USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Roxbury > Eliot memorial : sketches historical and biographical of the Eliot Church and Society > Part 23
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that officers of justice were pursuing him. Such was his mental distress that he would pray all night, and so loud that no one in the house could sleep. Removal to the asylum at Somerville took place. Under the hallucina- tion that it was wrong for him to receive nourishment, he became emaciated and haggard, and expired Septem- ber 6, 1851. His father wrote: "I gladly embrace this opportunity of expressing to you my cherished sense of obligation as the much-loved pastor, whose instructions he so much valued, and under whose ministry he seems to have made such sensible, and, to all but himself, satis- factory advances in the Christian life. He ever spoke and wrote of his minister with reverential and fond affec- tion. Your excellent Deacon Kittredge stood high in his esteem. Of Mr. Walley he could never speak but with outpouring gratitude and love." No funeral services were more sad than those of such young friends as Mr. Carruthers. It was as if bright stars had been quenched mysteriously.
3. D. JARVIS HASTINGS.
The December of 1858 closed in deep sadness that settled on a wide circle of relatives and friends. Close upon Christmas a brilliant morning was overcast, and highest hopes were suddenly dashed. Young Hastings, only eighteen, amiable, winning, warmly loved, at the head of his class in the university of a neighboring state, succumbed to disease. Never were our hearts heavier than when we joined in the procession that carried out of
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the city the corpse of that only son of his mother, and she a widow. Yet there was much relief to her mind and ours, that, in a lucid hour of sickness, the Saviour's voice seemed to be heard, " Young man, I say unto thee, arise !" We cherish the belief of his resurrection rather than the memory of his death.
4. NATHAN HAGGETT BROWN.
At the midsummer sacramental service of 1866, thirty- eight persons presented themselves, avowing the Lord Jehovah to be their God and portion forever ; avowing the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour, devoting to him all their faculties, powers, and possessions. Side by side stood three brothers. The parents came at the same time from another church. The natural and the spiritual life of two of those brothers ran parallel in twin ex- perience. It cost us- as has often been the case - no little feeling when the transfer to a distant city took place. His pastor there ' wrote me : " Candid, outspoken, conscientious, he seemed to be chiefly anxious to discover the way of duty for himself; and whatever appeared to him to be the requirement of right in the case, he stood ready to do. He was strongly impelled by the desire and purpose to make his personal culture as thorough and complete as possible. Whatever an earnest, devoted, faith- ful Christian young man would be expected to do from his relations to the church and the kingdom of God, all
1 Rev. Dr. Helmer, Union Park Church, Chicago.
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that Nathan Brown proposed to himself to do, and was largely successful in his endeavor. The tender, sympa- thetic, ardent feelings which made him a valued neighbor, contributed to his excellence as a Sunday School teacher, and many souls were given him as seals of that limited but responsible ministry." But his Christian aims were not limited to persons and fields purely local and imme- diate. He did not know how to be narrow. Repeatedly he wrote to me here in Roxbury, desiring information and sources of information in regard to foreign missions.
In business, and other wide relations, he commanded respect. It is not often that enthusiasm of temperament and conservatism of judgment are so happily combined. That poise of character must be attributed in no small degree to the steadying influence of religious principle, and to the study of a volume which has power beyond all others to impose restraint when needed, and to pro- duce equilibrium. But why was a man so useful and so young removed ? His own words on one evening (May 21, 1878) of his short and last violent sickness, were full of meaning, " It is all right." Though taken from the midst of greater usefulness and greater enjoyment than ever before, it was all right. By such transfers heaven gains more than earth loses. The best service here is followed by preferable service there. From the malaria of Romish superstition and Jesuit guile, inestimably worse than Roman fever, he remained untainted. Milan and the plains of Lombardy are no farther from Paradise than
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our western prairies. " It is all right" that the transla- tion should take place in traveling. The heavenly- minded Archbishop Leighton expressed a wish that he might die on a journey, and at an inn. His desire was gratified. For Nathan Brown to travel was not to wan- der. He recognized the fact that whether at home or abroad we are alike, "strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Italy itself became for us yet more a sunny land, her skies have an intenser blue, richer tints mingle in the morning glory of her mountains, since our beloved friend went up thence to be forever with the Lord.
Of the four preceding there were compeers, some of them schoolmates, who still survive. They are all over fifty years of age, and the following are among the mem- bers of that group.
