USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III > Part 63
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477
THE UNITARIANS IN BOSTON.
taining to his humanity, but by the power, wisdom, and love of God, in- carnated in him as in no other being in the universe.
Under this dispensation, after the lull of the Trinitarian controversy, for a decade or more the Liberal churches enjoyed rest, peace among them- selves, growing esteem from their fellow-Christians, and all the tokens of an established and even increasing prosperity. During this period and the few preceding years the number of new Unitarian churches was larger, we think, than that of those built by any other denomination, and there was hardly one of the churches -old or new- that was not generously sus- tained and respectably well filled.
In 1825 was formed the American Unitarian Association, which has always had its headquarters and held its meetings in Boston. This Associ- ation has supported a publishing and a missionary agency, has been recog- nized in and out of the denomination as its special organization for propagandism, and now possesses permanent trust-funds amounting to about two hundred thousand dollars, and derives from the churches an annual income ranging from one fourth to half that amount.
. In 1826 the Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, D.D., who had been for a quarter of a century minister of Chelsea, began his labors among the poor and the religiously destitute in Boston, and under his auspices a permanent " ministry at large " was established. There had been, indeed, previously much missionary labor among the poorer classes, and the Boston Sunday- schools of all denominations were from the first to a very large extent mis- sionary schools ; but it is believed that the enterprise of Dr. Tuckerman was the earliest organized effort in that direction. Its success and its permanent establishment as an institution were due in great measure to its founder's strenuous perseverance, his self-sacrifice, his apostolic fervor of spirit, and the power of his influence. The association that has this work in charge is termed the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, and consists of delegates from all the Unitarian churches in what used to be Boston, - Roxbury and Charlestown retaining the methods of charitable work in use at the time of their annexation. The Fraternity has generally supported from three to five missionaries, and assumes the charge of three chapels, besides rendering important aid in other ways to the religious instruction of the poor.
Early in the fourth decade of the century there arose in the Unitarian churches in and around Boston an earnest discussion growing out of the type of philosophy which bore the somewhat vague name of Transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson, it was understood, resigned his pastorate, not for lack of faith or reverence, but because the forms of the Church were inadequate to express his intuitions of spiritual truth. The Rev. George Ripley, who re- mained several years longer in the ministry, held the foremost place as the expounder and champion of the new theology, which may, perhaps, best be characterized as hyper-spiritualism; and Professor Andrews Norton was re- garded as its chief antagonist.1 The controversy was fully as much philosophi-
1 [See Mr. Ripley's kind characterization of Professor Norton in Vol. IV. - ED.]
478
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
cal as religious ; and, so far as it found its way into the churches, it related less to the doctrines of the New Testament than to the proof of their validity. It may be that both parties were equally in the wrong, -the one in laying on external evidence a greater stress than in the nature of the case it can bear; the other, in ignoring all testimony to spiritual truth except that of individual consciousness, and thus by inevitable implication rendering ob- jective truth inconceivable. The peculiar type of speculation represented in these movements seemed to have a very brief currency ; yet it had a large and permanent influence in and beyond the denomination in which it first came to light, in both broadening and deepening the philosophy of re- ligion, and in diffusing more just views of the relative importance, on the one hand, of fundamental truths, and on the other of the facts that authen- ticate them, and the dogmas that are their more or less approximate expression.
In 1841 Theodore Parker, in an ordination sermon at South Boston, started a controversy of deeper significance. He expressly denied the authenticity of all that is supernatural in the Gospel narrative; while he represented Jesus Christ as pre-eminently the Providential man, the greatest of all teachers of spiritual and ethical doctrine and duty, and maintained the literal truth of the text which he had taken, -"My words shall not pass away." His sermon was received at the outset with general alarm and dis- approval. He was asked to withdraw from the Association of Ministers to which he belonged, and, though he declined to do this, his relations of clerical intercourse and pulpit exchange were thenceforward confined to very few of its members. His following, however, rapidly increased. He soon became minister of a new congregation, which, including transient hearers, was probably the largest in Boston; and he was recognized by those who had no sympathy with his negations as a man of fervent piety, of a thoroughly upright purpose, and of self-sacrificing philanthropy. His opinions .have now undoubtedly not a few adherents among both the clergy and the laity, and are represented -in some cases, it may be, exaggerated - in what may be termed the " left wing" of the denomination in Boston and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, there has been on the part of the "right wing" a growing affin- ity to the more liberal of the Trinitarian Congregationalists, in the tendency to regard Christ's humanity as divine in a sense supreme and sole; so that the probably spurious reading of the long-disputed passage in St. Paul's Epistle to Timothy, "God manifest in the flesh," would be adopted equally on either side as the most appropriate designation of Christ's true place in the faith of his Church and in the spiritual universe.
