USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > A history of Grace Church in Providence, Rhode Island, 1829-1929 > Part 10
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The election of Mr. Greer at a salary of thirty-five hundred dollars and the use of the Rectory is recorded as of July 18th, and on the 20th the committee of the Wardens and Mr. Kinsley re- ceived his oral acceptance, which was doubtless already practically assured. A meeting of the Corporation was held on July 22, 1872, to ratify the action of the Vestry, but probably more particularly to hear their highly esteemed Rector speak about his successor. The record says that Mr. Currie "spoke of the many excellent qualities possessed by Rev. Mr. Greer and warmly 'congratulated the Corporation on its choice of a Rector."
That Mr. Greer already had the admiration and friendship of Mr. Currie made the election and the transfer of responsibility natural and easy. As August was regularly the month of vaca- tion and Greer began his ministry on Sunday, September 15th, there was no real interim between the rectors.
It was a pleasing coincidence and a happy omen for our one long rectorship of sixteen years that Mr. Greer, arriving in Providence on September 10th to begin his rectorship, and hearing the bells of his church chiming for Commodore Perry's victory, thought of them as welcoming their new rector. On the Sunday following, as he recalled at the 75th anniversary, he preached a sermon on that text from the book of Ezra which Bishop Clark had used so
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effectively nearly a quarter of a century before in urging the build- ing of the steeple,-"From that time it is in building and yet it is not built."
Mr. Greer found Grace Church in most respects in a satis- factory and even promising condition. There was, however, a debt of some fifteen thousand dollars, due largely to the purchase of the rectory, which a special committee of the Vestry had been unable to discharge by subscriptions. To this the new Rector devoted his attention and advised that a special Easter offering be solicited for this purpose. The Vestry somewhat reluctantly agreeing to this, the collection was taken and the sum of $16,096.95 secured, including amounts previously subscribed on condition that the whole amount was raised, and including also some five thousand dollars from the sale to supporters of thirteen pews which should be free of tax unless rented or sold to actual occupants. The confirmation class that Easter of forty-three was one of the largest on record. The Vestry were so impressed by the zeal and ability of their rector that in January, 1874, they took the re- sponsibility of increasing his salary by five hundred dollars for the year ending at Easter. By that Easter, and for many years thereafter, it was recorded that all the sittings were sold or rented, and that the regular congregations almost filled the church.
The matter of the music for such an inspiring congregation gave the Vestry and Rector some concern. There was strong feeling in favor of returning to the plan of having a chorus in addition to the quartette, as had been the custom at least in the earlier years of Mr. Downes' long period of service. During this re- adjustment Mr. Downes resigned as organist and choirmaster in 1876. Mr. Jules Jordan became Director and Tenor soloist and Mr. A. A. Stanley, organist. Mr. Stanley is said to have been the first of the line of professional musicians who since 1876 have served Grace Church as organists.
It was in 1876 also that efforts were begun to provide a suitable and permanent brick rectory on the lot on Greene Street in place of the frame building purchased some years before and temporarily utilized as rectory for Mr. Kellogg, Mr. Currie and Mr. Greer. As an alternative to immediate enlargement of the house, No. 8 Greene Street1, then occupied by Mr. Greer and his growing family, a special meeting of the Corporation in March, 1877, voted to sell for removal the two houses on Greene Street and build on the lot
1 The new brick rectory, built for Mr. Greer, also bore this same number.
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a commodious brick rectory at a cost not to exceed thirteen thousand dollars. The Rector himself came in at the close of the meeting and spoke of the urgency of this step. He offered "to abate five hundred dollars on his salary," so that he appears as the first and largest subscriber in the list in the records.
As another illustration of the zeal and effective personal work of the Rector it is interesting to note that in the confirmation class of Easter, 1877, numbering thirty-six, were seventeen who had been baptized the evening before.
It was at the annual meeting on Easter Monday, 1877, that a young man was elected to the Vestry, in the person of Mr. H. Nelson Campbell, who now in his fifty-fourth year as vestryman, has had the longest term of service of any officer of Grace Church, and a term of marked honor and usefulness as well.
