USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > The biography of a church; a brief history of Christ Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts > Part 5
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The Organ Comes Down
Another event which was under discussion through 1877 but did not take place until the following year was the moving of the organ from the balcony to the floor of the church and the presentation to the parish by Mr. Edward D. Harris of two hymn boards. Originally the choir sat in the balcony but it had already been brought down into the chancel during Dr. Hoppin's rectorship.
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Clouds Begin to Gather
Meanwhile, in the summer of 1877 the rector was given three months leave of absence because of ill health. Un- fortunately his health failed to improve; and in conse- quence the parish, having already endured the last lean years of Dr. Hoppin's rectorship, and the two leaner years without a rector, had run down to such an extent that at the Easter meeting in 1878 Dr. Langdon, only a year and three months after his arrival, offered his resignation to take effect the following November. Dr. Langdon stated, "My resignation was offered in consequence of the as- surance given me at a conference of members of the old vestry that there existed in the Parish a general dissatis- faction and desire for a change in the rectorship." The parish most graciously voted not to accept Dr. Langdon's resignation and besought him to withdraw it, which he did with an expression of his deep gratitude and apprecia- tion of their action. At the same time, in his letter ac- ceding to the request of the parish to withdraw his resig- nation, he pointed out, "It seems to me under the cir- cumstances that it is wiser and more conducive to future peace and quietness that I should forward the renewal of my resignation so soon as the providence of God shall afford me an opportunity of doing so." His letter clearly indicates a large division in the opinion of the parish on the matter. "The old vestry" was not in a mood to wait upon the providence of God, but at the next meeting a month later passed the following resolution:
"Whereas the financial exhibit of the treasurer of the Par- ish discovers the condition under which it is painfully evi- dent that he cannot pay the appropriations made at the re- cent annual meeting, or especially that he will not be able to fulfill any pledge to supply the rector with a salary worthy of his acceptance, therefore be it resolved that the
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aetion of our Reetor in tendering his resignation at the last Easter meeting to take effect the 1st of November was magnanimous and wise. And, however much we might individually be pained by the contemplation of the sever- ance of these peculiarly saered ties existing between Rector and people, we feel constrained to place on record our ap- proval of his course in so doing, as the one best caleulated to sustain that prosperity in the Parish which he has so nobly and unselfishly expressed as being near his heart."
The resolution was passed by a vote of four to three and one of the three, Mr. Shaler, immediately handed his resignation to the clerk,
This declaration left Dr. Langdon, who was neither desirous of nor probably physically up to an open fight with the vestry, without any recourse save that of renew- ing his resignation. This he did, requesting that it take effect on November 1, 1878. The parting was in the spirit of Christian charity, the vestry voting to allow the Langdons to live in the rectory until it should be needed for his successor and "cheerfully" accorded Dr. Langdon the right to use the church for such special services as baptisms, etc. Thus, after November 1, 1878, Christ Church was in the unusual and unenviable position of hav- ing two unemployed ex-rectors living in the parish.
Exonerated
It now became evident that Dr. Langdon had been suf- fering from a nervous breakdown when he accepted the rectorship of Christ Church, and he was not to recover until sometime after his resignation. No records exist which give the specific nature of his difficulties, but after his resignation two members of the vestry and two of the most loyal laymen in Christ Church's history, Mr. George Dexter, and Mr. Francis Charles Foster, preferred charges against Dr. Langdon before the Standing Com-
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mittee of the Diocese (which with the Bishop constitutes the ecclesiastical authority of a diocese) for conduct un- worthy of a clergyman, imputing to him "deceit, false- hood, and dishonesty," because of statements made at different times, beginning with a letter written in 1875 relative to his coming as rector of Christ Church. It is noteworthy that both Mr. Dexter and Mr. Foster were absent from the vestry meeting which demanded Dr. Langdon's resignation
Whether through a natural lack of competence in domestic economy, or through the heavy expense of mov- ing his wife and five children from Geneva to Cambridge, or because of his nervous condition, or because he couldn't make his salary of $2500 a year as rector of Christ Church cover the expenses of his family, Dr. Langdon apparently had run heavily into debt and had been rescued by these two gentlemen from the hands of his creditors. Mr. Dexter and Mr. Foster now found themselves facing the problem of having to pay the unemployed rector's debts for the sake of the reputation of the church.
