USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume III > Part 23
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Former Governor John L. Bates, now president of the Board of Trus- tees of Boston University, at the recent inaugural of Dr. Marsh, said of the founding of the school: "Fifty-seven years ago a band of generous men actuated by the sole desire to serve their fellows, obtained from the Great and General Court of Massachusetts the charter that gave them the right to create a university to be called Boston University. Into its foundations, these men poured the earnings of a lifetime, and upon these foundations they began the erection of a structure of helpfulness to men. They built no encircling walls, but left it open to every approach and declared no limitations of sex, race, or religion should ever circumscribe
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its usefulness. For half a century and more it has grown rapidly until today, measured not by wealth, not by imposing buildings, not by broad acres, but by the number of lives it is helping to fashion, it is the largest university in New England and one of the largest in the world."
The first president of Boston University was William Fairfield War- ren, who for thirty-four years directed the destinies of the institution. Doctor Warren, in 1927, was still living, alert and physically able at ninety-four years of age. On May 15, 1926, Doctor Daniel L. Marsh was inaugurated the fourth of the presidents of the university. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and the Boston School of Theology, a former prominent Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, minister, and farsighted, keen thinking man of action. At his inaugural, two of his predecessors were in attendance, Doctor William Edwards Huntington, the beloved "William the Second," and Doctor Lemuel H. Murlin, for thirteen years the head of the school and now president of De Pauw. Bos- ton University's "first president was a man of profound scholar- ship and rich culture ; the second was a man who conducted its affairs with fidelity and wisdom; its third, during his term of service, established five major departments. It is due to the tireless effort of these gentle- men that we are under obligation for the existence of this metropolitan university" with its total property and endowment of nearly $6,500,000; its teaching force of more than 600; its annual budget of $1,500,000; and its total student enrollment of 11,000.
"The Zion's Herald," the oldest newspaper of the denomination, was founded in Boston in 1823. During its more than a century of vigorous and influential life, many brilliant men have been its editors, and its columns have been filled with the contributions from most of the notables in Methodism. The present editor and manager, is L. O. Hart- man, and it is published as always in the city. The "Zion's Herald" is maintained for and in the interest of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New England. The Wesleyan Association, a corporation formed, in 1831, of laymen, originally owned and published the "Herald"-the pres- ent publisher is George E. Whitaker-and in 1870, it was this corpora- tion which built the Wesleyan Hall on Bromfield Street. The "Methodist Book Store," started about 1840, was one of the occupants of the new structure.
Boston the Originator of Novel Religions-One might continue these condensed stories of the religions of Boston almost indefinitely, for folk worship in many different ways in the city. We would miss an under- lying truth if in the consideration of the history of rising denominations, we failed to perceive the peculiar tendency to move into new realms of religious thought and belief characteristic of the New Englander. Bos-
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tonians seem always to have been individualists in thought and action, as were their Puritan forefathers. Even the iron bounds of the early church could not confine the thinkers, and there was an intensity of thought that readily originated new theories, doctrines and faiths. Sects multiplied once the Puritan church was compelled to give room for other churches; and, as we have seen, the last century was prolific in new sects. Unitarianism developed rather slowly and naturally; Tran- scendentalism, a philosophy rather than a religion, was an outgrowth of Unitarianism and somewhat disruptive in effect. The famous "Brook Farm" founded by George Ripley ; the Transcendental Club, and its suc- cessor, the Radical Club, show the spirit of the movement which made its last great stand in the Concord Summer School of Philosophy founded by Alcott in 1879. Abolitionism which took such a vital hold of the whole north country, and which numbered amongst its leaders the great men of Boston of that day, was the most successful of the "isms" that originated in this "Hub of the Solar System." It was one of the best il- lustrations, although many others might be mentioned, of what we have called the peculiar tendency and ability of the Bostonian to originate new beliefs, or to push to the ultimate a new phase of thought.
