Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/256

 CLARKE

CLARKE

mother. At ten he was sent to the Boston Latin school, and at fifteen he entered Harvard col- lege and was graduated in the famous class of 1829. He taught school at Cambridgeport, 1830-31, and was graduated at the Cambridge divinity school in 1833. He was settled over the Unitarian church in Louisville, Ky., 1833-40, and besides his j^astoral work he edited while in Louisville the Western Messenger, and also was superintendent of schools. In 1839 he was mar- ried to Anna, daughter of Herman J. Huide- koper, of Meadville, Pa. In 1840 he resigned his pastorate, wishing "to preach in some free church, or to start a new society, speaking more to conscience than to intellect, more to intuitiA^e reason than to speculative understanding, mak- ing morality and religion one, not two separate matters." In 1841 he removed to Boston and founded the Church of the Disciples, a society gathered together ' ' to co-operate in the study and practice of Christianity," and this charge he held through life. He sjient vacations in Europe in 1849, in 1852 and again in 1882. Dr. Clarke was prominent in all the reform movements of his time. His part in the anti-slavery crvisade w^as pronounced and most effective. He advo- cated woman suffrage on the simple ground of her equality of gifts and needs with man, and hence her riglit to be represented equally in gov- ernment with him. He was a staunch and tire- less friend of temperance reform, of social reform, and of reforms in prisons, poorhouses and insane asj'lums. He had a conscientious interest in politics and took an active part in several political conventions. He was an overseer of Harvard college from 1863 to 1888 and many improvements in the conduct and management of that institution are directlj^ traceable to him. He was professor of natural religions and Christian doctrine in the Cam- bridge divinity school from 1867 to 1871, and lecturer on ethnic religions in 1876-77. Harvard conferred on him the degree of S.T.D. in 1863. He was a member of the American philosophical society, of the Massachusetts historical society, a fellow of the American academy of arts and sciences, and a member of the Massachusetts board of education. He possessed a gift for poetry and wrote several hymns and religious poems, besides a volume of translations of Freiich, German and Latin poetry "Exotics" (1876); he also compiled a service and hymn book for his congregation. He wrote an autobiography of his life up to 1840, and tliis, with selections from his diary and correspondence, was edited by Edward Everett Hale, and published in 1891. He was an enthusiastic student of astronomy, having inlierited a taste for this branch of science from his father, and among the fruits of

his interest in this direction were the invention of an astronomical lantern, designed to facilitate study of the constellations, and a little book, " How to find the Stars " (1878). Mr. Clarke had a catholic appreciation of the good in all persons and institutions, which disarmed hostility. The text of his first sermon was "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, " and he determined to adopt this text as his rule of con- duct through life. Much of his successful ac- complishment and influence on the community was due to the fact that he always earnestly applied himself to what at the time seemed to be the nearest duty. Among his works may be mentioned: a translation of De Wette's Theodore, or the Skeptic's Conversion (1841) ; ^4;* Account of the Campaigns of 1812 and Surrender of Detroit (1848); Eleven Weeks in Europe (1852); The Christian Doctrine of Forgiveness (1852) ; The Christian Doctrine of Prayer (1854) ; Orthodoxy, Its Truths and Errors (1866) ; Steps of Belief (1870) ; Ten Great Beligions {-vol. L, 1871, vol. IL, 1883); Common Sense in Religion (1874); Go Vp Higher ; or Religion in Common Life (1877) ; Essentials and Non-Essentials in Religion (1878) ; Self Culttire (1880) ; Legend of Thomas Didymus, the Jewish Skep- tic (1881) ; Anti-Slavery Days (1883) ; Ideas of the Apostle Paul (1884) ; Nineteenth Ceiitury Questions (1897) ; and several volumes of sermons. A me- moir of Margaret Fuller (1852) was written in. collaboration with Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Henry Channing. He died in Jamaica Plain, Mass., June 8, 1888.

CLARKE, John, colonist, was born in Suffolk, England, Oct. 8, 1609; third son of Thomas and Rose (Herrige) Clarke. He received a university education, practised in London as a physician, and came to the new world actuated by his reli- gious and political opinions. Finding on his. arrival in Boston in 1637, just at the close of the Antimonian controversy, that men " were not ajble to bear each with other in their different understandings and consciences .... and to^ live peaceably together, " he proposed to a number of citizens to withdraw and found a colony else- where. On March 7, 1638, a compact was signed in Boston by Clarke, Coggeshall, Aspinwall, Cod- dington, Hutchinson and others, and the island of Aquidneck in Narragansett bay was pur- chased from the Indians, the deed bearing date March 24, 1638. A church was founded in New- port in 1638, of which Mr. Clarke was preaching^ elder, this being the second Baptist church in America. When in 1647 the island was united with the other towns included in what afterward became the state of Rhode Island, Mr. Clarke is supposed to have framed the code of laws for the united towns. For visiting William Witter, a member of his church in Lynn, some say for