Bushnell, Horace(The Thinker)

1802 - Born in the village of Bantam, township of Litchfield, Connecticut, on the 14th of April.

1823 - At the age of 21 he entered Yale earning 4 degrees within the next years.

1827 - He graduated at Yale.

1828 - Was associate editor of the New York Journal of Commerce.

1829 - Became a tutor at Yale.

1831 - He entered the theological department of Yale College.

1833 - Was ordained pastor of the North Congregational church in Hartford.

         - Horace Bushnell founded Bushnell part in Hartford CT, America's first public park.

1856 - While in California, for the restoration of his health, he took an active interest in the organization, at Oakland, of the college of California, the presidency of which he declined.

1859 - When on account of long-continued ill-health, he resigned his pastorate.

1876 - He was a prolific author and occasionally preached. Died on the 17th of February.

         - He held a great appreciation for love and nature and believed that man, nature and God are tied together in an organic whole. He was well known in the 1800's across the country as the Thinker because of his writings on theology.

• "It is only Christianity, the great bond of love and duty to God, that makes any existence valuable or even tolerable."
• "Morality, taken as apart from religion, is but another name for decency in sin. It is just that negative species of virtue which consists in not doing what is scandalously depraved and wicked. But there is no heart of holy principle in it, any more than there is in the grosser sin."