Some of the more novel religions have failed to show the vitality necessary to growth on a large scale, but a number have flourished for a time, and there are at least three exceptions which have not only sur- vived but show a tendency to increase in number and influence. Those of the last generation can recall the great stir over Buddhism, and kin- dred subjects during the late years of the last century. Theosophical societies composed of earnest students sprang up and flourished ; there are still representatives of Theosophy left, the Metaphysical Club (Prac- tical Christianity) meets in Boylston Street. There are two Spiritualist churches, although not of the same belief, which have numerous con- gregations, and a third, and smaller, holding to a still different faith. If one wishes, one can find the Vedanta Centre of Boston with Swami Paramananda in charge; the Annie Besant Lodge (Theosophical) on Boylston Street; the Boston Unity Truth Center on Berkeley Street; or the Church Invisible on Beacon Street.
There are two Adventist churches, the Advent Christian of Roxbury, and the Adventists-Seventh Day on West Canton Street. The first date from 1843, in the time of the Tabernacle on Howard Street where the Howard Athenaeum was built. This denomination has maintained publications and a missionary society since 1854, and has been the head- quarters for the East. In 1854, there was a split in the church arising out of the question of immortality. From the new church founded by some of the members of the first, the Second Advent church is descended.
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The New Church (Swedenborgian) of which there are two societies within the city limits, were founded in 1818 and 1870. The Bowdoin Street Church was the first of the faith to be established in New England. Reverend Thomas Worcester was the original pastor, one of twelve who made up the Boston Church, and continued as such for half a century. It was while a student of Harvard University, from which he was later to receive the degree of Doctor of Divinity, that he embraced the doc- trines of Emanuel Swedenborg. The second or Roxbury Society of the New Jerusalem was established under the leadership of the Reverend Abiel Silver, who died in 1881 at the age of eighty-three. Mr. Reed, the historian of the denomination in Boston, says that the first person to call the public attention of Boston to Swedenborg was one James Glen, who lectured in the town on these subjects in 1784. Ten or twelve years later, William Hill came here from England to plant the New Church in the New World. He seems to have accomplished little beyond circulating the writings of Swedenborg, and placing a num- ber of them in the Harvard Library. Since the founding of the first church, the denomination has maintained in the city a library, reading room and headquarters where the works of Swedenborg and those of authoritative interpreters have been accessible, both in Latin and trans- lations. The "New Jerusalem Magazine" was first issued in 1827, and the "Children's New Church Magazine" in 1843.
Universalist Church-The Universalist churches of Boston, of which there are five, are rather widely scattered throughout the city, but have headquarters centrally located on Newbury Street. John Murray, who came to this country in 1770, and first appeared in Boston three years later, is called the "Father of Universalism" although Jonathan Mayhew of the West Church from 1747 to 1766, is claimed by some as the first Universalist preacher in America. The first Boston society of the de- nomination was formed about 1785 and met with the usual opposition from the Puritans. John Murray became its pastor, the church build- ing standing on the corner of Hanover and North Bennet streets, hav- ing formerly been the home of Samuel Mather's congregation. It had many notable men as its ministers before its dissolution in 1864. The Second, now the Church of the Redemption in Brookline, was estab- lished in 1816, and erected its place of worship on School Street, on the site of the Congregational Church in which John Murray was stoned in 1774 for his preaching. Reverend Hosea Ballou, father of modern Universalism, was the first minister of the Second Society. The Third Church was founded in 1823, the Fourth in 1830, the Fifth in 1836. All the edifices built by these societies are either demolished or the home of some other organization. The First Church of Charlestown-second
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in point of establishment in the larger Boston, was founded in 1811; the Roxbury Parish was started in 1820; the Jamaica Plain Church in 1871 ; the Dorchester Parish in 1875; and the Grove Hall Society in 1877.
The spread of Universalism throughout the United States has been greatly expedited by the numerous publications of the denomination press in Boston. The Universalist Publication Society was incorporated in 1872, and has issued many books, besides publishing, at times, as many as seven periodicals, covering both the east and west sections of the country. The present denominational organ is the direct descendant of the magazine which started as "the Universalist Magazine" in 1819 combined with the "Christian Leader," published in New York for nearly half a century. There have been other organizations which have aided in the firm establishment of the faith in Boston, such as the "Sabbath School Union," started in 1851, the Universalist Social Union, organized in 1884, and the Universalist Club dating from 1873. Tufts College is the chief of the educational institutions founded by the denomination. Its story is told in another chapter. The Universalist Historical Society, whose headquarters are in Boston, was originated in 1834 for the con- servation of facts, books, and papers pertaining to the history of Uni- versalism.
