Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890Frothingham, Octavius Brooks
Religion
Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks, 1822-1895; Unitarians -- New England -- Biography
Divinity Hall had been dedicated in August, 1826. It was situated on an
avenue about a quarter of a mile from the college yard. It contained,
besides thirty-seven chambers for the accommodation of students, a
chapel, a library, a lecture-room, and a reading-room; it stood opposite
the Zoölogical Museum. Before it was a vacant space used for games.
Behind it was meadow land reaching all the way to Mr. Norton's. Just
beyond it was Dr. Palfrey's residence. George Rapall Noyes, D.D., was
elected in May, 1840, with the title of "Hancock Professor of Hebrew and
Oriental Languages, and Dexter Lecturer on Biblical Literature." He had
already translated the poetical books of the Old Testament, and it was
his eminence as a translator which had won him fame while a minister at
Petersham. It was his duty also to explain the New Testament, and in
addition to give lectures in systematic theology. Besides all this he
was to preach in the college chapel a fourth of the year. He steadily
grew in the respect and attachment of the young men; his authority in
the lecture-room was very great; his opinions were carefully formed and
precisely delivered; and his shrewd, practical wisdom was long
remembered by his pupils. Convers Francis, D.D., appointed to the
"Parkman Professorship," after the resignation of Henry Ware, Jr., was
his associate. The branches assigned to him were ecclesiastical history,
natural theology, ethics, the composition of sermons, and instruction in
the duties of a pastor; besides all this he was to preach half of the
time in the college chapel. Dr. Francis was an accomplished scholar and
a faithful teacher. The best man, too, for his position, at a time when
in an unsectarian school it was exceedingly desirable that the
professors should harmonize all tendencies; for with a strong sympathy
with "transcendentalism," as it was then called, he had been a most
successful parish minister, a very acceptable preacher, and a man in
whom all the churches had confidence.
At Cambridge, owing to the influence of Buckminster, Ware, and Norton,
Unitarian opinion prevailed, though the controversial period had passed
by when I was there. The clouds of warfare no longer discharged
lightning; there was no roll of thunder; only a faint muttering betrayed
the former excitement; and the memory of old conflicts hovered round the
spots where the fights had been hottest. Marks of strife were still
visible on texts, and chapters were scarred with wounds. Comment still
lingered near the passages where polemics had raged, and the blood
burned as we read the tracts or studied the essays of the champions we
admired.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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