USA > Massachusetts > History of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1810-1872 > Part 17
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58. JM, 1849, p. 24; 1851, 'Report of the Standing Committee', pp. 34-35.
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standing committee truly represented the churchmanship of most churchmen and parishes in the diocese. In view of the congrega- tional aspect of the parishes in the Diocese of Massachusetts, the standing committee did not oppose the bishop, as he was indispen- sable to the very life and functioning of the diocese; while parishes -the Church of the Advent in Boston, for example-which inter- preted their form of worship in the Church differently from the bishop's or standing committee's form, could practice home rule and yet secure the visitations of a diocesan by appealing to the au- thority of the Church on the national level through the General Convention. Thus the Diocese of Massachusetts added members, parishes, and churches to 'its rolls'. The weak movement to Rome was not so much a setback to the diocese as it was an indication of the inadequate way in which young persons and adults learned about, and read, the Book of Common Prayer. The diocese added, of course, many more priests to its number who had grown up in other Protestant Churches and had been trained as ministers in these Churches, than it lost to Rome. 59
59. In Bishop Eastburn's addresses to the diocesan annual conventions he cited frequently his ordination of a deacon or a
priest who previously had been a Christian minister in some other Protestant Church. JM, passim.
CHAPTER XIV
URING Bishop Eastburn's episcopate, the diocese grew from about forty parishes and missions in 1842 to some one hundred in 1872.1 In the same number of years, 1840-70, the pop- ulation of Massachusetts had not quite doubled.2 The number of communicants of the Church in the diocese in 1841 was 3204, while in 1871 the number was 11,392.3 The ratio of members of the Episcopal Church to population was about 1 to 230 in 1841, and about 1 to 120 in 1871.4
The expansion of the Diocese of Massachusetts during East- burn's episcopate revealed the continuance of the organization of parishes and churches, 'for the little groups which had combined to build them .. . '." Such parishes were St. Paul's, Brookline, and Emmanuel, Boston. Many parishes organized under Eastburn were a kind of localization, that is, the formation of a new parish in an- other part of the same city, or the organization of a parish in their place of residence by members of an Episcopal parish, who wor- shipped in a church in an adjacent town. Examples of this type of
1. Exact figures do not exist. All par- ishes or missions by no means sent yearly reports to the annual conventions of the diocese. Episcopal societies listed in the journals of the annual conventions as par- ishes not always were visited, even once by the bishop. At Spencer, for example, an Episcopal society, St. Sylvanus, had been organized in 1872. The missionary in charge, the Rev. B. F. Cooley, had come from Grace Church, Oxford, which had discontinued services because of cold weather and the death of its 'valued helper and friend, Mrs. George Hodges'. JM, 1873, p. 193; George F. Daniels, History of the Town of Oxford, Massachusetts, with
Genealogies, etc. (Oxford, 1892), p. 542; JM, 1873, pp. 156-157.
2. 1840: 737,699; 1870: 1,457,351. A Century of Population Growth, p. 57.
3. JGC, 1841, p. 148; 1871, p. 442; JM, 1841, p. 58.
4. The national ratio of communicants to population was 1 to 308 in 1840, and 1 to 172 in 1870. Living Church Annual, 1951, p. 26.
5. W. S. Perry, The History of the Ameri- can Episcopal Church, 1857-1883 (Boston, 1885, 2 vols.), II, 504. These words were written by Phillips Brooks when rector of Trinity, Boston.
[171 ]
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parish were found in Salem, Danvers, and Beverly. A few mill cities continued to induce the mill owners or managers to organize an Episcopal society for the mill workers. Lawrence, Millville (Blackstone), Haverhill, Milford, and Fiskdale represented par- ishes based on mill population. Then, the diocesan Board of Mis- sions provided missionaries for many areas where there appeared to be a possibility of, or a desire for, an Episcopal society. Waltham and Cambridge (the parish of Grace Church) exemplified parishes in this field of diocesan endeavor, as did Nantucket and Hyde Park (Dorchester).