Of the Unitarian clergymen now living we, of course, cannot speak; and of their coevals who have passed away, while there are, as we believe, none of whom we might not make honorable mention, our limits will permit us to name but two, both of whom were distinguished equally by the conspicuous positions which they filled, and by the large place which they held in the
479
THE UNITARIANS IN BOSTON.
confidence, respect, and affection of the whole community. Ephraim Pea- body, D.D., for ten years minister of King's Chapel, while able and intensely impressive as a preacher, was pre-eminently "a man of the beatitudes ; " and the lapse of a quarter of a century since his death cannot have made his memory dim or less precious in the minds of the many who hardly have known, or expect to know in this world, his like. George Putnam, D.D., for nearly fifty years pastor of the First Church in Roxbury, had few equals in his profession in vigor of intellect, in directness and force of logical state- ment and rhetorical appeal, and in the command of an audience of the high- est culture and receptivity. At the same time, those who knew him best saw in him a reserved power which, if fully put forth, would have insured for him, in any profession or department, a far-diffused and long-enduring fame.
The Unitarian churches in Boston, though numerous, and several of them in a very prosperous condition, occupy at the present time a much less prominent place than they held a century ago. They then embraced the larger part of the men eminent for ability, worth, and beneficence, and most of the principal merchants, lawyers, and physicians. Of these they have now their fair proportion, probably not more. Their growth has undoubtedly been checked, and their integrity impaired, by the successive controversies to which reference has been made, and also by the absence of an authorita- tive standard of doctrine, and the wide divergence of opinion among the leading ministers and members. Whether such a standard is in itself desirable, or whether greater unanimity of belief is attainable without a sacrifice of independent thought, it is not the province of history to deter- mine or consider.
The Unitarian denomination has been ably represented in the periodical literature of Boston from the early years of the present century. The Monthly Anthology, a literary and thcological magazine, was begun in 1804, and had among its contributors Buckminster, Norton, and almost all the younger scholars and divines of Boston and Cambridge. This, after eight years of brilliant reputation, was succeeded for two years by the Gen- eral Repository and Review, under similar auspices, but with a wider scope. In 1813 the Rev. Noah Worcester began the editorship of the Christian Disciple, which in 1824 was virtually merged in the Christian Examiner. This last had for its editors at different times Doctors Palfrey, Walker, Greenwood, Lamson, Gannett, Putnam, G. E. Ellis, Hedge, and Hale, and was for several years under the sole charge of the Rev. William Ware, better known as the author of Zenobia and Probus. For the forty-five years of its existence it was distinguished for its literary merit as well as for its learned and skilled discussion of theological subjects. Its place has been taken, and in part filled, by the Unitarian Review, which - more popular in char- acter - contains many articles of large and permanent interest, and in which Dr. Ezra Abbot's monograph on the genuineness of the fourth Gospel -by far the most learned and thorough discussion of this subject which has
480
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
appeared on either side of the Atlantic -was first printed in successive numbers. Other monthlies have had a shorter life, some of them dying, not prematurely, though early; and some, well worthy of a longer existence, had the material means of support been afforded.
The principal newspaper, -the organ of the denomination, if, indeed, it has an organ, - the Christian Register, has reached its sixtieth year, and has had at various times the editorial services of men of distinguished reputation.
From the Boston press have been issued not a few specifically Unitarian works in exposition or defence of the doctrines of the denomination, as well as very many volumes of sermons and essays by its leading clergymen. It is enough to say of these that they have, in general, equally indicated and cherished a high order of literary taste, attainment, and culture.
UNITARIAN CHURCHES IN BOSTON, AND THEIR MINISTERS.
