USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume III > Part 20
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The New Old South Church, which was built about the same time, 1874, as the above, had also for its principal features a tower but one of a very different character. Bacon, in describing this church, says :
This is one of the costliest and most conspicuous of the notable church buildings of this quarter. The buildings occupy a rectangle. The Boylston Street front is about 200 feet, and that on Dartmouth Street about 90. The church, occupying two-thirds of the rectangle, is in the form of a cross, and the style of architecture is North Italian Gothic. Its most conspicuous features are its massive stone tower, 248 feet high, terminating in a pyramidal spire; and the lantern 20 feet square, pierced with large arched windows, with its pointed gilded copper dome, into which the roof opens at the intersection of the arms of the cross. The walls of the buildings are of Roxbury stone, with dressings worked in brown Connecticut and light Ohio freestone. The outside is richly ornamented. A belt of gray sandstone runs along the walls, with carved vines and fruits, among which are birds and squirrels. Between the south transept and the tower is an arcade, across the front of which are these words : "Behold, I have set before thee an open door." Here is also a larget tablet inscribed as follows: "1669. Old South Church. Preserved and blessed of God for more than two hundred years while worshipping on its original site, corner of Washington and Milk streets, whence it was removed to this building in 1875, amid constant proofs of his guidance and loving favor. Qui transtulit sustinet." On the face of the building, over the arcade, is this inscription : "First house of worship occupied in 1670.' Second house occupied in 1730. This house occupied in 1875." The main entrance is through the front of the tower, richly decorated and deeply recessed; and there is a side entrance into the tower from the arcade. The vestibule is separated from the nave by a high arched screen of Caen stone, delicately carved, with shafts of Lisbon marble, and crowned by gables and finials. The outer vestibule occupies the whole base of the tower, and the inner vestibule is the width of the church. From the latter, access is had to the church from one side and to the chapel from the other. The interior of the church is finished in cherry, and is brilliantly frescoed. Three panels of Venetian mosaic fill the heads of the arches leading from the doorways. The walls of the church, rising 50 feet above the sidewalk, carry an open timber roof with tie-beam trusses; this is further strengthened by arched braces above and below the beam, coming forward to the walls in four broad low-pitched gables, the ridges from which meet in the roof, and carry the open lantern referred to above; thus a simple system of ventilation is secured. The pulpit is in a broad recess at the Dartmouth Street end of the church, and is backed by a high carved screen of wood, behind which is a passage-way to the pastor's study in the basement. The stained glass windows are decorated to represent Biblical scenes. That back of the pulpit, the most costly and elaborate of all, represents the announcement to the shepherds of the birth of Christ. Of the others, the five parables are illustrated on that in the south transept; the five miracles on that in the north transept; and the prophets and apostles on those in the nave. The church has sittings for 1,000. The chapel has a breadth of 44 feet, and the parsonage a breadth of 25 feet. In front of the chapel is a closely clipped lawn, and the face of this portion of the building has upon it a rich growth of ivy. The chapel was finished and first occupied on the 22d of April, 1873; and the corner-stone of the church was laid with fitting ceremonies on the 9th of Septem- ber the same year. The entire cost of the buildings was about $500,000. Cummings & Sears were the architects.
Copley Square, named after John Singleton Copley, the artist, is sur- rounded by some of the most important institutions and beautiful build-
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ings in the city. At the time of this writing, 1927, the Square is being considered as the site of an elaborate and fitting memorial to the Massa- chusetts soldiers of the World War. The present crowning beauty of Copley is Trinity Church, the second of Richardson's Back Bay churches and his masterpiece. The exquisitely decorated interior has been char- acterized as "an enduring monument to the skill of John La Farge." The style of the impressive structure was spoken of by the architect as a free rendering of the French Romanesque as seen in the pyramidal-towered churches of Avignon and "endeavors to exemplify the grandeur and repose of the eleventh century architecture in Aquitaine." In plan, the church is a Greek cross, with a semi-circular apse added to the eastern arm. The massive central tower, two hundred and eleven feet high, domi- nates the structure. The chapel is distinguished through its connec- tion with the church by an open cloister, in which are placed stones from St. Botolph's church in Old Boston, England, of which John Cotton was the rector for twenty-one years. Opposite this stone tracery is a carved granite rosette, all that remains of the former church that was burned in the fire of 1872. The present place of worship is the third erected by the parish, the first being on Summer Street, built in 1735, seven years after the organization of the society ; the second was erected in 1828. To the citizens of Boston, and the stranger within the gates, Trinity speaks of Phillips Brooks the "Beloved" who came to the parish in 1869. A statue of the great minister and preacher stands at the side of the church; it is the work of St. Gaudens.
