USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Trinity church in the city of Boston, Massachusetts : 1733-1933 > Part 11
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dom less than twelve hundred people, among whom were hundreds of students from the colleges and schools in and around Boston. A member of the staff who sat under him year after year once remarked: "No matter on what subject Dr. Sherrill speaks, he always touches me where I live; and he always inspires me with something constructive to hold to, and to utilize in my daily endeavor to lead a Christian life."
The type of the afternoon service was changed from simple Evening Prayer to Choral Evensong, with special music by a choir of men, followed by an organ recital. A new service of a more or less informal nature was instituted in the evening, followed by a "social hour." These services in the evening became quite popular, and the "social hour" provided the opportunity for many in the parish and community to become better acquainted with the clergy and with one another.
From time to time, noted preachers were invited to come to preach to the congregations, among whom were Bishop Headlam of Gloucester; Studdert Kennedy; Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin; Dr. George A. Gordon of the New Old South Church; Dr. Henry D. A. Major, Principal of Ripon Hall, Oxford; Canon Duncan-Jones, Vicar of St. Mary's, Primrose Hill, London; Canon Dwelly of Liverpool; Canon Raven of Liv- erpool.
Among the missionaries who came to preach at Trinity during this period were the Rev. George P. Mayo, Princi- pal of Blue Ridge Industrial School, Dyke, Virginia; Bishop Hulse of Cuba; Bishop Remington of Eastern Oregon; Dr. Samuel Zwemer of Cairo, Egypt; Bishop Roots of China; Bishop Gilman of China; the Rev. E. Stanley Jones, D.D., of India; Dr. R. B. Teusler of St. Luke's Hospital, Tokyo; and Bishop Rowe of Alaska.
A number of special services enriched the scope of the de- votional life of the parish. There were the annual services in memory of Phillips Brooks, with such preachers as Bishop Lawrence, Dr. George A. Gordon, Bishop Slattery, Dean
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Washburn, and others. Every day during Lent, noonday serv- ices were held with special preachers each week. Among these men were the Rev. Messrs. Luke M. White, D.D., of Mont- clair, New Jersey; Robert Johnstone, D.D., of Washington, D. C .; Joseph Fort Newton, D.D., of Overbrook, Pennsyl- vania; W. Russell Bowie, D.D., of New York; Samuel S. Drury, D.D., Rector of St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire; Floyd W. Tomkins, D.D., of Philadelphia; Percy G. Kammerer, Ph.D., of Pittsburgh; Ashley Day Leavitt, D.D., of Harvard Congregational Church in Brookline; Willard L. Sperry, D.D., Dean of the Harvard Divinity School; Hughell Fosbroke, D.D., Dean of the General Seminary, New York; Bishops Lawrence and Slattery.
In the spring there was an annual service in memory of Flor- ence Nightingale; baccalaureate services for the commence- ments of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and of one of the schools of Boston University ; graduation exercises for the nurses of the Children's Hospital and the Massachu- setts General Hospital; and the annual service for the Boston Commandery of the Knights Templars.
To spread further the influence of Trinity, the eleven o'clock morning services were broadcast over station WBZ, Spring- field, Massachusetts, the first broadcast being on October 18, 1925.
At Christmas and Easter two beautifully costumed and rev- erently enacted pageants depicting the Christmas and Easter stories were presented by members of the young people's soci- eties under the direction of the parish committee on religious education. Both pageants were given primarily for the Chil- dren's Carol Services, the carols and other music describing the action. Each year both pageants were repeated to overflow congregations. The religious educational value to the hundred and more participants as well as to those who looked on was incalculable.
The music at the services during this time was beautifully
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rendered by an excellent choir under the leadership of Mr. Francis W. Snow, choir-master and organist, who was untir- ing in his efforts to make the music second to none in the churches of Boston. His cheerful and effective cooperation in the many special services and pageants was greatly appreciated by all who had them in charge. He was greatly handicapped, however, by an antiquated organ. Dr. Sherrill appealed in the Parish Calendar for a new organ, and on Christmas Day, 1925, he announced "the gift of a magnificent new organ to replace the old one in the west gallery." It contains three complete sets of chorus reeds, many beautiful solo reeds, and cathedral chimes, harp and celesta stops-112 stops in all. The donor was Mrs. T. Jefferson Coolidge.
