THE NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH IN OHIO
FROM 1848 TO 1870*
by OPHIA D. SMITH
In his Teachers of the Nineteenth
Century (1845), Parke Godwin
said that the chief characteristic of
the then present epoch was its
tendency to unity in universality, and
that the men in whom this
tendency was most fully expressed were
Swedenborg, Fourier, and
Goethe. In these three persons was
summed up the great move-
ment toward unity in universality in
religion, science, and art, which
comprised "the whole domain of
human activity."1
There was in England at this time a
plan for a college for the
education of the children of
Swedenborgian parents. It was to bear
the name Emanuel College, and it was to
offer the usual courses in
literature and science, plus the
doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg,
who so completely represented the trend
toward unity in a universal
religion.2
This plan stirred the minds of a few
New Church leaders in the
West, in America. The Rev. James P.
Stuart, a New Church mis-
sionary, discussed it with Newchurchmen
as he went about the
country selling New Church books and
distributing tracts. Undis-
mayed by his "arduous and
perplexing" work, he sold books by the
hundreds and distributed tracts by the
thousands. He preached in
towns and in wild and sequestered
neighborhoods. In 1849 he
preached in Dayton, Springfield,
Woodburn, Lebanon, and Yellow
Springs many times. "Some of the
leading citizens" of Yellow
Springs were beginning openly to avow
their belief in the new
doctrines and to proclaim them to
others. Stuart's sermons and
lectures were reviewed, directly or
indirectly, in every pulpit in and
around the town of Lebanon. In Urbana
the Rev. Mr. Stuart found
a few new readers, and his lectures
were well attended. The clergy-
men of the village made some
demonstrations against the Doctrines,
* This is the third and last in a series
of articles on the Swedenborgians in Ohio.
The first two were published in the preceding
issues.
1 The Harbinger, November 29, 1845.
2 Mirror of Truth, July 5, 1845; New Jerusalem Magazine, XIX
(1846), 399-400.
25
26 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
but the Newchurchmen of Urbana
steadfastly kept the works of
Swedenborg before the public.
While in Urbana in the spring of 1849,
Stuart talked to Colonel
John H. James about a New Church
college. Colonel James offered
to donate the land for such a school in
Urbana. On March 26, 1849,
he addressed to the recording secretary
of the Ohio Association of
the New Church, the Rev. J. P. Stuart,
the following letter:
Dear Sir,--I will give ten acres of
ground for the site of a New Church
University, to be selected from my lands
about the town of Urbana, and so
chosen that the selection shall always
be a proper one, both with reference
to the ground itself and its proximity
to town. I regard the land I offer as
worth one thousand dollars. I stipulate
that the sum of two thousand dol-
lars be contributed by others within one
year, and that some buildings suit-
able for a school be erected within three
years. And I express a wish that
the buildings shall be substantial,
plain and of handsome proportions with-
out ambitious display.3
Stuart urged the founding of the school
in Urbana. "Our old
literary institutions are as defective
as the Church which gave them
birth," said Stuart. The Ohio
Association, with the approval of the
General Convention of the New Church,
accepted responsibility for
the Urbana University in June 1849. On
October 22 the site was
chosen. The trustees selected a wooded
tract of land southwest of
town, where the army of General Hull
had encamped during the
War of 1812. In the deed to the land
Colonel James stipulated that
the college should contract no debt
beyond its means to pay; that
no part of the college grounds or
buildings should be leased for
gain; and that no buildings could be
erected on the grounds except
by the university itself.4
On November 15 a meeting was held in
Colonel James's office to
organize for action. Those present were
Colonel James, the Hon.
3 J. P. Stuart, "Missionary
Narrative," in Journal of Proceedings of the Ohio Asso-
ciation of the New Church, 1849; New
Church Repository, III (1850), 46. David
Espy of Twenty Mile Stand had already
offered land for the same purpose, but the
offer was never seriously considered.
4 John H. James to W. Russell West, July
13, 1850, John H. James Manuscripts;
New Jerusalem Magazine, XXIII (1850), 68-70.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 27
Richard S. Canby, the Rev. George Field
from Detroit, the Rev.
Sabin Hough, Dr. William M. Murdoch,
John Murdoch, David
Gwynne, Thomas Gwynne, Evan Gwynne,
Amos Adams Richards,
David Pruden, Milo G. Williams, and the
Rev. J. P. Stuart. The
three Gwynnes promptly pledged one half
of the stipulated two
thousand dollars to be raised. Colonel
James was made chairman
of the building committee. The next day
twelve trustees and an
executive committee were appointed.
Colonel James wrote at once
to W. Russell West--"the
accomplished Architect of the State of
Ohio, for the erection of the State
House at Columbus"--to draw
plans for the college building. James
saw West in Columbus within
a week, and West approved the colonel's
general ideas of plan
and style.5
During the winter the colonel drew up a
liberal charter for the
college. The act of incorporation for
the Urbana University was
passed by the Ohio legislature on March
7, 1850. The incorporators
were the first board of trustees: Milo
G. Williams of Dayton, John
H. Williams of St. Clairsville, the
Rev. Benjamin F. Barrett, Ebe-
nezer Hinman, and William E. White of
Cincinnati, the Rev. J. P.
Stuart and David Gwynne of Urbana,
Sabin Hough of Columbus,
the Rev. Samuel Worcester of Norwalk,
John Murdoch of Spring-
field, the Hon. Richard S. Canby of
Bellefontaine, and the Rev.
George Field of Detroit, Michigan.6
The charter clearly stated that the
university was "designed to
encourage and promote the diffusion of
knowledge, in all the
branches of academic, scientific, and
exegetic instruction"; that "in-
struction in the productive arts and
the practice of rural economy"
should be combined therewith; and that
the school be "under the
management and direction of persons
known and recognized as be-
longing to the New Church, or attached
to the principles thereof."
The trustees met in the New Jerusalem
Temple in Cincinnati on
March 23, 1850, to make a permanent
organization under the
charter. Milo G. Williams, an
outstanding scientist and teacher,
5 John H. James, Diary, November 1850.
6 Francis P. Weisenburger, A Brief History of Urbana University (Urbana,
1950), 5.
28 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
was elected president of the board, the
Rev. J. P. Stuart secretary.7
The executive committee appointed
consisted of David Gwynne, Dr.
William M. Murdoch, the Hon. Richard S.
Canby, R. R. McNemar,
and Thomas Gwynne.8
In January 1850 the making of bricks
commenced on the college
grounds.9 In December Colonel James
reported to the New
Jeru-
salem Magazine that the building committee had resolved that the
first building should not exceed four
thousand dollars in cost, and
that its style must "permit the
addition of future erections without
deformity." The committee had also
decided that the students must
be housed in boarding houses erected by
the trustees, or with Urbana
families approved by the college
authorities.
Architect West had plans drawn by July.
He planned a sub-
stantial building with walls sixteen
inches thick. In September he
sent a second design of the main
building, "more irregular than the
first." With the exception of
"the cornice to the tower and the
balconies," the edifice was to be
"almost entirely without ornament,"
other than the irregularity of
design.10
A New Church society was organized in
Urbana on November 8,
1850, and incorporated on March 20,
1851. The incorporators were
Milo G. Williams, William M. Murdoch,
David Gwynne, John H.
James, Evan Gwynne, Lewis Barnes, Abby
Bailey James, Amelia M.
7 Milo G. Williams became interested in
the New Church doctrines at the age of
eighteen and joined the First New
Jerusalem Society of Cincinnati in 1824 at the age
of twenty. As long as he lived he was
prominent in the work of the church. As a
teacher he worked out an original method
of teaching botany, which we recognize
today as field trips. He collected a
large and unusual herbarium, which contained
specimens discovered for the first time
in Ohio, a number of which are now extinct.
He was the first teacher in Ohio to introduce the study
of constitutional law in his
schools. He helped to organize the
Western Literary Institute and Board of Educa-
tion and the later organization known as the Western
Literary Institute and College of
Professional Teachers. He was president
of the Dayton Library Association from 1844
to 1850. He was a member and organizer
of various scientific societies in Ohio. In
1833 he began to make weather
observations for the United States Department of
Meteorology and continued them for the remaining
forty-seven years of his life.
Florence Murdoch, "Summary of the
Manuscript Recollections of Milo G. Williams
(1804-1880)," Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, LIV (1945),
113-126.
8 Milo G. Williams, Recollections,
unpublished manuscript, Urbana Junior College,
Urbana, Ohio.
9 James Diary, January 11, 1850.
10 W. Russell West to John H. James,
July 9, September 16, 1850. James Manu-
scripts.
