History Matters
 
E-News from the Congregational Library & Archives
January, 2015  
 Church Anniversary Workshop 
  
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April 25, 2015
  
New Life
from
Old Stories

Trinitarian Congregational Church.

Concord, MA

Keynote Speaker

Rev. Dr. Nancy Taylor

Senior Minister & CEO

Old South Church, Boston

Founded 1669

 

 

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 Historians' Choice
Sarah Osborn's World:The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America

In her introduction of Harvard Divinity School professor and author Catherine Brekus, Executive Director, Peggy Bendroth praised her award-winning book as one of the most influential current books as voted by church historians.

Professor Brekus introduced our History Matters group to a charismatic teacher, diarist and evangelical disciple. Born 301 years ago, Sarah Osborn was widowed at age 19. Just scraping by during two wars and the British occupation during the Revolution, often on the edge of indigence, this single mother cobbled together a life for herself and her son by baking, sewing and teaching school. Her Calvinist beliefs led her to question her own worthiness and after a dramatic conversion where she was "born again" she devoted her life to teaching and charity.

Sarah's life was consumed by bouts of serious illness and tragedy. Her "heart was not set" when she married a man 30 years her senior (the widow spurned other proposals from non-Christians); he had a breakdown soon after their union and she was left to support him and his children along with her own beloved son. To add to her sorrow, this son died, leaving her haunted by question of his salvation for the rest of her life.

In spite of so much sorrow, Osborn's strong faith attracted a large following in Newport. Her connection to the African community was so strong that at one point she preached to 100 slaves in her home (the town was home to many owners and slaves and Osborn herself was given a slave). Word spread and by the mid 1760's, over 500 people, young men, young women, adults and children, both white and black, met at her house in small groups.

We get to know Osborn through The Nature, Certainty and Evidence of True Christianity: IN A LETTER FROM A GENTLEWOMAN IN RHODE ISLAND[1]. Its subtitle, To ANOTHER, her dear Friend, in great Darkness, Doubt and Concern, of a Religious Nature, opens a window revealing Sarah's own torments.

One of a handful of women whose writings were published during their lifetimes in Colonial America, Osborn was admired and befriended by Reverend Samuel Hopkins whose portrait with red turban hangs in the Library & Archives Reading Room. Hopkins and his wife edited and published a selection of Osborn's memoirs and letters

posthumously. 

Samuel Hopkins in the Reading Room

[1] Osborn, Sarah. The Nature, Certainty and Evidence of True Christianity: In a Letter from a Gentlewoman in New-England, to Another Her Dear Friend, in Great Darkness, Doubt and Concern of a Religious Nature. : I Cor. 1. 26-31. : N.b. Tho' This Letter Was Wrote in Great Privacy from One Friend to Another ; yet on Representing That by Allowing It to Be Printed, It Wou'd Probably Reach to Many Others in the Like Afflicted Case, and by the Grace of God Be Very Helpful to Them ; the Writer Was at Length Prevailed on to Suffer It-Provided Her Name and Place of Abode Remain Concealed. Boston: Printed for and sold by S. Kneeland, opposite the prison in Queen-Street, 1755.

Journey with Another
Charlie Dickenson and Catherine Brekus continue the conversation
Author and subject bound across 3 centuries

The story of Brekus' introduction to Osborn and the complicated bond between author and subject is as fascinating as the story of Osborn's life. While a graduate student at Yale, she was searching the card catalog looking for information for her dissertation studying female preaching in early America. She found a reference to Osborn's memoirs and things started to click. "What I found was far beyond my expectations: a memoir so compelling that I sat in Beinecke's light-filled reading room until closing time, enthralled by my introduction to Sarah Osborn."  She declared that her "voice was so immediate that it seized my imagination".

But it was several years until she was able to get back to Osborn.  When she did, Brekus discovered that the Beinecke samples constituted just a part the 2,000 diary pages left in existence. This led her to archives in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Not only were the works scattered around New England but parts of individual diaries could be in more than one location. But the search was well worth the time and effort.

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