USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 2 > Part 8
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The number of homeopathic physicians in the State early in the year 1850 had become so large that the advantages of organizing into a society became apparent. Accordingly notices were sent out calling a meeting at Dr. Abraham H. Okie's office, in Providence, on May 5 of the year named, for the organization of a State society. The day proved a stormy one and only ten physicians responded to the call ; but the organization was perfected by the election of Dr. Okie, president ; Dr. Ira Barrows, vice-president; and Dr. Henry C. Preston, secretary. The incorporation of the society was effected at the June session of the General Assembly under the title of the Rhode Island Homeo- pathic Society. A constitution was adopted with the following pre- amble :
"We, the subscribers, Practitioners of Medicine residing within the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations or their imme- diate vicinity, believing the law propounded by Hahnemann, 'Similia similibus curantur', to be a fundamental truth in the Science of Medicine, and the only safe guide in its practice :
"And further believing that the best mode of advancing the Science of Homeopathy in the State is by an effective organization
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and co-operation of its professors and by their efforts in proving Drugs upon the healthy, do agree to form an Association;" etc.
This was signed by the following persons: Drs. A. Howard Okie, John J. De Wolfe, Charles G. McKnight, Washington Hoppin, H. C. Preston, and a Dr. Ferris, of Providence; Peleg Clark, of Coventry; Ira Barrows, of Pawtucket; Isaac Fisk, of Fall River, Mass .; and Dr. Greene, of East Greenwich.
No one of those present at that meeting is now alive, the last one to die having been Dr. C. G. McKnight, who passed away in 1899. The records of proceedings of the various meetings held during the first nine years of the society's existence indicate that it was active, progressive, and its members inspired by conscientious effort in their profession. One of the members present at the second meeting was Dr. James L. Wheaton, of Pawtucket, who is still an honored physi- cian and respected citizen of that city; he joined the society in 1851. Dr. A. W. Brown joined in 1854, and Dr. Grenville S. Stevens, still in practice in Providence, joined in 1855. Dr. Isaac Sawin, another active member, joined in 1856.
At the annual meeting in 1851 a Homeopathic Jubilee was pro- jected, which was held at the Earl House in Providence in the after- noon and at Westminster Hall in the evening, where the members and a large number of invited guests listened to an address by Prof. Charles Neidhard, of Philadelphia. This was probably the first public presentation of homeopathy in this State, and its able and eloquent treatment of the subject was received with great satisfaction, giving an added stimulus to the cause. The minutes of the proceedings of the meeting contain the following :
"Both members and guests were well satisfied that this great epoch in the Medical History of Rhode Island was a brilliant one. The meeting throughout had been one of uncommon interest; much that was valuable had been read and spoken, a large, intelligent and discriminating audience had listened with no ordinary interest to this first public lecture ever delivered on Homeopathy in Rhode Island, and now they were feasting with their friends at the first annual board of a new and small but flourishing and learned Society of Homeo- pathic Physicians."
Dr. Ira Barrows was the orator of the evening, and Judge Hoppin and others addressed the assemblage. In the fall of the same year Dr. Barrows, then president of the society, delivered the annual address in the same hall, and others followed in later years. Those practitioners of the new school in the early years were not only skillful
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in their profession, but were practical and enthusiastic workers for the cause they defended, and good citizens as well. Great advancement of the school in the confidence of the public was noticeable during the first seven years of its practice in the State; but a difference arose between two physicians regarding diagnosis which led to a discussion and division in the society, and another organization was formed under the title of the Hahnemann Medical Society; this latter held meetings down to the outbreak of the Civil War and had a still longer existence; but its records are lost.