The growth of Boston and its near suburbs, i.e., what is now known as Greater Boston, accounted for new parishes. Brookline, Cambridge, Melrose, Somerville, and Malden all had organized Episcopal societies between 1850 and 1867.6 The history of the diocese under Bishop Eastburn, however, was not alone a story of growth. A list drawn up by the Commissioner of Public Records and published in 1889 records seven Protestant Episcopal Churches which had become extinct.7 In the list of 'failures' during Bishop Eastburn's thirty years of service to the diocese, twenty parishes were named by Eastburn's successor, Bishop Benjamin H. Pad- dock. In commenting on the list, Bishop Paddock said, 'What a record of money expended, labor laid out, Churches built ! for most of them had a Church, and only here and there has a parish of later date sprung up to inherit the fragments and burden of failure.'8 Grace Church, Boston, noted Bishop Paddock, was the saddest "wreck among them all . . . strong, generous, crowded Grace Church of Dr. Mason and Bishop Clark'.9 Grace Church, Boston, only survived the death of its rector, the Rev. Charles Mason, on 23 March 1862, two years. With Mason in 1847 had come the sale of pews to James A. Lawrence and Robert M. Mason, both mem-
6. The primary record for organization of parishes is in the journals of the annual conventions of the diocese.
7. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner, Report on the Custody and Condition of the Public Records of Parishes, Towns, and Counties (Boston, 1889), pp. 145-146. Five
of the seven parishes became extinct by 1866.
8. The Commemorative Discourses . . . of the Centennial Year of the Church in the Diocese of Massachusetts, A.D. 1885 (Bos- ton, 1885), pp. 8, 119-120. 9. Ibid.
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bers of other Episcopal parishes.10 Grace Church was closed for a year following Mason's death. It reopened again in April 1863, under the ministrations of Samuel H. Hilliard, deacon; the parish was organized as a 'Free Church', which 'experiment .. . proved a success'.11 With the termination of Hilliard's one-year engage- ment, the parish had only 'temporary supplies for public worship', and closed on 3 July 1864. In making the final report of the parish to the annual convention of 1865, the parish clerk, Samuel L. Buss, stated that "The Wardens and Vestry ... deemed it best, under the peculiar circumstances in which the Parish was placed . . . ' to accept the offer of the Methodist Episcopal Society of North Rus- sell Street, Boston, to purchase the property.12 The clerk also stated that most of the former parishioners of Grace Church, " ... it is believed, connected themselves with other Episcopal Parishes in the city'. 13
The 'peculiar circumstances under which the Parish was placed' were, of course, first, the loss of their rector, Mr. Mason, with his following, of his brother Robert Means Mason, and of the Lawrence and Appleton families, and second, and more important, the com- parative deterioration of the north side of Beacon Hill as a resi- dential section, while the West End, or Back Bay section of Boston, developed into the better residential section.
As Grace Church parish became extinct, the parish of Emmanuel Church, Boston, had been organized, and plans 'for the building of a church in the neighborhood of Arlington Street' were underway.14 As Saint Paul's Church had been founded largely on the agreement of Jarvis to become its first rector, so Emmanuel Church grew up about the figure of Frederic Dan Huntington, D.D., a former min- ister in the Unitarian Church, who had also served as Preacher to the University and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Har-
10. Grace Church MSS ('Building Com- mittee, Treasurer's Ledger'). Lawrence paid $450 for his pew, and Mason $550.
11. Samuel H. Hilliard was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Eastburn on 19 Sept. 1863. He served one year at Grace Church, Boston, then at Beverly as a mis-
sion of St. Peter's, Salem. He was trans- ferred to the Diocese of New York in 1865. JM, 1864, pp. 19, 67-70; 1865, pp. 14, 138; 1866, p. 32.
12. JM, 1865, pp. 73-74.
13. JM, 1865, p. 74.
14. JM, 1860, p. 24.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
vard College. He was ordained to the deaconate by Bishop East- burn in the Episcopal Church on 12 September 1860. He began his services as rector of Emmanuel Church a few days later on 16 Sep- tember.15 Emmanuel Church was admitted into union with the convention of 1862.16 The rector's report to this convention gave the number of communicants as 'about 250'.17 Again, as in the case of St. Paul's, Boston, Emmanuel parish grew up around the person of its first rector. The first meeting for organizing the parish took place at the home of Dr. William R. Lawrence, at 98 Beacon Street on 17 March 1860.18 The sale of pews languished somewhat, but the parish finally rid itself of debt. On 24 April 1862 Bishop East- burn consecrated the church and noted, 'The building which was designed by Alexander R. Esty, Esq., presents an interior chaste in ornament, and convenient in its arrangements. Its cost, together with that of the land on which it stands, was $62,000.'19 Prior to the building of the church, services were held in a hired hall. The congregation of Emmanuel parish at its beginning was character- ized by Huntington's daughter as made up of some members of St. Paul's parish who had 'an unsettled feeling' after their rector, Dr. A. H. Vinton, had resigned in 1858; it was also made up of "those who were descendants of the old Standing Order of New England, Boston liberals, Evangelical believers, and the new gen- eration who sought a more catholic observance of the Christian year, and a fuller expression of the spiritual beauty of the Church's services. .. . '20 The site chosen reflected the desire of the parish for
15. JM, 1861, p. 15.
16. JM, 1862, p. 12. The lay delegates to this convention were Edward S. Rand, Benjamin S. Rotch, and Horace Gray, Jr.
17. JM, 1862, p. 60.
18. Arria S. Huntington, Memoir and Letters of Frederic Dan Huntington (Boston and New York, 1906), p. 214. Hunting- ton's biographer in the DAB, Guy Emery Shipler, states that ". .. he organized' the parish (Ix, 414).
