rchester, Newton, Allston,
and other beautiful suburbs of Boston, caused much derangement of
previously existing conditions. The tremendous development of the
means of transportation by the steam, horse or electric railways, to
say nothing of the bicycle, had caused a marvellous bloom of new life
and flush of vigor among the suburban churches, while those in the
older parts of the city suffered corresponding decline. The Shawmut
Church, like the Mount Vernon, the Pine Street, and others, had to
pass through experiences which make a familiar story to those who know
Philadelphia, New York, and London. The work of the old city churches
had been to train up and graduate sons and daughters with noble
Christian principles and character, to build up the waste places and
the newer societies. Like bees, the new swarms out from the old hives
were called to gather fresh honey.

The exodus from rural New England and from Canada enlarged Boston, and
caused the building up and amazing development of Brookline. With such
powerful magnets drawing away the old residents, together with the
multiplication of a new and largely non-American and Roman Catholic
population into the district lying east of Washington Street, the
older congregations of the South End had, by 1890, been vastly
changed. Several had been so depleted in their old supporters, that
churches moved in a body to new edifices on the streets and avenues
lying westward. In others the burdens of support fell upon a
decreasing number of faithful men and women. Where once were not
enough church edifices to accommodate the people who would worship in
them, was now a redundancy. In the city where a Roman Catholic church
was once a curiosity are now nearly fifty churches that acknowledge
the Pope's supremacy.

These things are stated with some detail, in order to show the
character of Charles Carleton Coffin in its true light. After a
laborious life, having borne the heat and burden of the day in the
churches where his lot was cast, withal, having passed his three score
and ten years, one would naturally expect this veteran to seek repose.
Not a few of his friends looked to see him set himself down in some
one of the luxurious new church edifices, amid congenial social
surroundings and material comforts.

Carleton sought not his own comfort. When the new pastor and the old
guard, left in Shawmut Church to "hold the fort," took counsel
together as to the future, they waited wit