Domestic Missions
The work of domestic missions from the first largely claimed the attention of the Association, and it was one the chief objects in its formation. During the summer of 1826 the members of the Harvard Divinity School were sent throughout New England to gather information, and to preach where opportunity offered. The special object was to make ministers and congregations acquainted with the purposes of the Association. It was found that there was much opposition to it, and that in many parishes there existed no desire to have its mission extended.
Persons of all shades of belief were connected with many of the liberal parishes, some of the churches not having as yet ceased their relations with the towns in which they were located; and the ministers were not willing to have theological questions brought to the attention of their congregations. “The great objection everywhere seems to be,” reported one of the young men, who had travelled through many of the towns of central Massachusetts, “that the clergymen do not like to awaken party spirit. People will go on quietly performing all external duties of religion without asking themselves if they are listening to the doctrine of the Trinity or not; but the moment you wish to act, they call up all their old prejudices, and take a very firm stand. This necessarily creates division and dissension, and renders the situation of the minister very uncomfortable.”15 The ministers did not preach on theological subjects; and, while they were liberal themselves, they had not instructed their parishioners in such a manner that they followed in the same path of thinking which their leaders had travelled.
It was evident, therefore, that there was work enough in New England for the Association to accomplish, and such as would fully tax its resources.16 It had turned its eyes toward the West and South, however; and it was not willing to leave these fields unoccupied. In 1836 the general secretary, Charles Briggs, spent eight months in these regions; and he found everywhere large opportunities for the spread of Unitarianism. Promising openings were found at Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Marietta, Tremont, Jacksonville, Memphis, and Nashville, in which villages or cities churches were soon after formed. It was reported at this time that there was hardly a town in the West where there were not Unitarians, or in which it was not possible by the right kind of effort to establish a Unitarian church.
As a result of the interest awakened by the tour of the general secretary, fourteen missionaries were put into the field in 1837. In 1838 twenty-three missionaries visited eleven states, including New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky Alabama, and Georgia.17 They were men of experience in parish labors, but they did not go out to the new country to remain there permanently. They attracted large congregations, however, formed several societies which promised to be permanent, administered the ordinances, established Sunday-schools, and did much to strengthen the churches. In 1839 seven preachers were sent into the west, and at the next anniversary there was an urgent call made by the Association for funds with which to establish a permanent missionary agent in the field. Something more was needed than a few Massachusetts ministers preaching from town to town with no purpose of locating with any of the churches they helped to organize. Ministers for the new churches were urgently demanded, but few men from New England were willing to remove to the west; and, though recruits came from the orthodox churches, this source of supply was not sufficient.
The repeated calls made for larger resources with which to carry on the work of domestic missions resulted in meetings held in Boston during the year 1841, at which pledges were made to a fund of $10,000 yearly for five years, to be used for missionary purposes. This sum was secured in 1843 and the next four years, so that larger aid was given to missionary activities and to the building of churches. At the annual meeting of 1849 special attention was given to the subject of domestic missions, and plans were devised for largely extending all the activities in this direction. Much interest was taken in the western work during the following years, and slowly new churches came into existence. In 1849 Rev. Edward P. Bond was sent to San Francisco, where a number of New England people had held lay services and formed a church, and in a few years a strong society had grown up in that city. Mr. Bond also went to the Sandwich Islands; but he was not able to open a mission there, owing to ill-health. In the South the work languished, largely owing to the growth of anti-slavery sentiment in the North, with which Unitarians were generally in sympathy.
From 1830 to 1850 the Unitarians were confronted by the greatest opportunity which has ever opened to them for missionary activities. The vast region of the middle west was in a formative state, the people were everywhere receptive to liberal influences, other churches had not been firmly established, and there was urgent demand for leadership of a progressive and rational kind. Here has come to be the controlling centre of American life,—in politics, education, and social power. A few of the leaders saw the opportunity, but the churches were not ready to respond to their appeals.
