When God upheaved the pillared earth,
was included in Hymns of the Ages. 3d Series, 1864.
J. 906 H.W.F.
Prince, Rev. Thomas, D.D., Sandwich, Massachusetts, May 15, 1687—October 22, 1758, Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard in 1707. After voyages to Barbadoes and a stay of several years in England he returned to Boston and in 1717 was ordained as colleague of Rev. Joseph Sewall, minister of the Old South Church. His career was marked by frequent controversies and by his Chronological History of New England, based on his great collection of rare documents dating from the early years of the Colony. This priceless collection was unfortunately dispersed and much of it lost after his death. During his ministry the Tate and Brady version of the Psalms was gradually replacing the Bay Psalm Book in New England, but his parishioners clung to the old book. He persuaded them to let him revise it, which he did, improving or modernizing the verse and printing after the Psalms “an addition of Fifty other Hymns on the most important subjects of Christianity.” It included one hymn by himself beginning
With Christ and all his shining Train
Of Saints and Angels, we shall rise (The Resurrection)
His collection was published in 1758 and was first used in the Old South Meeting House on the Sunday following his death. Its use there continued for another 30 years, but it was not adopted elsewhere, the Bay Psalm Book being by that time generally superseded by collections of Watts and Select.
H.W.F.
Putnam, Rev. Alfred Porter, D. D. Danvers, Massachusetts, January 10, 1827—April 15, 1906, Salem, Massachusetts. He was educated at Brown University, A.B. 1852, and graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1855. Entering the Unitarian ministry he served a church in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1855-1864, and the Church of the Saviour, Brooklyn, New York, 1864-1886, when he retired. Brown University gave him the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1871. He wrote no hymns but published in 1874 a book entitled Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith: being selections of hymns and other sacred poems of the Liberal Church in America, with biographical sketches of the writers. This book includes practically all the hymns by American Unitarian authors which had come into use prior to 1870, and the biographical sketches are generally accurate and adequate in brief space. This useful reference book is elsewhere referred to in this Dictionary as Putnam: Singers and Songs.
H.W.F.
Robbins, Rev. Chandler, D.D., Lynn, Massachusetts, February 14, 1810—September 12, 1882, Westport, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1829 and from the Harvard Divinity School in 1833. On December 4th of the same year he was ordained minister of the Second Church (Unitarian), Boston, in succession to Henry Ware, Jr. and R. W. Emerson. He received the honorary degree of D.D. from Harvard in 1855. He was the author of a number of books, essays and memorial discourses dealing with local events and persons. In 1843 he published The Social Hymn Book, intended for social gatherings rather than for church services, and in 1854 an enlarged edition entitled Hymn Book for Christian Worship, though this book does not give his name as editor. He contributed two hymns to A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the Sanctuary, 1845, compiled by George E. Ellis.