name that savors of brown stone
fronts and plush rockers: a name which goes well with the
commercial prosperity of Boston. Massachusetts Avenue extends from
Dorchester in Boston to Lexington Green; it has absorbed the old
Cambridge and the old Lexington roads; the old Long Bridge lives
in history, but, rechristened Brighton Bridge, the reader fails to
identify it.

Concord remains and Lexington remains, simply because no real
estate boom has yet reached them but Bunker Hill, there is a
feeling that apartments would rent better if the musty
associations of the spot were obliterated by some such name as
"Buckingham Heights," or "Commonwealth Crest;" "The Acropolis" has
been prayerfully considered by the freemen of the modern Athens;--
whatever the decision may be, certain it is the name Bunker Hill
is a heavy load for choice corners in the vicinity.

There are a few old names still left in Massachusetts,--
Jingleberry Hill and Chillyshally** Brook sound as if they once
meant something; Spot Pond, named by Governor Winthrop, has not
lost its birthright; Powder-Horn Hill records its purchase from
the Indians for a hornful of powder--probably damp; Drinkwater
River is a good name,--Strong Water Brook by many is considered
better. It is well to record these names before they are effaced
by the commercialism rampant in the suburbs of Boston.

At the Town Hall in Lexington we turned to the right for East
Lexington, and made straight for Follen Church, and the home of
Dr. Follen close by, where Emerson preached in 1836 and 1837.

The church was not built until 1839. In January, 1840, the
congregation had assembled in their new edifice for the dedication
services. They waited for their pastor, who was expected home from
a visit to New York, but the Long Island Sound steamer--Lexington,
by strange coincidence it was called--had burned and Dr. Follen
was among the lost. His home is now the East Lexington Branch of
the Public Library.

We climbed the stairs that led to the small upper room where
Emerson filled his last regular charge. Small as was the room, it
probably more than sufficed for the few people who were
sufficiently advanced for his notions of a preacher's mission. He
did not believe in the rites the church clung to as indispensable;
he did not believe in the use of bread and wine in the Lord's
Supper; he did not believe in prayers from the pulpit unless the
preacher felt impelled to pray; he did not believe in