On October 31, 19 26, the new organ was dedicated by Bishop Lawrence at the eleven o'clock service. The Te Deum and an- them sung at the service were composed especially for the occasion by Mr. Snow and Mr. Charles Bennett, respectively. Mr. Bennett, who was the bass soloist for a number of years, and was much beloved, died the following year.
Another factor which added greatly to the dignity of the services was the formation of a servers' guild under the direc- tion of the Rev. George C. Gibbs. The guild was named for the traditional St. Christopher. It is a service outlet for the older boys of the Galahad Club and to-day has extended its duties to conducting Sunday noon "pilgrimages" about the church, to explain the wealth of symbolism in the beautiful stained-glass windows and in the furnishings of the church.
During Dr. Sherrill's rectorship many changes were taking place in the life of the parish and in the community, and the rector was keenly alive to the opportunities of service to the community constantly opening up before him. He writes these words in his preface to the Year Book of 1927: "Conditions in the neighborhood of Copley Square are changing rapidly. Al- most every month sees the demolition of several private dwell- ings and the erection of an apartment house or an office build-
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ing. These changes are bringing us an increasing opportunity. There are more people near Trinity Church seven days in the week than ever before. This should mean a greater use of the Church, if we are a wake to our opportunity. The Sunday after- noon services, and the Sunday evening services are showing encouraging growth, as have the Lenten noon-day services where we have heard many inspiring preachers from other cit- ies. The time is coming when we should have a greater num- ber of week-day services throughout the year. We must plan for the future. In the first place, as I have written many times before, there must be a large addition to the endowment fund that we may have the material means to expand. In the second place we need a chapel seating perhaps two hundred people. Such a chapel would be of daily use. The future seems to be bright with opportunity. Increasingly I admire the vision of those who placed Trinity Church in Copley Square. I pray that we of this generation may have the missionary enthusiasm to carry on their work."
During Dr. Sherrill's rectorship, Trinity Church carried on its fine financial record in giving to the general work of the national Church and in supporting diocesan enterprises. Along with the increase and expansion in the work, there came an in- crease in giving and in the number of people pledging to the work of the Church. At the end of the year 1922 there were 676 pledges for $52,817, of which $26,500 was paid to the diocese and nation. At the end of 1930 there were 1,116 pledges for $87,254, of which $35,000 was paid to the diocese and nation. Such response to the needs of the Church on the part of the parish called forth repeated commendation from the rector: "A year ago," said Dr. Sherrill, in 19 2 5, "I wrote of the pressing need of extraordinary repairs. It was indeed a serious situation with which we were faced. Thanks to the splendid response to the financial appeals of this year and last, we are well on the way to the solution of the problem. In addition to this we have been able to meet our share of the budget of
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the General Church and of the Diocese, and to carry on our development of the Parish. We are nearer a Christian standard of giving."
The endowment funds were materially increased during these years. In May, 1923, the Phillips Brooks Memorial En- dowment Fund amounted to $103,420, and at the end of the year 1930 it amounted to $205,074. In the following Febru- ary, $50,000 more was added, and in April another $10,000, making the total $265,074 or an increase of $161,6 54 in about seven years' time, due primarily to Dr. Sherrill's efforts.
A word here should be said about the staff. Mr. Ridout be- came rector of Trinity Church, Parkersburg, West Virginia, in 1925. In 1926, Deaconess Beard joined the staff of Grace Church, New York, and Mr. Gibbs became canon of the Amer- ican Pro-Cathedral in Paris, France. The Rev. Gardiner M. Day then came on the staff, leaving in 1929 to take up the work with students at Williamstown, Massachusetts. In Septem- ber, 1926, Miss Ella Aylesbury, for many years choir mother, retired. Mr. Phinney resigned in January, 1928, to become the rector of St. Paul's Church, Concord, New Hampshire, later becoming rector of St. Stephen's Memorial Church in Lynn, Massachusetts. The Rev. William E. Gardner, D.D., whose work with students at the Church of the Messiah had been abandoned for financial reasons, became a member of the staff, taking charge primarily of the educational program of the parish. After Mr. Day left, the Rev. Otis R. Rice came to take up his work with the young people and students. Mr. Harold E. Miller, who had begun his service as assistant sexton under Mr. Chester, and had became sexton upon Mr. Chester's death in 1920, completed twenty-five years of serv- ice at Trinity, in 1928. In the same year Mrs. Frances M. Groves likewise completed twenty-five years of service as par- ish visitor. Miss Mitchell completed her fortieth year of serv- ice in 1930.
