| Biography | | HOUGHTON, George Hendricks, 1820-1897.
New York University, Class of 1842 Arts.
Born at Deerfield, Mass., 1820; graduated A.B., New York University, 1842; A.M., 1845; S.T.D., Columbia, 1859; Prof, in St. Paul’s Coll., 1843-46; studied Theology ; ordained, 1845 ; in ministry of Protestant Episcopal church, 1845-97 ; Professor in General Theological Seminary, 1850-62; founder and rector of “the Little Church around the Corner;“ died, 1897.
GEORGE HENDRICKS HOUGHTON, A.M., S.T.D., best known as the Rector of “ the Little Church around the Corner,” was born at Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1820. He came to New York University in 1838, was a member of the Psi Upsilon, and Valedictorian of his class, and was graduated in 1842 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, to which the University added Master of Arts in 1845. From 1843-46 he was Professor of Greek at St. Paul’s College, College Point, Long Island. He studied at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and was ordained into the ministry in 1845. For three years he was an assistant' to Dr. Muhlenberg in the Church of the Holy Communion, and in 1850-62 he was Professor of Hebrew in the General Theological Seminary. His chief life work began in 1848, when he organized the Church of the Transfiguration. Two years later his congregation erected the picturesque church building on East Twenty-ninth Street, New York. While it was still a still a small struggling church, application was made to another wealthy and fashionable church near by for the holding of funeral services over an actor. The rector refused to open his church for an actor, but said, “There is a little church around the corner that may do it.” Dr. Houghton did open his church for the actor’s funeral, and thenceforth the Church of the Transfiguration was universally known as “ the Little Church around the Corner.” Under Dr. Houghton’s devoted ministrations it became one of the strongest and most effective churches in the city. Dr. Houghton received his degree of S.T.D. from Columbia College in 1859. He died in New York, universally respected and lamented, on November 17, 1897.
JWH: "He had been rector of the Church of the Transfiguration, New York City, for over half a century and until his death. His connection with the church is also coincident with the church's existence. Transfiguration Church is connected with the public mind to a large degree with the funerals of actors, but those who know about the church's work know also that it is one of the most earnest although one of the least pretentious in the metropolis. The name 'The Little Church Around the Corner,' was purely the result of accident. an actor had died and a committee of the profession applied to the pastor of one of the fashionable churches in that part of the city with a request that he would hold the funeral service in his church. he declined, probably on account of the prejudice against the profession. He was then asked to recommend or suggest some other church that would be likely to open to them and he replied that they might get the use of the 'Little Church Around the Corner,' referring to the one of which Dr. Houghton was pastor. They applied. He cheerfully gave permission and conducted the funeral. By this evidence of hospitality he gained the lasting friendship of the theatrical profession, and many such funerals have been conducted by him in his church. Among the celebrated actors buried from this church were Edwin Booth, Lester Wallack, Dion Boucicault, Harry Montague, James Lewis and Nelson Wheatcroft. Messrs. Joseph Jefferson, E.A. Southern and other well known players have been pew holders in the church. Few men in New York City won for themselves a more enviable position than Dr. Houghton. The unselfish devotion to good works which this rector inspired in his parishioners is equally worthy of notice. He died after a brief illness, 11,17,1897, aged 77 years."
Who Was Who, p. 261: "grad. U. City N.Y., 1842; m. Caroline Anthon. Ordained deacon Episcopal Ch., 1845, priest, 1846; founder, pastor Ch. of Transfiguration became known as Little Ch. Around the corner. N.Y.C., 1849-97; prof. Hebrew, Gen. Theol. Sem., 1850-1897. Died N.Y.C., Nov. 17, 1897."
MLM: "The name "The Little Church around the Corner" was purely the result of an accident. British actor, George Holland - his widow asked Joseph Jefferson to arrange for the funeral athe the Church of Atonement, which is no longer in existence. That Rector considered all actors anathema, and replied: "God bless the little church around the corner." (in 1820), referring to the one of which Dr. Houghton was pastor. That was Jefferson's reply to Dr. Houghton's permission. Dr. Houghton had founded the church in Oct. 1, 1848; at once became active in participating in affairs of the time. During the Civil War it was a station in the underground railway, shielding Negroes in the N.Y.C. war riots. A stained glass window dedicated to two Negroes, George and Eliza Wilson, is reminiscent of this. During the depression the church operated food kitchens for jobless and transients...His nephew, George C. Houghton, dedicated a memorial to the Maritime instructor of Hebrew at the General Theological Seminary, P. E. Church for twelve years, 1859."
Dict. of Amer. Biog.: Protestant Episcopal clergyman, founder and rector of the Church of the Transfiguration in New York City was born at Deerfield, Mass., the son of Edward Clark and Fanny (Smith) Houghton and a descendant of Ralph Houghton who emigrated from England in the middle of the seventeenth century to Massachusetts. At the age of fourteen George Houghton left his Puritan home for New York. After varied experiences, including that of teaching, he entered the University of the City of New York and was graduated in 1842. He studied theology under the direction of William A. Muhlenberg at the same time teaching Greek in St. Paul's College, Flushing, Long Island, of which Muhlenberg was headmaster. The Oxford (High-Church) Movement, which began in England in 1833, made a lasting impression on him. He was ordained deacon in 1845 and priest in 1846, and was Muhlenberg's curate at the Church of the Holy Communion in New York until 1847. Then, after a period of non-parochial activity, when he ministered to the sick and dying in Bellevue Hospital and devoted his time to the underprivileged, he established regular religious services at 48 East Twenty-Fourth Street, the furnishings for the improvised church consisting of borrowed school benches, a wheezy parlor organ, and a reading desk of pine wood. The parish was organized Feb. 12, 1849, as the Church of the Transfiguration in the City of New York. Later a site on Twenty-ninth Street, just east of Fifth Avenue, was purchased, and a new building was erected which was first occupied on Mar. 10, 1850. The present building was completed in 1864. Houghton's salary was augmented, beginning in 1850, by five hundred dollars a year, received as professor of Hebrew in the General Theological Seminary.
Houghton responded in every way to the needs of those who called upon him for help. During the Civil War, it is said, he harbored negroes on their way to the Canadian border; he established a war hospital, and during the Draft Riots of 1863 he sheltered hundreds of helpless negro children driven by a mob from the Colored Orphan Asylum at Fifth Avenue and Forty-third Street. Events following the death of the famous comedian, George Holland, in 1870, gave Houghton's church its popular name and made it famous throughout America. Joseph Jefferson and Holland's son called on the Rev. William T. Sabine, rector of the Church of the Atonement on Fifth Avenue, to make arrangements for Holland's funeral. On learning that Holland had been an actor, Sabine refused to take the service. What followed, Joseph Jefferson recorded in these words: "I paused at the door and said: 'Well, sir, in this dilemma is there no other church to which you can direct me, from which my friend can be buried?' He replied that 'there was a little church around the corner' where I might get it done; to which I answered: 'Then, if this be so, God bless "the little church around the corner,"' and so I left the house" (The Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson, 1890, p. 340). News stories, editorials and songs on the variety stage gave emphasis to the incident, which endeared the rector to people of the stage and has ever since made the Little Church aroung the Corner a shrine to the acting profession, who were known to Houghton thenceforth as "the kindly folk." Houghton's wife was Caroline Graves Anthon, the daughter of John Anthon of New York. [Geo. MacAdam, The Little Church Around the Corner (1925); J. W. Houghton, The Houghton Geneal. (1912); N.Y. Times, Dec. 29, 1870, Nov. 18, 1897] G.E.S.