Meanwhile the practice of homeopathy had spread over the country and, as before stated, a physician who had achieved success in Providence, became one of the most prominent in the organization of the American Institute of Homeopathy, which was effected at a meeting held April 10, 1844, the eighty-ninth anniversary of Hahne- mann's birth. The convention gathered and organized by electing officers, and a resolution was adopted expressive of the expediency of forming the institute as a national organization. Dr. John F. Gray was elected general secretary, and S. R. Kirby, treasurer, when an adjourn- ment was taken. In the evening, at the call of the general secretary, the first session of the institute was held. Dr. Josiah F. Flagg (before noticed) was elected the first president ; Dr. John F. Gray, of New York, general secretary; A. Gerrold Hull, of New York, provisional secretary ; S. R. Kirby, treasurer. Since that date the institute has exercised large influence in the profession.1
During the war of the Rebellion and afterwards down to about 1873 there was little organized work done by the Homeopathic Medical Society in this State; but in September of the year named a reorganization of the society took place, chiefly through the efforts of the late Dr. William Von Gottschalk, of Providence. Under the new arrangement monthly meetings were held until 1876, after which quarterly meetings took their place and have been continued since. At the annual meetings, which have been the more important of each year, distinguished members have attended from a distance who have been generously entertained, and at the annual banquets prominent men of the laity in this State, and members of the municipal govern- ment have frequently been present. The society has accomplished a vast amount of good through the reading and discussion of a large number of valuable papers by the various members. In 1875 women physicians were first admitted to the deliberations of the meetings in the persons of Dr. Mary D. Moss Matthews and Lucy A. Babcock.
1For annual lists of officers see pp. 1086-94, Trans. of the Institute, 1883.
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Others have since joined and the sex now occupies an honorable posi- tion in the profession, in this as well as the older school. The records of proceedings of meetings show that the greatest variety of topics have been considered by the society, with profit to the members; while the list of honorary members includes men of distinction in all parts of the world. The list of members of the society contains the names of many physicians who have graced with honor and distinction official positions in different parts of the State government. During the Civil War, in both the army and the navy, were physicians of this school who performed honorable service and afterwards became members of this society.
At the meeting of the American Institute of Homeopathy, held in Baltimore in 1852, the Rhode Island Homeopathic Society was recognized as an organized branch of the institute and delegates were received in the national organization for many years, while sister societies in other States have always shown a readiness to send dele- gates to the meetings of the State society.
Not long after the year 1850 dispensary work was begun in Provi- dence, and during many years since the Providence Homeopathic Dispensary has done noble work. Out of the same spirit that or- ganized this institution developed the initial measures that resulted in the establishment of a homeopathic hospital in Providence, the need of which had been felt many years. In 1878, at the solicitation of Dr. William Von Gottschalk and others, a charter for this institution was granted by the General Assembly. In providing means for the pur- pose great aid was received through the efforts of a band of unselfish women who took the title of the Rhode Island Homeopathic Hospital Ladies' Aid Association, who, by the year 1882, had accumulated a fund of about $10,000. With other contributions the managers were encouraged to purchase what was known as the Nichols estate, on Olney street (now Morris avenue), and fit up the mansion thereon for hospital purposes. A new surgical building was subsequently erected and the stable reconstructed for use as a contagious cottage. Within a very recent period and for various reasons, the hospital management became embarrassed financially and on December 1st, 1900, it was obliged to close its doors. The corporate body, however, is still main- tained, and has in its care a considerable sum of money with which at an early date it again hopes to continue its work in caring for the needy sick.
In the State legislation that has directly affected medical practice, homeopathic physicians have shown a deep and active interest, using
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their influence in favor of all regulations intended to elevate their profession and surround applicants for admission to practice with such provisions for examination as would insure the best results. At the important meeting of January 12, 1900, a preamble and resolutions were adopted favoring the enactment of a law providing "for future Medical Reciprocity such as was asked for in the resolution adopted in the business meeting of this day". The purpose here in view is thus defined in a part of the preamble :
"We, members of the Rhode Island Homeopathic Society, believ- ing that a uniform system for registration in medicine in the various States and Territories, and in the District of Columbia, of this Union, is imperatively demanded as a basis of reciprocity in medical registra- tion between these States, Territories and the District of Columbia, and the recognition of the necessity of such reciprocity having already in a way been established between the medical boards of the two great States of New York and New Jersey, etc."