The ministers to whose names t is affixed are not known to have been Unitarians ; those to whose names # is affixed are known not to have been Unitarians. The first date annexed to the names of the ministers is that of ordination or installation ; the second that of dismissal or death. The date joined to the designation of the church is that of its foundation.
FIRST CHURCH, 1630.
. Charles Chauncy . 1727-1787 John Clarke . . . 1778-1798 William Emerson . 1799-1811 John L. Abbot . . 1813-1814 Nathaniel L. Froth- inghamı 1815-1850 Rufus Ellis 18 53-
SECOND CHURCH,1 1650.
John Lathrop 1768-1816 1 Ienry Ware, Jr. . 1817-1830 Ralph W. Emerson 1829-1832 Chandler Robbins . 1833-1875 Robert Laird Collier 1876-1878 Edward A. Horton 1880-
KING'S CHAPEL, 1689.
James Freeman . 1782-1835 Samuel Cary . . . 1809-1815 Francis W. P. Green- wood . 1824-1843 Ephraim Peabody . 1846-1856 Henry W. Foote . 1861-
CHURCH IN BRATTLE SQUARE, | Samuel C. Thacher 1811-1818 Francis W. P. Green-
1 699.
Samuel Cooper ; . 1746-1783 Peter Thacher ; . . 1705-1802 Joseph S. Buck-
minster . . . . 1805-1812
Edward Everett . 1814-1815 John G. Palfrey . . 1818-1830 Samuel K. Lothrop 1834-18762 1727.
NEW NORTH CHURCH, 1714.
John Eliot . 1779-1813
Francis Parkman . 1813-1849
Amos Smith . 1842-1848 Joshua Young . 1849-1852 Arthur B. Fuller . 1853-1858 Robert C. Waters-
ton & . . . 1859-1861 William R. Alger . 18634-
NEW SOUTH CHURCH, 1719. Moses Everett . . 1782-1792
John T. Kirkland . 1794-1810
wood . . . . 1818-1821 Alexander Young . 1825-1854 Orville Dewey . . 1858-1865 William P. Tilden . 1862 6_
FEDERAL-STREET CHURCH,
Jeremy Belknap . 1787-1798 John S. Popkint . 1799-1802
Wm. E. Channing . 1803-1842
Ezra S. Gannett
. 1824-1871
John F. W. Ware . 1872-
HOLLIS-STREET CHURCH,
1732. Ebenezer Wightt . 1778-1788
Samuel West . 1789-1808 Horace Holley . 1809-1818 John Pierpont . 1819-1845 David Fosdick . . 1846-1847 Thomas S. King . 1848-1860
George L. Chaney . 1862-1877 Henry B. Carpenter 1879-
1 In 1854 this church took possession of the church edifice belonging to the Church of the Saviour, which was merged in the Second Church.
2 Religious services discontinued in 1876.
3 Not installed.
4 At this time the New North united with the Bulfinch- Street Church, retaining its name.
5 In 1866 this church was merged in the New South Free Church, of which Mr. Tilden became and remains pastor.
481
THE UNITARIANS IN BOSTON.
WEST CHURCHI, 1737. Jonathan Mayhew . 1747-1766 Simeon Howard . 1767-1804 Charles Lowell . . 1806-1861 Cyrus A. Bartol . 1837-
BULFINCH-STREET CHURCH,1 1822.
Paul Dean 1823-1840 Frederic T Gray . 1839-1853
William R. Alger 2 1855-
TWELFTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 1825.
Samuel Barrett . . 1825-1861
Joseph Lovering
1860-1861 8
THIRTEENTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 1825.
George Ripley . . 1826-1841 Jas. I. T. Coolidge . 1842-18584
SOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHE, IS27.
Mellish I. Motte 1828-1842 Frederic D. Hunt- ington . 1842-1855 Edward E. Hale . 1856-
CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES, 1841.5 James F. Clarke . 1841-
CHURCHI OF THE SAYIOUR,6 845.
