Father Taylor is the life and soul of all this. Some help him liberally with the purse, and many with head and hands; but he is the animating spirit of the whole. His chapel is filled, from year's end to year's end, with sailors. He has no salary, and will not hear of one. He takes charge of all the poor connected with his chapel. To many this must look like an act of insanity. No class is more exposed to casualties than that of seamen; and, when a life is lost, an entire helpless family comes upon the charity of society. Father Taylor speaks of his ten thousand children, and all the woes and faults of a multitude are accumulated upon his hands; and yet he retains the charge of all his poor, though he has no fixed income whatever. He does it by putting his charge in the way of helping each other and themselves. He encourages sobriety and economy in all their habits, and enforces them with a power which it would be vain to attempt to give an idea of. He uses the utmost openness about his plans, and thereby obtains valuable co-operation. He has a collection of money made twice every Sunday in his church. The sums are given by the seamen almost exclusively, and are in very small coin; but the amount has gone on increasing, from first to last, except during intervals when Father Taylor was absent for his health. Between the years 1828 and 1835, the annual sum thus contributed rose from 98 to 1079 dollars.
Boston owes to Mr. Taylor and to Dr. Tuckerman its convictions of the pernicious operation of some of the old methods of charity by almsgiving; and the names of these gentlemen ought ever to be held in honour for having saved the young community in which they dwell from the curse of such pauperism in kind (the degree could never have become very formidable) as has afflicted the kingdoms of the Old World. Mr. Taylor owns that he little foresaw what he was undertaking in assuming the charge of all his poor, under such liabilities as those who follow the seaman's calling are exposed to: but he does it. The funds are, as it has been seen, provided by the class to be benefited; and they have proved hitherto sufficient, under the wise administration of the pastor and his wife, and under the animating influence of his glowing spirit, breathed forth from the pulpit and amid their dwellings. It seems as if his power was resorted to in difficult and desperate cases, like that of a superior being; such surprising facts was I told of his influence over his flock. He was requested to visit an insane man, who believed himself to be in heaven, and therefore to have no need of food and sleep. The case had become desperate, so long had the fasting and restlessness continued. Father Taylor prevailed at once; the patient was presently partaking of "the feast of the blessed" with Father Taylor, and enjoying the "saints' rest on a heavenly couch." From carrying a single point like this to redeeming a whole class from much of the vice and wo which had hitherto afflicted it, the pastor's power seems universally to prevail.