Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical SketchesAdams, John G. (John Greenleaf)
Religion
Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical Sketches
Adams, John G. (John Greenleaf)
Universalism; Universalist Church -- Biography; Universalists -- Biography; Universalists -- United States -- History
successor. The discussion was at an end.
As a Christian reformer Dr. Miner has gained a deserved prominence. He
has been outspoken on the subject of Capital Punishment, advocating
its abolishment, and in the Anti-slavery war proved himself one of the
veterans. It is in the Temperance reform, however, that he has taken a
strong and marked interest. As an advocate of Prohibition he is one of
the leaders in the land. The pamphlet on Prohibition, published in
1867, containing his arguments on the subject before the Massachusetts
Legislative Committee in the Representatives' Hall, is one of the most
readable documents of the times.[52] His ready answers to the
questions proposed to him, and his telling questions pressed upon the
advocates of liquor license laws, on that occasion, evinced a mastery
of the situation not often realized. In temperance conventions and
conferences he has often some searching criticisms on the city
officials in their evasions of the laws respecting the liquor traffic;
and on every available occasion when called to speak on the moral
needs of the State and the moral responsibility of the people, he is
quite sure to give a few ringing notes emphasizing the temperance
reform. Dr. Miner has been for ten years past President of the
Massachusetts Temperance Alliance.
As an educator Dr. Miner has done good work. He began it early, and
has never lost interest in it. As president of the college, a member
of the State Board of Education, and Chairman of the Board of Visitors
of the Normal Art School, he has been true to it constantly.
His business talent is well known. He is a safe and far-seeing
financier, to whom the interests of the busy movers "on 'change" are
somewhat familiar. In all financial plans and operations demanding his
action he is especially and effectively at home. He is President of
the Universalist Publishing House, and is still one of the trustees of
Tufts College. The degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by Harvard
College, and that of LL. D. by Tufts soon after his resignation of the
presidency of that institution. He was one of the "Hundred Boston
Orators;" having been called to deliver the oration before the
authorities and citizens of Boston, July 4, 1855.
The positiveness and persistence of Dr. Miner have sometimes had the
effect to alienate rather than conciliate those who might conscientiously
differ from him in their convictions of right and duty. It is to be
lamented, however, that where we find one possessing his degree of
positiveness in what he believes to be right, we are more or less
"troubled on every side" by those who are only half-men because of the
low policies and expediencies by which they are governed. His
confidence in the right seems instinctive; as he says, "A mountain can
be tunnelled; a principle never." A Boston secular journal just now
speaks of him:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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