Trinity Church, Boston

“ He poured forth his thoughts in words that made men’s ears tingle, till the protestations of his adversaries fell from their lips with something of a hollow sound. Half preacher, half assassin, as he was thought to be, repudiating as offensive the doctrines of the Cross, and hating with every drop of his blood the general traditions and faith of the Church, he worked and awaited the day of his triumph. It came.
Boston is slow to recognize new prophets; yet religious belief of every kind is treated with gentleness and indulgence. ”

“ However universally certain religious beliefs are ignored, there is no disposition to put culture or philanthropy above the gospel, the school above the church, or to make the schoolmaster, the literary autocrat, or the princes of wealth take precedence of the preacher. The spirit of conventionalism reigns more or less in Boston’s religious life; yet religion makes an irresistible appeal to the understanding, the conscience, and the heart. Everything is compelled to bow to its influence and to feel its inspiration. ”

“ It may seem unjust to ourselves to compare a whole community like our own with such a company as filled Boston in the first half century of its existence,—men selected for their spiritual hardihood; but here and now, in the midst of Boston, are men quite as eminent for piety who as far transcend this age, as the Puritans and the pilgrims surpassed their time. The Puritan put his religion into the ecclesiastical form; not into the form of the Roman or the English Church, but into a new one of his own. ”

“ The completion of the first Christian Science church erected in Boston strikes a keynote of definite attention. This church is in the fashionable Back Bay, between Commonwealth and Huntington Avenues. It is one of the most beautiful, and is certainly the most unique structure in any city. The First Church of Christ, Scientist, as it is officially called, is termed by its Founder, "Our prayer in stone." ”

“ From the description we judge that it is one of the most beautiful buildings in Boston, and, indeed, in all New England. Whatever may be thought of the peculiar tenets of the Christian Scientists, and whatever difference of opinion there may be concerning the organization of such a church, there can be no question but that the adherents of this church have proved their faith by their works. ”

“ In the Old South, however, there were a few people, eight in number, who formed a "Society for Religious Improvement." They could not at first pray together; they only read the Scriptures and conversed on religious subjects. But they grew in wisdom, fervour, and zeal, and were eventually the means, not only of reviving religion in the Old South, but also of giving an impulse in Boston which is felt to this day. Church after church on orthodox principles has been instituted, till there are in Boston more than a dozen large and vigorous churches of the Congregational order ”

“ On the south side of the chancel, opening out of the Martin chapel, is a vestry, which communicates with another building at right angles to it, behind the east wall of the chancel. From this building there is a doorway into the lady chapel, which thus stands detached from the body of the church. The chapel is a nearly square building, with three external gables: internally, there is a central square space, entirely surrounded by an aisle or ambulatory. At Boston there is a chantry chapel, forming a short extra aisle, west of the south porch ”

“ All through the colonial period the civil affairs of the community were intimately connected with the interests of the church; and ecclesiastical history, when church and State were united, and the minister was the greatest man of the parish, becomes of importance.
As early as 1640, in the church of Boston, "a motion was made by such as have farms at Rumney Marsh, that our Brother Oliver may be sent to instruct our servants, and to be a help to them, because they cannot many times come hither, nor sometimes to Lynn, and sometimes no where at all." ”

“ The Boston church similarly expresses the faith of those who believe in what they term the divine art of healing, which, to their minds, exists as much to-day as it did when Christ healed the sick.
The first church organization of this faith was founded fifteen years ago with a membership of only twenty-six, and since then the number of believers has grown with remarkable rapidity, until now there are societies in every part of the country. ”

“ It should be a church of good works; if it is a church of good faith it will be so. Does not Christianity say the strong should help the weak? Does not that mean something? It once did. Has the Christian fire faded out from those words, once so marvellously bright? Look round you, in the streets of your own Boston! See the ignorant, men and women with scarce more than the stature of men and women; boys and girls growing up in ignorance and the low civilization which comes thereof, the barbarians of Boston. Their character will one day be a blot and a curse to the nation, and who is to blame? ”

“ To which it may be answered, in the first place, that we have good authority for saying that even babes and sucklings know something; and, in the second, that, if there is a mote or so to be removed from our premises, the courts and councils of the last few years have found beams enough in some other quarters to build a church that would hold all the good people in Boston and have sticks enough left to make a bonfire for all the heretics. ”

“ No "material" emblems, such as bread and wine, are offered, and the communion is one of silent thought. On Monday the directors meet and transact the business of the year, and on Tuesday the officers' reports are read. As most members of the branch churches are also members of the Mother Church, thousands of Christian Scientists from all over the United States visit Boston at this time. ”

“ Assembled in the largest church business meeting ever held in Boston — perhaps the largest ever held in the United States — the members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, The Mother Church of the denomination, voted yesterday afternoon to raise any part of two million dollars that might be needed to build in this city a church edifice capable of seating between four and five thousand persons. ”

“ The dedication, Sunday, in Boston, of the new Mother Church of the Christian Science faith was a ceremonial of far more than usual ecclesiastic significance. The edifice itself is so rich in the architectural symbolisms of aspiration and faith, its proportions are so large, and its accommodations are so wide, that its dedication abounds in remarkable external manifestations which must arrest public attention. ”

