Thomas Starr King  William Henry Channing

William Greenleaf Eliot (1811-1887)

By Charlotte C. Eliot

William Greenleaf Eliot William Greenleaf Eliot

William Greenleaf Eliot, Jr., son of William Greenleaf Eliot and Margaret Dawes Eliot, was born in New Bedford, August 5, 1811. His parents were both persons of superior mind and character, worthy descendants of an ancestry representing the best traditions of New England, its deep religious convictions, devotion to principle, broad philanthropy, and fervid patriotism.

While William was still a young child, his family removed to Washington, D.C., in which city he spent most of his early youth. There he entered Columbian College, and was graduated in 1830. For one year he was employed as assistant clerk in the general post office department at Washington, and in 1831 entered the Harvard Divinity School, where he spent three happy years. His friend James Freeman Clarke afterwards wrote that he was gifted “with a fine sense of mental adjustment,” so that, while manifesting his practical tendency, visiting asylums and jails and devoting himself to all philanthropies, he expressed a desire “to balance external work with hard study.” In this union of deep, concentrated thought with the power of effective action lies the secret of his rare executive ability.

Even before he graduated, William Eliot had decided to begin his ministry in the West, and, when immediately after that event a call came from St. Louis for a missionary to go there, and, if possible, organize a Unitarian church, he immediately responded, although with a full realization of the difficulties and deprivations involved. A modest stipend of “board and lodging” he considered sufficient for immediate needs.

On the 11th of August, 1834, Mr. Eliot was ordained as an evangelist in the Federal Street Meetinghouse, Boston. This church was a fitting place for the ceremony, because of his reverence and love for Dr. Channing, whom he regarded as his pastor, and who had sustained the same relation to his parents and grandparents.

Early in October Mr. Eliot started for St. Louis, stopping on the way and preaching at Pittsburg, at Cincinnati, where Ephraim Peabody was the Unitarian minister, and at Louisville, where he spent several days with James Freeman Clarke, who was settled there. The river was low, and, after waiting four days, it required fourteen days of sand-bar voyage to reach St. Louis, then a frontier settlement of seven thousand inhabitants, of whom about one-third were descendants of the original French settlers, and Catholic in religion. Years afterwards William Eliot declared that, when he landed on the river-bank, the adventure seemed wild and unpromising. He was young and inexperienced and ignorant of the difficulties to be encountered; but he had come confident in the power of Christian truth, and determined to remain at least three years. He reached St. Louis November 27, 1834, and found a few earnest persons of liberal faith, ready to welcome and support him. Services were held temporarily in a school-room, but as early as January 25 a society was formally organized under the name of the “First Congregational Society of St. Louis,” and it was decided to erect a house of worship. It seemed at the time a rash undertaking, but subsequent events justified the wisdom of such a course; and, after the usual anxieties and vicissitudes, the church was completed and dedicated October 29, 1837. In June of this same year Mr. Eliot was married in Washington, D.C., to Miss Abby A. Cranch, daughter of Judge Cranch of that city. Mrs. Eliot fully shared her husband’s missionary zeal, and with equal readiness for self-sacrifice seconded all his efforts.

The increasing size of Mr. Eliot’s congregation constantly added to his pastoral duties. Ill-health from physical exhaustion compelled rest, and in 1847 he went abroad. On his return he received a call to King’s Chapel in Boston. He declined the offer, but wrote in his journal that he “felt the sacrifice very deeply,” and that duty was the deciding motive. After his return to St. Louis, in view of his cordial reception there and the prospect of being able to gather together a large and prosperous society, he declared himself “abundantly content.”

In 1849 it became apparent that a larger church edifice was required; but an epidemic of Asiatic cholera, which made its appearance as early as January and continued into August, postponed action. During this period one-tenth of the entire population of St. Louis died of this dread disease. Mr. Eliot worked night and day, caring for the sick and ministering to the dying. He went to all who sent for him in or out of the church. In September, exhausted mentally and physically, he left the city for a short period of rest, but devoted a portion of his time to missionary labors. On his return it was decided to erect a new church; but, while plans were still in progress, it became apparent to him that he was losing the use of his right hand from paralysis of the muscles of the arm. Rest was imperative, and at the close of the year 1850 he went abroad a second time. He returned in October, 1851, and on December 7 the new Church of the Messiah was dedicated, though not then completed.