Whatever the transactions were, the Standing Com- mittee, after making a careful investigation, on a motion of Phillips Brooks exonerated Dr. Langdon, and Messrs. Dexter and Foster withdrew their charges, stating that, after reflecting on the doctor's statement of "Dr. Lang- don's condition of debility and nervous prostration and temporary loss of mental powers" at the times of the questioned transactions, they were satisfied that "at the time of Dr. Langdon's entering upon the rectorship of Christ Church, and for sometime afterwards, his state of health both bodily and mental was such as fully to ac- count for the discrepancies between his understanding and our own of the conversations and transactions with which our names are connected in the memorial to the Stand- ing Committee." So the charges were withdrawn and in
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March, 1879 the vestry passed a motion congratulating Dr. Langdon and the parish on this happy exoneration.
Deserved Happiness
I suppose the moral of this tale is: Don't call a rector sight unseen; but it would not be fair to the memory of Dr. Langdon if we closed this chapter of history without informing the reader of the fact that despite the impres- sion one receives of Dr. Langdon from this account of his two unfortunate years at Christ Church, the record of his work both before and after this episode shows not only that he was a deeply spiritual, conscientious Christian clergyman, but also that many Christ Church parishioners recognized this. Four years after leaving Christ Church he had sufficiently recovered his health to become rector of St. James' Church, Bedford, Pennsylvania, where he enjoyed an exceedingly happy and successful ministry for some seven years.2
2 For an account of Dr. Langdon's unusual labors after his retirement from the active ministry, see Appendix H.
CHAPTER VII
JAMES FIELD SPALDING 1879-1891
ON THE ROAD TO ROME
WITH TWO EX-RECTORS living in Cambridge, both of whom had been requested to resign by the parish, the vestry in 1879 had none too attractive an offer to make to any clergyman. In a short time, however, they found a clergy- man in the small town of Portland, Connecticut, who, having endured a stormy seven years as rector of Trinity Church there, no doubt welcomed the suggestion of a change, and being of a quiet and studious nature, particu- larly welcomed the idea of moving to Cambridge.
James Field Spalding, the sixth rector of Christ Church, was raised a Congregationalist in Enfield, Con- necticut, attended Williston Seminary, and graduated from Williams College in 1862. As an indication of his studious nature and natural eloquence we note that he was Moonlight orator in his freshman year, Logian orator in his junior year, and delivered the classical oration in his senior year. In addition, he was Phi Beta Kappa and remained for a year as tutor at the college and two years after graduation received an M.A. In 1864 he married Mary Hopper of Enfield and in the same year became the co-founder of the Round Hill School for Boys in Northampton, of which he was the associate principal for five years. What particularly influenced him to enter the ministry of the Episcopal Church we do not know, but in 1869 he was ordained by Bishop Williams and for
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the next two years he spent an uneventful ministry as rector of St. John's Church, Ithaca, New York, from whence he came to Trinity Church, Portland, Connecticut. While serving the church in Portland he was largely re- sponsible for the construction of the church, the building of which was made difficult by the panic of 1877. A re- cent rector of Trinity Church, the Rev. Malcolm J. Van Zandt, observed, "It was a hard and trying rectorship; there were friends and foes but at least we are grateful to Dr. Spalding for this lovely church edifice."
Mr. Spalding came to Christ Church the first Sunday in Advent, December, 1879, together with his wife and three sons, Walter, Henry, and Philip. The father and the three sons were all musical. Consequently, one of the first things that Dr. Spalding did was to organize a men and boys' choir. Mr. Spalding had a fine tenor voice, Walter played the organ, and the two younger sons sang in the choir. At the second meeting of the vestry after his arrival, Mr. Spalding was given per- mission to rearrange the pews in the chancel so as to ac- commodate the choir and directly after Easter in the spring of 1880 the music of the parish was led by what was in those days a great innovation, a men and boys' choir. It is believed that it was the second vested choir of men and boys to be established in an Episcopal Church in Massachusetts. Walter became successively the organist and choirmaster of St. Mark's School, at Emmanuel Church, Boston, and professor of music at the school of music at Harvard University. He has been a member of Christ Church all of his life, as indeed he still is today.
