clerk of Trinity Church
TRINITY CHURCH, SUMMER STREET FIRST CHURCH, OPENED FOR WORSHIP IN 1735
The Beginnings*
N October 17, 1733, fourteen men of Boston met at Luke Verdy's tavern, being a majority of those per- sons who had subscribed money to buy land on Sum- mer Street and to build thereon an Episcopal church. They formally organized, and chose four trustees who were also to be a building committee to erect a church forthwith-Peter Luce, Thomas Child, Thomas Greene, and William Price; and Leonard Vassall was chosen treasurer. Eighteen persons then pledged a total of £1,7 50 to the building committee. William Speakman led with £200; fourteen, including Vassall, Greene, and Price, gave £100 cach; and three gave £50 each.
Vassall had acquired title to the lot of land on Summer Street in 1728, and had conveyed it, two years later, to Speak- man, John Barns, and John Gibbins, who were to endeavor to procure the erection of a church on it, within five years and five months. A subscription list of some twenty persons then tocalled over £400. But that was not enough to pay for the land. If the land was not paid for and the church built within the time fixed, the money subscribed would be returned and Vassall might buy back the land. Although the oldest book used for records of Trinity Church was evidently made ready by an enthusiastic individual as early as 1730, with a copy therein of the deed of 1728, yet the year 1733 was the real be- ginning of an organized parish with continuous life. The sub- scribers at that time were prospective proprietors, for their subscriptions were to be paid back in pews, as much as possi- ble. The trustees or building committee not only began forth- with to build the church edifice, but continued to adminis- ter the business affairs of Trinity Church for six years, until after the first wardens and vestry were elected. This building
*The writer of this chapter is indebted for helpful suggestions to his associates of the special committee of the wardens and vestry on the parish history -the rector, Robert Treat Paine, Alexander Whiteside, Judge Marcus Morton -and to Professor Samuel Eliot Morison of Trinity Church.
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committee was expected for a time to meet weekly, in the evening, at the "Golden Ball." In order to stimulate attend- ance, a plan was tried of charging the "reckoning" of those who came to those who did not attend-but the plan is said not to have worked!
The chief builder chosen was one John Indecott. That autumn or early winter of 1733, there was a "raising" dinner, to celebrate the framing of the edifice. The only detail of the dinner known is that £60 was appropriated for it. About that time, there were large payments by the treasurer "for rum, sugar, molasses and goods" -but the contractors were to be paid for their services partly with "goods."
When the first service was held in the church, August 15, 1735, there was another dinner. The guests invited included the governor and the lieutenant-governor, the captain of a British man-of-war then in port, the few Episcopal ministers in town, all those persons who had given or lent money to the church, and the three head carpenters. The cost of the dinner to the church seems to have been only £20.
The church was still unfinished within and lacked much necessary equipment. Gallery pews were built in 1741; an or- gan, purchased in London, was installed in 1744, at a cost of £382. A pulpit was built, and a vestry room added. A bell taken at the capture of Quebec was bought and put up in 1759. There were gifts of Communion plate and furnishings from the King through the governor. Gifts for equipment and for maintenance were sought in England, with only partial suc- cess. The church was in debt, chiefly to the Episcopal Char- itable Society, King's Chapel, and Speakman.
For a time the clergy of King's Chapel supplied the minis- try. The first celebration of "the Holy Sacrement of the Lord's Super" took place on Trinity Sunday, 1739, the number of communicants being about forty.
Peter Luce and Thomas Greene were chosen in 1737 to act as wardens, but the regular elections of wardens and ves-
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THE BEGINNINGS
trymen began at Easter, 1739. William Speakman was then chosen senior warden. By occupation he was a baker. He had been a warden in King's Chapel, and after holding this office in Trinity for several years, resigned it to become again a warden at the Chapel. The junior warden was Joseph Dowse, a merchant. The thirteen vestrymen were by occupation seven merchants, two distillers, a wine-cooper, a goldsmith, an apothecary, a tailor.
There were many ties between Trinity Church and King's Chapel, and some with Christ Church. Speakman, Price, Greene, and a few others, like-minded Churchmen, must have formed an unlabelled Episcopalian club of that day .*
In New England, the established Church was the Congre- gational. The societies were generally supported from the local tax rates. The few struggling Anglican churches, often called Episcopal, were started as missions of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. That society, after some tentative beginnings, was formally organized, in England, in 1701. It placed and supported most of the Epis- copal clergy in New England and they often reported to it. There were two exceptions in Boston, King's Chapel and Trinity Church.
