USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Trinity church in the city of Boston, Massachusetts : 1733-1933 > Part 12
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During those six years he participated in conferences at Northfield for both college men and young women, and as- sisted occasionally at conferences at St. Paul's School, Silver Bay, and Sewanee. He preached occasionally at no less than twenty well-known colleges and schools. He was a member of the executive councils of the Province of New England and of the Episcopal Church for work in colleges. He was chosen honorary canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Springfield, one of the first three clergymen of Western Massachusetts diocese to have that office.
The young minister was carefully watched by intelligent observers of town and gown-because they cared for him. One writes: "He was a man of the world in the best sense. He loved people and he loved life. There was a friendliness and gayety about him which was delightful. If any member of the Parish or of the larger circle of the college was in trouble, he was quickly present. Except for Henry Drummond and Phil-
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lips Brooks, I never have been impressed by anyone as I have been by Kinsolving. I have never met anyone like him. His power lay in his sharing with me week after week his own spiritual experience. His sermons were just that." Another close observer describes their first meeting when Kinsolving came to Amherst, a very young man, charming, courteous, tactful; with Southern social ease a little at odds with a winsome shy- ness. In those six years he certainly grew in power. "He grew more saintly (I am using a strong word intentionally )-there was an awareness of holiness that everyone felt. He did not very obviously speak of sacred things, but his life was perme- ated by them." One of the most intellectual of the college trus- tees from a large university and city, a professional philosopher, went to hear Kinsolving preach, and was startled to find that his subject was the Trinity. "But the sermon avoided abstruse points and was so simple and straight from the heart that our philosopher was deeply moved." A very wide-awake young clergyman of Western Massachusetts says: "When I came into this diocese, I found that Arthur was known and loved the length and breadth of it. He had been at Amherst only a few months when the boys in the college recognized that here was a genuine spiritual human being, and soon the grass on the way to the rectory was well worn."
The Rev. C. Leslie Glenn, executive secretary of the Epis- copal Church for its work in colleges until his recent accept- ance of a call to Christ Church, Cambridge, said of his friend Kinsolving: "If any one quality of his stands out above the rest, I should say it was his great friendliness. . . . He would sit up all night talking to some boy who wanted advice or help, and he had an absolutely contagious enthusiasm which seemed to work wonders with all sorts of people. He would talk to a tramp or an old woman or a college freshman-all with the same enthusiasm and interest." An incident known to Mr. Glenn illustrates Kinsolving's capacity for rapid and realistic action in assisting those in trouble: A man came to
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him at Amherst in considerable mental distress, having had a rather acute disagreement with a young woman. "I hate that girl," said the young man, "and I shall not see her any more, but every time I look at this watch chain she gave me I think about her." "Well, take my watch chain and I'll take yours," said Mr. Kinsolving, and he exchanged chains with the man, which surprised the man into a more rational frame of mind.
When Kinsolving went to Boston, Dr. George D. Olds, whose presidency of Amherst College had covered much of Kinsolving's stay in Amherst, wrote an article on him for the Graduates' Quarterly. The president witnessed that within a month after Kinsolving became director of religious work, as a member of the faculty, of full professional rank, there was no doubt of the wisdom of his appointment. His inheritance, training, devotion, personality, all united to determine a unique influence which in an unprecedented way was working for good among Amherst students. His intimacy with the men was always close. He quickly became an older brother and con- fidential friend, wholly informal but without loss of dignity. At a commencement soon afterward, when Kinsolving came before President Pease to receive the degree of Doctor of Di- vinity, the whole senior class arose and applauded. The words of the award were these: "Arthur Lee Kinsolving; born and trained in Churchly traditions; for six years the beloved guide and companion in spiritualadventure of many an Amherst stu- dent; now inspired by the challenge of a great and historic pulpit ; broad, deep and winning in sympathies and devotion; a blithe chevalier of Christ."
