USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Walks & talks about historic Boston > Part 37
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"Dr. Mann shows a keen understanding of human nature and interest in his organization of the work of the Parish. Trinity Church, under his leadership, is doing work among students, both men and women. It stands for the guild principle. There are guilds for nurses, and students, for missions and social work, for sewing, singing and study. Each guild has its own life, individuality and head."
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The Christian Science Church
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The Christian Science Church
By Clifford P. Smith.
The center of a world-wide religious movement is located in Boston at the corner of Falmouth, Norway and St. Paul Streets. In the triangle formed by these streets are the original edifice, erected 1894, and the later extension or ad- ditional auditorium, erected 1905, of "The Mother Church" of the Christian Science denomination, "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston." The first public services of this church were held in 1879 in a private house in the Charlestown district. Subsequently larger quarters were sought and found in the Hawthorne rooms on Park Street and in Copley Hall on Clarendon Street. Meanwhile branch organizations sprang up in other cities, and in other coun- tries. At present (1917) these "branches of The Mother Church" number over 1600, including some eighteen in Boston and its suburbs. but the original church in Boston continues to be the head and center, so far as denomina- tional organization is concerned, of the Christian Science movement.
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, includes a local congregation that not infrequently fills the more than 5000 seats of the main church building; a publication house lo- cated just across St. Paul Street, and the offices of "The Christian Science Board of Directors" and their subordinate officials, who occupy part of the church edifice and two floors of the Massachusetts Trust Company's building at 236 Huntington Avenue. Between Huntington Avenue and Falmouth Street at this point the ground is owned by the Christian Scientists and it has been made a beautifully kept park or garden, which furnishes a footway between the Huntington Avenue car lines and the Church.
The official residence of the "first reader" of The Mother Church is at 385 Commonwealth Avenue, while the house occupied by Mrs. Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science and founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, is at 385 Beacon Street. Chestnut Hill, and is still held by the trus- tees of her estate.
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Probably nothing in or about Boston brings so many visitors from all parts of the world to Boston during each and every year as does the presence here of the headquar- ters of the Christian Science movement.
One activity of this movement needs to be mentioned espe- cially, namely, The Christian Science Monitor, a daily newspaper. Other religious denominations have well-estab- lished monthly or weekly periodicals, but the Christian Sci- entists alone have established a successful daily newspaper. The Christian Science Publishing Society also issues The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lessons (quarterly), The Christian Science Journal (monthly), Der Herold der Christian Science (monthly), and the Christian Science Sentinel (weekly) ; all of which, including The Christian Science Monitor, circulate from Boston throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Af- rica, Great Britain, and the continent of Europe.
From its beginning the Christian Science Church has dis- claimed reliance on the number of its members, yet its growth has been remarkable for numbers as well as for the intelligence of its members. And from the first this church has ever kept in view its purpose as stated by its founder. to "reinstate primitive Christiainity and its lost element of healing." (Church Manual, page 17.)
Methodism in Boston
By Charles S. Nutter, Librarian New England Methodist Historical Society.
Methodism, sometimes designated as "Christianity in Ear- nest," began in Oxford University, England, in 1729, and in New York City in 1766.
The real beginning of Methodism in Boston was in 1790 when the Rev. Jesse Lee was appointed to this place.
He reached the city on the 9th of July and began immedi- ately to look for a church in which to preach. Failing in this. he tried to secure permission to preach in the Court House, or a schoolhouse, but did not succeed.
He says: "On one occasion I went out on the Common, and, standing on a table, began to sing with only a few per- sons present. But having prayed and begun to preach, the number increased, so that there were two or three thousand attentive hearers. This may be considered the beginning of Methodism in Boston, and in all those parts of the country."
The first Methodist Society in Boston was formed on the 13th day of July, 1792. On the 28th day of August. 1795. the cornerstone was laid of the first Methodist Meeting House in Boston, which was fixed at the North End, and was built of wood, 46 feet by 36 feet, with galleries in front and on both sides of the house.
By this time some of the clergymen of Boston of the more liberal type, began to look upon the new movement with fa- vor, and a few made subscriptions to the building fund. Among them were the Rev. James Freeman, pastor of King's Chapel, and the Rev. John Murry.