5. EDWARD P. FLINT.
A considerable number of the congregation removed, at different times, to California.' Among these was the father of Mr. Flint, who, after being a merchant in Boston, and then in Buenos Ayres, South America, established (1849) the commercial house of Flint, Peabody & Co. in San Francisco. This son, who was born in Boston (1828), and had prepared for college, followed the family (1850) to the Pacific coast, and soon became a member of the firm, which, for many years, enjoyed much success.
The decisive spiritual change in Mr. Flint occurred in youth, and stood connected with the prayers of his
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mother, and with a Christian call from Deacon James Clap, who read the one hundred and third Psalm, conversed and prayed with him. Mr. Flint, as well as his mother, was received to this church on confession of their faith in 1846; and his position at the Golden Gate has been that of a valued Christian man. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the famous "Vigilance Commit- tee " of 1856. Soon after his transfer to the First Con- gregational Church of San Francisco he was elected a trustee and treasurer, a teacher in the Sunday School, and also, not long after, a deacon of the church. Upon re- moving to Oakland (1862) he came into similar positions connected with the First Church there, besides being superintendent of the Sunday School, a trustee of the Pacific Theological Seminary from its organization, 1868. A share in other similar trusts has been committed to him. Some of these positions were held for forty or more years. From 1860 to 1892 he was financial agent of the American Board, and from 1876 has been a corporate member of that body.
6. GEORGE ALVAH KITTREDGE.
He was born in Boston (1833) before his father's family removed to Roxbury. On account of delicate health he went, in 1849, to the Levant, and was absent from home for fourteen months. During that time many weeks were spent with friends at Beirût, and on Mt. Lebanon; Da- mascus was visited, and the Holy Land. The return home
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in 1850 was by way of Smyrna, Constantinople, Northern Italy, and Switzerland; Paris, London, and Edinburgh.
Mr. Kittredge had previously studied in our Latin School, and after some further preparation privately, he entered Yale College (1851), and graduated the fourth in his class of ninety-one members. Having taken the Clark Scholarship he remained a fifth year at New Haven. The next year (1857) he entered the office of Naylor & Co., Boston, who were engaged in the foreign iron trade, but in 1862 he went to Bombay and joined the firm of Stearns, Hobart & Co. That city has since been his home, and in the course of these thirty-eight years he has made nineteen trips each way, two of them being round the world. Bombay had grown to be a city of nine hun- dred thousand inhabitants, before the late visitation of the plague. Mr. Kittredge has been an active member of the Chamber of Commerce; also of the Port Trust, in whose care are placed the harbor fore-shore and the city docks, valued at many millions. He secured the con- cession for a horse-railway in Bombay, which has been a great success, and now has a track of about twenty miles, and carries sixty thousand passengers daily.
Mr. Kittredge was the pioneer in one of the impor- tant benevolences of India-the introduction of female physicians. Sufficient funds were secured, chiefly from natives, to bring out three ladies equipped with full medi- cal degrees. Funds were also secured by him and an influential associate, a Parsee gentleman, for a hospital,
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a dispensary, and then for a second hospital, all of which are in sole charge of lady doctors. Through the same influence women were admitted to the Medical School at Bombay, as well as afterwards to the similar schools of Madras and Calcutta. This movement led on to the establishment of the Lady Dufferin Fund, and to the furnishing of hospitals, dispensaries, and nurses for women in many parts of India. Mr. Kittredge's English friends wished him to be presented to Queen Victoria, who took much interest in the scheme that originated at Bombay, but he declined the formality. Mr. Kittredge prepared an interesting booklet entitled, A Short History of the Medical Women for India Fund of Bombay, which was published at Bombay in 1889.
7. JOSEPH EPES BROWN.
Mr. Brown's earliest ancestor this side of the Atlantic settled at Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1637. Along the lines subsequently appear the names of Deputy Governor Symonds, Sarah Dudley, sister of Governor Dudley, and George Jacobs, one of those who were accused and who suffered death in the "Salem Witchcraft " frenzy. His great-grandparents were among those to whom a large tract of New Hampshire land was granted in consid- eration of services rendered during one of the colo- nial wars. Boston was his birthplace (August 23, 1843), and the family moved to a commanding site on Parker Hill, Roxbury, when Joseph was five years of age. At
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eighteen he entered on a clerkship in a large mercantile house of Boston, and two years later took a similar posi- tion with Blake Brothers & Co. With that firm he has remained in various capacities, from office-attendant to partner, till the present time, thirty-eight years. Upon the death of the senior Mr. Blake (1874), he was selected as the one for the branch office on Wall Street, New York. His energy and tact have contributed much toward making that branch outstrip in quantity the busi- ness house in Boston.