The New Jerusalem Church in Ohio 29
Murdoch, Ellen Bailey, Mary L.
Williams, Lydia Bailey, and
Charlotte S. Hoadley.11
The New Church Society centered its
interest on the college.
Colonel James thought the name Urbana
University was too big for
their "small enterprise." He
preferred to call it Emanuel College.
But the trustees envisioned a school
that would become a world
center of New Church learning, worthy
to bear the name Urbana
University. The school was
coeducational, from the primary de-
partment through the collegiate.
On June 19, 1851, the cornerstone of
the Urbana University was
laid with appropriate ceremonies. Milo
G. Williams, chosen to
place the stone, considered that action
as one of the great experiences
of his life. To him it was no small
honor to lay the cornerstone of
the first New Church college in the
world. During the summer the
Rev. Alexander Cowan of Urbana attacked
the university in the
village paper. Each onslaught was
neatly and courteously answered
by John H. James. John Murdoch of
Springfield wrote to the Detroit
Medium, "Orthodoxy is alarmed, and an attack has been
made upon
the N.C. with a view to prostrate the
Institution."12
Milo G. Williams gave up his
flourishing school in Dayton to
open a preparatory school in Urbana in
order that college classes
might be formed by the time the
university buildings should be
ready. In his first year, 1850-51, he
had an enrollment of eighty-
11 Abby Bailey James and her sisters,
Ellen and Lydia Bailey, were daughters of
Francis Bailey, the first American
Newchurchman and the first publisher of Sweden-
borg's works in America. The Gwynne
family, the first Swedenborgians in Urbana,
had come from Cumberland, Maryland, in
the 1820's. Abby Bailey James came from
Cincinnati with her husband, John H.
James, to Urbana in 1826. Her sisters came
from Cincinnati to make their home with
her in 1833.
The establishment of the university
brought to Urbana the families of Milo G.
Williams from Dayton, Dr. William
Murdoch from Springfield, the Rev. James P.
Stuart from Hamilton County, David
Cathcart from Dayton, Jonah Broadwell and
Henry Espy from Columbus, Amos Adams
Richards from Springfield, Dr. Joseph
Howells from Hamilton, and Dr. William
Ring from Baltimore, Maryland. Minutes
of the Urbana New Church Society.
12 Medium, September 15, 1851. John Murdoch had been a receiver of
the Doc-
trines since 1815, having been brought
to the faith through his brother-in-law Josiah
Espy of Bedford, Pennsylvania. Espy and
the entire Murdoch family later emigrated
to Ohio. John Murdoch was an excellent
French scholar and translated J. F. S. Le
Boys des Guays' "Letters to a Man
of the World Disposed to Believe." Some of these
translations appeared in William C. Howells' Retina;
the translations eventually ap-
peared in book form. New Jerusalem Messenger, August
8, 1857.
30 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
three boys and girls. Charlotte Hoadley
of Cincinnati was employed
to take charge of the girls'
department, and extra instructors were
secured for French, music, anatomy and
physiology, and civil gov-
ernment.
In the summer of 1852 Williams urged
the building of a board-
ing house on the campus. W. Russell
West planned such a building,
and Colonel James used "all the
known modes of arguing, coaxing,
bantering, and bullying" to secure
funds to pay for it.13
The trustees of the Urbana University
approved a course of study
in the summer of 1852. Three
departments would offer: philosophy,
as taught in the doctrines of
Swedenborg's True Christian Religion,
including mental and moral philosophy,
logic, rhetoric, elocution,
and the "Science of
Correspondence"; science, including pure and
mixed mathematics and the natural
sciences; language, including
ancient and modern languages.
Instruction in theology was "within
the defined objects of the University
as exegetic knowledge," and a
theological department would be set up
whenever an endowment
could be secured. "The practice of
productive industry, with prac-
tical gardening, experimental farming
and mechanical workshops"
might "all be embraced in due time
when adequate general means
or special means" should be
provided.14
Milo G. Williams was elected head of
the science department,
and the Rev. James P. Stuart head of
the philosophy department
whenever that department should be
endowed. The next spring the
trustees elected Joseph W. Jenks of
Boston as professor of lan-
guages.15
13 John H. James to Chauncey Giles,
September 9, 1852. James Manuscripts. The
plan called for a building that would be
two stories in front and a story and a half
over the kitchen. The dormitory was to
hold twelve beds. West provided space over
the kitchen for two small rooms or a
washroom. By placing a tank in a closet a
moderate supply of water could be
obtained from the roof. W. Russell West to John
H. James, August 25, 1852. James
Manuscripts.
14 First Catalogue of Officers and
Students of Urbana University for 1853-54.
15 Joseph W. Jenks (Amherst 1829) was
the master of twenty-three languages, a
profound Bible student, and a candidate
for the New Church ministry. After serving
as chaplain and professor of mathematics
on board the Concord, which was commanded
by the distinguished Matthew C. Perry,
Jenks resigned his commission and entered the
Royal School of Languages in Paris. On
his return to the United States he spent seven
years assisting his father in the
preparation of the "Comprehensive Commentary" on
the Bible. From 1850 to 1852 he was
principal of a private school for young ladies
in Boston.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 31
In the fall of 1852 Colonel James, in a
letter to the Rev. Chaun-
cey Giles, expressed satisfaction in
the progress of their plans for
the school. "At any rate,"
wrote James, "we know that we want
something different from the effete
systems prevailing round us, but
we are not ready to project &
foretell the precise scheme we may
in the end devise."
Giles replied:
The perceptions of men are beginning to
awake to the idea that we need
a new science of education as well as of
philosophy & Religion. The New
Church has the science and will finally
be able to bring it out in suitable
forms, though there is much rubbish in
the way & many difficulties to over-
come, but the light will gradually
disperse the darkness and the "higher
law" will prevail.16
On May 19, 1853, Colonel James wrote in
his diary:
Joseph Swan has been down to the Yellow
Springs to see the new build-
ing for Antioch Coll, which is taking a
loan of $20,000 from a Life Ins co
in N. E. at 81/2 pr ct. The object of
the visit was to see whether the build-
ings would make a good factory of some
kind, and he thinks they would.
This is something amusing to me. In
seeking a plan and design for our
college we were in the habit of saying
among ourselves that we did not
want a cotton factory or a building that
could be mistaken for one. It seems
to be a merit in a college in the eyes
of a money lender to have that useful
quality of adaptation and conversion.
But as our college is prohibited from
mortgaging its grounds or buildings, we
can afford to adopt a style of better
taste.
In the summer of 1853 a plan was devised
to erect boarding
houses on the exterior of the grounds,
each house to provide for not
more than sixteen students. Under the
care of a competent matron,
each group would thus secure the
comforts and influences of home
life. The morals of the boys would be
protected by providing in
each boys' boarding house one large
sleeping room with single beds.
The professors of the Urbana University,
Milo G. Williams and
Joseph W. Jenks, were installed with
appropriate ceremonies on
16 James to Giles, September 9, 1852; Giles to James, September 23, 1852.
James
Manuscripts.
32
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
June 20, 1853. Colonel James delivered
a "forcible and eloquent"
address on "the origin, history,
and design of the institution." He
declared that the chief aim of the
college was "to cultivate the
affections of the student, to develop
the principles of good within
him, and to mould his life into a
course of virtue from a sense of
duty, and a love of good." A
father could expect his son to return
to him from any college with "a
replenished memory and an in-
vigorated understanding," but he
had no assurance that he would
not return "with his morals
depraved, and his health destroyed, by
the indulgence of morbid appetites and
the practice of secret vices."
The faculty of the Urbana University
would attempt to teach their
students that "their lives must
be trained to useful ends, from a
sense of duty to GOD, and from a
love of their neighbor." Placing
his hand upon the Bible, in a dramatic
gesture, Colonel James con-
cluded: "To this guidance we
commit our enterprise; and on this
rock we build the achievement of our
purpose, and the fruition of
our hopes; we shall appeal habitually as
we now do, to THE WORD."17
The Rev. J. P. Stuart delivered the
charge to the professors, re-
minding them that this was "the
first institution of the kind ever
established in the world, under the
immediate auspices of the New
Jerusalem Church."
The Urbana University opened on
September 7, 1853. Milo G.
Williams, declining the honor of the
presidency, was made dean.
He was assisted by Charles W. H.
Cathcart (Miami 1851), who
assumed the duties of tutor in
mathematics. Caroline Collier, from
the Cincinnati public schools, was principal
of the girls' department.
