Greenacre on the Piscataqua
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Anna Josephine Ingersoll, Greenacre on the Piscataqua, New York: Allegiance Publishing Company, 1900, bahai-library.com.
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GREENACRE
X
ON THE
PISCATAQUA.

ANNA JOSEPHINE INGERSOLL.

NEW YORK:
THE ALLIANCE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
"LIFE" BUILDING.

87857
Library of Conqrose
Twti Copies Received

DEC      13 1900
Copynght entry

No

SECOND COPY
Odiv«red to

OHD£R DIVISION
DEC       171900

Copyright, 1900,
by
Anna Josephink Ingersoll.
A GLIMPSE OF GREENACRE.
GREENACRE ON THE PISCATAQUA.

the traveler speeding tlirough
TONew  England on the Eastern
Division of     the        Boston & Maine
Railroad there        is    no hint of any
special attraction         at the plain       lit-

tle   station   of   Eliot.       A   drive    of
three miles takes          you past      thrifty
homes, with meadows               reaching to
the    broad, swift         Piscataqua,     and
through     stretches       of   dense   woods
down to the river           bank, wrhere      al-

most at the entrance to Long Reach
Bay stands      the Greenacre Inn.             It

isa quiet spot, with gently sloping
banks, and off to the west lies a long
meadow with its fringe of apple trees
and birches reflected in the waters of
the bay. There is a sense of space and
distance,   a limitless expanse of sky,
a broad sweep of river and bay with
the distant low-lying banks, and far
beyond, ever changing in hue against
the sunset sky, range the foothills
of the White Mountains.           With the
going     down    of the sun      a golden
bridge spans the waters glowing and
radiant at our feet.
Once there was a desperate strug-
gle here;    men fought for their lives,
while women and children hurried for
shelter over the fields to the garrison
house with its high stockade.         There
are yet signs to be seen of this old
house, and in the fields         about the
plough has turned up       many an ar-
row-head.      As late as 1747 the men
of this     district   carried firearms   to
church.
Down in the hollow below the Inn
where the apple         trees   and locusts
bloom, there was a large ship-yard
in the fifties, where the keel of many
a good ship was         laid.   The fleetest
sailing vessel of her day.       The Night-
ingale,   built   to    carry Jenny Lind
Goldsmith back to Sweden, floated
out on the tide from these cool, green
shores.  She never fulfilled her pur-
pose, and years after was captured
by the government with a cargo of
wretched human beings bound for the
slave market.
The EHot of to-day is a quiet farm-
ing town of 1,500 inhabitants, lying
for six miles along the         banks of the
beautiful Piscataqua, just over the
Maine border       line,     four miles from
Portsmouth, New Hampshire. There
are three or four churches, a grocery
store or two,     and one hotel. Green-
acre Inn,    built ten years ago by a
company of enterprising Eliot peo-
ple. The Inn, a small house holding
about one hundred people, was for a
few years a resort for Bostonians.
Here John Greenleaf Whittier came,
drawing about him a circle of friends.
In      1893,   that       wonderful    year,
when, through the World's                Parlia-
ment of Religions, men were brought
to a recognition of the fundamental
points of contact in the religions of
the world,      Miss Sarah     J.   Farmer,
only daughter of Moses G. Farmer,
the inventor, conceived the idea of
continuing at Eliot, Maine, her birth-
place, the     movement inaugurated at
Chicago She determined to form a cen-
.

tre at the Greenacre Inn, where think-
ing   men and women, reaching out
to help their fellows through means
tried and untried, might find an audi-
ence recognizing not        alone revealed
truth, but truth in the process of
revelation.      It   was   believed     that
for those of different faiths, different
nationalities, different     training,    the
points     of contact might be found,
the great underlying principles        — the
oneness of truth, the brotherhood of
man   ;   that to the individual this spot
might mean the opening door to free-
dom, the tearing down of walls of
prejudice and superstition. The teach-
ers and lecturers on this broad plat-
THE GREAT TENT.
form were to give their services with-
out remuneration. There was no en-
dowment    fund, and the expense of
their transportation and entertain-
ment was met through voluntary
contributions.  Where else in the
world's history do we find such an-
other cornerstone?
In July, 1894, Greenacre Inn    was
opened to guests under Miss Farmer's
management. Less expensive accom-
modations were to be had in the farm
houses about.      An encampment    of

tents pitched on the river bank, over
in the meadow where the old garrison
house stood, gave those desiring it
the freedom of open-air life. Although
six miles from the sea, the tide rises
high at Eliot, and the opportunities
for salt-water bathing are fine.
The great lecture tent seating three
hundred was raised just beyond the
stone wall of the meadow. The after-
noon of the third day of July had
been appointed for the opening exer-
;