19. JM, 1862, p. 26. The pews on the floor were priced from $175 to $900; in the gallery from $75 to $250. Sale of all pews
would yield some $61,000. Broadside of auction of pews at Emmanuel Church, Boston, Dec. 16 and 17 [1861 ]. In a pro- test to Dr. W. R. Lawrence against renting pews, Huntington received assurance from Lawrence that ' "provision will be cheer- fully made by sittings appropriate to such use, and also by seats hired and not used by those who have united with us. Nearly all have taken more seats than they require for their families." ' Huntington, Memoir, pp. 216-217.
20. Huntington, Memoir, p. 214.
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a neighborhood 'likely to be surrounded by an influential popula- tion'.21 In his fourth report to the annual convention, Huntington noted that, "The Church has been enlarged by the erection of a transept with about two hundred sittings.'22 In the fifth report the number of communicants was listed as 'about 500', a figure double that of four years earlier. 23
Emmanuel Church was successful from its beginning. It was never a diocesan problem or responsibility. Reporting his conse- cration of the building 'to the service of Almighty God', Bishop Eastburn noted the plain fact, and omitted his often used phrases of 'pleasure of' or 'satisfaction in consecrating', which he indicated in his dedication of many smaller churches.24 There was a certainty of success about the future of Emmanuel Church, which was re- flected in the title itself, and in the terms which appeared on the broadside which gave the plan and price of the pews. 25 The edifice of Grace Church had not yet been sold to the Methodist Church, and while also aware of the perils through which St. Paul's had passed in its first decade, the founders of Emmanuel Church in- cluded in the deed of sale of the pews the following condition :
That the said Church shall always be held and used for the Public Worship of Almighty God, according to the doctrines, usages, rites and ceremonies of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the United States of America, as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer, and for no other use or purpose whatsoever.26
21. Huntington, Memoir, p. 213. "The site was on Newbury Street, just beyond [west of] the Public Garden, which at that time formed the western boundary of the improved land. Beyond, where had been the waters of the Back Bay, was a wilder- ness, with the gravel-trains bringing in the substratum for the new lands and the tall skeletons of the pile-driving machines out- lined against the sky. Arlington Street was soon appropriated to stately private resi- dences' (p. 218).
22. JM, 1865, p. 76.
23. JM, 1862, p. 60; 1866, p. 62. In the reports of Boston parishes for 1866, the Church of the Advent listed 591, Emman-
uel was second with 'about 500', Trinity and St. Paul's each gave 400 as the number of communicants.
24. E.g., compare Eastburn's remarks in the case of St. John's, North Adams, and Grace Church, Oxford. JM, 1862, p. 18; 1866, p. 24.
25. In a letter to A.J., dated Cambridge, 1 May 1860, Huntington wrote, 'I think you will like the holy, significant, and mus- ical Name, and see its fitness as emphasiz- ing the great doctrine which the Spirit has revealed to me.' Huntington, Memoir, p. 215.
