Collections : [Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary]

This series contains typed and handwritten sermons and sermon notes, many of which refer to contemporary events. Most of the sermons are tied together with string and include a speaking outline. Durkee stored his sermons in brown paper wrappers marked with the sermon name, number and date(s) and location(s) delivered (Durkee frequently re-worked and re-used sermons). The dates on the finding aid correspond to the first time the sermon was delivered. All folders contain complete texts unless indicated as "Sermon Notes." Durkee titled most of his sermons and began to title regularly in 1906. Titles ending with an ellipsis in the finding aid are drawn from the first line of an untitled sermon. Durkee made some notes and wrote drafts on the reverse of Howard letters and flyers, and printed material from pastorates in Maine, Massachusetts and New York. A small number of the sermons include letters from congregants and colleagues. These unusual items are noted in the finding aid. Durkee saved newspaper clippings relevant to his sermon's themes and these appear throughout the collection. In addition to purely religious themes, Durkee spoke on contemporary topics and on art, science, and literature in relation to Christianity. Topics include education, the Great Depression, labor, Nazism, politics, racism, temperance, United States history, and World Wars I and II. The following numbered sermons are not in this collection and were not in the original donation. Other archival repositories may contain some of these: #37, 585, 856, 881, 882, 979, 1012, 1016, 1048, 1049, 1053, 1057, 1059, 1061, 1065, 1068, 1070, 1072, and 1084. A note in Sermon 946 provides this key to handwritten symbols: > = "of the" \ = "of" / = "the" U = "in

This series contains correspondence pertaining to the financial and ministerial assistance which John Franklin Goucher offered to colleagues in their efforts to establish educational institutions in South and Southeast Asia, including Reid Christian College in Lucknow, India and the Anglo-Chinese College in Singapore. This series also contains a hardcover book entitled "Views in Lucknow," presented to Goucher by the students of Reid Christian College, and containing twenty-five black and white photographs of Lucknow, including views of: the Residency, Chatter Manzil, "Hoosainabad" [Hussainabad], the Great "Emambara" [Imambara], the throne room of the King of Oudli, the Sadab Ali Shah Mausoleum, Reid Christian College and its students and faculty from 1897, Christian College High School, the Women's College, the Hindustani Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church along with its parsonage and publishing house.