NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES ii!4k'«w.' DOLORES BACON COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE LIBRARY NA5215.BlT"""'"'""""-"'"'^ O'^ New England churches and their child 3 1924 015 426 657 Cornell University Library The original of this bool< is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924015426657 OLD NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES AND THEIR CHILDREN BOOKS BY MRS. DOLORES BACON CRUMBS AND HIS TIMES OLD NEW ENGLAND CHURCHES AND THEIR CHILDREN, with many illustrationa from photographs SONGS EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW, edited by Dolores Bacon. Decorated by B. Ostertae A KING'S DIVINITY THE DIARY OF A MUSICIAN, edited by Dolores Bacon, with illustrations by H. Latimer Brown and decorations by Charles Edward Hooper Photograph by E. E. Soderholtz, West Gouldsboro SPIRE OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, BOSTON Here hung the bell which summoned the people to rebellion against Great Britain Old New England Churches And Their Children By DOLORES gACON Author of " The Diary of a Musician," " Crumbs and His Times," etc. Thirty-three illustrations in photogravure and half-tone^ front photographs NEW YORK Doubleday, Page & Company 1906 Copyright, 1906, by Doubleday, Page & Company Published, November, 1906 All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages including the Scandinavian EDITOR'S NOTE In telling the story of New England Churches, I have been greatly assisted by the kind cooper- ation of many New England people : public-spirited citizens and pastors of churches ; and by reference to pamphlets, books of general history, ecclesiastical histories, town records, old sermons, and the like. Especial thanks are due the trustees, librarians and to the least of the staff of the Boston Public Library. I wish eagerly to acknowledge the hos- pitality of the trustees and here to thank the librarians for their efficient help in placing well classified and helpful material in my hands. I wish to thank the attendants for their cheerful comings and goings, their fetchings and carryings in the interest of this work, and to express the pleasure I have felt in observing how indiscrimin- ately willing they are to serve all those who work within that rare library's gates. Personal acknowledgments are due the Rever- ends Edwin P. Parker, Franklin Ware Davis, WilHam L. Walsh, Newman Smyth, D. D., Henry Lincoln Bailey, Alfred Manchester, T. T. Hunger, vi EDITOR'S NOTE Henry M. King, Eugene R. Shippen, Henry E. Hovey, W.W. Doman; to J. J. Loud, A. S. Forbes, Malcolm E. Robb, Dr. Parker.JohnK. Lord, Ph.D., Wm. D. T. Trefry, Frederick S. Piper, M.D., Julius H. Tuttle, and to Prof. W. Walker. The authors of the several histories used for ref- erence are almost without exception mentioned in the text of New England Churches, and if any kindness remains unacknowledged or the identifi- cation of any authority has been left undefined it is due to inadvertence and not to intention. Dolores Bacon. CONTENTS Introduction. Old New England Chur- ches. Chapter I. First Church, Boston, Massa- chusetts. Organisation — No Wedding or Funeral Ceremonies — Spiritual Symbolism — John Eliot, Apostle to the Indians — Roger Williams — ^John Cotton — Burning Questions — Influence of Puritanism — Antinomianism and Romanism * Chapter II. Old North Church, Boston, Massachusetts. The Outcome of a King-Killing — Increase and Cotton Mather — The Paul Revere Lights — Dr. Lathrop — Em- erson i Chapter III. King's Chapel, Boston, Mas- sachusetts. a Missionary Enterprise — Andros — Ratclifle — Caner, the Robber — Ordination Refused — Unitarianism the Result — Washington at a Concert — Episcopal Emi- grants — Sabbath Observance — Puritan Peculiarities — Royal Gifts — Loyalists — A Romance ... 49 Chapter IV. Old South Church, Boston, Massachusetts. Church and State Separate — Old South the Beginning of Civic Development — The Town Meeting— The Church as a Riding School for the British— The Sewalls — Famous Men in the Pulpit and in Politics— Peace Between Old South and King's Chapel . . . 75 27 Vlll CONTENTS— Continued PAGB Chapter V. Concord Church, Concord, Massachusetts. The Spreading Oak — Hardships — Conversion of the Indians — Church Discipline — Grievances — Concord Fighters — The Preacher Line of Emersons . . 93 Chapter VI. Quincy Church, Quincy, Massachusetts. The Hot-Bed of Antinomianism — A Constable Bell- Ringer — Long Prayers — The Dog Difficulty— Puritan Excesses — The Slave Trade — Taste in Decoration — The Old First Church — A Generous Pastor — Opposi- tion to Catholics . , 109 Chapter VII. Old Slip Church, Hingham, Massachusetts. Born with a Bell — ' 'The Old Man's Calendar " — ^Judge Sewall's Diary — Marriage Inspires a Funeral "Eol- ogy" — The Stockade Comes Down — Laughter and Salvation — Betty Sewall's Soul — Applauding to keep Warm — The Stricken Strikes Back — Alphabetical Punishment ... 123 Chapter VIII. First Church, Lexington, Massachusetts. The "Shot that Rang" — "Settees" for the Ladies — John Hancock and the Deacons — Where Hancock cut the Cheese — The Bible and the Church — Seating the Congregation 139 Chapter IX. First Church, Dedham, Mas- sachusetts. The "Hows" is "Daubed and Whitened Over Work- manlike" — Tolerance in Dedham — Difficult to Please — President of Dartrnouth College not good enough — Baptism of Children — Seating the Congrega- tion — The Widows who kept the Meeting House — The Dog-whipper — Full of Galleries — Dedham be- comes Vain 157 CONTENTS— Co«ri«B^i. :.^ -^ ':J. :'^., _i :i?««i ' 1 IK' ^< Ilk: ^i^ *''!; I First Church, Boston, Mass. 5 Catholics. Thunder was symbolic of God's anger; a failure of crops was symbolic of his wrath; an earthquake was symbolic of his displeasure; everything was symbolic of one thing — a vin- dictive God, and they were put to it to find enough synonomous words to express God's attitude. They lived upon spiritual symbolism, and as that of the imagination is without limit, they simply outdid the Catholics on their own ground; only to the Puritan the Catholic seemed to have vulgarised his imaginings by giving them form. The autumn which followed this organisation of the First Church was gentle, and the winter was not too protractedly severe. Blackstone, who was settled on the peninsula, welcomed the stragglers most hospitably as they gradually drifted thither. But the ecclesiastical element which they brought with them was too much even for Blackstone, who was himself a clerical; hence he left them and " struck out anew into the wilder- ness, where he could be quit of ministers as well as of bishops." Those of the First Church still worshipped in the open. Cabins were springing up all about them, but there was much illness and a lack of food. The original four of this church were very 6 Old New England Churches nearly extinguished at this time. Gager and Isaac Johnson died and presently the preacher went to England to bring his family back with him. The congregation, however, was left, and under Winthrop's and Wilson's guidance they kept together. Then came John Eliot, famous as the apostle of the Indians. His goodness, his devo- tion are monuments to man's charity, but how much permanent good his work resulted in, ex- cept to the antiquarian who will preserve his Bible in the Indian language, is a question for individual judgment to settle. As an instance of mis- sionary devotion, Eliot's was almost unexampled. Probably no people in the world needed the constant attention of a great and good man like Eliot as badly as did the Puritans themselves, but most of his attention was given to the ab- origines. Perhaps he actually served the Puri- tans by influencing, temporarily, a handful of Indians whose ultimate fate was to be exter- mination; but at best he served only the imme- diate generation, while all that was done for good or evil among the men of his own race, finds echo two hundred and fifty years later. Meanwhile Roger Williams was with the First Church. Thus with Eliot the faithful, Williams First Church, Boston, Mass. 7 the progressive, Wilson full of affection for the people and faith in their undertaking, the First Church seems to have had a peculiarly rich early- history; but we find the contemporary eccle- siastical writers expressing a peculiar and ex- treme prejudice against Williams. There is little intelligent explanation of this, and even churchmen of to-day, who write liberally and understandingly upon the conditions, men, and deeds of former times, refuse to give full credit to Roger Williams. There would seem to be a constitutional jealousy of him in the Church. The arguments that are intended to discountenance him, are in themselves testi- monies to his services, his wisdom and substan- tiality. The disapproval of him seems to be emotional rather than mental. The Rev. Rufus Ellis of the First Church wrote resentfully: " Williams claims to have been unanimously chosen teacher of our church and adds that he declined the office because of the tacit if not open com- munion with the Church of England. . . . We only know, as I have said, that Eliot, who is re- ijiembered for his deeds as Williams for his theories took temporary charge, while the future founder of Rhode Island went on his way for a season to Salem." 8 Old New England Churches Some one else remarks that Quakers and all other criminals (judged by Puritan standards) found their way to Rhode Island and- there dwelt in peace and flourished — in spite of themselves and Roger Williams; and that even now Rhode Island gets on fairly well! There is something grotesque in such reasoning. If Roger Williams was a man given wholly to theories, these re- sults would indicate that faith without works is exceedingly profitable; but as a matter of fact there is an unregenerate belief that with Williams there was more of "works" than of "faith"— except faith in himself and in the survival of the fittest. Those who even to-day are jealous of his amazing success at making a people happy in the wilderness, and in founding a state which is a substantial factor in New England eco- nomics, provide us with a mass of personal reflections which seem to be thrown off into space, distributing themselves with a wild incon- sistency. The church's first notable work was its service to the Indians who were suffering at that time from an epidemic of smallpox; but this was not exclusively the work of the society; the entire town of Boston and the outlying villages had a First Church, Boston, Mass. g hand in it, even taking the sick and their children into their own houses. In time John Cotton came to the pulpit and he determined that the ministry should be main- tained by weekly contributions as opposed to a subsidised church. He was exceedingly arbitrary in his rule, declaring what men should be voted for and what not. One election which did not please him he reversed on a Thursday lecture day, and it is said that by so doing he saved to Boston its Common. He also had trouble with Eliot who had all the moral courage necessary to the pioneer. Eliot made bitter protest against the unfair treatment of the Indians, and Cotton was called upon by the magistrates whom Eliot attacked, to "reduce" him, who was about as reducible as a fraction at its lowest terms. We find a very positive instance of rebellion to Cotton's autocracy, when he tried to retain a governor in his office directly against the wishes of the people. The republican spirit was large even then, and while the people approved of Cotton's choice, and afterward, of their own volition, reelected the governor for the second time, they chose a new one for an interregnum in order to assert their independence of John Cotton. lo Old New England Churches This First Church in Boston housed certain legislative assemblies notable in American his- tory. Once the question arose " If a governor should be sent by England, what should New England do?" Also, "Is it lawful to carry the cross in our banner?" The decision of the ministers was, "As to the cross in the banner, we are not ready to say that may be an idolatrous symbol or not. But as to the governor, we ^re quite clear that we should not accept him, not though we should be compelled to fight." Their habit of interpreting the Bible without any appreciation of geographical distribution, cus- toms, or times, was demonstrated by Mr. Cotton when he took pains to prove by the Scriptures that it was permissible for women to put aside their veils in church, unless the custom of the place made veils the token of subjection. Mr. Cotton seems to have been the first to understand that the Orient was not located in New England and that the s3^mbol in Judaea might possibly not be the symbol in Boston. Governor En- dicott, however, took the other side. This question of veils or no veils becarae very famous, and stopped short of being infamous only be- First Church, Boston, Mass. ii cause the governor took a hand in it and settled the dispute. Roger Williams presently made more trouble — as a spirit of fairness was bound to do at that time. Even to-day the ecclesiastical historian speaks deprecatingly of Williams's protest that the title to lands by King James's grant should not be maintained; and that there was a moral necessity to compromise with the Indians. The magistrates objected to this then, and a good many people seem to object to it now that they know better. He contended that King James's dole was "a solemn public lie" when it asserted that he was the first Christian prince to discover America. King James saw fit to christen Europe, Christendom, and to . this also Williams took exception. It seems as if the unprejudiced mind must incline to agree with him; and as there were a good many at that time who were ready to christen New England, Christendom, one marvels that Williams did not have better luck at the hands of his detractors. Mr. Williams called King Charles names drawn from the Book of Revelations. The Rev. Mr. Ellis says that the governor took advice from judicious ministers and induced Roger Williams to retract, but this retraction 12 Old New England Churches was the last of which he was ever guilty — or which he had the grace to make. Mr. Ellis goes on to say, " He was soon able to get a surer foot- ing on more advanced and firmer ground. He was doubtless then on his way to his doctrine of soul liberty and an extreme liberalism so extreme that, for what he deemed lack of fit companion- ship, the Lord's Supper could be no communion for him save as he could observe it with his wife " — ^which means only that Roger Williams was particular as to the company he kept in those days when a great many outrageous people pre- vailed. Again Roger Williams insisted that his business was with public morals and offences against order, decency, and general welfare, and not with the regulation of souls and their God. "He must not put an unregenerate man with the oath; for what communion hath light with darkness? " All of which gives us the profoundest respect for this man, who was the Beecher of his time in respect to being in advance of it. But this working intelligence of his was a grave offence, and again he was called to account by the civil authorities and by the church, but they could no more "reduce" him than they could reduce Eliot, who also had an intelligence as well as a conscience. First Church, Boston, Mass. 13 It was decided that Williams's very presence was inimical to the church. It is remarkable to record that they did not hang him, but let him off with banishment. They sent him into the wilderness, anywhere beyond the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, to grow up with the country or to be eaten up by the Savages as chance might have it. As chance did have it, his banishment brought about great results, and though First Church repudiated him it is bound to shine by his reflected light. The church tried to do it- self out of a good thing but did not succeed : and perhaps, like certain colleges that have latterly conferred alphabetical distinction upon successful litterateurs whom these same colleges rusticated and denied a degree before fame was dreamed erf, the First Church to-day would like to take unto itself more credit for Roger Williams's fame than it deserves. The patronising references by the exceedingly commonplace preachers of to-day to the man who was able to buy and sell them in- tellectually, as well as by virtue of his actual achievements, would be unworthy of mention did they not prove that a cat may look at the king, or that almost anybody may do almost anything to his betters without impeding the 14 Old New England Churches tremendous forces of moral courage and good sense. In considering the reasons for the success of this nation — reasons which seemingly grew out of so limited, bigoted, and disastrous a time, place, and people — ^we must disregard Puritanism and the purpose which first settled these New England colonies. Puritanism in its extreme phase is not an impelling cause, but only a result of several tremendous forces lying in the temper of a people. In the first place this country was settled by the second or younger sons of English- men. It is perfectly well known that it is the second bom — -all other things being equal — who is given the best constitution mentally, morally, and phy- sically. In discussing this with an Englishman he said: " I cannot understand why it is that this country is so far in advance of the Mother Country, and is peopled by a nation that has been able to do in two hundred years what its brother, Old England, would have required three times the time and opportunity to bring about. It was only our younger sons, our left-overs who came here in the beginning. What is wrong?" There was nothing wrong except the man's anthropological deductions. First Church, Boston, Mass. 15 Again, the man who dares the difficulties and dangers of a new world is virile in the extreme. Thus this country was settled by the very pick of the English nation. Moreover, the Puritan's religion was only skin deep, however much it may seem upon superficial observation to have been otherwise. Was not George Washington as much the god of the Puritan (when he got to fighting) as one of their own creed? It took something as strenuous as war to break down their religious prejudices and fanaticism, but war did it. The strength, the courage, the vitality of England settled here. It was hampered by a religious fanaticism; on the other hand that fanaticism was an evidence of temperament — a thing unknown to the Englishman in his prime estate. Puritanism was not a cause of our extraordinary achievement. It hampered us, it delayed civilisation, but could not stop it; and it was an evidence of the force that won. It was in 1636, in March, that the Rev. Hugh Peters took the first step toward establishing a sort of employment agency, in proposing to First Church that it should supply the people with employment in winter-time lest idleness ruin both Church and State. 1 6 Old New England Churches In time came Wheelwright as the third preacher to First Church. Antinomianism arrived and left its mark, and there were very emotional sea- sons in the church's history but John Winthrop maintained the balance. Wheelwright's preach- ing very nearly brought about civil disorganisa- tion, his enemies and supporters coming into conflict, until tranquillity was restored by his banishment. It was at this climax that the election of the governor occurred and it was con- trolled entirely by the theological situation. Mr. Winthrop's success in this election was probably due to the Rev. John Wilson's speech, delivered from a tree. Cotton became greatly involved in the anti- nomian doctrine, and John Winthrop seems to have been the only man who kept his head at this crisis. At last Mrs. Hutchinson, the antinomian leader, not finding it convenient to think pre- cisely as the society of the First Church thought, was incontinently cast out: it was not tolerable to the people of First Church to contemplate a worthiness greater than their own. The treat- ment of Mrs. Hutchinson was very distressing. However, the church only banished her, did not follow the custom of the day and kill her — the First Church, Boston, Mass. 17 Indians did that somewhat later. It was about this time that Dorothy Talbye was driven so mad by the strain of a morbid rehgion that she murdered her child, hoping that it might escape the miseries she herself had suffered. The mad woman was hanged as a matter of course, while the church was not even put into the stocks. This dis- tracted mother begged to be beheaded because she thought it a less painful and shameful death than hanging; but the church, which was then the law, was not engaged in hvmiane prac- tices but only in the worship of God, and very nat- urally the more a victim disliked hanging the more profoundly careful the church was to hang him. One man who ventured to remark that the church was dogmatic slightly in excess of com- fort and convenience was promptly whipped and fined. This was a citizen otherwise in good standing. In all probability the vicarious con- science never dwelt so long and successfully in an entire people as it did in the people of Massa- chusetts. It is said that the church was very solicitous in looking after the morals of Boston — in short, the First Church determined that Boston should be ed- ucated up to its standard oi- Boston should perish. 1 8 Old New England Churches There seemed to be but one thing that could resist this absolute theocracy, and that was fashion. The General Court inveighed against it, but alas, the General Court had a wife, and the preachers had wives, and though the preachers and the General Court might control all else in the world they had not the power to say how its fig leaf should be cut. One historian says, "The church is scarcely ten years old, and must begin its series of re- movals from one house to another; but what would we not give to-day for so much as a fragment of the first building." We cannot endorse the taste of this chronicler of distressful events. On the contrary we should expect the people to rejoice at moving away and separating them- selves from every vestige of the house which had witnessed so much wrong, instituted so much injustice and inhumanity, hoping to begin with a clean spirit in a clean house. Mary Gay Humphreys once wrote a famous editorial in the old days of "Hearth and Home" called "The Immorality of Inanimate Things." She chose panniers, which were then in fashion, as her subject for demonstration. It is well she did not live in a time when churches instead of First Church, Boston, Mass. 19 panniers were in fashion, else she must certainly have written that editorial upon churches; and while those early Puritan desperadoes would now be mercifully forgotten, their meeting houses would be immortalised — The Immorality of Inani- mate Things! About this time in the history of First Church Mr. Cotton who seems to have been a man given to borrowing trouble, must have looked forward to his superannuation, because he began to agitate for a pension to be given those officials who had grown old in public service. Sir Henry Vane, S5niipathiser with Mrs. Hutchinson, a kind and tolerant man, was a member of First Church and, of course, he met the fate of those who indulged in thoughts of their own. A good many great ones of the earth belonged to the First Church who were doubtless deterred by the intolerance of the time from being as great as they might have been. Immigration to New England had now ceased and emigration had begun. We read that ten years after Winthrop landed here between twenty-one and twenty-five thousand English- men had returned to England. Punishments visited by the First Church seem to have descended if not unto the third and fourth 20 Old New England Churches generations at least unto the second : Mrs. Hutchin- son's son was called to account " for reviling the churches," which was bad enough to be sure, but considering the fate of his mother, his failure to revile them would have merited a worse punish- ment than any that the church could inflict — and the church was particularly versatile in the matter of punishments. The son was imprisoned and fined, but judgment could not be satisfied, and as an additional punishment he was com- pelled to attend the First Church while he was in Boston. As he was forcibly led to meeting there was nothing optional about his attendance. We read apropos of this son and of Mrs. Hutch- inson's brother-in-law, that " they refused to come to the religious assemblies except when they were led and so they came duly." La Tour came from Acadia in 1642 and brought his men. They were Romanists, and of such sturdy metal that they felt the First Church could not especially contaminate them, hence they went to the services. This gave the First Church plenty to do for some little time, as the burning question of the hour at once became, "Should the First Church have league and fellowship with idolaters?" A clothier, Samuel Gorton, from First Church, Boston, Mass. 21 London, became a disturber of the peace, since he thought in some other way than did the First Church (meaning Boston). The First Church made it rather uncomfortable for him, but ex- cused itself on the ground that he had made himself objectionable even to Roger Williams. What Roger Williams could not stand, certainly the First Church did not feel called upon to stand. Samuel Gorton must have been a truculent wretch since he expressed a great willingness to hear Mr. Cotton preach provided he himself be permitted to answer Cotton. "So in the after- noon they came, and were placed in the fourth seat right before the elders." We learn that the clothier made good before the afternoon was out. The Rev. Rufus Ellis, a preacher of the First Church has recorded, "After the manner of the times it was deemed necessary to punish him and his friends with great severity, though happily for the reputation of Massachusetts they escaped the sentence of death which some proposed." We have an exceedingly amusing account of another group of Romanists who came to Boston town. Unlike La Tour, who had been snubbed and all but hanged for attending First Church, these decided not to go at all, whereupon 22 Old New England Churches they were notified by the governor that it was "our manner that all men either come to our meetings or keep themselves quiet in their houses." Thus we have the First Church in still another throe of agony, on still another count. The matter seems to have been compromised, the governor inviting the "Papists" to his own house "where they remained till sunset, reading books in Latin and French and walking in his garden." It is added that "they gave no offence" — presumably kept off the grass! There is something so extremely absurd in the bumptiousness of this story that it is impossible to record it with the dignity of phrase and feeling one is ordinarily inclined to use in treating mat- ters of history. Even as early as 1650, we begin to see the de- cline of Pviritanism. There was to be enough left to relieve the next hundred and fifty years of anything like monotony; but its backbone was broken for the reason that good citizenship and good church membership were not as a fact identical, as the Puritan demanded they should be. A good many people wanted to vote who were unqualified to do so because they had not known that spiritual regeneration, or degeneration, as First Church, Boston, Mass. 23 one may interpret it, demanded by the church. If not a member of the church, a man had no vote. This situation might prevail for a time when affairs were inchoate, but when a man's vote became formahsed and meant something more than a meeting in somebody's bam, and a juggHng with straws or kernels of red and white com, the citizen and the man began to speak. And when the citizen speaks, dogma takes a back seat every time. The state began to come out from among the ecclesiastics and be separate. One of the divines of the First Church, who became its historian, remarks wisely that the Puritan church "was not a place for the nurture and maturing of Christians." He goes on to qualify this, somewhat spoiling an exceedingly good statement, but we will not by quoting fur- ther permit him to do himself this injustice. The First Church deserves precedence, chrono- logically; but in the summing up, it is possible that First Church would be last in the Christian roll-call if judged by its too high-handed be- ginnings. However, with all the rest of the intolerant sect, First Church met its hour of reform and regeneration, and grew to stand solidly for the good things of the soul. OLD NORTH CHURCH, BOSTON, MASS. CHAPTER II Old North Church, Boston, Massachusetts THE Second Church of Boston was the direct result of the king-kilHng in England in 1649; and as the Rev. Mr. Van Ness has formulated it, "The more visionary of the Puritans felt that the King's downfall was synonymous with the es- tablishment of God's commonwealth." Thomas Van Ness discussed the beginnings of the Second Church in so interesting a manner in a number of the Outlook for 1903 that the compiler of this history can hardly do better than draw from that material. The regicidal happening gave such impetus to ecclesiastical affairs in this country that among other churches was founded " ye Second Church of Christe in Boston." The geographical situation of this church gave to it the name of Old North. Chronologically it was the second church. The New Brick Church was an offshoot from this society. The historian points out how the very words of the Covenant, " We here freely this day 27 28 Old New England Churches do this thing," have been the dominant note in this church, always. "We here freely do this thing! " We have in the Second Church a monu- ment to the political as well as the religious liberty of that time. It was bom when the New World was in a ferment. The pent-up British general called the Second Church a "nest of traitors," which was enough to endear it to more than its immediate parish. The first established preacher was the Rev. John Mayo, and then came Increase, then Cotton Mather. To write of the Old North, the New Brick, the Second Church, is to write of men and of Mathers; and of Cotton Mather's madness rather than of Increase Mather's strength. Thus does the gauche, the extreme, superficially dominate over the wise and moderate. As newspapers fill their columns with stories of crime and wrong for the simple reason that these are news, while morality and decency are so common as to have lost the news qualification, so does history, liker than not, discuss the erratic rather than the brilliant, the superficial rather than the substantial, because they are dramatic and unusual, while wis- dom and reason are common. The good works of Increase Mather, the church's Old North Church, Boston, Mass. 29 second preacher, were overshadowed by the crazy flights of his son, which finally ended in murder, execration, and in Cotton Mather's Self-pity. It does not seem necessary to outline the latter' s history, it has been so completely done again and again. We speak of facts very well known, if not especially well analysed, by the majority who have acquaintance with ecclesiastical history. Now and then we find a biographer, such as Rob- bins, who hopes to make Mather's absurdities and outrages reflect a too pious mind, a too fine conscientiousness; but his very efforts to do this, worry the careful reader with the utter futility of his arguments in the light of facts which the biographer himself presents. In In- crease Mather we have a character already verging upon the extreme. Since his calling was that of a Puritan preacher, he was trained in the ways of superstition and theological limitation; but for all that, so far as these limits permitted him to think independently, we find him* thinking reasonably and well, and acting likewise. Could the world have been spared the next generation of Mathers the name would have left a pleasant taste, instead of being "ginger hot i' the mouth." Cotton Mather lacked the governor of self-control 30 Old New England Churches — a deficiency too frequently the excuse of erratic beings. He was vain ; there is evidence that he was sensual; also he was superstitious — ^these three — and we do not know in which of them he was greatest. That he was irritable, that he listed as the wind bleweth, being disturbed in every thought by some superstitious reaction, were his grave mis- fortunes; but it is possible to regard these as superficialities — ^affairs of temperament from which the most serious, the most unselfish, the most well-meaning might suffer. Those things which determine character were present in full force, however, and they were of a sort which make for evil rather than good. Robbins, in his apology, writes: "The protuberance of a few eccentricities has drawn out the elements of his character into false perspective. His oddities stand in the light of his virtues. They give a grotesqueness to his whole being. They mark the man so strongly that all who see them imagine they under- stand him. . . . They conclude they have a true likeness, when they have only a broad caricature, founded upon some odd feature or two; and, with a smile of satisfaction at their own penetration and his peculiarity, inquire no deeper. But those who know only the eccen- tricities of Cotton Mather know but little about him." Old North Church, Boston, Mass. 31 When eccentricities dominate, it is not im- proper to assume that in them we know the whole. When eccentricities dominate, they stand for char- acter. The " protuberance of a few eccentricities ' ' cannot falsify character — not when it is illumined by time and a man's deeds. Emerson tells us that consistency is the bugbear of little minds; meaning consistency as interpreted by the relation of one finite act to another finite act; and he urges us in our judgment of character to regard a man's deeds synthetically. It is fair instruction, and in regarding Cotton Mather's deeds syn- thetically, and in regarding his "protuberances" in the same way, it is fair to assume we have the man. Neither do "oddities stand in the light" of any man's virtues if the man be public enough and shall have lived long enough for us to weigh his deeds in the balance against his oddities. Cotton Mather lived long enough for us to do this thing, and has been dead long enough for us to say these things. Cyrano de Bergerac's nose was so ugly a nose that it made him a very ugly man; albeit he had a pair of eyes and a mouth — ^features not at all extraordinary, and eyes that were even beautiful; but Cyrano's nose prevailed. In his case his 32 Old New England Churches "protuberance" was not of the soul. It was a superficial one which nevertheless made him very ugly. It may have been that the spiritual " pro- tuberance" of Cotton Mather was no greater a defect than Cyrano's nose was to his face, but it fairly gives us the spiritual Mather, and we do not like him. Then his favourable biographer says, "The fact is, few characters are less intelli- gible; few harder to describe; few so many sided ; few have so little uniformity." And so on, ad nauseam until we have a full half page of un- symmetrical details of character. Fortunately one as mad as Mather was cannot influence even his own generation beyond a limited extent. The impulse that gave form and feature to the " protuberances " discussed by the Rev. Chandler Robbins, goes to make up the sum of character. That biographer tells us it was Mather's "earnest desire and constant purpose to do good." If this had been true, then the much wrong that he did, being so far at variance with his intentions, helps to marK him a mind diseased. The aberra- tion that induced a well-intentioned man to ap- prove when the life was squeezed out of goodman Corey, made such a man eligible to the penitentiary or to the gibbet. Such a man is mad or bad — Old North Church, Boston, Mass. 33 we are hardly called upon to speculate which unless his disability carries him far enough to afflict others, as it did in Mather's case, and then it were a shame to present him falsely in order to give lustre or save odium to a people or to a religion. Dr. Hale has spoken of the Mathers as if they were the impulse and the heartbeat of the wonder- ful development in trade and civilisation that was known in Boston during their time. "At the beginning here was a little village of perhaps five thousand people unknown to the world. At the end of it the commerce of Boston was larger than that of Scotland and Ireland combined, and her dealings were with almost every port in Europe. The Mathers and their people were doing their best, in all this time, to infuse a divine life into such human affairs." But one is inclined to regard the period covered by Cotton Mather, a temporary eclipse of progress so far as Mather's activity is concerned. When we see the splendid vital forces]]of right thinking and responsible action doing their work, it is in spite of the Mather administration. Dr. Hale ignores the fact, in dis- cussing the Mathers, that New England was no longer a theocracy; that sixteen years after the 34 Old New England Churches Massachusetts Colony was founded the great mass of people — " thousands " says the petition — had demanded their independence of the church. They demanded civil rights without first having to qualify as Puritans. It was the majority that was developing Nev* England, while the Puritan fills the space we habitually give to " news " — ^the exceptional; the grotesque perhaps; certainly the picturesque. Dr. Hale in his apology for Cotton Mather reminds us that he wrote the book on " Invisible Wonders " when a very young man, and the book is "not one whit more absurd than the absurd books which absurd people write to-day." But he does not point out that to-day we either re- gard the people who write absurd books more or less indulgently as people who are more or less unsound or else such books are frankly admitted by their writers to be fairy tales. Hauptmann wrote Die versunkene Glocke, but we are not hang- ing people because an author chooses to make literary material of nixies and other uncanny things. When Cotton Mather wrote of " Invisible Won- ders " he compelled his flock to live up to them or to have their lives crushed out. Mather's was at no time a master mind, nor Old North Church, Boston, Mass. 35 was his the master hand among his people. He was the abject slave of his own fears and dis- tractions, and his feverishness influenced others only momentarily, gaining response from a few febrile souls like his own. The natural health that was in the community prevailed, and he found himself so much despised that he wrote with a whimpering weakness — enough to have made a great man contemptible — when he found himself hoisted by his own petard. " Some, " he wrote " on purpose to affront me, call their negroes by the name of Cotton Mather, so that they may with some shadow of truth assert crimes committed by one of that name which the hearers take me to be." Here speaks a mind diseased if ever one spoke. Doubtless negroes were given the name of Cotton Mather in derision or contempt by those who at last vehemently protested against the Mather regime; bat only a mind capable of profound meanness could find a deeper motive, the well constructed vindic- tiveness which Mather discovered. "Where is the man whom the female sex have spit so much of their venom at?" " Where is the man who has been so tormented with such monstrous relatives?" 