USA > Massachusetts > History of the Diocese of Massachusetts, 1810-1872 > Part 6
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10. Bishop Griswold consecrated this church in 1832. See under 'Otis' in Rev. Donald Nelson Alexander, The Diocese of Western Massachusetts, 1901-1951 (Spring- field, [1951]); the site of the town was de- scribed by a rector of St. Paul's as follows : "This is grazing country, inhabited chiefly by farmers; its rugged and broken surface more favorable to health than the accumu- lation of wealth.' JM, 1852, p. 93.
11. See below, pp. 77-84.
12. JM, 1832, p. 23.
13. 'Record Book of Grace Church, Bos- ton', entries for 1836. Thomas March Clark was the son of Thomas M. Clark, the first agent of the Boott Mills in Lowell, at the time of its organization. The son grew up in the Congregational Church, but con- verted to the Episcopal Church by the lack of liturgy in the former society. He married Caroline Howard, daughter of the senior
warden of Grace Church, Boston. Her father, Benjamin Howard, was 'a well-to- do shipping merchant living then on King- ston Street [Boston] . . . '. Mary Clark Sturtevant, Thomas March Clark, Fifth Bishop of Rhode Island, A Memoir By His Daughter (Milwaukee, 1927), pp. 34-35.
14. JED, 1836, pp. 9-10. The pew sales in 1836 list, among others, the following names : John S. Stone, Rector of St. Paul's, $125; Ben T. Reed, $415; Otis Daniell, $1500; Chester Daniell, $536; N. Tracy, $200; A. Aspinwall, $200; Harrison Fay, $500; Robert Appleton, $550; James C. Merrill, $100; Edward Tuckerman, $400; Jonas Chickering, $200; Edward S. Rand, Newburyport, $100; Edward S. Rand,. Boston, $412.50; Thomas Appleton, $2500 ;. Samuel Lawrence, $300. 'Grace Church. Building Committee, Treasurer's Ledger'.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
noted 150 communicants, and a steady increase of parishioners "mainly from the ranks of those who have not hitherto been ac- quainted with the services and peculiarities of the Episcopal Church'.15 By 1840 Grace Church, on the basis of numbers of com- municants, ranked close to Trinity and led St. Paul's, although several families had left the parish 'to unite with the new and flour- ishing society [St. John's] in Charlestown'.16 From the ‘thirteen churches' mentioned in Bishop Griswold's first report on the Dio- cese of Massachusetts in 1810, the number had grown by 1840 to thirty-eight.17 Communicants totaled slightly over 3000, of which some 1200 were members of Episcopal churches in Boston.18 Such was the physical growth of the diocese from 1811 to 1840.
15. JM, 1838, p. 19. 16. JM, 1840, pp. 23-24.
17. JED, 1839, p. 14. 18. JM, 1840, p. 60.
CHAPTER VII
URING Bishop Griswold's episcopate, the annual conven- tions of the Diocese of Massachusetts and the standing commit- tee chosen in the convention for the ensuing year, ran the business of the diocese and exercised, in most instances, the ultimate authority within it. The Eastern Diocese functioned as a means of maintain- ing a bishop financially, and as a clearinghouse of information about the individual parishes in the diocese; also the Bishop re- ported to it his recommendations, observations, and criticisms, both favorable and unfavorable.1 General Convention, with its con- stitution and canons, acted only in a regulatory way on its member dioceses.2 The authority which the Massachusetts convention and standing committee had over the parishes lay in their power to set forth terms to which new dioceses must conform before admission to union with the Convention.3 Under the canons of General Con- vention the standing committee of every diocese had the sole power of testifying to the fitness of candidates for holy orders, and of act- ing as a bishop's council, of censuring, suspending, or degrading a clergyman after a canonical trial.4 As most candidates for holy or- ders received the proper testimonials from the standing committee, and as cases of clerical presentment occurred infrequently,5 a par-
1. At Bishop Griswold's death in 1843, the Eastern Diocese consisted only of Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Vermont had its own diocesan from 1832, and New Hampshire, out of respect of Griswold, continued to ask him to perform episcopal duties, although the diocese was not represented in the conventions of the Eastern Diocese after 1840. JED, 1841, pp. 12-13, 30.