The First Dr. Houghton
On the first Sunday in October 1848, George Hendric Houghton gathered a band of twenty-four followers for a celebration of Holy Communion in the parlor of the home of the Rev. Dr. Lawson Carter, an elderly priest, on East Twenty-fourth Street. As Houghton's followers left this service by the back door, they stepped into a road fortuitously called Love Lane. None of those first worshipers could have imagined that they had just attended the first service of the Church of the Transfiguration, later to be celebrated as "The Little Church Around the Corner." It was even more unlikely that they could have foreseen the rich church life, the exciting ecclesiastical and secular history, and the enviable record of loving service that they and their successors would extend to the people of New York City - indeed to men and women from all over the globe.
The twenty-eight-year-old priest who called this small congregation into being, however, had a clear vision in mind: to establish a parish that would minister to the poor and needy of New York City. Dr. Houghton had his heart set on building a church near Bellevue Hospital because that was the most desperate, poverty-stricken section of Manhattan at the time, but eventually, for financial reasons, a site was chosen on East Twenty-ninth Street just off Fifth Avenue on what were then the outskirts of town. The site had an unobstructed view south across fields to Madison Square and north to Murray Hill. The first service in the new church was held on Sunday, March 28, 1850, in what is now the west half of the nave. Dr. Houghton had wanted the church to have free pews. (Most churches had rented pews at that time.) But again, because of financial considerations, other founding members of the parish finally persuaded the rector to settle for ten percent of the pews to be free. Undaunted, he campaigned for free pews throughout his rectorate.
Dr. Houghton was a pioneer of the Oxford Movement here in America. The Church of the Transfiguration was founded as a direct outgrowth of the Tractarian (or first) phase of the Oxford Movement, which began in England in 1833 and sought to restore the practice of the full Catholic faith to Anglicanism. The movement brought not only renewed sacramental life and enriched liturgies to churches but also, to worshipers, a deeper understanding of the Church's comprehensive concern for all people. These two emphases have shaped all that has happened in the unique and vivid history of this parish church - Fides Opera, Faith and Works, as our founder frequently reminded his congregation.
A single striking event that might well have gone unnoticed led the Church of the Transfiguration into the annals of fame in the secular as well as in the religious history of our country as "The Little Church Around the Corner." In December 1870 an actor named George Holland died. His friend Joseph Jefferson, the leading comic actor of the day, went to the rector of the Church of the Atonement (which no longer exists) on Madison Avenue to see about the funeral. Upon hearing that Holland had been an actor, the Rev. William T. Sabine said that he could not possibly bury him. The astonished Jefferson asked if there were someplace else where he could arrange for Holland's funeral. The clergyman said, "I believe there's a little church around the corner that does that sort of thing," to which Joseph Jefferson replied in words that became known as Jefferson's benediction: "If this be so, then God bless the Little Church Around the Corner!" And the actor walked around the corner and asked our first rector to bury his friend.
Dr. Houghton willingly officiated at the funeral of George Holland just before Christmas. After Christmas the story began to make its way into newspapers around the country. At a time when actors were considered social outcasts, Dr. Houghton's kind and Christian act appealed to the conscience of the nation. Not only did actors start coming to the church but contributions began to pour in from all over the country. Joseph Jefferson's sobriquet stuck, and soon lyricists and writers began to publish songs and dramas about "The Little Church Around the Corner." The long and vital relationship between our church and the people of the theater was born, and in this birth our church won a place in people's hearts everywhere.
Though it may appear that Dr. Houghton's compassionate willingness to bury George Holland arose out of some understanding of or special interest in the theater, a historical analysis will reveal that our first rector's act of pastoral kindness was rooted in his response to Christ's call for the Church to minister to all who are ignored, downtrodden, or undervalued by social convention. He took as his personal motto for his letter seal a line from the Roman poet Terence: Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto, "I am a man: nothing human is alien to me." Dr. Houghton made himself available to anyone at any time of the day or night. He instituted the practice of leaving a candle burning in the window and put a night bell at the door for all in need. He even refrained from going to the theater, to which he received many invitations, lest he miss some poor person who sought his aid. He also established a number of charitable societies to help carry out his vision. As a result of Dr. Houghton's extensive ministry and the sprawling expansion of the church building, the church became known in the 1860s as the "Holy Cucumber Vine."
His long interest in the abolition of slavery led Dr. Houghton to found the first black Sunday school in New York City and to harbor runaway slaves as part of the Underground Railway, one stop on which was the basement of the church's rectory. During the Civil War, many recent European immigrants of the late 1850s and early 1860s were drafted against their will into the Union Army. They took out their rage and resentment on the blacks, whom the immigrants blamed for the war. Blacks were burned, hanged, and mutilated during the Draft Riots of July 1863. So well known as defender and friend was our courageous founder that a large number of black people who were beleaguered and threatened sought sanctuary in his church. Angry mobs trying to get at those who had found sanctuary within the church twice thronged the gates of the churchyard. Policemen on duty warned our founder that they could not insure protection from the mob. With firm resolution, George Houghton lifted the processional cross from its place in the church, walked out to face the rioters, held it before them, and said, "Stand back, you white devils; in the name of Christ, stand back!" With such courageous words, George Houghton held off the unruly mob, and those in the church remained safe for several more days, until the mob had been quelled and dispersed.
George Hendric Houghton was the rector of the church he founded from 1848 to 1897. In that time, our tiny country church was extended and more than quadrupled in size; its adornment with European art was begun in our founder's later years as rector. A fine musical tradition was established and flourished. This led, in 1881, to the formation of a vested choir of men and boys, which today enjoys a reputation as the oldest such choir in New York City.
Our church was the first in the Anglican Communion to be dedicated to the mystery of our Lord's Transfiguration. For forty-four years, George Houghton waged a campaign to include the celebration of the Feast of the Transfiguration (August 6th) in the Prayer Book calendar of feasts. In the new Book of Common Prayer of 1892, his quest was crowned with success, and in consequence many new parishes formed in the 1880s and 1890s chose to dedicate their churches to the Transfiguration.
The regular cycle of liturgical prayer lay always at the heart of our founder's ministry. The Oxford Movement had restored the centrality of the Sunday celebration of the Holy Eucharist, and Dr. Houghton brought that focus to our church from its foundation. He had recited the daily offices since the beginning of his ministry. From 1880 onward a regular daily mass has been celebrated in our church. The sacrament of penance and absolution has always been made available and encouraged as an unfailing vehicle of God's reconciling grace.