36 Old New England Churches "There is not a man in the world so reviled, so slandered, so cursed among sailors." "The College forever puts all possible marks of disesteem upon me." " My company is as little sought for, and there is as little resort unto it as any minister that I am acquainted with." " And many look upon me as the greatest sinner. " Obviously this man was a paranoiac; other- wise it was all true, and he was a villain. It is like piling Pelion upon Ossa to continue to quote the excess of incident which goes to prove either of these theories. So much for his character. But he had a reputation in his day for intel- lectuality and for having made contributions to literature. As a fact, he had cerebral provision for an extraordinary memory, which is not neces- sarily the sign of profound intellectuality. This power of memory enabled him to store up and collate an immense amount of fact ; but it was aU futile since he so presented facts as to make him- self almost useless as an historian. His Mag- nalia is given place not in serious literature but among literary freaks, and the Rev. Henry Ware in his biographical discussion of Mather remarks brilliantly : ' ' That it has been so regarded as Old North Church, Boston, Mass. 37 a literary freak is proof sufficient that its merit is quite equivocal. As a storehouse of documents and facts relating to the early history of the country it may be consulted with advantage; but it is so strangely written as to become heavy in the reader'shands, and so mingled with the credulity and puerility of the author's mind, that even Neal, a con- temporary writer and correspondent, hardly vent- ured to cite him as an authority." So much for the value of his contributions to history. As for his scholarship, it would be an anti- climax to discuss his fatal orthography! The church was established in 1650, but it was not until 1655 that it had its first preacher. There have been three periods of great development in this church, which have directly enhanced its spiritual history, and these times were when the church was in the hands of Increase Mather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Ware, Jr. Mr. Van Ness has ably commented upon this: "Increase Mather was not as great a preacher as his son ; Emerson was one of the poorest pastors ; and Henry Ware, Jr., could not rank with Lathrop as a controversialist, nor indeed with those who came after him as a public speaker. Why, then, by common consent were these three men singled out from the rest as representative?" 38 Old New England Churches Mr. Van Ness regards the preaching of Increase Mather as " most of it rubbish," and reminds us that his books are not read, but that he did possess that ' 'highest kind of courage — ^moral courage. ' ' Increase Mather's moral courage, of which there was small sign in his son. Cotton, was indubitably proved at the time he went before the General Court when the Charter was in peril. Pushing his way before the General Court, as it was about to surrender to the Royal Commissioners, in a speech which electrified all who heard, he exclaimed: " I hope there is not a free man in Boston that can be guilty of such a thing. We shall sin against the God of Heaven if we do this thing." All know the story of his flight to England and of his further activity in that matter. We have these examples of that force felt throughout his ministry; and being less hampered by erraticism than was his son. Increase Mather was a true guide to his people. In speaking of Emerson, "one of the poorest pastors," Mr. Van Ness points to his essays, re- minding one of the dominant note found in them — hope. Of Henry Ware another writer has said, "He was the embodiment of sjnnpathy. When with Old North Church, Boston, Mass. 39 him all sorts and conditions of men forgot their differences, and were made one in a common fellowship." Thus we see how much farther- reaching is intellectual and spiritual force than personality. The latter may give us all the de- light that do the walnuts and the wine, but it is the very substantial dinner that has gone before which sustains us. The Second Church is less dependent upon accident and incident for the making of its history, than upon men and manners. There are certain picturesque stories belong to this church, such as the tale of the Paul Revere lights — claimed by both Christ's Church and the Old North. We Sym- pathise with the spirit which impels either church to attach to itself even the merest shred of that which was the glory of the race — ^the history of the world in 1 776 — our patriotic deeds of derring- do! But as a matter of fact, the internal evidence is too strongly in favour of the Old North Church for us to give credit to any other for those belfry lights, which, in all probability never did exist in their relation to Paul Revere and the particular occasion for which they seem to have been in- vented. There is plenty of evidence to nega- tive the whole story but if it did happen that 40 Old New England Churches the Paul Revere lights were to be hung — "one if by land and two if by sea" — ^to inform him of the movements of the British, it is not reasonable to suppose that they would have been placed in Christ's Church, a Tory church, instead of in the other so notoriously the " nest of traitors " to Tory sympathies and British interests. Although there is a world of incident connected with this church, it is difficult to heed it with so much of human docu- ment on every hand, for men are always more interesting than things. The duties of citzenship were shouted, whispered, entreated, and commanded from this pulpit. Mr. Lathrop preached of the Revolution. He proph- esied civil war; he cried one day "Americans, rather than be hewers of wood or drawers of water for any nation in the world, will spill their best blood." Gage seems to have had some authority for his opinion of Second Church. It made Revolutionary history! Van Ness, discussing Paul and history and the eleventh chapter of Hebrews does some excellent thinking. He says that self-glorification and personal fame were farthest from Paul's thoughts when he wrote that chapter; " yet such is the law of virtue," he continues, "that while he who shall Old North Church, Boston, Mass. 41 glorify himself shall be forgotten, yet he who for righteousness' sake is willing to be debased and held in small esteem shall live forever and ever. Therefore it is that, try as Paul will, the eleventh chapter of Hebrews commemorates not Barak or Samson or Jephthah or any of the others whom the apostle sought to rescue from oblivion, but commemorates Paul himself." This certainly was true, but we must remember that Paul did not have American history for his subject. If he had, even Paul might have been lost sight of. When war came, it seems to have been for- tuitous in more ways than one; a necessary climax to the extraordinary psychical condition into which these people had got themselves. At first this condition seemed a sort of hypnotism exercised bv a few upon the mass, which became a general self- hypnotism, until the emotion spread like hysterics in a girls' boarding school. Then war came with its fearful actualities, leaving the people no time for vagaries, bogies, hysterics. War, the real thing! War, that excellent thing which sweeps away the cobwebs for a period, which breeds a generation or so of clear-thinking, courageous men — the effect of which is felt after that imme- diate period of desolation and disorganization 42 Old New England Churches which follows war, is over; felt at the time when the war generation begins to mature! Lathrop preached from this pulpit: "Those principles which justify rulers in making war upon rebellious subjects justify the people in making war upon rebellious rulers." Tliese things from the Second Church pulpit nearly created sympathy for the British when they pulled down that " nest of traitors" at their earliest convenience. Joys are always reactionary and this act of a British General did not detract from the exceedingly good time the people of Second Church had on that day when Howe marched out of and Washing- ton marched into Boston. After this house was demolished, the people of Second Church were invited to worship with the society of the New Brick — child of the Second Church! Dr. Lathrop then preached to the united people. Probably the first crusade against intemperance, which was so great a curse of the colonies, was undertaken in this pulpit by Henry Ware. It was he who had the courage to write against the evil, to preach against it, and who by reason of his precedence as a citizen and as a preacher, gave more impetus to the movement than could any organi- Photograph by Baldwin Coolidge BUST OF EMERSON WHICH IS IN THE SECOND CHURCH Old North Church, Boston, Mass. 43 sation against rum drinking then have given. Channing was talking at this time, and the spirit of humanity and dignity was getting the upper hand of the old intemperance of feeling by which the Puritan had so long dominated. Then after Mr. Ware, came " the tall, spare young man with the sweet, mild face" — ^Emerson. Mr. Van Ness discusses this accident of Emerson in the Second Church pulpit beautifully and interestingly. The conventional Second Church and the free, strong-thinking, vital Emerson! Mr. Van Ness repudiates the thought that he came to the pulpit by mere chance, any more than John Lathrop came by chance sixty years before. He puts it, " No ; like draws like, whether among the atoms, the stars, or among men." And in witnessing the result of Emerson in the Second Church we are inclined to think Mr. Van Ness is right. But could the result of Emerson in relation to any- thing have been other than luminant ? Mr. Van Ness plays again and again upon the words of the covenant: " 'Being called of God, I freely do this thing.' That same phrase, doubtless, Iticrease Mather would have used if asked what prompted him to speak so heroically at the town meeting. It 44 Old New England Churches is the initial impulse given to the church by its founders, which, continuing into the nineteenth century, led Emerson to stand forth in moral bravery and plead for freedom of spirit instead of slavish adhesion to form. 'Being called of God to do this thing! ' What better reason could Emerson have given for his action?" Mr. Van Ness is discussing the happening of Mr. Emerson into the Second Church from the es- sentially theological viewpoint, as we should ex- pect him to do, but even the unregenerate is in- clined to enter into this God-logic with Mr. Van Ness, when he thinks of Emerson, the great, free soul! Mr. Van Ness points out that the reason for the severance of the relations between Emer- son and the Second Church was not a difference of opinion as to how the Lord's Supper should be celebrated but a conflict between formalism and freedom: " 'I thought to carry them with me,' Emerson acknowledged in after years in speaking of his views, 'I thought to carry them with me.' " Commenting on this Van Ness writes: " Ah, Emerson would have known better had he been forty-nine instead of twenty-nine. Youth does not and cannot appreciate at its full worth the power of memories, of sentiment, of association. It was this power which defeated him when the vote was taken, not the radicalism of his views. THE MINISTER'S WINDOW, SECOND CHURCH, BOSTON Old North Church, Boston, Mass. 45 "The Second Church never stood for creed or dogma. It has never had in its pulpit the founder of any logical system of theology. "A Jonathan Edwards, aBushnell, a Dr. Palfry, even a Channing could not well have been devel- oped in its atmosphere. The initial impulse of the church, as was said before, was not theo- logical, but practical. The organisation crystal- lised around a contract or covenant, not around a creed or statement of faith. The Second Church is now classified as Unitarian, yet its original covenant has never been altered or erased from the membership book. Just when the change in thought took place, no one can determine" — and no one cares to determine who is blinded by the flash of history illumined by the Second Church. KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON, MASS. CHAPTER III King's Chapel, Boston, Massachusetts KING'S CHAPEL was the first Episcopalian church in New England. Unlike the church of the Puritans it was a missionary enterprise pure and simple; hence established and peopled by those whose sole purpose was the worship of God and the propagation of the Gospel as they understood it. Their un- derstanding of it was much simpler than that of the Puritans who had tried so hard to achieve simplicity, that their religion had become a very complicated thing indeed. In pointing out the extreme rottenness of the Church of England at that time in its own country, the Rev. Howard N. Brown, of King's Chapel reminds us how re- action must follow extreme conditions; and how the Puritan's intolerance of an5rthing that stood for the institution which had persecuted him was an inevitable result of the Church of England's work. He also rerninds us that the Puritans were unable to recognise in an emigration from 49 50 Old New England Churches the English Chtirch to this country a possible sin- cerity of religious purpose, a purity of motive in people who had ventured even as the Puritans had. Until then all the action had been in England and taken by the Established Church; the re- action now felt in America and by the Estab- lished Church indicated a vindictiveness which was deplorable but perhaps the most human thing in Puritanism. The real objection to this state of Puritan affairs is that too much was laid to the Lord. "Vengeance is mine!" — ^the Puri- tans considered themselves the instrument and were glad to be chosen for the work. In preaching of God as a God of vengeance and without mercy, they simply adapted their Deity to their own inclinations. The missionary church sought a pied a terre in the New World which it might call its own, but this was for a long time denied it. Andros, the execrated, was the Church of England's saviour at that time, and partly as a consequence he is needlessly misrepresented to the schoolboy of to-day. One hundred years after it becomes possible to regard any occurrence that cotdd possibly have taken place, without prejudice, though not unemotionally. CO ' V3 >> u: 5. O . « I § a I E I King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. 51 In the days when events moved slowly, the world may have needed a thousand years in which to weigh and forgive offences; but to-day a hun- dred years can make and unmake nations. A city may be wiped out to-day and to-morrow be regarded tranquilly as ancient history. A new world blossoms in a desert and next week we have ceased to be surprised. A hundred years should have been time enough for Americans who have crowded several centuries into one, to think upon the conditions of two hundred and fifty years ago judiciously and without prejudice; to weigh men and events with great precision, in the balance with American emotions. But this has not been done; or if it has it is time for school- board energy to censor the text-book list and expunge from it those treatises bound to offend the fair-minded. Eugene Sue says somewhere, that the man who lacks enthusiasm is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils — of course not using Shakespearian phrase. Even French energy has hardly over- stepped the bounds of truth in making the state- ment; but fairmindedness does not imply a lack of enthusiasm for our own exploits, nor does it forbid us to leave our enemies still clothed with a 52 Old New England Churches rag of character while we are putting on our ermine. It does not dignify the victor's cause nor magnify his victory to have him beHttle his adversary. There are certain names, mostly British, which the schoolboy is taught to regard as the epitome of all that is vile, while it wotild seem to any fairly intelligent person that our erstwhile enemies had a pretty decent credit account of character; that even in the eighteenth century, they were human beings who stood for their prerogative to think for themselves and to enslave others even as we were doing. In Andros we had a man attending to his business, and in an exceedingly one-sided fight we punished him and all of his. Our colossal triumph over such colossal odds might by this time excuse in us a moderate and even generous regard for those past events and people. Andros did not persecute the Puritans in the exercise of his abominated Church of England religion, but he did commit an offence which to- day seems so grave that it colours a good deal of the history of colonial times, as even now recorded. Andros's interference with Puritan hospitality sealed his fate, wrote his American King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. 53 epitaph, and delivered him over to schoolboy criticism till the crack of Puritan doom. Andros compelled the Old South Church to open its doors to worshippers not of our Heavenly set: worship- pers who as yet on this alien soil had committed no act of intolerance or wrong to disfranchise them when the vote of humanity should come to be cast. The new-comers were greatly in the minority and the Puritans had a beautiful oppor- tunity to apply a Christian principle, and to do unto the English Church even as the Puritans would have had that Church do unto it, some time before this. But the opportunity was missed. And what the Puritans refused to do in common courtesy and brotherhood, they were roughly compelled to do by Andros. A refusal to let the Episcopalians hold their service in the meeting house brought a demand from Andros to hand over that property for the purpose. The refusal of this demand was necessary, expedient; but the necessity for it might have been avoided if a little diplomatic recognition of the stranger within the gates had been made. Jt would make nicer history if we could record a superhuman foresight on the part of our ances- tors; but since they were simply human in spite of 54 Old New England Churches being Puritan, and could see only the political aspect of the case, there is nothing for us but to rejoice in our superior hindsight and modestly to approve of the men who made and fought the Revolution. They had no time to spare for latter- day elegancies of war. While they hilled up the potatoes with one hand and fought with the other, they had to make the people go to meeting with both right along. The King's Chapel folk held their services in the Old South for some time, and having got per- mission by force they grinned and made the most of it, till Judge Sewall was minded to write quite tearfully: "Last sabbath day, March 27, Govr. and his retinue met in our Meetingh. at eleven: broke off half past two, bee. of ye sacrement and Mr. Clark's long sermon, though we were appointed to come half past one; so 'twas a sad sight to see how full ye street was with people gazing and moving to and fro, bee. had no entrance into ye house." If that tremendous old man could to-day witness his grief of more than two hundred years ago, it would doubtless amuse him — nobody could see both sides of a question better than he, after he got round to it. The royal governors sat in the Old South under King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. 