The most recent of the Back Bay large church edifices is the First Church of Christ (Christian Science) facing Huntington Avenue across a bit of parkway from Falmouth, Norway and St. Paul streets. It is the home of the "Mother Church" as well as of the first society in Boston. The Scientists met for some years after the coming of Mrs. Eddy in various parts of the city. In 1883, regular services were begun in the "Hawthorne Rooms," which were then on Park Street. The pres- ent great structure had its original unit ready for use in January, 1895, it then having the capacity to seat 1,100 persons. In 1906, a new auditorium was added having 5,000 seats. The present completed church approaches the proportions of an Old World cathedral, and is reputed to have cost, together with a large plot of land, more than two millions of dollars. The dome has been used with great effect in the design of the building, the central dome, surmounted by a cupola, reaching up to a height of two hundred and twenty-four feet-a landmark which can be seen from a considerable distance.
South End Churches-Even before the great movement of the churches of the Back Bay section, there was a drift from the crowded
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THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT
downtown district to a new South End. Early in the last century, work had been begun on the filling of South Cove, and completed before the Back Bay project was under way. It was expected that the new area would become the "court end" of Boston, and during the '50's and '60's many fine houses were built about the numerous small parks which characterized the neighborhood. But after a decade or so, the newer Back Bay attracted the wealthy and fashionable, starting an exodus from the South End which was hastened by the encroachments of factories, small shops and an influx of people of foreign birth. Before this change in the character of the South End, many congregations had built fine homes for their religious societies. The leading Universalist church was one of these. "The Second Universalist Society in the Town of Boston," to give it the full title under which it was incorporated in December 1816, the first formal meeting being held the next month. Until it had erected a costly edifice on Columbus Avenue and Clarendon Street in 1872, it was known as the School-Street Church, and was the seat of modern Universalism in the city. Hosea Ballou filled the pulpit for thirty-five years, and is known as the father of modern Universalism in contradistinction to John Murray, the founder of the denomination, who held to a more Calvinistic form. The splendid church lingered long after the most of its members had left to take up their residences in more fashionable parts of Boston. In 1914, one bitter winter day, the church burned; a successor was never built on this site. When later the congregation erected a new edifice, the Fenway section was chosen. The Church of the Redemption, as it is now called, on the corner of Boyl- ston and Ipswich streets, is one of the most costly and beautiful of Bos- ton churches.
In 1862, the Congregational Trinitarian Society, until then known as the Pine-Street Church, erected what was said to be the largest Protestant house of worship in New England. This was at the junction of Warren Avenue with Tremont, Dover and Berkeley streets, and the name by which it thereafter was known was the Berkeley Street Church. It has undergone many changes and is now a popular institutional church.
The Disciples of Christ, now so pleasantly located in their attrac- tive church in the Fens Park district of Roxbury, was another of the religious bodies choosing the South End for the fourth of their homes. An unpretentious but large meetinghouse was erected on Warren Ave- nue in 1869. During the early years of the stay in South End, James Freeman Clarke rounded out his years of leadership, to be followed by the large minded Charles C. Ames. The pastor of the Roxbury congre- gation is the Reverend J. Watson Shocktey.