Dr. Houghton was also one of the principal influences in the founding of the Order of the Holy Cross, the first American Anglican religious order for men. For more than forty years, the Rev. J. O. S. Huntington, Superior, OHC, and later the Rev. Shirley Carter Hughson, Superior, OHC, preached at the Good Friday Three Hour Services in our church.
During the 1880s and 1890s people from all social classes and races worshiped here as one family. Perhaps this comprehensive makeup of our congregation is the most valuable legacy we have received in addition to the tradition of regular eucharistic worship established during George Hendric Houghton's long rectorate.
Late in 1896 our father founder became ill. He was seventy-seven years old and had been our rector for forty-nine years when, after a short period of confinement, he died on November 17, 1897.
HOUGHTON, George H., clergyman, was born at Deerfield, Mass., Feb. 1.1820. Atteraschool education he studied at the New York University, where he was graduated in 1842; he then pursued a theological course privately. He took orders in the autumn of 1845, acting as assistant to Dr. Muhlen- berg for a time, and then began to officiate at a private house in New York for a small number of persons. In 1849 they were organized as the Church of the Transfiguration, and through the benevolence of one of the members of the parish, a building was erected for them on Twenty-ninth street near Fifth avenue, which was occupied on Sunday, March 10, 1850. It is one of the most picturesque structures in any city in the country. Until May, 1854, the entire pew rents of this church were used for reducing the debt incurred in purchasing the ground and building. The pews are rented, not sold, and there are 150 free seats, these latter being in the chapel part of the edifice. The congregation, which for some years struggled toward prominence, is now one of the largest and wealthiest in New York. Dr. Houghtou held the position of instructor of Hebrew in the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal church for twelve years. In 1859 he received the degree of D.D. from Columbia College. His publications have consisted of occasional sermons. His attainments in Hebrew are such that he has established a wide reputation asa teacher of that language. Dr. Houghton's church has become widely known as " the Little Church Around the Corner," through the fact of his having performed there the burial service over the remains of the eminent and admired George Holland, when the rite was refused him by another clergyman. The incident which brought this about was peculiar Mr. Joseph Jefferson, renowned on account of his " Kip Van Winkle," went to this clergyman with the request that he would open his church for the burial of Jefferson's brother actor. To this the clergyman objected, on the ground that the latter was a professional player. He thought, however, that Mr. Jefferson could meet with more success at " the little church around the corner, " and by that name Dr. Houghton's church has been generally known ever since. Dr. Houghton's ministrations in his present parish work commenced with only six persons, and now he has reared a fine church and drawn about him a numerous and devoted congregation. This has been done by great labor; but also by the fascination of his personal character and the beauty of his Christian life. As a man he is everywhere cherished, as a citizen he is respected by all with whom he comes in contact, and as a pastor he is sincerely beloved by all his people. The Church of the Transfiguration was Dr. Houghton's first and has been his only charge, and with it has always been identified in the public mind; neither the doctor nor the " Little Church Around the Corner" seeming complete when considered apart the one from the other.
The Rev. George Hendric Houghton
A Theological Appreciation
By the Rev. Warren C. Platt
"On November 17, 1897, the last day of his life, the Rev. George Hendric Houghton, the founder and first rector of the Church of the Transfiguration in New York City, attended to his usual spiritual discipline. He was present at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist at seven o’clock that morning; indeed he had instituted the daily celebration of the Mass in 1880, and that innovation was commemorated in his sermon on October 3, 1897, Anniversary Day, the day now known as Foundation Day in the life of the parish. On this final day, Dr. Houghton also read Mattins at nine o’clock in the morning. The daily recitation of Morning and Evening Prayer was also one of his achievements, this being introduced shortly after the founding of the parish. At four o’clock on November 17, George Houghton complained of pains and difficulty in breathing; his niece, Miss Anna Houghton, summoned the curate, the Rev. Edmund B. Smith, who was then reading Evening Prayer. The curate prayed over the rector who died at about 5:30 p.m., ninety minutes after the onset of his final illness. The cause of death was determined to be congestion of the lungs.
The death of Fr. Houghton witnessed an outpouring of grief and tribute. His obituary appeared on page one of The New York Times and The New York Tribune on November 18, the day following his death. Other newspapers also gave prominent coverage to his death and lauded his achievements. The New York Times praised him as “an earnest and sincere man. . . . He was liberal not in the sensational sense, but in a way that tended to bring into his congregation all worshippers who might choose to come.”1 An editorial in The New York Tribune on November 19 called Dr. Houghton an ideal pastor, “Free from all self-seeking and self-consciousness. . . . In rare devotion to duty, in self-effacing ministry and in the exhibition of a saintly life, he inspired many to higher ideals and loftier purposes.”2
On the morning of Friday, November 19, the body of George Houghton lay in state in that chapel which has since been named the Holy Family Chapel. The viewing of his remains extended from ten o’clock in the morning until sundown; about 2000 people paid their respects. The Living Church (November 27, 1897) stated, “Many clergymen, students, children, people of fashion, and of poverty, crowded past, and many colored people, in whose race Dr. Houghton was deeply interested.”3 The body of the late priest was clothed in the usual Eucharistic vestments; the chasuble was of rich damask silk, with orphreys of red, richly embroidered in gold. This was the chasuble worn by the priest on major feast days; Dr. Houghton’s hands held a chalice and paten. The final viewing of the priest underscored his commitment to sacramental and Catholic worship and doctrine; his vestments demonstrated his conviction that the sacraments convey divine grace and life, and that the celebration of same was to be accompanied by suitable emblems and ceremonial that appealed to the senses.4
On Saturday, November 20, Dr. Houghton’s funeral took place. At seven o’clock that morning a Requiem Mass, celebrated by the curate, was attended by relatives of the deceased priest, some parishioners and clergy, and a few close friends. At ten o’clock that same morning the principal funeral service was held, attended by approximately 1500 people. This service consisted of the burial office followed by a Solemn Requiem Mass. Bishop Henry Codman Potter read the committal, and the Rev. George C. Houghton, nephew of Dr. Houghton and his successor as rector, celebrated the Mass. At the conclusion of this Mass, at which only the celebrant received Holy Communion, the Bishop gave the blessing.
The tributes for Dr. Houghton focused on his charitable endeavors and his prophetic witness during the Draft Riots of 1863, and nearly all writers and editorialists emphasized his willingness to conduct a funeral for George Holland, the friend of Joseph Jefferson, when the latter was rebuffed by another Episcopal priest. This event in 1870 brought fame to the rector and his parish, granting it a universal appeal and a romantic heritage. Yet this very fame and recognition, which were manifested in plays, songs, and other forms of popular entertainment, tended to obscure the more particularistic and distinguishing elements which animated Dr. Houghton’s vocation and prompted his establishment of the Church of the Transfiguration. This note was sounded, albeit in an oblique fashion, by Bishop Potter, who, in an Advent sermon in the parish a month after Dr. Houghton’s death, noted the critical relationship of Dr. Houghton with the Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg, the notable and influential Episcopal priest known for his remarkable innovations and insights into mid-nineteenth-century New York ecclesiastical life.5 And it is to that relationship and George Houghton’s early development that we now turn.
