Benevolent Fraternity of Churches
In the spring of 1834 the part of the ministry at large in Boston supported by Unitarians consisted of Dr. Tuckerman’s work in visiting and ministering to the poor in their own homes, two chapels, in which Barnard and Gray preached and conducted their Sunday-schools, and the office of the Visitors to the Poor. In order more effectually to organize the support of this work, the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches was then suggested. The Second, Brattle Street, New South, New North, King’s Chapel, Federal Street, Hollis Street, Twelfth, and Purchase Street Churches entered upon the work; and there was organized in each a society for the purpose of aiding the ministry at large. Each of these societies was privileged to send five delegates to a central body that should undertake the support and direction of that ministry. At a meeting held April 27, 1834, an organization of such delegates was effected. It was distinctly stated that “it was not the wish to add another to the eleemosynary institutions of the city to which the poor might resort either for the supply of the comforts or for the relief of necessities which belong to their bodily condition”; but the object of the Fraternity was described as being “the improvement of the moral state of the poor and irreligious of this city by the support of the ministry at large, and by other means.”9