USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume III > Part 22
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43
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the church society which had been formed in connection with the move- ment, purchased the Tremont Theatre in 1843. This was refitted to serve for religious worship, the total cost of the purchase and fittings amounting to nearly ninety thousand dollars. Before the indebtedness that burdened the new church could be paid, in 1852 the entire build- ing burned. The building was replaced the next year, it being neces- sary to incorporate a society to care for so valuable a holding; this was the Evangelical Baptist Benevolent and Missionary Society (1857). The Tremont Temple, in addition to housing the "free" church and pro- viding one of the largest auditoriums in the city for religious meetings at that time, also became the headquarters for the various denominational societies throughout Boston. But the temple was burned again in 1879, yet was again rebuilt on even a larger and more complete scale than before its destruction.
The Episcopal Church-The introduction of the Episcopal Church in Boston met with formidable resistance from the Puritans, and the manner of its establishment greatly incensed the colony. This was due to no fault of the church ; any and all were unwelcome to the people who desired to possess the land solely for themselves and those who believed as they did. It was unfortunate that the first of the Episcopal churches was set up in connection with so hated a man as Andros, and with what was almost a show of force. But no new faith could have been estab- lished without a disruption of the peace of the intolerant Puritans. The early history of the Episcopal denomination has already been reviewed (Chap. III) and there is need simply to connect the organizations of the colonial times with the many and splendid societies and churches of the present.
The first Episcopal church, King's Chapel, dating from 1686, became the first Unitarian society. The two others, Christ, founded in 1723; and Trinity, founded in 1728, all but succumbed during the Revolution, so that the real start of the Episcopal church, both in Boston and the Na- tion, was not until after the formation of the United States, and the Episcopacy had to be reorganized on another basis than as the Estab- lished Church of England. This condition was met in 1787, or perhaps the meeting of seven clergymen of Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1784, may be said to mark the founding of the New England church. The reorganization was sufficiently complete by May 7, 1797, for the Reverend Doctor Edward Bass, of Newburyport, to be made the Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts, and the Boston churches to become the subjects of his Episcopal care. Some time after the Episcopal churches in Rhode Island, and subsequently those in New Hampshire, placed themselves under the jurisdiction of the Bishop. In the first year of
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the new century, a convention of the diocese met in Boston ; five clergy- men, of whom one was the bishop, and six laymen, made up the whole assembly.
Starting with 1800, there are but two Episcopal churches left in Bos- ton, and these two had a combined membership of only 210 as late as 1812, this being quite an advance over the number with which the diocese had started. The two churches alone represented the Episcopalians in the town until 1816, when St. Matthew's Church in South Boston was organized. This society met in a schoolhouse with its services conducted principally by lay readers. But two years later, a meeting place was built and dedicated by Bishop Alexander Viets Griswold who had suc- ceeded Bishop Bass after the latter's death in 1804. In 1819, another new parish appeared, one formed mainly out of the Trinity congregation. This was St. Paul's, on Tremont Street, the edifice being consecrated June 3, 1820. St. Paul's Church was a notable addition to the episcopacy in Boston, and the building was one of the finest ecclesiastical structures in the city, or what was two years later to become the city of Boston.
It was a full decade before another Episcopal church, the fifth, was to be founded : Grace Church, which built a stone church on Temple Place in 1836. This society had been struggling into life since 1829 or 1830, becoming an organized parish in the latter mentioned year. Grace Church grew for a number of years, but after the death of its pastor, Rev. Dr. Charles Mason in 1862, who had been the rector since 1843, the con- gregation drifted away until, in 1865, the organization was dissolved and the church building sold to the Methodists, then situated in North Russell Street.