Believing as he did that a minister must “hold himself in living connection with the community in which he lives,” William Eliot, from the beginning of his residence in St. Louis, identified himself with all vital progressive movements, many of which he initiated. Twice elected president of the public school board, he gave special attention to its finances, and originated and carried to success a measure authorizing a tax of one-tenth of one per cent. on city property for the benefit of the public schools. From 1847 to 1850 he was also endeavoring, by published articles in the daily papers, to influence public opinion towards emancipation in Missouri. For the attainment of this object he worked for many years quietly and persistently with his usual fixedness of purpose and definiteness of plan. In 1854 Harvard University conferred upon Mr. Eliot the degree of Doctor of Divinity.

Dr. Eliot’s interest in education was secondary only to his zeal in the work of the ministry. When “Eliot Seminary” was incorporated, although he requested that the name be changed, he felt that so excellent a charter should be put to some good use. The university idea was an evolution from the original plan, and entailed upon Dr. Eliot, who at their first meeting was made president of the board of directors, not only the organization of its various departments, but the management of its finances.

The ten years preceding the Civil War were among the most prosperous in the history of the Church of the Messiah. A large and influential congregation attended the services. In an appeal for added endowment for Washington University, made to the churches in Boston in 1864, Dr. Eliot stated that, of the entire amount thus far contributed, four-fifths had come from his own congregation, being an annual average of fifty thousand dollars for several years, while philanthropic objects were not neglected. During the war the disorganizing forces incident to factional strife made themselves felt even in the Church of the Messiah. An uncompromising Union man, Dr. Eliot at first hoped that war might be averted, but was soon undeceived, and advocated active measures in defense of the Union. Maintaining from the pulpit the necessity of obedience to law as a sacred obligation, his sermons on “The Higher Law Doctrine North and South” and on “Loyalty and Religion,” while they strengthened the loyalty of many who had wavered, turned from the doors of the church many who left never to return.

The war period was for Dr. Eliot a season of great stress. A close observer of conditions and events, he inspired the authorities at Washington with such confidence in his judgment that his advice was followed at critical junctures in matters relating to the management of affairs in the State; and he thus very materially aided in saving Missouri to the Union. Interested as he was in the humanities of war, his plan for the organization of a Western Sanitary Commission was adopted verbatim by General Fremont, and issued as a special order. Throughout the war Dr. Eliot directed the work of the commission, which accomplished great good. At the close of the war he interested himself in the work of reconstruction, especially with reference to the Negro, for whose emancipation he had labored long. In 1869, weary in mind and body, he went abroad, and on his return decided that he was not physically able to perform the duties of minister of a large congregation. He therefore resigned his pastorate with emotions of keen regret, and accepted with nearly equal reluctance the position of chancellor of Washington University, influenced by the consideration that in the condition of its finances at that period no other competent person could have been induced to assume this responsibility. With the relinquishment of pastoral duties, something seemed to have gone from Dr. Eliot’s life, the loss of which he never ceased to deplore. He devoted himself with increasing effort to the work of social reform in the community, making his influence felt through the press. With great effort he succeeded in obtaining the repeal of a law permitting the “regulation” of the social evil in St. Louis, and also prevented the enactment of similar laws in other cities. Always an advocate of temperance, he labored for restrictive legislation and the enforcement of law, moved thereto, as he declared, by “the social, unwritten statistics of intemperance,” as they had come before him in an active life of fifty years.