For the use of Mr. Greer and his family during the building of the Rectory, the Vestry hired the house of Mrs. Morris B. Morgan at 128 Washington Street, corner of Jackson. By Easter, 1878, the Vestry could announce to the Corporation that a convenient and beautiful rectory, for which Mr. Howard Hoppin had given his services as architect, was completed and occupied by the Rector and his family.
As a result of this undertaking, involving a loss in rentals, there was a serious deficit in running expenses. To meet this the tax on pews which had been fifteen percent since 1869 was raised to seventeen percent, a move that was not unreasonable when the Vestry could report that the "Church edifice cannot accommodate the numbers who ask to become regular members of his [Mr. Greer's] congregation."
It was in the late seventies, according to Bishop Slattery, that Mr. Greer made a decided change in his style of preaching. Before that time he had regularly preached written sermons. One fall, however, he felt so disturbed over the ineffectiveness of the first sermon he preached after his vacation that he resolved to try preaching without any notes whatever, doubtless hoping thereby to make his style more direct, spontaneous, and personal. Char- acteristically fitting his theme to what was strongly impressed upon his mind and heart at the time, he chose as his text, "For- getting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark." Bishop Slattery adds that after that, though he continued to make labori- ous preparation and often wrote ou : many parts of his sermon to clarify his thought and give coherence to his expression, he rarely
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preached a written sermon or took any notes whatever into the pulpit with him.
It was undoubtedly in connection with this determination of the Rector to secure greater directness in the preaching in Grace Church that a striking change in the pulpit was brought about. In the fall of 1878 the Vestry arranged to take down the lofty wineglass pulpit, with its conspicuous sounding-board, and to substitute a low platform surrounded by a brass railing and con- taining an inconspicuous "lecture-stand" or "lectern." Such an unimpressive piece of modern machinery was regarded in those days as a bold innovation. When Mr. Greer exhibited this pet device with pride to his friend and vestryman Augustus Hoppin, to whom it seemed more suggestive of a fireside than a chancel, Mr. Hoppin's sense of humor moved him to remark, "Very fine, Mr. Greer. Only where are the tongs and the poker?"
A minute in the records of March 28, 1880, would indicate not only that the handsome wineglass pulpit removed from Grace Church was an object of admiration, but that the Vestry were not ready to give it up permanently. "The Treasurer was authorized to loan to St. Luke's Church of East Greenwich the pulpit formerly used by Grace Church, taking a receipt therefor, with the condition that it shall be returned upon demand." There is evidence also that there was considerable difficulty in hearing the preacher from the low pulpit platform installed in 1878. One pewholder filed an unsuccessful claim for remission of part of his tax on account of his loss from the change. The Vestry later had wires strung overhead to improve the acoustics. Finally, in 1886, after experiments had been made to ascertain the best height and position for acoustic effect, Mr. R. M. Upjohn designed a new platform pulpit with elaborate brass work. This was put in, at a cost of about four hundred dollars, in such fashion that it could readily be removed from its place at the head of the main aisle for the communion and at other times.
The beginning of the year 1879 reminded the Vestry that the fiftieth anniversary, or Jubilee, as it was called, was at hand. The Rector, the Wardens-then Messrs. Anthony and Charles Morris Smith-and Mr. Augustus Hoppin were designated as the committee on the celebration.
The Jubilee was a great occasion in the history of the parish. Five of the eight rectors1 were present and preached, including
1 John A. Clark and John P. K. Henshaw were no longer living and D. Otis Kellogg was unable to be present.
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the venerable Dr. Fuller, the first rector. The anniversary exer- cises began with celebration of the Holy Communion at seven- thirty Friday evening, May 16th, with an intensely interesting sermon by the Rector, dealing, as he said, not with the past nor with the future, but with the present duty, which he boldly defined as "trying to redeem the life of this generation from a debasing and engrossing materialism, by the quickening power of a positive faith in a supernatural and spiritual world." In this discourse he gives abundant evidence of familiarity with the leading thinkers of the time, refers to evolution and the rationalists, quotes in his support Coleridge, Tyndall, and John Stuart Mill, and shows thorough acquaintance with the intellectual movements of the day. Then he invokes as the only resource a personal faith in the supernatural and the spiritual under the sole sanction of a vital personal faith in Jesus Christ.