When Trinity Church was established there were two Anglican or Episcopal societies in Boston. The position of King's Chapel, opened in 1689, was unique." For it was the place of worship which was designated as being under the special interest and patronage of the ruling sovereign. When King William or one of the Georges reigned, it was King's Chapel; when Anne reigned, it was Queen's Chapel. Its assist- ant ministers were at times maintained by royal grant. The congregation was often spoken of as "the representatives of the Royal Chapel."
The authority of the Bishops of London over the colonial churches is a question not pertinent here beyond the one fact " Annals of King's Chapel, the Rev. Henry W. Foote, D.D., 2 vols., Boston, 1882, 1896.
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that while Dr. Gibson was bishop he named the Rev. Roger Price, the minister of King's Chapel, Boston, to be commis- sary or overseer of the other Episcopal churches in New Eng- land. The two interesting points are that Mr. Price had already been chosen minister by vote of the congregation; but that, for the form of induction, the officers of the Chapel allowed Mr. Price to lock them out and himself within the building and then to open the door and admit them.
The minister of Christ Church, from its opening in 1723 to 1765, was the Rev. Timothy Cutler, formerly a Congrega- tionalist and rector of Yale College. He became a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and was licensed by the Bishop of London. He reported to the Society frequently. He had no formal induction. He secured from the congregation some regular support for himself and addi- tions to the church structure and equipment. But a later his- torian of Christ Church, the Rev. Henry Burroughs, says that it depended during colonial times on financial aid from England .*
Trinity Church at first tried to get financial aid from Eng- land, but got very little. Mr. Commissary Price, who was a difficult person, urged the London Society not to give to Trinity, for it neither needed nor deserved aid. That was for- tunate, perhaps, in putting the church on its own feet finan- cially. While it was Anglican in worship and discipline, its form of government was Congregational. It was an associa- tion of proprietors of pews. Those proprietors alone decided the choice of a minister and important matters of church ad- ministration. The rules adopted by the proprietors and agreed to by each minister provided that the assent of the proprie- tors, as well as that of the minister, was necessary to a choice of any assistant minister, and that the minister should be noti- fied of vestry meetings. During most of Trinity Church his-
* History of the American Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. William S. Perry, D.D., Bos- ton, 1885.
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THE BEGINNINGS
tory, the senior warden has presided at meetings of the ward- ens and vestry and of the proprietors .*
The old ceremony of "induction" of a clergyman to be the rector of Trinity was used even as late as the coming of Dr. Gardiner, in 1805, long after the church formed a part of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. The minister was in- ducted into his office "in the usual Form in the Body of the church, by the Senior Warden taking him by the hand, a quorum of the Vestry being present, and speaking for the proprietors who are the patrons."
The religious society of Trinity Church, Boston, thrown on its own financial resources, free in choice of and contract with its clergy, familiar with the Congregational spirit in church government, was an early expression of New England people themselves for forming an Anglican church!
In the year 1735, the proprietors called to be their minister the Rev. Arthur Browne, who had been at King's Chapel ( later named St. John's Church ) in Providence, Rhode Island, since . 1729. He was evidently a promising man, of thirty-six years, but he declined the call. He soon accepted a call to St. John's Church, Portsmouth, the only Episcopal church in New Hampshire, and remained there many years. In 1737 the Rev. Addington Davenport, an assistant at King's Chapel, was called and in 1740 he came as first rector of Trinity. He and his early successors are spoken of briefly in the historical sermon by Mr. Brooks, of 1877, which forms the next chapter of this volume. Interesting details of them may be found in Sprague's Annals of the American Episcopal Pulpit tand in Bishop Perry's Historical Collections. § The latter gives vividly, in letters from
* The Rev. Jonathan M. Wainwright, during his brief term as rector, 1833-1838, pre- sided at meetings of the wardens and vestry, as was the custoin in mnost dioceses of the United States.
t By William B. Sprague, D.D., New York, 1861.
§ Historical Collections Relating to the American Colonial Church, edited by William S. Perry, D.D., Hartford, 1873 ; Vol. III, " Massachusetts." See also letters of the Rev. Sam- uel Parker in The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Eastern Diocese, C. R. Batchelder, Boston, 1910.