Willard Day was a teacher in the
preparatory school, and Colonel
John H. James was a special lecturer,
without pay, on constitutional
and international law. Professor Jenks
arrived after a long delay to
take over the language department. By
the end of the year, almost
a hundred students were enrolled.18
By the time the Urbana Uni-
versity held its first commencement in
June 1854, the enrollment had
reached 112.
Colonel James was certain that the
Urbana University was worth
17 New Jerusalem Messenger, July 16, 1853.
18 First
Catalogue of Urbana University, 1853-1854.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 33
every effort expended. He was a strong
Newchurchman because the
writings of Swedenborg made sense to
him. Unlike other systems
of religion, the Swedenborgian system
was not continually upset by
scientific developments. The Doctrines
were in entire conformity
with the expanding field of science,
and in like conformity with the
Word of God as revealed to man.
Swedenborg taught that the
earth had existed in its present form
for unknown eons; that do-
mestic animals and plants were
continuations of original types par-
ticularly designed for man's use; that
the earth had never been
destroyed by water and would never be
destroyed by fire; that Adam
was not an individual but a symbol of
the Most Ancient Church, an
era of high religious development, and
that the fall of man was
the spiritual degeneration of that Most
Ancient Church; and that
Noah was not a person but a symbol of
the Ancient Church or
religious era that saved man from the
flood of irreligion that threat-
ened to overwhelm him. Colonel James
accepted Swedenborg's
theory that the first eleven chapters
of Genesis were derived from
a lost revelation which is supposed to
be somewhere in Great Tar-
tary. That explained to his entire
satisfaction why the leading prin-
ciples of the Christian religion were
found among the Hindus in an
age at least coeval with, if not
anterior to, the time of Moses.
On July 7, 1855, the New Jerusalem
Messenger published an im-
pressive curriculum which was being
offered by the Urbana Univer-
sity in the three departments of
language, science, and philosophy.19
19 DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE:
I. Freshman Year. Term 1. The English
Language and Literature, and Roman
Antiquities. Term 2. Latin continued;
portions of the Greek Testament read; French
Grammar. Term 3. Roman Archaeology,
Latin, Greek, and French Literature.
II. Junior Year. 1. Portions of Greek
and Roman Poets and Philosophers. 2. Greek
continued; Greek Testament completed,
and portions of the Septuagint read; German
Grammar. 3. Grecian Archaeology; Greek
and German Literature.
III. Senior Year. 1. Hebrew Grammar, and
portions of Hebrew Historians. 2.
Hebrew Poets and Prophets; Chaldaic
Grammar. 3. Oriental Archaeology; Hebrew
and Chaldaic Literature; Hermeneutics.
DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE:
I. Freshman Year. 1. Conic Sections;
Algebra finished. 2. Plane and Spherical
Trigonometry; Mensuration of Planes and
Solids. 3. Surveying; Navigation; Ele-
ments of Zoology.
II. Junior Year. 1. Natural and
Experimental Philosophy; Chemistry; Astronomy;
Chemistry applied to Agriculture and the
Arts.
34 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
In October Colonel James reported to
the American Almanac that
the Urbana University had opened with
six instructors, 102 students,
and a library of 1,150 volumes.
James Taylor of the Cincinnati
Times, in reporting the commence-
ment exercises of the Urbana University
in 1856, said that Ohio had
too many educational institutions. Both
Ohio University at Athens
and Miami University at Oxford,
although "richly endowed" and
sustained by state patronage, were
"deeply in debt, as was every
other respectable College in the State,
Urbana University excepted."
A bit of pleasurable excitement was
enjoyed when a Norwegian
army officer, Adolphe Boyeson, came all
the way from his native
country in 1858 to study the New Church
doctrines at the university.
He remained four years, preparing
himself to translate the writings
of Swedenborg into the Scandinavian
languages. In 1862 he de-
parted for France. Boyeson and his
brothers founded the organized
New Church of Scandinavia.20
At the end of the year 1858-59 trouble
was brewing. The Rev.
Mr. Stuart, in his zeal for the
philosophy department, caused a rift
in the board of trustees and in the
faculty by asserting that religion
was not properly recognized in the
college. Basically the trouble
III. Senior Year. 1. Analytical
Mechanics; Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene.
2. Civil Engineering; Structural Botany.
3. Geology; Cosmogony.
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY:
I. Freshman Year. Philosophy of Language: the Study of the forms,
functions, and
significance of Objects. 1. The origin
and progress of Language, written and spoken.
2. Glossology, Oriental and Occidental;
Criticism; Synonyms. 3. Comparative Phil-
ology; Rhetoric; Logic; Belles Lettres.
II. Junior Year. 1. History of the Old Philosophy, its conflict and fall;
Rise of the
New Philosophy. 2. Subject and Object;
Mind and Matter; Soul and Body; Analysis
of the objects mentioned in the Word,
and their representative import. 3. The Lan-
guage of Symbols; Hieroglyphics;
Allegories; Parables; Analogies; and Correspond-
ences.
III. Senior Year. 1. The Earth and Man; The Various Ages
and Races; Chron-
ology and Ethnology. 2. Ethics;
Aesthetics; Metaphysics; Political Economy; Con-
stitutional and International Law. 3.
Divine Revelations to Man; Correspondences;
The Divine Word; Spirits; Angels; the LORD.
20 Hjalmar Hjorth Boyeson, a relative of Adolphe Boyeson, came to America
in
1869. From 1870 to 1873 he was an
instructor in history, Latin, and Greek at the
Urbana University. The New Church
families of Urbana were very kind to him, and
they were later much annoyed when he
portrayed Urbana and its people in an un-
complimentary way in one of his stories.
Hjalmar Hjorth Boyeson became a dis-
tinguished writer in this country.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 35
was a struggle between the departments
of science and philosophy.
John H. James, however, scotched the
rumor that the school would
break up, by boldly proclaiming that
more teachers would be em-
ployed and that salaries would be
increased. To heal the breach,
the Rev. Chauncey Giles, one of the
great Newchurchmen of Amer-
ica, was persuaded to accept the
presidency of the college. Giles was
then the pastor of the First New
Jerusalem Society in Cincinnati.
He continued to live in Cincinnati and
to serve his congregation,
paying frequent visits to Urbana to
supervise the affairs of the
Urbana University. Most of the
business, however, was transacted
by correspondence with Milo G. Williams
and Colonel James.
In the fall of 1860 Colonel James put
out a glowing prospectus,
and sent a report to the New
Jerusalem Messenger (December 15,
1860), in which he defended the
administration of the university.
The entire property of the school, he
said, was valued at $28,264.44
and was almost free of debt. In answer
to Stuart's charge that re-
ligion was neglected, he pointed out
that in the junior year the Latin
reading was confined to extracts from
Swedenborg and that in the
senior year the Science of
Correspondence and the Doctrine of De-
grees were taught. The school opened
daily with Scripture, chant,
and prayer. Swedenborg's Divine Love
and Wisdom and True
Christian Religion were used as textbooks, and all students were re-
quired to attend Sunday School and
church services. In Sunday
School the students studied the
geography and natural history of
the Word, the historical background of
the Word, and the literal
sense of the Word with its spiritual
explanation. They were able
to explain the laws of spiritual life,
the nature of correspondences,
discrete and continuous degrees, the
relation and connection of the
will and understanding, the forms and
distinctions of the heavens,
the societies in the heavens, and like
subjects. Of the 347 students
enrolled from 1853 to 1860, 198 were
from New Church families.
The Urbana New Church Society, buoyed
up by the university, had
a membership of 63 in 1860.21
Fort Sumter was fired upon in April
1861. Like all other colleges,
Urbana University was demoralized for a
time. As the year wore on,
21 New Jerusalem Messenger, February 11, 1860.
36 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
enrollment and revenues steadily
diminished. There was nothing to
do but close the doors till better
times.
The New Church Society in Urbana
continued to worship regu-
larly, ministered to by Joshua T.
Eaton, who lived in the empty col-
lege and pursued his studies of
Swedenborg. Eaton had been led
to read and accept Swedenborg and his
doctrines by Henry James's
reply to Edward Beecher's Conflict
of the Ages.22
The university reopened in the fall of
1862 as a preparatory
school, with only a few students. The
New Church Society grew
smaller and smaller. It was evident
that unless the college revived
enough to bring new families to Urbana,
the society must decline
even more. The university struggled
along as a preparatory school
during the school years of 1862-63 and
1863-64. It was again sus-
pended. One of the reasons for the
decline of the college was that
it was not firmly supported by the
eastern Newchurchmen.
