Chauncy (1632–1712), who removed to England, was a voluminous writer on theological subjects.
There are biographical sketches of President Chauncy in Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana. (London, 1702), and in W. C. Fowler’s Memorials of the Chauncys, including President Chauncy (Boston, 1858).
President Chauncy’s great-grandson, Charles Chauncy (1705–1787), a prominent American theologian, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 1st of January 1705, and graduated at Harvard in 1721. In 1727 he was chosen as the colleague of Thomas Foxcroft (1697–1769) in the pastorate of the First Church of Boston, continuing as pastor of this church until his death. At the time of the “Great Awakening” of 1740–1743 and afterwards, Chauncy was the leader of the so-called “Old Light” party in New England, which strongly condemned the Whitefieldian revival as an outbreak of emotional extravagance. His views were ably presented in his sermon Enthusiasm and in his Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England (1743), written in answer to Jonathan Edwards’s Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England (1742). He also took a leading part in opposition to the projected establishment of an Anglican Episcopate in America, and before and during the American War of Independence he ardently supported the whig or patriot party. Theologically he has been classed as a precursor of the New England Unitarians. He died in Boston on the 10th of February 1787. His publications include: Compleat View of Episcopacy, as Exhibited in the Fathers of the Christian Church, until the close of the Second Century (1771); Salvation of All Men, Illustrated and Vindicated as a Scripture Doctrine (1782); The Mystery Hid from Ages and Generations made manifest by the Gospel-Revelation (1783); and Five Dissertations on the Fall and its Consequences (1785).
See P. L. Ford’s privately printed Bibliotheca Chaunciana (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1884); and Williston Walker’s Ten New England Leaders (New York, 1901).
CHAUNY, a town of northern France in the department of Aisne, 19 m. S. by W. of St Quentin by rail. Pop. (1906) 10,127. The town is situated on the Oise (which here becomes navigable) and at the junction of the canal of St Quentin with the lateral canal of the Oise, and carries on an active trade. It contains mirror-polishing works, subsidiary to the mirror-works of St Gobain, chemical works, sugar manufactories, metal foundries and breweries. Chauny was the scene of much fighting in the Hundred Years’ War.
CHAUTAUQUA, a village on the west shore of Chautauqua Lake in the town of Chautauqua, Chautauqua county, New York, U.S.A. Pop. of the town (1900), 3590; (1905) 3505; (1910) 3515; of the village (1908) about 750. The lake is a beautiful body of water over 1300 ft. above sea-level, 20 m. long, and from a few hundred yards to 3 m. in width. The town of Chautauqua is situated near the north end and is within easy reach by steamboat and electric car connexions with the main railways between the east and the west. The town is known almost solely as being the permanent home of the Chautauqua Institution, a system of popular education founded in 1874 by Lewis Miller (1829–1899) of Akron, Ohio, and Bishop John H. Vincent (b. 1832). The village, covering about three hundred acres of land, is carefully laid out to provide for the work of the Institution.
The Chautauqua Institution began as a Sunday-School Normal Institute, and for nearly a quarter of a century the administration was in the hands of Mr Miller, who was responsible for the business management, and Bishop Vincent, who was head of the instruction department. Though founded by Methodists, in its earliest years it became non-sectarian and has furnished a meeting-ground for members of all sects and denominations. At the very outset the activities of the assembly were twofold: (1) the conducting of a summer school for Sunday-school teachers, and (2) the presentation of a series of correlated lectures and entertainments. Although the movement was and still is primarily religious, it has always been assumed that the best religious education must necessarily take advantage of the best that the educational world can afford in the literatures, arts and sciences. The scope of the plan rapidly broadened, and in 1879 a regular group of schools with graded courses of study was established. At about the same time, also, the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, providing a continuous home-reading system, was founded. The season lasts during June, July and August. In 1907 some 325 lectures, concerts, readings and entertainments were presented by a group of over 190 lecturers, readers and musicians, while at the same time 200 courses in the summer schools were offered by a faculty of instructors drawn from the leading colleges and normal schools of the country.
The Chautauqua movement has had an immense influence on education in the United States, an influence which is especially marked in three directions: (1) in the establishment of about 300 local assemblies or “Chautauquas” in the United States patterned after the mother Chautauqua; (2) in the promotion of the idea of summer education, which has been followed by the founding of summer schools or sessions at a large number of American universities, and of various special summer schools, such as the Catholic Summer School of America, with headquarters at Cliff Haven, Clinton county, New York, and the Jewish Chautauqua Society, with headquarters at Buffalo, N.Y.; and (3) in the establishment of numerous correspondence schools patterned in a general way after the system provided by the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.
See John Heyl Vincent, The Chautauqua Movement (Boston, 1886), and Frank C. Bray, A Reading Journey through Chautauqua (Chicago, 1905).
CHAUVELIN, BERNARD FRANÇOIS, Marquis de (1766–1832), French diplomatist and administrator. Though master of the king’s wardrobe in 1789, he joined in the Revolution. He served in the army of Flanders, and then was sent to London in February 1792, to induce England to remain neutral in the war which was about to break out between France and “the king of Bohemia and Hungary.” He was well received at first, but after the 10th of August 1792 he was no longer officially recognized at court, and on the execution of Louis XVI. (21st of January 1793) he was given eight days to leave England. After an unsuccessful embassy in Tuscany, he was imprisoned as a suspect during the Terror, but freed after the 9th Thermidor. Under Napoleon he became a member of the council of state, and from 1812 to 1814 he governed Catalonia under the title of intendant-general, being charged to win over the Catalonians to King Joseph Bonaparte. He remained in private life during the Restoration and the Hundred Days. In 1816 he was elected deputy, and spoke in favour of liberty of the press and extension of the franchise. Though he was again deputy in 1827 he played no part in public affairs, and resigned in 1829.
See G. Pallain, La Mission de Talleyrand à Londres en 1792 (Paris, 1889).
CHAUVIGNY, a town of western France, in the department of Vienne, 20 m. E. of Poitiers by rail. Pop. (1906) 2326. The town is finely situated overlooking the Vienne and a small torrent, and has two interesting Romanesque churches, both restored in modern times. There are also ruins of a château of the bishops of Poitiers, and of other strongholds. Near Chauvigny is the curious bone-cavern of Jioux, the entrance to which is fortified by large blocks of stone. The town carries on lime-burning and plaster-manufacture, and there are stone quarries in the vicinity. Trade is in wool and feathers.
CHAUVIN, ETIENNE (1640–1725), French Protestant divine, was born at Nîmes on the 18th of April 1640. At the revocation of the Edict of Nantes he retired to Rotterdam, where he was for some years preacher at the Walloon church; in 1695 the elector of Brandenburg appointed him pastor and professor of philosophy, and later inspector of the French college at Berlin, where he enjoyed considerable reputation as a representative of Cartesianism and as a student of physics. His principal work is a laborious Lexicon Rationale, sive Thesaurus Philosophicus (Rotterdam, 1692; new and enlarged edition, Leuwarden, 1713).
