USA > Massachusetts > History of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1810-1872 > Part 16
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1100; Thomas M. Clark, Reminiscences (New York, 1895), p. 73; Memorial Biogra- phies of N. E. Hist. Gen. Soc., II, 109; Na- than Appleton, Introduction of the Power Loom and Origin of Lowell (Lowell, 1858), p. 22.
20. The Rev. William Withington, then 'residing in Dorchester', Mass., assisted Eastburn. JM, 1848, pp. 17, 120.
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Head of Trinity Church, Boston, Eastburn must be numbered with the merchant families of post-Revolutionary Boston.21 His twin sister, Charlotte Sophia Eastburn, had married in New York City, 25 January 1844, Richard Clarke Cabot, a one-time partner in a commission firm of dry goods merchants in Boston. She had died in Boston 7 February 1848 without issue.22 Eastburn's position as rector of Trinity, however, gave him more of a place in Boston society than did his position as Bishop of Massachusetts. Having spent the earlier years of his life in New York City, where he went to college and seminary, having married as his first wife Mary Glover23 of New York, and having made a great success of the build- ing up of the parish of the Church of the Ascension, Eastburn must have felt that New York was his home, and the abode of his admirers and closest friends.24 From the letters written to Amos A. Law- rence by Bishop Eastburn, it is apparent that Lawrence was an in- timate friend of the bishop. It is equally apparent, though, that Lawrence was more intimate with the Rev. Alexander H. Vinton as the rector of his parish in Boston (St. Paul's). 25
The insistence of Bishop Eastburn on his own peculiar kind of theology shut him off from what would have been an easily obtain- able social intercourse in Boston society, more than had the shy- ness outside of a pulpit or a church of his predecessor, Bishop Griswold. Vinton appraised Eastburn's theology as never reaching down to 'the deep things of God', nor did it soar to the sublime, nor did it include 'the wide philosophy of the Gospel in its rela- tions to the forms of human life,-political, civic, or social'. 26 The
21. Mary Jane Head's father, George Ed- ward Head, had an older brother Charles, who married, in 1814, Sarah Winslow Tyng, daughter of Dudley Atkins Tyng of Newburyport. For Mary Jane (Head) East- burn see Boston Evening Transcript, 26 and 27 Feb. 1906. See also Edmund J. and Horace G. Cleveland, The Genealogy of the Cleveland and Cleaveland Families (Hart- ford, 1899, 3 vols.), p. 1056.
22. L. Vernon Briggs, Cabot Family (Boston, 1927), II, 639.
23. Mary Glover was the daughter of
John I. Glover. Ogden Codman, 'Genea- logical Collections', Head Family, at the Boston Athenaeum.
24. Apparently Eastburn's first wife was a chronic invalid; she probably died before his second marriage on 30 Jan. 1856. His first marriage took place 25 May 1826. Codman, 'Gen. Coll.', Head Family.
25. 'A. A. Lawrence Letter Books', MSS dated 3 March, 9 Aug., 1851; 19 Feb., 5 June, 24 Aug., 1852.
26. A. H. Vinton, A Memorial Discourse of Bishop Eastburn (Boston, 1873), p. 7.
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comments of Vinton on Bishop Eastburn reveal that Eastburn's great success in building up the parish of the Church of the Ascen- sion in New York took place in an atmosphere of 'uncordial toler- ance', which was 'equivalent to opposition', on the part of his dioc- esan, Bishop Onderdonk.27 When at the death of Bishop Griswold, Eastburn became himself a diocesan, he no longer suffered from "opposition', but he could not completely control his diocese as he had led and formed his New York parish. He still felt the weight of 'uncordial tolerance' to himself personally in what he called the 'Romanism' which he found in some parishes in Massachusetts and in the Anglican Communion as a body.28 Realizing that 'Romaniz- ing' trends were recognized and accepted in the Anglican Com- munion, Eastburn rather dreaded a visit, in the summer of 1867, to London where he was present at the Lambeth Conference. He both expected and feared that many of the clergy present at Lambeth would witness against 'protestant truth'.29 His fears lacked sub- stance, however, and he experienced a heart-warming social rela- tionship with the delegates present because of the kind hospitality of the Primate', and the pleasure 'enjoyed [by meeting] with so many distinguished prelates from various parts of the world'. 30 Any 'Romanizing' trends among the members of the conference were overlaid by a prevailing feeling of friendship.