Hebrew Places of Worship-It is one of the unique features of the Boston religions that the faith having the second largest number of places of worship is that of the Hebrew. Three-quarters of a century ago, a Jew was a rarity in the city; now it is estimated that a full fifth of the population of the city are of Jewish birth. There is no Hebrew quarter, all parts of the city having some of the race, and there are few lines of business into which they have not entered with success. They have, naturally, Hebrew associations of various kinds, hospitals, homes for the aged or needy, schools and churches. In the matter of religion, they may be classified as Orthodox and Reform. The former cling to the old customs, traditions, ideas; the latter advocate the cause of progressive Judaism. Many of the rabbis of the Boston churches are among the intellectuals of the day, orators, much sought in many forms of public endeavor. The first church was established a decade less than a century ago, and was for years the only congregation in the city. Even as late as 1885 there were only eight Hebrew societies in Boston where there are now more than forty with the number increasing, on the average, one every other year.
The first and the largest for many years of the Hebrew congrega- tions was the Ohabei Sholom which had an early synagogue on Warren- ton Street. The worship was conducted on modern reform lines, fami- lies sitting together, a choir and organist assisting in the service. There
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is a Sabbath school where the children receive instruction in the princi- ples of the Jewish faith, Israel's history, and in the Hebrew language. The congregation was founded in 1846. Others of the early churches are Mishkan Israel, orthodox, formerly on Ash Street, established in 1866; Beth Abraham, also orthodox, founded in 1871, and now consoli- dated; Gates of Prayer, 1875; and Shaare Tefiloh, in Roxbury founded in 1880. From this time on the multiplication of Hebrew synagogues was very rapid. The most famous of the older churches is the Temple Adath Israel (reorganized) dating from 1883. It is ultra-reform, was formerly on Columbus Avenue, but is now magnificently housed on Com- monwealth Avenue.
Christian Science-Most modern of all the larger religious move- ments in Boston is that of Christian Science. The name is apparently derived from the "purely mental system of healing, discovered in 1866 by Mary Baker Glover (later Mrs. Eddy), who for the first time in his- tory, appended the word 'science' to Christianity." It is further ex- plained in the official statement from which the above is derived, that "Christian Science claims that Divine intelligence governs man in the eternal order and harmony of life, truth and love, and that Jesus taught and demonstrated this science, healing the sick, casting out error, rais- ing the dead. With it he dated the Christian era." As originally formed in Boston, the Christian Scientists were an association of students in- terested and engaged in "healing" and "pledged together in a common cause of humanity and love." In 1881, the Massachusetts Metaphysical College was chartered and maintained by the organization. The only text books were the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's "Science and Health." Great care was taken to receive only students of high moral character, but the secular or religious views of the applicant mattered little. Mrs. Eddy was president and principal teacher.
She also chartered the first Christian Science Church in 1879 and became its first pastor. Her personal leadership began at Lynn, and the first Christian Science organization was formed by seven persons at Charlestown, July 4, 1876. The greater part of Mrs. Eddy's activities were centered in Boston, where the "Mother Church" was established. After meeting in various rented churches and halls, in 1883 the Haw- thorne Rooms were secured. Outgrowing these, two years later the society moved to Chickering Hall where a Sunday school was added, and in 1894, Copley Hall on Clarendon Street, was engaged, services being continued here until the new church was ready. A description of this has already been given earlier in this chapter.
The growth of Christian Science has been amazing. When the society moved into the recently enlarged First Church in 1906 its membership
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蜂熊財激限
FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST. SCIENTIST
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numbered 40,011 ; the total for the United States was 85,717. More than a half million copies of the Christian Science text-book were in circulation at that time. Even as early as two decades ago, there were 721 regularly organized churches and 506 societies holding services but were not chartered. The movement is no longer a Boston affair, but has ex- tended its influence all over the world. Across St. Paul Street are build- ings dating from 1908 and 1914 in which are housed the Christian Science Publication Society which prints and circulates the many books, pamph- lets and magazines issued by the denomination. Near at hand are the homes of the many employed in this work. Besides the Mother Church, there are in Boston the Second Church in the Roxbury district, and the Third in the Hyde Park section.