Jesse Lee was said to be a very large man of fine appear- ance. No portrait of him is extant, which is greatly to be re- gretted.
One of the most successful preachers of Methodism in Bos- ton was the Rev. Elijah Hedding. He was appointed pastor for two years three times, namely, 1811-12. 1815-16, and 1822-1823.
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In 1824, Hedding was elected one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Hedding Church on Tre- mont Street, between Concord and Worcester Streets, was named in his honor. It was during his first pastorate in Boston, in 1811, that a young sailor, Edward T. Taylor, ven- tured into Old Bromfield Street Church and heard Pastor Hedding preach.
In the prayer meeting that followed, he went to the altar and cried for mercy, and before the meeting closed he was a happy convert.
This young sailor in 1829 became the Chaplain of the Bos- ton Port Society, and later of the Seaman's Bethel.
Father Taylor, as he came to be called, was known far and wide and loved by everybody in Boston. His sailor boys car- ried his name and fame around the world.
Methodism has succeeded in Boston. Many churches have been built in the city proper and there are some very strong and prosperous churches in the suburbs, where many Boston business men reside.
Two Methodist institutions deserve especial mention. One is the "Morgan Memorial," which, with its industries and stores, its training classes and children's settlements, and its Church of all Nations is doing a great work for the unfort11- nate of Boston. The second great institution we mention is Boston University. It was incorporated in 1869, and has added to its Theological School, a College of Liberal Arts, a School of Law, a Medical School, and a School of Business Administration. In less than fifty years it has outstripped many of its contemporaries, and next to Harvard and Yale has become the greatest University in New England."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his excellent biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson says: "We have in New England a certain number of families who constitute what may be called the academic races. Their names have been on Col-
Ralph Waldo Emerson
lege Catalogues for generation after generation. They have filled the learned professions, more especially, the ministry, from old colonial days to our own time. If apt- ness for the acquisition of knowledge can be bred into a family, we know what we may expect of one of the aca- demic races. The family made historic by the birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson, had a most striking record in this respect."
His grandfather, the Rev. William Emerson, was a fa- mous preacher at Concord at the outbreak of the American
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Revolution. He was an ardent patriot and preached re- sistance to tyrants from his pulpit, and encouraged his townsmen and their allies to make a stand against the British Soldiery who had marched in warlike array upon their peaceful village. He was eager to do his part in the fight at the bridge, but his friends would not permit him to do so. The next year, 1776, he left his pulpit to join the American forces at Ticonderoga. On his way thither he was stricken with fever and was advised to return to Con- cord and died on the way home. His son, the second of that name, and father of Ralph Waldo, was a minister and Pastor of the First Church of Boston in 1799. He is de- scribed as a handsome man, of fair complexion, tall, with easy and graceful manners, having a very melodious voice and distinct utterance. At that time the First Church was in Chauncey Place, and the parsonage was on Summer Street, nearly opposite Hawley Street. It was in this par- sonage that Ralph Waldo Emerson was born, May 25, 1803.
As late as 1843, this section of Boston was a quiet and aristocratic residential neighborhood. Here were the pleasant and comfortable homes of Judge Charles Jackson and of S. P. Gardner, with their beautiful flower gardens, and little orchards, with luscious fruits. In the immediate vicinity was the fine old mansion of Judge William Pres- cott, and it was in that house that his gifted son, the His- torian, wrote that splendid work, The Conquest of Mexico, and "under difficulties almost as formidable as those en- countered by Cortes." The Rev. William Emerson died in 1811, and shortly after his death his widow and her two sons removed to a house on Beacon Street, on the site of the Boston Athenaeum building. She kept a few boarders, among them Lemuel Shaw, afterwards Chief Justice of the State of Massachusetts. It was near Boston Common, and Ralph Waldo and his brother Charles drove their mother's cow to pasture there. Ralph Waldo entered the Latin School at an early age. When eleven years old he was turning Virgil into very readable English. Although he became one of the greatest of American writers, he was not particularly distinguished at College. His class mate, Josiah Quincy, said of him that "he gave no sign of the power that was fashioning itself for leadership in a near time, or that he was to be the most original and influential
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writer born in America. He was quiet, unobtrusive, and only a fair scholar, according to the standard of the College authorities."