The parish lost many valuable helpers between 1923 and
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1930, but perhaps the greatest loss to both rector and people came in June, 1929, with the death of Mr. Edward Webster Hutchins, for twelve years senior warden and for ten years a vestryman. "No words can describe all that he accomplished for the Parish," wrote Dr. Sherrill. "To the very last, even when he could ill afford the strength, he gave of his best for Trinity Church. Wise in counsel, patient, and considerate in his leadership, as a Parish we can thank God for the life of Edward W. Hutchins." Mr. Edward W. Fenno resigned as a member of the vestry in 1929, after forty-four years of able and devoted service. During these years there had been four rectors of the Church, commencing with Bishop Brooks.
Many well deserved honors came to Dr. Sherrill during the years that he served as rector of Trinity. In May, 1928, at thirty-seven years of age, he was elected Bishop-Coadjutor of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. Later he was elected a trustee of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, president of the Greater Boston Federation of Churches, and a member of the Board of Preachers of Harvard University. He served two terms as delegate from the Diocese of Massachusetts to the General Convention (1925 and 1928). Yale, his Alma Mater, granted him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1929, and in 1930 Boston University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. At the presentation of the former degree, Professor William Lyon Phelps gave this estimate of Dr. Sher- rill's character and attainments: "Mr. Sherrill is an outstand- ing figure in all three departments of his profession -- he is a first-rate preacher, a first-rate pastor, and a first-rate executive. Every Sunday he preaches to about fifteen hundred listeners, many of whom are young people of enquiring minds. As a pastor he is exceedingly beloved, as an executor he has brought his great church to the highest degree of efficiency. Recently he was elected Bishop-Coadjutor of Pennsylvania, but did not choose to serve. Hé is broadminded, warm-hearted, and sin- cere. The words of Chaucer apply perfectly to him:
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"Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taught, but first be folowed it bimselve."
At the Diocesan Convention in May, 1930, at the age of thirty-nine, Dr. Sherrill was elected Bishop of Massachusetts on the very first ballot. He was the only nominee; there were only a few dissenting votes. He resigned from the rectorship of Trinity the following September and was consecrated Oc- tober 14, 1930, in Trinity Church, with the Presiding Bishop as consecrator and with Bishop Lawrence as preacher. It is inter- esting to note that Bishop Mann, under whom he had served as an assistant at Trinity before the War, and at whose con- secration Dr. Sherrill served as attending presbyter, was one of the group of bishops who took part in the ceremony.
In his last message to the people of Trinity in the preface to the 1930 Year Book, he writes of the future of the parish under its new leadership: "This month the parish, almost two hundred years old, enters a new era. Mr. Kinsolving can count upon a united parish. I am confident that you will find him sympathetic with the best traditions of Trinity Church. As I have written many times, Trinity, in the heart of the city, has an increasing opportunity. The great years, please God, are ahead. As bishop and as friend, I shall rejoice at every for- ward step, and shall pray for God's blessing upon the parish we love."
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VIII REV. ARTHUR LEE KINSOLVING, D.D. Thirteenth Rector of Trinity Church 1930- BY JEFFREY RICHARDSON BRACKETT, PH.D. Clerk of Trinity Church
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TN.1923, when Dr. Mann resigned to become Bishop of Pittsburgh, the wardens and vestry had invited several members of the parish, both men and women, to form with the wardens and several vestrymen a special committee to consider candidates for the rectorship. So in the spring of 1930, when Dr. Sherrill was elected Bishop of Massachusetts, the wardens and vestry asked three women and two men, rep- resenting the parishioners, to act with the wardens and four vestrymen as a committee to advise in the choice of a rector.
The names of some forty clergymen came before the committee, from far and wide, including a famous English preacher. The end of July, the wardens and vestry, in whom the proprietors had vested the power of choice, unanimously called the Rev. Arthur Lee Kinsolving, rector of Grace Church, Amherst, Massachusetts, and he accepted the call. He was pres- ent at the consecration of Bishop Sherrill in Trinity Church on October 14, and took up his new duties on the last Sunday in that month. He was thirty-one years of age, and unmarried.