Born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, on February 1, 1820, George Houghton lost his father when he was still a child. His mother removed the family to Pittsfield where she supported her children by teaching and running a boarding house. About the year 1835 George, then about 15, followed his brother to New York and sought employment in that city. His mother soon joined him, and they lived together. He worked as a teacher in Tarrytown preparatory to his matriculation in 1838 as an undergraduate at the University of the City of New York (now New York University). During his years at college, George and his mother lived at 43 Vandam Street, near Varick Street. At the University two interests which were to dominate much of his life became paramount: literature and religion. His literary interests were diverse, but centered principally on classical languages and literatures, translations from same, and his own creative writing. During his senior year at the University, George and his friend, George H. Moore, edited a literary journal entitled The Iris, or Literary Messenger. George Houghton’s interest in literature was complemented by his study and examination of Christian doctrine and thought. George’s literary and religious interests frequently combined during his undergraduate career, and about the year 1841 he wrote an essay entitled “Clusters and Cycles in Literature,” in which he proposed “that the religious spirit is ever the excitant or attendant of the literary. . . . that whatever has a tendency to withdraw the mind from the contemplation of the external world, and lead it to the contemplation of its own nature has a tendency to awaken the reflective faculties of man, and call forth the creative powers of the soul.”6
George graduated from the University on July 20, 1842; he was the valedictorian for a class of twenty-three men. In his speech, “The Growth of Freedom,” George defended the American principle of the separation of church and state and stressed the concept of “individual equality” as integral to the Christian life; he noted that all believers, regardless of station, partook of the same sacraments and professed a common faith in eternal life. He said,
“But there was one principle in the Christian faith, which these men were more especially chosen to proclaim. It was the principle of ‘Individual Equality’. . . . the Priest at the altar, and the lowliest disciple of Christ, partook of the same consecrated elements, and looked forward to a like immortality. The principles of Christianity were never in accordance with thrones, scepters, and diadems. The voice of heaven, from everlasting has declared, ‘There is but one King, the Lord God Almighty.’”7 George’s speech was reviewed by the local newspapers; The New York Herald said that his address “was well delivered; but it was too sectarian; still it was a very creditable performance.”8
In 1842, the year of his commencement, George was confirmed at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village, one of the first parishes in New York to embrace Tractarian principles. Although he began life as a Congregationalist, George, upon his arrival in New York City, attended churches of different persuasions, but was quickly drawn to the Episcopal Church whose emphasis on the historic continuity of the Church and the embodiment of same in the apostolic succession and liturgical worship appealed to the young man, who was deeply attuned to the classical age and the life and thought of the early Church.
After graduation, George returned to teaching and was employed at St. Paul’s College, in College Point, Queens. The founder and director of this secondary school was the Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg, an Episcopal priest who was one of the early proponents of the Oxford Movement and Tractarian thought, although he hesitated throughout his ministry to identify explicitly with a particular church movement or faction.
The ambiance of this school appealed to George for it provided the theological and liturgical emphases to which he had become increasingly drawn. St. Paul’s College was a harbinger of some of the motifs identified with the Oxford Movement. Dr. Muhlenberg had correctly understood that outward and visible symbols convey Christian doctrine and teaching. To this end he employed Christmas greens and paintings of the Virgin and Child during Christmas celebrations. On major holy days the chapel was decorated with flowers and candles. These very practices, innocuous by today’s standards, were the sources of controversy during the bitter ritualistic debates which were to affect the Episcopal Church in the mid-nineteenth century.
At St. Paul’s College, George was tutored in theology by Muhlenberg and others, and was ordained deacon by Bishop Thomas Brownell of Connecticut on October 27, 1845, at St. Mark’s Church in New Canaan, Connecticut; this was done at the request of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of New York, after Bishop Benjamin Onderdonk, the ordinary of that diocese, was suspended from performing his episcopal functions.9 George then became assistant to Dr. Muhlenberg, who had left St. Paul’s College to become the founder and first rector of the Church of the Holy Communion, located at 6th Avenue and 20th Street. This parish was notable for its adherence to the principles of the Oxford Movement, especially the more frequent celebration of the Holy Communion and the development of a spiritual discipline based upon regular prayer and reception of the sacraments. Organized in 1844, the Church of the Holy Communion was one of the very first parishes to have weekly celebrations of the Holy Communion, to sustain the recitation of the daily offices, to establish a choir of men and boys, and to separate the recitation of Mattins from the celebration of Holy Communion. Dr. Muhlenberg also replaced the Geneva gown with the surplice, and adorned the altar and font with flowers. His parish was also the first to organize a sisterhood in the Episcopal Church, a group of women bound by prayer and acts of charity but without the threefold vows. Dr. Muhlenberg himself selected the parish’s title, and, at the laying of the cornerstone of the church on July 24, 1844, he expounded on those theological principles which were to animate and permeate the life of this important parish. His comments are especially salient since they so patently influenced the thinking of George Houghton, his student and friend. In his address Dr. Muhlenberg said,
“Let this sanctuary be called the Church of the Holy Communion. Nor let it be only a name. Let it be the ruling idea in forming and maintaining the church, and in all its ministrations. Here let there be a sanctuary consecrated specially to fellowship in Christ, and to the great ordinance of his love. This will rebuke all the distinctions of pride and wealth. . . . As Christians dare not bring such distinctions to the table of the Lord, there, at least, remembering their fellowship in Christ and their common level in redemption, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, gathered around the sacred board; so let the same brotherhood prevail, let there be no places for the differences of worldly rank in the Church of the Holy Communion.”10
This theology, Christocentric and sacramental, was linked to a practical concern which stresses the equality of all believers before God and his altar. From this two-fold orientation flowed Dr. Muhlenberg’s social and charitable concerns which included education, health, and housing. To this end he founded, as noted above, the Sisters of the Holy Communion, an order which sought to combine devotion and piety grounded in Tractarianism with a concern for ameliorating the ills of society.
The young George Houghton imbibed the wisdom of Dr. Muhlenberg and applied and practiced its insights in the founding of Transfiguration. In his Anniversary Day sermon in 1887, Dr. Houghton, recalling the theological and moral imperatives in the establishment of the parish, said, “It has been but the natural instinct . . . that here the poorest and the humblest should have the time, the sympathies, the ministrations, the assistance of whatsoever sort, as cheerfully and as fully as persons of wealth and condition.”11
If we were to transport ourselves back to the Church of the Holy Communion in the late 1840s, we would observe a reverent—but plain—celebration of the Holy Communion. The celebrant would wear a surplice, not a chasuble; there would be no incense, bells, or elaborate ceremonial. And most important, there would be no tabernacle or reserved sacrament. Yet, by the standards of the period, the Church of the Holy Communion was one of the most advanced in churchmanship in the entire Episcopal Church. For the young George Houghton and his contemporaries, their participation in the life and worship of this parish placed them among the high churchmen most receptive to the insights and understandings of the Oxford Movement. Although the worship of our own period is richer and more embellished, we share with these pioneers their commitment to understanding the Eucharist as the central act of Christian worship.