26. Broadside, Emmanuel Church sale of pews.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Huntington originally envisioned 'a free church' system for Em- manuel. The precedent of the Church of the Advent in abandoning rented pews had been successful for that particular parish. The group that built Emmanuel Church, however, planned a compara- tively small church for its own use. The members of the group "were not prepared for all that was involved . . . ' in Huntington's original idea of a great People's Church'.27 There were ‘men enough ... of means and zeal in the cause to make it go', though the rector's 'inclinations' favored a free church. Though in 1899 Bishop Lawrence stated that in its first decade 'Emmanuel Parish . . . [was ] not large or rich', yet Huntington, preaching at the con- clusion of his ministry there in 1869, stated that 'of late, my in- come, taken together has been more, I suppose, than that of any other minister in New England'.28
Several facts in the history of Emmanuel parish revealed what the Episcopal Church meant to a particular group in the 1860s and 1870s. Dissatisfaction with St. Paul's Church, after its rector, the Rev. A. H. Vinton, had gone to Philadelphia, and the need of a church in the 'extreme western end of Boston' where the residents formerly near St. Paul's and Trinity were about to build or move, provided the impetus for a new Episcopal society.29 The persons of this new society possessed 'a great variety of characteristics, traditions and religious associations'.30 The leadership of their first rector, Huntington, was a 'moulding and unifying influence' for their religious needs and desires. Socially and economically the group appeared to be quite closely a unit.31 Yet this unity did not
27. Huntington, Memoir, p. 219. Robert M. Mason in a letter from Great Malvern, England, 8 Sept. 1864, to A. A. Lawrence, in regard to the closing and sale of Grace Church, Boston, said: "The difficulty is there are not men enough connected with Grace Church of means and zeal in the cause to make it go. I have always been of opinion that as a free church it might suc- ceed and frequently urged it upon Charles [Charles Mason, its rector, and the writer's late brother], [but] his inclinations were not that way .. . '. 'A. A. Lawrence Letter
Books', vol. II, no. 97.
28. Frederic Dan Huntington, D.D., The Conclusion of a Ministry in . . . Emmanuel Church: A Sermon, etc. (Boston, 1869), p. 19.
29. Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D., Retrospect and Prospect. A Sermon Preached . . . March 5, 1899 [Boston, 1899], pp. 5-6. 30. Lawrence, Retrospect, p. 7.
31. The wardens for the first eight years of the parish were E. S. Rand, W. T. Law- rence, B. T. Reed, and E. R. Mudge. Law- rence was chiefly responsible for the build-
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limit itself to the immediate parish of Emmanuel alone. Bishop Lawrence, forty years after the parish was organized, thus stated the influence of Emmanuel on the diocese, 'Little Parishes in the country villages and struggling missions in factory towns whom you have helped in years past, strong Parishes who owe their first existence to the generosity of laymen of this Parish, every Church in the Diocese feels a little larger and stronger in your strength.'32
When the wardens and vestry of Emmanuel reluctantly accepted the resignation of Huntington, as Bishop-elect of Central New York, they were successful in calling to the parish the former and beloved rector of St. Paul's, the Rev. A. H. Vinton.33 The spiritual and social bonds on the congregational and lay level dictated Vin- ton's return, rather than the over-all needs of the diocese. In an age when Usher's Chronology could not be reconciled with the developing ideas of the evolution of life forms as conceived notably by Darwin, necessarily there must be churchmen, both cleric and lay, who could minister to the older generation as well as to the younger. Vinton, a believer in Usher's Chronology, was ready, wrote Bishop Lawrence, 'to recognize and publicly appreciate the rising influence of his young disciple. "If you can get more help from Brooks than here [Emmanuel], go to Brooks", were his words to the young men and women who wanted an interpretation of the faith in closer sympathy with their modes of thought.'34
From the history of the early days of Emmanuel parish, it might appear that no tradition or diocesan guidance marked the Church in Massachusetts in the last decade of Bishop Eastburn's episcopate. It is true that the founders of Emmanuel, as was the case with many of the founders of St. Paul's four decades earlier, were either not
ing of a free church on the south side of the Boston and Providence R. R., the Chapel of the Good Shepherd; B. T. Reed provided $100,000 for the founding of the Episcopal Theological School, and E. R. Mudge provided a new church building for St. Stephen's, Lynn, as a memorial to his son and daughter. Huntington, Con- clusion, pp. 5-6; Lawrence, Retrospect, pp. 7-8.
32. Lawrence, Retrospect, p. 3.
33. Vinton held a place with Boston churchmen much like that of the Rev., and later Bishop, Alonzo Potter. Vinton re- turned to Boston in October 1869, the same month and year that Phillips Brooks began his ministry at Trinity. Vinton was 62 years old at this time, while Brooks was 33.
34. Lawrence, Retrospect, p. 8.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Episcopalians or were first generation Episcopalians. The Church, however, in other dioceses and the Church as a whole in the United States did not represent an Anglican tradition, nor did it number communicants who were descendants of Church members for more than two or three generations, except in a few ancient parishes. In other words, the definition of the Episcopal Church in the middle of the nineteenth century as exemplified by Emmanuel Church, Boston, was matched in other parishes in other dioceses through- out the country. Summing up the Episcopal societies in Boston when her brother was Emmanuel's first rector, Arriar Huntington said :
In those days its character was distinguished to a marked degree by a strict conservatism, a dignified respectability, an acknowledged exclusive- ness. It stood with emphasis for what it represented, but there was little concern for church extension. The head of the diocese [Bishop Eastburn] adhered strongly to the tenets of doctrine which are distinctly Protestant. While his personal qualities made him decisive in administration and un- faltering in pulpit utterance, in leadership of men on the delicate and diffi- cult lines of the episcopate his jurisdiction failed to leave a permanent im- print.35
Emmanuel parish in its origin felt no need of Eastburn's "impress' other than by way of his confirmation of Frederic Dan Hunting- ton, and then his ordinations as deacon and priest, and Eastburn's consecration of the church building.
