Leonard Woolsey Bacon was an American clergyman, born in New Haven, Connecticut. He was a social commentator and a prolific author on religious, social, and historical matters. In social, political, and religious issues of his times, he often broke with the traditions of his countrymen, sometimes causing "great sensation."
Bacon evidently enjoyed getting involved in contemporary issues, such as divorce, temperance, Sunday rest, and the public conduct of officers of the United States armed forces. In many of these matters, however, he displayed a reluctance to impose religious views. When, in 1880, he wrote an open letter to The New York Times complaining about a steamboat company that evaded Connecticut's blue laws, he made it clear that laws mandating Sunday as a mandatory day of rest were not to be construed as endorsing any particular religion or discriminating "in favor of church-going." Bacon appeared to have had a habit of causing controversy. In 1884, for instance, he felt compelled, in another letter to the Times, to state that contrary to reports he was in favor of "a uniform, universal divorce law throughout the States." In 1887, when he was the pastor of the Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, he caused a stir by publicly declaring that he favored mixed schools and that he would not mind his daughter being seen walking with an African American or even marrying one. In 1898, as pastor in Litchfield, Connecticut, he wrote a letter published in The New York Times chastising Captain Robley Dunglison Evans, later admiral in the United States Navy, for boasting and profanity. Evidently this was part of a feud of sorts; the Chicago Daily Tribune reported on the news saying that Bacon "again fell foul" of "Fighting Bob" with his "sarcastic letter."
Bacon's writing
Bacon edited Luther's Deutsche geistliche Lieder , and wrote a number of historical and other books.
''An Inside View of the Vatican Council''
Bacon republished, with commentary, the speech of Peter Richard Kenrick, Archbishop of St. Louis, given in 1871 at the First Vatican Council; Kenrick spoke out against the dogma of papal infallibility. The booklet contains Kenrick's speech and other historical documents, as well as Bacon's own "acute and valuable remarks."
''Church Papers''
His Church Papers: Sundry Essays on Subjects Relating to the Church and Christian Society, written while Bacon was in Geneva, was praised in the New Englander and Yale Review as a "juicy little volume"; the reviewer hailed the merit and attractiveness of the essays, which are "the product of sound reflection, and of a familiarity not only with books, but with men and things." He discusses such matters as the drawbacks of Congregationalism, which may allow for fallacious decisions by a random majority, and the Temperance movement, and the principles and methods of its zealous advocates.