George embraced the spiritual life and sacramental devotion emphasized at the Church of the Holy Communion, and his relationship to Dr. Muhlenberg and his service at the parish were salient factors in his decision to create the type of parish Transfiguration represents.
Dr. Muhlenberg and his associates built upon the foundation laid by Bishop John Henry Hobart, Bishop of New York from 1816 to 1830, who emphasized the divine origin and nature of the Church manifested in the apostolic succession and the historic episcopate of the Episcopal Church. To this end Hobart and his followers underscored the distinctive nature of the Episcopal Church and the value of liturgical worship, and, simultaneously, demonstrated a disinclination to engage in endeavors with other Christian churches when such activities compromised the unique mission of the Episcopal Church. To these insights the Tractarians added an intensity of worship and sacramental devotion, and early American advocates, such as George Houghton, were the inheritors and exponents of both strands.
During his time at St. Paul’s College and the Church of the Holy Communion, George complemented his religious interests with literary endeavors. His poetry was published in The New York Tribune, The Churchman, and The Knickerbocker, the last a literary journal published in New York whose other contributors included James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving. Although most of his creative writing reflected religious themes, George’s two poems in the classical style, which appeared in The Knickerbocker, are, almost certainly, his most creative and imaginative work.
George Houghton, having served fourteen months as deacon, was ordained priest on December 6, 1846, Advent II, at St. Luke’s Church, by Bishop L. Sullivan Ives of North Carolina, a high church leader who on the following Sunday consecrated the Church of the Holy Communion.12 Shortly after being priested, George left Holy Communion, did ministry at Bellevue Hospital, and in 1848 organized the Church of the Transfiguration in a temporary location several blocks south of the present edifice. It was the first parish in the Anglican Communion to have this dedication, and the founder later explained this choice, “The TRANSFIGURATION testified beforehand the Sufferings of CHRIST in this world, and the Glory that should follow in another. . . . Glory and Gladness unending in another world, shall follow suffering and sorrow transitory in this world, if borne in the Name and for the sake of the LORD.”13 On March 10, 1850, services were held for the first time in the present church building on East 29th Street. In his sermon that day George Houghton stressed the doctrinal principles upon which the parish was founded. He quoted from the Acts of the Apostles: “They continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” The founder then advised his hearers, “ These, and these only, are to be the principles by which we are to be guided. By strict adherence to these, and these only, do we hope for success.”14
Upon this foundation George Houghton established a parish conforming to Tractarian theology. In 1851 he instituted the daily recitation of Morning and Evening Prayer. He was, somewhat inexplicably, rather dilatory in making the Holy Eucharist the principal service every Sunday. In his parochial report submitted to the 1853 Convention of the Diocese of New York, the rector indicated that there were Divine Services twice on Sundays, with the office being read every day; the Holy Communion was celebrated monthly (generally on the last Sunday of the month). In addition, there was a celebration of Holy Communion on festivals “for which there is a special preface.”15 It was only in the mid-1860s that Holy Communion was to be celebrated every Sunday. The church building itself was consecrated by the Rt. Rev. Jonathan M. Wainwright, the Provisional Bishop of the Diocese of New York, on Sunday, January 9, 1853, whose sermon text was Luke 19:45-46, the expulsion of the money changers from the Temple. In this sermon, judged “short but eloquent” by The New York Herald, Bishop Wainwright advised his auditors that their minds ought to be with God, and not on mundane matters, when they prayed. In so doing, the congregation would then be conforming to Jesus’ dictate, “My house is a house of prayer.” Approximately one hundred people received Holy Communion at this liturgy.16
George’s interest in classical civilization and in the thought and life of the primitive church had led him to an appreciation of Episcopalianism, which stressed, via the Tractarians and the earlier Hobartian movement, its connection to the Apostolic Church and its inheritance of that early Catholicism which understood the Church to be the guardian of revelation and the dispenser of the sacraments. George built upon this foundation, for he always stressed the complementarity of education and religion, of the natural and the supernatural.
Shortly after the death of George Houghton, the Rev. Harry Bodley of Yonkers preached a memorial sermon in which he stated that, for Dr. Houghton, “the highest goodness was to be attained only in the Church—that Church which teaches the faith once for all delivered to the saints and teaches it with authority. That Church which conveys the gifts of the Holy Ghost by Holy Sacraments.”17
George Houghton believed the Church to be a divine institution which dispensed sacramental grace and taught Christian truth to its members. In a sermon delivered on Anniversary Day in 1893, the founder of the parish said, “From first to last, from the beginning until the present, here there has been no putting forth of any personal, individual, notions of Doctrine and of Duty, of HOLY SCRIPTURE and of Inspiration. The endeavour has been to teach that which was held and taught aforetime, that which the CHURCH has received and held and taught from the beginning. There has been no deviation, no change, no turning back, no preaching of one thing to-day and of another thing, the opposite, to-morrow. . . . All that has been preached has been the old time Gospel truth. The old time CHURCH DOCTRINE, BIBLE TRUTH.”18
The founder accepted Christian doctrine as that which was taught in the early Church and approached it—indeed, understood it and transmitted it—through the lens of the Oxford Movement and the writings of the Tractarians. Like the pioneers of the Catholic revival, George Houghton stressed the sovereignty of God whose power is often manifested in the paradox. In his sermon, “What God Hath Wrought,” delivered on Anniversary Day, 1887, Dr. Houghton stated, “’Under God’—for without Him all efforts are vain and means the most abundant are unavailing; while with Him feebleness becomes strength, and poverty wealth.”19
George’s dependence on God and his fervent belief in the Trinity reflected not only his commitment to orthodox doctrine but also the influence of evangelical piety and the deep subjective experience of the divine presence which this piety fostered. George’s orthodoxy was not a dry, scholastic theology, but a vibrant confession of faith noted for its warm personal tones reminiscent in many ways of the evangelicalism he encountered in his youth, but now enhanced and enriched by his Catholic experience in the Episcopal Church. This is exemplified in a poem which he wrote in 1845, the year of his ordination to the diaconate. From this long poem, entitled “Holy Week,” we quote the final part which refers to the atonement on Calvary.
Cease now my pen, it may be sin,
My soul curb all thy thoughts within
I’ll write no more but pray.
My Saviour’s wounds—my Saviour’s cross
May save my soul from endless loss
When comes the judgment day.20
The founder and first rector emphasized the personal relationship of the believer with Jesus. In another early poem he wrote of the mystical approach of an angel to a believer.