Eastburn's theology was narrow to the point where comments on 'Romanizing' were present in varying forms in most of his annual addresses to the diocesan conventions. Especially sensitive to, or perhaps rigid about, the position of the reading desk in the chancel of the newly built churches which he visited, Eastburn underscored his approval of finding the reading desk facing the congregation as
27. Vinton, Eastburn, p. 8.
28. The Church of the Advent, Boston, and Trinity, Nantucket, were typical ex- amples.
29. JM, 1868, p. 35.
30. JM, 1868, p. 36. This Lambeth Con- ference which met in 1867 was the first of eight conferences which have been held to date (1954). The Episcopal Church Annual, 1953, p. 350. The primate who issued the
invitations to the Lambeth Conference was Charles Thomas Longley, who as Bishop of Ripon in 1848 'firmly suppressed "Ro- man catholic teaching and practices" at St. Saviour's, Leeds, and his action created much adverse comment, but his critics al- tered their tone and several of the clergy of St. Saviour's went over to Rome'. DNB, XXXIV, 121.
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it did in the new Chapel of St. James, Roxbury, and as it did in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, a mission of Emmanuel Church in Boston.31 To have the reading desk face at right angles to the con- gregation, or to have the priest face the altar while praying, was a "Romanizing practice' in Eastburn's judgment. His remarks in 1867 show how consistently he had continued the stand which Bishop Griswold had taken in regard to the chancel arrangements in Trinity Church, Nantucket, and in St. Stephen's, Portland. 32
The views set forth by both Griswold and Eastburn about the Roman Catholic Church did not find any warm response among Episcopalians in general in the Diocese of Massachusetts. The period 1810-72 saw the development of nativism; this period also witnessed an unsuccessful attempt by the Protestant Churches to restrain the growth of the Roman Church by educating the Ameri- can-born children of immigrants under the supervision of Protes- tants, and by attempting to convert the immigrants themselves to the Protestant religion. The Presbyterian Church was in the van of the nativist and anti-Roman groups, while the Episcopal Church was in the rear or sometimes did not work with these groups at all.33 To understand the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Mas- sachusetts in these years (1810-72) is not to view it in terms of an anti-Church of Rome sermon by Bishop Griswold;34 it is not to
31. JM, 1868, pp. 26-27. The Chapel of the Good Shepherd near the corner of Cortes and Ferdinand (now Arlington) Streets, a brick building, 'was erected by the parishioners of Emmanuel Church; the cost of the land and chapel being about $30,000'. It had some 400 seats. Having been 'begun and forwarded . .. by Bishop Huntington' as the rector of Emmanuel Church, the mission Chapel of the Good Shepherd was consecrated by Bishop East- burn 2 April 1868. JM, 1872, p. 67.
32. See above, pp. 87-88.
33. E.g., ' "All the Protestant sects ex- cepting the Episcopalians joined in sup- porting and encouraging street preaching [in 1851]," ' records Ray Allen Billington in The Protestant Crusade 1800-1860, etc.
(New York, 1938), p. 319. Billington stresses the anti-Roman aspect of the American Bible Society and of the Ameri- can Tract Society, but when A. A. Law- rence receives as a wedding present a life- membership in the American Bible Society from his father, Amos Lawrence, to pro- vide his son with a knowledge and love of the Bible were the motives of the elder man rather than to stir up his son against the Pope and the Roman Church. Billington, passim; 'A. A. Lawrence Letter Books', vol. IV, no. 80.
34. Such a sermon is Alexander Gris- wold, The Reformation, A Brief Exposition of Some of the Errors and Corruptions of . . . Rome (Boston, 1843).
