Mrs. Eddy Mentioned Them November 9, 1957 Issue

Three Concord Gentlemen

[Mentioned in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 174]

In Concord, New Hampshire, the name of Franklin D. Aver (1832-1919) is on the roster of distinguished clergymen of the First Congregational Church, where he succeeded the Reverend Nathaniel Bouton. Ayer, a native Vermonter, was class day orator at Dartmouth College and was ordained pastor of the First Congregational Church in Milford, New Hampshire, upon his graduation with distinction from the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts. During the Civil War, he served with General Sherman's division.

Ayer went abroad twice: first, as a delegate from New Hampshire to the International Prison Congress and then as a delegate from the National Council of Congregational Churches of the United States. Dartmouth conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity, and he was elected Trustee of the Concord Public Library.

Ayer was much loved for his easy accessibility to all and for his sunny disposition. He was a fluent speaker, and his well-balanced sermons were full of apt illustrations. He could not have asked for a greater tribute than this: "His life impresses upon all the beauty of the Christian religion."

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