The Jubilee continued on Saturday, the actual anniversary, with services at II a. m. and 5 p. m. At the first a learned discourse on the Lord's Supper was delivered by Professor Samuel Fuller, the first rector. The opening sentence of this sermon it seems well- nigh impossible to take literally. "In the summer of the year 1830, Sunday, July 4, I administered, as the first Rector of Grace Church, Providence, its first communion.1 The partakers were only twenty-four persons." As he records in a note that he had not been ordained priest until June 6th, it was naturally enough his "first administration of the Eucharist," and it would not seem very strange, considering the times, if there had been no celebra- tion of the sacrament since he began his rectorship on May 2d. Rather than believe that there had been no celebration of the Holy Communion for the worshippers in Grace Church in the fourteen months from May, 1829, to July, 1830, it would seem more reasonable to think that by "its first communion" Dr. Fuller meant the first celebration in which Rector and people as com- municants of Grace Church joined in the Lord's Supper.
Bishop Clark, at the five o'clock service on Saturday, with his customary clearness and eloquence gave the historical address, which he was extraordinarily well equipped to deliver. Closely associated with its first bishop, Griswold, and with every one of its eight rectors, possibly excepting his immediate predecessor, Bishop Henshaw, and having had the Church under his immediate eye for twenty-five years, he could speak from first-hand knowl-
1 Italics not in the original.
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edge and intimate understanding without much laborious search- ing of the records. Less than half the address concerns Grace Church itself. The rest deals with the Church at large and the great changes in numbers, customs, and methods of work that he had witnessed in his own lifetime. He laments, even in 1879, that
"The wind which once blew so auspiciously, has, in a measure, died away, and at the present moment this Church is making com- paratively little head-way in the land at large. By a process of pulverization we have greatly multiplied the number of Dioceses, we have divided the regiment into a larger list of companies, and put a General in command over each, and multiplied our chief officers to such an extent that, on the average, we have left but one Deacon and a fraction to be ordained by each Bishop during the year. In 1878, there was a decrease in the number of persons admitted to both Deacons' and Priests' orders, and the number confirmed was 2,466 less than in the previous year. Although the Church is nearly eight times stronger, as indicated by the list of communicants, than it was forty or fifty years ago, the number of candidates for Holy Orders is but a little more than double what it was then, notwithstanding all that has of late been done to provide gratuitous support for our candidates."
Sunday, May 18th, brought the anniversary to a close. The sermon in the morning was by Dr. Vinton, than whom no one in our Church had a greater reputation for eloquence and spiritual insight, and whom Bishop McVickar called "that glorious old preacher." With penetrating thought and rich diction, he vividly pictured the various theological developments working out from a Christian faith of essential unity, as different "Mounts," all culminating in Mount Calvary, "the solemn spot of the sacrifice of our Saviour God, slain for our sins . . Mount Calvary reveals the whole Godhead,-righteousness, peace, truth and love, in one display by God and man in one person." A writer in the Journal speaks of "the immense congregation that listened to him [Dr. Vinton] on Sunday morning with breathless interest."
The final service at 7.30 p. m. on Sunday was the occasion of a sermon from Dr. Currie, the friend and immediate predecessor of Mr. Greer. His sermon, in marked contrast to the others, was of strongly ethical import, forcing home with biblical text and literary allusion the lessons drawn from two widely differing figures, Saul the King and Saul the Apostle Paul.
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The beautifying of the church for this occasion was perhaps more elaborate and ornate than at any other public function. The church was decorated with "urns and flowers," especially by two large shields of many colored roses "one at each side of the chancel arch placing before the eyes of the congrega- tion the dates 1829-1879 in floral figures."
An interesting reminder that this was a time of extravagant and sometimes flamboyant celebrations may be found in the com- plimentary comment of the Journal, "The jubilee anniversary of Grace Church has been commemorated in a quiet, sensible, satis- factory manner."