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judge it in terms of the controversy between Bishop Eastburn and the Church of the Advent, Boston; it is not to regard it through the Massachusetts group of the American Bible Society, though Amos A. Lawrence, his brother William Richards Lawrence, and their sister's husband, the Rev. Charles Mason, were directors of the society and life members.35 To see the Episcopal Church as it was near the middle of the nineteenth century in Massachusetts is to see a Church that numbered but a small minority of those persons who called themselves Christians. 36 Of this small minority of Chris- tians, some 4700 persons in 1847, slightly less than 2000 persons (421/2%) belonged to parishes or missions within the new limits of the city of Boston. 37 Of the remaining 2700 Church members, some 1900 persons belonged to parishes located east of Worcester County. In Worcester County, and the four counties west of it, Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire, there were in 1847 exactly 844 Church members, or some 18% of the total Church membership in the diocese.38 The journal of the diocese for 1847 lists 55 parishes and missions; the journal for 1872 lists 97 parishes and missions. The number of Church members in 1872 was about 11,700.39 Within today's bounds of Boston, and includ- ing the city of Chelsea, the number of members was some 4300 or 37% of the total number of Church members. Of the 97 parishes of
35. Members in the American Bible So- ciety were 'Directors for Life, by the pay- ment of one hundred and fifty dollars, or upward'. Twenty-Ninth Annual Report of the American Bible Society (New York, 1845), pp. 150, 152.
36. The number of members (i.e., com- municants) of the Episcopal Church in June 1847 was 4665, of whom 69 were list- ed as 'Clergy of the Diocese'. JM, 1847, pp. 106, 136. The population of Massachu- setts in 1847 was about 860,000, which means that about 1 in 184 persons were members of the Episcopal Church. The national ratio of Episcopal Church mem- bership to total population was 1 in 271. Bureau of the Census, A Century of Popula- tion Growth . . . 1790-1900 (Washington, G.P.O., 1909), p. 57; Living Church An-
nual, 1951, p. 26. The figures are based on interpolation of the figures given for 1840 and 1850, and are, therefore, only approx- imate.
37. The exact figures were: 1671 mem- bers of ten Boston parishes or missions, 120 members of the Charlestown Church (St. John's), and 181 of the two Roxbury Churches (St. James' and St. John's), which total 1972. If the 70 members of St. Luke's, Chelsea, be added, the total is 2942. JM, 1847, pp. 72, 82, 106.
38. JM, 1847, pp. 90-95, 106.
39. JM, 1847, p. 106; 1872, list follow- ing pp. 170, 210. The journal for 1872 covers the calendar year 11 May 1871 to 1 May 1872. The exact number of members was 11,706, while the number of clergy in the diocese was 210.
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the diocese in 1872, 70 were east of Worcester County. In the five more western counties, Worcester County had nine, Hampden had three, Hampshire had three, Franklin had two, and Berkshire had ten parishes. 40 The expansion of the Church in the first seven dec- ades, then, centered in and around Boston.
It was in the Boston area, too, that a number of conversions from the Episcopal Church to the Roman Church took place. These conversions were only noteworthy in the history of the diocese as the converts were socially prominent in the case of lay conversions, or as the converts became priests of the Roman Church. In the former instance, 'On February 11, 1846, Bishop Fitzpatrick re- ceived into the Church [of Rome ] two ... ladies of distinguished lineage ... Miss Julia Metcalf and Miss Ruth Charlotte Dana.'41 Earlier conversions were those of Mary Gardiner Greene in 1842, and Mrs. Charles Lyman (Susan Powell Warren) in 1839. In 1856, Mrs. Thomas Dwight (Mary Collins Warren), sister of Mrs. Ly- man, joined the Roman Church. The historians of the Roman Catholic Diocese emphasized the conversion of Mrs. Susan (Pow- ell Warren) Lyman by pointing out that she was severally 'the daughter of Dr. John Collins Warren, the foremost American sur- geon of that time; the sister-in-law of Mayor Theodore Lyman, Jr., of Boston; the mother of Miss Florence Lyman, so prominent in Catholic circles in the later nineteenth century; and the aunt of the celebrated Catholic scientist, Dr. Thomas Dwight'.42 Mary Gardi- ner Greene together with Rosamond Everett and her sister Ann Vincent Everett were received into the Roman Church in the early 1840s; these three young women did not come from families im- mediately connected with the Episcopal Church, but their social backgrounds were similar to the backgrounds of the Warren family and of the Dana family. 43 The appeal of the Roman Church and the