Other religious bodies choosing the South End in which to build were: the Union Church, Congregational-Trinitarian, at 485 Colum-
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bus Avenue, erected in 1869; the South Congregational Church, Uni- tarian, on Union Park Street, built in 1862, the society dating from 1827. It was with the first church of this body that Edward Everett Hale was settled from 1856 to the close of his memorable life in 1913; The Church of the Unity, Unitarian, built their first edifice on West Newton Street, in 1860, three years after the organization of the society. Its pulpit was filled for the first thirteen years by George H. Hepworth, then by M. J. Schemerhorn, and finally by Minot J. Savage; The unique Church of the Immaculate Conception, Roman Catholic, under the auspices of the Jesuit Fathers, was erected in 1861, on Harrison Avenue. It is one of the finest stone churches in the city.
The Cathedral of the Holy Cross-The outstanding church in this section of the city, or in the Boston as a whole, is the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, probably the largest Catholic church in New England. It covers more than an acre of ground, and is built in the style of the early English Gothic, cruciform, with nave transept, aisle and clere- story ; the latter supported by clustered metal pillars. The length of the structure in 364 feet, width at the transept, 170 feet; width of the nave and aisles, 90 feet; height, 120 feet. The entire interior is clear space except for the two rows of columns supporting the main roof. Quoting a description of the interior written some years ago, but in the main correct at the present time :
The arch separating the spacious front vestibule from the church is of bricks taken from the ruins of the Ursuline Convent on Mount Benedict in Somerville, which was burned by a mob on the night of August 11, 1834. The ceiling abounds in carved wood and tracery. The panels and the spandrels show three shades of oak, with an outer line of African wood. Every panel is ornamented with emblematic devices. The roof in the transept displays an immense cross in inlaid wood. On the ceilings of the chancel are painted angels typifying Faith, Hope, Charity, and other virtues, on a background of gold. The frescoing on the walls is very handsome. The rose-window, over the main entrance, is in design a fine specimen of art. The stained transept windows, each 40 by 20 feet in size, have designs representing the Exaltation of the Cross by the Emperor Heraclius, and the "miracle by which the True Cross was verified." The stained windows in the chancel, represent the Crucifixion, the Ascension, and the Nativity. These are memorial windows, gifts to the church. Twenty-four smaller windows of stained glass, in the clere-story of the transept and of the chancel, represent Biblical subjects. The sanctuary terminates in an octagonal apse. The high altar is formed of rich variegated marbles. On the Gospel side, stands the episcopal throne, the cathedra of the arch-bishop. On the right of the sanctuary, is the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, containing a marble statute representing the Virgin. There are three other chapels-the Chapel of St. Joseph, the Chapel of St. Patrick, and the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. The large vestry is between the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament and the sanctuary. The chantry, with a small organ, is over the vestry. The gallery of the Cathedral contains a Hook & Hast- ings organ of remarkable purity of tone and power. It has more than 5,000 pipes, 78 stops, 5 pneumatic knobs, and 12 combination pedals. The pews of the church seat 3,500
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OLD NORTH CHURCH In the heart of a great immigrant section of the city.
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persons. The outward appearance of the Cathedral is somewhat sombre; but, is dignified and striking. There are two main towers in front, and a turret, all of unequal height, and all to be eventually surmounted by spires. The great tower on the southwest corner, with its spire, will be 300 feet high; and the small tower on the northwest corner, 200 feet high. The work of building the Cathedral was begun in 1867, when, on June 25, the corner-stone was laid. In 1873 the basement chapel was completed, and the first service in it was held on December 7. Two years later, the Cathedral was finished. It was dedi- cated December 8, 1875, the archbishop officiating, and Bishop Lynch, of Charleston, South Carolina, preaching the sermon. P. C. Kelley was the architect of the Cathedral.
Any attempt to carry further the mention, except merely to give the name of the places of worship and their locations, would be futile. There is appended to this chapter an enumeration of the church organi- zations, their pastors, and their location in the city. As already indi- cated, there are more than 366 such churches. The trend in building, like that of the population, is towards the outlying sections of Boston. Roxbury, particularly during the present century, has made a propor- tionate increase in the number of churches erected beyond any other one district of the municipality. Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury and Dor- chester follow closely. In the older city, the Catholic and Jewish churches have made the chief gain, although the seventy Catholic churches are scattered over the whole area of Boston. The Bostonian, whatever his descent, is church going, and it matters not in what part of his city he may live, inviting places of worship are near at hand. Joseph Cook, in one of his lectures, remarked: "The first New Eng- land was a church; the second New England is to be a factory." This was in 1878, and his pictorial way of expressing the commercialism which he thought would overcome the religious impulses of the pres- ent generation, has much of truth in it. But making due allowance for the changed emphasis in religion underneath the commercialism of the Bostonian, there is a faith in God and a desire to be found in his house that has created a wealth of places of worship which in numbers, in beauty, and in fitness to their work, is equalled by few cities in the nation.