In Roxbury, a movement toward the formation of an Episcopal Soci- ety had started as early as 1832, which occupied its first permanent place of worship in St. James Street in 1834. The next in order was the Church of the Messiah, on Florence Street, formed in September, 1843. It was one of the first of all churches to move to the South End district, then the newest fashionable section of Boston. The church building was consecrated by Bishop Eastburn in 1848. Then St. Stephen's Church, a free church for the poor, was established on Purchase Street, in 1845, by Rev. Dr. E. M. P. Wells. It was endowed and the expenses of its build- ing borne by William Appleton. It was destroyed by the fire of 1872. Mr. Wells was later in charge of the House of Reformation Chapel at South Boston. He is worthy of more than passing notice, for he ushered in a new phase of the activities of the Episcopal church in Boston. Prior to the advent of Dr. Wells, the Episcopacy had been an organization of the wealthy and influential, but now there was a branching out in an endeavor to reach the masses. Mission schools were established on Bos-
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ton Neck, and in South Boston, and there was a Free Church in the city. The movement was neither strong nor lasting but it gave promise of the spirit of charity which now characterizes the Episcopal church in the city.
There was a marked growth at this period of churches in the outlying sections of Boston. In Charlestown, a few of the faith met in the Con- gregational meetinghouse and organized an Episcopal parish, known as St. John's; the cornerstone of a place of worship for the new parish was laid in 1841, and the church completed the next year. The Jamaica Plain chapel was as yet a mission of St. James' in Roxbury, but in 1849 St. Mary's was formed to accommodate the growing congregation. St. John's Church in East Boston grew out of an organization of 1825, which did not complete a church building until 1851. A gale destroyed it before it could be consecrated, but the parish began a new structure the next year into which it moved in 1854.
The Tractarian Movement-We are getting somewhat ahead of our story, however, for the founding of the Church of the Advent on Decem- ber 1, 1844, ushered in the first of the organizations based on a new school of thought in the Episcopal denomination. The so-called Tractarian movement of this day derived its title from a series of tracts issued from Oxford, England, in 1833, devoted to the elucidation of the Puseyite ideas which caused so much strife in the established church of that country. The leaders, Dr. Pusey and John Henry Newman, were men of such bril- liancy of intellect as to draw to themselves many of the ablest of the younger Englishmen. "The points which its theology magnified," wrote Phillips Brooks, "were the Apostolic succession of the ministry, baptismal regeneration, the eucharistic sacrifice, and the church traditions as a rule of faith." Bishop Brooks wrote further: "This great movement-this Catholic Revival, as its earnest disciples love to call it-was most natural. It was the protest and the self-assertion of a partly neglected side of relig- ious life ; it was the reaction against some of the dominant forms of relig- ious thought which had become narrow and exclusive; it was the effort of the church to complete the whole sphere of her life ; it was the expres- sion of certain perpetual and eradicable tendencies of the human soul. No wonder, therefore, that it was powerful. It made the most enthusi- astic devotees ; it organized new forms of life ; it created a new literature ; it found its way into the halls of legislation; it changed the aspect of whole regions of education. No wonder, also, that in a place so free- minded and devout as Boston, each one of the permanent tendencies of religious thought and expression should sooner or later seek admission."
The Church of the Advent was the first representative of the new thought in Boston, and secured the former Congregational church build- ing at Crescent Place, in 1847, moving to Bowdoin Street in 1864, and to
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Mount Vernon Street in 1881. The feature of the church made prom- inent by its founders was that it should be free. This combined with frequent services, daily public recitations of prayer, increased attention to the details of worship, all combined to distinguish it from the other parishes. Its work was extended among the poor, and mission labors began early in its activities. Official recognition of the church was de- layed until 1856 when it was again visited by the bishop of the diocese. In 1870, the parish passed into the hands of an English society of mission priests known as the Brotherhood of St. John the Evangelist.
A New Epoch Begins-With the year 1860, a new epoch in the history of the Episcopal church was begun. This was due to physical conditions rather than spiritual, although the Tractarian movement had broken down the fixed character of theological thought and opened the way to loftier ideals and broader methods in the church as a whole. The Tract- arians settled down to a ritualistic stage, but a larger visioned theology and ethics inspired the majority. The outbreak of the Civil War turned the attention of the citizens to the immediate needs of the present, and it was far from being a period for religious expansion. The new Back Bay section that was being developed called for the formation of churches within its limits, or the removal of societies there whose congregations were moving to this prospective fashionable quarter.