The Redecoration of the Church
The most notable event during Mr. Spalding's twelve years as rector was an entire redecoration of the interior of the church in the summer of 1883. It is almost im-
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AFTER THE 1883 REDECORATION IN "ALL THE COLORS OF THE RAINBOW"
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VIEW TOWARD GALLERY SHOWING "SMIBERT" TABLET COVERING WINDOW
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possible for us today, accustomed as we are to our simple, beautiful gray and white interior, to imagine the walls and ceilings of the entire church painted in rich dark colors .. The decoration was carried out under the direc- tion of Henry Van Brunt and Frank Hill Smith. I pre- sume that Trinity Church, Boston, which had been com- pleted about 1877 and was considered the last word in church architecture with its painted walls and enormous La Farge murals must have been the inspiration for the redecoration, as Trinity was the inspiration of the re- decoration of so many churches at that time. The late Josephine F. Bumstead, who came to the parish in 1883 as a young girl, describes it thus: "The interior was striped horizontally with terra cotta, green, blue, all the colors of the rainbow, it seemed to us; then there were little cherubs leaning on their crossed arms looking down on us from the vaulting, and between them were large cockle shells, but the crowning glory to some of us were the three medallions in the chancel on either side of the altar in each of which was painted the head of an angel with long flowing hair; and above the sanctuary in gold Victorian lettering was painted our beloved text: 'Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off.' (Isaiah 33:17) There was a great deal to console us in what would now be called visual education during Mr. Spalding's dull sermons.
"The decoration also included a new pulpit given by Mrs. Williams. The panelling in most of the pews which had not already been removed gave way to uniform backs. It was all illuminated by many gas lights and the trans- formed interior which in its picture today looks hideous, was at the time considered very beautiful." In his an- nual report to the Diocese in 1883, Dr. Spalding wrote: "Through the generosity of a few parishioners, the church has been appropriately decorated during the past year,
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and at the same time, by the subscriptions of the people in general, it was completely refurnished, so that now the interior is one of the most beautiful to be seen in this community."
Miss Bumstead further commented that while "his sermons were dull; he was a devoted pastor and unques- tionably more interested in the spiritual progress of his people than in external changes. He was a man of integ- rity and a scholar in many ways. We felt that he never quite trusted anyone to do anything. He did everything himself so far as possible, but there was one person in whom he had absolute faith, and it was well founded, and that was in Mrs. Huntington Saville. Under her remark- able personality we had an outstanding branch of the Girls' Friendly Society numbering upwards of fifty or sixty members." That Dr. Spalding was a hard working pastor is shown by the fact that he brought the communi- cant strength up to and slightly beyond the point reached at the height of Dr. Hoppin's ministry in 1867. It is only fair to add however that between 1867 and 1890 the city almost doubled its population.
In his Williams College class report, we read, "Mr. Spalding was one of those phenomenal old-fashioned, classical scholars who had thoroughly committed to memory all the Greek and Latin paradigms and laws of syntax." As one would imagine, committing to memory the laws of Latin and Greek syntax did not result in in- spiring sermons, nor did Dr. Spalding's general studious- ness, overseriousness, and preoccupation with theological problems give his ministry any popular appeal. Conse- quently, because of the uninspiring character of the serv- ices, the congregation began to decline in number to the benefit of the congregation of St. John's Chapel of the Episcopal Theological School, of which the Dean of the School served as rector. Miss Bumstead describes
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the situation as she remembers it thus: "The rich, the at- tractive, the socially gifted had attached themselves to St. John's Chapel where a charming Dean and his family, and no parish financial burdens, awaited them; indeed, the situation at times caused bitterness among the strug- gling members of Christ Church, a bitterness that never quite died out until 1931 when the congregation of St. John's merged with that of Christ Church."
Up the Ladder
Meanwhile, Dr. Spalding, following the path of so many of those who come into the Episcopal ministry from other Protestant churches, was steadily climbing the ladder of churchmanship. In 1886 he published a volume on "The Teaching and Influence of St. Augustine" which some contemporary commentators declared might well have been written by a Roman Catholic.