40. JM, 1872, pp. 132-159, report fol- lowing p. 170.
41. Lord, Sexton, and Harrington, His- tory of the Archdiocese of Boston (Boston, 1944, 3 vols.), II, 359. Ruth Charlotte Dana, sister of Richard H. Dana, Jr. (a founder of the Church of the Advent, Bos- ton), was a member of St. Paul's, Boston,
during the Rev. John S. Stone's rector- ship, as was also Julia Metcalf, daughter of Judge Theron Metcalf (also, along with Dana, an original incorporator of the Church of the Advent).
42. Hist. Archdioc. of Boston, II, 358.
43. Hist. Archdioc. of Boston, II, 358-359. Mary Gardiner Greene was the daughter of
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personality of Bishop Fenwick attracted these young, unmarried women to a life unlike anything they had previously known. The Episcopal Church did not further any more than any other church, an interest in the Roman Church, unless it did so by indirection i.e., by condemning Rome's strength, unity, and endurance. 44
Many of the women converts to the Roman Church joined orders, such as the Sisters of Charity (more properly, Daughters of Char- ity of St. Vincent de Paul) with its headquarters at Emmitsburg, Maryland, or the Visitation Nuns with its headquarters at George- town, D.C. Conversions to the Roman Church and then to orders in the Church show the attractive aspect of the Roman Church for Episcopalian and other Protestant women; these conversions were colorful, even dramatic, though not widespread enough to be im- portant to the Diocese of Massachusetts. 45
The conversions of Episcopal priests to the Church of Rome, however, revealed the Roman Church as a body to which some Episcopal priests in the Diocese of Massachusetts were driven. The view of the Episcopal Church as the via media, as the Holy, Catho- lic, Apostolic, traditional Church was opposed by Bishop Eastburn to the point where he 'suspended from the exercise of his clerical functions' the Rev. Oliver S. Prescott. Prescott did not yield, but
(Peter) Nathaniel Greene (1797-1877), Postmaster of Boston, 1829-41 and 1845- 49. He married Susannah Batchelder of Haverhill, Mass., daughter of the Baptist minister there, the Rev. William Batchel- der. Nathaniel Greene moved to Boston about 1820, and with his brother Charles G. Greene started the (Boston) Morning Post. D.A.B., Haverhill, Mass. Vital Statis- tics, I, 32; II, 357. The Everett girls, daugh- ters of Oliver Everett and his wife Mrs. Ann (Vincent) Gardner, were nieces of Edward Everett. Their uncle baptized them on 21 Oct. 1821 at the Church in Brattle Square, Boston. Edward Franklin Everett, Descend- ants of Richard Everett of Dedham, Mass., (Boston, 1902), p. 120; Records of the Church in Brattle Square, Boston . . . 1699- 1872 (Boston, 1902), p. 221.
44. Ruth Charlotte Dana reported that the Rev. John Seely Stone, while rector of St. Paul's, Boston, spoke of the Roman Catholic Church thus: "The Catholic Church is so strong today, and it has tri- umphed over so much in the course of its history-not only external opposition, but more still, corruption from within- that it simply cannot be of human origin. It must therefore be the work of the devil." ' Walter George Smith and Helen Grace Smith, Fidelis of the Cross, James Kent Stone (New York and London, 1927 [1926]), p. 5.
45. Bishops Eastburn and Griswold at- tacked the Roman Church on the broad grounds of pagan superstition and un- christian 'Christianity'. Hist. Archdioc. of Boston, II, 358-359; Oficial Catholic Year Book, 1948, pp. 361, 387.