Congregational History-In an early chapter of this work (A Review of the Early Religious History) the story of the founding of many of the present day churches is told, and their history outlined as far as the early years of the last century. Since that time, the dominant re- ligions of Boston have had their birth, and what were but feeble plants just breaking through the ground have matured and fruited. The Con- gregationalists, alone, had reached a commanding stature a century ago; all other denominations were but children or were yet to be. This Puritan church had been divided, however, and had come to be known
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as Trinitarian Congregational and Unitarian Congregational. The Unitarians became the more numerous and remained so until about 1870; before the close of the century they had lapsed greatly in numbers and influence.
Taking the term Congregational to cover the Trinitarian section of the original church, it may be said of it that its development, aside from the Unitarian secession, was the normal development of a denom- ination in a city. The emphasis is upon the word "city," for the con- ditions in a metropolis are very different from the outlying towns be- cause of the changing population and other similar factors. Churches are founded and their place of worship fixed, but the expansion of the city may soon bring about such a revolutionary change in the type of residents as to make the continuance of services in a given locality un- tenable. As may have been noticed, this was quite true of the South End, where churches were built only to have their membership move to another section of the city. The church mortality among the Con- gregationalists has been high, although probably not any more so than in other denominations. Then, too, it must be realized before the age of railroads, the city was the city and the country the country. Now, the real Boston is very largely outside of the municipal limits, this being particularly true of the Protestant faith. How great has been the drain from the inner city to the larger city in the establishment of religious societies cannot be estimated, so that any attempt to measure the growth of the Congregationalists, or any other denomination, by an enumera- tion of the churches now extant within the city limits, will be both inadequate and misleading. If all the Congregational churches founded in Boston were now alive, the number would be about double the thirty- four which is the present number. Half have either died, merged with other societies, or been transplanted in the surrounding towns and cities of the Greater Boston. All of which is all very natural, a condition in- evitable in the progress and growth of a city.
The Trinitarian Congregational Churches-To place on record, and to give an illustration of the change factor in the development of churches, the following list of the Congregational Trinitarian churches in Boston is given. Only the names, the date of their foundation, and a note of the change made is given. Charlestown First Church, Novem- ber 2, 1632. Old South, May 5, 1669. Dorchester Second Church, Janu- ary 1, 1808. Park Street, February 27, 1809. Union (Essex Street) June 10, 1822. South Boston, Phillips, December 10, 1823. Green Street, De- cember 30, 1823; united with the Garden Street Church to form the Messiah Church, July, 1844. Bowdoin Street, July 18, 1825; dis- banded. Salem Street, September 1, 1827; united with the Mariners'
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Church, December 2, 1866. Central (Berkeley), September 2, 1827. Brighton, September 13, 1827. Dorchester Village Church, March II, 1829. Mariners' Church, January 20, 1830. Charlestown, Winthrop Church, January 9, 1833. Boston Highlands, Eliot Church, September 18, 1834. West Roxbury, South Evangelical Church, June II, 1835. Central Church May II, 1835. East Boston, Maverick Church, May 31, 1836. Free Church, Marlborough Chapel, 1836; lived but a few years. Garden Street, July 27, 1841; united with the Green Street Church to form the Messiah Church, July, 1844. Mount Vernon, June 1, 1842. Messiah Church, October, 1844; disbanded two years later. Church of the Pilgrims, July 1, 1844; soon extinct. South Boston, Payson Church, July 16, 1845 ; merged in the E Street Church in 1860. Shamut Church, November 20, 1845. Charlestown, Bethesda Church, June 10, 1847; merged in the Winthrop Church. Edwards Church, February 1, 1849; disbanded by advice of council in 1853. Jamaica Plain Central Church, September 29, 1853. Boston Highlands, Immanuel, Walnut Street (formerly Vine Street) Church, April 9, 1857. South Boston, Church of the Unity, October 14, 1857; merged in E Street Church, March 21, 1860. Neponset, Trinity Church, May II, 1859. Springfield Street Church, January 4, 1860 ; nine years later it became Presbyterian. South Boston, E Street Church, March 21, 1860. Oak Place, June 21, 1860; united in 1864 with the Presbyterian Church in Beach Street, its pastor, Joseph Bixby, becoming the minister of the new organization. Chambers Street Church, December 4, 1861 ; united with the Mount Vernon Church. Dorchester, Pilgrim Church, November 2, 1862. Salem and Mariners, December 2, 1862; disbanded November 21, 1879. Boston Highlands, Highland Church, March 9, 1869. Boston Highlands, Walnut Street Church, December 19, 1870; now united with Immanuel. Boston High- lands, Church of the Hollanders, February 20, 1873. Jamaica Plain, Feb- ruary 4, 1879.