The Urbana University reopened in 1866
and prospered for a
time under the administration of Alonzo
Phelps. In a fit of anger
in the fall of 1868, however, Phelps
withdrew from the university
and set up his own school in the
opposite end of town. Julius
Herrick took charge of the university
in December, but by the end
of the school year it was about to
close again. Colonel James de-
clared that it must remain open, even
if he and Milo Williams had
to go out to the college and do the
teaching.23
The Rev. Frank Sewall, then preaching
at Glendale, Ohio, was
persuaded to take the presidency of the
Urbana University in 1870.
Under Sewall the school became a
college in the true sense of the
word.24
22 Henry James learned of the doctrines
of Emanuel Swedenborg in Europe in 1843.
He embraced the theological system and
social philosophy of Swedenborg in the main,
but objected to the ecclesiastical
organization of the New Jerusalem Church. He pub-
lished "A Letter To a
Swedenborgian" in 1847 in which he opposed ecclesiasticism
and sanctioned the New Jerusalem
doctrines. His writings included The Church of
Christ Not an Ecclesiasticism,
Christianity the Logic of Creation, Morality and Religion
in Their Relation to Life, The Secret
of Swedenborg, and Society the
Redeemed Form
of Man. For James's philosophy, see Frederic Harold Young, The
Philosophy of
Henry James, Sr. (New York, 1951).
23 James Diary, 1869.
24 Paul H. Seymour, manuscript history
of the Urbana University. Frank Sewall was
an outstanding Newchurchman, versatile,
energetic, scholarly, artistic, and a good or-
ganizer. He remained in Urbana until
1886, serving both the university and the New
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 37
The Ohio Association of the New Church,
under which the
Urbana University was established, was
superseded by the Ohio
Conference in 1852. The association
failed because it was a body
of delegates and not a body of
individual receivers. The conference
embraced within its limits all
"receivers of the Heavenly Doctrines
of the New Jerusalem" who chose
"to co-operate with its forms and
uses." In January 1856 the
conference became the General Society
of the New Church in Ohio. It was
instituted at a meeting in
Urbana. Receivers from Ohio and
adjacent parts of Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana were
invited to unite with the Gen-
eral Society of Ohio to forward the New
Church and its principles.
At this time receivers resided "in
forty or fifty places" within the
bounds of the old Ohio Association.
This range of country, em-
bracing ninety thousand square miles,
contained only ten regularly
organized societies eligible to send
delegates to the General Con-
vention in the East. Of the ten, only
the Cincinnati society was able
to sustain a full-time minister.25
Probably a thousand receivers lived
within the bounds of the General
Society of the New Church in
Ohio, but many of them were
"isolated receivers."
On account of the Urbana University it
seemed proper to make
Urbana a center for the annual meeting
of the Newchurchmen of
Ohio and adjacent territory. The Rev.
Chauncey Giles was elected
president of the general society,
Willard Gibson Day, secretary, and
David Gwynne, treasurer.26 The
new general society held its second
annual meeting in Urbana in August,
seven months after its organ-
ization in January. Receivers from
Cincinnati, Urbana, Bellefon-
taine, Selma, Dayton, Sidney, Pomeroy,
Lebanon, Centerville, Flet-
cher, and Pharesburg attended. Letters
were read from Athens,
Branch Hill, St. Clairsville, Seville,
Marietta, Steubenville, Farming-
Church Society. He designed the
beautiful little stone church in which the society
now worships. It was dedicated in
February 1882. Among his more important writ-
ings are Dante and Swedenborg, The
New Metaphysics, Swedenborg and Idealism,
and his translation of Swedenborg's The
Soul, or Rational Psychology.
25 The Second New Jerusalem Society of Cincinnati
dissolved in 1843, the third
society in 1842.
26 New Jerusalem Messenger, February 2, 1856.
38 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
ton, and East Rockport. John H. Miller
and Willard G. Day were
the two missionaries in the vast field
of the general society.27
The general society planned a series of
annual meetings in the
chief localities of its membership. The
Western Reserve, Ross
County, Belmont County, and Meigs
County were considered stra-
tegic points. Such meetings were
expected to "do much towards the
general edification of the church, and
its propagation among the
Gentiles."
Willard G. Day was called to the
pastorate of the East Rockport
society in 1857.28 At that time there
were only two churches in the
town--the New Jerusalem and the
Armageddon, which served as a
community center. Plenty of hell fire
was preached in Armageddon,
the church without a Bible of its own.
Irreverent boys laughed at
the vivid sermons of the illiterate
preachers and noisily dragged log
chains on the floor to make more
realistic the rugged preachers'
fearsome descriptions of hell. The Rev.
Mr. Day organized a choir
and taught his entire congregation to
chant. He bought an organ
which had been built by Adam Hurdus in
Cincinnati and which had
seen long service in an Episcopal
church in Springfield. He took it
to East Rockport in large hay wagons.
It was the first pipe organ in
that part of Cuyahoga County.29
There was dissatisfaction with the
general society promoted by
Willard Day and James P. Stuart. It was
of short duration. The
Ohio Association was restored and met
in Urbana in May 1861.
Reports show that the one thousand
Swedenborgians in the associ-
ation were from an extensive territory.
Cincinnati led with two hun-
dred receivers; Athens had only five.
East Rockport, Bowling Green,
Bellefontaine, Urbana, Pomeroy, Kyger,
Newark, Columbus, Glen-
27 Miller reported visits in
"nearly twenty places" in the counties of Ross, Pike,
Gallia, Meigs, Montgomery, Warren, and
Highland. Day had been preaching in Clyde,
Toledo, Maumee City, Perrysburg, Bowling
Green, Norwalk, Seville, Cleveland, East
Rockport, Wooster, Olivesburgh, and
Mansfield, and in country homes in Miami and
Wayne counties.
28 Willard
Gibson Day graduated at the Urbana University in 1856. The next year
he was ordained to the ministry and went
to East Rockport as pastor of the New
Church in that place. He remained there
until he went to the Orchard Street Church
in Baltimore in 1867.
29 Willard G. Day, Early Recollections of the New
Jerusalem Church in Ohio and
Maryland (Baltimore,
1919), 6-9.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 39
dale, Hebron (Lockland), and Cincinnati
held regular Sunday serv-
ices. Bowling Green, Bourneville, and
Pomeroy had services once
a quarter. Toledo, Fremont, Clyde,
Tiffin, Lima, Sidney, Dayton,
Hamilton, Lebanon, and Bellefontaine
were in need of a missionary.
Chauncey Giles, Willard Day, and James
P. Stuart were the only
full-time New Church ministers in Ohio.
But there were thirteen
organized societies in the state,
besides the hundreds of isolated
receivers.30
The Swedenborgians of Ohio tried to
carry on missionary work,
but they had neither the funds nor the
men to achieve great success.
In 1850 the Ohio Association employed H.
M. Saxton, an exper-
ienced colporteur and ardent
Newchurchman, to sell books and dis-
tribute tracts. After a few months had
elapsed, Saxton said he would
quit unless the association provided
more support. Many members
of the association had come to the
conclusion that the indiscriminate
distribution of tracts was wasteful, and
that it would be better to
have a man who could expound the
Doctrines. Saxton stood in the
busiest streets of Cincinnati offering
his tracts; he visited the hotels
and the steamboats. When the General
Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church met in Cincinnati, he
courageously distributed his tracts
among the clergymen. He went to the
canal boats at the wharf and
gave out his tracts to be carried into
the interior. He gave them to
travelers who would carry them to many
places.
Saxton's monthly reports showed the
scope of his work. In July
1851, for instance, he sold 70 books and
pamphlets and distributed
462 tracts; in August he spent twenty
days of the month in Urbana
and Champaign County, and reported the
distribution of 960 tracts
in Champaign County and Cincinnati,
besides the sale of 174 books
and pamphlets; in September he sold 131
books and pamphlets, dis-
tributed 1,030 tracts, and placed in the
state library at Columbus
the True Christian Religion, the Heavenly
Doctrines of the New
Jerusalem, and the Doctrine of Life. In ten months, in
1851, Sax-
ton sold 1,882 books and pamphlets,
gratuitously distributed 9,500
"Ohio Tracts," 300
"Boston Tracts," and 300 miscellaneous tracts.
He seldom got on a train or a boat
without selling something.
30 Journal, Seventh Association of the New Church in Ohio, 1861.
40
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
In Cleveland books sold fairly well.
