Mulford, Elisha

(Nov. 19, 1833-Dec. 9, 1885). Social Gospel leader. He was born in Montrose, Pennsylvania. Mulford graduated from Yale in 1855. He studied theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York, and Andover Theological Seminary. He traveled in Europe and studied in Berlin, Heidelberg, and Halle. Mulford was ordained deacon on Apr. 20, 1861, and priest on Mar. 19, 1862. He began his ordained ministry at Darien, Connecticut. From 1861 until 1864, he served in South Orange, New Jersey. He retired from active ministry in 1864 because of a hearing impairment. He moved to Lakeside, Pennsylvania, where he studied and wrote. In 1881 Mulford moved to Cambridge and lectured in Apologetics at the Episcopal Theological School. In 1870 he published The Nation, the Foundation of Civil Order and Political Life in the United States, in which he argued that the nation is a divine institution like the church. The Republic of God, an Institute of Theology (1881), was a study of the Nicene Creed in which he described God as the “ground of being,” and Christ as the “man for others.” He advocated the coming of the kingdom of God in America. Mulford died in Cambridge.