The Election of a Bishop
The next few years were externally uneventful, al- though, as it was to become evident, Dr. Spalding was passing through a period of deep intellectual and spiritual unrest. He was becoming more and more disturbed by what he considered to be the growing rationalism of the Church, as the new biblical and historical criticism grad- ually undermined older literal interpretation of scripture and doctrine. The direction of Dr. Spalding's thought did not become apparent to the congregation as a whole until April 29, 1891, when Dr. Phillips Brooks, of Trinity Church, Boston, was elected Bishop of the Diocese by a very large majority of both clergy and laity. It was learned then that the rector of Christ Church voted with a small minority that violently opposed Bishop Brooks' election.
After a diocese elects a bishop, before he can assume his
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office, the Standing Committees of a majority of the di- oceses must give their consent to his consecration as a bishop of the Church. Directly following the election of Bishop Brooks, Dr. Spalding joined a group in the Church who, viewing life from a narrow theological standpoint, carried on a campaign by writing letters and circulating pamphlets to prevent Dr. Brooks' securing the necessary consents of the various dioceses. This group felt that Dr. Brooks did not properly uphold what they considered to be the fundamental doctrines of the Church, such as the apostolic succession, the Virgin Birth, and the resur- rection. They carried on this campaign, despite the exemplary character of Bishop Brooks and his unique position as one of the greatest Christian preachers in the English-speaking world at the time, because of the breadth of his views.
Generally speaking, both outside the Episcopal Church and among the evangelical and liberally minded people in the Church, Dr. Brooks' election met with a popular ap- proval that has seldom if ever been equalled in the elec- tion of any bishop. It was a severe shock, therefore, to the members of Christ Church when they learned that Dr. Spalding not only voted against the election of Bishop Brooks but, as the record states, "He, with some other High Church clergymen, refused to sign the testimonials to the character of the Bishop-elect and also absented himself from the consecration service in Trinity Church." In contrast, it is interesting to note in passing that one of the Cowley Fathers, Arthur C. Hall, voted for Bishop Brooks; he was in consequence, as a measure of discipline, recalled to England by his Order. He in turn withdrew from the Order, returned to this country, and three years later became Bishop of Vermont.
Dr. Spalding's refusal to attend the consecration of Bishop Brooks on October 14, 1891, must have made
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evident to his parishioners generally the goal toward which his thinking was leading him. Speaking of that year, one parishioner commented, "Dr. Spalding's sermons have shown to the attentive listener manifest evidence of dis- content and unrest, especially in the direction of an ap- parent desire for more absolute ecclesiastical authority than he could find in the Episcopal Church." Two weeks later, on the first Sunday in November, when the con- gregation arrived in church, they found to their surprise, instead of Dr. Spalding, that the Rev. J. I. T. Coolidge was the officiating minister. The latter read to the con- gregation a letter from Dr. Spalding in which the rector resigned his charge of the church to take effect December 1st for "personal and imperative reasons," which, as the letter said, "would be explained to the congregation on the last Sunday in November in my farewell address." Contemporary accounts indicate that the congregation was shocked by this unexpected and unexplained resigna- tion but that most of them surmised he had finally made up his mind to enter the Roman Church. The regret that parishioners felt because Dr. Spalding was entering the Roman Church was offset by a sense of relief that he should voluntarily have decided to resign, and thus have spared the parish the unpleasant task of having to de- mand his resignation. This is ordinarily disagreeable enough, but had the vestry had to ask for the resignation of a third successive rector, this fact alone would have considerably dampened the ardor of any clergyman who might, in the future, receive a call to the parish.
Dr. Spalding's greatest difficulty was that of making decisions. He prided himself, however, on the fact that when he finally decided to go to Rome, he immediately announced his resignation and engaged another Episcopal clergyman to officiate in his place. He felt this course to be the honest one, noting in his farewell address that
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"During this past month of my rectorship I have not officiated in any way anywhere, so that no one's conscience has been hurt." As a matter of fact, he could hardly have placed the parish in a more uncomfortable situation had he deliberately set out to do so! It was immediately ru- mored everywhere and even reported in the newspapers that the rector of Christ Church was going to Rome, but the papers were able to secure from Dr. Spalding neither a confirmation nor a denial. Finally, the Boston Herald announced on Thanksgiving Day that Dr. Spalding was leaving the Episcopal ministry and joining the Church of Rome.