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Church of England missionaries, the weakness of the Episco- pal missions in Massachusetts. Mr. Davenport was graduated from Harvard College in 1719. He had ministered at Scituate, with some seventy-five parishioners, most of them living there and at Hanover, for three years. When he left Scituate he gave seven acres and his house there for the support of the parish, St. Andrew's, later located at Hanover. He had had a hard time, largely because Episcopalians were regarded by the Congregationalists as apostates and subverters of the peace. Two of his wardens had been put in prison, so he wrote, for not paying rates to the town Congregational Church. Life in Boston at King's Chapel and Trinity must have been very different. We are told in the Commemorative Discourses of 1885, published by the diocese, that more than a third of the pews in Trinity Church, soon after 1735, were taken up "by the Gentlemen and Merchants who were bred Dissenters and have conformed" recently. Despite the slow completion of the interior of Trinity Church and the financial pressure, Mr. Davenport could write to the Bishop of London in 1741 "how God Almighty has been pleased to own and prosper it."
Of the first four rectors, serving from 1740 to 1804, three had New England roots and all had connections with the Congregational Church. Mr. Davenport's father, also a Har- vard graduate, held high provincial offices, and was a founder of Brattle Street Congregational Church. Mr. Hooper had come over from Scotland, with excellent recommendations from prominent persons there, and in about three years, in 1737, was chosen the minister of a newly formed Congre- gational society in Boston. In 1746, he became a member of the Church of England, and went to London to be ordained, in order to be rector of Trinity Church. On his sudden sail- ing, the Boston Evening Post said: "It is generally thought no minister in the country was ever better respected and sup- ported by his people." Governor Shirley then wrote to Lon-
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The Reverend Wiliam. Hooper. A: 11. Minister of Trinity Church Befint. A .- Jel'by I Plan in Boston -
REV. WILLIAM HOOPER SECOND RECTOR
THE BEGINNINGS
don warmly of him and his work, that he had been an "ex- traordinary preacher" and had "in a remarkable manner" the hearts of the people among whom he had ministered. Mr. Walter's father and grandfather had been Congregational ministers in Roxbury. Another grandfather was a chief jus- tice of Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard College, in 1756, where he stood high in classics, he taught school in Salem, and then was an official in the Custom House there. When he turned to the Church of England for ordination, in 1764, his former pastor, an eminent Congregationalist of Salem, wrote to the London Church authorities that he had been a constant communicant and in every way deserved high praise. Mr. Walter left Boston, at the Revolution, as a Loyalist, became rector of a parish in Nova Scotia, and returned to Bos- ton, to be rector of Christ Church from 179 2 to 1800. One in- cident which occurred while he was rector of that church illustrates the man. He was invited by President Willard of Harvard College to deliver the Dudleian Lecture on the speci- fied subject of "exposing the idolatry of the Romish Church, their tyranny, &c." He declined, saying that he had never liked the subject, that our government treated all denominations equally, that among his acquaintance were leading Catholics seriously engaged in their Master's service!
In 1773, Mr. Walter, in looking for an assistant minister, turned to a young schoolteacher in Newburyport, Samuel Parker. Dr. Caner of King's Chapel also considered him for as- sistant at the Chapel. Mr. Walter's correspondence with Par- ker, like all the other records which are available of Walter, shows marked kindness, dignity, wisdom. That the rector re- mained a moderate Tory and became a refugee is not surpris- ing. Of the Boston Tea Party he writes to Parker, who had gone to England for ordination: "I own myself greatly at a loss to conjecture what will be the Issue of this Ebullition of the Spirit of Liberty." While he blames the Tea Party, he supposes
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"that Parliament would yield this Duty upon Tea rather than hazard by it the Dependency of the Colonies."* Mr. Parker was graduated from Harvard in 1764. His father was a lawyer of note and a judge in New Hampshire, and was a Congrega- tionalist. The son, on leaving Harvard, became master of "an ancient and respectable " school in Roxbury, before preparing for the Church. Mr. Parker, while rector of Trinity, was an outstanding citizen of Boston. He was one of the first board of trustees of the Boston Library Society, organized in 1793, and was chairman of the board of managers of the Boston Dis- pensary from its organization in 1796 until he became bishop in 1804. From early days, the associations of Trinity pulpit have been generally with breadth of view and toleration. The clergy seem to have been well thought of by their Boston neighbors.
The town of Boston when Trinity began its career, if we may trust the map and notations of one of its founders, Wil- liam Price, had some eighteen thousand inhabitants. Besides King's Chapel and Christ Church, there were eight Congre- gational meeting-houses and one French Protestant society, one Anabaptist, one "Irish" Presbyterian, and one Quaker Meeting. In 1748, Dr. Cutler, rector of Christ Church, wrote to the Society for the Propagationof the Gospel that hischurch was the smallest of the three Episcopal congregations; that King's Chapel and Trinity were fairly large; that there were ten large independent congregations and three smaller ones- one on the Genevan model, one Anabaptist, one of Quakers. The Papists, he thought, were many, but were too concealed for observation! And there were eight Episcopal or Church of England societies in Massachusetts outside of Boston. In 1766, fourteen Episcopal clergy of New England attended a conven- tion in Boston. Two years later, fifteen clergymen, including Mr. Walter, third rector of Trinity Church, signed a letter to the S. P. G. in London saying that the general state of their
* See documents at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and its Proceedings for 1888.
