A fifth-generation ordained minister in the Congregational Christian Churches (later merging to become the United Church of Christ), he served as a Professor at Hartford Seminary from 1950-1966. He was a visiting Professor at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand for the last three years of his tenure at Hartford. In Bangkok, he served on the field staff of The Rockefeller Foundation and researched his ancestor, the Dr. Dan Beach Bradley, the first medical missionary to Siam and court physician to Siam's King Mongkut and his son, King Chulalongkorn.