Was He or Wasn’t He?

September 9, 2001

His affection for his old parishioners never abated, and their attachment to him was always warm. -- Francis Tiffany, writing about Thomas B. Fox in Newburyport

During the recent run of our “Meeting House Revels,” some of of you may remember that I was cast in the role of our fourth minister, the Rev. Thomas B. Fox. It was Fox who, according to Nathan N. Withington, “instead of preaching against the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the awful doom of the sinner in a future state . . . preached of the beauty of the flowers, the glory of the sunset and the loveliness of the universe in which we dwell.”

But the real question is, “Was he or wasn’t he?” The evidence points to the probability that he was. A Transcendentalist, that is.

Thomas Bayley Fox was born in Boston on August 20, 1808. Emerson, generally acknowledged as the inspiration for the so-called “new views” of religion, later called Transcendentalism, was born only a few years earlier, in 1803. Theodore Parker, another of the best known Transcendentalists, was born in 1810. All three attended Harvard Divinity School within a few years of each other. At the time of Emerson’s famous Divinity School Address in 1838, Fox had already been the minister in Newburyport for seven years, though he was still only thirty years old.

I have as yet found no direct evidence that Fox was a Transcendentalist. He is not listed among those who, even occasionally, attended the famous “Transcendental Club.” Our church historian, Minnie Atkinson, hints at the theological turmoil caused during Fox’s tenure by the advent of Transcendentalism , but she stops short of declaring Fox an adherent.

More interesting is the indirect evidence. When Fox left the ministry of “the First Parish of Newburyport” in 1846 (because of a combination of ill health, aging parents in Boston, and inadequate compensation), three of the candidates to succeed him in the pulpit--Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Samuel B. Longfellow, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson--had been frequent participants in the meetings of the Transcendental Club. Higginson, as we well know, became the minister, possibly to appease those in the congregation (probably the majority) whom Atkinson describes as holding “extreme liberal views” on theology.

In the nineteenth century, it was common for congregations to call to their pulpits candidates who shared the theological stance --liberal or conservative--of their predecessors. This is because the long pastorates common in those days usually had an enduring influence on the theological views of the congregation.

At Higginson’s Ordination in 1847, William Henry Channing, nephew of the more famous William Ellery, preached the Ordination Sermon, and James Freeman Clarke delivered the charge to the minister. Both were well known Transcendentalists. Fox also apparently participated in the service, suggesting that he was not averse to rubbing shoulders with such a radical crowd. (About ten years later, the theologically liberal church in Boston served at the time by Fox would merge with Clarke’s avowedly Transcendentalist “Church of the Disciples.”)

Fox’s well documented work in the religious education of children and young people reflects a Transcendentalist concern. The Transcendentalists were in the forefront of a number of educational reforms and experiments, the best known of which was Elizabeth Peabody’s Temple School in Boston, where Emerson’s protege Bronson Alcott was a teacher. Also, Fox’s educational work among young women in particular reflects the Transcendentalists’ reformist bent.

Often overlooked in studies of the Transcendentalists was their concern for church reform. Among Transcendentalists who produced extensive platforms for church reform were the already mentioned Theodore Parker and James Freeman Clarke, along with a number of lesser known lights. It is Fox’s work in the area of church reform which most clearly places him within the Transcendentalist camp.

Without having read any of Fox’s sermons it is difficult to tell just how deeply affected he was by the Transcendentalist philosophy of “intutionism.” But the fact that he preferred preaching about “the beauty of the flowers, the glory of the sunset and the loveliness of the universe” to that of “the exceeding sinfulness of sin” is evidence that he was affected. Nature, as the title of Emerson’s first significant Transcendentalist publication indicates, was a primary interest of the Transcendentalists as a source of religious inspiration and truth.

Among his most radical and sacrilegious innovations was the practice of placing flowers in the meeting house during church services. Thus our celebration this morning. As a writer in the Newburyport News wrote, “Not a few of the good mothers in Israel made it an especial topic for gossip and tea table talk. ‘Poses in the meetin’ ‘us on a Sabba Day?’ Why, it savored altogether too much of popery.” The orthodox in town thought the practice blasphemous.

This revelation about flowers is a most interesting one, given that it is the far more famous Theodore Parker who is generally credited with being the first minister “in Boston” to include flowers in a church service. However, Parker apparently began doing so in the 1850’s, long after Fox had instituted the practice in Newburyport. James Freeman Clarke--as already noted, a minister with connections to Fox--is also mentioned as having followed the practice.

Is it possible that Fox was the first to bring flowers into a church service, and that Clarke and Parker got the idea from him? Parker preached here during Higginson’s tenure and might have picked up the practice then.

Fox also innovated with the institution of Sunday School picnics, which tradition we will be reviving after the service this morning. These picnics, too, were a source of gossip, the long line of carriages carrying parishioners to a picnic at Curzon’s Mill gaining the derisive name of “Fox’s Caravan” from the local naysayers.

But neither the picnics nor the flowers were purely social or aesthetic innovations. Fox, like his Transcendentalist contemporaries, had a deep and abiding interest in nature, as his preferred topics of preaching are evidence. As Minnie Atkinson relates, the Rev. Fox “interested the young people in botany and geology, occasionally gave them talks on such subjects, and encouraged them to bring him any interesting or unique specimens or plants or rocks which they might find.” In other words, there was an educational motive behind these seemingly frivolous practices.

Not least important, Atkinson writes that, “The young people adored him.” During Fox’s tenure the church school grew considerably. He created a library of 200 books for the youth of the congregation, a large number at the time.

Fox also worked hard for public education in Newburyport, and later in life served on the Dorchester School Committee. He supported the formation of a Female High School in Newburyport, believed to be the first girls’ high school in the United States.

All of these endeavors strongly suggest the answer to the question posed by my title: almost definitely, he was.

After leaving Newburyport, Fox, as noted already, served for a time as minister or assistant minister of a Unitarian congregation in Boston, which later merged with Clarke’s Church of the Disciples. Fox’s Boston congregation was known for its charitable and educational work. But in 1855, he left the ministry to become editor of the Unitarian periodical the Christian Register, and later to become the proprietor of the Unitarian Christian Examiner.

During the last fifteen years of his life he was an editorial writer for the Boston Transcript. A brief biographical sketch in Samuel Eliot’s Heralds of a Liberal Faith says of Fox,

Prompt, versatile, and earnest, he wrote with grace and vigor on a great variety of topics. His testimonies of the memories of good men and women were marked by such sincerity, tact, and candor, combined with the most delicate and cordial appreciation of all that was lovely and noble, that they are preserved among the most sacred treasures of many households. He also prized the opportunity of a journalist to arouse the patriotism of the people. In the days of the Civil War he was foremost in courage and constancy. He sent three sons to the army, one of whom died in the service.

Francis Tiffany wrote that, “Mr. Fox’s pastorate in Newburyport was a most prosperous one of nearly fifteen years. His affection for his old parishioners never abated, and their attachment to him was always warm.” I suspect that Fox may have been a hard act to follow, which, along with Higginson’s radical views on slavery, might have contributed to the latter’s rather hasty departure from our pulpit after only two years.

This morning, let us honor the work of this good minister, Thomas B. Fox, and the gifts of education, beauty, and sociability that he brought to our church and to our city. Let us remember his dedication to truth, beauty, and goodness, and make these things more and more a part of our own lives, as we go forth to celebrate “the life that was, and is, and is to be.” May it be so.

Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock