Morning journal and courier., 1881-12-26
sgw Y|aptn 9ailg sQa1oraing sgoaraaI and Gonrier,

members of the church in Mansfield. About 1 his time the Missionary society of Con- lecticuts was formed, and labors among the Indians were projected. David prepared himself for the work. and added to his theo- ogical knowledge under Rev. Levi Hart, of Preston. Rev. s. Mott of Franklin, and Rev. zebulon Ety. of Lebanon. The late Rev. Ezra Stiles, of Philadelphia, in a letter to Dr. Bacon in 1849. said incidentally, T have ? fresh remembrance of your father, in bis black deer skin brooches, when he studied Theology with my father in my chamber. David. the Hartford Mercury recorded, was ordained in Hartford Wednesday, January 1, 1901, to the work of the Gospel ministry, with 8 particular reference to his laboring as an Evangelist among the Indian tribes of North America. It was the first instance in Connecticut of an ordination to the specific work of 8 missionary to the heathen
 Dr. Bacon's father and mother set out for their mission work from the house of broth-s CT in Mansfield Feb. Il, 1901. They were accompanied by one of Dr. Bacon's mother's brothers, Beaumont Parks, who went to study the Chippewa language with view to becoming teacher He was afterward law yer in Middlebury, Vt, and professor in the University of Indiana. The devoted missionary and his wife, also a noble and de- voted soul, labored among many priyations and hardships for the spiritual welfare of the red men at Detroit, afterward at Chippewa, afterward at MRckinaw. They were as re- mote from New England as people are to-day who are settled in Mexico or South America. They were often in trying circumstances, but their faith and devotion sustained them. Once when removed to new field they took very long, wearisome and dangerous jour ney. In letter thirty-fve years afterward Dr. Bacon's mother said to him:
 "We had completed long and perilous journey on the way and had expended our very last mite be- fore we reached Cleveland We did not reach the State of our destination till near the middle of Octo ber"
 ticing work, Joseph Bacon and wife returned with their family to the East, MT. Bacon preaching a while at Hudson and other places, and later establishing 8 new settle ment in the Western Reserve, in what is now Ohio, planting Christian settlement there and laboring for it's spiritual interests with his accustomed zeal. He died there. A DOT trait of him adorns the ilial tribute by Dr. Bacon, and shows a man of clear percep- tions, self-sacrifcfng, of high spirituality. Dr. Bacon treasured the memory of his mother as one of earth's saints, 0 loving, noble woman.
 The lad Leonard early followed the bent of his fathers mind, and attended school at Hartford having for classmate ex-President WOOASOys AACy P1OPdE0A AOE OOAOS5O tOSOsAA- CT and entered the sophomore class at Yale in 1877, graduating in 20. The year of his graduation he entered Andover, where he graduated in '24. At Andover he married his first wife, Miss Lucy Johnson. In March, 1925, in his 24th year, he became pastor of Center church, the oldest, the lead ing and the most influential and probably wealthiest Congregational church in the State. From the active pastorate he retired in 1866, when he became pGstor emeritus re- maining as such till his death, thus having 8 record of continuous service of y-six years with single church and his life being spent with one charge.
 In 1926 he became one of the editors of the Cs1Tstia7a Spectator, religious monthly periodical published in this city, to which he began contributing in 1922, when mere boy. He continued his connection with it up to 1888. In 1889 he was chosen Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Yale, but declined the position. The same year he was chosen 8 member of the corporation. In 1843 he aided in establishing the Neio Highlander, a monthly magazine, which is still published here. He was for years, and nearly up to the time of his death a contributor to its columns In 1S46 he preached the sermon upon the occasion of President Woolsey's or dination as a minister. In 1S48 he became an editor of the New York Independent, continu- ing such until 1863. During that period his articles were always timely, forcible and in- teresting For year, 1850-1, he travelled in Europe and Asia, and upon one occasion barely escaped with his life at the hands of some wandering tribe, who surprised the party in mountain gorge. This escape he regarded as providential. In 1866, after re- signing the active pastorate of the Center church, and until 1871 he acted as professor of systematic theology at the Yale Theologi- cal seminary. He raised much of IL HA1 nk labor toward the construction of the present fine buildings which adorn this department. In 1871 he became lecturer on "Church Polity and American Church His toryn which position he held at the time of his death. He also delivered an annual course of lectures on ecclesiastical jurisprudence at the Yale Law School. In 1843 he was made DD. by Hamilton College, and in 1870 Harvard honored herself by conferring upon him the degree of IL. D. One of his las! great public duties was as presiding officer at the worlds great convention of Christian churches, in Brooklyn, a few years ago. Dr. Bacon was prominent, as has been indicated in the great public assemblies of Congrega tionalism. Here in these bodies, largely com posed of notable men in the church, he N as one of the chieftains in debate upon all great questions, commanding the utmost attention and respect. He was great power for the abolition of slavery, although not in z strict sense member of the abolition party His powerful articles on the slavery question were the means of awakening President Lin coln's convictions on that subject when he was comparatively an unknown man in the nation, as was gratefully acknowledged by President Lincoln in conversation with the late Rev. Dr. J. P. Thomson, Yale '38, long a noted divine, at one time co-laborer with Dr. Bacon in the pastoral work in this city as pastor of the old Chapel street church. 4 polemical work by Dr. Bacon, Address oi the Christian Alliance" provoked the hostili ty of Pope Gregory XVI, who issued nota ble bull concerning it and placed it in the I1ades P1Olsi5itOTioUs Yet Dr. Bacon was very Catholic in his views and his iberality and goodness gained for him enduring friendships among leading Roman Catholic clergymen of this city. His life was like the life of Horace Greeley, "a busy ife." His active brain was ever busy and in the various fields of labor in which he became engaged his time was well occupied. He possessed uniformly good health and bodily activity, ex. cepting in a few instances, when he was obliged to rest on account of overwork, down to the last year of his life. He was the au- thor of various excellent hymns and poems, some of which he wrote while in college, e1 which one has become famous. It is his well known national hymn commemorative o1 the landing of the Pilgrims, the two opening stanzas being:
 Oh God, beneath Thy guiding hand,
 Our exiled fathers crossed the sea;
 With prayer and psalm they worshiped Thee.
 Laws, freedom, truth and faith in God
 Came with those exiles OCT the waves
 And where their pilgrim feet have trod,
 The God they trusted guards their graves.
 pr. Bacon's interest in the cause of free soil and liberty was notably instanced in the Kansas agitation, and public meeting held at. old Brewster Hall, at which he made stirring address, at which Rev Henry Ward Beecher, Rev. Dr. Dutton and others participated with eloquent words, and at which Bibles and Sharps' rifles were distrib- uted, was one of the notable events of those days. In his address at that meeting Dr. Bacon said:
 F uSo prayers go up to God that slavery may be- an institution in Kansas, but prayers go up tood tinuously in behalf Of Kansas for freedom. Will mol God ayenge his own elect who cry to him day and night7 tell you he will"
 Dr. Bacon spoke with no uncertain words on the danger to the nation which spread of slavery involved. Dr. Bacon's power as g theologian was felt all over the continent in his denomination and outside, and he stood as one of the bulwarks against the aggressive ness of such lights as Charming and Theodore Parker, and their doctrines made no head way in Connecticut owing to him and others