WILLIAM WALLACE FENN

Living at a time and in a community that knew many Unitarian clergymen, William Wallace Fenn became a great Unitarian minister. By patient labor, broad intelligence and human understanding, he stood, at his death, in the front ranks of his profession. The Divinity School knew him as an able administrator and an inspiring lecturer, while the various churches which he served found him a most religious, intelligent man.

But Dean Fenn was not a preacher, for he was a minister in the, broadest interpretation of the word. In him the theology of the scholar was subordinate to the religion of humanity. A Unitarian by inclination and by training his greatest faith was in mankind. Few older men have brought so much to younger men as he did in his daily contact with the students.

He more frequently acted upon than taught the precepts of his calling. He knew no strict creed, beyond the dogma of the useful life. His mind and spirit were the only art which he possessed, yet they were manifest in all he did or said. As a teacher he was more interested in developing keen and unaffected minds than careful theologians. As a minister he sought to instill the precepts of his Christianity in the minds of his people. As a beleiver in religion he cared less for what it was than for what it might do.