From Lowell Mr. Thayer removed to Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1845. His six years in this city were years of great usefulness to his church and beyond its limits. He connected himself with the Odd Fellows, and became editor of the "Golden Rule," a paper published in the interest of the fraternity. In 1847 he gave a series of lectures on "Social Progress," which were reported in part for the N. Y. "Tribune," as also a series of lectures on the "Dangers of City Life," especially in reference to young men. He was active in advocating social reform, the efforts for juvenile vagrants, and for the moral elevation of the poor.
Dr. Thayer has remarkable qualifications for a Christian minister, teacher, pastor, and writer. His sermons are always alive with thought, easily and earnestly delivered, doctrinally strong and clear, practically pointed, and plain; a mixture often of forcible _preaching_ (not reading) from manuscript, and freest extemporaneous outpouring, sweet and fresh with the heavenly fragrance of the Gospel. In his Scripture readings at the opening of the church service, he is usually very acceptable to the hearers, interspersing the reading with explanatory words and brief practical inferences.
Dr. Thayer is well known as an author. In the early days of his ministry he published a volume entitled "Christianity against Infidelity," an able and a timely offering to the public,--a strong and candid appeal to the reader in behalf of the Christian Gospel from the Universalist standpoint. The work was some years afterwards enlarged, embracing the objections to historical Christianity by Strauss and Renan, and replies to them. A republication of this work would be timely now, in this season of theological thought, of religious drifting and doubt, of indifference and scepticism. His "Theology of Universalism" is a work of great merit, as also his admirable volume "Over the River." They deserve a place in the library of every minister, and should find a home in every Universalist family.
His most valuable work, however, has been done as editor of the "Universalist Quarterly." His qualifications for this service are striking. In addition to the able discussions in the publications from the pens of other authors, the department containing the editor's outlook into the religious world, his notes and comments on the times, and his discriminating notices of new publications, is of itself a rich and welcome entertainment to all who are familiar with the pages of the Quarterly, a review reflecting great honor upon the Universalist Church, and which the Universalist fraternity cannot afford to lose or neglect.