The object being to empower State boards of medical examiners to grant registration on payment of a nominal fee, to qualified physicians in one State to practice in other States.
Charles V. Chapin
Religious Societies, Their History and Present Condition.
CHAPTER. II.
RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES, THEIR HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION.
INTRODUCTORY.
Upon the front of the Rhode Island Capitol, in Providence, finished in 1900, is inscribed, in enduring marble, the purpose of Roger Wil- liams in founding the Commonwealth :
"To hold forth a lively experiment that a most flourishing civil State may stand and best be maintained, with full liberty in religious eoneernments."
This sentence is the Aegis under whose protection the eitizens of the State have dwelt securely, in a spiritual sense, for almost three hun- dred years. None of her records are stained with laws for the regula- tion of the worship of God or for the favoring or the oppression of the adherents of any particular form of religion. It is the glory and the boast of Rhode Island that no one, within her boundaries, has ever been disturbed by her legal representatives on account of spiritual convietions. The "lively experiment" has been tried and has fulfilled the mnost sanguine expcetations.
The Royal Charter of Charles II, promulgated in 1663, was but an echo of the utterance of the Standard bearer of Soul Liberty, where it declares :
"No person within said Colony, at any time hereafter, shall be any- wise molested, punished, disquieted or ealled in question for any differ- ence of opinion in matters of religion, who does not aetively disturb the Civil peace of our said Colony."
Rhode Island is thus the Geographical Expression of a principle, as old as humanity, but not previously so emphatically stated-the in- stinet of revolt against spiritual dietation.
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England protested against Rome, Massachusetts protested against England, and Rhode Island protested against Massachusetts, but from Rhode Island no protesting eolony ever went forth. In her, through the complete establishment of soul-liberty, the spirit of eeelesiastieal revolt attained its equilibrium.
It is not to be supposed that there was no religion in the territory around Narragansett Bay until Roger Williams brought it hither. The Red men, after their fashion, were among the most religious raees of which there is any reeord. Roger Williams himself testifies eon- eerning the Indians: "They have plenty of gods. I brought home lately from the Narragansetts the names of thirty-eight of their gods." They worshiped no images. Their religion dealt only with spiritual powers. They had, too, their superior gods, one of good and one of evil. Mr. Williams tells of their "strange relations of one Watucks, a man that wrought great miraeles among them and walked upon the waters, with some kind of broken resemblance to the Sonne of God". He remarks, too, "he that questions whether God made the world, the Indian will teach him". When Williams preached to them, in his ardent and loving way, even if they were not eonvineed, they listened to all he told them with respectful attention. He could never forget that it was among these savages, taught only by the Great Spirit, that he found that favor which Christians had denied him, when they drove him forth in the depth of winter to wander in the wilderness, not knowing "what bread or bed did mean".
Nor is it reasonable to eonelude that God had left himself without witness in some form among those children of Nature, who, by no fault of their own, had been destitute for ages of the light of Revelation. Their inany noble and generous traits, amidst mueh natural debase- ment, forbid the thought. How responsive was the Indian heart to the prineiples of Christianity, when they had been effectively pre- sented to it, is evideneed by the saehem Thomas Ninigret's utterance of the prayer, in a petition to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for the establishment of a school among his people, a century later, "that when time shall be with us no more, that when we and the children over whom you have been such benefactors shall leave the sun and stars, we shall rejoiee in a far superior light."
But, of course, our principal eoneern in this historieal sketeh is with the Christian Religion, as professed by the colonists and later inhabit- ants of Rhode Island, rather than with the aborigines and their ob- seure pagan faith.
Noble as was the corner-stone of Religious Liberty, which Roger
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Williams laid for the foundation of his new state, there can be no doubt that evil as well as good followed the pressing of the principle to its extreme results. No wonder Rhode Island became, forthwith, as it was styled, "a harborage for all sorts of consciences". People took advantage of soul-liberty to have no religion at all or to embrace all sorts of vagaries. While a considerable number of earnest Chris- tian men and women joined Mr. Williams in the formation of the first church, it is evident that a very much larger number of residents at Providence held themselves entirely aloof. It must thus be explained why the general religious condition of the State was, in early times, somewhat low and why traces of that chartered irreligion, which per- fect liberty of conscience to a degree encouraged, in certain sections still subsist.
