Memorial of Jesse Lee and the Old ELM. Eighty-Fifth Anniversary of Jesse Lee's Sermon Under the Old ELM, Boston Common, Held Sunday Evening, July 11, 1875. with a Historical Sketch of the Great Tree
(
This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
(
This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. This text refers to the Bibliobazaar edition.
John William Hamilton was an American clergyman. He served as a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1900, and as chancellor of American University from 1916 until 1922.
Background
John William Hamilton was born on March 18, 1845 in Weston, Virginia (now West Virginia). He was the son of Reverend William Cooper Patrick and Henrietta Maria (Dean) Hamilton. His father was the son of Patrick Hamilton of Scotch-Irish descent, who attended Trinity College, Dublin, and emigrated from Donegal in 1798 to Philadelphia, where he married Jane Graham, a Donegal girl, and taught school, later managing ironworks in New Jersey and western Pennsylvania. They were both Old-Country Wesleyans, and William, the youngest of their twelve children, married Henrietta Maria Dean, of Connecticut ancestry, and joined the Pittsburgh Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was self-educated, and rode hardscrabble circuits in western Virginia and Ohio for thirty years, often accompanied on his rounds by his wife.
John William was the second of their five children, three of whom became Methodist preachers, two of them bishops.
Upon the death of his father, Hamilton became the mainstay of his mother. One of his brothers said: "He brought us up. He was our father and mother. "
Education
Hamilton attended Summerfield Academy, taught school at the age of fifteen, volunteered for the Union army at sixteen but was rejected because of his youth, and graduated from Mount Union College at Alliance, Ohio, in 1865, having taken time out in 1863 to ride with the "Squirrel Hunters" on the trail of Morgan's raiders.
In 1872 he was graduated at Boston University School of Theology with the degree of Bachelor of Sacred Theology.
Career
Hamilton entered the Pittsburgh Conference on trial in 1866 and was admitted into full connection in 1868. His first appointment was to Newport, Ohio, a thirteen-point circuit. Feeling the need of better preparation, he transferred to the New England Conference (1868).
His adventurous spirit early found expression in a bold project for a new church of popular type in the crowded South End of Boston. His contagious enthusiasm won financial support for the building of the large People's Church on Columbus Avenue. Phillips Brooks, Dwight L. Moody, and other non-Methodist leaders spoke at the laying of the corner-stone - incidentally focusing attention on the young man's enterprise. Free seats, arresting sermon topics, and inspiring music, with an operatic soprano, drew the crowd for a time, but, despite his strenuous efforts for nine years (1875-1884), the project was not permanently successful. It had, however, marked young Hamilton for leadership in New England Methodism.
He was elected to the General Conference, where he speedily won recognition. From 1892 to 1900, as corresponding secretary of the Freedmen's Aid and Southern Education Society, he traveled through the Methodist connection, pleading with sincerity and passion the cause of underprivileged youth, both white and black.
Elected bishop in 1900, he was appointed to San Francisco, California. When the city was wasted by earthquake and fire he rallied the denomination to the relief of the desolated churches and helped to rehabilitate the urban Methodism. In this period, also, he organized the Methodist work in Hawaii and Alaska. Boston was his official residence from 1908 to 1916, and all New England was his field. He was a never-failing helper of feeble churches. It was said, "No church under Bishop Hamilton's supervision was ever closed up. "
Retired in 1916, the year in which his brother, Franklin, was elected to the episcopacy, he accepted the chancellorship of the American University in Washington. He opened it for students, broadened its program, and greatly increased its assets.
Resigning in 1922, he continued to reside in Washington as chancellor emeritus and engaged in many activities. He positively enjoyed money-raising and not only helped scores of churches to pay their debts, but aided college campaigns and carried to success such projects as the erection of the equestrian statue of Francis Asbury in Washington, the repair and endowment of Wesley's chapel in London, and the beautiful restoration of Wesley's rooms in Lincoln College, Oxford, for which his artist brother, Wilbur, painted a copy of Romney's famous portrait of Wesley. In these years he gave effective service to the commission on Methodist Unification and to the commission on Ecumenical Methodist Conferences.
For two generations Bishop Hamilton was a conspicuous figure in American Methodism, and indeed in world Methodism, for he made nine trips to Europe, where he was accepted as the representative Methodist bishop. He had a genius for friendship, and his circle included some of the most distinguished men and women of the Old World and the New.
His writings were mostly by-products of his church activities. They include Memorial of Jesse Lee and the Old Elm (1875); Life of Father and Mother Baker (1879); People's Church (1877); and other works.
When in 1908 he visited the Irish and British Conferences as fraternal representative, he out-Irished the Irish with his delicious Dublin deliverance. Adventurous, daring, and fearless, he offered an alliance that was ever helping to make weak causes strong. Bishop Hughes declared: "There was nothing neutral in him. " He was approaching ninety, still occupied with plans and public engagements, when he was taken ill at his summer home, "Pilgrim's Rest, " in Marshfield, Massachussets He was removed to a hospital in Boston, where he died of uremia. He was buried in Boston.
Achievements
John William Hamilton is remembered as always being on the progressive side and as eloquent pleader for reform. He championed prohibition, woman's suffrage and, notably, the admission of women to the General Conference against the militant opposition of the Old Guard, led by the doughty warrior, James M. Buckley. His parliamentary maneuver made women eligible without going through the difficult process of amending the constitution. The "Hamilton Amendment" won the long fight and made its author a national figure.
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
Views
Quotations:
"I got my will and my love of books from my father; my heart and my housekeeping from my mother; what good-nature and tact I have from both of them; my sense of humor from my mother; my respect for all races without prejudice from both. "
Personality
Tall and graceful, of impressive countenance and with a fine head crowned with a wealth of gray hair, which in his younger days he wore as a rippling mane, Hamilton captured the eye of his auditors before they heard his rich and resonant voice or caught the meaning of his message.
Bishop McDowell said of him, "He had the manners of a Cavalier but he had the principles of a Puritan. "
He had imagination, wit, and humor - the heritage of Erin - with which to interest and entertain, but he had also burning passion with which he could confound opposition and win victories.
Connections
Hamilton was twice married: first, December 24, 1873, to Julia Elizabeth Battelle of Covington, Kentucky, who died in 1883, leaving a son, Gordon; and second, December 18, 1888, to Emma Lydia Battelle, his first wife's sister, who died in 1915, leaving one daughter, Helene.
