Religion: Youth’s Chance

“I have always believed that in industrial and business and professional life the men who have passed the milestone of three-score years and ten ought to give place to younger leaders. Even if they enjoy good health and buoyant spirits, and I have both of those happy possessions, it is time to give the next generation a chance.”

So last week wrote Rev. Dr. Samuel Atkins Eliot, 72, son of Harvard’s late great Charles William Eliot, longtime (1900-27) president of the American Unitarian Association, minister since 1927 of Arlington Street Church in Boston. In re-signing his place Dr. Eliot gave a chance not to the next generation but to a 26-year-old in the generation after that, whom he called “an alert, able and beloved young minister, endowed with exceptional gifts of mind and heart and with the best possible background and training.” This exceptional young man: Rev. Dana McLean Greeley.

Next July Dana Greeley will take over the pulpit once held by Rev. Ezra Gannett, first president of American Unitarian Association, and Rev. Paul Revere Frothingham. Born in Lexington, Mass., he is the son of William, Roger Greeley, architect and Unitarian layman. Enterprising but no brilliant student, at Harvard (1931) he played football a few minutes in a Yale game, was president of Delta Upsilon. At 23, before he received his Harvard divinity degree, he took a Unitarian parish in Lincoln, Mass. Last year he went to Concord, N. H., became minister-at-large to New Hampshire Unitarian churches. Dana Greeley has a wife named Deborah, a daughter named Faith.