In mine ear an angel whispered,
‘Jesu, Jesu,’ yesterday,
Never word so sweet had sounded,
Fain I’d hear it breathed alway.
‘Jesu, Jesu,” he repeated,
‘Jesu, Jesu for thee died;’
I entranced, ‘Good angel write it
In mine heart, I pray thee,’ cried.
This all earthly love effacing,
Love too deep—allied to sin,
While my heart with joy did quiver,
Wrote he ‘Jesu’s’ name therein.21
This same approach extended to the teaching he imparted on the Third Person of the Trinity. He understood the Holy Spirit to be not only the inspirer of the Church but also the comforter of the individual believer. In “An Evening Hymn,” written in January, 1849, George offered the following devotion.
Holy Spirit! May thy light—
Through the darkness of the night,
Sanctify our thoughts and dreams,
Shedding o’er our souls its beams.22
George’s piety and teaching are also evident in a poem he wrote for Annunciation Day, 1844. But here he also displays a taste for innovation and even radicalism! For the Annunciation Day poem, composed in honor of the Virgin Mary, was written when devotion to Mary and an understanding of her role in the economy of salvation, were still in their very nascent stages in the Episcopal Church. Yet this did not deter the founder’s prophetic spirit. For that holy day he wrote the following.
O spotless and sinless must Mary have been
Earth’s Virgin and glory, her pride and her queen
Since Jesus could stoop from her womb to be born
Accurs’d be the lip that the Virgin would scorn.23
After he founded the Church of the Transfiguration, Dr. Houghton introduced visual representations of the Virgin Mary into the church building. Two mosaic medallions, located on the wall of the arch at the entrance to the sanctuary, portray St. Gabriel the Archangel and the Virgin Mary; both are depicted in garments of delicate red and blue hues against a background of dark gold. Installed by the early 1880’s, they were the gift of William C. Prime (1825-1905), a vestryman of the parish who also served as professor of art history at Princeton University and was a noted lecturer on ancient and medieval art. 24 The successors to Dr. Houghton continued and enhanced his focus on the Virgin Mary. In 1926 a statue known as the Madonna of the Garden was placed in the garden of the church by friends of Susan Ruth Budd, a devoted parishioner; the inscription, now faded, states, “She loved God, His Church, His people, His birds and His flowers.” The Brides’ Altar, also dedicated in 1926, is surmounted by a painting on wood entitled “The Betrothal of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph.” Adjacent to this altar is St. Mary’s Chapel, built in 1906, which contains stained glass depicting events in the life of the Virgin. A large statue of Mary and the Christ Child was dedicated in 1932 and placed in the transept. The emphasis on the role of the Virgin Mary is extended to her parents as well, for the narthex screen (1928) has niches holding carved statues of St. Anne and St. Joachim.
Dr. Houghton linked his Catholic doctrine with appropriate ceremonial. The Ritualist Movement which followed in the wake of the Tractarians emphasized the revival of Catholic customs and rituals, and the founder supported this effort. However, he always understood ceremonial to be an extension of theology—a making visible and tangible that which is often arcane to the ordinary believer. In 1868 the General Convention of the Episcopal Church met in New York City, and some of its deliberations were held in the Church of the Transfiguration. Not all the attendees were able to accept the advanced churchmanship of the parish, and the ire of some was directed at the use of two lighted candles and a cross. Recalling the incident many years later [in his Anniversary Day sermon in 1893], Dr. Houghton defended these symbols and said, “And to think of men claiming to believe in Christ—in HIM as the propitiation for the sins of the world, and as the Light of the World—professing to be scandalized and insulted by the presence of the Symbols of that Propitiation and of that Light!”25
Near the end of his ministry, George Houghton noted that practices, largely unfamiliar in the Episcopal Church at the time of his ordination, had now become accepted. He included in this list the use of the sign of the cross, candles, the altar cross, eucharistic vestments, eastward position, kneeling at the incarnatus, reverencing the altar, and the use of flowers. He noted that what was done and taught at Transfiguration were factors in accomplishing this change in the national church.26
From his theological commitment flowed George Houghton’s interest in social problems. Shortly after being ordained priest, George left his work at the Church of the Holy Communion and began visiting the residents of Bellevue Hospital. Here he exhibited his personal care, religious devotion, and a certain realism about the human condition. On January 31, 1849, he visited Elizabeth Jacobs, who died that same day at the hospital. He reported that her dying words were, “O that I might not die in this place!” But he then wrote in his journal, “But where else shall a poor Churchman or woman die?” This poignant occasion animated him to write the following prayer-poem.
O Savior Christ—who by Thy Cross,
For her hath made this gain—
Repair ere long I pray my loss
By such another’s pain.27
As the nineteenth century progressed, there was increasing newspaper and magazine attention to Dr. Houghton’s ministry and personality as well as to the church building which was viewed as charming, eclectic, and inviting. The building was implicitly understood to be a sacramental, although the secular writers did not employ that word.
On January 27, 1884, The New York Tribune stated that George Houghton was “primarily and continuously the teacher, the expounder, keeping close to questions of personal duty and responsibility, and the growth and culture of a fruitful Christian life. He reads his sermon, word by word, and each is the child of prayer and priestly consecration. There is an austere, ascetic realism running through it all, as if the destinies of souls trembled in the balance all the while before his vision. His voice is now much worn, feeble, and his delivery labored, but the people listen eagerly and trustfully, and find a certain refreshment which they would miss in most pastors.”28
The New York Times on October 9, 1882, made similar comments about Dr. Houghton, noting that his “deep religious contemplation blends harmoniously with an earnest zeal for Christian work.”29 Both newspapers linked Dr. Houghton, his vocation and charisma, and the piety and devotion of the congregation, with the church building itself. The New York Tribune article lauded the congregation as “quickened through and through with the glowing faith and devotion of its fellowship.” The article then concluded, “So there is an esoteric beauty in this illogical and paradoxical structure after all, not often discernible in grander and costlier temples.”30
Although the Rev. George Houghton died more than a century ago, Christians today are called to emulate him in his devotion to the Gospel, his dedication to service, and his faithfulness to New Testament revelation and insights. And, they could begin this by applying to themselves, the sentiments expressed in the poem he wrote on the day of his ordination to the priesthood, December 6, 1846. On that significant day, the young ordinand wrote,
Help me Lord henceforth to be
Thine in all sincerity,
Purge my soul from every sin
Be Thine image shrined within--
At thine altar may I wait
Clad in robe immaculate—
Oft I know I shall transgress
Sometimes sink in weariness—
Lord my trust can only be
In the love Thou hast for me.31
George Houghton spent forty-nine years as rector of the Church of the Transfiguration. His commitment to the doctrine of the Church as the dispenser of the sacramental life conditioned and informed his ministry; but he knew that the sacramental sign of God’s self-disclosure always pointed to the reality facing every Christian: death and judgment. In 1896 he spoke to the meeting of the St. Anna’s Guild, the organization for the parish’s working women. Here he confronted the reality of his own mortality and also affirmed the New Testament hope of eternal life. The founder said: “. . . when you come hither on some soon coming day for the ministrations that are needed, and are told that the one, who has hitherto been so thankful to give them, has gone to the country, to the country that lies beyond the seas and the sunset, gone not for a summer holiday, but for all days and for all seasons, gone to return hither again no more, let it be a time not for tears but for prayer. If the tears must needs fall from any eyes, let them fall like the drops of the summer shower, if abundant, yet soon to be followed by the lasting sunshine, but whenever thought returns of the hither nevermore returning one, let the prayer fail not to go up from the hearts of all who hold him in loving remembrance: ‘Grant him, Lord, eternal rest: and let light perpetual shine upon him.’ Mercy, mercy, all pitying Jesus blest!”32
Footnotes
1 “Dr. G. H. Houghton Dead,” The New York Times, Thursday, November 18, 1897, p. 1.
