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The New-Church Theological School.
This institution was first suggested at the convention of the New-Jerusalem Church in 1866.
Up to that time the ministry had been supplied almost wholly by accessions from other religious bodies, but it was then found that young men were growing up with a desire to be thoroughly prepared in a distinctive school.
Beginning with a summer class, and going on very modestly without a place of its own until 1889, the school then took its present position.
The commodious residence of the late
President Sparks was first purchased, and to this the Greenough estate was added two years later.
The grounds thus extend along Quincy Street from
Cambridge to Kirkland streets, and room is afforded for new buildings.
The first of these will undoubtedly be a chapel.
Services have been held in the lower rooms of the
Sparks house, and the congregation is, for its size, an active one, assisting in all work for the moral welfare of
Cambridge.
A good beginning has been made towards the creation of a chapel fund.
At the time of removal to
Cambridge some regret was kindly expressed because a separate system of instruction had been adopted instead of the endowment of a chair in the Harvard Divinity School; but the principles of the New-Jerusalem Church are such that a separate school seems to be a practical necessity.
Thus the sacred Scriptures are held to be fully divine, although outwardly adapted to people of the past.
Again the reality of the spiritual world—a doctrine held in connection with utter abhorrence of spiritism—is a fundamental tenet.
Neither the
Unitarian nor the Trinitarian view of the
Divine Being is held; but He is believed to be of one person, with the attributes of Father, Son, and Spirit united in Him as are the soul, the body, and the outgoing life in man. The title ‘New-Jerusalem’ is not used in an exclusive sense,
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but as descriptive of Christianity freed from the material conceptions of the past.
Emanuel Swedenborg is regarded as a divinely authorized interpreter of the Scriptures to the rational mind of this age. This interpretation he everywhere rests on the basis of science, which, in its essential form, he understood before he advanced to philosophy.
The curriculum of the school is arranged for three years; the Scriptures in the original tongues are studied through the course; the spiritual interpretation of Scripture, the history of religion, the New-Church theology, and the work of the ministry are the principal subjects of study.
There are, as yet, no endowed professorships, but the teaching is done by persons selected from time to time, for their general fitness.
The management is in the hands of a board appointed by the general convention in the
United States.
The president is
the Rev. James Reed of
Boston (H. U. 1855); the writer (H. U. 1866) is in immediate charge, and resides upon the Greenough estate.
Students in residence generally live in the
Sparks house, which has also two lecture-rooms.
Beside the students in
Cambridge, there are some who follow the course in their distant homes, especially as a test of their fitness to become regular students.
The school gives its diploma to full graduates; other students receive a certificate of work performed.
The funds of the school, like all else in connection with it, are merely sufficient for present needs; but, as the chairman of the trustees,
Chief Justice Mason, lately said, ‘Our school is not rich, and it is not poor.’
At the time when the
Cambridge location was decided upon, such generosity as the university has shown was not expected; but the original good reasons for the step have been augmented by the general kindness which has been shown to the school by all with whom it comes into contact.