The first of the organizations to plan for a home in Back Bay was what was to be called Emmanuel Church, formed on March 17, 1860. The parish worshipped in Mechanics Hall until the edifice west of the Public Gardens was consecrated in 1862. Rev. Frederick D. Huntington, after- wards Plummer Professor of Christian Morals to the Harvard University, was the first rector. Under his ministry Emmanuel soon became a strong parish, and a missionary one, and the present Church of the Good Shep- herd on Cortes Street was founded by this congregation as a mission in 1863.
To the average man, the Emmanuel Church is best known from the movement started by the present rector, Rev. Ellwood Worcester, D. D., known as the "Emmanuel Movement." It was in 1906 when the Doctor began to expound the relation of psychotherapy to religion, and the serv- ice which properly trained clergymen, working with medical men, can render in curing certain forms of disease. His exposition of the new sci- entific knowledge, together with the reports of the clinics held in the church, gave rise to the movement which bore the name of the rector's church. For a time it inspired an interest that was international in its scope.
Phillips Brooks and Trinity Church-In 1861, St. James Church, Rox- bury, established the mission chapel which in 1871 became the St. John's
INTERIOR, OLD SOUTH CHURCH
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Church of Tremont Street. In 1867 St. Mary's Church in Dorchester began a mission which grew into the parish known as All Saints. In 1869, the Rev. Phillips Brooks became the minister of Trinity Church. Phillips Brooks was one of the most famous preachers in the Protestant Episcopal denomination, as beloved of his parishioners as he was esteemed by the community. The present Trinity Church building is a fitting memorial to this great man of Boston. Rev. B. B. Killikelly founded, in 1875, the Free Chapel of the Evangelists, which is now St. Andrew's. During that same year a mission was organized at City Point by the Rev. John Wright, rector of St. Matthew's, and two years prior to this, 1873, the Church of the Redeemer had its birth as Grace Chapel, under the Board of City Missions. It had been a period of great growth and activ- ity ; the churches had multiplied as never before. Meanwhile, Grace Church ceased to exist, its building on Temple Street being sold to the North Russell Street Methodist congregation. The great fire of 1872 destroyed two Episcopal places of worship, Trinity and St. Stephen's Chapel. Trinity moved to Huntington Avenue, where the present splen- did structure was consecrated on February 9, 1877. The St. Stephen's name is now borne by the church on Shawmut Avenue.
The changes that have taken place in the polity and work of the Epis- copal churches of the city have been as great as in their theology and practices from the days of King's Chapel. The buildings are merely beautiful "places of worship for little groups which have combined to build them, preserving carefully the chartered privileges of their parish- ioners. They have aspired to become the religious homes of the com- munity and centers of religious work for the help of all kinds of suffering and needy. Most of the churches are free, opening their pews without discrimination to all who choose to come. Those not technically free, are eager to welcome the people. It would be interesting to trace the causes which have both drawn and driven the churches of all denomina- tions to this effort after the larger fellowship with the people. In the case of the Episcopal Church in Boston, it is specially significant, as indicating that she is no longer a stranger in the land." This is a quotation from Phillips Brooks and is even more true of the church in the city of today, for it is one of the strongest of the Protestant denominations in the city. The names and the locations and the pastors of the Episcopal churches in the city proper are given at the end of this chapter. The present head- quarters of the denomination is at No. I Joy Street ; Rt. Rev. Charles L. Slattery, D. D., having succeeded Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D. D., as Bishop of Massachusetts.
Besides the parish life of the denomination in Boston, which includes many missions under parochial control, there are a number of institutions
Met. Bos .- 59
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that have been established at various times, such as the Church Home for Orphans and Destitute Children, at South Boston, founded in 1855; St. Luke's Home for Convalescents, in the Roxbury district; and others of more recent origin. The Divinity School at Cambridge, while in no sense a local organization, was established through the efforts of Bostonians, and for some years was directed by the local church. It was founded in 1867 after several ineffectual starts, through the beneficence of Benjamin Tyler Reed. Since then other liberal givers have come to its aid until it has become one of the best equipped and most efficient theological schools in the country. Although not a part of Harvard University, it is closely affiliated with it.
