Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Simmons, George Frederick

SIMMONS, George Frederick, clergyman, b. in Boston, Mass., 24 March, 1814; d. in Concord, Mass., 5 Sept., 1855. He was graduated at Harvard in 1832, and, after being employed as a private tutor, prepared for the ministry at Cambridge divinity-school, where he completed his course in 1838. He was ordained the same year as an evangelist of the Unitarian denomination, and at once went to Mobile, Ala., where he began his ministry. Owing to his decided opposition to slavery, he remained there only until 1840, when he was obliged to fly for his life, and barely escaped the fury of a mob. In November, 1841, he was ordained pastor of the Unitarian church at Waltham, Mass. Meantime he had become deeply interested in certain theological questions which he felt he could not solve while engaged in pastoral work, and so resigned in the spring of 1843 and sailed for Europe, where he remained until October, 1845, spending most of the time at the University of Berlin, and being brought much in contact with the German historian, Neander. In February, 1848, he was called to Springfield, Mass., as the successor of Dr. William B. O. Peabody. Here, while he was greatly admired by part of his congregation, others regarded him with less favor, and in 1851 he was compelled to resign, after preaching two sermons on a riotous assault that had been made in the town on George Thompson, the English anti-slavery apostle. In January, 1854, he was installed pastor of a church at Albany, N. Y., but in the summer of 1855 he was attacked by typhus fever, from the effects of which he never rallied. Mr. Simmons was distinguished by an acutely philosophical mind, a strong sense of right, and a thoughtful and reverent spirit. “I knew him well,” said his classmate, Samuel Osgood, “loved him much, and respected him even more.” He was retiring in his habits, and his somewhat unsocial nature was no doubt an obstacle in the way of his exercising a proper influence on his flock. He published “Who was Jesus Christ?” a tract (Boston, 1839); “Two Sermons on the Kind Treatment and on the Emancipation of Slaves, preached at Mobile, with a Prefatory Statement” (1840); “A Letter to the So-Called ‘Boston Churches’ ” (1846); “The Trinity,” a lecture (1840); “Public Spirit and Mobs,” two sermons delivered at Springfield on the Sunday after the Thompson riot (1851); and “Faith in Christ the Condition of Salvation” (1854). Six of his sermons were published in one volume soon after his death (Boston, 1855).