2. As an example, General Convention
set the age which candidates for office of deacon, priest, or bishop had to attain be- fore ordination or consecration. 'Canons of 1832 (VIII)', JGC, 1844, p. 283.
3. 'Constitution of the . . . Church in ... Massachusetts . . . 1834', JM, 1838, p. 74.
4. Canon II (1802)', JM, 1838, p. 76; 'Canons of 1832 (Iv)', JGC, 1844, p. 282.
5. In 1822 charges were brought against the Rev. Cheever Felch, Chaplain in the U. S. Navy, who had conducted services at
[57]
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
ish with a rector or minister in charge, and in union with the Con- vention, pursued its way virtually under home rule or a congrega- tional polity. The influence of the standing committee (which was the actual power in the convention, as it met throughout the year) in the diocese lay in the personnel and the churchmanship of its members.
The striking fact about both the clerical and lay members of the standing committee was the annual re-election to it of either the same men, or of delegates from the same parishes. When the East- ern Diocese was set up in 1810, Dr. Gardiner of Trinity, Boston, had been a member of the standing committee of the Diocese of Massachusetts since Parker's death in 1804, and served, with the exception of the year 1819, until 1830, when he died at Harrow- gate, England, while on a trip 'for the recovery of his health'. 6 The Rev. Asa Eaton, rector of Christ Church, Boston, was elected to the standing committee from 1809 to 1821.7 The Rev. James Morss, St. Paul's, Newburyport, appeared on the standing committee ten times from 1812 to 1824, and again in 1833 and 1834.8 With the organization of St. Paul's, Boston, in 1820, its rector, Dr. Jarvis, was elected to the standing committee yearly until his separation from the parish in 1826.9 Jarvis' successor at St. Paul's, the Rev. Alonzo Potter, served the standing committee only in 1831, a few weeks before his resignation, but he acted as delegate to General Convention during all of his five years in Boston.10 Trinity, Boston, was represented on the standing committee from Dr. Gardiner's death by its successive rectors, George Washington Doane, 1831-
Charlestown and Dedham from 1820. He was found guilty on all charges and de- graded. JM, 1822, pp. 168, 169. The char- acter of the Rev. Thomas Carlile, St. Peter's, Salem, was subjected to a committee of in- quiry, also in 1822, but the findings result- ed only in censure. JM, 1822, pp. 166-168.
6. JM, for years cited. In 1807 Dr. Gardiner had been the sole clerical mem- ber of the standing committee, and the three lay members were from Trinity, Boston! JM, 1807, p. 103. Dr. Gardiner's
long service on the standing committee was due largely to his literary and scholarly reputation and to the fact that Trinity parish was wholly a Boston organization, never beholden to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. See Josiah Quincy, 'Biographical Notices', The His- tory of the Boston Athenaeum (Cambridge, Mass., 1851), pp. 3-10.
7. JM, years cited.
8. JM, years cited.
9. JM, years cited.
10. JM, years cited.
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CHAPTER VII
32, and Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, 1833-38. From 1838, the assistant minister, John L. Watson, served on the standing com- mittee until Manton Eastburn became the rector, as well as assis- tant bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts. Potter's successor at St. Paul's, John Seely Stone, was named to the standing committee from 1832 to 1837, and an all-Boston clerical group, made up of Stone, Wainwright, and William Croswell, rector of Christ Church, was elected in 1836 and 1837; while in 1838, Thomas March Clark, Grace Church, Boston, and Watson were chosen with Croswell for that year and for 1839. Theodore Edson of St. Anne's, Lowell, oc- cupied the rôle of anchor man, and took his place on the standing committee from 1826 to 1829, and again in 1832, 1834, 1840, and 1841.11 Thus, the clerical element of the standing committee rep- resented Boston parishes alone, or parishes within twenty-five miles of Boston in Essex or Middlesex Counties.