Methodist Denomination-In the chapter reviewing the religions of Boston, the story of the Methodist denomination has been carried through the experimental stage following the Revolution until well after the War of 1812, when the church had become firmly established. As was brought out then, the Methodist church in Boston was almost coeval with the movement in general, and even if the first organization did not survive the years, it nevertheless was formed very early, 1772, and was an evi- dence of the missionary spirit that has always characterized the denom- ination. The corner stone of the first Methodist church was laid by Jesse Lee on August 28, 1795. Jesse Lee, "a scion of an old Virginia family, early trained in the Episcopal church, a zealous convert to Wesleyanism, had founded societies from Florida to New Brunswick. At the age of thirty-one, he was commissioned to establish on the soil of the Puritans the Methodist Episcopal church-the first religious body which had a national organization in the United States." He was not, however, the first Methodist to preach in Boston, for Charles Wesley, landing unex- pectedly because of an unseaworthy ship, while on his way to Georgia, spoke in King's Chapel in the autumn of 1736. Four years later came the great Whitefield, then in full accord with the Wesleys, who ad- dressed tremendous throngs on the Common. He instituted one of the great revivals of the time. In 1772, Rev. Richard Boardman, one of the first to be sent out by the Wesleys to establish congregations, founded the first Methodist society in Boston. Lacking ministerial care, it did not last long. Neither were the later preaching of Rev. Richard Black in 1784, of Rev. Freeborn Garretson in 1787, more permanent in effect. Not until the coming of Jesse Lee, giant in endurance, and orator par excellence, was the establishment of the Methodist church in Boston accomplished.
Jesse Lee-Although he, too, addressed great throngs, little is known concerning him. One of the pictures of his manner of speech, as he addressed three thousand souls one summer day in 1790 is given by Ware
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in his memoirs. "When he entered upon the subject matter of his text," says he, "it was with such an easy natural flow of expression and in such a tone of voice that I could not refrain from weeping; and many others were affected in the same way. When he was done, and we had an oppor- tunity of expressing our views to each other, it was agreed that such a man had not visited New England since the days of Whitefield. I heard him again, and thought I could follow him to the ends of the earth." It was not his eloquence that brought about the establishment of Metho- dism in the town, for as with Whitefield, although many listened and professed conversion, there was little of what could be called a movement toward the founding of a church. Even Lee's efforts were not successful in more than giving a coherence to a few scattering souls that had its focus in a "class"; and this class had the fostering care of several preach- ers before it was strong enough to start the building of a place of worship. But the conditions were such in the religious circles of Boston, that the time was at hand when a religion with the warmth, adaptability, and life of Methodism would be acceptable. When once it was understood, and prejudice had given way to tolerance and interest, the Methodist Epis- copal church expanded in a manner not surpassed by any other Protest- ant denomination in Boston.
Early Methodist Churches-All this came after the founding of a sec- ond church and the removal of the first to a more favorable location. The first was situated in "Ingraham's Yard," subsequently called Methodist Alley, and now Hanover Street. The meetinghouse was a small plain structure, thirty-six by forty-six feet, rough without and unfinished within, and its society was heavily burdened with the debt incurred in its building. It was a splendid influence for good in the North End, but it suffered greatly from petty persecutions. In 1828, a new and more worthy edifice was constructed on North Bennet Street, dedicated Sep- tember 28; the old house was transferred to the Boston Port Society, becoming the first Seaman's Bethel. The First Church has been the mother of many other organizations in Boston and the surrounding places.
The First had grown in membership to more than two hundred and fifty by 1806, and resolved on the creation of a chapel in another part of the town. This was the Bromfield Street church started March 3, 1806, the building being dedicated on November 19 of the same year. The undertaking, like the first, was more than the membership could handle. In its foundations was laid a hewn stone from the Plymouth Rock, but the Puritan community was not yet ready to support this second effort of a new religion. Not until aid came from all over the eastern United States was the new church paid for. It would leave the wrong impres-
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sion if one failed to take into consideration that Boston was in the throes of a great financial depression resulting from the Embargo and Non- Intercourse acts which preceded the War of 1812. The crisis in the affairs of the Methodist church in Boston passed with the war, and for several decades its history is one of steady progress and the multiplication of churches. As we have seen, the First Church moved into a larger and finer place of worship in 1828; and favored by repeated revivals, the mem- bership of the two churches in the city had increased from 259 in 1806 to 688 in 1830.