Through the few receivers
in Cleveland, Saxton's books began to
have influence. A young med-
ical student bought books from Saxton
to send to Germany and to
give away in Cleveland. Through this
one zealous student, from
"ten to twenty persons" in
Cleveland became receivers of the
Heavenly Doctrines. In 1854 Saxton went
to Toledo, visiting San-
dusky and smaller places on the way. In
Sandusky he sold books
to an engine-builder from Springfield,
who was about to make im-
portant improvements in the steam
engine. This mechanic was con-
fident that steam engines could be
built to run a hundred miles an
hour and that the construction could be
so simplified that the cost
would be reduced by one half. He told
Saxton that he attributed
his projected improvements in the steam
engine to Swedenborg, be-
cause the "Heavenly Writings"
caused him to analyze and to look
more deeply into the minutiae of
things.
In Toledo Saxton sold many books. He
found that there was im-
portant work to be done among the
Germans, and that lectures were
needed throughout northern Ohio. He met
with encouragement in
Ravenna, Cuyahoga, Akron, Madison,
Ashtabula, Jefferson, Kings-
ville, Monroe, Conneaut, and the
country around those towns.
In Monroe, Saxton discovered that
spiritualism was setting thou-
sands of persons to thinking about
immortality. Spiritualism, he
said, was adapted to a low state of
soul.31
The Rev. Sabin Hough gave a series of
lectures in Sandusky and
Cleveland in 1851, attracting large
audiences. But soon after he
left, a Spiritualist, pretending to be
a Newchurchman, began to give
lectures. The Spiritualist's name was
Tiffany. He told a Sweden-
borgian that the Swedenborgians
understood neither Christ nor
Swedenborg, because the only way to
understand them was to com-
municate with them. Tiffany believed in
clairvoyance and he was a
powerful mesmerizer. His subjects
claimed to hold almost constant
communication with Swedenborg and other
spirits. Many of
Tiffany's followers quit reading
Swedenborg, however, to read
31 Report of the
Committee on Colportage to the Association of the New Church in
Ohio, May 1851; Medium, November
15, 1851; New Church Repository, VI (1853),
86-93.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 41
Andrew Jackson Davis, a popular
Spiritualist writer. The Cleve-
land Swedenborgians, aroused by the
obvious fraud, circulated Sabin
Hough's pamphlet on Davis' Philosophy
of Spiritual Intercourse
(1851).32
In Hamilton, Ohio, a library of
Swedenborgian works was estab-
lished by the venerable Ogden Ross.33
The Rev. J. P. Stuart preached
and lectured in Hamilton in 1854 and
was violently opposed by a
Presbyterian preacher who warned his
flock not to read the New
Church books in Ogden Ross's new
library. Four years later a young
Lutheran minister in Hamilton preached
the New Jerusalem doc-
trines in his own church.34
David F. Cable of New Rochester, Ohio,
reported few believers
in the Doctrines in his town. The Western
Christian Advocate had
filled the minds of the people with
prejudice against the name of
Swedenborg.35
In the spring of 1856 Willard Gibson
Day, then a senior at the
Urbana University, began a series of
missionary journeys in southern
Ohio. In the summer he went north,
preaching in the towns and in
the country. He instituted a New
Jerusalem society in Bowling
Green on November 16, with nineteen
members. By 1864, how-
ever, there were "no meetings or
anything else" at Bowling Green.
War and politics absorbed the attention
of all. By this time the
Rev. J. P. Stuart had divided the state
of Ohio into three missionary
fields-the northern under Willard Day,
the southern under John
H. Miller, and the center under his own
care.36
32 Medium, August
1, 1851.
33 Ogden Ross was twice a representative from Hamilton County to the Ohio
Leg-
islature at Chillicothe, one of the
first trustees of Miami University, a member of the
committee which selected and laid out
the college town of Oxford, Ohio, in 1810, and
a member of the building committee for
Miami University, assisting James McBride
in the supervision of the clearing of
the land and the erection of the first college
building in Oxford. He was a member of
the first Swedenborgian society in Cincin-
nati, organized by Adam Hurdus in 1811.
Ogden Ross enjoyed the distinction of hav-
ing cast his first vote for George
Washington and his last vote, in his ninety-ninth
year, for Ulysses S. Grant.
34 New Jerusalem Messenger, April 1, 1854; John H. James to his wife, September
7, 1858, James Manuscripts.
35 New Jerusalem Messenger, July
7, 1855.
36 Ibid., December 19, 1857, February 13, 1864; Journal, Association
of the New
Church in Ohio, 1856.
42
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
In 1858 Stuart reported thirteen
organized societies in Ohio, six
with regular worship. In 1860 the
Hebron Society at Lockland be-
came the fourteenth. A board of
missions was appointed to solicit
funds to expand the field. On July 22,
1860, Stuart organized "The
Society of the New Jerusalem in Paint
Valley," in the house of Mr.
Sommerville, near Bourneville. The next
summer the new society
founded a Sunday School with nineteen
children. In September
Stuart organized the Society of the New
Jerusalem at Kyger with
nineteen members. In Lima, Ohio, the
New Jerusalem doctrines
were preached for the first time by the
Rev. Mr. Stuart. In 1862 he
reported 2,000 adult receivers in Ohio
and about 5,000 young people
and children more or less under the
influence of the New Church.
Ten societies had been admitted to the
association since 1857--East
Rockport, Bellefontaine, Urbana,
Cincinnati, Hebron (Lockland),
Paint Valley, Pomeroy, Glendale, Kyger,
and Newark.37
On one of his journeys in 1860 Stuart
went into Meigs and Gallia
counties, "the Switzerland of
Ohio." Pomeroy, Coalport, Rock
Spring, and Kyger were the principal
locations of the New Jeru-
salem receivers in Meigs and Gallia
counties.38
An association for missionary work was
formed in Columbus by
the Newchurchmen of Columbus and Newark
on December 13,
1859. The association was named
Michael, from a passage in the
Arcana Coelestia: "They also who are engaged in those ministries
are called Michaels and Gabriels in
heaven." The Michael Associ-
ation held its first meeting in
Columbus in February 1860. In May
they decided to publish "The
Sower," a missionary tract to be pub-
lished in Newark twice a month.39
The Columbus group of Swedenborgians
met with Dr. J. J.
Coulter in his home to hold services.
Coulter had one of the best
Swedenborgian libraries in the United
States. In 1864 he reported
37 New Jerusalem Messenger, July 21, August 18, September 8, 1860, June 20, 1861.
38 Ibid., June 2, 1860. Stuart described these counties as the
center of the great
salt basin and coal fields of Ohio, with
an enormous outcrop of coal, and salt water
a thousand feet deep. The river bank for
four or five miles was devoted to "salt and
cinder."
39 Crisis, March 1, May 1, July 1, 1860, March 1,
1861. By this time Newark had
a neat little temple that would seat
more than two hundred.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 43
to the Ohio Association that about all
who had worshipped with
him had left the city.
In 1865, for a time, the Rev. Willard
Day went from East Rock-
port to Cleveland on Sunday evenings to
lecture. He began with
twenty-eight, and his audience quickly
increased to more than fifty,
which was "very good for
Cleveland." They met on the third floor
of the Good Templars' Hall at 178
Superior Street. In 1868 there
were "a dozen or so
receivers" in the city.40
Charles Hardon did some missionary work
in Ohio, and Frank
Sewall did a great deal of such work in
the state. In 1864 he made a
trip through southern Ohio and was
appalled at the whiteness of
the harvest and the dearth of laborers.
In the same year the board
of missions complained that the entire
burden of the missionary
effort was falling on three members of
the board, and that even if
they had the financial means, the lack
of suitable laborers was "an
insuperable difficulty." The
unsettled state of the country in 1864
was definitely hindering the progress
of the church.41
Benjamin F. Barrett became the pastor
of the First New Jerusalem
Society of Cincinnati in the spring of
1848. The next year Barrett
began a series of Sunday evening
lectures on the Doctrines. The lec-
tures were well attended, but they
displeased some of the brethren.
Barrett was asked to discontinue his
lectures on the infallibility of
Swedenborg, but the request was
ignored. As a result of the twenty
lectures, new readers and new receivers
were gained. Medical stu-
dents, "on the verge of
infidelity," bought so many of Swedenborg's
books that Barrett was certain that the
best minds in the medical
profession would soon acknowledge the New
Church doctrines. The
church library was open during the
winter, and the number of
readers steadily increased. The young
people of the society met with
their pastor in his home every Friday
night to study the Doctrines.
Heaven and Hell was their textbook.42
Barrett resigned his pastorate in 1850,
but lectured independently
40 New Jerusalem Messenger, February 25, 1865, January 22, 1868.
41 Crisis, XII (1864), 135; Journal, Association of the New
Church in Ohio, 1864.
42 New Church Repository, III (1850), 85; W. N. Hobart, Outline History of the
New Jerusalem Church in Cincinnati 1811-1903 (Cincinnati,
1903), 19.
