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Congregational Library
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Find out about our collections and what's happening at the Library by checking out our blog,
Beacon Street Journal.
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Doshisha Elementary
visits the Library
 | | Thank you Alpheus Hardy |
On June 13, 87 students from Kyoto's Doshisha Elementary School, part of Doshisha University paid a visit to the Library and Archives to say "hello" to Alpheus Hardy, benefactor and mentor to their school's founder Niijima Jō also known as Joseph Hardy Neesima. Each spring students trace Neesima's remarkable path from stowaway to Phillips Academy, to Amherst College and on to Andover Newton Theological School. Bearing gifts of origami, handmade cards and Japanese sweets their visit marks a highlight in our year and reminds us of the Library's reach around the world.
Learn more about Neesima.
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Linda Johnson talks about the Mather portrait with Sally Norris
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Sweet Land of Liberty
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 My Country Tis of Thee - To most of us these few words bring back memories. Perhaps the memories are from a 4 th of July celebration as we sang this beautiful anthem and saluted the flag with family and friends. This patriotic song was written by Francis Samuel Smith while he was a student at Andover Theological Seminary in Andover, MA. Who would guess that this anthem, also known as America, would be sung for the first time in 1831 on the steps of Park Street Church - just steps from the Congregational Library and Archives in Boston. Today, Park Street Church (Park Street) is an integral site on the famous Freedom Trail. Each summer, Park Street opens its doors to over 50,000 visitors from all 50 states and over 30 countries.
Founded in 1809, Park Street was involved in many social reform struggles including the Antislavery and Civil Rights movements. Prison reform began in this church, women's suffrage was strongly supported here, and some of the first and most impassioned protests against slavery were delivered inside these hallowed walls. On this site a young William Lloyd Garrison delivered his first major public abolitionist speech on July 4, 1829. Garrison's Four Propositions, introduced at Park Street:
- Above all others, slaves in America deserve "the prayers, and sympathies, and charities of the American people."
- Non-slave-holding states are "constitutionally involved in the guilt of slavery," and are obligated "to assist in its overthrow."
- There is no valid legal or religious justification for the preservation of slavery.
- The "colored population" of America should be freed, given an education, and accepted as equal citizens with whites.
Park Street is on the move to make this world a better place. Home to some of the first Protestant missionaries to such far-away places as the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), the Park Street community continues its commitment to help those in need right here in Boston and in South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Whether working in the areas of business development and technology in Central America, medical aid in the Middle East, or property renovation in the Czech Republic, Park Street invests its resources to meet the physical and emotional needs in under-served areas. Those resources might fund a basketball academy in Central Asia, a prison outreach program in South Africa, or initiatives to help marginalized residents in Boston.
Their Pray, Serve, Go, and Give model offers opportunities for many to practice faith and social justice hand in hand. As we head into summer, and toward Independence Day, let us salute our freedom and the noble mission of serving others in God's name.
Our joyful hearts today,
Their grateful tribute pay,
Happy and free,
After our toils and fears,
After our blood and tears,
Strong with our hundred years,
O God, to Thee.
Additional verse, My Country Tis of Thee, to celebrate George Washington's centennial in 1889
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Library member and scholar
Linda Johnson
packed the house.
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As you lock eyes with Increase Mather in John van der Spriett's portrait, you are transported back to 1688 London where Mather was waging his crusade of spiritual warfare. These were the days when trans-Atlantic curiosity was fed by images and a visual rendition carried a message that was much more than a pretty picture. Each object, gesture, color served the 49 year old Mather's personal response to London's revocation of Massachusetts' charter, the political message contained within the frame. Specially donned for the occasion, every piece of his fresh clothes, including a set of newly starched bands at his neck, carries significance. (The bands, wider than the style of the times, are flat and wide reflecting the open pages of his jeremiad Ichabod.)
for more see The Mather Project
Enter Linda Johnson, our History Matters guest speaker, whose dissertation spans the intersection of early American portraits with Puritan doctrine. Focusing on the widely distributed Mather portrait, Johnson guided a large audience through the painting's irony and richness of the classical motifs, Scripture, and costume choices. The painting warns of impending doom but also points to the rebuilding of the soul. The Ichabod sermon (in the works at the time of the painting) warns of an Israeli-like loss in battle while the ticking pocket watch in the foreground offers hope to New England for a new beginning. Mather was a shrewd arbiter for the colonies and knew how to leverage the power of images to make his case.
Those who joined us at the Library on June 18th gained a solid introduction to Johnson's topic. To a person, we wanted to know more about portraiture's significant role in the changes that led up to the Great Awakening. We are looking forward to the publication of Linda's dissertation and have high hopes that it will become a book in the near future.
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Visit us online at www.CongregationalLibrary.org
for a complete list of our resources,
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For more information on the Library, call
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