55 Ratcliffe, and all the while the King's Chapel folk were trying to induce somebody to sell them a little ground for their building and at last the Governor had again to interfere. He set aside a comer of the burial ground for their use, and immediately King's Chapel began to rise. It was ready in 1689. Apropos of nothing imme- diate, there is a very clear statement which should be quoted from Foote's " Annals of King's Chapel": " New England has perhaps never quite appre- ciated its obligation to Archbishop Laud. It was his over-mastering hate of nonconformity, it was the vigilance and vigour and consecrated cruelty with which he scoured his own diocese and afterward all England, and hunted out the ministers who were committing the unpardon- able sin of dissent, that conferred upon the prin- cipal colonies of New England their ablest and noblest men. Indeed without Laud, those col- onies perhaps never would have had an existence." It was that intolerance, practised here by the Puritans and in England by Laud, which was one cause of peopling this country with men who for vigour and tenacity never have been equalled. It was Ratcliffe who bore the burden and heat of the first day of Episcopalianism in America; 56 Old New England Churches and it was the son of a Baptist minister who succeeded him— the Rev. Samuel Myles. The Chapel was furnished at the time by King William III, and later by King George III. The famous Brattle organ, given by Thomas Brattle, belonged to this church before it found its abiding place in Portsmouth. After Myles, came the Rev. Roger Price, and during his induction into office there occurred a Church of England cere- mony which was amusing^ The Rev. Mr. Howard Brown mentions this in a sketch of King's Chapel, and says that after Price's "credentials had been read in church, all the people present 'went out of the church, the church wardens at the door delivering the key of the church to the Rev. Mr. Price, who, locking himself in the church, tolled the bell, and then unlocked the door of the church, receiving the church war- dens and vestrymen into the church again, who wished him joy upon his having the church.' " After Price came the Rev. Henry Caner. His first duty was to forward the erection of King's Chapel as it now stands, and the comer stone was laid in 1749- In connection with Caner we have another tragi-humourous anecdote. Viewed within a month after its occurrence it would brand the Rev. Mr. Caner as a robber of the first King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. 57 magnitude, because as a matter of fact he stole the plate and the church records; but with a hundred years' perspective we. think with not a little tender sympathy of an act which demon- strated the conscientious agonisings of a truly good man. When Caner found the British evacuat- ing Boston, his Mother Country with which he sympathised beaten, he cast his lot with the vanquished, and with eighteen other clergymen he sailed back to England with the fleet. It was then that he took with him the church plate. In all probability he felt that he was serving God in keeping the plate from falling into the vandal's hands — ^we being the vandal. No one knows where this plate is now, but the records came back. It is supposed that the communion ser- vice was distributed among the other churches in America by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The only Episcopalian minister left in Boston was the assistant minister of Trinity, and he also served the congregation' of King's Chapel at this time. The congregation went over to Trinity and, taking advantage of a glorious oppor- tunity, it opened its own doors to the Old South Church, whose building had been ruined by the $8 Old New England Churches British. Dr. Warren of Bunker Hill fame was buried from King's Chapel under these circum- stances. The Old South was doubtless then more appreciative than it had been hospitable at the time when the King's Chapel congregation sought to worship in its building. In 1782 occurred an incident, notable not in itself but in its bearing upon large events. A young man, Mr. James Freeman, served the con- gregation as a lay reader and he made his way so completely into the hearts of the people that they determined to have him for their rector; but he had never been ordained. Now when Dr. Caner and the eighteen other clergymen sailed away, it rid the church of the incubus of strict conformity and rigidity of administration. It left, in short, the very flower of clerical intellect to serve and the flower of the congregation to profit. Mr. James Freeman was so liberal, so entirely human in his views that he precisely suited the people to whom he ministered — a fact which in itself made him quite unsuited to ordination if he must receive it at the hands of the Mother Church. Ordination was refused him from that source, and perhaps an immediate cause of the refusal was that under his guidance King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. 59 King's Chapel people had become so liberal that they altered their prayer book so as to leave out all reference to the Trinity. Thus without know- ing it, King's Chapel was bom again; and the second time, Unitarian. The Chapel did not realise that its act would make a breach between it and other Episcopalian churches, but as a matter of fact the breach was so great that no bishop whomsoever would ordain their favourite minister. In this situation. King's Chapel, which was quite sufficient unto itself, severed for good and all its relations with British ecclesiastical authority, and immediately proceeded to ordain its own minister. Now, again, we have a shining example of re- action; for not only did it ordain its own minister, but from that day to this it has absolutely re- fused to let any other church have any part in the installation of its preachers. Washington, who was at the time our president, attended a concert in King's Chapel — ^Washington in the hated Church of England, yet our Best Be- loved from the hour when we began to mean anything to ourselves! This certainly helps to prove that the religion of the Puritans was, after all, only skin deep, that this religion was 6o Old New England Churches the vehicle, the occasion for an obstinate set of men inclined to cruelty because of the persecu- tions which they in turn had endured, to exercise a complete if temporary ascendency over all who were within their gates. Their religion was simply an exhibition of the temperamental principles of their character. They were emotionally ele- mental, but they jealously guarded power and precedence with an exceedingly well developed sense of worldly values. If their religion had been profounder than their characters, there would have been no United States. As it was, it was a superficiality. Superficialities may do a deal of harm before they are suppressed or atrophied, but we can regard all things of those times tolerantly except the intolerance; and even if we cannot tolerate that, we can see a reason for its having been. Perhaps nothing better illustrates the large lordliness of these New England people than the claim of William Blackstone, who was a clergy- man. He "claimed the whole peninsula upon which Boston is built, because he was the first that slept upon it." But we must remember that it was a large country which was the occasion of such large ideas! That one of a very few thou- King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. 6i sand people should choose the whole of Massa- chusetts for his bedroom would not have been so erratic and egotistical a thing as might appear. If these men had only realised that we ran clear through to the Pacific Ocean and how much of us there was north and south, doubtless each one of them would have taken a large fraction of the globe for his o^n exclusive dwelling place. At that period of our history, as well as now, we had no sort of notion that any other people existed, or possibly might exist. Who doubts that we have at all times known ourselves to be the Lord's anointed! There is something really very beautiful m the farewell to England of those Church of England emigrants who were to have their place among the strong and wise of our country. When they had sailed from the sight of Land's End they had said, Higginson being their spokesman: " We will not say, as the Separatists are wont to say, on their leaving England, 'Farewell, Babylon! Farewell, Rome!' but we will say, 'Farewell, dear England, and all the Christian friends there!' We do not go to New England as Separatists from the Church of England though we cannot but separate from the corruptions in it; but we go to practise the positive part of the church 62 Old New England Churches reformation, and propagate the Church in Amer- ica." There was a universality of feeUng, sympathy, and gentleness of purpose in this attitude of the Episcopal emigrants, which was sometimes re- flected in a very local and personal regard felt by the different Puritan settlements for each other. In Boston all the rigours of Sabbath day ob- servance seem to have been centred. Foote writes of this most conprehensively: "The Lord's-day began at sunset on Saturday. Through its hours no one was permitted to leave or enter the town, the gates on the 'Neck' being shut and the ferry watched, while throughout the country travelling was strictly prevented. Nor was it allowed 'even in the hottest days of summer, to take the air on the Common' or on the wharves adjacent to the houses; and fine and imprisonment awaited those who, meeting in the street and conversing there, did not dis- perse at the first notice. In 1767 the Court ordered that any person making a noise during the day, or misbehaving in the meeting house, should be 'put in a cage, to be set up in the market place,' and be kept there and examined and pun- ished." But this theocracy could not be long maintained; its life of fifty years even was extraordinary; because after all there was a very heterogeneous Photograph by E. E. Soderhallz, West Gouldsbora DETAIL OF PULPIT, KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON, JiIASSACHUSETTS King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. 63 mass in this country, and individual opinion speaks all the time, even if under its breath. Christmas ffetes, of course, had been forbidden from the start; but with the New England Episcopal church camping in a comer of the Puri- tan burying ground, the former Christmas cus- toms quivered an eyelid and more or less awoke. Judge Sewall who wrote about everything and anything from the very bottom of his soul, noted in his diary in 1685: ' ' Xr, 2 5 , Friday. Carts come to town, and Shops open as usual: some people observe ye day: but are vex'd I believe that ye Body of ye People profane it, and blessed be God no authority yet to compell them to keep it." And also he wrote earlier than this: " Mr. Randolph and his new Vife set in Mr. Joycliffe's pue (in the South Church) ; and Mrs. Randolph is observed to make a curtsy at Mr. Willard's naming Jesus, even in Prayer-Time." Thus small things were bound to leave a sign. At the time Ratclifie came here with the char- ter, these people who had been for fifty years without an exhibition of the Episcopalian forms of worship regarded them very much as they would regard a circus. Dunton describes the impression made: 64 Old New England Churches " Mr. Ratcliffe was the parson that came over with the charter, who was a very Excellent Preacher, whose Matter was good, and the dress in which he put it Extraordinary, he being as well an orator as a preacher. The next Sunday after he landed he preach' d in the Town-house, and read common Prayer in his Surplice, which was so great a novelty to the Bostonians that he had a very large audiance; I myself happening to go thither for one, it was told about Town as a piece of Wonder, That Dr. Anneslay's Son-in-law was turned apostate; So little Charity have some men in new England for all that have larger Charity than themselves." The Puritans saw in this new church a political machine, and such it was. Beyond all question it was so designed by the politicians, but its congregation was by no means raade up of them but of as staunch Americans-by-adoption, as were the Puritans. We have plenty of evidence of that in their deeds. The fact that King's Chapel broke away absolutely even from the ecclesiastical rule of England and set up shop for itself, when there came to be a single point of difiEerence, proves that the society was all for the New World and naught for the Old. What- ever the purpose of the Church and State in En- gland in establishing the Episcopal Church in America, it was bound to miscarry whenever it King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. 65 should become inimical to colonial independence of action. Does not one of those missionary- churches persistently claim the Paul Revere lights, so valued was the glory of the Revolution by those who in any way belonged to the right side of it? The Puritan idea tended to make men slaves of a Theocracy, but the human idea came first and it prevailed when the occasion arose for action. In reading the history of that time one is inclined superficially to believe that the Puritan religion filled all space, but this was not so. As long as nothing larger than this fetich occupied the Puri- tans' minds they clung to it. They were a people who found it constitutionally necessary to in- volve themselves. Our civilisation is founded upon the most emotional period the world has ever known. Our emotions happened to find an outlet for the space of a hundred years or more in a religion, at the end of which time came war — an opportunity even more to our liking. We have grown to associate emotion with decadence — Roman orgies or Oriental fanati- cism; mercurialism and temperament, with Gallic high-falutin; yet when we contemplate such of its phases we are regarding emotion in its 66 Old New England Churches least serious aspect. There has never been any- thing to compare with the volcanic emotional system of our forefathers in this country. A people whose imagination enabled them to see the end before most people would have grasped the beginning; seeing the end, they lived up to it every minute, and had little time to loose their emotions upon trivialities. We have never been known either as great weepers or as an exceptionally laughter-loving folk, but we under- stand both laughter and tears, and at the same time we furnish more material for both than any other nation on the face of the earth. In the Dutch we find a people whose heroism was comparable with the heroism of the American colonists; but to us it loses slightly because of Dutch phlegmaticism. When the Dutch declared that when they had eaten one arm they still would fight with the other, we cannot help feeling that the Dutch would have minded both the feast and the fight somewhat less than we would have done. A people of an extraordinarily fine, nervous temper are a more remarkable ex- hibition in the arena than are they who while being killed do not object to killing. We belong rather to the deliberate fighters than Photograph' by E. E. SoderhoUz, West GotUdshoro A PART OF THE DETAIL OF KING'S CHAPEL Whose comer-3tone was laid in 1740 by the Rev. Henry Caner, who subsequently stole^the communion service !l, and the church records King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. 67 to the choleric. The Puritan established himself here on a religious basis, principally because he was bom resistant; and the thing along the line of greatest resistance at the time of our beginnings, was a Puritan religion. The stuff those people were made of would have been evident just as surely had they met with any other kind of antagonism. The Puritan had been taught by the Church of England — that past-master of cruelty; and he had so little of Christianity, and was so nearly the elemental man at that time, that the Hebraic law stood for all the meaning there was to him in life. He wanted an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and knew so much better than most people how to get them that the results were very horrible and very depressing. Only the magnificence of war made those nervous people, people of nerve, and gave them health. King's Chapel nearly lost its name after the war, becoming the Stone Chapel, but later some exceedingly adaptable person pointed out that it could be, called the church of the King of kings. Thus without discrepancy between act and feeling it was able to take back the old name of King's Chapel. 68 Old New England Churcnes Henry Wilder Foote has said that " there was a time when it would have been thought unpatriotic for us not to be ashamed of the fact that King George's officials and the tory gentry went here to church." The patriotism of no society stood the test better than did that of King's Chapel. Its first clergyman after the [war, had been a war prisoner in a British receiving ship. These people found themselves in a most trying and difficult position; they were actively opposing England, yet they were not unnaturally suspected by the colonists, since they stood for the hated Church. They seem to have gained an enemy at home and made no friend abroad, and for a time it required heroism indeed to support this situa- tion. King's Chapel still has its extraordinary furni- ture given it by him who was once its king. One row of pipes is left of that organ which Handel himself doubtless chose. The bill of lading of the organ is preserved. It reads thus: " Shipped by the grace of God in good order and well con- ditioned, etc. "and ends with "Amen." Many other relics of that time are as they were when they first came into the possession of King's Chapel. The building itself being pre-revolutionary Plwtograph by E. E. Soderhohz. Boston IN THE GALLERY OF KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS The church from which Caner stole the communion service King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. 69 a volume of romantic incidents might be built of material provided by it. The Bible in use to-day was the gift of the King. The communion rail was sent to King's Chapel from England. When the organ was put in, the Boston Gazette and Country Journal, in its issue of August 30, 1756, announced: " We hear that the organ that lately arrived from London by Captain Farr for King's Chapel in this town will be opened on Thursday next in the afternoon, and that said organ (which contains a variety of curious stops never yet heard of in these parts) is esteemed by the most eminent masters in England to be equal, if not superior, tQ^ any of the same size in Europe. There will be a sermon suitable to the occasion. Prayer to begin at four o'clock." Three of the four royal governors of revo- lutionary times sat in this church, the governor's pew being resplendent, canopied, and double the size of the others. The church plate which Caner took away was given by the King. Not far from King's Chapel was the famous "liberty tree." On it were hung in effigy those who were unpopular in the community. It blossomed mostly with Tories. There was a deal of gorgeousness to be seen in and about this old church just before the Revolution. But after 70 Old New England Churches the war when King's Chapel lost its Episcopalian identity to a large extent and the transition to Unitarianism came like a thief in the night — the church itself hardly knowing how — there was to be seen less of ruffled sleeve and powdered wig, of velvets and chariots and liveries. Since 1767 it had been necessary for the British troops to camp with us to enforce the Tea Act, and for nine years Boston Common had been their ground. During that time King's Chapel had been the scene of a deal of red uniform and gold lace which seemed, when the crisis came, to have entered into King's Chapel sentiments not one whit. The Rev. Henry Wilder Foote said in a me- morial sermon: "The Rev. Mr. Fayerweather of Narragansett, records in his diary that he preached in King's Chapel, Boston, before General Gage and his officers, and a very numerous and polite assembly, from the text, 'Be kindly afiectioned one toward another with brotherly love.' " Then Foote adds, "The commentary was written at Lexington and Bunker Hill." A good many who sat in King's Chapel doubtless ornamented in effigy the "liberty tree" over on Washington street. We know that on "Gunpowder plot" day one of the congregation, Charles Paxton, King's Chapel, Boston, Mass. 71 was hanged there in effigy "between the figures of the devil and the Pope," and labelled, "Every man's humble servant but no man's friend." Another family, that of Dr. Sylvester Gardner, sat in pews Nos. 7 and 8, and Dr. Gardner was Senior Warden, in King's Chapel for twenty years. He was a rich and respected man but was forced to abandon his home in his seventieth year be- cause the young wife he had married had so far compromised him with the royal party that he could no longer remain. He went against his will, and so greatly did he love his country that he gave to it his valuable stock — "medicines and drugs — ^for Washington's army to use." Later the state of Massachusetts rewarded the doctor by giving him tickets in the state land lottery in consequence of which his heirs received six thousand acres of land in Washington County, Maine. There are many fascinating stories of loyalists who fled voluntarily or who were compelled to leave at that time, which go to show how strong an influence memories, associations, and sentiments had in their hearts. There in pew No. 91 sat Agnes Surriage — Lady Frankland. The extraordinarily romantic story 72 Old New England Churches of this beautiful woman began, as all know, in Marblehead. Mr. Bynner tells the tale better than anyone. From scrub girl to lady it was a far cry, and both Agnes Surriage and Sir Harry suffered bitterly enough to make them realise the distance that lay between. The Lisbon earthquake was necessary to bring about the marriage of these two, but when it occurred Frank- land determined there should be no uncertainty about it, hence he was married twice. Fascinating Sir Harry!