The Catholic Church in Boston-Although nearly twenty years have passed since the See of Boston celebrated its centenary, few of the many thousands who saw some of the splendors of that autumn week have forgotten the impression it made upon them. The crowds in the Ca- thedral, the sermon by Archbishop O'Connell, perhaps the most signifi- cant uttered during the year of 1908, the Symphony Hall meeting when laymen paid their tribute to the four great bishops who had presided over the diocese during the first century of its existence, and the closing fea- ture of the week, when 39,000 men, members of the Holy Name Society, marched through the streets of Boston while 300,000 spectators looked on ; all were parts of a significant event the influence of which has never passed. Boston had never seen anything like it, and rose to the occasion with a spirit of brotherly love, regardless of creed, and offered its felicita- tions to its Catholic citizenry on the one hundredth birthday of the diocese. It was a day of mutual understanding and respect, when good sense and vision controlled. Our forefathers believed that the lion and the lamb might one day lie down in peace together, but they never con- ceived of a day when Puritan and Catholic would mingle in good fellow- ship.
The Centenary in 1908, however, marked but the end of a period of remarkable growth made by the Catholic Church in Boston, and the be- ginning of another which may prove to be even more extraordinary. Only the briefest outline of the history of this, the largest denomination of the city, will be attempted. For a century and a half after the estab- lishment of the Puritan Theocracy in Massachusetts by the Puritans, there was no Catholic Church within its limits. A passing priest may have ministered to the few of their faith in the State, but only two are known to have made any considerable stay in Boston. These were Abbe de la Poterie, who said the first mass in the School Street Chapel, November 2, 1788, and the Reverend Louis Rousselet sometime in the
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1780's. Boston became a Catholic mission, when in 1790, the Reverend John Thayer, a former Congregational minister, was assigned to the town by Doctor Carroll of Baltimore, the superior of missions in the United States.
The First Catholic Society-There were probably not a hundred Catholics in the whole Boston region at this time. But such as there were, met in the School Street Chapel, which oddly enough had been occupied by a Huguenot congregation. The first mass said in Boston was celebrated in November, 1788; and the first regular church organi- zation in 1790, both in the chapel. Boston was made an Episcopal See, in 1808, with a diocese embracing all New England. The Cathedral of the Holy Cross, consecrated September 20, 1803-then located on Frank- lin Street-was for many years the only Roman Catholic church in the city. So much for the beginnings. The work was carried on after Thayer by Matignon, a French priest, until the noted Reverend Jean de Cheverus came to assist and remained to control the destinies of the Boston churches and the diocese. De Cheverus was the first of the five great lead- ers of the See of Boston from 1808 to the present day. The new diocese contained three churches, Holy Cross at Boston, St. Patrick's at New Castle, Maine, and a log chapel in the Indian village of Point Pleasant, Maine. The congregation had grown to 700 souls by this time. The gentle de Cheverus served church and country well until after twenty- seven years in Boston, failing health compelled his return to southern France. On October 15, 1823, Bishop de Cheverus, now fifty-five years of age and worn with illness, sailed home. The mild air of his native land, to which he was called, prolonged his life until July 19, 1836. His labors for his church had been rewarded with many honors; Charles X made him a peer of France, and shortly before his death, he was invested with the cardinal's hat. He found, upon his arrival in Boston, a people which hated his religion; he left it carrying with him the plaudits, the tributes of thousands of non-Catholics. His victory over the prejudice of a Puritan city is perhaps the crowning glory of his labors in this land.
The Franklin Street Cathedral-The necessity of having a larger place in which to worship was borne in upon the Catholics as early as 1799. A committee collected a fund of several thousand dollars with which a lot on Franklin Street was purchased. When a second sub- scription list was started to create a building fund, John Adams, Presi- dent of the United States, placed his name at the head, and it is said that a fifth of the $16,000 raised at that time was contributed by Protest- ants. The church built was sixty by eighty feet, costing $20,000, was from the plans of Charles Bulfinch. It was dedicated on September 29,
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1803, and the first great Catholic celebration by Catholics stirred the town. This building was known as the Franklin Street Cathedral, and was used until 1860, when it was replaced by the present magnificent cathedral in South End, described elsewhere.