Another, and earlier, ready-made parish was St. Paul's, Brook- line. This Episcopal society in Brookline at once represented a parish with a ready-to-hand congregation, and a parish formed to bring the Episcopal Church into the midst of a growing country town near Boston. That there were substantial residents of Brook- line from early in the nineteenth century is apparent from the statement of an historian of the town, who wrote, 'It was about 1800 that the merchants of Boston began to lead a movement of wealthy citizens to the rural suburb.'36 The Episcopal Church, however, did not come until 1849. In that year, after worshipping for a while in the usual hall-in this instance, the Town Hall-St. Paul's
35. Huntington, Memoir, pp. 212-213.
Town of Brookline, Massachusetts (Boston 36. John Gould Curtis, History of the
and New York, 1933), p. 210.
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Episcopal Church was founded, a church was built and dedicated on 23 December 1852. The parish historian has reported that The founders of St. Paul's were mainly successful Boston merchants who had recently built summer residences and permanent homes in Brookline-members of prominent families, leaders in profes- sional or business life.'37 In so far as the founders of St. Paul's were at the same time members of other Episcopal societies-e.g., Amos A. Lawrence was a member of St. Paul's, Boston-St. Paul's, Brookline, resembled a chapel of ease; but unlike a chapel of ease it was a self-sustaining society with pew holders. Three months be- fore the organization of St. Paul's Church, Bishop Eastburn's assist- ant minister at Trinity, the Rev. Thomas M. Clark, had begun for the first time in Brookline ... services, according to the forms of the Protestant Episcopal Church .. . '.38 Thus, Trinity lent an impetus to a movement which resulted in the creation of a strong parish midway in the nineteenth century. Bishop Eastburn's re- port of the consecration of St. Paul's Church acknowledged the contributions of two members of the parish, who together financed "nearly all' of the cost of building the church.39 When completed, St. Paul's Church in its surroundings was to one observer 'a pleas- ant reminder of lovely bits of English scenery .. . '.40 Bishop East- burn spoke his 'satisfaction' with St. Paul's, when he wrote in his annual address that 'A more complete and impressive church than this is not to be found in our country; and while it does honor to the distinguished architect [Richard Upjohn] who furnished the design, it is an ornament to the picturesque locality in which it is situated ... '.41 The stress on the rural beauty of the location and
37. Robert Payne Bigelow, 'Movements and Men in the Early History of St. Paul's Church in Brookline' (MS dated May 1951), p. 12. The first wardens were Augustus Aspinwall and Harrison Fay. Other early members were: William Aspinwall, Elia- kim Littell (1797-1870), James Sullivan Amory (1809-84) and his son Harcourt, Thomas Parsons (1816-86), and A. A. Lawrence (1814-86). Ibid.
38. JM, 1850, p. 82. Cf. supra, pp. 180 ff. 39. The church, including organ and
furnishings cost 'about $27,000'. The land was given by Augustus Aspinwall, who, together with Harrison Fay, contributed some $21,500 of the total cost of church and land. JM, 1853, p. 16; Harriet F. Woods, Historical Sketches of Brookline, Mass. (Boston, 1874), pp. 81-82.
40. Woods, Brookline, p. 81.
41. Charles Knowles Bolton, Brookline, The History of a Favored Town (Brookline, Mass., 1897), p. 142.
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setting of St. Paul's showed that in the Diocese of Massachusetts an Episcopal church building was generally associated with a develop- ing urban area, if not with an actual manufacturing or business district. In 1853 the former rector of St. Paul's, Boston, the Rev. John S. Stone, became rector of St. Paul's, Brookline. 42 Thus St. Paul's was one more illustration of the reliance of a large parish upon a minister known for his sermons and for his use and under- standing of the Book of Common Prayer, which in the hands of a young and relatively unknown priest might cause dissension in the parish, if not diminish its support. The ministry and the theology of a priest as represented in the persons of Alonzo Potter, A. H. Vinton, and John S. Stone rested on social and family ties, not on the office of the priest, in both parish and diocese, alone.
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