In 1866, Mr. Brown, with his twin brother Nathan and also a third brother, as well as many others, the fruit of a revival, joined the Eliot Church. Religious earnestness and activity were early manifest. Upon mar- riage he removed his connection to the Central Church ; and not long after became Superintendent of its Sunday School, and later of the Mission School at the Old Col- ony Chapel. On removing to Brooklyn, New York, he took service at once in the School of the Church of the Pilgrims, then in its large Mission School (Pilgrim Chapel), of which he soon became Assistant Superin- tendent and Superintendent. In other outside activities Mr. Brown has had a share, as well as in the weekly church meetings. At the jubilee of Dr. R. S. Storrs' pastorate he was selected to deliver the address, " From the People to the Pastor." For several years he has been a corporate member of the American Board. Vari- ous philanthropic and other institutions in Brooklyn have
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claimed his services as trustee, or in other positions. He has made not less than a dozen voyages, chiefly to Europe, one to the Windward Islands and South America, as well as one visit to the Hawaiian Islands. Notwith- standing the pressure of business and of local engage- ments, he is a studious man, and in his library of three thousand volumes finds recreation and unremitting self- culture. Well would it be if such a habit were more general.
8. HON. JAMES M. W. HALL.
Mr. Hall is a native of Boston. In the Latin School of Boston and that of Roxbury he prepared for college, but went into business, and for the last decade or more has belonged to the firm of Wellman, Hall & Co., whole- sale lumber merchants.
At seventeen years of age he joined the Eliot Church (1859) on confession of faith; but afterwards removed to Cambridge, where for more than twenty years he has been one of the officers of the First Church, and for a number of years was Superintendent of its Sunday School. In 1880 he was Mayor of the city of Cambridge, and since 1893 has been a member of the Prudential Committee of the American Board. He has also borne part in other important trusts.
9. COL. EBENEZER W. STONE.
A son of Gen. E. W. Stone, was born in Roxbury, October 23, 1837. He was commissioned as captain in
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the First Massachusetts Infantry, 1861, and served with his regiment, which was engaged in the battle of Bull Run, and in all the engagements - that at Antietam ex- cepted - of the army of the Potomac till mustered out in 1864. He was then appointed lieutenant-colonel in the Sixty-first Massachusetts. These appointments were in the volunteer service, but he passed into the regular army, 1866; and in the United States Twenty-first Infantry has been promoted to a captaincy. He was brevetted colonel of volunteers, for gallant and meritorious service during the campaign that resulted in the fall of Richmond, Virginia, and the surrender of the insurgent army under Gen. R. E. Lee.
Since the war of rebellion, Colonel Stone has served in various capacities and under different generals in com- mand - as chief quartermaster, adjutant of the artillery school, assistant adjutant-general, military commissioner, and aid-de-camp to different generals. He was on duty in the Bannock campaign of 1878; at Rock Springs, Wyoming, during the anti-Chinese riots; and at various forts in different military departments.
Under appointment to the regular army, he was brevetted captain United States Army for gallant and meritorious service at the battle of Williamsburg; major for similar services at the battle of Chancellorsville; and lieutenant-colonel for like services at the battle of Gettysburg.
CHAPTER XXVI.
MINISTERIAL RECRUITS.
I. PROF. JOHN P. GULLIVER, D.D., LL.D.
Dr. JOHN P. GULLIVER was born in Boston, May 12, 1819, and lived the same number of years (seventy-five) as his mother. After graduating from Phillips Andover Academy, and then from Yale College (1840), he was for two years Principal of the Academy in West Randolph, Massachusetts. Upon graduating from the Andover Theo- logical Seminary (1846), Dr. Gulliver became pastor for twenty years of the Main Street, now Broadway Church, Norwich, Connecticut. During that period he was chiefly instrumental in securing the foundation of an academy of superior grade, having at the outset an endowment of over seventy-six thousand, which has been increased to more than four hundred thousand. For four years he conducted a weekly paper. In 1865 he accepted an invi- tation to the New England Church, Chicago, Illinois, where he remained for three years. Knox College then claimed him as its president for four years, when he re- moved to Binghamton, New York, and for six years ministered to the First Presbyterian Church of that place. From 1878 onward, Dr. Gulliver was Stone Professor of " Christianity and Science " in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, where he died January 25,
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1894. In the course of his fifteen or sixteen years' pro- fessorship, Dr. Gulliver was for a time a member of the corporation of Yale College.