Mr. Kinsolving, through both father and mother, came from a long line of excellent and in part distinguished Vir- ginia ancestors. On the maternal side, the Bruces of Charlotte County, there were public-spirited citizens, thinkers, and writers. On the paternal side his great-grandfather, named for George Washington, inherited a large estate in the Piedmont region, and a large stable of fine race horses, but he never al- lowed them to be raced for money stakes. He was an active Churchman and a lay reader. His only son, among seven daughters, was said to have been destined for the Church. There were reports of some tendencies to skepticism and wild- ness, but that may have been only a touch of youthful protest to parents who had predetermined his career, and also had named him Ovid Americus! However, he took highest honors at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, in a class which included
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Rutherford B. Hayes and Stanley Matthews, and prepared for the ministry at the Virginia Theological Seminary at Alexan- dria. He was afterward described by a well-known professor there as genial, delightful, a beautiful reader of the Church service, and an able sermonizer and preacher. Three of his sons became well-known clergymen of the Episcopal Church, one the Bishop of Texas, another the pioneer Bishop of South- ern Brazil, and the third, the Rev. Arthur B. Kinsolving, D.D., who is still in his long and honored pastorateat "Old St. Paul's," Baltimore, the mother of the Episcopal churches there. Arthur Lee Kinsolving is his son. Two cousins of the younger Arthur are clergymen; one, after being chaplain at West Point Mili- tary Academy, is now dean of the Cathedral at Garden City, Long Island.
The son has borne frequent witness to the helpful influences on him of his parents and of their home life. He watched daily the devoted and effective pastoral work of his father. Both father and son loved their mother state Virginia, and be- lieved that the Southern parsons had made a real contribution to Church life by their qualities of friendliness and compan- ionship. When Kinsolving, settled in New England, was at a Church conference for young people at St. Paul's School, Concord, he was asked by Bishop Sherrill to give the address at a "sunset service," and to speak through it some personal experience. To the father Bishop Sherrill wrote warmly of the great help of the son, especially in his "beautiful address," which told the group how his own home life had largely led him to the ministry.
With this background of the very best, the boy attended the newly developed Gilman Country School of Baltimore. Then he was graduated from the Episcopal High School at Alexandria, Virginia, and from the University of Virginia in 19 20, a Bachelor of Arts, after three years' residence. He was admitted to the D.K. E. Fraternity and the Phi Beta Kappa, and was a member of the T. I. L. K. A. Society. He turned from
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Photograph by Br track
REV. ARTHUR LEE KINSOLVING THIRTEENTH RECTOR
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books to track and tennis; got high marks and did not miss an exercise, in his last year; and in every way gave distinct promise. For a few months at the close of the World War, he was in the Officers' Training Camp at Fortress Monroe.
Then for three years, to 1923, this wholesome and open- minded young man was a Rhodes Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, England. He made this rare opportunity a time of real intellectual and spiritual enrichment. His letters home to Bal- timore give many illuminating glimpses of him. He works as lay assistant at the Christ Church Mission in London, at North Kensington; he has mission meetings in his Oxford rooms; he dines out much, so getting to know men of leadership. He thinks of writing a book-but sagaciously sets that aside, in order to learn more himself before he tries to instruct others ! He spends hours in thinking over what he reads and hears. "Really to learn to think"-that's the important matter, as he sees it. He is devout as a member of his own communion, but he goes often to hear leading clergymen of other com- munions. A notable Presbyterian preacher speaks wonder- fully, and Kinsolving spends a whole evening in talk with that preacher. He frequently goes to hear Dr. Selbie, a Con- gregationalist, the principal of Mansfield College, preach to a crowded chapel. He wrote, after eight years of further ex- perience: "I always aimed to take at least three of my friends to hear him. His sermons, which ran for about forty minutes, never seemed long, and were the most morally searching that I have ever listened to. It is he, I think, who made the greatest inroads into my natural selfishness and complacence, and as I look back to Oxford, it was at those moments of deep wor- ship in Mansfield Chapel that I first glimpsed the meaning of preaching, and hoped to make of it more than a routine busi- ness." He has just been talking with Dr. Selbie for an hour on the Atonement. On one Armistice Day the Doctor, who had lost a son in the War, preaches so earnestly that he seems almost inspired, on the text, "I write unto you, young men," a plea
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for will to struggle for the worth while. Oxford, said Kin- solving, was "my first intellectual awakening,-my one and only, perhaps; but there was something about the atmosphere there that made one ashamed of continuing in the unthink- ing life."