Robert C. Waters-
lon . . . . . 1845-1852
INDIANA-STREET CONGREGA- TIONAI. CHURCH,7 1845. Thomas B. Fox . . 1845-1855
CHURCH OF THE UNITY, 1857. Geo. H. Hepworth 1858-1869 Martin K. Schermer- horn . . 1870-1874 Minot J. Savage . 1875-
CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER, 1864. Caleb D. Bradlee . 1864-1872
HAWES-PLACE CHURCH, 1819. Zechariah Wood + . 1819-1822 Lemuel Capen 8 1827-1839 Chas. C. Shackford 1841-1843 George W. Lippitt . 1844-1851 Thomas Dawes . . 1854-1861 James T. Hewes . 1862-1864 Frederic Hinckley . 1865-1867 George A. Thayer 1869-1873 Herman Bisbee . . 1874-1879 John F. Dutton . 1880-
SECOND HAWES CHURCH, 1845. Moses G. Thomas . 1846-1848 Edmund Squire . . 1852-18 539 George A. Thayer . 1873-
CHURCH IN WASHINGTON VILLAGE, 1857.
Edmund Squire . . 1857-1861 A. S. Ryder . . 1861-1868
James Sallaway
. 1868-
SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN EAST BOSTON, 1845.
Leonard J. Liver-
more
.
.
.
1847-1851
Warren H. Cud-
worth
.
.
. . 1852 -
FIRST CHURCHI IN WEST ROX- BURY, 1712.
Thomas Abbott . 1773-1783
John Bradford . . 1785-1825
John Flagg
. 1825-1831
George Whitney . 1831-1836
Theodore Parker . 1837-1846
Dexter Clapp
.
. 1848-1851
Edmund B. Willson 1852-1859
T. B. Forbush
. 1863-1868
Augustus M. Haskell 1870-
FIRST CHURCH IN JAMAICA PLAIN, 1770.
William Gordon ; . 1772-1786
Thomas Gray 1793-1847 George Whitney . 1836-1842 Joseph II. Allen . 1843-1847 Grindall Reynolds . 1848-1858
Jas. W. Thompson . 1859-1881
Charles F. Dole
. 1876-
FIRST CHURCH IN DORCHES-
TER, 1630.
Moses Everett 1774-1793 Thaddeus M. Harris 1793-1836 Nathaniel HIall . . 1835-1875 Samuel J. Barrows . 1876-188:
THIRD CHURCH IN DORCHES- TER, 1813.
Edward Richmond. 1817-1842
Francis
Cunning-
ham
1834-1842
Richard Pike
1843-1863
Thos. J. Mumford . 1864-1871
Henry G. Spaulding 1873-1877 George M. Bodge . 1879-
FIRST CHURCH IN ROXBURY, 1630.
Eliphalet Porter
. 1782-1833
George Putnam . . 1830-1876
John G. Brooks . . 1875-
CHURCH IN HARRISON SQUARE, 1848.
Francis C. Williams 1849-1850 Samuel Johnson . 1850-1851 Stephen G. Bulfinch 1852-1863 Joseph B. Marvin , 1865-1866
Frederic Hinckley . 1867-1869
Henry C. Badger . 1871-1874
Nathaniel Seaver . 1875-1876
MOUNT PLEASANT CHURCH (ROXBURY), 1846. William R. Alger . 1847-1854 Alfred P. Putnam . 1855-1864 Charles J. Bowen . 1865-1870 Carlos C. Carpenter 1870-1879 William H. Lyon 10 18So- Caleb D. Bradlee . 1876-
1 Originally a Universalist church. Mr. Dean changed his ecclesiastical relations several years before Mr. Gray's . settlement.
2 This church migrated with its pastor to the Music Ila", where it had a brief period of prosperity, then sank into decline and dissolution.
3 Dissolved in 1863. VOL. 111 .- 61.
4 Dissolved shortly after Mr. Coolidge's dismission.
$ United with Indiana-Street Church in 1855.
$ United with the Second Church in 1854.
" United with the Church of the Disciples in 1855.
" Mr. Capen began supplying the pulpit in 1823.
· Suspended from 1855 to 1873.
10 Not installed till 1881.
482
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
CHURCH OF THE UNITY (NE- | HARVARD CHURCH (CHARLES- PONSET), IS59. TOWN), 1816.