Educated under the influence of Channing and the earlier apostles of the Unitarian faith, Dr. Eliot by many of a later generation was considered conservative. He once said of James Martineau, whom he greatly admired, that he was a “conservative radical,” having “the essence and strength of the most steadfast faith, the freedom of the largest philosophy”; and this attitude of mind represented Dr. Eliot’s own. The central tenet of Dr. Eliot’s creed was allegiance to Christ, faith in his authority as a teacher, and obedience to his commands. He believed that for the majority of people the highest spiritual truth and most perfect system of morality must be attained through obedience to Christ, since only a very few persons had time and opportunity to secure the same result through metaphysical inquiry and self-scrutiny. His church in St. Louis was established on the broad Christian basis of “faith in Jesus Christ and the determination to obey him.” In the first sermon he preached in St. Louis Mr. Eliot declared that the object of a church organization should be threefold: first, self-improvement, self-education in morality and religion, and the formation of Christian character; secondly, usefulness by works of kindness and benevolence, charity, and public spirit; thirdly, the diffusion of Christian truth. The first of these objects he regarded as of supreme importance, and, when devoting himself to any public cause, watched carefully lest he should neglect his pastoral duties. His sense of pastoral responsibility, especially towards the young, was very strong. Naturally sympathetic and helpful, he desired to share the joys and sorrows of his parishioners, and to learn their needs. Not only did he visit them in their homes, but of those who sought him in his study for counsel and assistance the number could hardly be reckoned. Reticent in the expression of his own emotion, he was tenderly responsive to the griefs of others, and by virtue of his interest in his people he claimed the right “to speak with friendly freedom,” as one whose duty it often was to rebuke as well as to comfort. He always seemed to feel a peculiar closeness of relation towards those whom he had once counseled or helped. This interest in the individual he carried into every cause in which he labored.

It is matter of record that “usefulness by works of kindness and benevolence” was ever a cardinal principle in Dr. Eliot’s society. As early as the winter of 1835-1836 a charitable association was formed of which every one became a member in virtue of becoming a member of the church. Thus was the habit of liberal giving formed and never lost. In 1841 a ministry at large was established, and became a center of organized charitable work in the church. In 1856 Dr. Eliot arranged for the purchase of a house which was fitted up as a temporary home for children. This Mission Free School of the Church of the Messiah, under the maintenance of that society, still continues to fulfill its original purpose with increasing usefulness.

In his missionary work, “the diffusion of Christian truth,” Dr. Eliot was always zealous. “He became,” wrote his friend, Rev. John H. Heywood, “not formally, not professedly, but really, the Unitarian bishop, apostle rather, of a wider region.” This included Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and even Louisiana; for he was very active in his efforts to establish a church in New Orleans, and then to aid and strengthen it, especially after the Civil War. He considered it very desirable to organize in the West churches of a liberal faith, because of the prevailing skepticism on one side and illiberality on the other.

In 1868 a second Unitarian church was organized in St. Louis, and for twenty-three years enjoyed the services of John C. Learned.

When William Eliot went to St. Louis, he was aware that he would have little time for intellectual pursuits. Occasionally he mourned the lack of books, the absence of sympathetic intercourse and intellectual stimulus of which he was deprived, both from his isolated situation and from the multiplicity of cares incident to life in a new community; but to such deprivations he early reconciled himself. Apart from his sermons and occasional lectures he had very little leisure for writing. Most of his published works, therefore, are collections of discourses, such as the Doctrines of Christianity, the Lectures to Young Men, and the Lectures to Young Women. The latter book was revised and republished under the title of “Home Life and Influence.” The Discipline of Sorrow was written and published in 1855, a few months after the death of his eldest daughter Mary, to whom he was tenderly attached. Many of his sermons were published in pamphlet form; and of these, as embodying a lofty patriotism, the war sermons deserve especially to be preserved. The Life of Archer Alexander, Dr. Eliot’s only secular work, is a dramatic episode of slavery and the war period. The book is valuable as a fair presentation of slavery in the border States for twenty or thirty years previous to the Civil War.

When called upon to speak extemporaneously, Dr. Eliot’s discourse was always clear, logical, and effective, but for pulpit preaching his sermons were written. They were simple in diction, inculcating Christian principles and morality. He usually avoided subjects of passing interest, declaring that it was better to teach temperance, charity, love, leaving to the hearer the special application. He believed that a minister must be a faithful pastor, must know the wants, the cares and trials of his people, if he would address them successfully from the pulpit. From experience thus gained in his own pastoral work, he himself preached from a full heart, instructing, warning, and exhorting, while the influence of his life added unction to his words. Deeply impressed with the solemnity of the rites of religion, he administered them as one standing in the presence of the living God. At the feast of the Lord’s Supper, no believer in transubstantiation could be more reverential than he, with his sense of the spiritual nearness of Christ.

Dr. Eliot died at Pass Christian, Mississippi, January 23, 1887.