isted at the decease of Mr. Price, as wholly to disqualify them from performing the trusts." They contended, therefore, that in that case the estate ought finally to be restored again to Trinity Church, as "the only proper and competent parties named in the will." The Answer of Trinity Church concluded by denying that the proposed redistribution of the income was within the proper functions of the honorable court. But although the suit was brought directly against Trinity Church, it aimed no less at King's Chapel; and the latter was accordingly associated in the defence. Their answer was more brief but not less forcible.1 They defended the interpretation which had always hitherto been put upon Mr. Price's will. They defended the right of the present Proprietors of King's Chapel to be regarded as the successors of the church referred to in the will; and claimed that a proper acceptance had been made, and that they, their rector and wardens, "were and at all times have been capable of receiving, and did receive, the donation," and while in possession did faithfully perform all its duties. They stated the history of the "Indenture; " defended the management of the property by Trinity Church; claimed that both parties had an absolute right to make the "Indenture," and that any claim to reopen that question at so late a day was barred by the statute for limitation of actions. They closed by denying the jurisdiction of the court for such a disposition of the surplus income as was proposed. The case was argued by Judge I. F. Redfield for Trinity Church, and by Sidney Bartlett, Esq., for Trinity Church and King's Chapel, dealing specially with the question whether Mr. Price intended to establish a public charity. "The testator contemplated a surplus," said Mr. Bartlett. "Under these circumstances, it is an inflexible rule of law that such surplus goes to the trustees." Justice Benjamin R. Curtis, for King's Chapel, stated strongly the ground on which the church had always stood: ... "The main inquiry in this case is, What was the intention of the testator? The leading and general intention, as displayed in various parts of the will, was to benefit King's Chapel. . . This construction was placed on the will contemporaneously with the inception of the trust, and has been acted on for more than fifty years. . . . This action was under the sanction of the visitors, and this construction of the will formed the 1 Charles P. Curtis, Jr., was solicitor, and Sidney Bartlett and B. R. Curtis were ⚫ of counsel. basis of a compromise, nearly forty years ago, which was advised by the ablest counsel in the Commonwealth and approved by this court. It is true that the testator was a member of the Church of England. But this is not enough. It does not follow that he thought he had attained to all light. Besides, he gave his donation to a church which had a right to change its doctrines, and he must be presumed to be aware that it might do so. Yet he imposed no conditions. And there is no one duty prescribed which could not conscientiously be performed in a Unitarian church. The subjects for the sermons are always prescribed in the alternative, and it might as well be argued that because the testator has set down as one subject the duty of obedience to kings, nobody can execute his directions since the Revolution. There is, therefore, nothing in the will inconsistent with the construction here contended for." The court "held that the church is entitled to this surplus for its own use." The decision was pronounced by Judge Dewey : 1 "The testator has strongly impressed upon this will, by the language he has used therein, that his leading purpose was to benefit King's Chapel. . . . ... "The result is that this bill must be dismissed, as, upon the case shown, no occasion exists for the intervention of the court. In coming to this result, we leave the parties in the exercise of their rights as to this property, and in the enjoyment of the same, as they have existed for more than forty years." 2 Thus terminated (it is to be hoped) the last stage of this long and vexatious controversy, in which the church had maintained with dignity and firmness not only its own rights, but those of free religious inquiry. The moral honesty of its position should be unquestioned by all who hold that the Church of England has a moral right to use the endowments which it has appropriated from the Roman Catholic heritage. Religious endowments have their dangers, undoubtedly; but they also have their good. The dangers are obvious. They may lead the people to depend too little on themselves; they may lead to extravagance in spending; they may be wasted, from having an eye to some near temporary need instead of to the distant future. But these possibilities should not conceal from us their benefits. They ought to insure greater independence of 1 Chief-Justice Bigelow did not sit in this case, being a member of King's Chapel. 