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Written by Jay Jordan
Edited by Mark Allen
The Beginning
Portland in the 1820s was a bustling seaport town of 25,000 people crowded into a
one-square-mile area around the waterfront. Diversity of religion or even interest
in religion back then was limited, with only the Congregational, Unitarian, Methodist,
and Quaker churches from which to choose. More and more people were opting out completely --
"coming out" was the term
back then for freethinking.
One of these free thinkers was Dr. Timothy Little. Dr. Little was born in 1776 in
Newburyport, Massachusetts. He was preparing for the Unitarian ministry but dropped out
and entered medicine as a profession, setting up practice in New Gloucester and then moving
to Portland in 1825. In the winter of that year he met a young lawyer named John Meguire
who gave the doctor a curious book entitled The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem by Emanuel
Swedenborg. The book enabled Little to reconcile all the misgivings he had held about
Christian teachings and he quickly became convinced of the truth of Swedenborg's revelation.
He soon shared his new-found passion for Swedenborg with other acquaintances and they
formed a small group, gathering at each other's homes to read and discuss these "Heavenly
Doctrines."
By 1829 the group had grown in number and many felt that some form of public worship was
desirable. They began to meet monthly for worship in the vestry of the Methodist church with
Dr. Little as the lay leader. Then on August 21, 1831, as they continued to grow in spirit
and numbers, the Church of the New Jerusalem was officially constituted -- the event we
commemorate today. There were at that time thirteen members: Dr. and Mrs. Timothy Little,
Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Coleman, Dr. Albus Rea, Ebenezer Mason, William Hunnewell, Mrs.
Sarah Rea, Mary G. Walker, Lydia Sawyer and Martha Freeman.
Incorporation
Over the next several years their numbers continued to grow and they soon came to seek a
church building of their own. In 1835 a Charter of Incorporation was obtained and in 1837 a
church building on Congress Street was completed. The first minister, Rev. Henry Worcester,
was engaged in that year and served until his untimely death in 1841. Because of the small
congregation and their lack of resources, the church was usually without a permanent minister
for its first two decades, Dr. Little serving as lay leader most of the time. A major problem
for the early Swedenborgian Church was the lack of a model for worship, church government and
other organizational questions. Swedenborg never considered starting a church and so the founders
drew eclectically from existing church liturgies and structures, especially from Episcopalian
forms of worship and Congregational forms of church polity. As the years went on, their worship
forms became more and more elaborate. There came to be disagreements among members and outside
hostility from mainstream churches, often condemning
Swedenborgianism as a dangerous heresy. Fortunately, no one was ever burned at the stake
as in earlier colonial times.
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