With one exception the clergy of the standing committee worked harmoniously together during Bishop Griswold's tenure of office, and faithfully represented the parishes of the diocese. Actually there were in general but the loosest of ties among the diocesan headquarters in Boston, the parishes from Worcester County west, and the counties south of the Boston area. Exceptions were St. Stephen's, Pittsfield, and St. James', Greenfield, where ties with Boston were close because of E. A. Newton in the former parish and the Rev. Titus Strong in the latter.
The one sharp break in the smooth functioning of the standing committee took place in 1832. This outburst centered in the per- son of George Washington Doane. Bishop Hobart trained Doane in his churchmanship, and kept him as his assistant at Trinity, New York, for two years.12 From New York, Doane went to Wash- ington College, now Trinity, in Hartford, where from 1826 to 1828 he edited with his closest friend, William Croswell, the Episcopal Watchman.13 At the urging of 'warm friends', Dr. Edward H. Rob- bins, Jr., and George Brinley, wardens of Trinity, Boston, Doane
11. JM, years cited.
12. William Croswell Doane, A Memoir of the Life of George Washington Doane, D.D.,
L.L.D., Bishop of New Jersey, by his Son (New York, 1860-61, 4 vols.), I, passim.
13. Doane, Doane, I, 90.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
came to Boston in 1828.14 Following a two-year assistantship to Dr. Gardiner, he was unanimously elected rector 3 December 1830, following Dr. Gardiner's death.15 In 1829 Doane married Eliza Greene (Callahan) Perkins, a niece of Gardiner Greene, and widow of James Perkins, son of the James Perkins who helped to found the Boston Athenaeum, and nephew of Col. Thomas Handa- syd Perkins.16 Doane thus held a strong position socially, if not pastorally, in Trinity Church. With the resignation of the Rev. Asa Eaton from Christ Church, Boston, in 1829, Doane urged his friend William Croswell to accept the rector's place there.17 They were later joined by a third strong churchman, John Henry Hop- kins, rector of Trinity Church in Pittsburgh. Hopkins had one idea dominant at this time: to organize and teach in a theological seminary for candidates for holy orders in the Episcopal Church. Having received no encouragement in this work from his own Dio- cese of Pennsylvania, he visited Boston in May 1831. 'Measures were taken at once, which proved it to be morally certain that the Massachusetts Convention would gladly approve the plan . . . ', which it did.18 In the fall of 1831, the seminary opened with four students and a staff consisting of Hopkins, Eaton, Thomas W. Coit, and Bishop Griswold.19 At the same time, Hopkins filled the post of assistant minister under Doane at Trinity. With Croswell, Doane had already started the publication of the Banner of the Gross, a weekly Church paper proclaiming as its motto, 'the LITURGY, the whole LITURGY, and nothing but the LITURGY !'20 Hopkins at once became a contributor.21 The Banner of the Cross set forth the . .. out and out expression of uncompromising Churchmanship' of its
14. Doane, Doane, 1, 152; Trinity Church, in the City of Boston, 1733-1933 (Boston, 1933), p. 206.
15. Doane, Doane, I, 152.
16. Doane, Doane, I, 185; [anon.,] The Greene Family in England and America (Boston, privately printed, 1901), Chart D.
17. [Rev. Henry Croswell,] A Memoir of the late Rev. William Croswell, D.D. (New York, 1853), pp. 69, 71.
18. [John Henry Hopkins, Jr.,] The Life of the Late Rt. Rev. John Henry Hopkins (New York, 1873 [1872]), p. 126; JM, 1829, p. 9.
19. [Hopkins,] Hopkins, p. 138; JM, 1831, pp. 14-18.
20. Banner of the Cross (Boston), 14 April 1832.
21. [Hopkins,] Hopkins, p. 138.