2 A full report of the case is given in Allen's "Reports," ix. 422-447. worldly favor in the church; and they give a noble opportunity to regard the church not merely as an institution for the private benefit of its corporators, but as having public duties. In every effort to make the church more serviceable, it may well be that it acts in the spirit of Mr. Price's charity. Moreover, in the case of a venerable landmark like King's Chapel, an endowment is an anchor to secure its permanence. It would be a benefit to the whole community, if by bequests, and by a husbanding of the Price fund, enough provision could be made to insure the church against any possibilities of chance or change in the distant future; and so the vote of the church in 1759 could be fulfilled. The memory of Mr. Price is preserved by a marble tablet which the Wardens erected in 1822, in the Church, over the door leading to the Vestry: ROYAL ARMS, FROM COVER OF PRAYER-BOOK GIVEN BY KING GEORGE III. TO KING'S CHAPEL. CHAPTER XXIV. THE MINISTRY OF FRANCIS WILLIAM PITT GREENWOOD. HE ministry of FRANCIS WILLIAM PITT GREENWOOD continued from 1824, first as Associate with Dr. Freeman for eleven years, and then until his own death in 1843. He was the son of William Pitt Greenwood, a dentist by profession;1 was born in Boston, Feb. 5, 1797, and in his eighteenth year graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1814; 2 was twice settled in Boston, over two of its most important religious societies, and never left this city except when compelled by the frail health which finally ended his earthly career. He was the son of parents of strong and 1 In 1799 the registered dentists were three only, Messrs. Isaac and William P. Greenwood, and Josiah Flagg. Mr. Greenwood, says the Boston Mercury, of Jan. 6, 1797, “combines with his dental profession the sale of piano-fortes and guitars." Nathaniel Greenwood, said to have been the son of Myles Greenwood, of Norwich, Eng., died in 1684, and was buried on Copp's Hill. His sons were Samuel and Isaac. Samuel married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Bronsson, and had Samuel, Isaac, Miles, Nathaniel, and Joseph, of whom Isaac, born in 1702, was professor of mathematics at Harvard College, and died Oct. 12, 1745. He married Sarah, daughter of Hon. John Clarke, M.D., and had Isaac, John, Thales, and two daughters. Of these, Isaac, born May 9, 1730, was grandfather of Rev. F. W. P. Greenwood.-Heraldic Journal, ii. 78. Isaac Greenwood, the grandfather of Dr. Greenwood, was one of the parishioners here when this Church was opened for public worship. See ante, p. 154. See also, for fuller accounts of the family, New-Eng. Hist. and Gen. Reg. xiv. 171-173; xxii. 303. There is a memoir of William Pitt Greenwood in the Memorial Biographies of the same Society, i. 268–271. 2 The list of his class contains a large proportion of eminent names, among them the following (those marked † constituting the entire first class that graduated from the Harvard Divinity School, in 1817):-† John Allyn; † Andrew Bigelow, D.D.; Gamaliel Bradford, M.D.; Samuel D. Bradford, LL.D.; Martin Brimmer; Gorham Brooks; Thomas Bulfinch; John Call Dalton, M.D.; Waldo Flint; Benjamin Apthorp Gould; † F. W. P. Greenwood, D.D.; † Alvan Lamson, D.D.; Jairus Lincoln; Pliny Merrick, LL.D., Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; † Peter Osgood; Elijah Paine, Justice of the Supreme Court of New York; William Hickling Prescott, LL.D. (the historian); † James Walker, LL.D., President of Harvard University. virtuous character, both of whom outlived him, and whose best traits were reproduced in their distinguished son. Especially in him was verified the frequent rule that the mother's character survives in the child. Fortunate in this inheritance, he was fortunate also in the early impressions to which his tender religious nature was subject, from the Church to which his parents belonged. He was a child of this Chapel, and was baptized by Dr. Freeman, whose colleague he was one day to be. "The richly simple service to which his childhood was accustomed" formed the very habit of his mind; while the preaching of Dr. Freeman - almost bare in its simplicity, and lacking the wonderful charm and grace which commended every product of his own genius - impressed its own simple seriousness, perfect transparency, and absolute loyalty to truth upon the very fibre of his intellectual nature. From the beginning, as his mother afterwards testified, she "never knew him discover the smallest degree of anger or pettishness when he was rebuked for a fault; the effect was always sorrow and amendment. He loved the truth and always spoke it; and he had a mind so pure and good that all who knew him observed and spoke of it as uncommon in a child of his years." The same sensitive purity marked his passage through college life, where the refined and exquisite tastes which were so marked a trait in him had already become prominent. His classmate, our friend Mr. Thomas Bulfinch, would describe the charm of his companionship at this time; his sweet singing, the delight of his classmates; the cloudlessness of his moral and spiritual sky. After the usual theological studies at Cambridge, Mr. Greenwood, whose habit of quiet reserve had thus far veiled his intellectual promise even from his best friends, was found, on the hearing of his earliest sermons, to be one of the most inter |