iol V. No. 14 
ESTER, MASS., SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1907. 
24 Pages. Three Cents. 
————EE 
PARISH MEETING. 
First Parish, Manchester, hold annual meeting 
*'for Election of Officers, and other Routine 
*Business. 
The annual meeting of the First Par- 
ish, Manchester, was held Wednesday 
evening in the Chapel. Nothing of gen- 
eral interest transpired outside the elec- 
tion of officers, reports, and other routine 
business. 
- Alfred S. Jewett was elected modera- 
tor and George F. Allen clerk. The 
parish committee’s report was presented 
by Frank P. Knight, showing that con- 
siderable gain had been made during the 
year and a number of improvements had 
been carried out. A vote of thanks was 
extended all those who so generously 
assisted by contributions. 
Following were the officers elected: 
Parish committee—Frank P. Knight, 
Eward A. Lane and William Hoare; 
collector and treasurer Alfred S. Jewett; 
music committee—Albert Cunningham, 
J. A. Lodge and George A. Kitheld; 
soliciting committee—O. T. Roberts, 
E. A. Lane and F. P. Knight; trustee 
M. C. Martin fund three years—Wm. 
J. Johnson. 
At 9.15 the meeting adjourned subject 
to the call of the Parish committee. 
Oscar L. Huntrtinc, Basso. 
Who will appear in the Manchester Choral Society Concert next week, 
CAD 
HOURS WITH LESS KNOWN 
WRITERS. 
BY D. F. LAMSON. 
‘The name of Joseph Hall, or as he 1s 
better known Bishop Hall, is probably 
even less familiar to modern readers than 
that of George Herbert; and yet Hall 
was an instructive prose writer and a vig- 
orous poet. He was a contemporary of 
Herbert, Quarles, Lovelace and Fuller, 
having been born in 1574 and dying in 
1656, at the venerable age of eighty-two. 
He was a man of rare excellence of 
character; of profound and varied learn- 
ing and knowledge of affairs. He was 
not fitted, however, for state craft or 
church craft, and seems to have been 
utterly without worldly ambition. He 
found his greatest delight in a retired medi- 
tative life, and in the quiet scenes of a village 
parish. His pleasantest years were spent in 
his country living of Waltham; he was 
free from worldly solicitudes, the clouds 
of national distress which darkened his 
later life had not appeared in his sky, 
abundant leisure was at his command, 
and his home was the abode of happiness 
and peace. He was a studious and 
scholarly divine in an age distinguished 
for clerical students and scholars. His 
even tenor of life, howerer, was later 
broken in upon by calls to bear a part in 
public affairs. In. 1627, he became 
Bishop of Exeter, andin 1641, Bishop of 
Norwich. [he times were stormy. 
Episcopacy and Puritanism were in the 
field, both strong and equipped for the 
contest, and marshalled by able and ear- 
nest men. Bishop Hall, though a zeal- 
ous Churchman, was no bigot; he never 
forgot the christian in the prelate. He 
was a vigorous polemic and sharp disput- 
ant, as his tilts with Milton in the ecclesi- 
astical arena testify; but controversy was 
not waged in that belligerent age in the 
irenic spirit; men were accustomed to 
give and take hard blows; Milton himself 
was not the mildest of antagonists, he 
could wield language like a battle-axe as 
well as like a harp. His official life was 
marked by ability and moderation. With 
eleven of his brethren, he was deposed 
in 1642 by Parliament, under the intimid- 
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