— whether riding his horse up the broad staircase of the Frankland mansion or displaying his devoted, if erratic, love for Agnes! It was in King's Chapel that she came to worship after Frankland's death. It would be a more artistic ending if Agnes had not married in the end a plain Mr. John Drew, a plain rich banker, of plain Chichester; but she still preserved the spirit of romance by dying promptly after ex- periencing the plain Mr. Drew of Chichester; and to preserve the artistic values we may assume it killed her. We might dismiss the subject of King's Chapel with some more profound incident, but we can hardly find a more fascinating one than Agnes Surriage and her lover-husband, Frankland. OLD SOUTH CHURCH, BOSTON, MASS. CHAPTER IV Old South Church, Boston, Massachusetts FIRST and Second Church, Trinity and the Old South present in their histories each phase Puritan performance. They stand for the social, economic, political history and a transition time. The Old South has perhaps more of romantic association, and its history records more of vi- cissitude than does the history of either of the others, while all are rich in fact and legend. Everett W. Burdett, who wrote a complete and comprehensive history of the Old South, said that the ever important theological question of baptism really gave this church its birth. While the histories of the three other churches deal more especially with the human document, Old South tells a stirring and romantic story of events. Sam Adams called for war from the pulpit of Old South, long before he got it. More "sedition" and revolution had its nesting and homing place there than almost anyTvhere else. If the King's troopers rollicked and rode within the church's 75 *]6 Old New England Churches walls making of the old house a riding school, so had Hancock, Warren, and Quincy spoken in the same precinct words that were to put those same troopers out of commission. We may not give much for Old South's Chris- tianity, judging by its written history, but as an agitator it proved to be worth a kingdom. In Christianity it was weak and in nationality it was yet thoroughly English, even while it was pro- testing against English control, and the prayers uttered in that house, are almost as monumental in their egotism as are the words of the EngHsh national anthem. For example, Burdett wrote quite seriously "it was from this pulpit that, in earlier times went hence to Heaven that prayer which was answered by the dispersion and utter ruin of a hostile fleet of France." Now that narrative is perhaps a more complete Exhibition of the non-Christian principle upon which the Puritan worked, than any other. This French fleet was on its way to Boston Harbour, and on a sunny cloudless day the Old South offered up prayers for the immediate destruction of its enemies, and none of that generation could have been made to believe that the frightful storm which ensued and dashed the French to pieces Old South Church, Boston, Mass. 77 upon the rocks, was not the work of God, in direct recognition of Puritan superiority. While a Christian religion, however demonstrated — dem- onstrated by Protestant or Catholic — is the most egotistical and least attractive of any religion, yet that practised by the Puritan was beyond question the ne plus ultra of all such. To-day, when Puritanism is so little dominant we may marvel without distraction, but when men had their very existence by it it was detestable. It was a religion fit only for war and the making of war. It served its turn. Until the existence of South Church, the Church and State were one and indissoluble, but when this church came into being equal rights and citizen- ship untrammelled by sectarianism were born with it. This is one of the church's greatest glories. It marked a period of true progress in this country. Until that time this matter of disfranchise- ment of the non-church member had been a heavy bvirden to many. Such were exempt from none of the responsibilities of citizenship (they must have gone soldiering and have paid taxes with the best, or worst, of them) while they were deprived of many privileges. At the time the Old South came into existence, this matter of disfranchisment of 78 Old New England Churches the unregenerate was a burning question. The new society saw clearly, despite its lapses from virtue — as when it laid at God's door the inhuman destruction of their enemies. When this Boston church formulated its first great departure from ecclesiastical custom, it was determined that baptism alone should qualify a man to vote. Before then the vote had been accorded only to those who had become members of the church. When it was determined that the perfunctory performance and endurance of the rite of baptism should entitle an American to citizen- ship, the New World was indeed upon its infant feet. This radical and fearless action by the Boston First Church resulted in a synod of all the preachers'^- of the province. But they arrived at no conclusion except that disagreement and fight was best. The immediate result was a separation from the First Church of a part of its society and congre- gation and the establishment of the Old South, which was to stand boldly j.or a new order of things. This Old South was really the Third Church of Boston, the Second already being in existence. The fight between the original society and its Old South Church, Boston, Mass. 79 offshoot was in no sense sham. The Bishop of London was informed that the bitterness ran so high that there "was imprisoning of parties and great disturbances." This ecclesiastical departure was practically the birth of the first political party in America. Even the state forces became divided against themselves; there were those who stood for citizenship who also stood for the church, as well as those who stood first and last for the in- dependence of the citizen, versus the church- member. It was a situation to the Puritan's liking. It demanded resistance. When there was no longer another ecclesiastical party to op- pose, it was a constitutional necessity that the Puritan should divide and subdivide himself until he created an antagonist worthy of his fighting capacity. And this was not facile; the Puritan's fighting capacity has probably never been equalled by anyone unless that of his father — the English- man. They were equal until the Puritan out- classed him. It was not until after an election of 1690, that the Old South, or Third Church, had a meeting house. When the time finally came when the new organisation thought to house itself. Governor Billingham, who was a member of the First Church, 8o Old New England Churches made the proceeding as difficult as possible by calling together a council "to consider the danger of 'a tumult; some persons attempting to set up an edifice for public worship, which was apprehended by authority to be detrimental to the public peace.'" At last, with the cooperation of the selectmen, the new society put up its first house, which was of cedar, was two stories high, and had a steeple. It stood upon "the Green." A row of buttonwood trees surrounded it, but in 1775 they -went the way of most things that could be burned and spared in the colony, and were used for firewood to warm both the British and the Puritans. Geographically, at the time, the lo- cation of the cedar hotise was south, and thus it got its name. But then it was not the ' ' Old South, ' ' simply the South meeting house. The Old South came into being only after a church was erected in Summer Street, in 18 17. Then, in order to distinguish one from the other — ^both being south — the original church became the Old South. The new church was raised with the new mental impulse felt in the colony, and since it represented that new hope — ^the hope of toler- ance and logical thinking — it was necessarily prosperous from the very first. Even its Old South Church, Boston, Mass. 8i battles were useful in establishing its tone. It was born to success. The first preacher of the Old South was the Reverend Thomas Thatcher. He came before the cedar house. After him was Samuel Willard, who contributed to the printer more copy than any other preacher of the time, perhaps, unless it was Cotton Mather. One cannot say that either preacher contributed literature, but undeniably, both Mather and Wil- lard wrote. The second preacher again made the Old South luminant by reason of his vigorous attitude against witchcraft. He protested with all his Puritan might and did all that was possible to suppress the viciousness of the Mather regime. The wives and daughters of those men who founded the Old South were not admitted to church membership until five years after the foundation of the society. There is in this an extraordinary and satisfactory illustration of the complete materialism of the Puritan faith. Here was one church organisation refusing to let its dissenters go, in order to prevent those dissenters from uniting with another church organisation. Yet it was the professed belief that unless a man was a chtirch member he was damned . The Puritans , from every evidence, lived , 82 Old New England Churches first to spite England, then to spite each other, finally themselves. The dissenters preferred to spite their God. It was a wonderful confusion of purpose and action and of understanding, taken all in all. They needed, with all this persistence and obstinacy, just one element to make them supreme, and that the South furnished when the crucial moment came. They needed Washington, with his breeding which gives moral perspective, to be a governor upon their emotions. With the infusion of southern civilisation came a new and mighty people, and the Old South Chtirch began to prepare for that condition which was to come a hundred years ahead of its moment. Soon after the cedar house was built came the King's Chapel missionaries, begging for ad- mittance. Burdett says, "Episcopacy was sternly resisted by those sterner Christians, who, fleeing from and then establishing religious intolerance, ftimished one of the most striking though pious illustrations of the art of preaching one thing and practising another which the world has ever seen." Striking, surely, if not entirely pious! It was necessary that the Old South society should resist the efforts of the Episcopalians to establish themselves with the help of the Puritan Old South Church, Boston, Mass. 83 church, because it had been proposed that the clergymen of the Chtirch of England should have the sole right to solemnise marriage. For the Pur- itans to have lent themselves to this enterprise of the English church would have been a serious if not a fatal mistake, but there is evidence that the Puritans rejoiced in an opportunity to abuse the intruding churchmen, rather than that they regretted the occasion. However, moderation was not at that time the Puritan watchword. The history of that moment is told in the story of King's Chapel. Brotherly love — ^never very stong in the Puritan church — had become so dilute a quantity by this time, that both the First Church society and that of the Old South, refused absolutely, as late as 1670, to mend their differences and to dwell to- gether in unity in the same town. The Old South was inclined to shake hands and be friends, long before the First Chtirch got over nursing its wounds. It was not until the intrusion of the King's Chapel folks that in face of a common cause of hostility the two chtirches decided to dwell in harmony. It had become a matter of hanging together or hanging separately. It was in the Old South Church cedar meeting 84 Old New England Churches house where sat that perhaps most ruggedly- magnificent of Colonial characters, Judge Sewall, then Chief Justice. He left behind him priceless memoranda in the form of a diary kept over a period of many, many years, and of all MSS. of that time, it alone is worthy of preservation as litera- ture. It is downright hioman, to the point, and it is tender and it is graceful, if grace is to be found in simplicity and truth. It was this great man's son. Dr. Joseph Sewall, who was pastor of Old South before and after it moved into its brick meeting house, and he was beloved of his world. Before we raze the old cedar house, let us witness the baptism of Benjamin Franklin therein. There is a legend borne upon the Old South Church, as follows: OLD SOUTH Church gathered, 1669 First House Built, 1670 This House Erected, 1729 Desecrated by British Troops, 1775-6 Now when this house was "desecrated by* the British troops" there was contributed the most picturesque happening in the church's history. The most undeveloped imagination will indicate to one the condition of mind and nerves into which Old South Church, Boston, Mass. 85 this threw the patriot Puritan. During this time of wreck and ruin, Old South's congregation turned to King's Chapel for help and found it. It wor- shipped within the precincts of the former foe, for more than five years — ^until 1782, when Old South was rid of British roisterers and was repaired. Whitefield preached here, and is said to have added by his fervour at least a hundred con- verts. While he preached, the church became too crowded and a withdrawal was made to the common. Thereafter it became necessary wholly to conduct his preachings outside, the crowd being always too great to find accommodation in any building. The Piiritan responded to any emotional demand even as if a Latin race had given him birth. He was almost in no sense represent- atively English in anything but his obstinacy. In that one quality he improved upon his forebears. One month of Whitefield left its direct impress upon Boston for more than two years. Dr. Joseph Sewall showed the same indomitable spirit that was revealed in his father, and after many decades spent in the service of the Old South he died, and the following account which tells of his splendid robust persistence until the last is given by Doctor Wisner : 86 Old New England Churches "He had for some time, on account of his in- firmities, been carried into the pulpit from Sabbath to Sabbath; where, like the beloved disciple of old in his latter days, he sat, and with paternal apostolic affection and fidelity, instructed and exhorted his children in the faith. The evening he had arrived to fourscore, he preached to his people an appropriate sermon." He had then been pastor of Old South for fifty years, and he died upon its one hundredth anni- versary. During this time we have evidence of the in- stitution of slavery in Boston; and as is usual it is best illuminated by the press. A paper of that time bears the following advertisement: " To be sold by the printer of this paper, the very best Negro Woman in town, who has had the small-pox and the measels; is as hearty as a horse, as brisk as a bird, and will work like a beaver. Aug. 23d, 1742." To any but the American mind, familiar with the commercial interests of North and South, the atti- tude of Massachusetts toward the Southerner and his problem, in the face of fact like this, would be inexplicable. Here in Old ^South were held those conven- tions called "Town Meetings." Thus the meeting house had within its doors some of the most astute Photograph by HalUday, Boston OLD SOUTH CHURCH, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS '\\hich rose from the ruin wrought by the British troops; the meeting house in which some of the finest legislation in American history took place Old South Church, Boston, Mass. 87 men and brilliant performances of political history. In those only half conventional meetings of the citizens, there passed some of the profoundest, wisest legislation in history. So inimical to Brit- ish interests were these doings that an effort was made to suppress them. The Town Meeting was the backbone of colonial legislation, as a matter of fact. It was from the Old South Church that the assembly of people marched to the Boston Mas- sacre, the harangues and arguments having taken place there, earlier in the day. Samuel Adams had addressed the company, and of the Lieutenant- Governor he said afterwards : "If fancy deceived me not, I observed his knees to tremble; I thought I saw his face grow pale, and I enjoyed the sight." The demand had been for the withdrawal of the King's troops. The summary motion, "Whether is it the firm resolution of this body that the tea shall not only be sent back, but that no duty shall be paid there- on," was put and affirmatively carried in the Old South Church. It was there decided under the circumstances "that in the sense of this body that the use of tea is improper and pernicious." It was after all'of this courageous performance that 88 Old New England Churches Burgoyne's regiment took the church for a riding school, and it must be confessed that the action was directly in keeping with a human weakness that is common to all of us. Certainly if the British had cause to detest anything American — and doubtless they had — it must have been the Old South Church. At that time the interior of the church was nearly torn out to make fires for the soldiery, although, aside from the case of the Old South, there was something like system observed in destroying property — ^the oldest houses being chosen first for destruction, and the de- struction was generally necessary if the people were to keep warm and survive the season. One very shocking affair, however, is to be recorded, and implies vindictiveness pure and simple: "The beautiful carved pew of Deacon Hubbard, with the silken hangings, was taken down and carried to 's house by an officer and made a hog- stye' ' — which does seem to be a characteristic of English rather than of Napoleonic warfare. It were futile to try to present in anything like completeness the picturesque and rugged story of Old South Church, within so limited a space. It has been well and completely done by others, in books devoted solely to its celebration. If Old South Church, Boston, Mass. 89 meant no more to American history than did the other Boston churches here discussed, yet its his- tory is somewhat different in character. It be- longed to the revolutionary time, more especially, and could not avoid a brilliant history, since men, politics, and churches were then one and almost inseparable. CONCORD CHURCH, CONCORD, MASS. CHAPTER V Concord Church, Concord, Massachusetts IN INVESTIGATING the meeting house of New England one becomes curious to know if any other tree than the dak tree flourished in all that region. The monotony of the "spreading oak" as a seat of worship be- comes painful. Certain it was that the Concord, Massachusetts, purchase was transacted under an oak, and that oak was named after one of the