After his graduation from College he became a Divinity Student, meantime teaching in several places, among others at an old fashioned Academy at Chelmsford, Mass One of his pupils there was the Hon. Josiah G. Abbott, who tells of the impression Mr. Emerson made upon him. "He was very grave, quiet and impressive in his appear- ance. There was something engaging, almost fascinating about him. He was never harsh or severe, always per- fectly self controlled, never punished except with words, but exercised complete control over the boys. He had the faculty of making the boys love him." He also taught at Cambridge, where he had the same success with his pupils. During all these years he was pursuing a theo- logical course under the gifted Rev. William E. Channing.
At the time when Emerson reached manhood, Unitarianism was a strong and growing denomination, and they had many able and eloquent preachers. Emerson entered that fold and in 1826 he "was approbated to preach by the Mid- dlesex Association of Ministers." He spent several months in the South for his health, and upon his return to Boston, in 1829, he was ordained a colleague with Rev. Henry Ware, pastor of the Second Church. The resignation of Mr. Ware threw all the pastoral duties upon Mr. Emer- son, who performed them faithfully and acceptably, and while pastor of the church he took an active part in the public affairs of Boston, serving on the School Board and as Chaplain of the Massachusetts State Senate. He sym- pathized with the Anti-Slavery agitation, and Garrison and Phillips were invited to speak from his platform. He was also a warm friend to Father Taylor, the great Sailor preacher at the North End.
In a few years Mr. Emerson resigned the pastorate and the separation was attended with the best and kindest feelings on both sides.
He then made quite an extended tour of Europe and while in Scotland he preached in the Unitarian Chapel in Edinburgh. One who heard him on that occasion says: "The pregnant thoughts and serene self possession of the young Boston minister had a greater charm for me than
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the rhetorical splendors of Chalmers. His voice was the sweetest, the most winning and penetrating of any I ever heard. Nothing like it have I ever heard." In 1834 he took up his residence in Concord, the town of his fore- fathers, and here he made his home the remainder of his life. The house he occupied he called the "Manse." It was built for his grandfather, the Rev. William Emerson, and was an old fashioned gambrel roofed house, and located near the bridge, the scene of the Concord fight of 1775. In one of the rooms he wrote that famous essay, "Nature," which, as one has said, "marked a further stride beyond the bounds of orthodoxy." Some years later Hawthorne wrote in that same room his work, "Mosses from the Manse."
From this time on Emerson devoted his time and talents to literature and to lecturing. His first lectures were on "Water," and "The Relation of Man to the Globe." These lectures do not appear in any of his published works. Later, he gave several lectures relating to his Experiences while in Europe. He also lectured on "Michael Angelo," "Mil- ton," "Luther," "George Fox" and "Edmund Burke." Speaking of his lectures on Milton, Holmes says: "Emer- son felt that he was listening in his own soul to whispers that seemed like echoes from that of the divine Singer. Both were turned away from the clerical office by a revolt of conscience against the beliefs required of them; both lost very dear objects of affection in early manhood, and mourned for them in tender and mellifluous threnodies." In 1835 he gave an "Historical Address on the Second Cen- tennial of the Incorporation of the Town." He told the story of Old Concord in as painstaking and faithful a way as if he had been by nature an annalist. Concord is one of the most interesting of New England towns. "In Emer- son's day there were several men in Concord who ran to extreme idiosyncrasies; Alcott. in speculations; Haw- thorne, who brooded himself into a dream-peopled soli- tude ; and Thoreau, the nullifier of civilization. But Emer- son kept his balance among them all. He never lost the saving common sense which enabled him to command, at all times, the respect of his fellow townsmen."