This is a list of the churches founded a half a century or more ago, and it is interesting to note that only the Winthrop Church of Charles- town, the Shawmut, E Street and Olivet churches are to be found among the missing today, and two of these have but merged with others. Of the additional churches, the most of which have been organized within the last quarter century, a number were established because of the neces- sity of providing religious services among folk who have come to Bos- ton from some foreign land. Among these are Faneuil of Brighton, the French Evangelical, Norwegian Evangelical Free Church, of Roxbury, and Swedish on Hampshire Street. Others not already mentioned are, the Allston, Baker, Central of Dorchester, Clarendon, and First of Hyde Park, Harvard and Romsey of Dorchester, Roslindale and St. Marks.
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The Rise of Unitarianism-By some it is considered strange that so broad-minded a faith came out of the Puritan church as Unitarianism. The so-called bigotry of the early fathers, their intolerance seem to pre- clude any possible liberality of ideas. It is often said, "that the Puritans came to Massachusetts to secure religious liberty for themselves and denied it to others." But the statement shows a complete misunder- standing of them and their motives, if it is applied to doctrine. The Colonial churches were Calvinistic in faith, and they did punish severely infringements of this faith. But when the Puritans broke with their mother religion and came to this country, it was with the purpose of setting up a theocracy where the church and the State were one, and this unity guided and ruled by the private interpretation of the Bible. "They bound themselves together by Covenants and not by creeds" and the seeds of liberalism were planted which afterwards bore fruit in Uni- tarianism. "They were to walk together according to the rule of the gospel, but each was left free to interpret that rule for himself." A "Confession of Faith" was drafted in Boston, in 1680, by delegates of the five New England Colonies but this creed could not, and was not, imposed on any church; each organization accepted such parts as pleased them and incorporated these sections in their covenants. It was a rule of life rather than of belief that was sought by the Puritans. The severities practiced against such individuals as Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams, the persecution of certain churches, and even the witch- craft proceedings, all grew out of a desire to preserve a religious state, rather than to save a religious faith.
"Before the Revolution there was more fear for the secularizing of church life than for doctrinal heresy. With the advent of the Royal Governors, there were new distinctions of rank and an increased cir- culation of English books. . . " Great freedom of opinion in the churches came about partly owing to the form of their covenants and partly to the fact that political questions were so much more vital and absorbing than theological ones, particularly as events and feelings strengthened for the impending revolution. Such discussion as there was turned largely upon the Atonement and not upon the Trinity. It was said that just before the Revolution, it might be said that every man of wide and strong influence in public life, with the exception of Samuel Adams, "last of the Puritans," from Benjamin Franklin, the friend of Lindsley and of Priestley, to Thomas Jefferson, was a confirmed dis-believer in the Puritan Theology." The Revolutionary period was not only one of religious dormancy, the churches going back rather than holding their own, but one in which "free thought" came to the fore, and ir-religion became rife. The contacts with the French and
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