The work accomplished by the Association during the first twenty-five or thirty years of its existence, the period reviewed in this chapter, was small, compared with the opportunity and with the wishes of those who most had at heart the interests for the promotion of which it was established. Yet there was wanting in no year encouragement for its friends or something accomplished that cheered them to larger efforts. In 1850, at the twenty-fifth anniversary, historical addresses were delivered by Samuel Osgood, John G. Palfrey, Henry W. Bellows, Edward E. Hale, and Lant Carpenter; and a hopeful review of the labors of the Association was presented by the executive committee. First of all its efforts had been directed to securing religious liberty. Then came its philanthropic enterprises, and finally its missionary labors. During the quarter of a century one hundred churches that were weak and struggling, owing to their situation in towns of decreasing population or in cities not congenial to their teachings, had been aided. More than fifty vigorous churches had been planted in the west and south, nearly all of them helped in some way by the Association. There was a renewed call for strong men to enter the missionary field, and it was uttered more urgently at this time than ever before. Special pride was expressed in the high quality of the religious writings produced by Unitarians, and in the nobleness the men and women who had been connected with denominational activities.18
Notes
1 An eighteenth-century term for the Congregational churches, which were the legally established churches throughout New England, an supported by the towns.
2 Boston Unitarianism, 67.
3 Memoir of Dr. Channing, one-volume edition, 215.
4 Ibid., 432.
5 Ibid., 427.
6 Memoir of Ezra Stiles Gannett, by W.C. Gannett, 103.
7 The records give the following names: Drs. Freeman, Channing, Lowell, Tuckerman, Bancroft, Pierce, and Allyn; Rev. Messrs. Henry Ware, Francis Parkman, J.G. Palfrey, Jared Sparks, Samuel Ripley, A. Bigelow, A. Abbot, C. Francis, L. Capen, J. Pierpont, James Walker, Mr. Harding, and Mr. Edes; and the following laymen,—Richard Sullivan, Stephen Higginson, B. Gould, H.J. Oliver, S. Dorr, Colonel Joseph May, C.G. Loring, George Bond, Samuel A. Eliot, G.B. Emerson, C.P. Phelps, Lewis Tappan, David Reed, Mr. Storer, J. Rucker, N. Mitchell, Robert Rantoul, Alden Bradford, Mr. Dwight, Mr. Mackintosh, General Walker, Mr. Strong, Dr. John Ware, and Professor Andrews Norton.
8 John Brazer, The Christian Examiner, xx. 240; Alonzo Hill, American Unitarian Biography, i. 171.
9 The Liberal Christian, March 3, 1875.
10 Although Lewis Tappan took a zealous interest in the formation of the Unitarian Association, as he did in all Unitarian activities of the time, in the autumn of 1827 he withdrew from the Unitarian fellowship, and joined the orthodox Congregationalist. In a letter addressed to a Unitarian minister he explained his reasons for so doing. This letter circulated for some time in manuscript, and in 1828 was printed in a pamphlet with the title, Letter from a Gentleman in Boston to a Unitarian Clergyman of that City. Want of Piety among Unitarians, failure to sustain missionary enterprises, and the absence of a rigid business integrity he assigned as reasons for his withdrawal. This pamphlet excited much discussion, pro and con; and it was answered in a caustic review by J.P. Blanchard.
11 Moses George Thomas was a graduate of Brown and of the Harvard Divinity School, was settled in Dover, N.H., from 1829 to 1845, Broadway Church in South Boston from 1845 to 1848, New Bedford 1848 to 1854, and was subsequently minister at large in the same city.
12 In writing to Charles Briggs from Newport, under date of July 30 1836, Dr. Channing wrote, “In the pressure of subjects, when I saw you, I forgot to say to you, that I cannot accept the office with which the Unitarian Association honored me.” That is the whole of what he wrote on the subject. No one else was elected to the office for year. It is evident, therefore, that his name should occupy the place of president.
13 The depositaries in Massachusetts were at Salem, Concord, Hingham, Plymouth, Yarmouth, Cambridge, Worcester, Northampton, Springfield, and Greenfield; in New Hampshire, at Concord, Portsmouth, Keene, and Amherst; in Maine, at Hallowell, Brunswick, and Eastport; and, in Connecticut, at Brooklyn. In 1828 the number had increased to twenty-five in Massachusetts, six in Maine, seven in New Hampshire, one in Rhode Island, four in New York, two in Pennsylvania, and two in Maryland. At the first annual meeting of the Unitarian Association a system of auxiliaries was recommended, which was inaugurated the next year. It was proposed to organize an auxiliary to the Association in every parish, and also in each county. These societies came rapidly into existence, were of much help to the Association in raising money and in distributing its tracts, and energetic efforts were made on the part of the officers of the Association to extend their number and influence. They continued in existence for about twenty years, and gradually disappeared. They numbered about one hundred and fifty when most prosperous.