Dr. Spalding's Farewell
What a day the last Sunday in November must have been in the history of Christ Church! The congregation knew in advance that Dr. Spalding was to deliver his farewell sermon and present the reasons for the step that he either had taken or was about to take. It is almost certain that on no Sunday in the parish's history did the congregation arrive in such a high state of excitement and indignation. The service was conducted by the Rev. Charles Arey, D.D., assisted by the Rev. Henry Parker, to a church packed to overflowing. When the time came for the sermon, Dr. Spalding rose, wearing a cassock and surplice but without a stole, and instead of ascending the pulpit, simply took his place in the chancel from which, according to the old accounts, "he read a manuscript slowly and deliberately and in a voice that could be heard in all parts of the church." Dr. Spalding began by saying:
"What first set me thinking in the direction that has re- sulted thus far in my giving up the Rectorship was the rationalism, the free-thinking, and the unbelieving in the Episcopal Church and the entire Anglican Communion . . . The point with me was that it was unchecked .. . I refer to
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scouting of the doctrine of the apostolic succession, to the so-called higher criticism of Holy Scripture, to the weaken- ing of the doctrine of the Incarnation, to the out and out denial of the Virgin Birth and the bodily resurrection of our Lord, or the making of these truths only a matter of interpretation."
He tried to explain his relation to Phillips Brooks' election by saying,
"I wish to correct a misapprehension. It has been said by some that my reasons reached their culminations at the time of the recent Episcopal election for Bishop. This is a mistake. My action is just what it would have been had the highest churchman in the land been made Bishop. All that it did was to set me thinking, as I had been think- ing before, and the only effect it has had, this most recent victory of advanced thought, is that it emphasizes my action, and my action emphasizes it."
After spending about half an hour explaining what was wrong with the Episcopal Church, he then launched into an exposition of the reasons why he had become con- vinced that the Roman Church was "the one true Church of Christ." As he began this latter part of his address, the congregation was startled to see a man rise in his pew near the front of the church and declare that Dr. Spalding had no right to use an Episcopal Church to proclaim and expound the doctrines of the Roman Church. The con- gregation recognized the speaker to be Mr. Frederick Stanhope Hill, the junior warden of the parish, whose wife was a convert from the Roman Church. At this point Mr. Francis C. Foster, the senior warden, was seen to move swiftly down the aisle and persuade Mr. Hill to be silent and allow Dr. Spalding to conclude his fifty minute address.
The announcement of Dr. Spalding's submission to Rome and the publication of his sermon in the newspapers
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came as an unexpected blow not only to the Episcopal Church as a whole but to the protestant churches in this area, so that on the following Sunday a barrage of sermons were preached from Episcopal as well as from other pul- pits, replying to Dr. Spalding's attack on Protestantism and to his contention that the claims of the Roman Church were true.
The vestry, however, very wisely secured the services of Professor Kellner, of the Episcopal Theological School, as acting rector. Dr. Kellner was well known and well liked in the parish, as he had substituted for the rector many times in the past. He encouraged those who were disturbed by Dr. Spalding's action to remain loyal to the parish, serving as minister in charge for almost a year un- til September, 1892, when the new rector, the Rev. Wil- liam Benjamin Basil King came to Christ Church from St. Luke's Pro-Cathedral, Nova Scotia.
Meanwhile, thick clouds of gloom settled upon the rectory. Mrs. Spalding and her three sons were grief- stricken, but they evidently could not change Dr. Spald- ing's mind. Perhaps it was their persuasive power that caused him a year later to recoil from the Roman Church back into the Episcopal Church. But his change of mind was only temporary, and shortly afterward he made his final submission. His family believed his conversion was due to the influence of some Anglo-Catholic and Roman Catholic friends he had come to know in Cambridge. A review of his life would seem to indicate, however, that he was a man whose nature demanded authority for his own inner sense of security and peace of mind and that his decisions to leave teaching for the ministry, and the Con- gregational Church for the Episcopal Church at the age of thirty in 1869, were but first steps in a pilgrimage which he was to follow to its ultimate conclusion twenty-five years later.
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