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Adams, Nehemiah, D.D.

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Adams, N.H.

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an eminent. Congregational minister, was born at Salem, Mass., Feb. 19, 1806. He graduated at the Harvard University in the. class of 1826. He pursued his theological studies at the Andover Seminary, where he graduated in 1828. Dec. 17 of that year he was ordained and installed as colleague pastor with the Rev. Dr. Holmes of the First Congregational Church, Cambridge; and March 28,1834, he was installed as pastor of the Essex Street Church,. Boston. On account of failing health, he was obliged. in 1869, to resign his pastorate; but the society refused to accept his resignation, choosing rather to obtain an associate pastor and allow him to travel for the benefit of his health. He made a long voyage in the fall of 1869 to San Francisco, thence to Honolulu, and Hong Kong, and returned in 1870. He died in Boston Oct 6, 1878.

Dr. Adams was a Christian gentleman, and though often engaged in keen controversies, no word ever fell from his tongue or pen that betrayed anger or resentment. His piety was of a deep and spiritual character, and he possessed in an eminent degree the graces of the Christian. These qualities appear in his published writings, but they greatly enriched and beautified his long and useful life. He was for many years an officer of the American Tract Society, and of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

Not long after entering upon his ministry in Boston, Dr. Adams became engaged in the Unitarian controversy, on which topic he preached vigorous and scholarly, sermons, and published several books in defence of Trinitarian doctrine. One of these publications was entitled Remarks on the Unitarian Belief. In a periodical entitled The Spirit of the Pilgrims, published from 1826 to 1833, and devoted to the defence of the Puritan faith, as against the modifying and destructive tendencies of modern liberal thought, he appeared with great frequency. Other published writings of his are, The Friends of Christ in the New Testament:-A Life of John Eliot:-An Autobiography of Thomas Shepard Christ, a Friend:-Agnes and the Key of her Little Coffin:-Bertha and her Baptism:— Communion Sabbath: and others of a devotional and religious character, including tracts, hymns, poems, addresses, and discourses. His South Side View of Slavery, published in' 1854. is perhaps the best-remembered of his books, from the strong feeling it called out on the part of abolitionists. This. book was the expression of a favorable opinion formed of Southern institutions during a winter spent in Georgia for his health, and it elicited a wide and warm discussion in the North, in connection with. which Dr. Adams published his correspondence with governor Wise of Virginia. See Cong. Year-book, 1879, p.36. (W.P. S.)