USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > History of the Church of Our Savior, Protestant Episcopal, in Longwood, Massachusetts > Part 3
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Mr. Abbott Lawrence also served as a member of Congress. In 1852, Mr. Amos Lawrence served as presi- dential Elector on the Whig ticket and voted for Scott and Graham, although his own nephew, Franklin Pierce, of whom he was very fond, was the successful presidential candidate as a Democrat. After casting his vote for Scott Mr. Lawrence, before leaving the State House, gave the fee which electors were accustomed to receive for such service towards freeing from slavery the family of a negro. Two expressions of Mr. Lawrence reveal further his attitude towards politics. He once wrote: "The open- mouthed lovers of the dear people are self seekers in most instances"; and again, "We are literally all working men and the attempt to get up a 'working-men's' party is a libel upon the whole population as it implies that there are among us large numbers who are not working men."
Mr. Lawrence's interest in higher education was pro- found. It is shown in his gifts to numerous institutions and in his correspondence, especially with President Mark Hopkins of Williams College and others. In 1847, when his brother Abbott gave Harvard College $50,000 to found the Lawrence Scientific School, he wrote to him:
I thank God I am spared to see accomplished, by one so near and dear to me, this last, best work ever done by one of our name, which will prove a better title to true nobility than any from the potentates of the world. It is more honorable,
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and more to be coveted, than the highest political station in our country, purchased as these stations often are by time-serving. It is to impress on unborn millions the great truth that our talents are trusts committed to us for use, and to be accounted for when the Master calls. This great plan . . . enriches your descendants in a way that mere money never can do, and is a better investment than any you have ever made.
This $50,000 gift was supplemented by another $50,000 in Mr. Abbott Lawrence's will. (Mr. Abbot Lawrence also gave $50,000 for a model lodging house for the poor on Canton Street, Boston; $10,000 to the Boston Public Library, and founded the Lawrence prizes in the Boston Latin and High Schools.)
Because of his father's participation in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and for strong patriotic reasons, Mr. Amos Lawrence was deeply interested in preserving the battle field and building the monument thereon. In 1825, he was chosen a member of the building committee. During the following fifteen years he gave much thought, labor and money to the forwarding of that cause, and made several proposals with offers of large sums of money, all of which came to nought. Finally, in 1839, the sum of $40,000 being needed to liquidate a debt and finish the structure, he offered the Charitable Mechanics Associa- tion $10,000 if it would collect $30,000 more and complete the task. Another citizen, Judah Touro, a New Orleans merchant, gave $10,000; others gave $5000, and a Fair held to complete the fund netted $30,000. The monument was soon finished and its completion celebrated June 7, 1843, the Sixty-eighth Anniversary of the battle. Mr. Lawrence was not able to realize his great desire that the battle field also be preserved as a patriotic lesson and inspiration to future generations. He had, in previous
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years, made elaborate provision for this in his will and had written his wishes to his sons in case they were left to administer the same. However, his wishes were not carried to fulfillment. One historian has written that without Mr. Lawrence's persistence and munificence even the monument would not have been completed in his lifetime.
During the financial panic of 1837-38 which caused widespread failures of banks and business houses Mr. Lawrence was able to write: "Bless the Lord, O my Soul! and forget not all His benefits; for He has restored my life twice during the past year, when I was apparently dead, and permitted me to live and see and enjoy much, and has surrounded me with blessings that call for thankfulness. My property remains much as it was a year ago. Something beyond my income has been dis- posed of, and I have no debts against me, either as a partner in the firm or individually. Everything is in a better form for settlement than at any former period, and I hope to feel ready to depart whenever called." In the same year he wrote to a sister: "I am the happiest man alive, and yet would willingly exchange worlds this day if it be the good pleasure of our best Friend and Father in Heaven." Near the end of 1838, in a long letter to a sister, he wrote:
It is thirty-one years this week since I commenced business. From that time to this, I am not aware of ever taking any part of the property of any other man and mingling it with my own, where I had the legal right to do so. I have had such uniform success as to make my fidelity a matter of deep concern to myself ; and my prayer to God is, that I may be found to have acted a uniform part, and receive the joyful "Well Done," which is substantial wealth that no man can take away.
