USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Trinity church in the city of Boston, Massachusetts : 1733-1933 > Part 8
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lected." This was the thing that wore him down and sapped away his power of resistance. Sometimes when members of the staff would question the wisdom of carrying along this or that particular case, he was apt to reply, "Let us keep on." His sympathy and toleration almost matched that of the good grey poet : "Not till the sun excludes you, do I exclude you." Once, when he was sailing for France, I called to say good-by. After some general instructions, he said, "And now in my absence this summer always bear in mind that old precept which says: 'Be pitiful, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.'" A young assistant of his in New York, afterward a well-known clergy- man, wrote of Donald: "He had a genius for getting en rap- port with the unsettled and the discouraged, and for steady- ing dizzy eyes."
The following little story was told the present writer only a few months ago by one over fourscore years old, now retired in serenity and honor-the Rev. Henry C. Cunningham- who had known Dr. Donald from seminary days. In Boston over thirty years ago were two bank officials on State Street ; both were members of Trinity-call them Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown. Mr. Smith was a strong admirer of Dr. Donald; Mr. Brown was quite the opposite-always critical, always contrasting him with Phillips Brooks. To this criticism the former would say, "But wait, wait; you do not. know the man." Time went by; the angel of death visited the home of Mr. Brown and with the bereaved family Dr. Donald came into close personal relationship. Later Mr. Brown said to Mr. Smith: "Do you know, Donald means as much to me as ever Brooks could mean?"
Dr. Huntington was selected to preach the memorial ser- mon to Dr. Donald in 1904. Sympathy was his real gift, said this old friend: "His true emblem was not the claymore, as he fancied, it was the chalice." The text was: "I was the King's Cup-bearer." And those words were put at the top of the
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marble bas-relief, the work of Bela Pratt, which was placed in Trinity Church, a parish memorial to Dr. Donald.
It is not easy to speak of Dr. Donald as preacher. Of course things did not continue on the high Phillips Brooks level; no longer were the chancel steps filled with visitors Sunday after Sunday; but even so there were big congregations, even the galleries being well filled. The morning congregations were made up, for the most part, of pew owners. In the afternoon at four there was another large congregation in which men predominated -once more the galleries being well filled.This afternoon congregation was made up not so much of pew owners as of "the regular congregation" plus visitors and transients. Dr. Donald varied in his sermons, and he was dif- ferent kinds of a preacher. He was one kind at the morning service; he was a different kind at the afternoon service. Al- ways the rector himself preached twice each Sunday. Assist- ant ministers there were; but only on rare occasions, other than during the long summer vacation, were they called upon to preach. The sermons always were intellectual. The morning sermons were fully written out-written out in this invari- able manner: Early Saturday morning he would lock himself in his study in Clarendon Street and emerge about five in the afternoon with ten or twelve large sheets of white paper, closely and finely written, with scarce a correction or altera- tion. But woe to that person who violated the locked door. Once-just once-1 did that thing. I knocked. The door was flung open, the rector glowered at me and thundered out: "Well! what do you want? The horse and cart were just half way up the hill and here you are sending them clean to the bottom again."
The morning sermons were logical, argumentative, and to some rather heavy, rather wordy. One missed the play of im- agination, the poetry of Phillips Brooks. But then, who had it? The afternoon sermons were quite different ; they were alto-
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gether extemporaneous, with never so much as a line or note to refer to; they were direct, personal, usually with a strong ethical bearing. The sermons I remember to-day, almost with- out exception, were afternoon sermons. With hesitation and due modesty, I once ventured to suggest that he preach the af- ternoon kind of sermon before the morning congregation. He shook his head decidedly. "No! no!" he said. "In the morning I see the figure of Josiah H. Benton before me and I feel that I must reach and convince him." Mr. Benton was a hard-headed New England lawyer who had come to Boston in 1873, and by the 1890's had become one of the leaders of the bar, at least in the department of railroad law. He had lived through the Phillips Brooks period in Boston without being greatly im- pressed or drawn to Trinity Church. But with the coming of Dr. Donald there was a change. Through a common friend the two men met and were attracted one to the other ; they became friends. Mr. Benton bought a pew and became a regular attend- ant at the morning service. The Benton Fund, whose income is expended by the rectors of Trinity Church for the help of poor persons in Boston, under the will of Mr. Benton, was first administered by the Rev. Dr. Mann, Donald's successor. But let not Dr. Donald's share in bringing this about be forgotten.
