SAMUEL HARRISON GREENE
GREENE, SAMUEL HARRISON, D.D., LL.D., preacher and pastor, is distinguished as an organizer. During the twenty-five years of his pastorate at Calvary Baptist church, Washington, District of Columbia, the church has grown from a membership of 400 to nearly 1,700 members. The size and efficiency of the Sunday-school connected with the church is noticeable, enrolling as it does a membership of nearly 2,300, and calling into its service men whose administrative abilities are widely recognized. Dr. Greene's power to draw and to hold men, both young and old, is shown by the large proportion of men in Bible classes and by the number of men of character and of trained ability who are permanently enlisted in the manifold activities of the church. In his public services and in all his church work Doctor Greene is untrammeled by tradition. He says, "I early found that I must work on my own lines." And in his pastorate he has completely expressed himself. A man of great executive ability, he is also a preacher of marked sweetness and spirituality. He is a many-sided man, and his services are recognized by the Baptist denomination at large.
He was born in Enosburg, Vermont, in 1845. His father, Columbus Greene, was a clergyman who held the office of town representative in the state legislature, was an intelligent, industrious, patriotic and religious man. His mother, Martha Dow Webber, he says, had a strong influence upon his moral and spiritual life. Captain John Parker of Lexington, Massachusetts, and Theodore Parker, of Boston, were among his kindred. Though not very strong as a child, he was studious, and he shared in the social and religious life of the village, and was for a time clerk in a country store. From 1866 to 1867 he was superintendent of public schools in Montgomery, Vermont. He "earned his own way" through college, and supported himself during his theological course. He pursued his preparatory studies at Colgate academy, was graduated from Colgate university in 1873; and from Hamilton theological seminary in 1875. Doctor Greene has received the degree of D.D.
