Jared Sparks, he came out
fair and square upon the great question, and led, or helped lead, the
exercises. The result of which was, that in due time, after his failure
in business, he became a student of theology at Cambridge, and within a
year was called to the ministry of reconciliation over Hollis Street
Church, as a successor to Mr. Holly, at that time a most captivating
preacher, with a congregation and church eminently fastidious and
exacting, and not easily satisfied; yet Mr. Pierpont labored with them
and for them over twenty-five years, with an earnestness, a
comprehensiveness, and a faithfulness, for which some of them have not
forgiven him to this day. He entered upon the ministry there in April,
1819, and resigned in 1845; when he became the first pastor of a
Unitarian church in Troy, remained there four years, and then took
charge of a church in Medford; where he was living when the Rebellion
broke out, and he entered the army as chaplain, under an express
stipulation that the regiment was _not to go round Baltimore_.
But I am fully justified in saying that, when I first knew him in
Boston, he did not know himself. He had entirely mistaken his vocation,
and was about the last man in the world to enter into trade, though
pre-eminently fitted for business, if he had been properly
encouraged,--the business of law certainly, and the business of
statesmanship.
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