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That this was the sincere motive that actuated all his conduct is borne out by the following extract from a letter to his son written just ten years earlier:
We must keep in mind that we are to render an account of the use of those talents which are committed to us; and we are to be judged by unerring wisdom which can distinguish all the motives of action, as well as weigh the action. As our steward- ship has been faithful or otherwise, will be the sentence pro- nounced upon us.
Mr. Lawrence's influence over young men and clerks in his employ is illustrated by comment made by a promi- nent New York merchant, once a clerk in the Boston house of the Lawrence firm, who said: "When the business season was over he would sit down with me and converse freely and familiarly and would have something interesting and useful to say. I used to enjoy these sittings; and while I always feared to do anything or leave anything undone, which would displease him, I at the same time had a very high regard, and I may say, love for him such as I never felt for any other man be- sides my own father. He had a remarkable faculty of bringing sterling money into our currency with any ad- vance, by a calculation in his mind, and could give the result with great accuracy in one quarter of the time which it took me to do it by figures. I never saw any other person who possessed this faculty to the degree he did. ... His business was transacted in a prompt and correct manner. Nothing was left undone until tomorrow which could be done today. He was master of and con- trolled his business instead of allowing his business to master and control him."
Because Mr. Lawrence so disliked the single entry
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bookkeeping system, this same clerk mastered the double entry system, and in Mr. Lawrence's office opened the first set of books under that system in Boston. He says also: "While Mr. Lawrence required all to fulfil their en- gagements fully and promptly, so long as they were able to do so, he was lenient to those who were unfortu- nate. ... No case occurred, while I was with him, in which I thought he dealt harshly with a debtor who had failed in business."
Under Mr. Lawrence's leadership his firm, A and A Lawrence, and that of his brother William-Lawrence & Stone of Boston-had much to do with the introduction of cotton manufacturing into this country especially in the building of great factories in Lawrence and Lowell, for which his firm became selling agent. He consci- entiously believed that it was the duty of the country and the government to promote the interest of manu- facturers in all honest ways. He urged business ac- quaintances in the South to develop manufactures there and spin their own cotton, something that they did not begin to do largely for some half-century. Mr. Law- rence's name, however, is imperishably associated with textile manufacturing in this country. Considerable of the money which he was able to give away was made in that business. Tragedy was associated with this enter- prise, for his oldest brother, Luther, a lawyer, who had represented Groton in the Legislature for many years and had served in 1821 and 1822 as Speaker of the House of Representatives, was induced in 1831, to remove to the new town of Lowell. He became president of a bank there and in 1838 was chosen mayor. On April 17, 1839, while inspecting the works of the Middlesex Manu- facturing Company which his brothers had built, he fell
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into a wheel pit and was almost instantly killed. Mr. Lawrence suffered keenly from this disaster, but in his usual Christian spirit he wrote a comforting letter to his sisters in which he said:
We must submit and should be resigned. He has fulfilled his mission and is taken home, with all his powers fresh and perfect, and with the character of having used those powers for the best and highest good of all around him. We shall all soon be called away, and should make his departure the signal to be also ready.