Frederic W. Hol-
land . 1859-1862 Saml. W. McDaniel 1864-1866
Hasket D. Catlin . 1867-1870
Albert C. Nickerson 1871-1879
Charles B. Elder . 1880-
FIRST CHURCH IN BRIGHTON, 1783
John Foster . . 1784-1829
Daniel Austin 1828-1838
Abner D. Jones . . 1839-1842
Frederic A. Whit-
ney 1843-1857
Charles Noyes . 1860-1863
Saml. W. McDaniel 1867-1869
Thomas Timmins . 1870-1871
Edward I. Galvin . 1872-1876
William Brunton . 1877-
Thomas Prentiss . 1817 - 1817 James Walker . . ISI8-1839 George E. Ellis . . 1840-1869 Charles E. Grinnell 1869-1873 Pitt Dillingham . 1876-
HARVARD CHAPEL (CHARLES- TOWN), 1846.
Nathaniel S. Folsom 1846-1849 Oliver C. Everett . 1850-1869 Charles F. Barnard 1869-1878
BULFINCH-STREET CHAPEL,I 1826.
Joseph Tuckerman 1826-1840 Frederie T. Gray . 1834-1839
Robert C. Water-
ston 1839-1845
Andrew Bigelow . 1845-1846 Samuel H. Winkley 1846-
WARREN-STREET CIIAPEL, 1834.
Charles F. Barnard 1834-1866 Wm. G. Babcock . 1865-
SUFFOLK-STREET CHAPEL, 1839.
John T. Sargent
, 1837-1844
Samuel B. Cruft 2 . 1846-1861
HANOVER-STREET CHAPEL, 1854. W. G. Scandlin . . 1854-1858 Edwin J. Gerry . . 1858-
CONCORD-STREET CHIAPEL, 1864.
J. E. Risley #
1864-1865
Wm. E. Copeland 8 1864-1866
Andrew Preston Peabody
1 Established by Dr. Tuckerman. The society has worshipped in chapels successively in Friend, Pitts, and Bulfinch streets.
2 The church merged in the New South Free Church.
3 The church merged in the New South Free Church.
CHAPTER XII.
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM.
BY THE REV. A. A. MINER, D.D., Pastor of the Columbus-Avenue Universalist Church.
PREVIOUS to the opening of the history of organized Universalism in Boston in 1785, the subject of human destiny had awakened an especial interest. Half a century carlier there had arisen here and there a star of promise, and the query was anxiously pondered, whether God had not something better in store for his children than was commonly believed? The type of Christianity then prevalent in all its features was strongly Calvinistic. The mere suggestion that these doctrines might not be true, though condemned by the bigoted, was received by others with profound though often silent, satisfaction.
Symptoms of dissent appeared at no very great intervals of time from three widely different sources. The Arminian drift of thought rejected the dogmas of clection and reprobation, and culminated in the organization of the now wide-spread Methodist Episcopal Church. The revolution in theo- logical opinion herein involved was relatively slight. To the Socinian spirit the doctrine of the Trinity was especially obnoxious, - and the Unitarian Church is the result. Deeper and broader than both these was a revulsion from the whole catalogue of doctrines so logically knit together, moulded by the assumption of the infinite wrath of God, and resulting in the endless and unmitigated woc of the vast majority of mankind in all ages of the world. Substituting for that wrath the infinite love of God, burning as a purifying fire toward even the most sinful, it not only breathed a new spirit into the science of theology in general, but specially replaced the doctrine of end- less punishment with the glad hopes of universal salvation. Out of these hopes have sprung the Universalist churches.
Among the foregleams of this faith, and the earliest of them in this country, was the preaching of Dr. George de Benneville, who was born in London, of French refugees. Persecuted in England, he went to France, where, in addition to imprisonment for his heresy, he came near suffering the penalty of death. Emigrating to the United States in 1741, he settled in Berks County, Pennsylvania, practising as a physician and preaching
484
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the Word without fee or reward.1 Two other distinguished preachers of Universalism, widely removed from each other, arose at about the same time in our country, -namely, the Rev. Richard Clarke, of Charleston, South Carolina, and Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, minister of the West Church in Boston. Of the latter the author of The Modern History of Universal- ism says: -
" He was distinguished by great force and acuteness of mind, and for the origi- nality and independence of his investigations. His writings gained him great credit in Europe, and procured him a diploma of D.D. from the University of Aberdeen. From 1747 to 1766 he held the office above-mentioned, and shone as a bright star in the constellation of the American clergy of that age." 2
Within four years of the close of Dr. Mayhew's ministry John Murray landed at Good Luck, New Jersey. Mr. Murray was born Dec. 10, 1741, in the town of Alton, Hampshire County, England, forty-eight miles west- southwest of London. His youth was marked by many extraordinary in- cidents. His religious experiences involved many vicissitudes. His father was an Episcopalian, his mother a Presbyterian. His own sympathies were . early and deeply enlisted in Mr. Wesley, and so continued until by more mature thought he became a disciple of James Relly.3 Having become a husband and father, he was called to the severest affliction in the death of both wife and child, which, followed by various other calamities, led him to seek the solitudes of the New World.4
Landing at Good Luck, September, 1770, Mr. Murray was both surprised and disturbed to be forbidden the solitude he sought. No sooner did his ship appear off shore than one Potter assumed that it contained the preacher he had long been waiting for. A series of providential incidents induced him to preach in the church that his new friend Potter had built.5 Though