So there came to "Trinity Church in the City of Boston" this ripening young man, who was just thirty-one years of age but who had filled the years full of rare and rich preparation. When younger, he had inclined to the contemplative and stu- dious life of a scholar; but he had found himself perforce in the life of loving service. Trinity Church had always been open to persons of varied walks of life; it always, as he could
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now say, had emphasized the practical side of religion. But a practical side because it was personal religion! People to-day, he said, "are increasingly shy of institutionalized religion. Jesus was the most unofficial of persons in his method. We ministers mainly discover religion where it exists and bring it out. As Phillips Brooks said, the ministry should be the can- onization of friendship. The chief need today is a vital, per- sonal religion, as an impelling force, and one that calls for venturing. As was said in Pilgrim's Progress, 'It was for the love that he had to his Prince that he ventured as he did.'"
When Kinsolving came to Trinity, a lay worker who had been close by him for several years wrote that he was least in- terested in the administrative side of Church life, but that he had drawn around him good workers and had not interfered with them as hindrance. If by warm nature he is impulsive, his sober second thought is usually very sound. In his words and deeds, there is added a marked unselfishness, a human and helpful humility. He likes to meet persons and learn from them. When he came to Trinity, the first assistant minister who had led the parish in the interim was a much older man than he. The attitude and the words of the younger to the older were full of appreciation and graciousness. His part in meetings of the wardens and vestry of Trinity, a body of men who are mostly much older than he, has shown marked mod- esty, open-mindedness, and good judgment.
Dr. Kinsolving has not been called a great preacher. Such words should be kept for a few and justly famous ones. His method of address is simple and earnest ; the approach to prac- tical lessons is by personal experiences; there are touches of humor without any loss of dignity. So, for example, when he preaches yearly in Lent at his father's church in Baltimore, he has impressed many hearers more than have some older and outstanding preachers with oratorical attainment. In brief, he is an unusually winning and stimulating preacher; very thoughtful; with good sense, understanding, and sympathy.
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Most reverent and understanding of Churchly ways, he has welcomed to his pulpit true leaders of spiritual living in other communions, such, notably, as the Rev. Drs. Charles E. Jeffer- son and Raymond Calkins, Congregationalists, and Rufus M. Jones of the Society of Friends. Mr. William Green, presi- dent of the American Federation of Labor, is listed among visiting preachers of 1931. Members of other Christian com- munions are invited to partake of the Holy Communion.
No wonder that the congregations at the morning serv- ices have been very large. At many services, chairs have been put in all available places. The rector's reading, notably of the lessons from either Old or New Testament, is always impres- sive. He is much in demand for sermons and addresses. On one Sunday, in May, 1932, he preaches at the morning serv- ice at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, and that evening officiates and preaches the baccalaureate ser- mon at Bryn Mawr College. On beginning this service at the college, his eyeglasses fall and are broken, but he goes on unruffled, with a very effective sermon. He preached at the memorial services which opened the convention of the Amer- ican Legion in Detroit, in September, 1931. By a happy lot, he preached at Harvard College on the Sunday when the Memorial Church was first used.
The Rev. William E. Gardner, D.D., has been the first as- sistant minister since 1928, the Rev. Otis R. Rice has been the second since 1929, and this cooperative, harmonious staff of clergy was increased from three to four by the coming of the Rev. Robert L. Bull, Jr., in 1931. The organist and choir-master, Francis W. Snow, has just completed ten years in Trinity Church, in a very real ministry of music. Mr. Harold Miller has been at work indefatigably as sexton and previously as as- sistant to the sexton, for just thirty years. Early in 1932, Miss Elizabeth L. Mitchell resigned as parish visitor, after forty- one years of service. She had been, wrote the rector, our link with the great days of the administration of Phillips Brooks,
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"a personality knit into the heart of the parish; known to thousands in the city of Boston for her wisdom, her wit, her kindliness." In 1932, Miss Heloise E. Hersey, long in Boston a well-known teacher of girls, completed a notably helpful work of thirty years as leader of the large Bible class of women which met in the parish house after morning service on Sun- days. The wardens and vestry then sent her a warm expression of their appreciation and thanks, on behalf of the parish.
