Divinity studentsA Closer LookDivinity students were those men attending the newly founded Seabury Divinity School in preparation for service as Episcopal priests and missionaries. In 1858, Mary Whipple wrote in a letter to her sister: “[They] occupy a new building to the north east of us, but so near… we can almost step into their kitchen. Said family consists of Miss West as matron, eight divinity students, seven Indian children and one Irish servant… five of the students lodge in a pretty rough little house with porches and dormer windows, nestled among the trees, just on the brink of the ravine to the south-east of us.”
In another letter at about the same time, Mary wrote of one divinity student: “Mr. B[arnhart] by the way is my assistant in the school — is as good and dull and stupid and obliging as it is necessary for a divinity student to be.” Mary’s husband George was also later a divinity student at Seabury. Do you think she changed her opinion about divinity students? |