The record of the founding of the various Methodist Episcopal churches in Boston runs about as follows. In 1834 the third church was formed, then known as the Church Street Church, later succeeded by the People's Church on Columbus Avenue and Berkeley Street ; in 1837 the fourth, or North Russell Street Church, now Grace Church, on Tem- ple Street ; in 1840 the fifth church (the society having been organized in 1834), D Street, South Boston, now the Broadway Church; in 1839 the new church in Roxbury, the Warren Street (now the Winthrop Street) Church, of which the present Warren Street Church is an offshoot; in 1840 the sixth church, Meridian Street, East Boston; in 1834 the Rich- mond Street Church, with which the first church subsequently (in 1849) united, the two purchasing the Old North or Second (Unitarian) church building on Hanover Street, and later (in 1865) uniting with Grace Church, maintaining the title of the First Methodist Episcopal Church ; in 1846 the Hedding Church, first in a hall on the corner of Shawmut Avenue and Canton Street, then in its own church building, corner of Shawmut Avenue and South William Street, dedicated in 1849, and now the Tremont Street Church; in 1847 the Second Church in Charlestown, now the Monument Square Church in the Charlestown District (the first church in Charlestown, having been formed in 1818) ; in 1850 the Second Methodist Church in Dorchester, now the Appleton Church, Dorchester District (the first church in Dorchester having been formed in 1817); in 1852 the German Church, Roxbury ; in 1853 the Bennington Street (now the Saratoga Street) Church, East Boston ; in 1859 the Methodist Church in Jamaica Plain; in 1860 the Dorchester Street Church, South Boston ; in 1869 the Highland and Ruggles Street churches, Roxbury District ; in 1871 the Washington Village Church, South Boston ; in 1872 the Meth- odist Church in Allston; in 1873 the Methodist Church in Roslindale; in 1874 the Methodist Church in Harrison Square ; in 1876 the Mount Pleas- ant Church, Roxbury District; in 1877 the Eggleston Square Church, Roxbury District; in 1878 the Monroe Mission Church, Charlestown Neck, Charlestown District. The first Methodist church in Dorchester was founded in 1817; the first in Charlestown in 1818. The first colored
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Methodist church was the May Street (now the Revere Street), formed in 1826; in 1836 the second, the Zion Church, on North Russell Street, was organized ; and in 1839 the Bethel Church on Charles Street.
Methodist Institutions-Methodism has produced results in Boston of great importance other than the founding of churches and the in- crease of membership. The first School of Theology of the Methodist Episcopal Church had its inception in Boston in 1839, although it was organized and located a little later in Concord, New Hampshire, from whence it was soon moved to Boston. This Boston Theological Semi- nary, as it came to be known, was established in the city in 1867. It is notable not only for being the oldest of the Theological institutions of the Methodist Church, but the first in America to have a department of Missions and a permanent chair of comparative religion. It is said to have the largest enrollment of any graduate school of theology in the country.
The Theological Seminary is the oldest department of the present Boston University, with which it united in 1871. The University, with its many departments, its more than 11,000 students, is perhaps the most striking development in Boston along educational lines. Two years after the location of the seminary in the city, three men, Isaac Rich, Lee Claflin and Jacob Sleeper, all leaders of the seminary work, founded and secured a charter for Boston University. Hon. Lee Claflin, a Massachusetts Senator, "a friend and generous donor to education, whose munificent gifts made possible the founding of Claflin University in South Carolina," was the first to advocate the formation of the uni- versity. Isaac Rich, wealthy merchant, took the decisive measures that secured a charter. It was his great gifts both in life and by bequests-he gave to the university more money than had ever before been given to any educational institution by one man-by his munificence he made the university possible. Jacob Sleeper, mayor of the city, member of a gov- ernor's council and a State appointed overseer-for twelve years of Har- vard-was the other member of the triumvirate.
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