Inside Universalist Meeting House

Well, I missed All Saints Day and now it’s All Souls Day. Remember the unity of the human race in prayer. Nothing profound to say about it now — time is short — but I wanted to share a few photos from the Universalist Meeting House in Provincetown, which I visited last week.

It’s one of the most conspicuous buildings in town, so there’s not the “what’s that” factor you get everywhere else. I could fall in love with P-town.

Let me also comment the Universalist Meeting House leadership and staff for keeping it open for tourists. I just walked in, and there were signs directing me. Had I been carrying some cash, I could have also bought the self-guided tour booklet.
Interior, Universalist Meeting House, Provincetown

Ceiling, Universalist Meeting House, Provincetown

Surely the trompe l’oeil paintings of the meetinghouse interior are its biggest general selling point, but I was taken by the tablet beside the meetinghouse interior door.

Tablet, Universalist Meeting House, Provincetown

The first part reads:

For Sylvia and Elizabth Freeman
who Found in the tide off Long Point
a Book
The Life of John Murray Father of Universalism
So Began this Parish 1829

This bit of unlikely, providential evangelism has happened before, if memory serves. In the Philippines, and also in South Carolina, for one of the Newberry churches, but perhaps not the extant Clayton Memorial Church. It’s one of the reasons I started developing websites as far back as 1995: with the hope that someone would run across Universalism this way.

3 Replies to “Inside Universalist Meeting House”

  1. I recall the story of the Life of Murray book found in the ocean, but didn’t recall the Church. Glad to hear it.
    and the dropped literature is indeed the story given out about Clayton Memorial.
    And yes, dropping information in the ocean can still work even today. (metaphorical ocean that is)

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