settlers, " Jethro's tree." Tradition has it that the oak served later as a belfry. The name Con- cord doubtless stands for the united condition of the settlers. One historian promises to give us the origin of this name, but in handling larger matters he forgets the detail and tells us no more about it. Concord did not exist as a town until fifteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, and it was five years behind Boston in settle- ment. In that year, 1635, the General Court declared that "no new building should be built 93 94 Old New England Churches more than half a mile from the meeting house in any near plantation"; thus Concord was doubtless the first of the settlements arbitrarily to build with the meeting house as its nucleus. A good many of Concord's settlers were rich men. The Rev. Peter Buckley's fortune of ;£6,ooo sterling represented doubtless the maximum of individual fortune. It was said of the entire settlement of New England, that "God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness." However that may be, it is certain that if obstinacy is strength these colonists were Herculean. Of the frightful difficulties of these settlers we have an exceedingly good account in Johnson's "Wonder-working Providence" which was written about 1650. From it we learn how land was purchased from the Indians : "and with much difficulty travelling through unknowne woods, and through watery swamps they discovered the fitnesse of the place; sometimes passing through the thickets, where their hands were forced to make way for their bodies' passage, and their feete clambering over the crossed trees, which when they missed they sunk into an uncertaine bottome in water, and waded up to their knees, tumbling sometimes higher and sometimes lower. Wearied with this toile, Concord Church, Concord, Mass. 95 they at end of this meete with a scorching plaine, yet not such plaine but that the ragged bushes scratched their legs foully, even to wearing their stockings to the bare skin in two or three hours. If they be not otherwise defended with boots or buskings, their flesh will be tome. Some of them being forced to passe on without further pro- vision, have had the bloud trickle down at every step. And further, in the summer the sun cast such a refiect'mg heate upon the sweet feme, whose scent is very strong, that some herewith have beene very near fainting, although very able bodies to undergoe much travel. And it is not to be endured for one day but for many; and verily did not the Lord encourage their natural parts (with hopes of a new and strange discovery expecting every houre to see some rare sight never seen before) they were never able to hold out and breake through." There are many pages of this description — dif- ficulties presented simply and with a forceful choice of words, though sometimes the strange construction distracts us. We read that not only men but " their wives and little ones " shared these extraordinary perils. The same historian speaks with wonderment of how they planted their Indian com: "in hills five foot asunder, and surely when the Lord created this com he had a special eye to supply these His people's wants with it, for ordinarily five or six grains would produce six 96 Old New England Churches hundred. . . . The toil of a new plantation being like the labours of Hercules, never at an end, yet are none so barbarously bent . . . but with a new plantation they ordinarily gather into a new church fellowship, so that pastor and people staffer the inconveniences together which is a great means to season the sore labours they undergoe." * One of the early objects of church settlement in Concord was to Christianise the Indians. They meant to prescribe no method, no form of worship, because it was expressly stated that the Indians were "to read God's word, to know God aright, and to worship him in his own way."f We have complete evidence here in Concord that had those early settlers in -some degree fulfilled their promise of fair dealing, they would have escaped many of their most desperate ills — Indian dangers. The Indians were most amenable to Christian teaching, were not in a resentful mood, discussed religion more logically than super- stitiously, and regarded the bulwark principles of Christianity as a practical means to a practical end, namely to the better ordering of affairs between Indian nations as well as between Indians ♦There is frequently an attempt at punctuation made in these quotations by the compiler as a help to lucidity. So much liberty with the original text seems necessary. titalics are not used in the original. Concord Church, Concord, Mass. 97 and English, and between individuals. If we accept the utilitarian preachment that "what- ever is, is right," we must regard the action of the colonists with favour, and believe that the benefits of earth rightfully and economically belong to those who can make them their own. A properly ordered mathematical mind is bound to regard the vexing and ancient Indian question with a certain tranquillity bom of this view, but a common-or-garden sense of honour seems ever to repudiate the ragged apothegm that "all is fair in love and war." At least we wish that an injustice so antagonistic to sentiment, had not been so hatefully cloaked. We should be glad to think that the Indian lost his privileges, his right to what was his own, by the more heroic machinery of flame and sword, instead of by a mean deception practised upon him by the half- educated. The rank savage is fairly outspoken and crude in his representations, even as a little child is, while the educated man believes that honesty is the best policy even if it be nothing better. It is the middle mind which resorts to the method of our fathers in America. Intel- lectually they were hopelessly mediocre. Emo- tionally they performed miracles without know- 98 Old New England Churches ing it. It would be as absurd to censure them for what they did not know as it would be to reprove the savage for doing what he was com- pelled to do; but it is distressful either way you take it. At this time Concord was the seat of Christian learning and counsel for the Indian, and while this condition lasted, both the settlers and the Indians profited. With an Indian settlement under the wing of the colony, the latter found it necessary to undo that frightful evil of its own people — drunkenness. The Puritans had made alcoholic fiends of the Indians, in their efforts to outwit them, and it had not made a great deal of difference so long as their victims were at a distance; but now, with a settlement at its own door, Concord found it necessary to regulate it. Hence there were orders drawn up by " two faith- ful witnesses . . . their own copy with their own hands to it"; and this document provided " that every one that shall abuse themselves with wine or strong liquor, shall pay, for every time so abusing themselves, 20s." It was not found desirable to apply this regulation to the Christian settler because in most cases it would very seri- ously have interfered with the "raring of the Concord Church, Concord, Mass. 99 meeting hows." This "raring" was mostly done on strong liquors; the grace of God not being a sufficient leverage. It was also determined in this document that the Indians " should pay their debts to the En- glish," but there was no reciprocity. If the Indians did not pay their debts to the English there was some sort of penalty attached, while if the English did not pay their debts to the In- dians there seems to have been no penalty at- tached — ^until after the Indians got wise. Concord set the style in habit as well as in morals for the savages. The manner in which the Indian wore his hair seeraed unsuitable to Concord citizens, and their document of rules declared that the Indian should "wear his hair comely as the English do, and whosoever shall offend herein shall pay 4s"; also the Indians were prohibited to play at their former games without the forfeiture of tenpence. There was one concession: The Indian was prohibited from coming into an Englishman's house without first knocking, and in turn the Englishman agreed to knock upon the Indian's door. In the midst of so much altruism on the part of the Indian and so little reciprocity on the part of the colonist loo Old New England Churches we suspect that Concord's concession to polite- ness was to save the citizen some embarrass- ment; but if we know anything of the Indian we know that the plan miscarried: nothing in- terrupts the Indian. We learn that the Indian under these rules and regulations, of which there were twenty-nine (more than one of them quite unprintable), began at once to reform; that is to say, he began to be more like the settlers. The picturesque side of Concord history lies in its Indian affiliation. There were no records of the Concord church preserved for a hundred years after it was es- tablished. Most of these we have were carefully collated by Shattuck from family records, ancient manuscripts, legends, and similar sources. The first time a group of men came together with the purpose of establishing a church they met in Cambridge, and the punctiliousness of those invited to the seance interfered considerably with its success. The governor and deputy- governor felt there was some informality in the invitation and did not come; but a "day of humiliation" was kept on April sixth, 1637, at Cambridge, after which Mr. Bulkley was chosen teacher and Mr. Jones, pastor. Mr. Bulkley was Concord Church, Boston, Mass. lOI a rich man as fortunes went in those days. He was of excellent birth and a man of letters. This Concord church was the first formally to catechise children. Considerable difficulty followed the organisation of the church, because there was no way of raising the seventy pounds per year voted to Mr. Bulkley as salary. In Peter Bulkley, the first preacher, we have an exceptional example of a man ahead of his time, and he mildly and most excusably repined that he was " shut up away from intellectual fellowship and temperamental interests." We have the character of one preacher of this Con- cord church summed up on his tomb, and judging thereby, Concord indeed was fortunate in its preach- er-citizens. The man was the Rev. John Whiting, who came perhaps more than one hundred years after the organisation of the church.. His epitaph tells us that he was "a gentleman of singular hospitality, who never detracted from the char- acter of any man, and was a universal lover of mankind." There is a sincerity and beauty in this epitaph, which makes it notable among the hundreds of grotesque, bathotic or inconsequent tombstone memoranda of that time. Something of the spiritual situation in Concord I02 Old New England Churches may be inferred from the following entry in White- field's diary, apropos of his visit to Concord. He wrote that he preached to thousands; that "the hearers were frequently melted down"; and that "about £45 was collected for the orphans. The minister of the town being, I believe, a true child of God, I chose to stay all night at his house that we might rejoice together. The Lord was with us. The spirit of the Lord came upon me, and God gave me to wrestle with him for my friends, especially those that are with me. They felt his power. Brother B S , the minister, broke into floods of tears and we had reason to cry out it was good for us to be there." There is something very distressing in the overwrought, unseemly moments that the present generation witnesses through such records as these; but it was that marvellous emotional capacity, ordinarily so foreign to the English, which made possible the stupendous victory of the Revolution. It was not true that " God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness." The Puritan colonists certainly were not men of probity, of benevolence, even of ordinary kindliness of disposition, taken as a people. It is not recorded save in individual cases, that the ordinary virtues demanded of an ordinary civilisation, belonged to those men; Concord Church, Concord, Mass. 103 but where they Hved was to be expected an emo- tional crisis. With the , excuse of English oppres- sion and cruelty as extreme as the oppressive cruelties of their own theocracy, they lived up to the deadly promise of their temperament, their strange and fearful temperament ! They had un- lovely customs, hideous habits of thought ; but their tendency to emotional extremes made a revo- lution and compelled success. Self-preservation being the first law, the absurdity of their religious discipline had to give way, and one hundred and thirty years have made an impossible people marvels of resource; have furnished more average intellectuality than we find among other people, and have destroyed so much of that original obstinacy and intolerance that a very prince among minds has declared "un Americain aimahle, vaut deux Anglais charmants!" — a hundred years after! Marvellous! The town's name did not secure the church from considerable internal difficulty, and we find "twenty-two articles of grievance" chronicled. One grievance dealt with the eminently theo- logical point: did a man know whether or not he was converted? Mr. Bliss had to defend him- self because he had asserted " that every person I04 Old New England Churches that was converted must know it; and afterward denied it." A council could not consent to the first clause : one man might be converted and know it, and another man might be converted and know nothing about it. It was a touchy point ; but then Concord was exceedingly particular — its soldiers are said to have stopped in the wilderness to settle the question, "Whether they were in a covenant of works or a covenant of grace." Mr. Bliss, who seemed inclined to think that the average Christ- ian should be able to diagnose his own case, made his peace with the church at last. He had the power of the revivalist big within him: " He began in a low, moderate strain, and went on for some time in the same manner; but toward the close of his sermon he began to raise his voice and to use many extravagant gestures, and then began a considerable groaning amidst the auditors which as soon as he perceived he raised his voice still higher and then the congregation were in the utmost confusion. Some crying out in the most doleful accents, some howling, some laughing and others singing, and Mr. Bliss still roaring to them to come to Christ — ^they answering, 'I will, I will, I'm coming, I'm coming.' " A negro camp meeting doubtless approaches the Puritan conditions nearer than any other modem exhibition. Concord Church, Concord, Mass. 105 After this the ecclesiastical history in Concord becomes somewhat complicated. Families were disrupted, society was disrupted, and ministers figuratively torn limb from limb. But good came out of this since in the end they united in sharing a more liberal view. In leaving the church, and turning to tales of custom, there are some interesting revelations concerning burial. When the Rev. Mr. Bliss died, his coffin was made by Ebenezer Hartshorn, and "five hundred broad headed coffin nails; and five hundred small white tacks were put on the cover." "White ones used to be used, but later they use them that are japanned black." There are numberless anecdotes to be found of the Concord fighters and one of them seems fairly to epitomise the spirit of the whole fighting colony of America. It was during the battle in which it fell to Concord to kill the first British soldier of the Revolutionary War, that this hap- pened : " most of the provincials preceded them across the bridge, though a few of them returned to Butrick's with their dead. Among those who returned was Luther Blanchard who went to Mrs. Barrett's. Mrs. Barrett examined his wound and mournfully remarked, 'A little more and io6 Old New England Churches you'd been killed.' 'Yes,' said Blanchard, 'and a little more and 'twouldn't have touched me' —and immediately joined the pursuers." This is a rattling good story of a rattling good chap, who probably couldn't have got killed had he tried! In 1743 began the preacher line of Emersons, and we seem incipiently to find in the Rev. William Emerson all those fascinating qualities of mind that belonged later to Ralph "Waldo Emerson. There are those things in the history of his preach- ing which suggest the main characteristic of the essayist's work: Emerson did not always think correctly perhaps, but he compelled his reader to think for himself; inspiring others to creative thought in a degree that is true of no other English writer. It was the great fortune of Concord Church to number an intellectual Emerson among its preach- ers. QUINCY CHURCH, QUINCY, MASS. CHAPTER VI QuiNCY Church, Quincy, Massachusetts npHE YEAR 1636 was the local beginning, and Quincy was the hotbed of anti- nomianism. There is no record of the time when the first meeting house was built nor of the site on which it stood. The stone church has no more positive record than has the first building, but the stone church existed in 1666, for a weather vane which adorned it before it was pulled down, bore that date. This does not establish the time when the house was built how- ever, for the meeting houses in those days acquired their furniture on the installment plan — ^belfry to-day, weathercock to-morow! One historian tells us that the old Plymouth road, laid out in 1640, divided when it reached this church, going two rods north and two rods south. The old meeting house had a bell, but the date of its acquisition is lost. We know a great many things about the church merely by inference. The town appropriated 25s for the salary of top no Old New England Churches Thomas Revells, whose duty it was to ring the bell and to sweep the meeting hpuse. The bell was cracked and hardly worth ringing and because of this Mr. Daniel Lagaree hoped to escape serving as constable. The following significant record is to be found on the minutes of the town meeting. Voted: " Whereas the meeting house bell, by reason of a great crack in it, has become entirely unser- viceable, Mr. Daniel Lagaree offering to mend it on condition of his being freed from being chosen constable, as also he will run the hazard of losing his labour and cost in case he cannot mend it; and further, if anything should happen whereby it should be melted or broken that he will return the same weight of the same metal that he re- ceives. It is voted that the bell be forthwith committed unto him upon the conditions above said and if said Lagaree shall mend it well and workmanlike, whereby it shall again prove suf- ficiently serviceable according to its dimensions, he shall either be freed from being constable as he desires or he shall be paid for his labour accord- ing to its due value." Mr. Lagaree was unable to fulfil his contract. This Quincy meeting house is about the only instance we have of a colonial church being built of stone. It had a turret and it had gutters and it seems to have been altogether modem in many Quincy Church, Quincy, Mass. iii of its appointments; but like all other congre- gations of the time, Quincy' s shivered. It did not even have foot-stoves; but "they preached their brimstone theology with such fervour that it imparted sufficient caloric to keep them com- fortably warm in the coldest weather." Long prayers were the rule here, but it is doubtful if they matched those heard in Weymouth from the Rev. Mr. Torrey, a record breaker in the mat- ter of lengthy supplications. One prayer is said to have lasted two hours, but the hearers out- stayed him, and only wished that he might have prayed an hour longer. Probably the preacher was so much exhausted that the congregation felt safe in thus expressing itself. Notwithstand- ing the honest stone structure the people of Quincy had built, they were as dissatisfied as those who worshipped in wooden houses, and about 1695 began to throw stones toward a new house. We may infer from the minutes of a later meeting that no immediate action was taken: "Mr. Caleb Hubbard and Mr. Benjamin Sevill Were instructed to stop the leaks in the south side of the meeting house." This they did, and let it go at that for thirty-five years; but at the end of that time the old house was in a desolate 112 Old New England Churches condition. The guttering had gone bad, and twenty shillings were paid to the Precinct Clerk to clear the snow from the inside. The same official received the billet to rid the church of dogs. Quincy church must have been a very Con- stantinople for dogs! The difficiilty became so great everywhere that in one town they had a law which read: "Every dog* that comes to the meeting house either of the Lord's day or lecture day except it be their dogs that pay for a dog- whipper, the owner of those dogs shall pay six- pence for every time they come to the meeting that doth not pay the dog-whipper. " — Involved, but covers the point ! Away back in Old England we find Archbishop Laud in trouble over this same matter of dogs. There is compensation in the knowledge that he was in trouble over anything. It became necessary for the Arch- bishop to direct, "that the rail before the com- munion table shall be made 'near one yard in height so thick with pillars that dogs may not get in.' " Dogs were necessary to the colonists because they helped to scare the wolves off, and a man was compelled by law to keep them. One record tells us that the old stone church Quincy Church, Quincy, Mass. 113 was finally sold in 1747 with the understanding that it was to be converted into a poorhouse, or at least that a poorhouse was to be put up on the same site; but another record declares that the sale was not completed until long after. In the building of the third meeting house there was much delay, hesitancy, and dissatis- faction, and it was a good while before it got as far as "bread, cheese, sugar, rum, cider, and beer at the cost of the precinct," without which de- tails a meeting house could hardly have been erected. Finally the requisite motion was voted on and carried, and with the help of this refresh- ment the townspeople raised the meeting house. The mixed drink was to be found in its fullest splendour at that time, even if it did not include the entire spectrum. To-day public opinion has placed certain strictures upon it, and it is some- what more proper to be sober than drunk, but in those days alcoholic incentive was an essential to all public effort, and it was as natural to be drunk as sober. It is quite terrible to read of the excesses of the Puritan fathers. In one town, at a meeting house raising, two barrels of rum were secured by the selectmen, which they hoped would be "liquor sufficient for the spectators." 