44
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
in the spacious new Concert Hall
downtown. With a core of his
own followers, his audiences numbered
from six to eight hundred
people. When he finished his last
lecture, nearly a hundred young
men remained to form a "Young
Men's Association for Religious
Inquiry." Members committed
themselves only to "freedom of
thought and inquiry upon religious
subjects." The "high and
heavenly truth" of Swedenborg was
to have a fair field, and noth-
ing more.43 The Cincinnati
Gazette (April 1, 1852) declared that
no movement in Cincinnati had ever
promised a richer harvest of
cultivated and healthy religious
sentiment than this New Church
venture. When Barrett's lectures came
out in book form, the
Gazette pronounced the work beautifully written by a polished
writer.
The First New Jerusalem Society of
Cincinnati valiantly helped
to raise money to erect a brick
building on the land donated by the
late Judge Luke Foster for a New Church
school. Judge Foster had
provided twenty acres of land for the
school, situated "about ten
miles from Cincinnati, about a mile
from the villages of Glendale
and Lockland, and some two miles from
the villages of Sharon and
Reading." The school at
"Foster Hill" was opened in the spring of
1854 by Miss E. J. Trott, a capable New
Church teacher who had
supplied part of the funds to erect the
building. Miss Trott, as-
sisted by a kindergarten teacher from
Boston, offered "thorough in-
struction in the ordinary English
Branches and in Music and Draw-
ing." The Foster Hill School,
strictly a New Church institution for
boys and girls, provided "a
cheerful home and careful moral and
religious training." By 1868 the
school had become the Foster Hill
Family School for Boys, under the care
of Charles B. Chace, late of
Waltham, Massachusetts.44
In 1857 the General Convention of the
New Church met in Cin-
cinnati. They especially observed the
centenary of what Sweden-
borg called the "Last Judgment
upon the old Christian Church."
The year 1757 was a significant one in
New Church annals, for it
43 Medium, March
15, April 15, 1852; Cincinnati Gazette, April 2, 1852.
44 Crisis, September 1, October 15, 1857; New-Church
Independent, XIV (1865),
45; Journal, Association of the New Church in
Ohio, 1868.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 45
was in that year that Swedenborg
witnessed daily the cataclysmic
occurrences in the spiritual world.45
The convention closed with a large
picnic at the Resor estate in
Clifton. Sixteen New Church ministers
lent dignity to the occasion.
The young people danced in the house
and in the grassy grove to
the lilting measures of "a good
band."46
Mrs. David Loring of the Cincinnati
society financed the placing
of complete sets of Swedenborg's
theological works in fifteen li-
braries of the state in 1864. Among
them were the state library in
Columbus; the public libraries of
Dayton, Cleveland, and Cincin-
nati; the Zanesville Athenaeum; the
Young Men's Mercantile Li-
brary and the General Religious Library
in Cincinnati; the libraries
of Ohio University in Athens, Miami
University in Oxford, and
Wittenberg College in Springfield. Just
how much these silent mis-
sionaries were used, no one can say.
The Rev. J. P. Stuart, in 1860,
found two copies of Alexander Kinmont's
Natural History of Man
"standing mournfully together, in
a poor and worn-out dress," on
"an oft-frequented shelf" in
one of the libraries at Ohio University
in Athens. At least one Swedenborgian
author had been widely read.
In 1865 the First New Jerusalem Society
of Cincinnati employed
the Rev. E. A. Beaman to carry on a
program of missionary work
in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky.47 In
March 1866 Beaman reported
that he had preached and lectured
eighty-two times in eighteen or
twenty places, to audiences varying
from a score of persons to a
few hundred.
The Cincinnati society also assisted
the Rev. Arthur O. Brickman
in his work among the Germans in
Cincinnati. On December 12,
1865, Brickman organized "The
First German Society of the New
Jerusalem Society in Cincinnati,
Ohio," with seventeen members.
45 Carl Theophilus Odhner, Annals of
the New Church (Bryn Athyn, Pa., 1904),
68.
46 New Jerusalem Messenger, June 27, 1857.
47 Beaman, in April 1866, reported that
he had never found people with less
courage than the few Swedenborgians
residing in Chillicothe. They were completely
subdued by the wave of revivalism
sweeping Chillicothe at that time. Beaman boldly
sent out 500 handbills announcing a
series of lectures. In spite of the revival he had
an audience of 150 by the third lecture.
In June he courageously replied to a popular
Methodist minister's attack on
Swedenborg and his writings. New Jerusalem Mes-
senger, March
24, April 14, June 23, 1866.
46 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
The local person directly responsible
for this organization was
F. Gottlieb, junior, who became its
first leader. Gottlieb had come
from a New Church society in Canada.
Seeing a German population
of 100,000 in Cincinnati, he thought it
a fertile field for the spread
of the Doctrines. The new German
society was composed of work-
ing men without capital. Appeals were
made to the New Church
brethren throughout the country for
aid. By the end of the next
summer the society had some books, a
rented hall, a melodeon, and
a new leader, J. H. Einhaus. Einhaus
was a good preacher and a
good performer on the melodeon.48
Adolph S. Bartels went on a missionary
journey early in 1862.
From Pittsburgh to Columbiana, Ohio, he
found few receivers. Most
of them were German farmers living far
apart, and a majority of
them wanted sermons in German. The
scattered German receivers
in the eastern river counties met once
a month in private homes for
worship; many of them read the New
Church German paper, the
Monatschrift, and a few read the New Jerusalem Messenger. Bartels
preached to them in both English and
German.
The New Jerusalem Society at Glendale,
near Cincinnati, laid the
cornerstone of its first temple on
April 27, 1861. In spite of the
turmoil of war they completed it that
summer. This beautiful little
church was the fifth New Jerusalem
temple in the state of Ohio. On
October 6, 1861, the Rev. Chauncey
Giles preached the dedicatory
sermon. In it he succinctly defined the
New Church:
A fundamental characteristic of the New
Church, and one which dis-
tinguishes her from all other churches,
and shows conclusively that a new
order of things took their rise with
her, is that her doctrines and philosophy
are not a faith . . . but a settlement
of the laws of man's life, and of
Divine life, and their relations to each
other, as they actually exist. They
are a spiritual science, in the same
sense that Chemistry and Geometry are
natural or mathematical sciences.49
When the war broke out in the spring of
1861, the New Jeru-
48 New Jerusalem Messenger, January
6, April 14, July 18, 1866. Brickman did a
great deal of work among the Germans in
Ohio and adjacent states. He organized the
first German New Jerusalem Society in
Monroe County, with forty-five members, in
1856. Ibid., October 4, 1856.
49 New Jerusalem Messenger, January 18, July 20, October 26,
December 14, 1861.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 47
salem Messenger (April 21, 1861) sadly observed that the country
was in the midst of events which no
human wisdom could guide or
control. The South had been entreated
to seek for legal and con-
stitutional remedies for their
grievances. "But our love for them has
suffered no abatement," said the Messenger.
The editorial closed
with the hope that the North and the
South would again be united
in fraternal bonds that should never
again be severed. The church
periodicals were mild in sentiment at
first, but as the war went on
they took different stands on current
questions. The New Jerusalem
Messenger, for instance, changed editors and became rabidly pro-
Lincoln, while the New Church Herald
was suppressed in 1861 and
its editor, the Rev. Sabin Hough, was
thrown into prison.
Some of the New Church periodicals
began to publish articles
about Swedenborg's revelation
concerning the Africans, while others
said little or nothing about it. There
were certain beliefs about the
Negro that were peculiar to the New
Church. In his Continuation
of the Last Judgement, Swedenborg described the Africans he had
seen in the spiritual world as
"more internal than the rest of the
Gentiles," their thought more
spiritual about the Lord. They pos-
sessed a revelation which, commencing
in the center of the con-
tinent of Africa, was
"communicated around," but did not reach the
African coasts. In a conversation with
St. Augustine in the spiritual
world, Swedenborg had learned that the
angels had given to the
Africans in central Africa the truths
that Swedenborg was then
setting forth in his writings.
Upon reading about the Africans in
Swedenborg's new work, a
group of Swedenborgians in Sweden met
together at Norrokoping
in 1779 to form a society for doing
something about the Africans.
They not only wished to abolish the
slave trade, but they wanted
to civilize "those uncultivated
and hitherto abused nations" on true
Christian principles. An organization
was effected with Charles
Bernhard Wadstrom as leader.50 These ardent reformers were
50 New Jerusalem Magazine, or a
Treasury of Celestial, Spiritual and Natural
Knowledge (London), I (1790), 70. This magazine was the first
English periodical of
the New Church. Sir Augustus Nordenskjold published a
weekly journal, the Afton-
bladet, in Stockholm in 1784, which was the first Swedenborgian
periodical ever pub-
lished. Odhner, Annals of the New Church, 107,
124.