“ You know there are at least four hundred members of what rightly calls itself the Church of England—for certainly it is not the church of Christ—in Boston alone! When the royal Governor made the town authorities give up the South Church—even our own Church, built with our own money—to their so-called Rector to hold their idolatrous services in, we might have known that Satan was at our doors!"
"Oh, that such horrible things should happen in the godly town of Boston!" responded Squire Hathorne. ”

“ The dedication of the magnificent Christian Science church in Boston has brought that cheerful and prosperous body of believers before the press gallery of commentators. They have built a huge church, which has cost them about two million dollars, and it has a dome which rivals that of the famous old Massachusetts State House. During the great assembly of forty thousand Christian Scientists in Boston they were described in the newspapers of the Hub as a contented and well-dressed body of people. ”

“ The prodigious convention of Christian Scientists in Boston is a portent worthy of perhaps even more interest than it has evoked in that city, where a new temple to Isis and Osiris would be hardly more than a day's wonder. With the swift growth of the new faith the public has in a general way been familiar; it is but a few years ago that the astonishing revelation was made that since 1890 its following had increased from an insignificant number to hundreds of thousands, a rate at which every other sect in the country would soon be left behind. ”

“ Mrs. Eddy was aiming at (1) the entire personal ownership of the site of the Boston church, (2) perpetual personal control of the church which should be reared upon it, (3) making the Boston church not merely a local church and the home of the Boston congregation, but a church universal, the "Mother Church" of Christian Science the world over, with Mrs. Eddy installed as its visible head. ”

“ He thought of those ten busy years in Boston when he had worked among all classes of humanity, with churches on all sides, yet few reaching down into the lives of the people in any vital way. He knew of the silent, agonizing cry for help, for comfort, for light, that went up without ceasing day and night from humanity in sorrow, in suffering, in affliction, went up as it were to skies of brass, yet he knew a loving Savior stood ready to pour forth his healing love, a Divine Spirit waited only the means, to lay a healing touch on sore hearts. ”

“ They were regarded with distrust, if not with hatred, when they first came among us to take charge of that humble flock; but their devotedness, joined with great acquirements and rare personal worth, overcame even the force of the great Protestant tradition of enmity towards their office. Protestant admiration kept pace with Catholic love and veneration in their regard, and when they built the church which is now so near the term of its existence, there were few wealthy Protestants in Boston who did not esteem it a privilege to aid them with liberal contributions. ”

“ The Christian Scientists are here in force, and they are very interesting and agreeable visitors, even to those who are unable to accompany them in their triumph of mind over matter. Boston is indebted to them for one of the finest architectural achievements in this or any other city, and other denominations might profit by their example of paying for their church before dedicating it. ”

“ About a quarter of a century ago, Boston, the city of modified Puritans and keen business thrift, evolved a new religion. Modern Boston, however, being nothing if not "scientific," the new religion tipped its wings with the new time, and soared aloft in the name of "Christian Science."
In a world not quite converted to this "science," facts sometimes fall behind assertions. But the sect of Christian Science now claims to number in its fold a million sheep. ”

“ The Pilgrims are often called Puritans, a term of reproach first applied to the whole body of Dissenters, but in their day belonging strictly to those who renounced the forms and ceremonies while believing in the doctrines and sacraments of the Church of England. Boston was settled by Puritans, who, according to Governor Winthrop, adhered to the mother-church when they left Old England. It is curious to observe that the Boston Puritans became rigid Separatists, while the Plymouth Separatists became more and more moderate. ”

“ The churches to-day do not get the best and sharpest young men. They get the goody-goody ones easily enough; but those who do the thinking are not brought into the church in great numbers. You cannot reach them by the Bible. How many did Moody touch in this city during his revival days? You can count them on your fingers. The man who wants them cannot get them with the Bible under his arm. He must be like them, sharp. They cannot be gathered by sentimentality. If you say to them, 'Come to Jesus,' very likely they will reply, ''Go to thunder.' [In Boston!] ”

“ The first impression was of vastness, then of light and cheerfulness, and when the vanguard of the thousands had been seated, expressions of surprise and of admiration were heard on every hand for the beauty and the grace of the architecture. The new home for worship that was opened by the Scientists in Boston yesterday can take a place in the front rank of the world's houses of worship, and it is no wonder that the first sight which the visitors caught of its interior should have impressed them as one of the events of their lives. ”

“ From all over the world Christian Scientists are rapidly gathering in this city to participate in the most notable feature in the life of their cult. From beyond the Rockies, from Canada, from Great Britain, and practically every civilized country, daily trainloads of pilgrims are pouring into Boston, and it is estimated that not less than twenty-five thousand visitors will participate in the dedication. ”

“ One seems to guard, and one to weep,
The dead that lie between.
The suburbs of Boston are not poor in churches of the eighteenth, or even of the seventeenth, century. The oldest church in New England—the oldest, indeed, in the Northern States—still standing in Salem, was built in 1634, and its low walls and tiny-paned windows have shaken under the eloquence of Roger Williams. It has not been used for religious purposes since 1672. In Newburyport is one of the American churches, once many but now few, in which George Whitefield preached, and beneath it the great preacher lies buried. ”

“ There are many places in New York where Sunday services are conducted more or less in conformity with the practices of the ritualists; and antiphonal chanting and other popish abominations have been introduced, even into sober old Trinity Church itself. The number of those who believe that divine service ought to be conducted with a more elaborate ceremonial than any Protestant sect has thus far admitted is rapidly increasing, and among them are many of the most distinguished and influential of the Episcopal clergy. ”