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CHAPTER VII
three editors, and made ". .. a plea for the Daily Service, not then ... anywhere realized in the American Church'.22
Doane was named to the standing committee in 1831 along with Potter of St. Paul's and the Rev. Isaac Boyle, St. Paul's, Dedham. Alonzo Potter found himself strongly at variance with Doane's views, and while he was a great figure in the Church, St. Paul's was of 'such recent formation' that its rector did not have the prestige of Trinity's in the standing committee. 23 Not being an individual to make concessions,24 Potter accordingly resigned his rectorship, stating that . .. all feelings of personal regret, bitter as they are, being absorbed in the one earnest hope and prayer that the Union which has hitherto characterized yr. councils may still be main- tained ... '.25 This left the field clear for Doane, but Doane attempt- ed too much, and beyond ... his circle of devoted friends, co- workers, and admirers, he was looked upon as the one who was at- tempting to introduce Bishop Hobart's policies "into the uncon- genial latitude and longitude of Boston : and suspicion and antago- nism were developed" afresh by each successive proof of activity and zeal'. 26 Doane had lost the confidence of Hopkins, his assistant at Trinity, who in turn was elected Bishop of Vermont on 31 May 1832.27 In the diocesan convention meeting in June 1832 Doane won his place to the standing committee, but lost control of it, as the new rector of St. Paul's, John Seely Stone, and Theodore Ed- son, of St. Anne's, Lowell, gained the other clerical seats. Both Doane and Morss, his colleague at St. Paul's, Newburyport, failed to win the contest for delegates to the coming general convention. 28 Doane's setback was thus complete.
This incident in the standing committee pointed up some of the phases of the history of the diocese which should not be overlooked. On the parochial level it appeared that 'the rivalry between that
22. Doane, Doane, I, 128, 131.
23. [Hopkins,] Hopkins, 1, 135.
24. St. Paul's Vestry Records, copy of a letter, 27 Aug. 1831, from Potter to the Proprietors, p. 132.
25. St. Paul's Vestry Records, copy of let- ter, 3 Aug. 1831, from Potter to the Pro-
prietors, pp. 126-127. 26. [Hopkins,] Hopkins, p. 135.
27. [Hopkins,] Hopkins, p. 145.
28. [Hopkins,] Hopkins, pp. 139-155. Doane was elected Bishop of New Jersey on 3 Oct. 1832. Ibid., p. 150.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
parish St. [Paul's] and old Trinity (which had previously been rather social and sympathetic) began to take on a stronger partisan hue, Trinity being High and S. Paul's Low'.29 Previously the two parishes had been generally friendly. While Trinity was building a new church in 1828-29, the vestry of St. Paul's voted 'to receive and accommodate as far as practicable the whole congregation of said church, or such part of them as may wish to attend worship at St. Paul's .. . '. In such an event, Trinity's rector was invited to unite with St. Paul's rector 'in the services of the Church'.30 Again, some parishioners of St. Paul's probably, and of Trinity certainly, favored a more 'Hobartian policy' from the time of Jarvis' rector- ship than appeared openly.31 Jarvis' successor, Alonzo Potter, dis- liked any discussion about High or Low Church, and resigned rather than become an active contestant; but had the entire con- gregation been behind him in his admittedly Low Churchmanship, he hardly would have yielded to Doane so easily.32 Doane's follow- ing at Trinity represented a social attachment to him and his fam- ily, and not to High Church preferences, as Hopkins, who was definitely on the High Church side, first broke with Doane over the latter's disregard of Bishop Griswold, his diocesan.33 Doane's in- fluence in the standing committee rested in his personality, rather than in his church views; he was 'then in the full flush of early man - hood, and overflowing with poetic enthusiasm, personal magne- tism, and indefatigable activity, and singular practical adroitness in the handling of men as well as in the conduct of business'. 34 The great majority of parishioners at Trinity and St. Paul's remained undisturbed by the clerical factions of the standing committee in 1831 and 1832. By the fall of 1832, John Seely Stone had taken
29. [Hopkins,] Hopkins, pp. 140-141.
30. St. Paul's Vestry Records, p. 111 (24 Jan. 1828).
31. George Brinley, senior warden of Trinity Church, was one of Jarvis' coun- sels in his differences with St. Paul's. [Samuel F. Jarvis,] A Narrative of Events, etc. (n.p., n.d.), p. 102.