The Church School, now called the Junior Church, under the guidance of Dr. Gardner, long a leader in religious educa- tion, is now meeting at the same hour as the Sunday morning Church service, for smallest children up to youth, so that whole families can come and go together. A pamphlet of fifty pages describes in detail this Junior Church. A study of its en- rollment in November, 1932, of 293 scholars showed that 193 of them lived in the suburbs and 100 lived in Boston.
The activities of the parish generally have continued along the ways so well laid down by Dr. Kinsolving's predecessors. The number of communicants now enrolled in the parish is 1,8 50. The financial budget for 1933 provides for a total ex- penditure of $131,502, of which $35,000 is for the diocese and nation-a sum in excess of the quota allotted to Trinity Church. The chief sources of receipts are $ 27,000 from trust funds, $24,000 from pew rentals, $11,000 from collections at services, and the money pledged in the annual parish canvass. This year of great financial depression, the canvass call was fully met by 1,164 pledges. One-half of the pews on the church floor, the galleries being free, are now owned by the church and rented. The meetings of proprietors of pews are very few and small and merely to cover the legal requirements of an antiquated method of church control-which will give way, before long, and naturally, to a method more befitting the age and stronger ideals of a Christian fellowship.
The rector could write in his first Parish Year Book that he could "never forget the courage, the devotion, and the
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spirited determination to carry on that was everywhere mani- fest last year throughout the lives of the congregation to the farthest man and woman. He has come to know Trinity Church as more than an organization. It is rather a spirit that motivates a mighty group of people." As head of that group, the rector is playing a preeminent part, by stressing the Chris- tian Church as the great power-house of personal religion, for spiritual growth, for finer living.
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IX THE FUTURE OF TRINITY CHURCH BY REV. ARTHUR LEE KINSOLVING, D.D. Thirteenth Rector
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The Future of Trinity Church
W E fitly close this chronicle of Trinity Church by lifting our eyes toward the hills of the future. Prophecy is ever precarious. We shall practise it with restraint. Yet human life best ascends when the inspi- ration of fine traditions is wedded to the attracting power of goals clearly discerned.
A passer-by on Copley Square, glancing toward our church, would observe: "It has the look of granite perma- nence about it." Set in a place where traffic thunders all day long, and the various sections of the city seem to converge, there is every prospect that this church will be resorted to by humanity, so long as it is human-hearted and sensitive to human need.
Behind the parish stands the historic Christian Church, which has proved itself the most durable institution in the world. Behind the Church is the Lord of the Church, bound by an inner necessity to the destiny of mankind. Trinity Church, with two hundred years of history behind it, and spiritual foundations securely laid, is obviously in the field for ever expanding service. Particularly during the second century of its life, the parish has proved a cumulative enter- prise which has steadily gathered scope and momentum. The organizations increase, services increase, the number of regu- lar supporters is steadily growing; and this not so much be- cause the organization is efficient. Trinity Church is prima- rily a spirit which more and more expresses that to which people and families would be loyal.
Trinity Church is, and will continue to be, a family church. It seeks to give expression to and to shepherd fami- lies of people. One generation has succeeded another in loy- alty to a parish that exists for the Christian nurture of gen- erations of men from the cradle to the grave.
Because we know that a fundamental unit of the Church
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is the family pew, we make provision for the reservation of pews by rental, with the understanding that at the beginning of any service all vacant seats are to be cordially shared with all who attend. We believe that it is inappropriate that any- one should hold, even by limited ownership, portions of the Church of God, and we therefore suggest at this time the deeding of the ownership of pews, either by present action or in wills, to the wardens and vestry of Trinity Church.
That Trinity Church is first a family church is evidenced each Sunday morning at eleven o'clock when families of peo- ple come from north, south, east, and west, the children to their services as well as their instruction in Church School and Junior Church, while the parents worship in the great congregation.