As a memorial of this half-century Jubilee there was published by Sidney S. Rider, in the spring of 1880, a handsome little book of somewhat over a hundred pages, with interesting heliotype illustrations. Of the frontispiece the publisher says, "The draw- ing of the Church is an original one, made for this book, and is believed to be the first, and in fact the only one as yet made, which at all represents the edifice." The volume contained the five ser- mons and addresses delivered at the celebration, with a few pages of introductory and explanatory matter.
In the Vestry's report to the Corporation at the fifty-first annual meeting in April, 1879, attention had been called to the fact that Grace Church had the largest Sunday School in the city and as large a number of communicants as any Episcopal Church in New England.1 The Vestry recorded that the debt of $10,000, having been partly pledged by subscriptions, had been paid off by the Easter offering, so that the Church closed its first half- century free of financial handicap.
The twenty-fifth anniversary of Bishop Clark's consecration came late in that same year of Jubilee. The Vestry offered the use of Grace Church for an occasion that meant much to hundreds of the former Rector's parishioners and arranged to have the church suitably decorated for the occasion.
The public commemoration was held at eleven o'clock on Saturday, December 6th. The notice in the Providence Journal says "the music, especially the Te Deum, will be of a grand order." The service began with the Te Deum, sung while the forty clergy in their surplices marched in, and closed with Holy Communion celebrated by the Bishop. The Rev. Daniel Henshaw made a
1 In the Sunday School there were fifty officers and teachers and four hundred and fifty scholars. The communicants numbered six hundred and eighty.
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brief congratulatory address and the rectors of the several parishes presented offerings by which the Episcopal Fund was increased more than ten thousand dollars. In Bishop Clark's survey of his quarter century in Rhode Island he called attention to the fact that, weak though the Episcopal Church had seemed in 1854, the devoted labors of Griswold and Henshaw had sown seeds of great promise and that in 1879 there was "but one other diocese in the land where the proportion of communicants to the whole population is as large as it is here."
There is in these years frequent testimony to the evident fact that the Rector was working unstintingly for his people of Grace Church and for the community up to the extreme of his ability and strength. To this unsparing zeal may be attributed the first undertaking to have Grace Church open daily, better to minister to the community. In the fall of 1880 Dr. Greer1 proposed to the Vestry to have Grace Church open for evening prayer from New Year's to Easter. The Vestry agreed, expressing their fear, however, that it was a heavy responsibility and perhaps an undue burden on the Rector. They had already recognized that he was giving himself to the limit of his strength. Once they voted him a vacation of several weeks after an unusually heavy Lent. After the fiftieth anniversary and its responsibilities, he was granted both July and August as vacation, as he was again in 1880. A more extended opportunity for refreshment and relaxation, how- ever, after the strenuous winter of 1881 seemed desirable to his friends. Accordingly he was granted the entire summer for a trip to Europe with part of his family. He sailed early in June and did not resume duty until the 23d of October. Twenty of the Vestry and the parish raised the thousand dollars that was needed for supplying the pulpit during the Rector's long absence. On his return the Vestry and others arranged that he should be heartily welcomed with appropriate rejoicing both at the rectory and the church.
In the biography of Bishop Greer2 there is recorded a char- acteristic experience which would seem to pertain to this period about 1880.
"After he had been in Providence a little time his preaching so increased the numbers of the parish that the Vestry offered him
1 Kenyon College conferred the degree of D.D. on Mr. Greer in 1880, but the unfamiliar title was seldom used until Dr. Greer went to St. Bartholomew's. Brown University followed with a degree in 1890.
2 DAVID HUMMELL GREER by Charles Lewis Slattery, p. 52, New York, 1921.
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an assistant. He declined this form of help, and asked that the money which would have been paid for an assistant be used for a horse and phaeton that he might the more quickly go in and out among the people."
There is, however, no reference in the Vestry records or the Treasurer's report to any sum for either an assistant or "a horse and phaeton," other than small sums for "horse-hire." The money may well have come from generous friends or been one of the many good works accomplished through the "Sunday Offer- ings," which were kept as a separate and generally unreported account1 and, under the new envelope system of 1886, at times amounted to the handsome sum of ten thousand dollars a year. Quite likely from this fund also came the Rector's "discretionary fund" of which Bishop Slattery tells an amusing anecdote,2 but of which also there is no Vestry record.
