Center for Restoration studies Director Dr. Douglas Foster receives items all the time.  Just in from Dr. Foster is this photograph of the interior of the Goshen Church in Bradford Vermont.  Noted, in two hands, are brief details indicating that Elias Smith and Abner Jones preached in this circa-1812 pulpit.  It was common at the turn of the 20th century to have photographs developed on stiff paper in postcard size.  Suitable for mailing, these real photo postcards (RPPC) documented your journeys and allowed you to share them with friends and family, albeit in a slower manner than Facebook does today.

Through a donor’s generosity we see the space created for worship and proclamation by the early Christian movement in New England.  Notice the elevated pulpit, the simple drop-leaf communion table and the plain, mostly-unpainted pews.  Sunlight bursts through the windows.  A stovepipe prominently bisects the meetinghouse.  While the photograph is probably from the turn of the 20th century, it looks as if the congregation just adjourned from hearing Smith or Jones hold forth their plea for primitive Christianity.