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in order to be transferred from the Diocese of Massachusetts to that of Maryland, Bishop Eastburn required him to sign a certificate which 'a Court of Presbyters, duly constituted according to the Canons of this Diocese,' had drawn up.46 Prescott's council was Richard H. Dana, Jr., who wrote to Prescott on 2 March 1852, 'My advice to you is not to sign it [the certificate] as long as the sky is blue.'47 Prescott did sign it, however, not within the speci- fied time of ten days, but sometime before May 1854. His yielding to the bishop appeared wise, as he could continue an uninterrupt- ed service in the ministry, without taint or spot, in another dio- cese.
Preceding Prescott as assistant minister at the Advent in Boston was the Rev. Frederick William I. Pollard. 48 Pollard's first ministry in the diocese was at Trinity Church, Nantucket. Trinity Church, Nantucket, had the old two-decker pulpit and reading desk com- bined, which Trinity Church, Boston, had 'generously presented' to the young parish. 49 After Pollard took over, he rebuilt the double- decker into a reredos, a pulpit, and a reading desk, and then had some left over. He also put in an altar, not a table with " "four hon- est legs." '50 Pollard went to Nantucket in 1841, and remained till
46. The Rev. Oliver Sherman Prescott was ordained deacon by Bishop Brownell on 16 Sept. 1847. In 1850 he had been re- ceived by the Diocese of Massachusetts from North Carolina, and was 'officiating as an assistant minister in the Church of the Advent, Boston'. In North Carolina he had served as 'a missionary in Salisbury'. On 17 July 1850 the standing committee of the Diocese of Massachusetts 'presented [him] ... to the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of this Diocese, as having been guilty of holding and inculcating certain doctrines which are not held, nor allowed by the ... Church'. Prescott was tried in Nov. 1850. He did
not appear but was represented by Rich- ard H. Dana, Jr. The presentment was unanimously dismissed. In 1851 Prescott was again tried in July, again defended by Dana, but, though not deposed, was sus- pended until he signed a certificate of good conduct 'within ten days'. To main-
tain his clerical standing and obtain a transfer from the Diocese of Massachusetts, Prescott signed the certificate sometime before the May 1854 convention. Burgess, no. 1978, p. 35; JM, 1850, p. 28; American Church Almanac, 1849, p. 45; JM, 1851, pp. 34-35; Ecclesiastical Court, Trial of Rev. O. S. Prescott (New York, 1851); Dana MSS (Massachusetts Historical Society); JM, 1852, pp. 26-27; 1854, pp. 21-22; accord- ing to Whitaker's Churchman's Almanac, 1905, Prescott died 17 Nov. 1903, aged 79 years.
47. Dana MSS, letter from R. H. Dana, Jr., Boston, to the Rev. O. S. Prescott 2 March 1852; JM, 1854, pp. 21-22.
48. Pollard, a graduate of General Theo- logical Seminary, was ordered deacon by Bishop B. T. Onderdonk 30 June 1839. Burgess, no. 1354.
49. JED, 1839, p. 10.
50. Presbyter Ignotus [William H. Van
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1845, when the Church of the Advent called him for its assistant minister.51 Illness obliged him to cease work in the spring of 1848, and shortly after Easter he resigned. Then, in Bishop Eastburn's annual address of 1853 he stated that 'The Rev. Frederick W. Pol- lard, having declared to me his renunciation of the ministry of our Church, has been displaced ... and is now a member of the Church of Rome.'52 Bishop Levi Silliman Ives, had made known, from Rome, in December 1852, that he purposed 'to resign his "Office of Bishop of North Carolina," and ... was "determined to make his submission to the Catholic (meaning the Roman) Church." '53 To Bishop Eastburn, Ives' deposition overshadowed Pollard's case. Yet his strictures on Ives applied equally to Pollard. Considering Pollard's and Ives' entry into the darkness and idolatry of the Church of Rome', Eastburn could sorrow and 'lament' for these men as individuals, but from his episcopal and diocesan viewpoint he could only say that 'the sooner they depart [from the Church], the better for those whom they leave'.54 Conversions to the Roman Church, then, were relatively and numerically few. Historically
Allen ], 'Blue Monday Musings', The Liv- ing Church, LXXI, no. 15 (9 Aug. 1924), pp. 463-464. The phrase 'four honest legs' was quoted from Bishop McIlvaine of Ohio.
