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and reader- preacher too, if he chose so to be to the other portion of the united congregation; and when the new church was ready for occupancy, the consecration service was performed, in part, by Rev. Mr. Morss, of Newburyport, and, in part, by Rev. Mr. Parker, the recently ordained Congregational [Unitarian] minister of the South Church. Nearly half a century afterward it was discovered that the church had not been duly consecrated, and on the completion of certain changes in the interior of the building, the service was performed, in accordance with the ritual, by the Bishop of New Hampshire. As late as 1813, and during Bishop Griswold's episcopacy, after the death of Mr. Fisher, of Salem, Rev. Messrs. Barnard, Bentley, and Prince, all of them Unitarians, preached, each an entire Sunday, at St. Peter's Church, as an expression of sympathy with the bereaved congregation, the service on these occasions being read by one of the parishioners.1

We recapitulate these facts, not because we question the fitness of the present organization and canons of the American Episcopal Church, nor even that of the exclusion of ministers of other denominations from its pulpits; for were there in other ways the mutual Christian recognition that there ought to be, pulpit reciprocity might perhaps be deemed on all accounts undesirable. Our sole aim has been to show that when the events which will have record in the following chapter took place, at the date of Mr. Freeman's ordination and settlement, there was no authority to which King's Chapel owed allegiance, no episcopate to which it belonged, no established usage by which a minister not episcopally ordained could be excluded from its pulpit, in fine, no reason why that individual corporation might not consult its own edification and spiritual well-being, amenable only to conscience and to God.

1 There was in the immediately postRevolutionary time no exclusiveness as to the use of Episcopal churches.

In the summer of 1782 the Rev. William Rogers, a Baptist clergyman, officiated" in his way" in St. John's Church, Providence, R. I., at the request of the Wardens. Updike, p. 416.

In 1790 the use of Trinity church, Boston, was given for the performance of high mass, with its full paraphernalia of ceremony, and of a funeral requiem, in commemoration of a French Roman Catholic recently deceased, - an occasion for no little bitterness of censure on the part of zealous Protestants.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE MINISTRY OF JAMES FREEMAN.1

AMES FREEMAN, son of Constant and Lois (Cobb) Freeman, was born in Charlestown, April 22, 1759. His parents were both natives of Truro, in Barnsta ble County. His father is said by Dr. Greenwood, in his Memoir of Dr. Freeman, to have been a man of strong mind and excellent character, and his life marked by enterprise and vicissitude.' The son attended the Boston Latin School, under the famous Master Lovell, and graduated at Harvard College in 1777. Although the opening years of the Revolutionary War seriously interrupted the course of the college studies, he brought away an excellent amount of scholarship for the times, in the languages and in mathematics, the latter constituting his after-dinner diversion, with slate and pencil, even in old age."

"His father, who had been a sea-captain in earlier life, had become a merchant in Quebec some time before the outbreak of the war. His mother died soon after the beginning of hostilities, when all communication was suspended; and the husband and father, who was obliged to remain at Quebec to protect the property of those whose agent he was, was unable for some time even to visit the children whom he pathetically describes, in a petition to the Governor of Quebec, as his poor motherless babes in New England.'

"The sympathies of young James were strongly on the patriot side, and although he did not enlist in the army (probably because of the inconvenience and peril which such a step would bring upon his father under these circumstances), after graduating, on visiting his relatives on Cape Cod, where he taught a school at Barnstable, he drilled a company of Cape Cod troops. which was raised for the Continental army. In the summer of

1 The portions of this chapter designated by quotation-marks, without reference to their source, are copied from a valuable and instructive article by Mr. Foote on "James Freeman and King's Chapel, 1782-1787. A chapter in the

Early History of the Unitarian Movement in New England," in "The Religious Magazine and Monthly Review" (Boston) for June, 1873, xlix. 505-531, which see. — - EDITOR.

1780 he sailed for Quebec with his sister and youngest brother, to place them with their father. The vessel in which he embarked was fitted out as a cartel; but not being acknowledged as such by the Governor of Quebec, on his arrival he was made a prisoner, and put on board a guard-ship. He remained in this situation till December, when, the severity of the weather no longer suffering the guard-ship to lie in the river, he was admitted on shore a prisoner on parole. In the summer of 1782 he obtained permission of the Governor to go to New York, and embarked in a letter of marque, which, after she had been out a week, was captured by a privateer from Salem, and he carried into that port. Immediately on his arrival he began to preach,' first, probably, for Rev. William Bentley, of Salem, his classmate and intimate friend, not without preparation; for he had passed a year at Cambridge as a resident graduate, and had read theology since, after the fashion of the time (for there were no divinity schools), with such helps as he could. "At this time, the Old South congregation were worshipping in King's Chapel, jointly with the regular congregation, - each using its own form of worship for one half the day. But it had been determined by the remnant of the congregation whom the war had left, to resume exclusive possession of their church as soon as possible."

Accordingly, on the 8th of September, 1782, Dr. Thomas Bulfinch,1 the Senior Warden, commenced a correspondence with Mr. Freeman; and a favorable reply having been received, " on Sept. 28, 1782, the Wardens wrote him a formal letter, inviting him to officiate for the Proprietors of the Chapel in the capacity of a reader for six months, . . . hoping and trusting that' his 'further continuance in the service of the church will be acceptable both to' him and to them. The duty ex

1 Thomas Bulfinch, the second of the name, was the son of Dr. Thomas Bulfinch, who was educated in his profession at Paris, and returning to Boston in 1721, was for thirty-six years in the successful practice of medicine, and held a foremost place among the ablest and best men of his time. The son was born in 1728, graduated at Harvard College in 1746, studied medicine under his father's direction, and then at the University of Edinburgh, where he took his medical degree in 1757. He was eminent as a physician, and honored and beloved for his personal merit and his

public services. He was Senior Warden of King's Chapel at its re-opening after the war, and remained in office for twelve years. He died in 1802. His son, Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the State House and of the national Capitol, was connected with King's Chapel till his removal to Washington. Thomas, the son of Charles, was for many years Warden of the Chapel, and is still held in grateful memory there. Rev. Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch, divine, poet, and saint, than whom no man can have been more worthily honored or dearly beloved, was also a son of Charles. See ante, p. 368.