And yet Trinity is more; it is a community church. So fortunate as to enjoy the good will and the trust of the com- munity, it has become virtually a civic enterprise. We count it an honor that the town at large feels that Trinity Church is open for such seemly and approved uses as anyone wishes to make of it. Various fraternal orders, universities, schools, and hospitals hold their occasional services at the church.
The clerical staff is constantly on call, not only from hos- pitals and social service institutions, but from conventions and organizations of every conceivable sort. We want at Trinity to be ever as closely affiliated with the kaleidoscopic life of men as time and strength allow. Phillips Brooks, in his expansive Christian neighborliness, gave the parish a reputa- tion for breadth. Succeeding rectors have held high the ideal of a friendly church. A considerable portion of every con- gregation is made up of visitors and transients. Trinity has ever shunned that most inappropriate of all epithets, an exclui- sive church. Though on her registers there have been many of the distinguished New England names, we all approach the Lord God as we are in ourselves, devoid of special privi- lege. It is wholesome that our children should grow up in a
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church that is in service to all sorts and conditions of men.
Phillips Brooks has made this place a rallying ground for the spirit of unity among men. At a united service of the churches of Boston in his memory, held at the Old South Meeting House, Edward Everett Hale said: "For the first time since Boston was Boston every section of the Christian Church is authoritatively represented in one Church with one purpose."*
We count it an honor, too, that so many of the unchurched turn to us for counsel and comfort in their times of anxiety and sorrow, expecting an unembarrassed welcome and un- censorious sympathy. We believe it the Master's way to be hospitable to all who are considered ecclesiastically, or even morally, irregular.
It has been estimated that there are about thirty-two thou- sand students within a radius of four miles of Trinity Church. There is no more vital contribution which the Church could make than to extend and increase its influence in this great educational community. We hold an annual student wel- come service on the first Sunday morning in October, and have a staff of persons steadily engaged in many-sided young people's activities. Looking to the future, we trust that a larger number of the congregation will appreciate our superb opportunity in what has been termed the newest mission field, and volunteer to visit regularly at schools and colleges, and to arrange small study and devotional groups. The future of the Church is undoubtedly dependent upon the vitality with which we present the way of Christ to this ever inter- esting and attractive younger generation.
During the rectorships of Bishop Mann and Bishop Sher- rill there developed at Trinity Church a great many organi- zations of various sorts. It is our policy at present to consoli- date and strengthen those we have. We have never believed in continuing an organization after it is out of date or its vi-
* See proceedings of meeting of January 30, 1893.
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tality is spent. At the present moment the twenty-four which are now in existence, including our Community House and Day Nursery in East Boston, are serving most useful purposes. When there is need of others, they will come.
In the Trinity of the future there will probably be some- thing in the nature of a forum for frank and free discussion of all topics of vital concern. Boston has always been to the fore in receptivity to new ideas and in the inauguration of good causes. Though the worship of the Church should con- tinue to have first place, Christian people must learn to meet together to talk over the perplexities of putting the Gospel into practice and to plan with one another and to share their spiritual experiences. For too long a time we have given no adequate opportunity for personal expression on the part of the laity.
The Christian Church has always been forced to operate in a society which refused to acknowledge or recognize its essential claims for the dignity and brotherhood of man. But now, in an age of social criticism, we contemplate with as- surance the increased inquiry into the Master's principles for the happy, harmonious ordering of human life.
It has been rarely recognized how much social dynamite is contained in the dignified language of the King James ver- sion of the Gospels. We have sung the Magnificat with slight comprehension of what disrupting reversals of human for- tune are contemplated in the piety of the gentle Virgin Mary. A deeper scrutiny is already being made into what the Master stood for, what He meant by brotherliness and fairness and compassion. The time has now come for Church people to recognize how frequently we have lost Christ's vision of the essential beauty and dignity of the lives of the great mass of plain people, of whom Lincoln said that God must have loved them, for He made so many of them. It is for the Christian society to lead the way in the struggle for fairness and justice and consideration.