cises of the Greenacre Lecture Course,

and only a few had gathered.           Mrs.
Ole Bull, of Cambridge, delivered the
address of welcome.         At the close of
the exercises we stood with heads un-
covered to raise the stars and stripes.
For days the sky had been dark and
lowering, but as we sang ''The Bat-
tle   Hymn of the Republic," the clouds
parted a little and a flood of sunshine
illuminated the scene.        It was   with
every man's hand to the rope that
the flag of our country went up, and
under it there floated for the first
time over these green fields a white
flag with the legend *' Peace " upon it.
The first year brought such men
as Henry Wood, Frank B. Sanborn,
Edward Everett Hale, O. C. Dolbear,
Lewis G. Janes, Ralph Waldo Trine,
Vivekananda, W. J. Colville and oth-
ers, and they have continued to come

such    women    as       Ursula   Gestefeld,

Helen Van-Anderson, Josephine Locke,
Abby Morton Diaz.            The programs
JPPIPJ
of the succeeding years have added
many names of value—J. Vance Che-
ney, John Angus MacYannel, William
Norman Guthrie, John S. Clark, S. T.
Rorer, Edna D. Cheney, William Ord-
way Partridge, Samuel Walter Foss,
Carroll D. Wright, Samuel Richard
Fuller, MaryA.LivermorejEmily Per-
kins Stetson, Elizabeth Boynton Har-
bert, Edwin Elwell, Lucia Ames Mead,
Helen M. Cole, Kate Tannett Woods,
Edwin Markham, George D. Herron,
Julia Osgood, Edward S. Morse, Wil-
liam Lloyd Garrison, W. T. Harris,
H. W. Stetson,        Lyman   C.   Newell,
Egbert Morse Chesley, Sara G. Far-
well, Thomas Ryan, Mary Lowe Dick-
erson,   John   J.   Enneking, Frederick
Reed, Filmore Moore, Mary Proctor,
Mitchell Tyng, Ellen Crosby, Helen
Weil, Josiah     Strong,   Henry Hoyt
Moore, W. H. Tolman, Thomas Van
Ness, T. Yanaguchi, Ethel Puffer,
Rachel Foster Avery, John Bowles,
Benjamin F. Trueblood, Neal Dow,
J.   T. Trowbridge, Alfred Norton, El-
len A. Richardson,     Arthur Dow, Ly-
sander Dickerman, Sadie American,
Lilian Whiting, Ernest F. Fenollosa,
Theodore F. Wright, C. A. L. Tot-
H. Hindobro, Amanda
ten, Caroline
Deyo.
A wonderful sifting      process has
been going on through these years,
working silently for the most part,
eliminating the      man with the per-
sonal ''ism," the ''fad," the so-called
crank, and sometimes finding, in the
abundance of what the world calls
chaff, the kernel of wheat.

Since the first season the order of
the day has been much the same.           At
nine    o'clock devotional    exercises in
the lecture tent, and then the leisurely
trooping up over the         hills   to   the
Lysekloster pines, where, in pleasant
weather, the platform of the morning
is   a carpet of pine needles under a
great pine   tree.   On rainy days, the
morning lectures are given under a
i
SWAMI'S PINE.
tent in the pines,      and the afternoon
lectures   during the last few years
have been given in the new lecture
hall, The Eirenion; but on bright
days ^sre listen to music and the lec-
ture of the day in the great tent, with
its sides ^de open to the river, and

with all the life and freedom of the
summer about. At sunset there is a
quiet hour in the tent, and once or
twice a v^eek a musical program. The
music school, under the direction of
Miss Mary H. Burnham, has been
an important factor in the Greenacre
work.
In 1896 the general lecture course
was divided      into   conferences begin-
ning Sunday afternoon and continu-
ing one week, and a Nature School
out in the woods and fields was
formed for the children, under Daniel
Batchellor and Melvin G. Dodge.        In
this    same   year,    a school of com-
parative religions      was founded un-
der the directorship of Doctor Lewis
G. Janes, director of the     Cambridge
Conferences.
This school has been one of the
strongest features of the Greenacre
Lecture Course.     The sessions have
been held during August under the
pines.  The motive has been compara-
tive study  and never propagation of
doctrine. During the four years Lewis
G. Janes, director of the school, has
given a number of valuable lectures
upon various      subjects.   This   last
summer's work held nothing more
broadly helpful and suggestive than
Dr. Janes's course upon social science
and applied          The Swamis
religion.