The decoration of the church, never very satisfactory, and marred frequently in the lapse of years, had often been the subject of unfavorable comment. The wise but outspoken Bishop Clark had said in his Jubilee Address, "So far as matters external are concerned, the only thing remaining to be done, is, to restore the interior of this church to a condition and tone of color more in accordance with its grave and sombre architecture than that by which it is now disfigured."
The Rector was, then, only voicing a well known feeling when he addressed the annual meeting of 1881 on the necessity of altering the chancel and redecorating the church. The year went by, however, without definite steps being taken until just before Easter, 1882. The Rector at that time presented the matter to the congregation "in a most earnest and eloquent manner," and ten thousand dollars was subscribed toward a fund of sixteen thousand for this purpose and for a new organ. The Vestry recorded that the Rector "has led off himself with an exceedingly generous subscription." In June, 1882, a committee consisting of the Rector, Mr. James Lewis Peirce, and Mr. F. A. King was authorized to make a contract with Messrs. E. J. N. Stent and Company of New York for redecorating the church at a cost of $8,000 and to place in the chancel a new window in three parts at a cost of $2,400. This window, which forms the greater
1 There is no taint of irresponsibility about the management of this fund. It had its own treasurer and was carefully distributed by a committee composed of the Rector and some of the wisest men on the Vestry.
2 DAVID HUMMELL GREER by Charles Lewis Slattery, p. 54, New York, 1921.
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part of the present chancel window, was in memory of the three ex-rectors of the parish no longer living, John A. Clark, John P. K. Henshaw, and Alexander H. Vinton. The side members of the old chancel window were placed in the body of the church, as the third window from the present chapel, and were inscribed in memory of Amasa Manton, their donor over thirty years before.
It was obviously necessary to put the roof in perfect condition before the decorating began, and that and other repairs, together with the difficulty of securing additional subscriptions, forced the Vestry ultimately to postpone the purchasing of a new organ for four years. The final accounts showed that the extra expenses amounted to $6,775 in addition to the subscriptions which secured the redecorating and the new chancel window. After some hesitation and a consideration of the legal question involved, this extra money was raised by a special tax of twelve percent on the valuations of the pews.
The church was closed from July through October, 1882, the services being held in the chapel. The chancel was rearranged at this time, the chancel rail was changed, and the handsome brass lectern added as the gift of Mrs. John A. Gardner.
It was in this the tenth year of Mr. Greer's rectorship that the first year-book of Grace Church appeared bearing the date of 1883. These year-books were continued through Dr. Tomkins' rectorship (1898) and give an illuminating view of the parish and its activities.
This first year-book, besides the list of officers of the Church and of the Sunday School and of the members of the choir, sets forth with brief reports the officials of the following societies: Grace Church Guild, Secretary, Miss Nancy Greene; Parish Aid Society, Secretary, Miss E. E. Andrews; St. Elizabeth's Society, Secretary, Miss N. A. Greene; Employment Bureau; St. Margaret Society, Secretary, Miss H. Brownell; The Young Men's Society, Secretary, C. Prescott Knight. It also lists nineteen committees for various good works. It gives the communicants as 777, the pew rents as $10,481.65, the money raised "for Parish purposes" as $12,758.50, and for missionary and charitable objects as $5,051, a total of nearly thirty thousand dollars.
The year-book gives the services on Sunday, besides the morn- ing service at 10.45, as "Afternoon Service at 4 o'clock, Evening Service (on the first Sunday in the month) at 7.30 o'clock, Sun- day School at 3 o'clock, Rector's Bible Class at 3 o'clock." In Lent there were still the Monday and Tuesday afternoon union
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services at 5 o'clock, started by Bishop Clark more than twenty years before. It is interesting to note that there were also noon- day services at 12.15 on Wednesday and Friday. Thus did Grace Church nearly fifty years ago sound forth the notes of prayer and preaching amid the noise and bustle of noon on the city's busiest thoroughfare and invite the anxious and the weary to its quiet retreat.
It may safely be taken as a tribute to the affection and con- fidence of the Vestry and their dependence upon their leader that, beginning with April 28, 1882, after the names of the Vestrymen present, the records of Vestry meetings usually contain the phrase "Also the Rector."
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