48
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
ignorant of the fact that the black
races in Africa were as numerous
and distinct as the white races. They
acted on the belief that the
coastal Africans were as capable of
receiving the Doctrines as them-
selves. They forgot that the revelation
which was "communicated
around" did not reach the African
coasts.
Sir Augustus Nordenskjold, an eminent
chemist and mining engi-
neer, who was influential at the court
of Gustavus III, secured the
royal permission to emigrate to Sierra
Leone with forty families. In
May 1787 King Gustavus sent Charles
Wadstrom at the head of a
scientific expedition to explore the
west coast of Africa, with a view
to prepare the way for a Swedish colony
which would operate
against the slave trade. Wadstrom,
Chevalier Captain Arrhenius,
and a Dr. Sparrman selected Cape
Mesurado as the best place for a
colony. The next year, after his return
to Sweden, Wadstrom was
sent to England to interest the British
government and British
capitalists in the colonization of
Sierra Leone.51 Apparently the
Swedish Swedenborgians had given up
their idea of colonizing Cape
Mesurado. The two principal
associations of Swedenborgians were
in London and Stockholm. From them
originated the idea to abolish
the slave trade, and they collected
huge sums of money to found a
colony at Sierra Leone.52
During the winter of 1837-38, Alexander
Kinmont, the brilliant
scholar and Swedenborgian of Cincinnati,
delivered a course of re-
markable lectures on "The Natural
History of Man." In one of
these lectures he prophesied that when
the epoch of the African
civilization should arrive, in the
lapse of ages, it would be "a civili-
zation of a peculiar stamp; . . . not
so much distinguished by art as
a certain beautiful nature, not so
marked or adorned by science as
exalted and refined by a certain new
and lovely theology . . . more
perfect and endearing than that which
the intellects of the Caucasian
race" had ever exhibited. A far
nobler civilization might await the
Negro, he said, "to return the
splendor of the divine attributes of
mercy and benevolence in the practice
and exhibition of all the
51 New Jerusalem Magazine (London), I (1790), 73; R. L. Tafel, Documents
Concerning Swedenborg, II, 811.
52 New Jerusalem Messenger, March 13, 1858, quoting the Monthly Magazine
(London), VI (1798), 458.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 49
milder and gentler virtues." In
his lecture on "Unity in Variety of
the Human Race," he said:
"When I read the New Testament, and
note the sweet and lovely character of
the virtues recommended,--
that almost female tenderness of mind .
. . --I am impressed with
the conviction that other than the
European race must become the
field of their insemination ere we can
see them in their natural per-
fection." "A race more
feminine and tender-minded than the Cau-
casian is needed," he said,
"to reflect the sweetness and gentle
beauty of the Christian religion,--its
mystic, quiet, humble spirit."53
Strangely enough, the distinguished
Presbyterian scholar William
Greenough Thayer Shedd advanced a
similar theory in 1857.54
According to Swedenborg, the Negroes of
central Africa acknowl-
edged the Lord as the God of Heaven and
Earth and scoffed at the
idea of the Trinity; they laughed at
Christians who taught that
salvation might be achieved by mere
thinking. These Africans said
that whoever does not live by his
religion must become stupid and
wicked, because in that case, he
receives nothing from Heaven.
Now, in the middle of the nineteenth
century--a century after
Swedenborg's revelation--it was
discovered that there was a people
in central Africa who used metals,
maintained orderly governments,
lived in towns, and carried on an
extended traffic with distant places.
On the west coast of Africa, at Cape
Mesurado, which Wadstrom
had recommended in 1788 for
colonization, a nation of returned
Africans was now growing up, with
political forms derived from
America, which would achieve the way
from the coast to the in-
terior, "like the highway out of
Egypt to Assyria."55 Some New-
53 Alexander Kinmont, The Natural
History of Man and the Rise and Progress of
Philosophy (2d ed., Philadelphia, 1891), 185-189, 210-215.
54 Professor Shedd declared that the African possessed
"a fuller, more profuse, and
more sensuous organization" than
the European, and that the very richness and full-
ness of his physical organization betokened "a
luxurious soul." Unlike the aggressive
Goth, the African had no lust of empire
in his blood. The Saxon needed some in-
fusion of these equatorial elements of
the African people. The languor of the tropics
infused into the Saxon's
"overwrought stimulancy" might well benefit and tranquilize
him. The North African church of the
first centuries, said Professor Shedd, was full
of divine fire, which flashed in the
labored but powerful rhetoric of Tertullian and
glowed in the mind of Augustine. The
blending of energy and lethargy, the soul and
the sense, might lead to the finest
combination possible among the varied types of
mankind. William G. T. Shedd, "A Discourse on
Africa and Colonization," in
Bibliotheca Sacra, July 1857, quoted in the New Jerusalem Messenger, April 21, 1866.
55 John H. James, "Manuscript
History of the New Church," New Jerusalem
Messenger, April
3, 1858.
50
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
churchmen were now thinking that
perhaps God had chosen "poor
Africa, in the furnace of affliction,
to make her the highest and
noblest in that kingdom which He shall
set up, when every other
kingdom has been tried and
failed."56 These ideas about Negroes,
inspired by Swedenborg's Last
Judgement, may explain, in a mea-
sure, why Swedenborgians were so active
in the American Coloni-
zation Society.
As the war between the North and the
South progressed, New
Church societies all through the land
suffered a more and more
definite cleavage on the slavery
question. In the Urbana society pro-
Lincoln members looked askance at
anti-Lincoln members. Milo G.
Williams and his wife were among the
most intensely loyal to
Lincoln and the Union cause. In 1862,
though he was fifty-eight
years old, Williams joined the
"Squirrel Hunters" in Cincinnati to
defend the city against the expected
attack by the Confederate Gen-
eral Kirby Smith. In 1865, when the
funeral train bearing Lincoln's
body came through Urbana late at night,
it was Mrs. Milo G. Wil-
liams who placed the town's floral
tribute on Lincoln's casket. A
great crowd, bearing flaming torches,
assembled at the railway sta-
tion to pay their last respects to the
martyred president.
The most outspoken anti-Lincolnite in
the Urbana society was
Colonel John H. James. Lincoln outraged
him by what he (James)
considered flagrant violation of the
Constitution of the United
States. Yet with all his disapproval of
Lincoln's policies, Colonel
James was touched by the death of
Willie Lincoln on February 20,
1862. On March 17 he wrote Lincoln a
letter, seeking to comfort
him with a marked volume of
Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia. "Even
if you do not receive this as
true," he wrote, "it may comfort you
much to think of your boy as living now
with all his memory com-
plete, growing in wisdom, and fitting
for a life of use,--and that
he will know you, when you meet
him."
At the tenth annual meeting of the Ohio
Association in Cincin-
nati in May 1864, Giles Richards of
Colerain offered a resolution
that the New Church declare and put on
record their willingness to
serve, and, if needed, to give their
lives to their country; that it was
56 New Jerusalem Messenger, September 22, 1855.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 51
the bounden duty of New Church members
to help in every way to
put down the rebellion. The Cincinnati
Gazette observed that,
strange as it might seem, "this
truly loyal and mild, but firm and
Christian expression of sentiment
excited an animated and some-
what bitter debate in which Colonel
John H. James of Urbana and
Rev. Willard G. Day of East Rockport,
O., were the leading
spirits in opposition to the
resolution." The resolution was passed
by a large majority. The Rev. Frank
Sewall of Glendale, "whose
Copperhead sympathies have been
strongly suspected, left the hall
whilst the resolution was under
discussion," said the Gazette. The
Gazette recalled that the Rev. Willard Day had "figured
somewhat"
when his brother-in-law, Charles W. H.
Cathcart, was "arrested and
brought to this city by order of Gen.
Burnside." According to the
Gazette, Richards offered the resolution to test the feeling of
some
of the delegates who were suspected of
Copperhead sympathies, and
"to place the Association in its
true position."57
Colonel James wrote in his diary that
night (May 14, 1864) that
he opposed the resolutions because they
"had no business there,"
that they were "the work of a few
isolated members and preachers."
He added that several Newchurchmen had
thanked him that night
for the emphatic speech he had made.
Colonel James steadfastly fought any
such resolutions introduced
in the General Conventions of 1863 and
1864. In 1863 the Lincoln-
ites were affronted because the
Copperheads were permitted to have
their own way in order to have peace.
