He was ordained as a Unitarian minister and served churches in Chicago; Cincinnati, Ohio; Newport, Rhode Island; Oakland, California; and Los Angeles.

[1] On June 22, 1880, he offered the opening invocation at the 1880 Democratic National Convention, calling the United States "an asylum and a refuge for the distressed and downtrodden throughout the world," and praying that "all sectional divisions and differences may cease forever among us.

"[2] Starting in 1886, he led the First Unitarian Church of Oakland through its early growth and the construction of its still-iconic building.

[3] In 1896, he strongly endorsed woman suffrage, writing: The same enlightened confidence in human nature which led the fathers to found the Republic on manhood suffrage, and its saviors to confer the ballot on millions of emancipated slaves, should animate us, their successors, in bestowing equal political rights on that half of our population which is confessedly the most virtuous, order-loving and trustworthy.

[4]He served as secretary of the National Federation of Religious Liberals, 1908–20; secretary for Foreign Affairs of the American Unitarian Association, 1905–15; president of the Free Religious Association, 1910–14, and as president of the Unitarian Ministerial Union.