He was a man of strong and independent convic- tions. He did not agree with associates in the faculty at Andover regarding future probation. Always earnest, and sometimes intense, he was a hard-working man, although suffering much from a spinal injury occasioned by a fall. To speak of his agreeable companionship, or of his ability, would be superfluous. His interest in public affairs - reform movements and education - was marked. In the cause of temperance, anti-slavery, and suppression of the southern rebellion, he was notably fearless and energetic.
2. REV. WILLIAM LADD ROPES.
The family of Mr. Hardy Ropes was connected with the Eliot congregation in its early days, when worshiping in a hall, and their son (born July 29, 1825) was a mem- ber of the Sunday School and of the class taught by Mr. Henry Hill. He was admitted to the fellowship of the church in 1841. Having graduated from the Boston Latin School and from Harvard College (1846), he became an usher for two years in the Latin School, and then studied theology at the Andover Seminary, graduating with the class of 1852. For nine years he was the in- stalled pastor of the First Church in Wrentham, Massa- chusetts. From 1866 to the present time Mr. Ropes has been librarian of the Andover Theological Semi-
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nary. He is a cousin of Hon. Joseph S. Ropes, and their ancestors were among the early residents of Salem.
3. REV. WILLIAM SEWALL.
A cousin of Mr. William L. Ropes, belonged to our Sunday School in its early period, and was one of Mr. Morrill's pupils. He was born in Boston, December 14, 1827 ; prepared for college at the Roxbury Latin School and in Cambridge, graduating from Harvard in 1849. After one year at the Andover Seminary he taught for two years in Maine, and graduated from the Theological Institution in Bangor, 1854. He was successively pastor of churches in Lunenburg and Norwich, Vermont, ten years each; pastor of churches in Littleton, Charlton, and Templeton, Massachusetts, for shorter terms. His death occurred while living with a son in Kansas City, May 25, 1896.
A classmate and relative, Prof. J. B. Sewall, writes : " He was constitutionally of a sunny and cheerful disposi- tion, very unselfish, benevolent to his own harm. These traits, backed by a conscience quick to respond to a sense of duty, made him a loved friend and a welcomed pastor. His religious life began at a very early date - in his boy- hood - and in its simplicity, purity, and steadfastness it was like the steady flowing spring, increasing in volume to its end. To preach the gospel of Jesus Christ was his love, and it was a gospel of love which he preached both in word and in deed to the end of his life."
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4. REV. JOHN HENRY DENISON, D.D.
Born in Boston, March 3, 1841, but in his infancy the family removed to Roxbury. It is a tribute to the appro- priateness of Scripture texts in conspicuous places that he remembered very distinctly these words on the wall of a primary schoolroom: " To them who by patient con- tinuance in well-doing seek for glory, and honor, and immortality, eternal life." The family having returned to Boston, his more advanced education was pursued at Andover Academy, Williams College, and at Andover Theological Seminary for two years, followed by one year with Dr. Mark Hopkins.
Pastorates have been held successively at South Wil- liamstown, Massachusetts; New Britain, Connecticut; Hamp- ton Normal School; and Williams College. Two years were spent in foreign travel. Dr. Denison's mature life has been one continued struggle with inherited nervous infirmity, and prolonged illness has compelled retirement from favorite ministerial labors. He married a daughter of the late President Hopkins, and their only son is pastor of "The Church of Sea and Land," New York City.
Dr. Denison's able pen has furnished contributions to various magazines. One volume also, entitled Christ's Idea of the Supernatural, has been given to the public. He holds firmly to the evangelical faith, particularly the divinity, the atonement, the resurrection, and the presence of our blessed Lord. His aim is a practical rather than philosophic presentation of the Keswick movement, an
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attempt to realize the Pentecostal gift in an all around forceful human life.
5. REV. GEORGE EDWARDS HILL.
Mr. Hill, a son of Henry Hill, Esq., was born in Boston, November 3, 1824. His graduation from Phillips Academy, Andover, was in 1841; from Yale College in 1846 ; and from Yale Theological Seminary in 1849.
He has had pastorates beginning at Manchester, Connecticut, 1851 ; then at Sheffield, Massachusetts, 1855; at Saxonville, Massachusetts, in 1863; at Southport, Con- necticut, 1870; at Pittsfield, New Hampshire, 1881 ; and was a stated supply elsewhere. From 1877 to 1880 Mr. Hill was in the employ of the American Missionary Asso- ciation at Marion, Alabama. From 1892 onward he has resided at Indianapolis, Indiana. Mr. Hill has been blessed in his labors, and has witnessed revivals of re- ligion, which were followed by gratifying accessions to the church.
