John Worcester

Born: Feb­ru­a­ry 13, 1834, Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts. Died: May 2, 1900, New­ton­ville, Mass­a­chu­setts.

Worcester stu­died at the Law­rence Sci­en­tif­ic School of Har­vard Un­i­ver­si­ty, giv­ing at­ten­tion es­pe­cial­ly to an­a­to­my, phys­i­ol­o­gy, chem­is­try and re­lat­ed sub­jects. He was a close stu­dent, giv­ing much time and thought to the stu­dy of Cor­res­pond­enc­es, or the re­la­tion of the world with­out to the world with­in, and the use of Scrip­tures of na­tur­al ob­jects as sym­bols of spir­it­u­al life. As a re­sult of this stu­dy he pub­lished: The An­i­mals of the Bi­ble; Plants of the Bi­ble, and Phys­i­ol­o­gy Cor­res­pon­dences. Lat­er his thought was giv­en to more con­ser­va­tive in­ter­pre­ta­tions of the Bi­ble, and as a fruit of his stu­dy we have Gen­e­sis and Ex­o­dus, and Mat­thew’s Gos­pel. He al­so re­vised ma­ny trans­la­tions of Swe­den­borg’s works.

Worcester served as min­is­ter of the New Je­ru­sa­lem Church for 45 years; pas­tor of the New­ton So­ci­e­ty (1857-1900); Gen­er­al Pas­tor of the Mas­sa­chu­setts As­so­ci­a­tion; vice-pres­i­dent and pres­i­dent of the Gen­er­al Con­ven­tion of the New Church in Amer­i­ca; prin­ci­pal of Walt­ham New Church School; pres­i­dent of New Church The­o­log­ic­al School (1881-94); and mem­ber of the New­ton School Board.

Worcester held Sun­day serv­ic­es in the stu­dy near his sum­mer home at In­ter­vale, in the New Hamp­shire moun­tains. Here friends and strang­ers from a dis­tance as­sem­bled for wor­ship, and went away re­freshed and up­lift­ed with the Prom­ise of Peace."

Cyber Hymnal