We have frankly allowed that Dr. Donald was human; in some ways very human. Someone has said: "The great often- times have an excess on the human side as well as an excess on the side of the angels." It was that element in Dr. Donald that was one of his attractions. He was always ready for a pleas- antry, joke, or quip-even when it was at his own expense. For example, he was fond of telling about the old man who one Sunday morning at Trinity after the service, in quite a loud voice, said : "I couldn't hear very much of what Phillips Brooks said; I can hear everything this man says, but I'd a good deal sooner hear Phillips Brooks." And a certain experience of Mrs. Donald's he thoroughly enjoyed. She had taken her seat one Sunday afternoon in the broad aisle ; strangers were shown in,
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quite filling the pew. As usual, Dr. Donald preached. When the sermon was over, the stranger next to Mrs. Donald put his hand over his mouth and whispered to her: "Not a Phillips Brooks, is he?" Mrs. Donald put her hand to her lips and whispered back: "No! but he is my husband."
Dr. Donald was one of the most widely sought after preach- ers of his day. His effectiveness as a preacher, his influence over and his interest in young men, led to never-ending calls, espe- cially from universities and colleges. He was on the Board of Preachers at Harvard College from 1892 to 1896; preached often at Yale, at Columbia, at Trinity, and at the Institute of Technology. For many years he went annually to Cornell for a lengthened period of service; and in his last active year he spent three weeks at the University of Chicago, officiating as chaplain and giving lectures.
While it is true that on economic and political issues it was not easy, sometimes, to infer what stand Dr. Donald would take, yet on subjects connected with theology, religion, or church the case was different. Here, always, he was on the lib- eral side; always he stood for the larger interpretation. He had the rare faculty of disputing, arguing, contending with an op- ponent on platform or before an audience-and sometimes the thing was almost bitter-and yet when the session had ended, in cases where he felt his opponent was perfectly sincere, he had the rare habit of seeking out that opponent, of warming up to him and of fraternizing with him, thus discriminating between the man and his opinions. The number of friendships formed in this way was not few, nor was the quality of the friendships ordinary-a liberal-minded cleric finding in an other-minded Churchman both a friend and a brother. But after all it was consistent with a pronouncement he often used to make: "It is not enough to be broad in your thinking ; you must be broad enough to let the other fellow be narrow."
Harvard students came to the rectory in numbers. During certain seasons of the college year, Sunday night after Sunday
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night, one would find from four to six of these young fellows there for "Sunday supper." After the supper, when they had assembled in the big study room, there would follow an hour or two of wonderful conversation-literature, politics, reli- gion, sport, or any current theme. Dr. Donald knew men; he knew cities; his familiarity with life in New York, London, and Paris-his wide acquaintance, particularly with artists and writers, oftentimes gave an unusual force to what he had to say. He was a rare conversationalist and held his own in any group of men.
He delivered a course of six lectures at the Lowell Insti- tute on "The Expansion of Religion," which were published in book form, about three hundred pages, in 1896. His con- victions as to theology and "churchmanship, so-called," said Dr. Huntington, "are not often found living amicably to- gether in one and the same mind," for he held "along with so unecclesiastical a philosophy of religion, a deep devotion to the sacramental side of Christianity."
There were four notable accomplishments in Trinity Church during Dr. Donald's decade of service as rector, which the people of Trinity effected under his leadership.