In 1864 the pro-Lincoln reso-
lutions carried, but not without a
fight. The Rev. B. F. Barrett
indignantly wrote, "Yet here is
the General Convention . . . claim-
ing to be the 'specific New Church,' .
. . lagging full three years be-
hind all the other churches in
declaring its loyalty."58
The New-Church Independent, in
February 1864, rejoiced over
the constitutional amendment which
declared that neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime, should
57 Crisis, XII (1864), 103, quoting the Cincinnati Gazette; New
Jerusalem Mes-
senger, June
11, 1864; Journal, Association of the New Church in Ohio, 1864. Giles
Richards contributed thousands of
dollars to the war effort; he supported the Union
with a religious zeal. For a biography
of Giles Richards, see Ophia D. Smith, Giles
Richards and His Times (Columbus, 1936).
58 Crisis, XII (1864), 141-142.
52 Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
continue to exist within the United
States or any place subject to
their jurisdiction. "Sound the
loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea,
Jehovah has triumphed, His people are
free," exulted the Inde-
pendent."59
The Rev. James P. Stuart, in an
editorial in the New Jerusalem
Messenger (February 4, 1865), announced that this amendment
sealed forever the doom of that "PRINCE OF VILLAINIES--SLAVERY!"
On April 8, 1865, the Messenger carried
the headlines: "RICHMOND
AND FORT SUMTER. Sow to the wind: Reap the whirlwind." Stuart
rejoiced that "the most gigantic
rebellion ever known ... ha[d] now
received its effectual quietus in the
fall of its central stronghold."
On April 15 Stuart proclaimed the news
of Lee's surrender, pointing
out the fact that it took place on
"the sacred Palm Sunday . . . the
day of the Saviour's entry into
Jerusalem." On April 22 the Mes-
senger's leading editorial expressed profound grief over
"this atro-
cious crime," the assassination of
President Lincoln. "Let there be
no mercy shown to the accursed
institution of slavery, which has
been the fountain of all this
wickedness," said Editor Stuart.
No fire of wrath blazed forth from the Urbana
Union, though
Editor John H. James admitted that the
untimely death of the pres-
ident was "a public
calamity." No other man, said Colonel James,
could equal Lincoln as peacemaker among
warring party factions.
The Rev. Willard G. Day of East
Rockport wrote a succinct line
in his diary: "Lincoln killed by
John Wilkes Booth, for allowing
John Young Beall to be hanged at
Governor's Island, N. Y.--after
saying he would not allow the
execution."60
In June 1865 Colonel James attended the
General Convention of
the New Church in Chicago. He was irked
by the patriotic pres-
idential address of Thomas Worcester.
When the committee on the
state of the country met two days
later, the Rev. Chauncey Giles
offered a resolution which contained a
clause approving Worcester's
address. Colonel James demanded that
the clause be stricken out.
59 Crisis, XIII (1865), 24.
60 John Young Beall was hanged at Governor's Island on February 24, 1865.
He
had been arrested on December 16, 1864.
A military court had found him guilty of
perpetrating acts of war within the
jurisdiction of the United States, wearing, at the
time, no visible badge of military
service.
The New Jerusalem Church in
Ohio 53
The committee refused. Then, said the
colonel, he would have to
make a minority report. He read his
report the next day amid pro-
found silence. It was moved that the
report should not be printed
in the journal. After much heated
debate it was eventually voted
to allow the report to be printed. Some
of the members, less bold,
told the colonel afterward that they
were glad that at least one man
had the courage to oppose bringing
politics into the church.61
Colonel James wanted to keep politics
out of the church. He
was not against the Negro. When two or
three Negroes occasionally
sat in the back of the church at Urbana
and partook of the Holy
Supper, the Colonel approved of it. He
wanted no Jim Crow gal-
lery in his church, he said. Like many
other citizens he supported
slavery only because it was the law of
the land. He thought it
economically unsound and that if let
alone it would eventually die
of its own weaknesses.
The New Church was disturbed by the
changing times just as any
other sect, and for the very same
reason--that churches are made
up of fallible human beings who differ
in opinion.
By the end of the 1860's the rabid
opposition to the New Church
had decreased in intensity. Newchurchmen
took pride in the fact
that their doctrines must meet rational
doubt and satisfy the reason.
The prospects of other churches in the
West, said the New Jeru-
salem Messenger, were "certainly not very brilliant."
However, the
Catholics were increasing by reason of
the immigrating Irish; Cath-
olic churches were beginning to appear
"in all the interior towns."
Unitarians and Episcopalians were
making a little progress. Revivals
and camp meetings were declining in
popularity. Only twenty per-
cent of those converted in revival
meetings ever became church mem-
bers, not counting those who backslid
after joining the church. The
old machinery was becoming obsolete.
The New Church must now
organize circuits and pay their
missionaries enough to support their
families.62
The New Church in 1870 was still a
novelty in the West, a relig-
61 James Diary, June 14-18, July 7, August 10, 1865. In August Colonel
James
was still receiving congratulatory
letters on his firm stand.
62 New Jerusalem Messenger, October 16, 1867.
54 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
ious organization that was not
generally understood. As Edwin
Markham said, they called Swedenborg a
"visionary clad in mist."
They could not see that he was
"earth's iron realist." To the ma-
jority of the people it was easier to
be saved instantaneously by grace
than to achieve salvation by good works
and a lifetime of stretching
the mind by study. Too many were like
the country woman who said
that it was too expensive to be a
Swedenborgian--there were too
many books to buy. With some it was not
so much the price of the
books that deterred them, as the
intellectual effort required to read
them.
Swedenborg, with remarkable clarity,
defined the five classes of
the readers of his writings, a definition
that is as true today as it
was in his time. He said:
The first reject them entirely,
because they are in another persuasion, or
because they are in no faith. The second
receive them as scientifics, or as
objects of mere curiosity. The third receive
them intellectually, and are in
some measure pleased with them, but
whenever they require an application
to regulate their lives they remain
where they were before. The fourth re-
ceive them in a persuasive manner, and
are thereby led, in a certain degree,
to amend their lives and to perform
uses. The fifth receive them with de-
light and confirm them in their lives.63
The few who received the writings of
Swedenborg "with delight
and confirm[ed] them in their
lives," were convinced that
Back in the abyss of theologic night
He was the one man who beheld the Light;
His were the eyes on the front of that
dark age
Which read the Truth upon the Judgement
page.64
63 Quoted in New Jerusalem Messenger,
September 13, 1862.
64 Edwin Markham, "Swedenborg,"
a dedicatory poem read at the unveiling of
Adolph Jonsson's bust of Swedenborg in Lincoln Park,
Chicago, on June 28, 1924.
THE NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH IN OHIO
FROM 1848 TO 1870*
by OPHIA D. SMITH
In his Teachers of the Nineteenth
Century (1845), Parke Godwin
said that the chief characteristic of
the then present epoch was its
tendency to unity in universality, and
that the men in whom this
tendency was most fully expressed were
Swedenborg, Fourier, and
Goethe. In these three persons was
summed up the great move-
ment toward unity in universality in
religion, science, and art, which
comprised "the whole domain of
human activity."1
There was in England at this time a
plan for a college for the
education of the children of
Swedenborgian parents. It was to bear
the name Emanuel College, and it was to
offer the usual courses in
literature and science, plus the
doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg,
who so completely represented the trend
toward unity in a universal
religion.2
This plan stirred the minds of a few
New Church leaders in the
West, in America. The Rev. James P.
Stuart, a New Church mis-
sionary, discussed it with Newchurchmen
as he went about the
country selling New Church books and
distributing tracts. Undis-
mayed by his "arduous and
perplexing" work, he sold books by the
hundreds and distributed tracts by the
thousands. He preached in
towns and in wild and sequestered
neighborhoods. In 1849 he
preached in Dayton, Springfield,
Woodburn, Lebanon, and Yellow
Springs many times. "Some of the
leading citizens" of Yellow
Springs were beginning openly to avow
their belief in the new
doctrines and to proclaim them to
others. Stuart's sermons and
lectures were reviewed, directly or
indirectly, in every pulpit in and
around the town of Lebanon. In Urbana
the Rev. Mr. Stuart found
a few new readers, and his lectures
were well attended. The clergy-
men of the village made some
demonstrations against the Doctrines,
* This is the third and last in a series
of articles on the Swedenborgians in Ohio.
The first two were published in the preceding
issues.
1 The Harbinger, November 29, 1845.
2 Mirror of Truth, July 5, 1845; New Jerusalem Magazine, XIX
(1846), 399-400.
25