6. REV. ISAAC C. WHITE.
Abington was Mr. White's birthplace (February 24, 1822), though the family removed to Roxbury during his infancy. It is understood that Peregrine White, born on board the "Mayflower," was an ancestor. At seventeen years of age Mr. White joined the Eliot Church. In early boyhood he lost his own mother; but a most devoted Christian stepmother-one of many such in our land -
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was unwearying in prayer for him, and her influence was a manifest benediction. Passing through public schools here, including the Latin School, he entered Oberlin College, and graduated from that institution in 1845, and from the Andover Theological Seminary in 1849. From 1850, for ten years, Mr. White was a successful pastor in Abington ; then in Nantucket; then for more than twenty years in Newmarket, New Hampshire; and later was, for several years, pastor of the Scotland Church in Bridge- water, Massachusetts. Seasons of marked religious interest and fruitfulness occurred during this ministry, after one of which there was an accession of thirty-five members to the church, and after another an accession of forty-five. Upon a review of ministerial life Mr. White, notwith- standing some trials and perplexities, regards it as the most attractive, and the highest of all earthly callings. He rejoices with great joy in the privilege of preaching the "everlasting gospel." It has also been his privilege to part with a son, Schuyler S. White, for missionary service. The latter was born in Plymouth (1861); at thir- teen joined the church in Newmarket, New Hampshire; graduated from Harvard College with the class of 1884; and after teaching for a year in the preparatory depart- ment of Drury College, Missouri, pursued theological study at the Yale Divinity School, graduating in 1890. Ordi- nation soon took place, and under appointment of the American Board he sailed for Japan. After five years at Okayama he removed to Isuyama.
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
Besides contributions to the weekly press, the follow- ing discourses of Mr. Isaac C. White have been pub- lished :
Farewell Sermon at Abington, 1860.
Sermon on the National Crisis, 1861.
Memorial of Perley W. Tenney, Newmarket, 1869.
Semi-Centennial Discourse, commemorating the Organization of the Newmarket Church, 1878.
Address at the Funeral of Hon. William B. Small, 1878. Address before the Gay Post of G. A. R., 1882.
7. REV. EVARTS SCUDDER.
Third son of Charles and Jane Marshall Scudder, was born in Boston, January 2, 1832. The two Latin Schools, Boston and Roxbury, furnished initial classical training, and the two colleges, Harvard and Williams, furnished more advanced training, from the latter of which he graduated in 1854. After the usual theological course at Andover he spent a year in teaching, and was then installed pastor of the church in Kent, Connecticut, (1859). The eight years in that relation were followed by nine- teen of similar service with the Congregational Church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Mr. Scudder's health, which had never been very firm, failed sensibly a year before his decease; and by the kindness of a parishioner he took a voyage to Europe in the hope of restoration. But disappointment ensuing, he died in a hotel one week after return to New York City, being unable to reach his home. Some of Mr. Scud-
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der's sermons were, by request of the parish, printed; one of them, which was begun in Rome, had for its text, “I must work while the day lasts, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." That unfinished discourse was read at his funeral.
8. REV. ALEXANDER S. TWOMBLY, D.D.
The Eliot Sunday School claimed Dr. Twombly as one of its pupils for a time. His birth in Boston dates from March 14, 1832. His three honorary degrees of A. B., A. M., and D. D. were conferred by Yale University, his graduation having been from the Boston Latin School (1849); from Yale (1854); from Andover Theological Seminary (1858). Dr. Twombly's successive pastorates were in connection with Presbyterian churches in Cherry Valley and Albany, New York, as well as Stamford, Connecticut, and the Winthrop (Congregational) Church, Charlestown, Massachusetts, the latter being the longest of the four (1872-1891). It is gratifying to think of him as preaching the gospel of peace on the ground where his great-grandfather, Capt. William Perley, led the Box- ford Company at the battle of Bunker Hill, eight of whose fifty men were lost in the redoubt under Colonel Prescott. The name of this ancestor appears on the tablet at Charlestown commemorative of that bloody day. Dr. Twombly also ministered (1894) to the Central Union Church, Honolulu, Hawaii, as acting pastor. In 1864, he was on the Christian Commission, serving at Fredericks- burg, Cold Harbor, and Washington.
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