The western front of the church edifice was completed. Let one stand in Copley Square to-day and, facing Trinity, let him in imagination picture Trinity Church without the great porch and without the corner towers overhead. This was the incomplete Trinity that Dr. Donald saw upon his arrival in Boston. Phillips Brooks had felt this incompleteness in the great structure and had already gotten together a considerable sum of money for its completion. Dr. Donald, almost before he was well established in the rector's seat, was busying himself with plans for the completion of Trinity Church, "which," as he said, "will stand as the fit symbol of the finished ministry of him in whom was illustrated the noblest qualities of the people to whom he ministered and by whom the church was
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builded." The undertaking was a work of magnitude. Each one of twenty-six blocks of stone was to be carved into a fitting figure, Biblical or ecclesiastical; above the piers and capitals was to be a frieze three feet high, with carved scenes from the life of the personages represented in near-by stones. Dr. Donald added a real contribution to the trained taste and accurate knowledge of the architect, Mr. Shepley, of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge. When finally, after a couple of years' work, this Galilee Porch was finished, in December, 1897, Dr. Donald was completely satisfied, saying,"Here is a porch worthy of be- ing transported and set down in front of St. Paul's, London."
A repair fund was established for the maintenance of the fabric of the church. When the new rector came to Boston the Trinity edifice had been standing for fifteen years and in that time very little had been done, or maybe was needed to be done, in the way of repairs. But all at once in this first year a very great deal had to be done-the bell deck of the great tower, the roofs, and the stone work all had to be repaired and protected against weather and the effects of time. All of this unexpected work was something of a strain on parish finances; but the job was done.
And then Dr. Donald proposed a measure that was wise and statesmanlike. Hear his words and his plan: "No parish, un- less it be endowed, can meet the heavy demands which a build- ing so monumental as is Trinity makes upon its resources for repairs without immense strain. I venture, therefore, to sug- gest that a fund be created by gift, or by bequest, or by both, to be known as the Repair Fund of Trinity Church in the City of Boston, the amount of which may be placed at thirty thou- sand dollars, the income from which shall be used in the main- tenance of the fabric of Trinity Church. Such a fund would be a guarantee that our noble church, justly regarded as one of the chief architectural ornaments of the city, endeared to thou - sands of our citizens, and identified with much of the best re-
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ligious life of our beloved town, shall stand for centuries un- marred by decay or neglect." Two years later he could say with joy that the fund had now a concrete existence.
The parish debt was paid off. This financial incumbrance had been carried along by the parish for more than twenty years. Almost all of this was incurred in the building of the rectory on Clarendon Street. Now a determined attempt was made to rid the parish of this burden; the combined efforts of rector and vestry were completely successful; over forty thou- sand dollars were collected. Dr. Donald writes: "And now for the first time since 1880, save the brief period during which the Diocese owned the Rectory, the parish is free from debt. We rejoice in this fresh illustration of parochial generosity."
When Dr. Donald began his ministry at Trinity, the inte- rior of the church did not altogether suggest that of an Episco- pal church. There was the spacious chancel, but with nothing therein save a simple table. There was a choir, but away off in the distant western gallery, a "mixed choir." The simplicity of these arrangements, time-honored as they were, had appealed strongly to Phillips Brooks. But from the very first Dr. Donald felt that the Trinity Church chancel was incomplete, that the great space needed a central structure, worthy of the great apse,"simply because the eye demands it." But he did not pub- licly suggest a change of any kind. He did, however, for many successive years, during the Christmas season, build up in the chancel, around the simple table, a great baldachin made up of evergreens and evergreen trees; thus, maybe, getting the parishioners accustomed to the presence of a "central struc- ture." In 1900 the vestry voted unanimously to undertake the adornment and rearrangement of the chancel. A committee was appointed to solicit funds to defray the cost of the work. In response to the circular which the committee issued, nearly half of the amount needed was soon subscribed.
Then there came a discordant note. At the meeting of the proprietors, held soon after Easter, it was voted to approve of
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the action of the vestry. The vote, however, was not unani- mous. Evidently Dr. Donald and the vestry were not willing to push through the alterations without the full approval, not only of the vestry, but of the proprietors as well, for the ves- try voted to return to the subscribers the amounts paid in to the chancel fund. Dr. Donald, in a statement, gave to the par- ishioners all the facts in the case and then added: "I will now state my own judgment of this matter. It is this: that the wel- fare of the total body of worshippers in our parish requires that the proposed change in our chancel should be made ; that the future prosperity of the parish requires it; and that in the very near future it will be made with the hearty approval of the great majority of proprietors personally worshipping in Trinity Church."