With a priest, of the Anglo-Catholics, who seems to him next to Dr. Selbie in spiritual power, he sits for an hour and a half, trying to see the other's point of view, and concludes that "different minds travel by very different paths." He feels the value of reverence devoutly, but he writes: "There is an unhappy casuistry in clinging to phraseologies after they don't mean what they say in the light of common parlance." Again, he writes: "The fact that the first interpretation of Chris- tianity was made solely by Jews accounts for the slighting of the Greek point of view, and if the whole story were known, I think we would have stories of Christ's sanctifying by His approval, loves for beauty, and art and life, which form the highest expression and the greatest passion of so many lives. Surely Christ's view was not bound by the typically eastern view-the realization of the limitations of human nature; for pleasure, contentment and grateful happiness are unmis- takably in the picture."
A strong personal influence of those Oxford years was the association with another Baltimore boy, slightly older than he, Alexander Barton, who was then a theological student at Christ Church, whose promising life in the ministry in the United States was cut off only a few years later. Of him, Kinsolving has written: "He interested me in working during vacations at Christ Church Mission in the slums of London, in the Lad- broke Grove district, near the Wormwood Scrubs Prison. The revelation of what joy one can take in ministering in that sort of surroundings was an awakening experience to me, and gave me the beginning of some social vision for the world. Alec's prayer life, and the influence which he exerted through friend- ship, was a certain witness to us of the kind of life that our
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Master wanted from all of us. I think most of us want to find Him embodied in at least one person near our ownage, inorder to see the issue clearly that confronts our own conscience."
To hear Barton describe his very practical home mission work, Kinsolving writes personal invitations to thirty-five young Englishmen in college, and twenty-three come to Kin- solving's room, for a long evening, to have coffee, cake-and spiritual enlightenment. On Barton's death he wrote: "Alex Barton used to amaze me by lavishing Christian friendship on all of us, putting Christ ahead of his studies, sharing with us his deepest experience. I saw him, though still an undergraduate, ministering vitally to more than a hundred. That one Chris- tian meant more for Christ than the organization of a great cathedral that was the college chapel with five august canons on its staff."
The last Easter holidays were spent in Switzerland, in the beauty of that fair land, but chiefly given to "a pile of detailed critical work, needing lots of memory and close attention." He was admitted to the degree of A.B. in the Honour School of Theology of Oxford. Three years later, Oxford gave him an M.A.
Then, from January to June, 1924, he was at the Virginia Theological Seminary at Alexandria, leading to the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. An older clergyman, doing well in a par- ish far from Boston, who had been at the Virginia Seminary with Kinsolving, writes: "He reminded me of Donald Han- key's beloved chaplain. He showed a well equipped mind and winsome graciousness. I can say of him what St. Paul said of one he loved - 'I thank God on every remembrance of him.'"
Then came to Kinsolving, at the age of twenty-five, a call to be rector of Grace Church, Amherst, Massachusetts, with a substantial increase in the salary over that previously paid. A chief attraction to him was the possibility of work with stu- dents in the two colleges there and in other colleges, easily reached, in the Connecticut River region. A year later he could
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say : "I thank God every day that I came to Amherst." He be- comes faculty director of religious activities at Amherst Col- lege. The congregation at Grace Church at Easter was said to be larger than had been seen there since Phillips Brooks's visit. His efforts and influence grow with the years. He helps to found a club to interest students from abroad, foreigners, in the colleges. At a supper he entertains thirty students, and there is discussion for two hours. In the college chapel he asks stu- dents to take a real part in worship, through familiar hymns and prayers, sung and said together-and an old professor called it the most devotional service he had seen in chapel in fifty years. At the close of one Lent, he makes seventeen ad- dresses in eight days. As to students, he eats with them, smokes with them, and talks over their problems in their own lan- guage. A clericalclub, led by the Rev. Dr. James Gordon Gilkey and himself, numbers over thirty Amherst students and dur- ing the six years of his work there, seventeen graduates began to study for the Christian ministry.
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