2 “Dr. Houghton,” The New York Tribune, Friday, November 19, 1897, p. 6.
3 “The Late Dr. Houghton,” The Living Church, (November 27, 1897): 772.
4 4. Information concerning the funeral of George H. Houghton was obtained from “Funeral of the Rev. George Hendricks [sic] Houghton, D.D.,” The Churchman, (November 27, 1897):700, and from articles appearing from November 20 and 21, 1897, in The New York Times, The New York Tribune and The New York Herald.
5 “In Dr. Houghton’s Memory: An Eloquent Tribute from Bishop Potter,” The New York Tribune, Monday, November 29, 1897, p. 5.
6 George H. Houghton, “Clusters and Cycles in Literature,” in his Journal, a manuscript collection (bound but not paginated) of his writings from 1839 to 1850. Available in the Archives of the New York University Library, this collection includes religious poetry, translations from Homer and Hesiod, his commencement oration, and other writings.
7 George H. Houghton, “The Growth of Freedom,” in his Journal, a manuscript collection (bound but not paginated) of his writings from 1839 to 1850. In addition to his bachelor’s degree from the University of the City of New York, George Houghton was awarded the honorary Doctor of Divinity (D. D.) by Columbia College in 1859.
8 “The University of New York – The Commencement Exercises,” The New York Herald, Thursday, July 21, 1842, p. 2.
9 Journal of the Sixty-second Annual Convention of the Diocese of Connecticut, Held in Trinity Church, New Haven, June 9th and 10th, 1846 (Hartford: William Foxon, 1846), p. 14.
10 Anne Ayres, The Life and Work of William Augustus Muhlenberg (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Co., 1884), p. 177.
11 George H. Houghton, What God Hath Wrought: A Transfiguration Anniversary Sermon (New York: P. F. McBreen, 1887), p. 16.
12 Journal of the Proceedings of the Sixty-third Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New-York, Which Assembled in St. John’s Chapel, in the City of New-York, on the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, Wednesday, Sept. 29, A.D. 1847 (New-York: Henry M. Onderdonk, 1847), p. 36.
13 George H. Houghton, Forty-and-Five years: An Anniversary Sermon (New York: P. F. McBreen, 1893), p. 25.
14 George H. Houghton, An Address Delivered at the Opening of the Church of the Transfiguration, in the City of New-York, Sunday Morning, March 10th, 1850 (New-York: Pudney & Russell, 1851), p. 20. In this same sermon (p. 18) the founder also discussed the parish’s motto, “Fides Opera,” that is, “Faith and Works.”
15 Journal of the Proceedings of the Seventieth Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New-York, Which Assembled in St. John’s Chapel, in the City of New-York, on Wednesday, September 28, A.D. 1853 (New-York: Daniel Dana, Jr., 1854), p. 183. The rector of Transfiguration reported seventeen celebrations of the Holy Communion in the year 1852.
16 “Services Yesterday,” The New York Herald, Monday, January 10, 1853, p. 1.
17 Harry L. Bodley, In Memory of the Rev. George Hendrick Houghton, Priest in the Church of God (New York, 1898), p. 4. (Bodley adds the letter “k” to the middle name, in contradistinction to its usual spelling; in addition, Dr. Houghton held the Doctor of Divinity degree, D.D., from Columbia College, now Columbia University, not an S.T.D.)
18 George H. Houghton, Forty-and-Five Years, pp. 14-15, 16.
19 George H. Houghton, What God Hath Wrought, p. 13.
20 George H. Houghton, “Holy Week,” in his Journal.
21 George H. Houghton, “Jesu,” quoted in Bodley, In Memory of the Rev. George Hendrick Houghton, pp. 11-12.
22 George H. Houghton, “An Evening Hymn,” in his Journal.
23 George H. Houghton, “An Angel from Heaven Such Honor Accord,” in his Journal.
24 Suzette G. Stuart, Guide Book of the Little Church Around the Corner, New York City (New York: Church of the Transfiguration, 1930), p. 32. For more on William C. Prime, see Victor Rosewater, “Prime, William Cowper,” Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 8, pp. 228-229 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964).
25 George H. Houghton, Forty-and-Five Years, p. 19.
26 Ibid., pp. 17-18.
27 George H. Houghton, “Died at Bellevue Hospital,” in his Journal.
28 “Pulpit Sketches: The Rev. G. H. Houghton, D.D., of the Church of the Transfiguration,” The New York Tribune, Sunday, January 27, 1884, p. 10.
29 “What the Churches Need: Views of Prominent Pastors on the Subject,” The New York Times, Monday, October 9, 1882, p. 8.
30 “Pulpit Sketches,” p. 10.
31 George H. Houghton, “Help Me Lord,” in his Journal.
32 Harry L. Bodley, In Memory of the Rev. George Hendrick Houghton, Priest in the Church of God, p. 16.
Select Bibliography
Catir, Zulette. A Parish Guide to the Church of the Transfiguration: The Little Church Around the Corner. New York: Church of the Transfiguration, c1996.
Franklin, R. William. “Houghton, George Hendric,” American National Biography, vol. 11, pp. 261-262. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
MacAdam, George. The Little Church Around the Corner. New York; London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925.
Ray, Randolph. My Little Church Around the Corner. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957.
Ross, Ishbel. Through the Lich-gate: A Biography of the Little Church Around the Corner, with illustrations from dry points by Ralph L. Boyer. New York: W. F. Payson, 1931.
Shipler, Guy E. “Houghton, George Hendric,” Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 5, p. 255. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964.
Stuart, Suzette G. Guide Book of the Little Church Around the Corner, New York City. New York: Church of the Transfiguration, 1930.
Stuart, Suzette G. Illustrated Guide Book with Historical Sketch of the Church of the Transfiguration, the Little Church Around the Corner, New York City, new edition. New York: Church of the Transfiguration, 1963.