Yivekananda, Saradananda and Ab-
hedananda have in turn expounded
the profound philosophy of the Ve-
danta.
The history,    ethics   and theology
of the   Talmud were presented by
Rabbi Joseph Silverman; the teach-
ing of Jesus by Jean du Buy, and the
religion and philosophy of the Jains
'm
by Virchand R. Gandhi;          Nathaniel
Schmidt of Cornell University gave
this year an exceptionally interesting
course on ancient         Hebrew philoso-
phers.     A brilliantly    dramatic pre-
sentation of the sacred and religious
customs     in   Mohammedan countries
was     given    by the Syrian Shehadi
Abd-Allah Shehadi.        From the stand-
point of the Christianized Hindu, T.
B. Pandian described the social condi-
tions and missionary work in India.
Lack of space alone forbids the men-
tion of many other valuable contribu-
tions to this program.        The discus-
sions after the lectures are carried on
with a calm, judicial temper, a cour-
tesy,    a respect for the opinions of
others, an evident desire for Truth
^'

and not for victory," that cannot fail
to make them educational.
As we glance over the programs of
the years Ave find Edward Griggs on
''The Art of Living," Smith Baker's
morning classes on developmental
psychology with their wonderful les-
sons in life, W. S. Tomlin's talks on
music, E. P. Powell on *'The Evolu-
tion of a Home," Hezekiah Butter-
worth on **The Art of Story Tell-
ing." Francis B. Hornbrook talks on
Browning, B. O. Flower on Marcus
Aurelius and Epictetus,W. D.Howells
reads his    *'Etruria,"   Annie Besant
lectures   on ''Immortality," C. H. A.
Bjerregaard on        ''The Mystic Life,"
John Fiske on " The Cosmic Roots of
Self-sacrifice," Lester A. Ward on

"The Real Moral Evolution," Joseph
LeConte on The Relation of Biology
'
'

to Philosophy," Henry Wood on
"Thinking as a Fine Art," Bolton
Hall on "Single Tax," Frederick Spier
on "The Eight Hour Law," Eltweed
Pomeroy on "Direct Legislation,"
Henry Blackwell on "Woman Suf-
frage," J. H. Hyslop on "Problems of
Physiology," Booker T. Washington
on "Tuskegee," Elihu Thomson on
" Electricity of the Future," Cyrus F.

Brackett on '' The Past and the Pres-
ent Outlook of Electrical Science,"
Jacob Riis on ^*How the Other Half
Lives."
Rare opportunities for help have
been given along metaphysical lines
by Charles Brodie Patterson, Horatio
Dresser, Paul Tyner, Ellen             M. Dyer,
Emma Louise Nickerson, Helen Yan-
Anderson and others.
Who can forget Emerson Day in
the Cathedral Pines      !    Frank B. San-
born, the presiding       officer,     v^as   the
last   resident   member          of   the Con-
cord School of Philosophy, and the
friend  and companion of Emerson
and Thoreau. We sit about under
the trees and listen to tender intimate
touches from Emerson's life and expe-
rience.   We hold his letters, written
seventy years     ago,       in    our   hands.
Then Charles Malloy gives a series of
Emerson readings, with lines and in-
terlines of interpretation, the wealth
of a lifetime of study.       The great tent
is   crowded Sunday afternoon with
the people of the countryside to hear
Edward Everett Hale. He gives us a
mighty summing up of the reasons
for peace,   from the spiritual as well
as   from    the historical standpoint.
For three summers under a tree in
the Lysekloster pines we have spent
a morning ^th Joseph Jefferson in
informal discussion   .   In the afternoon
the tent is again crowded to hear him
on ''The Possibilities of the Drama,"
from  the   standpoint of a great
actor.
One summer under these same pines
Dharmapala, the Buddhist, pitched
his tent;    sometimes teaching from
the platform, but         more often from
the door of his tent, a striking        fig-

ure in his     orange robe.     Seventeen
different faiths were represented that
year at Greenacre.        How times have
changed since the good people not   —
—
many miles distant heard in the
dead of night the click of the horses'
i6
JOSEPH JEFFERSON.
;

hoofs carrying their minister forty
miles to Salem to be tried for witch-
craft   !