Some rectors, having a unanimous vestry and a majority of proprietors behind them, would have put a cherished plan through to completion. But this Dr. Donald did not do. He re- treated, but with banners flying ! Two years later his prophecy was fulfilled. We read in the rector's message: "In the early spring of this year the vestry voted to make whatever altera- tions in the chancel the installing of a vested choir of men and boys might require. The action of the vestry was ratified by the proprietors at their Easter meeting."
To secure the large sum necessary to carry out the work in keeping with the dignity of the great edifice was no easy undertaking, but it was accomplished. The total sum given to carry out the vote of the proprietors, including the chancel organ, the rector's seat, the chorister's stalls, and the memorial altar in the baptistry, was $24,900. The fine organ then placed in the chancel was the gift of Mr. and Mrs. William V. Kellen. The console placed there operated it and the old organ in the western gallery.
Dr. Donald, in a happy state of mind over the accomplished results, writes: "He to whom fell the duty of soliciting this large amount claims the privilege of saying that his requests
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for subscriptions met with so cheerful a promptness and gen- erosity that what began as a task was soon turned into a pleasure."
He also casts an eye to the future and rejoices in the fact that "the floor of the chancel is now steel, stone and mosaic, and is thoroughly fireproof; a prophecy," he hopes, "of the day when the floor of the entire church will be similarly treated."
In carrying out the alterations the architect, Mr. Shepley, and Dr. Donald were careful to see to it that substantial foun- dations were placed under the new chancel floor against the time when the "central structure," meaning of course the altar, though the word itself is not used, should be placed therein. This came later under the Rev. Dr. Mann's leadership.
Thus without parish upheaval of any kind, but with the full endorsement of vestry and proprietors, was accomplished the most considerable change wrought within Trinity since its opening some twenty-five years before.
Of the spiritual side of a minister's work it is not easy to speak, especially after a long lapse of years, for so much never finds its way into records and tables of statistics. But in Dr. Donald's case even the printed reports that have come down to us indicate that a vital spiritual enrichment of parish life was keeping pace with the material changes outlined above. The records show that, during his ministry of a little less than twelve years, five hundred and thirty-six souls were added to the parish in confirmation. The many fine parish organizations that he inherited from Phillips Brooks, some carrying on mis- sionary work, some busied with social relief, some with look- ing after the poor and destitute, others having to do with the care and developing of the young -all these went on without any great let-down or change. The Year Books now on file for all these years bear witness to the accuracy of this statement. Out of my own memory I can speak for the first nine years of Dr. Donald's term of service, the period of my assistantship; and I think I am correct in saying that at the end of these nine
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years all the organizations just referred to, organizations in which the spiritual life of the parish found expression, were still strong and efficient.
The chancel alteration mentioned above was the last im- portant work carried through by Dr. Donald. In the follow- ing year-1903-his illness developed and increased as the months went by. At the very end of the year, in his annual message to the parishioners, he said: "I wish it were possible, I know only too well it is not, to express a fraction of my affec- tionate appreciation of the kindness and loyalty and good work of the members of Trinity Parish. Daily I thank God for the privilege of ministering to you."
These words proved to be his valedictory; never again did he address his people; he passed away peacefully some months later-on the morning of the Feast of the Transfiguration. In years he was not an old man; but his hair was white, his beard was white, his natural forces spent. His age was fifty-six years plus eight days.
These valedictory words suggest something not as yet men- tioned-his deep and abiding affection for the people of Trin- ity Church. The expression of this affection runs, a golden thread, clean through his yearly messages-an affection broad enough to embrace even the sacred edifice itself. Once upon arriving from Europe, he took, at the station, a cab for his home; when the carriage was abreast of Trinity Church, he stopped it, thrust his head out of the window, and gazed and gazed and gazed; and then, turning to one with him, he said: "Abroad I've seen no modern church building to be com- pared to it! How I love every stone of it!"