In 1848 he again visited Europe; and upon his return, published his work, "Representative Men," and his selec-
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tion of names is characteristic of Emerson. They were Plato, the Philosopher; Swedenborg, the Mystic; Mon- taigne, the Skeptic; Shakespeare, the Poet; Napoleon, the Man of the World; Goethe, the Writer. His book, "Eng- lish Traits," called by some the most interesting, is shrewd and suggestive. The English Aristocracy are said to be descended from twenty thousand thieves, who landed at Hastings; btu time has toned most of them and the people at large, down, until they are desirable as plucky, vigor- ous, independent, each of them an island himself, and are
Emerson's Home in Concord
blessed with a saving stupidity. He called Napoleon the man of stone and iron, the agitator, the internal improver, the liberal, the radical, but withal, the boundless liar." Some of Emerson's sayings, like those of Franklin, have become proverbs with the common people, "Hitch your wagon to a star," and "He builded better than he knew." In 1873, when he made his third trip to Europe, his fame was well established on the other side of the Atlantic and his addresses in England were attended by people of dis- tinguished character. There is a noble spirit of true Amer- icanism running all through Emerson's writings.
In his last published work he says: "Let the passion for
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America cast out the passion for Europe. Here let there be what the earth waits for-exalted manhood. What this country longs for is personalities, grand persons to coun- teract its materialities. Those who find America insipid, they whose homes have been spoiled by London and Paris can be spared to return to those cities. I not only see a career at home, for more genius than we have, but for more than there is in the world." In Emerson there was combined the Poet, the Philosopher and the Prophet. His Poetry will live through the Ages. His Philosophy lifts men out of gross materialism as he "mirrors the in- spirations of all great souls of all times, and countries," and by the depth and strength of his thought, he carries men to a higher plane of vision. The careful reader of Emerson's works will find in them many gems of great value. He is a teacher who inspires his pupils, and they gladly follow him. As one writer has said, "In Emerson, America has possessed a keen philosophic seer, worthy of his accorded rank among the master minds of the world, one of the inspiring forces, which work silently and by permeation, but accomplish greater things, than many that are heralded by trumpets."
Extracts from a poem of Emerson read in Faneuil Hall on December 16, 1873, the Centennial Anniversary of the De- struction of the Tea in Boston Harbor.
BOSTON E Sicut Patribus Sit Deus Nobis.
The Rocky nook with hill tops three
Looked eastward from the farms,
And twice each day the flowing sea
Took Boston in its arms ;
The men of yore were stout and poor, And sailed for bread to every shore.
And where they went on trade intent, . They did what freemen can, Their dauntless ways did all men praise, The merchant was a man.
The world was made for honest trade, To plant and eat be none afraid.
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The waves that rocked them on the deep To them their secret told ; Said the winds that sung the lads to sleep, "Let us be free and bold !" The honest waves refused to slaves The empire of the ocean waves.
Old Europe groans with palaces, Has lords enough and more : We plant and build by foaming seas A city of the poor ; For day by day could Boston Bay Their honest labor overpay.
We grant no dukedoms to the few, We hold like rights, and shall : Equal on Sunday in the pew, On Monday in the mall, For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or sea if freedom fail?
Bad news from George, on the English throne ; "You are thriving well." said he ; "Now by these presents be it known You shall pay us a tax on tea : 'Tis very small-no load at all,- Honor enough that we send the call."
"Not so," said Boston, "good my lord, We pay your governors here Abundant for their bed and board, Six thousand pounds a year. (Your highness knows our homely word,) Millions for self-government, But for tribute never a cent."
The cargo came! and who could blame If Indians seized the tea, And chest by chest, let down the same, Into the laughing sea? For what avail, the plough or sail Or land or sea, if freedom fail.
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The townsmen braved the English King, Found friendship with the French And honor joined the patriot ring, Low on their wooden bench Kings shook with fear, and Empires crave The secret force to find, Which fired the little State to save The rights of all mankind.
But right is might through all the world, Province to province faithful clung,
Through good and ill the war-bolt hurled Till freedom cheered and joy bells rung.
A blessing to the ages thus Shield all the roofs and towers, God with the Fathers so with us Thou darling town of ours!