On the first day of June, 1831, Mr. Lawrence was seized with an illness which for many days seemed likely to end in death. He recovered in part, but was forced to abandon business activities and remained a semi- invalid for the remainder of his life, much of the time be- ing confined to two rooms and forced to diet with ex- treme rigidity. His correspondence thereafter displays a Christian resignation to life's ills and a deep apprecia- tion of the blessings which balance them. He retained his interest in his business firm and his investments and spent his remaining years in administering his income which he regarded as a trust from God. He firmly be- lieved it to be his duty to use his mind and wealth to promote the welfare of his fellow men. From January 1, 1829, he kept an exact account of his charities. This record, continued for twenty-four years, is said by one historian to be "the noblest record of benevolence ever penned." He never expected it to become public, but as the same historian has written: "There is no hiding good deeds from the world." He gave much individually and collectively, such as books, clothing, food and ready money. His son has written that he kept two rooms in
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his house, sometimes three, for the reception of useful articles, where he spent many hours in selecting and packing material suitable for certain recipients. Most of the packages sent out contained articles for domestic use and a note containing from five to fifty dollars in money. They were sent to college professors, poor clergymen, widows, students and children. Book collections were sent to many literary institutions and to people in remote places. On his drives he would take numerous books and give them away to friends, acquaintances, and sometimes to strangers. He often made record of "a barrel of books" sent to someone who needed them. For this purpose he bought largely of the American Tract Society and the Sunday School Union. He was especially interested in books of a moral or religious character. When in 1852, Uncle Toby's Stories on Tobacco was published, he bought and distributed several thousand copies. He did likewise with certain other books. He sent sums of $100 or more to many poor clergymen, once cancelling a $500 note due him from one such.
The gifts made to Williams College by Mr. Lawrence personally or from his estate, according to the college records, were as follows:
In 1844, for Lawrence Professorship
$10,000
In 1845, for Lawrence Professorship 3,000
In 1845, for general purposes, and valuable books 7,000
In 1846, for general purposes
1,000
In 1846-7, for construction of Lawrence Hall
6,000
In 1852, for purchase of Mission Park
1,000
In 1852, for telescope 1,500
In 1853, for general funds
1,000
Total $30,500
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The records also show that in 1854, Mrs. Lawrence gave $1000 to the general funds; in 1856, $5000 to the library and in her will, probated in 1867, she left $5000 to be divided between the library and the purchase of chemical apparatus, according to the judgment of Dr. Mark Hop- kins, the president. This makes the total gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence to Williams College $41,500.
To Lawrence Academy in Groton, Mr. Lawrence gave many books, a telescope, two eight day clocks, $2000 to enlarge the grounds and buildings, the Brazer Estate ad- joining costing $4400, the sum of $1200 for repairs, and also $4000 for free scholarships therein. Mr. Lawrence's brother, William, prior to his death in 1848, had given the academy $15,000, and in his will created a permanent endowment of $30,000. In alluding to this fact in one of his notes Mr. Lawrence mentioned the total of his own contributions to the school as about $20,000. Other institutions to which he made cash gifts were Kenyon and Wabash Colleges and Bangor Theological Seminary. His wife gave $6000 from her own estate to Bowdoin College.
Mr. Lawrence was very anxious to establish a charitable hospital for children in Boston. In 1846 he bought the Harvard Medical School building on Mason Street, hoping to use it to that end. However, it was found to be ill adapted so he sold it to the Boston Society of Natural History at cost, giving the Society $5000 to help along the purchase. He then opened a Children's Infirmary in a Washington Street building, providing physicians and nurses. This did great service for one season during an epidemic of ship fever, several hundred persons being restored to health within it. It was finally abandoned
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because the cost of operation was out of proportion to the benefit derived therefrom.
Mr. Lawrence also made some ten persons life di- rectors of the American Bible Society. His opinion of the Bible is given as follows:
The Bible is our great charter and does more than all others written or unwritten. What should we do if the Bible were not the foundation of our system of government? What will be- come of us when we wilfully and wickedly cast it behind us? We have all more than common reason to pray, in the depth of our sins-God be merciful to us, sinners. The efforts made to lessen respect for it and confidence in it, will bring to its rescue multitudes who otherwise would not have learned how much they owe it.