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VI REV. ALEXANDER MANN, D.D. Eleventh Rector of Trinity Church 1905-1922
BY RT. REV. HENRY KNOX SHERRILL, D.D. Bishop of Massachusetts Assistant Minister of Trinity Church, 1914-1917
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Alexander Mann
T O describe adequately the life of a parish like Trinity Church over a period of eighteen years is indeed an impossible task. Of course statistics may be given of the number of communicants and of those baptized and con- firmed. The changes and improvements in the physical struc- ture may be described as well as the growth and development of parish organizations. The amount of money given for vari- ous causes may be accurately set down. But these things are merely the externals of parish life. No doubt they may be man- ifestations of the inner reality, but they are not that reality which is spiritual.
The life of the parish has to do with the worship, the sac- rifice, and the service of hundreds of men and women un- known to succeeding generations, with the conquest of un- worthy impulses in human hearts, with comfort given to the sick and dying, with the coming of new hope and aspiration. In eighteen years a mighty army passed in and out of Trinity Church; for example, on the Easter Days of those years in the neighborhood of eighty thousand people heard the good news of the Resurrection proclaimed. Between the lines of this chapter, I would have you feel the ebb and the flow of a great human tide touched with the life of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.
It is not too much to say that in 1905 Trinity Church was in a serious if not a critical situation. Dr. Donald had not been well the last years of his devoted ministry. There had been a period of almost a year under the wise leadership of the Rev. Dr. Joseph N. Blanchard, with the assistance of the Rev. Edward S. Travers (Mr. Kidner still being in charge of St. An- drew's Church ). However, any interregnum, no matter how efficient, can never mark forward progress. At such a time the wardens and vestry called the Rev. Alexander Mann, D.D., as rector, to take office on Trinity Sunday, 1905. From one
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point of view, the call was an experiment, for Dr. Mann had no associations with New England. On the other hand, in his forty-fifth year, he already had a wide experience in the Church. He was born in Geneva, New York, into a family well known for generations in the Church, his father being rector of the parish in Watkins Glen, New York, for many years ; and his older brother later to be Bishop of North Dakota and of Southern Florida. Dr. Mann was graduated from Hobart College and from the General Theological Seminary. After a short time as assistant in St. James' Church, Buffalo, he became the associate of his uncle, the rector of Grace Church, Orange, New Jersey. There he remained for seventeen years, succeed- ing upon his uncle's death in 1900 to the rectorship. During these years Dr. Mann had not only been successful as a parish minister but had taken an active part in the larger life of the Diocese of Newark, serving as archdeacon, a delegate to the General Convention, and at one time almost being elected bishop of the diocese. He came to the rectorship of Trinity Church with wide experience and in the prime of manhood. Nine years previously he had married Miss Nellie Gerrish Knapp of Orange. Those of us who have been assistants at Trinity and privileged to share the family life of the Trin- ity rectory know how ideally happy that marriage has been through all the succeeding years.
Every period marks, of course, a transition, but peculiarly is this true of Dr. Mann's rectorship. Coming within a little over twelve years of the death of Bishop Brooks, he found that the men and women active in the parish had been fellow laborers with Bishop Brooks and Dr. Donald. The parish was preeminently a great preaching station. Copley Square was still "up-town." During the rectorship of these years condi- tions were to change materially with the advent of the auto- mobile and the Back Bay apartment house. Trinity, we shall see, during these years was to be reorganized in many ways to meet these new conditions. To-day the parish is operat-
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الحدود
Photograph by Bachrach
REV. ALEXANDER MANN ELEVENTH RECTOR
ALEXANDER MANN
ing with methods and a point of view largely established by Dr. Mann. It was he more than anyone who laid the founda- tion of the modern Trinity. For many reasons it is interesting in this historical sketch to name the wardens and vestrymen who called Dr. Mann in 1905: wardens, Charles R. Codman, Robert Treat Paine; vestrymen, Edward N. Fenno, Alexan- der Cochrane, William P. Blake, Francis B. Sears, Harcourt Amory, Amory A. Lawrence, William G. Brooks, Robert M. Cushing, Robert Amory, Frank Merriam, John Parkinson, William V. Kellen, and James M. Crafts. Of these only Wil- liam V. Kellen still serves as this is written.
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