Some Views on Tremont Street
We are standing in front of King's Chapel and looking west. Just across the street is a narrow four-story brick building enclosed on two sides and overtopped by the Parker House. On the first floor of this building was the book store of Mr. Burnham who did a thriving business in second hand books. The Parker House management looked with longing eyes on this little piece of land, but were kept wait- ing many years before they obtained possession. The addi- tion to the Hotel now covering the site of the bookstore, is an architectural gem. The tall building beyond the book store is Tremont Temple which was destroyed by fire a few years ago. A new and more elegant Temple arose from the ruins. Adjoining the Temple was Butler's Dry Goods Store and still holds its own there. The upper rooms were occu- pied by the Young Men's Christian Association in 1862. Across the little court and on the corner of Bromfield Street was the building of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, a firm substantial structure of Quincy granite. Ten years ago when the society erected their commodious structure on the corner of Massachusetts and Huntington Avenues they sold the Tremont Street Property to a trust and a modern eleven-story office building arose on that corner and is known as the Paddock Building. Across Bromfield Street is the Studio Building. Here in Revolutionary days stood the home of Major Paddock, a prominent citizen of Boston, and an active and outspoken Tory. He was a valuable member of the militia of the Province and commanded the Artillery Regiment. He was a good military man and the instructor in the artillery line of two men who afterwards became val- uable officers in General Washington's army, Captain Crane of Boston Tea Party fame and General Henry Knox the Boston bookseller. He builded better than he knew for the patriot cause. In front of the Granary Burying Ground may be seen a row of fine large trees. They were planted by Major Paddock in 1762 and were ever after known as the Paddock Elms. He imported the trees from England and
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matured them in Milton. They stood until 1873 when changes in the paving on Tremont Street caused them to grow unsightly and they were cut down. The doughty Major was exceeding wroth with the Yankees who, in their jubilation over the repeal of the Stamp Act, hung lanterns on the branches of the trees. He considered it a desecration of his pets, for he doubtless watched the whole proceedings
Some Tieirs on Tremont Street, 1840
and he offered a guinea reward for "information of the per- son or persons who had cut and hacked the trees." The old Major was a noted character in his day. A "bon vivant," he christened that portion of Tremont Street, shaded by his elms, "Long Acre," in memory of a convivial section of London. The majestic trees inside of the old Granary Bury- ing Ground still flourish and shade the graves of the sturdy old patriots, who are quietly sleeping there. Major Paddock planned to deliver two of the guns of his company to Gen- eral Gage. We tell the story elsewhere of how the patriots took them almost from under his very nose and delivered
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them to General Washington during the Siege of Boston. These guns saw service through the Revolution. They were christened "Hancock" and "Adams" and are now the prop- erty of the Bunker Hill Monument Association and may be seen by all visitors to the monument. Major Paddock left Boston when Washington compelled the British to evacuate Boston, and returning to England was made Governor of the Island of Jersey. On the corner of Winter and Tremont Streets, was the fine residence of Hugh Earl Percy. He belonged to the very flower of the English nobility and was an officer in the British troops in Boston. On April 19, 1775, when the news of the battle of Lexington reached Boston and reinforcements were sent out by the British gen- eral, Percy's Red Coats were hurried out of their barracks on Boston Common, and the line stretched down Tremont Street from the Common to Queen (Court) Street, and they started for Lexington, by way of Boston Neck, the fifes and drums playing "Yankee Doodle." It was an anxious day for both the "Loyalists" and the "Continentals" and many were awaiting the outcome of the fight to decide with whom they would cast their lot.
On the corner of Park and Tremont Streets and abutting the Granary Burying Ground, is the far famed Park Street Chuch of which we speak elsewhere. On the east side of the Burying Ground may be seen the comfortable looking Tremont House, which old Bostonians miss, even to this day. After the destruction by fire in 1818 of the old Ex- change Coffee House, which stood in Congress Square, there was no house in Boston worthy the name of Hotel, and it was the source of much regret to the traveling public as well as to the citizens, for there was no place where distinguished visitors could be suitably entertained. In the spring of 1828 a subscription fund was raised and the building of the Tremont House assured. It was completed in August, 1829 and opened in the following October and was the pioneer first class hotel in America. Mr. Dwight Boyden, son of Simeon Boy- den, an old innkeeper of Boston, was its first manager, and under his regime was held on October 16, 1829. the opening dinner. The bill of fare used on that occasion was a litho- graph of handwriting, the first ever transferred in this coun- try. The lithographer of that day was William S. Pendleton who in 1828 visited Germany and secured the services of
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