Appendix: Select Writings of the Rev. George H. Houghton
In addition to his sermons and entries in his journal, George H. Houghton was also published in The Churchman, The New York Tribune, The Knickerbocker, and The United States Magazine and Democratic Review. In addition to the writings quoted in the main body of the text, we now include other works to be found in his Journal and in printed sources.
“Stanzas” appeared in The Knickerbocker, December, 1841, pp. 529-530. In his Journal this same poem was entitled “The Voice of the Streamlet.” The first three stanzas of this long poem are quoted here.
Streamlet! In thy placid face
Many an imagined form I trace;
Bending o’er thy grassy side,
Childhood’s grace and manhood’s pride;
And with feeble step and slow,
Mirrored there, the aged go,
Streamlet! As thou murmurest on
Tell of those who now are gone!
Say, who sat beneath the shade
That the willow-tree hath made;
Drooping low thy banks above,
Whispering in its leaves, of love!
Here a mound of earth I see
Raised beneath the willow-tree:
Streamlet! As thou murmurest on,
Tell of those who now are gone!
When the moon-beam downward gave
Mournful light unto thy wave;
When the stars together shone,
High, thy sparkling crest upon;
When the flowers by Fancy drest
Hung in fragrance o’er thy breast:
Streamlet! As thou murmurest on,
Tell of those who now are gone!
“The River’s Tale” appeared in The Knickerbocker, July, 1842, pp. 44-46. The first two stanzas of this lengthy poem are quoted.
River! River! Mighty river!
Sweeping to the stately sea;
Murmuring deep and murmuring ever,
Murmur some sad tale to me!
Tell me why it is that Ocean
Ever hath so sad a moan;
Calm or lashed in wild commotion,
Wherefore is its dirge-like tone?
Leap’st thou not from moss-decked fountain,
Cradled there in joyous glee;
Down the darkly-frowning mountain,
Laughing to the swelling sea;
Winding far through gorge and valley,
And through softly shaded glen,
Then with wild impetuous sally
By the calm abodes of men?
“Anacreontic” appeared in The Knickerbocker, March, 1844, p. 275.
Maiden! first did Nature seek
Lilies for thy spotless cheek;
When with roses came she next
Half delighted, yet more vex’d,
For the lilies there, to see
Blushing at their purity!
Since her labor now was lost,
Roses to the wind she tost,
One, a bud of smiling June,
Falling on thy lips, as soon
Left its color, and in death
Willed its fragrance to thy breath!
Then two drops of crystalled dew
From the hyacinth’s deep hue,
Brought she for thine eyes of blue;
And lest they should miss the sun,
Bade thy soul to shine thereon.
Lilies, Nature gave thy face—
Say, thy heart do lilies grace?
“Fragments from the Greek” appeared in The Knickerbocker, April, 1844, p. 361. This consists of three brief translations from unidentified classical Greek authors.
“Tell Me, Zephyr”
Tell me, Zephyr, swiftly winging,
Ne’er before such fragrance bringing,
From what rose-bed comest thou?
‘Underneath a hawthorn creeping,
I beheld a maiden, sleeping,
And her breath I bear thee now!’
“Four Maidens Drinking”
Streamlet! at thy mossy brink
Maidens four once stooped to drink:
Crag and wild rock tumbling o’er,
Wert thou e’er so blest before?
“Gone the Pleiades and Moon”
Gone the Pleiades and moon,
Lo! of night it is the noon!
See! the Hours their watch are keeping;
Lovely lieth Sappho sleeping!
(The United States Magazine and Democratic Review published two works by George H. Houghton. “The Loves of Anacreon: From the Greek” was published in the May, 1844, issue of that journal, and his “Fragments from the Greek,” another set of translations, appeared in the March, 1845, issue of same.)
“Ambition: A Simile” appeared in George H. Houghton’s Journal. His Journal includes poetry and prose from 1839 to 1850, with specific dates of composition supplied for only a few works. No date is given for this work.
They lift their summits to the sky,
The Pyramids of old;
But buried in their caverns lie,
The bones of kingly mould.
“Christmas Poem” also appeared in the Journal and was composed for the celebration of that holy day in 1843.
Glory unto God on high
To the Son shall Earth reply,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Heaven and Earth and all their host.
“Peace” appeared in the Journal, and is undated.
O thou who on the troubled sea
Once bade its raging cease
More tossed than stormy Galilee
Speak to my spirit peace.
“A Grace to Me,” appeared in the Journal, also undated.
A grace to me my dearest Lord,
I humbly pray thee to accord
To fit me for that dreaded day
When I on dying bed shall lay
Grace while I live to live for thee
And when I die resigned to be.
“The Antithesis,” appeared in the Journal with this accompanying explanation. “Friday, May 7, 1847, was observed as a day of rejoicing by New Yorkers for victories in Mexico. On that day crimson flags were seen waving from the spires of Calvary Church.” In response to this George wrote,
A crimson stream was once effused on Calvary
That wars might cease;
But crimson flags now on its spires I see
That wars increase.
“I’m Hastening to My Father,” appeared in the Journal and was dated February, 1844.
I’m hastening to my Father,
O bid me not delay-
The few wild flowers to gather,
That bloom beside the way!
Though sweet they smile around me,
Too many thorns they bear;
Or if they should not wound me
Decay they soon must share!
Where flowers shall never wither
Where summer never dies;
Thither I hasten—thither—
My home above the skies!
Though many a woodland soaring
Where flower-hung streamlets stray,
Sweet birds their songs are pouring
Yet bid me not delay!
Where winter’s icy finger
On wood and wave shall be
No singing bird shall linger
To breathe its notes to thee.
But oh what strain rejoices
My soul—thou cans’t not hear
The choir of angel voices
Has closed to earth mine ear!
O see its portals glisten,
But not with earthly light—
O to their voices listen,
Who soon will greet my sight—
I see the crystal river,
The streets by Angels trod
The tree that bloometh ever—
I see the Lamb of God.
I’m hastening to my Father
O bid me not delay!
But hasten with me rather,
From sorrow and decay.
In an obituary for Dr. Houghton, his views on attending the theatre were quoted. “Dr. G. H. Houghton Dies Suddenly,” The New York Herald, Thursday, November 18, 1897, p. 4. Dr. Houghton was cited in this article:
“Yes, go the to theatre if the place and surroundings be what they should be, if the play be proper, if the actors be not men and women who are notorious for immorality, if the season be suitable and the evening be not one that should be elsewhere and otherwise spent. Yes, go, if these things be so; but go with moderation.”
“An Evening Hymn,” in the Journal, dated January, 1849.
God! To whom by night or day
Hosts unnumbered homage pay
Bid thine angels while we sleep
O’er us ceaseless watch to keep.
Saviour! By thy blood atone
All the ill that we have done
Sins of thought, of word, and deed,
Since for these thou deign’d’st to bleed.
Holy Spirit! May thy light—
Through the darkness of the night,
Sanctify our thoughts and dreams,
Shedding o’er our souls its beams.
Glory glory glory, be
To the Blessed Trinity,
Night by night—and day by day
Ever will our homage pay."
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