32. Potter's biographer, M. A. DeWolfe Howe, states that every element in the
parish [St. Paul's] had been moulded into conformity to his principles and spirit . . . '. M. A. Dewolfe Howe, D.D., Memoirs . . . of the Rt. Rev. Alonzo Potter, etc. (Philadelphia, 1871), pp. 45-50. There remained, how- ever, a dormant High Church group which found expression a decade later in the or- ganization of the Church of the Advent.
33. [Hopkins,] Hopkins, p. 139.
34. [Hopkins,] Hopkins, p. 135.
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CHAPTER VII
over the rector's position at St. Paul's, while Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright replaced Doane at Trinity.
On the diocesan level, the incident in the standing committee of 1832 revealed how highly regarded and how firmly supported was Bishop Griswold by the Diocese of Massachusetts. The Low Church or Evangelical viewpoint35 which Griswold held was also the viewpoint of all the parishes in the diocese, with the exception of Trinity Church in Nantucket.36 It was not that the diocese had been molded by the bishop, or that he, in turn, had been influenced by its several parishes. Rather the diocese and the bishop both rep- resented a kind of Episcopalian Churchmanship which revealed the influence of more than a century and a half of Congregational- ism, and congregational direction of church affairs. Once on the standing committee in 1831, Doane in Boston tried to create a High Church diocese in Massachusetts, thus weakening the influence and ignoring the prerogatives of Bishop Griswold, now in Salem. 37 With the installation of John Seely Stone at St. Paul's, the diocese
35. The term 'Low Church' or 'Evan- gelical', applied in or to the Diocese of Massachusetts during the years 1810 to 1872, indicated the practice and practical views of most clergymen and laymen in the diocese at that time. The practice meant bidding clergy and laymen of other reli- gious denominations to participate in the service of Holy Communion, to conduct weekday prayer meetings, especially in the evening, without following the form in the Book of Common Prayer, to preach an emotional or revival (evangelical) type of sermon rather than a doctrinal or theologi- cal one, to maintain the historic order, but not to believe that it was divinely commis- sioned, to place preaching and informal prayer more importantly in worship than the administration of the sacraments. The term 'High Church' indicated a strict fol- lowing of the prayer book at every reli- gious service or meeting, and stressed the divine, hence indispensable, nature of the episcopate, and the primacy of the sacra- ments, especially the Holy Communion in
worship. Low Church views favored re- form measures, such as the temperance movement; High Church views held that humanitarian movements best could be furthered by greater devotion to the life of the Church. Architecturally, a Low Church congregation felt at home in the New Eng- land meetinghouse, while the High Church favored the 'pseudo' or 'American' Gothic church, with prominence given to the altar in a raised chancel or apse. Consecrated at the same service, Bishops Griswold and Hobart during their lifetimes were fore- most representatives of the two aspects of the one Church.
36. The position of the pulpit and the altar of Trinity Church, Nantucket, 'pained and mortified' Griswold on his visit there in 1841. JED, 1841, pp. 15-16.
37. Bishop Griswold moved from Bris- tol, R. I., to St. Peter's, Salem, in 1830, to be nearer the geographical center of the Eastern Diocese. John Seely Stone, Mem- oir of Alexander Viets Griswold (Philadel- phia, 1844), p. 348.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
had a protagonist who, with Edson of Lowell, could match Doane, and the bishop and his party resumed their dominant position. The standing committee 'was left to act as it had been accustomed to act, in harmony with the Bishop's advice'.38
38. Stone, Griswold, p. 371. In the dis- turbed years of 1831-32, Bishop Gris- wold's character revealed itself in its nota- ble qualities of 'meekness', 'self-denying devotion to duty', and of a devout and holy spirit'. Griswold's view of the essen-
tial duty of a bishop was phrased in Jewel's words, ""A Bishop should die preaching." ' Charles Mason, A Discourse . . . on the Death of the Rt. Rev. Alexander V. Gris- wold, etc. (Salem, 1843); Stone, Griswold, p. 569.