1 Modern Hist. of Universalism, pp. 305-310.
2 Modern Hist. of Universalism, pp. 312-315. [Sce also Dr. Peabody's and Dr. Goddard's chap- ters in this volume. - ED.]
8 The Rev. James Relly, an Englishman, and author of a work entitled Relly's Union, believed in the Trinity, in the ruin of man through Adam, and his redemption through Christ. He believed that the redemption was as absolute and univer- sal as the ruin. But he distinguished between redemption and salvation. The redemption in Christ, by a decree of God who orders all things, was at once universal and complete; but sal- vation, resulting from a knowledge of that re- demption, is not yet universal, but is destined to become so. Those who are saved here will join Christ in the air at his second coming, and will not be called to judgment. The spirits of those who die unsaved will wander in disqui- ctude till Christ's coming, when they will be brought to judgment, and their sins will be sep- arated from them. Thereupon the Book of Life,
in which are written the names of the whole human race, will be opened, and they will be declared the denizens of the Kingdom of God. Then salvation also will have become universal.
In this fanciful gospel scheme, a marked va- riation of the Calvinistic type, Mr. Murray is supposed to have closely followed Relly. Mur- ray's Life and Letters, edition, 1816.
4 Life of John Murray, edition of 1869, chs. i .- iv.
5 " As Murray went on shore for food, Potter refused to sell him fish, but made him welcome to whatever he wanted. He declined to make an appointment for preaching, as he must sail the moment the wind should change. This rc- fusal, on the same ground, was repeated day after day. Finally, Potter insisted that the wind would not change until Murray should have de- livered his message. A conditional appoint- ment was made; Murray preached in Potter's church, the wind changed, and the ship immedi- ately set sail." - Life of John Murray, ch. v.
485
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM.
he had been a preacher of Rellyism in his native country, it was his de- liberate purpose to permit his voice to be heard in public no more. But " while man appoints, God disappoints." No sooner had he once spoken to the people on these shores than his services were in pressing demand. Pos- sessed of marked abilities, a vivid imagination, a warm heart and ready wit, he was everywhere heard with intensest pleasure. Having spent nearly two years in New York, Philadelphia, and the principal towns around and between those cities, Mr. Murray, in the fall of 1772, visited New England, preaching in various towns in Connecticut, and in both Providence and Newport, Rhode Island.1 His contemplated visit to Boston was prevented by the approach of winter, which he spent in revisiting the scenes of his previous labors, and journeying as far south even as Maryland. In the autumn of 1773 he returned to New England, rejected an invitation to abide in Newport, preached in East Greenwich and Providence, arriving in Boston October 26 of the same year. This was his first visit to the metrop- olis of New England. His already great fame had preceded him. His first discourse in Boston was delivered in the hall of the Manufactory House, -a large building opposite the site on which Park-Street Church now stands.2 Among his carliest acquaintances here was Thomas Handasyde Peck, who rendered him great assistance and opened his dwelling-house for public worship. Mr. Murray became still more widely known by journeying to Newburyport and as far as Portsmouth, New Hampshire, preaching in vari- ous pulpits in both these places. On returning to Boston he again preached in the Manufactory House, in Faneuil Hall, and in the meeting-house of the Rev. Mr. Croswell, of whom Mr. Peck, just mentioned, was a chief sup- porter. This house was situated on School Street, on the lot next east of
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