The Ursuline Convent was established in 1820, in a building beside the cathedral, and the first Catholic school in Boston was opened at this time. It was for girls and taught by Ursuline nuns. The Ursulines were transferred in 1826, to what is now Somerville. The convent in which they were cloistered was destroyed in 1834 as a result of a dis- graceful act of anti-Catholic mob violence. The nuns resided for a time in Roxbury, but eventually withdrew from Boston.
Benedict Fenwick was the second Bishop of Boston, consecrated November 1, 1825. He died in Boston, August II, 1846. The bishop was a member of the St. Ignatius' order of teachers, and it was as an edu- cator that his work is best known. He introduced the Sisters of Charity and established a classical school in which he and his clergy were teach- ers. One wrote of him: "Fenwick saw the product of his works-an able and zealous priesthood-churches, convents founded-Holy Cross College established-his people loyal and enlightened. . His work was never done, he toiled to the end, but nothing remained undone. His death upon the anniversary of the Ursuline conflagration, was mourned by the whole city. We honor Fenwick as the successor of the apostles in this, our own city, who kept his sworn faith to the Holy See, the teacher of his flock, the protector of the weak and oppressed, and the preserver of the faith and morals of his people."
James Bernard Fitzpatrick-The third Bishop of Boston was born in that city in 1812, Reverend James Bernard Fitzpatrick. After a notable scholastic career, he was ordained in Paris, returned to Boston and became the pastor of a church in Cambridge, which he built. After being the associate of Fenwick for some time, he was consecrated coad- jutor bishop, March 24, 1844, and succeeded the man with whom he had labored. There was a very rapid increase, for various reasons, in the number of Catholics in his diocese, and many of the problems he was called to solve came from this growth. There were 32,000 members of the faith in Boston in 1846, and in the State, 20,000 more. The Bishop was a tremendous worker, and the outbreak of the Civil War with the emergencies to be met by his diocese, proved too heavy a burden. Bishop Fitzpatrick came to an untimely death in 1866 when only fifty-five years of age.
John Joseph Williams-The fourth bishop was a Bostonian, John Joseph Williams, a worthy successor of the strong men who had pre- ceded him. He was consecrated bishop in 1866 and made an archbishop
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in 1875. The erection of the Cathedral in Washington Street, and the founding of St. John's Seminary were results of his labors. Archbishop Williams' death occurred in 1906 and during the forty-one years of his administration, he witnessed greater changes in the diocese than any of his predecessors. Most of the teaching orders which made up the twenty-five communities, were brought in by him. There were well organized school systems in the seventy-five parishes, in which were 50,000 school children taught by 1,000 religious teachers. The state of the whole See as worded by His Eminence, William Cardinal O'Con- nell, two years after the death of Bishop Williams, was: "One hundred years have multiplied one little church into one thousand, two priests into two thousand, one bishop into eight, and the 'pussilus grex' of one hundred faithful, courageous souls into near three million. These are inspiring figures, a growth ineffable against great and discouraging odds. Such is the present growth from the past; what of the future from the present? The problem is still unsolved."
Cardinal O'Connell-Much of the solving of the "problems" will be done by William O'Connell, since 1906 Archbishop of Boston. His Eminence William Cardinal O'Connell, was born in Lowell, Massachu- setts, December 8, 1859. He was graduated from Boston College and then entered the new American College at Rome, in 1881. On June 8, 1884, he was ordained.a priest in the Italian city. While a curate at St. Joseph's Church, West End, Boston, he was appointed rector of the American College at Rome on November 21, 1895, and on June 9, 1897, was appointed domestic prelate. Nearly four years later, on April 22, 1901, he was made Bishop of Portland, Maine. On May 19 of that year he was consecrated at the Church of St. John the Lateran, Rome. He was installed Bishop of Portland on Independence Day of that same year. In January, 1905, he was named assistant at the pontifical throne and in August of the same year he was appointed papal envoy to the Emperor of Japan. He was given the honor by the Emperor of the Grand Cordon of the Sacred Treasure. Early in March, 1906, he was appointed Archbishop of Constance and Coadjutor Archbishop of Boston with the right to succession. On the death of Archbishop Wil- liams in August, 1906, he became Archbishop of Boston, and was in- vested with the pallium on January 29, 1908.
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