Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890 — John Shaqi
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
of good tidings from other quarters than the Christian Revelation, as
explained by its scholars and writers. Even such a phenomenon as Emerson
did not make a profound impression on the average mind.
A tone of old-fashioned piety pervaded the establishment. A weekly
prayer-meeting, always attended by one of the professors, though
officially rather than as a stimulator, was much in the manner and
spirit of similar exercises at Andover. The students were cautioned
against excessive intellectualism. Several of them spent their Sundays
in teaching classes of the young in the neighboring towns, in
ministering to the sick in hospitals, or in carrying the monitions of
conscience to the criminals in the prison at Charlestown. The aims of a
practical ministry were thus kept in view as well as the circumstances
of the time permitted. Of course the school could not be a philanthropic
institution any more than it could be independent or scientific. It was
committed to a special purpose, which was the supply of Christian
pulpits with instructed, earnest, devoted men. That they should be
Unitarians was expected; that they should be Christians in belief was
demanded. There were two ever-present spectres, "orthodoxy" and
"rationalism," the one represented by Andover, the other by Germany.
Audacity of speculation when unaccompanied by practical piety was
discountenanced, and in flagrant instances rebuked.
The literal form of the orthodox creed, it need hardly be said, was made
more prominent than its imaginative aspect. This was inevitable, for the
object was to assail it rather than to understand it. To be perfectly
fair to all sides was, under the circumstances, not to be expected at a
period so near the era of controversy. An earnest, ingenuous youth could
find at Cambridge all the courage and impulse he needed, for the
atmosphere of the place was neither chilling nor depressing. The less
emotional, more intellectual scholar was left to pursue his studies
undisturbed, the wind of spiritual feeling not being strong enough to
carry him away.
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