Cotton Mather was not very charitable, but he did not, probably, wander as far as he might have done from the truth, when, after about a hundred years from the settlement of the Colony, he declared that "if a man had lost his religion he might find it in this general muster of opinionists" in Rhode Island.
One of the most singular of the religious systems, brought hither in response to the invitation to "persons distressed for conscience", was what was called Gortonianism, as taught by a generally worthy early settler of Warwick, Samuel Gorton, who arrived about 1641. Gorton was a zealous advocate of liberty of conscience and sought here an asylum where he might enjoy it. He was a man of education and ability, but of a radical and crusty turn of mind. It is hard to tell what his religious tenets really were. He rejoiced in turning the Scriptures into allegory and discovering para- doxical double meanings in them, like Origen. In the mysticalness of his theology and his rejection of Ordinances, he somewhat resembled the early Quakers. The notion of visibly instituted churches he vig- orously condemned. Yet, strange as were his opinions, he found fol- lowers and continued the leader of a religious meeting, at Warwick, for above sixty years.
Of a very different class from Gortonianism, but still illustrating the readiness of the early Rhode Islanders for something new in relig- ion, was what was called the "New Light Stir" in the middle of the eighteenth century. It was not confined to this State, having its apparent origin in Whitefield's preaching throughout New England about 1741, and Jonathan Edwards's "Great Awakening", at North- ampton in Massachusetts, about 1735. But it was in Rhode Island that the movement had, perhaps, its most peculiar development. The
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state of religion had been very low and, doubtless, there was great need of a revival of interest and true spirituality, such as this exeitement, to a certain degree, inspired. But it was also the means of introdueing lamentable dissensions and divisions into the established religious bodies of some parts of the State, especially North and South Kings- town, Warwiek and East Greenwich, in some eases the ehurehes never recovering, but becoming extinet. An extensive gathering of the "New Light" ehurehes of New England was held in the town of Exeter in 1753 and another in 1754. In many eases the term "New Light" was applied loosely to old, regular organizations whieh dwelt, more than some others, upon the need of eonversion and experimental piety.
A fanatieal religious system, of wholly domestie origin, was that started by Jemima Wilkinson about 1773. She was a native of Cum- berland in the northern part of the State, reared a Quaker, and, at the age of twenty, after a severe illness, professed to have been raised from the dead and to be able to work miracles. Many converts floeked to her standard, the most distinguished among then being Judge William Potter of South Kingstown, who made large additions to his already extensive mansion to aeeommodate the new prophetess, the house tak- ing in eonsequenee the name of the "Old Abbey". After a time, the followers of this misguided woman purchased a traet of land, many square miles in extent, in the State of New York, and together with her removed thither, ealling it Jerusalem, the seet coming to an end with her death.
It is mueh pleasanter than dwelling on sueh extravaganees to note among the general religious events of Rhode Island, that the Sunday School Movement in New England had its beginning in this State, at Pawtucket, in 1796 or 1797, and after a few years extended to Provi- denee and other towns, as will be noted more fully below.
The history of the different established denominations will now be treated in the order of their establishment.
Two of them, the Baptists and the Friends, date from almost the beginning of the settlement. Two others, the Congregationalists and the Episcopalians or adherents of the Church of England, belong, in respeet to their Rhode Island origin, to the elose of the seventeenth eentury. The Methodists, the fifth in order, were introduced near the end of the eighteenth eentury. The Roman Catholics followed them quite elosely in the early part of the nineteenth eentury. Then eame the Christians, the Universalists, and a number of other bodies, con- sisting in the aggregate of about twenty.
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THE BAPTIST CHURCH OF RHODE ISLAND.