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A church the size of Trinity can afford to lead the way in a specialization that will undoubtedly characterize the future. We cannot expect every ordained clergyman to show apti- tude for the pulpit. We must create more opportunity for thought, study, prayer, and the storing up of vital energy nec- essary for that. To the pulpit at Trinity Church we shall be zealous to call the ablest interpreters of Christian thought and the spiritual life that we can secure from every source. Our Lenten noonday preaching has demonstrated the opportunity for the introduction of special services of various sorts, for the creation of new occasions by which the Christian way of life may be further expounded in the midst of this great city.
Still the larger part of the work of the clergy at Trinity Church will continue to be private and spiritual. It is our con- stant aim, though often we fall a little short of it, to pay at least one pastoral visit a year to every member of this con- gregation. Increasingly we trust that people will come to the clergy for advice and counsel. Just as the Massachusetts Gen- eral Hospital is a great foundation erected for the restoration and maintenance of bodily health, which can command the services of specialists of every sort, so Trinity Church on Copley Square is capable of great expansion as a house of human welfare, a spiritual clinic commanding the services of the most competent to heal all the multifarious ills the souls and characters of men are heir to.
The need is also imperative for more adequate physical facilities-a chapel, room for our expanding Church School, a larger parish house. The average suburban church, with one-fifth our membership, has many times the cubic feet of our cramped facilities in St. Andrew's Hall.
Trinity Church stands in need of a much more substantial endowment fund. Under Dr. Mann a vigorous beginning was made of the Phillips Brooks Memorial Endowment Fund for Trinity Church. To recall the reference to Mr. Brooks in the special appeal of 1919,"Into the massive structure he built him-
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self; his name and the name of Trinity Church are inseparably intertwined for all succeeding years. And it is to preserve this work of architectural genius, this memorial to the greatest preacher of his generation, not only to care for the material structure, but to make it possible that the worship of God, the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, the streams of charitable and missionary giving and the unselfish service to the community may go on through the coming years," that appeal is made for donations and bequests. "The day will certainly come for Trinity, as it has for many another city parish when, if it is to remain in its place and do its work in ministering to the re- ligious needs of the neighborhood, it must depend largely upon its endowment for its support." Surely to-day we may say in truth that the opportunities of our reach extend far beyond our grasp, and any extension of the endowment fund will im- mediately appear in an enlargement of our program and the extension of our Christian influence.
As long as the diocese is without a large cathedral Trinity Church will remain the place of meeting for large diocesan services, and must accomplish some of the supplemental offices of a cathedral. Placed at the center of the capital city of New England, our influence is considerable throughout the province and throughout the Churchat large. With modern facilities for transportation, so long as the great heart of Trinity Church beats with vitality, so long as it is a dynamo of spiritual power, people will come from far. By means of the radio, of which we can make more extended use, we are already reaching a wider public than ever before in history. We are now beginning a periodical, as an added means of contact with parishioners and with thousands of persons living outside of Boston who at some time in their lives have been connected with the parish and who are interested in it.
Upon us lie the responsibilities of large leadership. For some time we have led the diocese in missionary giving. It is our high purpose to set the standard of interest in and devotion to
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the cause of the Kingdom throughout the world. We want it true that the vital impulse of Trinity Church will be felt spir- itually and materially through many arteries among rural dis- tricts and in mission stations.
Trinity Church, with its zeal for breadth, is committed to no party in the Church, and, please God, will ever be above partisanship. The Master was not recruiting to a party, but a kingdom. Our hospitable doors are open to persons of every conceivable sort of religious education. We are zealous that a rounded and satisfying representation of the truth be given. In our public services we aim to uphold the full standards of the Anglican communion for reverence, beauty, dignity, and order, and to render a service in which all may feel at home. Trinity Church is too large an institution, in too cosmopolitan a community, to turn its back on the heightening conceptions of the worship of God in our times. There are open to us op- portunities for the beautifying of the fabric and the dignify- ing and enriching of a worship that will be kept simple.
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