Fifty Notable Years / Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical Sketches

by John G. Adams

REV. JOSIAH GILMAN was another of the sturdy mechanics who came from the forge, and after his best endeavors to gain a tolerable preparation for the ministry, entered it, if not with much mental culture, yet with a heart full of love of the new faith into which he had grown out of that theology which one of the Beecher sisters has said evinces "an awful mistake somewhere." He was always alive with his theme. His work in the pulpit was as strong and as faithfully done as any which he had wrought out upon the anvil. He was a useful missionary. No one could have been more conscientious than he respecting the religious qualifications of a Christian minister. His own character was the best illustration he could give of his ideal. That was above reproach.

Mr. Gilman had a stentorian voice when excited in speaking, but was often slow in speech, and to some hearers might seem at times wanting in animation. It is related that while preaching in a country place in New Hampshire one hot summer afternoon, a part of his audience being hard-working haymakers, his discourse became somewhat quiet in its manner, so that an evident drowsiness had taken hold of some of the listeners. The speaker, perceiving it, suddenly paused for some seconds, and then bringing his clenched hand down quite loudly upon the desk before him, exclaimed good naturedly, "Come brethren, wake up! and let us take another view of this subject." The call was effective, and both speaker and hearers were in sympathetic wakefulness to the end. The good man departed this life in Lynn, Mass., in 1858, aged 67.

Another comer from the anvil, a strong, cheery, blunt, warm-hearted man, deeply in love with the truth of the Gospel, and running over with zeal in his advocacy of it, was Rev. Emmons Partridge. He was superintendent of the Sunday school in the First Universalist church in Providence, R. I., while Rev. David Pickering was its pastor. He entered the ministry with but little scholarly preparation for it; but somehow, by divine grace, he did quite an acceptable work as a missionary and as pastor of a number of societies. God chooses his own instruments in his work, and this minister was one. Without the graces of oratory, he was a plain and often instructive preacher, because he was usually highly charged with his subject and eager to declare it to his hearers. If his illustrations were sometimes homely, they were usually to the point, and if they excited a smile carried a conviction. He was ready in expedients, if these were necessary, to win the good will of his neighbors who might be strongly prejudiced against his theology. "I had hard work," said he, "to get the kind attention of one man. I tried many ways: but at last, as we were both very much interested in raising rare kinds of poultry, I opened his heart towards me by occasional exchanges of choice eggs with him!" He could meet pulpit embarrassments coolly and more successfully than others might have done. Lecturing one evening in his pulpit at Watertown, Mass., he came to a place in his manuscript where the matter was confusedly mixed. The leaves had been wrongly stitched together, and he vainly tried to put them in order. Despairing of this, he quietly and quaintly remarked, "Well, this is strange. I thought I put these leaves in as they ought to be, but they are so mixed that I can't make anything out of them. I think I will say the rest without the notes!" and he did, to the satisfaction as well as amusement of the audience. He died somewhat advanced in years, highly esteemed by all who knew him.

Rev. William I. Reese began to preach in Central New York, in Onondaga County, and was ordained at the session of the Cayuga Universalist Association in 1824. For a few years he was the minister of the Universalist societies in East and North Bloomfield, and then of the church in Portland, Me. He went to Buffalo on call of the church there in the early spring of 1834, and there in the succeeding summer his earthly ministry suddenly came to a close. It was the second year of that terrible visitation, the Asiatic cholera, and the city to which he had only just removed was awfully ravaged by the sweep of the dark-winged pestilence. Unfalteringly at his post of duty in all those dark days, devoting himself to loving ministries among sick and suffering and dying people, showing himself everywhere an angel of mercy and consolation, he fell a victim at last to the desolating scourge, and in the prime of his grand manhood, the good fight fought, the faith kept, the course finished, he passed on to receive his crown, and to be enrolled among the brightest and most faithful of ministering spirits.

Rev. Albert A. Folsom, an active and devoted minister, was born in Exeter, and passed his early life in Portsmouth, N. H. He had settlements in Maine and Massachusetts, and departed this life, aged 39, at Springfield, Mass., in 1849, after a ministry there of five years. He was very acceptable to his congregations, in all his pastorates. He had a rich voice, subject to a wise control, was a ready speaker, and could acquit himself in a most happy manner. He often had texts handed him when entering the church, which he discussed to the evident satisfaction of his hearers. He was social and companionable, and his views of life and Providence were very hopeful. In his home he was a light and blessing. No minister ever had warmer friends than he.