CHAPTER VIII
HE lay membership of the standing committee, like the cleri- cal membership, showed the re-election of the same men, or of different men from the same parishes. During the thirty-three years, 1810 to 1842, Trinity, Boston, had lay representatives on the stand- ing committee thirty-one times, and Christ Church, twenty-two. St. Paul's, Boston, from 1821 to 1842 had laymen on the standing committee for eighteen out of twenty-two years.1 Grace Church, Boston, received into union with the diocese at the annual conven- tion of 1830, was represented four times. 2 St. Paul's, Newburyport, and St. Peter's, Salem, had lay representation on the standing com- mittee at least once. 3 The annual diocesan convention usually met in Boston, but in 1817 the meeting took place at Newburyport, in 1818 at Salem, in 1819 at Hanover, in 1820 in Cambridge, in 1821 at Dedham, in 1834 at Northampton, in 1835 at Pittsfield, and in 1841 at Springfield. 4 The eventful convention of 1832 met at Christ Church, Boston, on Wednesday, 20 June; the next day's session, Thursday, opened at Christ Church, continued the meeting at Trinity, and finally moved on to St. Paul's where the convention closed.5
Serving more than four years on the standing committee were, among others, Thomas Clark of Christ Church, Joseph Foster, George Brinley, and Joseph Head of Trinity, and Henry Codman and Dr. J. C. Warren of St. Paul's. In this same thirty-three-year period (1810-42), Thomas Clark served eleven times.6 Clark was
1. These figures are based on the JM for the years named. The figures are not pre- cise, as a delegate occasionally represented. or held pews in, more than one parish, Such cases were infrequent.
2. JM, 1838-41.
3. JM, 1813, p. 118; 1819, p. 145.
4. JM, years cited.
5. JM, 1832.
6. JM, 1821-31.
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THE DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS
first a vestryman at Christ Church in 1809, then junior warden from 1812 to 1819, the same years that Shubael Bell was senior warden.7 At Bell's death, Clark became senior warden, and took over a place on the standing committee filled by Bell for the years 1817-18.8 Both Clark and Bell showed a sustained interest in the Diocese of Massachusetts, and in the Episcopal Church.9 Bell owned pews in, and tombs under, Christ Church, St. Matthew's Chapel, and St. Mary's Church, Newton Lower Falls.1º He was re- membered as 'the zealous and liberal coadjutor of his Rector [Asa Eaton ] in all church work'.11 He served the Commonwealth as dep- uty sheriff in 1803, and acted as officer of police and held other minor town positions in Boston.12 He had owned property in both Boston and Portland, Maine, yet he died insolvent.13 Thomas Clark also owned pews in Christ Church and St. Matthew's Chap- el.14 William Croswell, rector of Christ Church at the time of Clark's death, mentioned him as 'our late excellent benefactor and time-honored warden'.15 He gave his time to the diocesan standing committee for eleven years and loaned his parish church some $1900.16 Yet like Bell, he was not a wealthy man and left only a few hundred dollars. A contemporary of Bell's and Clark's on the standing committee was Joseph Foster (1745-1835), a member of Trinity, Boston.
Foster grew up in Boston, but appeared at Trinity Church only at the time of his marriage to his first wife, Miriam Cutler, in 1783.17 He owned a house at No. 8 Franklin Place, and after his marriage to his second wife, a widow named Mrs. Mary Davies Sohier, he
7. [Charles K. Bolton,] Christ Church . . . , A Guide, 200th anniversary edition (Boston, 1923) .
8. JM, 1821, p. 153.
9. The Rev. Henry Burroughs, A His- torical Account of Christ Church . . . etc. (Boston, 1874), p. 33.
10. Copy of Will of Shubael Bell, 'Suf- folk County Probate Record', vol. 117, pp. 260-261.
11. Burroughs, Christ Church, p. 34.
12. Boston Directory, 1803, p. 137; Min-
utes of the Selectmen's Meetings 1811-1817- 18 (R. Com. Report, vol. 39), pp. 40, 146, 194, 237.
13. 'Suffolk Probate Records', vol. 120 (2), p. 182.
14. 'Suffolk Probate Records', Copy of Will of Thomas Clark, vol. 130 (2), p. 1.
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