114 Old New England Churches Samuel Mather's mixed - drink formula was as famous in its day as Pope's magnificent poem to the Epicure is in ours. The former reads; "To purest water sugar must be joined; With these the grateftil acid is combined; When now these three are mixed with care, Then added be of sugar a small share ; And that the drink we may quite perfect see, A top a musky nut must grated be." In Boston, John Bayle was able to secure a liquor license only on condition that he set up his rumshop near the meeting house of the Second Church, and there he offered an "invitation to thirsty sinners' ' on their way to hear Increase Mather berate them. The' fortunes of the New England aristocrat were almost without exception made in the slave trade, the making of rum, or the trade in tobacco. The latter it was considered a sin to smoke but they sold it to the Dutch and used the New England meeting house in which to store it. The West Indians and Virginians bought most of their slaves from the New England importers, and we have note of three thousand pounds of tobacco given as an equivalent for a negro boy or girl between the ages of seven and eleven. Four thousand pounds of Virginia tobacco was about the figure for a boy or girl between the ages Photograph by HalUday, Boston OLD CHURCH: "CHURCH OF STATESMEN," QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS Where John and John Quincy Adams lie buried. The meeting house built of stone given from President John Adams' quarries II . . II . I '' i r ii ' ii mj ' I III II • i iii|iiii ii i iiii«M | ii Quincy Church, Quincy, Mass. 115 of eleven and fifteen; but a young woman be- tween the ages of fifteen and twenty-four was put in the balance with five thousand pounds. The ships were so deeply laden with slaves that it became at one time impossible to carry any rum, and this was so great a grievance that the slaves' fate hung in the balance. Should several be thrown overboard and a hogshead of rum take their place, or should appetite be sacrificed to the more permanent investment? These old meeting-house fathers showed the famous New England trade-instinct early. One Simeon Fotter who was in the business of buying people started his captain off with rum in 1768, with the following instructions: "Make your Chief Trade with the Blacks and little or none with the white people if possible to be avoided. Worter ye Rum as much as possible and sell as much by short measure as you can." This commercial method was by no means ex- ceptional. It was the rule of the Puritan fathers. These methods gave many a man first place in the New England meeting house when the selectmen came to apportion the seats, wealth being a reason for precedence in the colonial church structure. ii6 Old New England Churches It is hardly ever recorded that honesty and integrity were demanded of these Puritans, and at any rate these qualities had naught to do with establishing precedence of any sort; except in- deed that honest men, if there were any such, were likely to pass unprecedently ignored. Ben- jamin Lynde's diary gives us a glimpse of a man punctiliously honest in the matter of paying his share of the scot and in keeping even with his neighbours. But that was honesty of an exclu- sively personal sort, and what evenBenjaminLynde did when it came to an unsentimental business transaction we do not know. Probably he did very much as his neighbours did, being in Rome. The new Quincy meeting house received from Madame Norton a velvet cushion for the pulpit, and we learn that " the appearance of the church, inside as well as out, is still quite respectable." A meeting house with a velvet cushion, and such other equipment as we read Quincy's had, was very exceptional; although there was great rivalry in the matter of interior decoration at that time. We read of one meeting house that was painted bright yellow and red, and at once the congre- gations all about took fire and blossomed forth in the same colours. We have the description Quincy Church, Quincy, Mass. 117 of another house on which was represented both ends of the spectrum in a very amazing fashion: "The body of the church was painted a bright orange; the doors and bottom part a warm chocolate colour; the window jets and comer boards and weather boards white. This church possessed an 'eleclarick rod' and boasted it was the 'newest, biggest and yallowest' in the country." These were highly coloured times in all respects. That old first church of Quincy had in its his- tory many homely details not without interest. It rested on two rows of hammered stone. It was not built thus at first, but the stone founda- tion was later made a part of the structure. At that time the town decided that this ham- mered stone under three walls of the church was all that appearance demanded. This left the east side in a rough condition, and that was the side which looked toward Thomas Baxter's house. The Rev. Mr. Wibard, pastor of the church, boarded at Baxter's, and the rough, unfinished side was continually in his sight. When he learned of the town's decision to let it stand thus he exclaimed, " Why should not my side be hammered stone, too ? It must be; I will pay for it myself." There are many lovable, generous things told of this same preacher. As he looked over the tax ii8 Old New England Churches lists from which his salary was prepared, he now and again would erase a name with the remark, "This man has been unfortunate" or "Such an one needs the money more than I do " and would strike out the name, thereby reducing his own income greatly. At last the first church was sold at public auction. The pulpit brought three dollars and the stove forty-two dollars and fifty cents. The first Sunday after the old church was destroyed, there were no services held at any place in the town, even as if there had been a death; and then for three Sabbaths before the dedication of the new church there was public worship in the town hall. The stone in the church which was built in 1827 was taken from President John Adams's quarries and John Quincy Adams assisted at the laying of the cornerstone. Under the portico of the church in a granite tomb are the remains of President John Adams and Abigail his wife, and there, too, lie the re- mains of J. Q. Adams and his wife. In Quincy, as elsewhere, there was much op- position to Catholics, and the prejudice and antag- onism were so profound that the people perfectly well merited George Washington's rebuke delivered upon his arrival in Cambridge. It was the custom Quincy Church, Quincy, Mass. 119 frequently to bum the Pope in effigy, and Washing- ton felt obliged to issue the following order: " November sth. As the Commander-in-Chief has been apprised of a design formed for the obser- vance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the effigy of the Pope, he cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be officers and soldiers in the army so void of common sense as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this juncture; at a time when we are soliciting and have really obtained the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as brethren embarked in the same cause — ^the defence of the general liberty of America. At this juncture and under such cir- cumstances, to be insulting their religion is so monstrous as not to be sttffered or excused. In- deed, instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these, our brethren, as to them we are indebted for every late happy success over the common enemy in Canada." If the leaven of Virginian high breeding had only been more generally insinuated into the Puritans at that time, the result might have been all for good, and much disturbance brought about by extraordinary Puritan intolerance have been avoided. However, it is as profitable to speculate on the result if Beelzebub had remained an archangel. OLD SLIP CHURCH, HINGHAM, MASS. CHAPTER VII Old Slip Church, Hingham, Massachusetts THE first meeting house was probably built for Hingham soon after the settlement was made in 1635. It was surrounded by the usual stockade and from the very beginning it had the advantage over other colonial churches of possessing a belfry with a bell in it. The building was erected almost before the fields had felt the ploughshare ; certainly long before the first harvest was reaped. Hingham' s neighbours were the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and they exchanged visits in back-door fashion by following the trail that led through the forest from one town to another. Besides its church, Hingham was supplied with three forts and garrison houses, because the terror of King Philip's War was a constant re- minder of the little town's need of these things. The second meeting house, structurally, was simplicity itself. Here was preached "The Old Man's Calendar," which has been translated into Dutch, and has found European publication. 123 124 Old New England Churches The names, Hobart, Lincoln, Thaxter, Beal, Gushing, Fearing, Loring, Hersey, Whiton, Sprague and others are found among the list of first citizens. Here as in most of the colonies, the first settlers gathered under an oak tree, and in Hingham they were led by Peter Hobart, as pastor. He had been called by Governor Win- throp "a bold man" who "did speak his mind." Four of his fifteen children became preachers. Peter Hobart was succeeded by John Norton, and his hesitancy in undertaking this parish is ex- pressed in an entry in Judge Sewall's diary: " Went to Mr. Norton to discourse with him about coming into the church. He told me he waited to see whether his faith were of the occasion of God's spirit, and yet often said that he had very good hope of his good Estate. . . . He said, was unsettled, had thought of going out into the country. . . . And at last, that he was for that which was purely independent. I urged what that was. He said that all of the Church were a royal Crusade, all of them Prophets taught by God's spirit, and that a few words from the heart were worth a great deal: intimating the benefit of Christians prophesying: for this he cited Mr. Dell. I cannot get any more." Marriage (we may assume it was marriage since there is recorded no other eventful happening in Old sup Church, Hingham, Mass. 125 the pastor's life at that time) inspired the follow- ing title to a poem, "A Funeral Elogy Upon That Patron of Virtue, the truly pious, careful & matchless Gentlewoman, Mrs. Ann Bradstreet." It were courting misfortune to investigate the poem further than its title, although it has been called by a historian of American literature " a sorowful and stately chant." When the citizens of Hingham outgrew the palisado, they seem to have outgrown their meet- ing house and a new one was "rar'd" in 167 1. On the fifth of January 1671-72 a town meeting was held for the first time in the new house and on the Sunday following, occurred its first use for divine service, the baptism of two babies. To erect this building a tax had been levied on one hundred and forty-three persons, and it had cost the town four hundred and thirty pounds, with the old house thrown in. This is no small in- vestment when it is calculated that the personal property of the whole Plymouth Colony did not exceed twelve hundred pounds. Although it was now a time of peace and comparative pros- perity in these settlements, we must not permit the imagination to play tricks upon us and present a picture of rejoicing or even o£ moderate gaiety. 126 Old New England Churches One of the cruelest of Puritan preachers, the Rev Nicholas Noyes, gives an account of the Rev. Thomas Parker : that " once on hearing some others laugh very freely, while I suppose he was better busied in his room above us, he came down and gravely said thus, 'Cousins, I wonder you can be so merry, unless you are sure of your salvation.' " A forbidding picture, indeed! In a printed address by Dr. Charles Eliot Nor- ton this phase of early Puritan piety has been pointed out with an editorial exactness to be found nowhere else. We are reminded that not a song, love poem, or strain of secular music has been handed down from that period; that the creative and poetic imagination was without soil even to sprout in; and that in the writings of the first and second generations of native born New Englanders (of which we have enough from which to draw con- clusions) we find no touch of the observation of Nature nor any indication of pleasure in her aspect. Ann Bradstreet sang of Philomel " chanting a most melodious strain' ' on the banks of the Merrimac, but she lacked eyes for the flowers and ears for the birds. The same editor directs our attention to the single exception which proves the rule, provided " by the sedate, stout-hearted, provincial Judge Sewall." Old sup Church, Hingham, Mass. 127 In those days men went out of doors to till their fields, to shoot the deer that trespassed, and many never returned: silent, cruel Indian war methods went on all about them. They tilled their fields with their firelocks by their sides, and all space, not already peopled with physical dangers, was filled, by their superstitions, with devils that breathed hellfire. To them Satan was as personal as God, and we learn that "the devil had doubt- less felt more than ordinary vexation upon the arrival of the Christians in this wilderness." When we read of Salem, we almost accept this notion. If he did not resent the superior devil- ishness of Salem over his own domain, during the witchcraft period, the devil lacked discrimination. The second generation under this gross, theo- logical rule was necessarily inferior to the first. That bom on American soil came into fixed and disastrously circumscribed conditions, the result of the preceding obstinate and intolerant rule. The fathers we may reasonably assume had builded not better but worse than they knew; .because they had been university men, of much reading if not of large understanding. When they digressed from fairly humane practices it was because of an overwhelming egotism rather 128 Old New England Churches than an overwhelming conscientiousness; but that habit of thought in the first generation be- came instinct in the second — a generation isolated from literature and completely without scientific knowledge or opportunity. Here is a chronicle of superstition that can hardly be called a literary note: " Mr. Winthrop, the younger, one of the magis- trates, having many books, in a chamber where there was com of divers sorts, had among them one of a Greek testament, the Psalms and a com- mon prayer book bound together. He found the common prayer eaten with mice, every leaf of it, and not any of the two others touched, nor any other of his books, though there were about a thousand." This evidence that when the cat's away the mice will play was quite enough at that period of New- England development to relegate the prayer book to the list of heresies, were it not there al- ready. In Judge Sewall's family we find the strongest evidence of really human impulses and natural tendencies to be got from that time. He wrote: " When I came in, past 7. at night, my wife met me in the Entry and told me Betty had surprised them ... [It seems Betty Sewall had given some signs of dejection and sorrow] but a little Old Slip Church, Hingham, Mass. 129 after this she cried out in an amazing cry which cus'd all the family to cry too; her mother asked the reason; she gave none; at last she said she was afraid she would goe to hell, her sins were not pardoned." Then follows this poor child's conscience-question- ings, started by a sermon of Cotton Mather's, and her self-immolations offer to our consideration a disjointed theology worthy of the longest and most superstitious head in the settlement. It was not the least of Cotton Mather's cruel sins — to have caused little Betty to cry on account of her soul on that January night. When Norton preached in the Hingham church a sermon for which it was ordered that thanks be given him, old Judge Sewall made the note, " I was with a committee in the morn, and so by God's good providence absent when Mr. Corwin and Gushing were ordered to thank Mr. Norton for his sermon and desire a copy." These human utterances amid inhtoman surroundings would "out" in spite of Puritan theology and the uni- versal devil — 'or possibly because of him. If so we are inspired to cry, "Good devil!" Some of the very best reflections of that time and their meaning to humanity are set forth from the ministerial point of view by Dr. Charles Eliot 130 Old New England Churches Norton in his anniversary address. They show an appreciation of spiritual values not common among those who lived according to dogma. Those people had come to New England for a purpose which was made holy by the dangers they braved to support it, but after a generation, because this purpose had been carried too far, we beheld the wholly natural result: a period of degeneracy. Even the most active in the conduct of this time had, in the interests of self-preserva- tion, to acknowledge the degenerate tendency. But to return to the local affairs of Hingham. The pastorate of Ebenezer Gay, a graduate of Harvard College, and of the preacher who pre- ceded him, stretched over a hundred