The Parliament of Religions, Sun-
day, August 30, 1897, was a notable
occasion. The tent was crowded to
OYerflowing, the sides wide open to
the river and the fields. A platform
beautifully decorated with pines was
occupied by a remarkable group of
persons     :    Miss Farmer, in the centre
Lewis G. Janes, presiding; Yirchand
R. Gandhi, representative of the Jains,
and yellow tur-
in native violet dress
ban Charles Brodie Patterson of the
;

broad school of mental science Sara-   ;

dananda, the Vedantist, in the flame-
colored robe and turban of his order,
and by his side the Quaker, Edward
Rawson; C. B. Young, Boston, and
William A. Key, London, of the
Unitarian church;             Horatio Dresser,
editor      of    the Journal of Practical
Metaphysics; K.           S.   Guthrie of the
Episcopal church;             Paul Carus,   edi-

tor of the Monist and Open Court,
of Chicago   ;
Jehanghier Cola in the
-white dress of the Parsee, represent-
ing Zoroastrianism       ;   Mrs. Ole Bull,
founder of the       Cambridge Confer-
ences; Alfred Martin, pastor of the
free church of Tacoma, Washington,
and Rabbis Fleischer and Berkowitz,
of Philadelphia. The brilliant assem-
bly, the picturesque colors, the scent
of pine, the setting of river and mead-
ow, the earnest, listening company,
the few simple words of the speakers
showing the essential unity of religion
— all served to make an occasion not
to be forgotten.
Although many charming             circles

have been formed in the farmhouses,
the social life centers naturally about
the Inn, where     most of the lecturers
have been entertained. There is sim-
plicity of life, a charming absence
of conventionality, an almost invari-
able recognition of the        man   apart
from circumstances.          Small   circles

i8
meet on the piazza, along the river
bank or in the meadows, discussing
questions with the recognized leaders
of thought.    ''And the people speak
from their character, not from their
tongue."    When else could you hear,
without surprise, in the momentary
lull   of a hotel dining-room?     —   *'I        do
not know whether the spirits return
to this earth, but      I   do   know that
progress is the law of the soul."
There are opportunities day after
day for the individual to take his
problem to the one best fitted to help
him, and the personal contact has
proved as great a factor in develop-
ment as any words from the plat-
form.    Many a life of inaction has
been awakened here into service.             *'
In
the light of greater lives we see the
vision of our own."
In the fact that thousands have
come to Greenacre, and thousands
have been turned away for lack of
accommodations, in the virility and
force of the minds gathered here, in
the questions discussed from the plat-
form that affect the moral welfare
and therefore the rational progress of
the world   — in the renewing of the
individual, who, touched by the spirit,
is born   into a larger love for pushing
starving humanity       — in all this   is de-

monstrated the need for such a centre
in the social organism.
In a word, Greenacre can best be
characterized as a centre.       It is   not
an organization    ;   it is not an institu-

tion,   "the lengthened shadow of one
man," but a great spiritual, formative
centre, the trend of thought broaden-
ing with the need of the times.
The crucial test is therefore not a
test of the value and purity of the
ideal, but a test of methods and their

practical application.   Can a move-
ment depending only upon voluntary
aid live in the world to-day? Only
last year a man died in London, who,
during the last sixty years, has taken
care of thousands of orphans.
The
money necessary to support this
immense work was given unsolic-
ited and used according to the strict-
est    business   principles.    So far as
Greenacre      amalgamates        with the
highest ethical standards of the busi-
ness world, the truth       it   stands   for,
just so far, ''armed with the Sword
of the Spirit," will it penetrate into
the heart of the grossest materiaHsm,
and bring forth the willing tribute of
an awakening spirit-loving service.
Greenacre, August, 1899.

This year, 1900, marks the sev-
enth season of the Greenacre Lecture
Course.      It was decided to     make of
it a Sabbatical year, a year of quiet
rest, one in which to review the past

and consider the future. Although no
programs have been issued, there has
been an average of three lectures a
week, with a daily morning devo-
tional,       and an attendance of nearly
nine hundred persons.        Edward Ev-
erett        Hale,   Charles Brodie Patter-
son,     Samuel Richard        Fuller, Ralph
Waldo          Trine,   Edward     Cummings,
Paul Tyner, Helen M. Cole, Lyman
C. Newell, Ellen M. Dyer, R. C. Doug-
las,    Swami Abhedananda,           Fillmore
Moore, Florence Richardson, Richard
Ingalese, Jeandu Buy, and Charles
Malloy have spoken from the plat-
form. A much needed rest has made
necessary Miss Farmer's absence the
last season.
1901 will undoubtedly mark a new
era in the development of this move-
ment a movement which stands, let
:

it    be remembered, not for personality
or place, but for life, for progress.

Anna Josephine Ingersoll.
Greenacre, September, 1900.
-- Greenacre on the Piscataqua (Used by permission of the curator)