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REV. WILLIAM WALTER THIRD RECTOR
THE BEGINNINGS
churches was as good as could reasonably be expected un- der the present troublesome state of the colonies, and that they had to cultivate patience under various insults for refusing to join in popular clamors. The political revolution was on.
When Mr. Walter, in 1776, left Boston with the British troops, as did the clergy of King's Chapel and Christ Church, Mr. Samuel Parker remained in charge of Trinity. The pro- prietors of King's Chapel suggested that one service for the small number of Episcopalians remaining in Boston should be held in the Chapel, as it was the most centrally located. But Mr. Parker would not close Trinity; worshippers were invited there; and in 178 2, there are recorded the warm thanks of the Chapel for that accomodation. While Mr. Parker was a friendly neighbor, he could not approve the changes which were adopted at King's Chapel in the manner of installing its minister and in the revision of its liturgy. Mr. Brooks in his historical sermon tells how Mr. Parker, with the approval of wardens, vestry, and proprietors, omitted prayers for the King and kept Trinity Church open throughout the Revolution- when King's Chapel was used by a Congregationalist so- ciety and Christ Church was closed. But there was another fine service done by Mr. Parker, disclosed in the memoirs of Bishop White of Pennsylvania. It was stressed by Dr. Donald, tenth rector of Trinity Church, in a sermon preached when there was unveiled in the church in 1901 a tablet in memory of Charles Henry Parker, grandson of the fourth rector and long a leading vestryman and warden. That service was the statesmanlike part which Mr. Parker played in organizing the Protestant Episcopal Church in America between 1785 and 1789. It was twofold. First, he helped to unite the Episcopa- lians of New England with their brethren to the South in one national Church, under a Church constitution-adopted in Philadelphia, where the Federal Constitution had just been drafted. Secondly, he helped to give to the laity an important share of power in our ecclesiastical constitution-in marked
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contrast to the traditions of Anglican Church government .* Let us not forget, said Dr. Donald, how critical was the time, how important the issues, and that the achievement was largely due to one "modest, sagacious, disinterested, tenacious man, Samuel Parker."t Bishop Parker's successor in Trinity, Mr. Gardiner, wrote of him: "His reputation extended through- out the Union .. . . He was looked up to as the head of the Episcopal Church in New England." The degree of Doctor of Divinity was given him in 1789 by the University of Pennsylvania.
The Rev. John Sylvester John Gardiner, the fifth rector of Trinity Church, from 1804 to 1830, also had strong New England ties. His grandfather Sylvanus, who was of a well- known Rhode Island family, studied medicine in Paris, and practised it in Boston. He had a large circle of acquaintances. He was the senior warden of King's Chapel, off and on, for twenty years. He had great estates in Maine and founded the town of Gardiner on the Kennebec. He was a refugee at the Revolution, but he returned and spent his last years in Rhode Island. His oldest son was educated in England but was al- ways an ardent Whig in politics and a defender of the Ameri- can colonies. His son, afterward the rector, divided his school- ing between Boston in New England and England, and re- turned to Boston to live with his father in 1783. He first studied law, then entered the ministry in 1787. He acted as lay reader in Maine; his first ministry was at Beaufort, South Carolina. He became assistant minister at Trinity in 1792. To supplement his income, he opened a private school in the clas- 'sics, in which he had won proficiency in England. "His school soon acquired great reputation. His pupils were numerous. They entered high at the University. ... From the establish- ment of his school the revival in this community of classical
* Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. William White, D.D., New York, 1880.
t Notes of a sermon preached by the Rev. E. Winchester Donald, D).D., Trinity Sun- day, 1901.
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REV. SAMUEL PARKER FOURTH RECTOR
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THE BEGINNINGS
learning may be dated." He received an A.M. from Harvard in 1803 and a D.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1813 .*
The Anthology Club, which grew into the Boston Athe- naeum, was organized at Mr. Gardiner's house, and he was the president for its first five years. That active association of men of culture, wrote the Hon. Josiah Quincy, marked "an epoch in the intellectual history of the United States." And he added of Mr. Gardiner: "Avoiding controversy, he upheld the doctrines and order of his church with earnestness. Liberal in respect to the opinions of others, he claimed reciprocity for his own. For cant or fanaticism he had neither sympathy nor respect." t
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