Charles A. Dickinson › Texts

Charles Albert Dickinson was born July 4, 1849. He spent the first sixteen years of his life living on his family farm in Westminster, Vermont. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 1872. He then went on to graduate from Harvard College in 1876 and Andover Seminary in 1879. Dickinson served as pastor of Payson Memorial Church in Portland, Maine and Kirk Street Church in Lowell, Massachusetts before assuming his thirteen-year post at Berkeley Street Church in Boston, MA. in 1887. Under Dickinson's auspices, Berkeley Street Church became Berkeley Temple and greatly expanded its community outreach and so-called "rescue work," including the establishment of New England Kurn Hattin Homes for "homeless and neglected boys and girls" in Dickinson's hometown of Westminster, Vermont. Dickinson passed away in January of 1907 after an illness.

Jaimie Scanlon

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Dickinson, Charles Albert, D.D., an American Congregational Minister, born at Westminster, Vermont, July 4, 1849, and graduated at Harvard University in 1876. He held various charges to 1899 when he retired through ill health, and returned to Ceres, California. His hymn-writing has been mainly for the young. Several of these hymns are in the Christian Endeavour Hymnal and other collections. The most widely known are "O golden day, so long desired," and "Blessed Master, I have promised" (Consecration to Christ). This latter was written Jan. 4, 1900. [Rev. C. L. Noyes, D.D.]

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)