William Cutter Hanscom, a sincere and zealous young man, a clerk in a prominent dry goods store in Portsmouth, N. H., left his secular pursuits to prepare himself for the ministry in the study of the Rev. T. F. King of that town. He was soon known as an acceptable preacher, and, receiving ordination, was called to two pastorates, the first at Newmarket (Lamprey River village) N. H., the second at Waltham, Mass. He had much mental ability, was a vigorous and rapid writer, and an energetic and enthusiastic speaker. He was greatly beloved by a large number of friends, and his pastorates were a joy to him and of much profit to the churches. He was an evangelist in the true sense of the word. His career was short, as he was cut off by consumption, at Cambridgeport, and was buried at Waltham, in 1838. But his pathway was an illuminated one, and its light lingers in many memories. He departed at the early age of twenty-three.

Rev. Merritt Sanford, born in Readsboro, Vt., and religiously educated in the Methodist church, became by attentive reading and much anxious thinking a believer in that divine goodness which will bring all souls at last in conformity to its will. With but ordinary means of education in country schools, he grew, by close mental application to study, to be a scholar of very considerable acquirements, and entered the ministry at the age of twenty-three. He was minister in New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. He was a quiet but forcible preacher, because of the soundness, strength, and aptness of his discourses. He was continually growing mentally and spiritually, was deeply conscientious and devout, and left a fragrant memory wherever he sought to do his work. He closed his earthly life after a short illness, in Warren, Mass., in May 1849, aged 37.

Rev. Alexander R. Abbott, who was somewhat advanced in life when he gave himself to the ministry, was a native of East Livermore, Me. His early life was that of a hard toiler, his advantages for obtaining an education were limited, but his thirst for knowledge overcame his early deficiencies. With little if any aid from others, he became proficient in French and Latin and the mathematics, and for many years was successfully employed in teaching. His first sermon was preached while residing in Lowell, Mass., in 1844, and his ordination took place in the following year. His first settlement was in Bath, N. H. For a time he was employed as a missionary, to preach in destitute places within the limits of the Boston Association. Afterwards he was settled successively in Newburyport, Mass., Pawtucket, R. I., Gardiner, Me., South Dedham, Mass., Hudson, N. Y., and Rockland, Me. He was an indefatigable student, and a clear, strong preacher. No useless verbiage encumbered his discourses. He grappled with the hardest questions in theology, and brought light out of them. His last sermon before the Maine Convention is remembered as a clear and masterly treatment of one of the problems which has greatly occupied the religious thought of the day. He stirred the consciences of his hearers. He was outspoken as an anti-slavery man, when to be so was to incur the hostility of men of both political parties, and endanger his success in the places of his settlement. The temperance cause always found in him a firm, consistent, and able advocate. And while he was thus efficient in performing the more rugged duties of his calling, he was equally well-fitted, by the tenderness of his heart, for the more sympathetic offices of the ministry. The death of Mr. Abbott, at Rockland, Me., in 1869, was occasioned by disease of the heart, aggravated by the fracture of a limb. He was conscious and composed to the last.

Rev. Henry C. Leonard came into the ministry at Haverhill, Mass., where he had studied under the direction of Rev. Henry Bacon. He was born in Northwood, N. H., April 25, 1818, and died at Pigeon Cove, Mass., March 7, 1880. His earliest labors were on Cape Ann, at Gloucester and in other neighboring places. He was afterwards settled four years in East Thomastown (now Rockland), Me. He then removed to Orono in 1847, where he remained about eight years, and then went to Waterville, in 1854. At the breaking out of the war, in 1861, he closed his labors in Waterville, and accepted the position of chaplain in the Third Maine Infantry. He was afterwards transferred to the Maine Eighteenth Infantry, and then to the First Maine Regiment of Heavy Artillery, where he remained, greatly beloved by officers and soldiers, till his term of service expired in 1864. He was publicly pronounced by Gen. Howard the most faithful chaplain he ever saw.

In 1865 he took charge of the Universalist Society in Albany, N. Y., where he remained three years. He moved to Philadelphia in 1869, and was pastor of the Lombard St. Church two years. He then returned to his home at Pigeon Cove, Mass., intending to remain there permanently. But he was called to be pastor at Deering, Me., and was Professor of Belles-lettres at Westbrook Seminary at the same time. His last pastorate, at Annisquam, Mass., began in December, 1875. He preached for the last time Sept. 28, 1879. He was for a time editor of the "Gospel Banner" and of the "Universalist." He published a volume of sermons entitled "A Sheaf from a Pastor's Field;" also a little work called "Pigeon Cove and Vicinity."