From 1828 to the close of 1852, Mr. Lawrence gave away $639,000. On January 1, 1852, he made the follow- ing note in his diary: "The outgoes for all objects since January 1, 1842 (ten years), have been $604,000, more than five-sixths of which have been applied to making other people happy, and it is no trouble to find objects for all I have to spare." His gifts to charities from 1842 to 1853 totalled $525,000; from 1828 to 1842, $114,000. What he gave between the time he commenced business in 1807 and 1829 when he began to keep his record would undoubtedly increase his total cash gifts to charity to over $700,000. "Were it possible to get at all the facts," says one historian, writing in 1858, "it would probably be found that the amount was much larger than has been named. But taking it at the sum mentioned, and con- sidering the amount of his fortune, it may be doubted if anything like equal benevolence can be quoted from the history of men. It is to be recollected too, that much of the money that he gave for the promotion of benevolent
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objects was so given as annually to provide good fruits. It was not so bestowed as to be consumed at once, but in a manner that should cause excellent results to flow from excellent deeds for ages."
While alone in his invalid chamber one Sunday, the family being at Church, Mr. Lawrence wrote a long letter of sympathy to a relative in which he expressed the most profound faith and resignation, saying:
I can see nothing but the unbounded goodness of our Heavenly Father and best friend, in all that has been taken from me, as well as all that is left to me. I can say, with sin- cerity, that I have never had so much to call forth my warmest and deepest gratitude for favors bestowed as at the present time. Among my sources of happiness is a settled conviction that, in chastening his children, God desires their good, and if His chastisements are thus viewed, we cannot receive them in any other light than as manifestations of His fatherly care and kindness. Although, at times, clouds and darkness are round about Him, we do certainly know, by the words of inspiration, that justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne, and goodness and mercy the attributes of His character, and if it should please Him further to try me with disease during the period of my probation, my prayer to Him is that my mind and heart may remain stayed on Him, and that I may prac- tically illustrate those words of Our Blessed Saviour, "Not my will, but thine be done."
It is quite possible that there may be a few years of proba- tion for me; but it is more probable that I may not remain here to the close of the present; but whether I remain longer or shorter is of little consequence compared with the preparation or the dress in which I may be found when called away. It has seemed to me that the habit of mind we cultivate here will be that which will abide with us hereafter; and that Heaven is as truly begun here as that the affections which make us love our
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friends grow stronger by use, and improve by cultivation. We are here in our infancy; the feelings cherished at this period grow with our growth, and, in the progress of time, will fit us for the highest enjoyments of the distant future.
The care with which he had to diet is illustrated by a paragraph in another letter in which he said: "I have lived pretty much as other prisoners of a different char- acter live, as regards food; namely, on bread and water, or bread and coffee or cocoa. I have come to the con- clusion that a man who lives on bread and water, if he have enough, is the genuine epicure, according to the orig- inal and true meaning." Again, in a letter to President Mark Hopkins of Williams College, he wrote: "If your young folks want to know the meaning of epicureanism, tell them to take some bits of coarse bread (one ounce and a little more) soak them in three gills of coarse meal gruel, and make their dinner of them and nothing else; beginning very hungry and leaving off more hungry. The food is delicious, and such as no modern epicureanism can equal."
In a letter to Reverend Doctor Blagdon, written in 1847, five years before his death, Mr. Lawrence gave the following statement of his Christian faith:
I believe that our Saviour came among men to do them good, and, having peformed His mission, has returned to His Father and to our Father, to His God and our God; and if by any means, He will receive me as a poor and needy sinner with the "well done" into the society of those whom he shall have accepted, I care not what sort of ism I am ranked under here. There is much, I think, that may be safely laid aside among Christians who are honest, earnest, and self-denying. Again I say I have no hope in isms, but have strong hope in the Cross of Christ.
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Later, to a friend in South Carolina, in a letter of con- dolence, Mr. Lawrence wrote:
You and your dear wife are separated, it is true; but she is in the upper room, you in the lower. She is with Jesus, where, with His disciples, he keeps the feast; and, not long hence, He will say to you, "Come up hither." Your spirit and hers meet daily at the same throne-hers to praise, yours to pray; and when you next join her in person, it will be to part no more.