51. JED, 1841, p. 15; JM, 1846, p. 75. The report of the Rev. William Croswell, rector, stated that 'The assistance of the Rev. Mr. Pollard was secured, at that time [September 1845], and his duties have been discharged with exemplary fidelity.' Ibid.
52. Some six months after Pollard's resignation, the Rev. O. S. Prescott be- came assistant. Parish of the Advent in the City of Boston, A History of One Hundred Years. 1844-1944 (Boston, 1944), p. 29; JM, 1853, p. 25; Burgess states that Pollard was deposed 9 Nov. 1852 (see Burgess, no. 1354). Pollard graduated from Union Col- lege in 1835, a member of Phi Beta Kappa; then he went to General Theological Semi- nary. Apparently his family had wealth, as he is believed' to have received no salary while at Nantucket. He died in 1871. Cata-
logue of Union College, etc. (Albany, 1884), p. 43; The Living Church, LXXI, no. 15 (9 Aug. 1924), p. 464. The Phi Beta Kappa Directory 1776-1941 (New York, 1941), p. 1197.
53. W. S. Perry, The History of the Amer- ican Episcopal Church, 1857-1883 (Boston, 1885, 2 vols.), II, 289.
54. JM, 1853, p. 25. In commenting on "apostasy to Rome' by Episcopal clergy, a great Church historian wrote of the period 1783-1883, that 'But few of these [con- verts to the Roman Church ] were born in the Church, and the greater number had entered our communion in adult years. In few cases have they carried with them any following. They have gone from us, for they were not of us, and they have ' "gone to their own place." ' Perry, Episcopal Church, II, 290. Of the numbers of clergy converts, Perry said that there had been 'perhaps fifty priests and deacons, who have sought rest and peace in submission to Rome'. Perry, Episcopal Church, II, 290.
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they revealed the influence and winning personalities of Bishops Fenwick (1825-46), Fitzpatrick (1846-66), and Williams (1866- 1907).55 Also the conversions indicated, especially with Episco- palians who went into the life of a religious, that in the Diocese of Massachusetts at least, the concept of the Church as the via media, and a knowledge of what the Book of Common Prayer had been, was, and what it could become, were too narrowly interpreted, too little understood on the diocesan level. Bishop Eastburn alone by no means can be blamed for narrow vision in the diocese. The per- vasive note of 'evangelical Protestantism' revealed itself in the hopes of quick conversion and imminent millennial regeneration'.56 The Roman Church seemed to offer a sure and relatively quick means of salvation. Although it was virtual ostracism, at least so- cially, for an Episcopalian to join the Roman Church, for the Epis- copalians who were aware of, and won by, an increasing attention to a more literal reading of the Book of Common Prayer and to the practice of a heightened ritualism, for these Episcopalians the Dio- cese of Massachusetts provided very little. 57
The standing committee of the diocese, or at least a majority of it, supported Bishop Eastburn for two main reasons. Firstly, the long incumbency on the standing committee of the Revs. Vinton, Randall, and Mason, and the Messrs. William Appleton and Otis Daniell, meant that the kind of churchmanship preferred and preached in St. Paul's and Grace Churches, Boston, dominated the committee. The committee's views were much the same as the opinions expressed by Bishop Eastburn on the Tractarian Move- ment in 1849, and in the Prescott case in 1851.58 Secondly, the
55. The dates denote years as bishop of Boston.
56. Oscar and Mary F. Handlin, Com- monwealth; a Study of the Role of Govern- ment in the American Economy: Massachu- setts, 1774-1861 (New York, 1947), p. 203. 57. Converts such as the Rev. George Foxcroft Haskins (1806-72), ordained by Bishop Griswold in 1829 and probably de- posed in 1839 before being received into the priesthood of the Roman Church in
1840, influenced younger men toward the Roman Church. Father Haskins, Harvard Class of 1826, apparently converted Jo- seph Coolidge Shaw (1821-51), and Ed- ward Holker Welch (-1904), both of the Harvard Class of 1840. Hist. Archdioc. of Boston, II, 357. Neither Shaw nor Welch appear to have been Episcopalians.
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