RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
City Missions Clark
1740. He was already noted for stringency of discipline and pronounced Calvinism, and as president his course was somewhat arbitrary and autocratic, but nevertheless was marked by regard for sound scholarship and propriety. The college funds were increased in legitimate ways and two new buildings were added; the college church was organized and the professorship of divinity was established. He sympathized with the " Old Lights " in the disputes stirred up by Whitefield and the revival preaching of his time. He resigned the presidency in 1766, a few months before his death. Besides many controversial pamphlets he wrote An Essay on the Nature and Foundation of Moral Virtue and Obligation, intended for a textbook (New Haven, 1765), and The Annals or History of Yale College (1766).
Bibliography: F. B. Dexter, in the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, v. 247-274, New Haven, 1894.
CLARE (CLARA), SAINT, AND THE POOR CLARES: The founder of an order of women parallel to the Franciscans, and the order itself. Clara Scefi was born at Assisi, of a noble family, July 16, 1194. At the age of eighteen she was expecting to be married, when a sermon of St. Francis showed her the vanity of earthly things. Under Ms direction she put on sackcloth and went out to beg for the poor. On Palm Sunday (Mar. 18, 1212), she took the three vows, and went to reside provisionally in the Benedictine convent of St. Paul. Soon she was joined by her younger sister Agnes, and Francis made a little cloister for them near the church of St. Damian. Others, including her mother and youngest sister, joined her here; and she acted as head of the community until her death, Aug. 11, 1253. She was canonized by Alexander IV. in 1255.
The growth of her order was rapid; and it was not long before all the larger towns to which the Franciscans came had also a convent of Poor Clares. At the end of the sixteenth century, even after the Reformation had diminished the number, there were still 900 houses, with some 25,000 sisters, under the immediate direction of the general of the Franciscans, and a scarcely smaller number under the diocesan bishops.
Until 1219 Clare and her associates had nothing but the oral counsels of Francis to follow. In 1219 Cardinal Ugolino gave them the rule of St. Benedict, with some additions in the direction of severity. Later, Francis and Ugolino drew up for them a rule in twelve chapters, analogous to that of the Friars Minor. It prescribed the strictest poverty, confinement to the enclosure of the convent, fasting and abstinence, and prohibited the holding of any property, even by the convents. Ihis rule was formally confirmed by Innocent IV. in 1246, and accepted by the majority of the convents. By degrees, however, varieties of observance grew up, and in 1264 Pope Urban IV. attempted to enforce a revised rule, with certain mitigations in the matter of fasting and income for their support. This was accepted in most countries; but there were (and are still) some convents in taly and Spain which adhered to the primitive ngor, and claimed the exclusive right to the name
Clarisses, while the others were known as Urbaniets. At the beginning of the fifteenth century the strict reform of St. Coleta, based upon the original rule of Francis and Ugolino, was introduced in all the convents over which she had influence. Upon the representation of the Franciscan John Capistran to Eugenius IV that the rule contained more than a hundred precepts binding under pain of grievous sin, the pope ruled in 1447 that the only precepts binding under pain of mortal sin should be those relating to the three vows, the enclosure, and the election or deposition of an abbess. This is still the case. The Capuchin Sisters, originating in Naples, 1538, and the Alcantarines, 1631, taking their name from the reform of St. Peter of Alcantara, are simply Clarisses of the strict observance. The Poor Clares have houses in England and Ireland. They established themselves in the United States in 1875, where they have (1907) five houses.
Bibliography: ASB, August, ii. 739-768; Life of St. Claire, Dublin, 1854; F. de More, Vie de S. Claire d' Assise, Paris, 1856; P. Jouhanneaud, Vie de S. Claire d'Assise, Limoges, 1873; Joseph de Madrid, Vie de S. Claire d'Assise, Paris, 1880; E. Wauer, Entstehung und Ausbreitung des Klarissenordens, Leipsic, 1906. The Regula was published in Italian at Barcelona, 1644, and in French at Laval, 1651. On the order consult: E. Lempp, in ZKG, xiii (1892), 181-245; Currier, Religious Orders, pp. 249-252.
CLARENDON, CONSTITUTIONS OF, See Beck-
ET, Thomas.
CLARENI (CLARENINI). See Francis, Saint, OP Assisi, and the Franciscan Order, III., § 7.
CLARK, FRANCIS EDWARD: Congregationalist, founder of the United Society of Christian Endeavor; b. at Aylmer, Quebec, Sept. 12, 1851. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1873 and Andover Theological Seminary in 1876, after which he was pastor of Williston Church, Portland, Me. (1876-83), and of Phillips Church, South Boston (1883-87). In 1881 he founded the Society of Christian Endeavor, and in 1887 resigned his pastorate to devote his entire energies to its promotion. Since that year he has been president of the United Society of Christian Endeavor, and is also president of the World's Christian Endeavor Union and editor of The Christian Endeavor World, the official organ of the society. In the interest of the society he has traveled over the world. Among his publications may be mentioned Young People's Prayer Meetings (New York, 1887); Our Journey around the World (1894); World-Wide Endeavor (Boston. 1897); and A New Way around an Old World (New York, 1900).
CLARK, GEORGE WHITFIELD: Baptist; b. at South Orange, N. J., Feb. 15, 1831. He was graduated at Amherst in 1853 and Rochester Theological Seminary in 1855, and was pastor at New Market, N. J. (1855-59), Elizabeth, N. J. (1859-68), Balston Spa, N. Y. (1868-73), and Somerville, N. J. (1873-77). He retired from the active ministry in 1877 on account of ill health, and since 1880 has been engaged in missionary, financial, and literary work for the American Baptist Publication Society. Besides a History
Clark Clarke