The Formative Period-1638-1685 .- Never, probably, had a church a more picturesque beginning than had the Baptist Church of Rhode Island. For it may be said to have been embodied in the august per- sonality of Roger Williams, when, in company with Thomas Olney and two or three others, on a June day in 1636, he came sailing in a canoe across the Pawtucket River from Seekonk towards the eastern border of what is now the capital of the State. The greeting of the friendly Indians, as the little party prepared to land on a flat rock upon the shore, -" What cheer, netop ?"-sounds like an unconscious prophecy. It was, indeed, a day of loftiest cheer to those savage children of the forest, when the long-delayed Gospel of Jesus Christ was thus being brought to their doors. The singular devoutness of Mr. Williams's spirit was shown at the outset by his giving to the locality selected for his settlement, called by the natives Mooshausick, the name it still bears "in testimony," as he declared, "of God's merciful Providence" to him. But it must not be supposed that Roger Williams was a Baptist, by profession, at this period. In his native country, England, he had been at first a clergyman of the Established Church and then a Separ- atist Puritan. Later, in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, he had found himself unable to enter into fellowship with John Cotton and the other Puritan clergymen, not because they were not Baptists, al- though they were by no means such, but because they had not, like himself, cut themselves entirely loose from the communion of the Church of England. After he had gone to Salem, likewise, it had been charged against him, not that he was a Baptist, but that "in one year's time he filled that place with principles of rigid separation tending to Anabaptism." It is maintained by some writers that, before leav- ing England, Williams had become acquainted with Baptists and been made familiar with their distinctive tenets. Others doubt whether he had already imbibed the peculiar convictions of the English Baptists or whether he even knew of their holding such doctrines, but regard the Baptist Church in Rhode Island as, in a manner, autocthonous. Through earnest study of the Scriptures and by means of the spon- taneous reduction of their truths in the crucible of his own burning spirit, the Prophet of soul-liberty is believed by the latter to have gradually evolved principles analogous to those of the Baptists of the Old World. When, then, about two years after his settlement at Providence, certain refugees, derisively styled by the Puritans Ana- baptists, emigrated from Massachusetts Bay to the "shelter for per-
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sons distressed for conscience", as Williams very eharaeteristieally called his little eolony, he was entirely prepared to experienee a lean- ing towards them. Under date of March 16, 1639, Governor Winthrop remarks in his Journal : "At Providence things grew still worse, for a sister of Mrs. Hutehinson, the wife of one Scott, being infeeted with Anabaptistry and going last year to live at Providenee, Mr. Williams was taken or rather emboldened by her to make open profession thereof and accordingly was rebaptized by one Holyman, a poor man late of Salem. Then Mr. Williams rebaptized him and some ten more."
Williams had plainly come to question in his restless mind the valid- ity of his original baptism, received, in aeeordanee with the practice of the Church of England, during uneonscious infancy, and to hold that only a believer, arrived at years of discretion, is a fit recipient of the rite, thus grasping the eentral distinctive principle of Baptists.
It would be a palpable error to suppose that Christians of the mould of Roger Williams and the other devout men and women, who gladly accompanied him to Providence or soon joined him there, passed the earlier years of the settlement without meeting for common worship. Doubtless they assembled frequently and regularly, in each other's houses, for prayer and the hearing of the Word. But it is not until the record of Winthrop, cited above, made nearly three years after the founding of the Colony, that any trace remains of an ecclesiastical organization, although it is reasonable to conclude that the event re- ferred to occurred quite a length of time previously, probably during
1638. The infant church, which at first consisted of Mr. Williams, Mr. Holyman and "some ten others", was soon joined by twelve more. The original recipients of baptism from Roger Williams, beside Eze- kiel Holyman or Holliman, are said to have been William Arnold, Wil- liam Harris, Stuckley Westcott, John Green, Riehard Waterman, Thomas James, Robert Cole, William Carpenter, Franeis Weston and Thomas Olney. From the association of these Christian people arose . the First Baptist Church, still existing in Providence.
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