14 During the first twenty-five years of the Association, 272 tracts of the first series were issued, and also 29 miscellaneous tracts and 37 reports. The number of copies published was estimated as 1,764,000, making an average of 70,000 each year. Of these tracts, 103 were practical, and 93 doctrinal; and, of the doctrinal, one-half were on the Divine Unity, one-sixth on the Atonement, ten on Regeneration, five on the Ordinances, four on Human Nature, three on Retribution, and two on the Holy Spirit. In the Monthly Journal, May, 1860, Vol. I. pp. 230-240, were given the titles and authors.
15 From a letter of Samuel K. Lothrop, afterward minister of the Brattle Street Church.
16 The following letter is of interest, not only because of the name of the writer, but because it gives a very good idea of the work done by the first missionaries of the Association. It is dated at Northampton, Mass., October 9, 1827. “My dear Sir,—I designed when I left you to send some earlier notice of my doings than this; but as it has not been in my power to say much, I have said nothing. Mr. Hall is preparing an account of his own missions, but thinks it not worth while to send it to you till it is completed. The first Sabbath after my arrival I preached here. The second, for the convenience of the Greenfield people, an exchange was made, and I went to Deerfield, and Dr. Willard went to Colrain. There were some unfavorable circumstances which operated to diminish the audience, but they were glad to see and hear him. The fourth Sabbath (which followed the meeting of the Franklin Association) I preached at Greenfield, and Mr. Bailey went to Colrain. I enclose his journal. The fifth Sabbath at Deerfield, and Dr. Willard at Adams in Berkshire. I have not seen him since his return. I have told the Franklin Association I would remain here till November, and in consequence have been thus put to and fro, but expect to preach the three coming Sundays in Northampton. I have offered my services to preach lectures in the week, but circumstances have made it inexpedient in towns where it was proposed. The clergymen are very glad to see me, having feared that the mission was indefinitely postponed. They find the better sort of people in most of the towns inquisitive and favorably disposed to views of liberal Christianity. It is a singular fact, of which I hear frequent mention made, that in elections Unitarians are almost universally preferred when the suffrage is by ballot, and rejected when given by hand ballot. In Franklin county it is thought there is a majority of Unitarians. I have been much disappointed in being obliged to lead a vagrant life, as you know I came hither with different expectations, and hoped for leisure and retirement for study, which I needed much. But it would not do for a missionary to be stiff necked, and so I have been a shuttle. I have promised to go to New Bedford the first three Sundays of November. With great regard, your servant, R. Waldo Emerson.” From this letter it will be seen that Emerson supplied the pulpits at Northampton and Greenfield in order that the ministers in those towns might preach elsewhere.
17 Fourteenth Annual Report, 14. “They were the following: Rev. George Ripley, Boston; Rev. A.B. Muzzey, Cambridgeport; Rev. Samuel Barrett, Boston; Rev. Mr. Green, East Cambridge; Rev. Calvin Lincoln, Fitchburg; Rev. E.B. Willson, Westford; Dr. James Kendall, Plymouth; Rev. George W. Hosmer, Buffalo; Rev. Warren Burton, Dr. Thompson, Salem; Rev. J.P.B. Storer, Syracuse; Rev. Charles Babbidge, Pepperell; Rev. John M. Myrick, Walpole; Rev. J.D. Swett, Boston; Rev. A.D. Jones, Brighton; Rev. Henry Emmons, Meadville; Rev. J.F. Clarke, Louisville; Rev. F.D. Huntington, Rev. B.F. Barrett, Rev. G.F. Simmons, Rev. C. Nightingale, Mr. Wilson, of the Divinity School; and Mr. C.P. Cranch. Among the places where they preached are Houlton Me.; Syracuse, Lockport, Lewiston, Pekin, and Vernon, N.Y.; Philadelphia and Erie, Pa.; Marietta, Zanesville, Cleveland, and Toledo, Ohio; Detroit, Mich.; Owensburg, Ky.; Chicago, Peoria, Tremont, Jacksonville, Hillsboro, and several other places in Illinois.”
18 For a most interesting account of the growth of the denomination, see The Christian Examiner for May, 1854, lvi. 397, article by John Parkman.