Although Mr. Lawrence's letters are full of expressions of profound faith in and love for God, and Jesus Christ as His Son, they also contain numerous paragraphs dis- playing his great liberality of spirit. For instance, in a letter to Reverend James Hamilton, D.D., of London, whose religious works he had circulated in great quantities in this country, Mr. Lawrence once wrote: "I have a great respect for deep religious feeling, even when I can- not see as my friends do; and therefore pray God to clear away, in His good time, all that is now dark and veiled." Another evidence of his liberality appears in a letter to a son in France in which he wrote: "I suppose Christmas is observed with great pomp in France. It is a day which our Puritan forefathers, in their separation from the Church of England, endeavored to blot out from the days of religious festivals; and this because it was observed with so much pomp by the Romish Church. In this, as well as in many other things, they were as unreasonable as though they had said they would not eat bread because the Roman Catholics do. I hope and trust the time is not far distant when Christmas will be observed by the descendants of the Puritans with all suitable respect, as the first and noblest holiday of Christians; combining
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all the feelings and views of New England Thanksgiving with all the other feelings appropriate to it."
Mr. Lawrence did not live long enough to witness a complete fulfillment of this desire, but his wish was a true prophecy of what has come to pass.
It is not the intention to present here a complete bi- ography of Amos Lawrence or to detail all of his benevo- lent acts (it would take more space than this entire book to do that worthily), but rather to show the character of a man whose personality was an unusual combination of the practical and the spiritual, one for whom a church should be a fitting memorial.
His many years of patiently borne invalidism and his long career of happy philanthropy came to a sudden end just after midnight on the last day of the year 1852. Repeatedly he had expressed a willingness to change worlds whenever his Master should call. The call came near midnight after his dear wife had left him ap- parently sleeping, his hands folded as if in prayer.
Can we not believe that to him, who gave many gifts, it was given, by the Great Giver of all good, to fall on sleep near the dawning of a new day in time, and, upon awaking in eternity, to feel upon his fevered brow the healing balm of the leaves from those trees of life that thrive in the great Paradise of God?
A public funeral in the old Brattle Street Church in which he had been a worshipper for much of his life- time, gave Boston an opportunity to show its respect and affection for one of its greatest citizens. The wrecked tenement of clay, in which the great soul had struggled so long and against such odds to fulfill its obligations to God and man, was laid away in Mount Auburn Cemetery beside those he had loved and who had gone on before.
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He had, in lifetime, taken great interest in the establish- ment of that cemetery, had provided a large lot therein for himself and his family, had given a lot to his pastor and had induced several friends to purchase lots near his own, in this way displaying once more his affectionate and brotherly spirit.
Of Amos Lawrence may it be said in all truthfulness:
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.
The edifice of The Church of Our Saviour, the product of the affection of his two sons, stands, as long as stone and cement endure, as a memorial to a successful mer- chant, a patriotic citizen, a great philanthropist, a lover of his kind, a dutiful servant of God and a firm believer in and follower of Jesus Christ whom he accepted and trusted as his Lord and Saviour.
Numerous remarkable testimonials to Mr. Lawrence's character and worth were made following his funeral. The most notable were spoken by his pastor, Reverend Doctor Lothrop, and by President Mark Hopkins of Wil- liams College. Dr. Lothrop emphasized the strength of his intellect, his sagacity, his quick and accurate discern- ment of character, his commanding influence over others, the ease and rapidity with which he managed a great commercial establishment, the dispatch with which he executed important negotiations, the force of thought, wisdom and sound judgment displayed in his corre- spondence, his terse, epigrammatic yet comprehensive ex- pression, his spotless integrity, his uncompromising pa- triotism, his tender Christian sympathy, his supreme reverence for the right and his complete consecration to
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duty. These qualities, said Dr. Lothrop, secured for him, while still young, the confidence of and the unlimited use of capital from some of the wealthiest and best men of his day. While liberal towards the religious views of others he loved God and all God's creatures, believed in Christ as Messiah and the world's Saviour and therein found peace and soul strength in all duties, perils and sorrows of life. He had a large catholic spirit which embraced within the arms of its love, and of its pecuniary bounty also when needed, all denominations of Christians; and it is to be hoped that the influence of his example and character has done something, and will continue to do more, to rebuke that bigotry which "makes its own light the measure of another's illumination."
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