years. It was during Ebenezer Gay's administration that Benjamin Lincoln's son Benjamin was baptised in the meeting house. The Lincoln family were of the original stock of the town, represented its public spirit, and figured in much of the economic history of Hingham. Washington said of General Benjamin Lincoln, " He is an active-spirited sensible man." With Dr. Gay's accession, theology be- came less sombre in tone. It ceased to be a sin to wear the hair long; youth might dance and not be damned; laugh and not be lost. Even so late Old sup Church, Hingham, Mass. 131 as 1755 'the problem of women's millinery — should it be on or off in public places — ^was a matter of large importance. It was not permissible for the unconverted to sing psalms — ^which would seem logically to account for a large number of unregenerate. In 1855 Calvin Lincoln, a descendant of Peter Hobart, became associate pastor of Hingham church, and he served until the morning of September 8, 1881; he died during the service held that day for the recovery of President Garfield. In the same meeting house, in the cold com- fortless days of its early history, the good folk of Hingham were compelled to stamp upon the floor and strike their hands together in order to keep warm, thereby drowning the sermon without being able to make the excuse that this noise was applause. To applaud anything in this world at that time was a sin. When the Bay Psalm Book came into use, most of the congregation were unable to read it, and therefore "lining the hymn" was practised in Hingham church, as in others. The pitch pipe that was first used gave way to the flute and ultimately to the clarionet. There was no read- ing of the Scriptures in this house and the zeal of 132 Old New England Churches the preacher often prompted the turning of the hour glass until the sands had run out twice. One preacher, probably not of Hingham, dis- played a jocosity which smacks of latter day spirit rather than of former day piety. His con- gregation becoming restless, he cried, " I know you are good fellows; stay and take another glass"; and up he turned the hour glass. Some- ■ thing even better is told of a preacher who stood in the Hingham pulpit, which was on the side of the church next the cemetery. Upon seeing many of his congregation asleep he gently re- marked that "those behind him could hear as well as those before him." Another who came as a substitute to the Hingham pulpit had reached his "seventeenthly," and had at last announced "finally," when an old farmer declared his satis- faction, because the milking had to be done, it was six miles home and he was afraid he should not get there on time. The tithing man was rampant in Hingham and there is one illustration of reflex action bringing into disgrace at least one man, who was hauled before the Court " for common sleeping during the public exercises upon the Lord's day, and for striking him that waked him"; and since he was not sorry he was sen- Old sup Church, Hingham, Mass. 133 tenced to be "severely whipped." Whipping was a favourite means of discipline. Even the aristo- crats caught it, though it was legally forbidden that " any true gentleraan be punished with a whip unless his crime be very shameful and his course of life vicious and profligate." In the economy of nations the crime which threatens to undermine the common welfare, and has a tendency to become most prevalent, is most severely punished. Witness the crime of horse stealing in the West, punishable by death without ceremony, because in that community it was un peche mignon; for no man could get on and grow up with the country without a horse. Since a man's very existence depended upon a horse, horse stealing became the unpardonable sin of the West. Just so, we are able to deduce the darling crime of the Puritan fathers, when we look over the Connecticut blue laws and classify their punishments. Some are bom with fathers and some acquire them, but we are inclined to resent having our Puritan fathers thrust upon us, when we read of their degenerate crimes ; and we must conclude since death was their penalty, the tendency to err thus was so persistent that naught but killing would stop it. 134 Old New England Churches The sermons in Hingham were frequently taken down by one Matthew Hawke, in shorthand; which proves that this modem convenience of stenography was in relatively ancient use. There was a stool of repentance as well as the tithing man's rod; and there was open confession — to which the tithing man's rod must have been as honey to vinegar. The weekly lecture prevailed in Hingham as elsewhere, under such auspices as made legislative interference necessary. It brought about the edict that "general assemblies must ordinarily break up in such season that people who dwell a mile or two off might get home by daylight." "The parson was the person in that day." By speaking against the parson, a man made himself subject to having his ears cut off. Everyone had to contribute to the support of the parson, yet he managed to starve painfully! If the people did not come to hear him they were fined five shillings for each offence, and there was no allowance for holidays. But the parson escaped weddings and funerals; because marriages be- came affairs for the magistrates, and there were no prayers for the dead. Peter Hobart was sadly taken to task because v.;„J L^ Photograph by E. B. SoderhoUz^ Boston THE " OLD SHIP " MEETING HOUSE, HINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS Where sermona were transcribed in shorthand more than one hundred years ago, and where ministers were forbidden to per- form "the solemnity of marriage" Old Slip Church, Hingham, Mass. 135 he went to Boston to officiate at the marriage of some man of his parish. Governor Winthrop says, " We were not wilUng to bring in the Enghsh custom of ministers performing it (the solemnity of marriage)." There seems to be discrepancy somewhere, probably in the phraseology. Was there not supposed to be some solemnity about preachers? And if not, why not? The familiar nomenclature which distinguished the days of the week was carefully avoided because of its relation to heathenism, and thus the days became first, second, third, and the like; and the months became numerical also. To be expelled from the church was to be expelled from the colony. If you were with- out ecclesiastical law, you were without civil law, and became an outcast. Alphabetical pun- ishments were common. Drunkards wore sus- pended from the neck the letter D in red cloth set upon white; a Quaker was branded with the letter H to notify the world of his heresy; and the tramp wore his brand of R signifying rogue, surely in red and upon white, since it was branded upon his left shoulder; and who forgets the scarlet letter A! FIRST CHURCH, LEXINGTON, MASS. CHAPTER VIII First Church, Lexington, Massachusetts ON THE night of April i8, 1775, John Han- cock and Sam Adams went to bed dead tired after a close confab at Clark's on the subject that all the New World was lying awake over. When Jonas Clark had barred the door, the word went forth that Hancock and Adams wanted to "sleep it out." Over in Cambridge the committee of safety still sat, because, as a matter of fact, things looked ominous. Hancock and Adams were in none too good odour with the British, and their friends were anxious about them. Hancock had snored for three hours and Adams was not far behind, when the whole town got out of bed: Revere was heard coming down, while fully a mile away, with Joseph Warren's message to Hancock and Adams: "There were eight or nine officers of the King's troops seen just at nightfall going along the road toward Lexington. Their manner was suspicious and it was suspected that they were out upon some evil design." 139 I40 Old New England Churches That was enough: Lexington got into its breeches! The moment had come when the shot that rang round the world was to be fired. The men told the women folks not to be scared — it would be all right; but they'd better keep themselves locked up while the men went over to Dudley's tavern to see about it. It had taken the Minute men thirty seconds to get there, and it's queer that after that night, when they broke their own record, they were not reborn to history, with 59 seconds knocked off! Since that night many people have agitated themselves over the " shot that rang." Some say it did and some say it didn't. It is easily enough settled: it did! Lexington was on the run — she couldn't help it with all England after her at two -o'clock in the morning, but she raised her garden tools, turned round and fired the shot that rang. "A handful" of dead men on her spring-green Common meant more of revolution than would ten thousand live men behind the guns: dead men count when they die at the right time, in the right place. This all happened nearly a hundred years after Lexington built her first meeting house. After many efforts to break away from the First Church, Lexington, Mass. 141 mother church at Cambridge, Lexington had finally established its own parish and its own house. It was agreed that the town should " choose three or five persons to assess their inhabitants for the support and maintenance of their minister as also a constable or arbitor to gather the same by warrant from said assessors." The first meeting of this new parish was held on April 22, 1692. David Fisk was clerk and the parish resolved to invite Mr. Benjamin Estabrook to preach to them for one year. The meeting house was not yet built but it was begun. It was a rude structure with shingled roof; it had no steeple and was unpainted. It had a "turriott" near where the bell was hung, and probably this "turriott" was sentinelled for the safe-guarding of the people. The Lexington folk who had fought a long time for this church of their own, sat in their meeting house upon plain benches — wind and weather coming through the unchinked spaces of the rude structure — and there were holes conveniently left in the floor through which the congregation spat. The house was galleried and had separate stairs for men and women, while the church seats were apportioned according to " age, dignity, and wealth," a precedence being given to age, which 142 Old New England Churches we do not find in the seat apportionment of other parishes. This exceedingly wise and proper ar- rangement seems frequently to have miscarried; and the reason is obvious. From the beginning, Lexington had been bound to be prosperous — prosperous by force if need be; yet prosperous. Hence she warned out of town all who seemed likely to become a public charge. Notwithstanding this severity, we find evi- dences of a touching gallantry in Lexington. William Reed asked that he be allowed to put in a "settee" for good wife Reed; and several other men built "handsome seats against the wall" for their wives. The sexes being separated these men could not share the comfort, thus theirs was a disinterested benevolence. That first meeting house cost about three hun- dred dollars, nearly the price of a properly equipped up-to-date woodshed, and this sum was con- tributed by forty-three persons bearing twenty- two different family names. The people of Lex- ington (Cambridge farms) were not gathered in the shadow of the meeting house but scattered about on lonely farms, frequently with swamps be- tween and farms difficult of access ; but near at hand were the stocks, because where the church stood, First Church, Lexington, Mass. 143 must be placed the means for enforcing its dis- cipline. At the first parish meeting, when Mr. Estabrook was chosen minister, it was voted " that we will give forty pounds a year, half in money, viz., twenty pounds, and twenty pounds in paper and other money prise and that it should be for his salary and the supply for his enter- tainments." Before he finally settled, a parson- age was built, and it was voted "that the house built for Mr. Benjamin Estabrook should be left to him freely without any obligation but his settling with us, and his taking offis with us, and his abiding with us." Then came dissensions: in the precedence given to age over dignity, to dignity over wealth, in seating the congregation, so much distur- bance was created that it became necessary to readjust the method. The committee finally determined to give precedence to real estate holders and to the heads of families. Further- more everyone was obliged to record his age before a date set by the selectmen, that the seat- ing might be fairly done. Thus was a premium put on lying by trying to establish the qualification of priority — ^which was hardly necessary, if wealth and the patriarch were to be given first place. 144 Old New England Churches In course of time, the congregation became vain and impatient, and it was decided: " That the meeting house should be repay ered and that the bodey of seats shal be driven back, and that there shal be a table set up before the body of seats the whol length of the body of seats ; and that the meeting house shall be seelled up with pine boards, and handsome seats for women be made on each side of the meeting house, raised to convenient height of the church; that on the east side next to the door shall be for Mrs. Esta- brook." At the same time the young minister's salary was slightly increased. On October 21, 1696, the time of his ordination, Mr. Estabrook "made a good sermon on Jer. iii: 15," for Judge Sewall made a note of this in his diary and he adds: " Mr. Estabrook the father managed this, having prayed excellently. Mr. Wilier gave the charge, Mr. Fox the right hand of fellowship." The town voted at one time "that no writing of a secular concernment should be put up at the meeting house for the people to read on Sun- day " ; which meant that no notices, given by the selectmen, of muffs lost by careless gentlemen, par example, or any notification whatsoever of public concerns, could be posted on the church door. Colonial affairs had advanced beyond First Church, Lexington, Mass. 145 that time when wolves' heads were nailed to the wall with a memorandum of bounty due. After Mr. Fox came an ancestor of the John Hancock who was asleep in Jonas Clark's house the night Paul Revere rode. The Rev. Carlton Staples in discussing the rigid classification of the citizens of that little community says: " John Hancock could not have stood very high in such a catalogue since he was the son of a Cambridge shoemaker. . . when he came to preach here, and looked upon the congregation from the high pulpit he could tell at a glance where the people of financial and social standing sat, whether the Bowmans were richer than the Bridges, or the Munroes than the Reeds, or the Cutlers than the Wellingtons, or the Muzzeys than the Fisks." But John Hancock belonged to that aristocracy which sets men apart from others, all the world over — ^the aristocracy of intellect. He was a Harvard graduate and a man of much ability. Here he settled and established a line which gave the country nearly thirty ministers, teachers, college professors and other professional men. These were the days when "a painful preacher" stood highest in public esteem and "painful" preaching implied long sermons, profound dis- quisitions on Puritan theology and its "copious 146 Old New England Churches ^ application to the state of the hearers." We infer that John Hancock was of this "painful" class, because he preached twice a day, with an hour between discourses, writing out his sermons with great particularity; and he mentions that "preaching without manuscript and good sense seldom go together." That first scholarly preacher, John Hancock, was a man of critical acumen, for in speaking of the Noachian deluge he queried, " How is it possible, if the flood was universal, for enough water to have fallen in forty days to have covered the tops of the highest mountains? " Then follow some mathematical calculations proving that forty years of rainfall would have been necessary to achieve this; and next he asks ^ike the Scotchman, who thanked God he was not, on a certain point, open to conviction : "What became of all that additional water? But if it was local, confined to Judaea, what use was there of building the ark to save Noah and his family?" All of this does not detract from our admiration of the Rev. John Hancock's intellectual capacity; but it is a wonder that the gentleman was not hanged! This was the story of the Lexington First Church, Lexington, Mass. 147 pulpit! All the world knows the story of its patriotism! In early colonial days the preachers were the legal advisors as well, that being a time when law- yers were not permitted to live in the community, their profession being objectionable. It was in his pseudo-legal capacity that John Hancock settled a dispute in a manner characteristic not only of himself but of the time: "Now, Reuben and Joseph, your line runs there and there let it run forever. That is your land, Joseph, and that is your land, Reuben; and let us have no more quarrelling about this matter." This straight-a-way, one-man opinion was by no means unsatisfactory when the verdict was that of the man of highest moral and mental attain- ment in all the region. In Lexington the Bible was not read as a part of the service until many years after the meeting house was established. Confessions of a gruesome nature were made there, perhaps the most fre- quent being for the violation of the seventh commandment. There was a confession of the killing of a neighbour's cow and another of in-= temperance. Each one seems to have been elab- 148 Old New England Churches orately written out and read in open church. Of all the colonial church administrations Lexing- ton's was to be noted among the most liberal. In an anecdote of the splendid forceful John Mahu, which shows much of his downright, rugged methods, it is related that in his advancing years some of the parish wished to have el- ders appointed to assist him with his duties. After listening attentively to the opinions of two of the deacons, he said, "I suppose you will be willing ta accept the office yourselves?" And they assented. " Do you know what elders are required to do?" asked the parson. The deacons answered that they did not but would be glad to learn. " Well, they are to groom, saddle, and bridle the minister's horse when he wishes to ride; bring it to the door and hold the stirrup for him to mount; and when he goes to other towns on ministerial duties, to accompany him and pay the expenses." — ^The deacons withdrew the motion. Mahu's sense of humour cut both ways. He was calling upon a well-to-do parishioner and was asked to partake of refreshments. An opulent- looking cheese was brought on and he was re- quested to help himself. First Church, Lexington,, Mass. 149 "But, madam," the parson asked, "where am I to cut this fine cheese?" "An5rwhere you please, sir." "Well then, I will cut it at home."— The emotions of the lady are not recorded. This thinker, wit, epigrammatist, and truly good man served the parish for nearly fifty-five years. It was not until its incorporation as the town of Lexington, instead of Cambridge Farms, that a new meeting house was built. It cost about five hundred pounds and was occupied first in October, 1 7 1 4 ; but still the Lexington congregation sat with- out heat and beneath no steeple. Jonas Clark followed John Hancock in the pul- pit. Lexington seems to have been peculiarly blessed with wise leaders, men of liberal thought, and it now was approaching the moment destined to establish an extraordinary period in history — April, 1775. From the inauguration of the second church building we begin to feel the rapid pulse of col- onial state affairs and to smell the powder of the Revolution. From this moment church and sec- ular history'- become so involved, so intimate, that to speak of one is to reveal the other. Lex- ington was called upon ten years before Pavil 150 Old New England Churches Revere rode down, to decide what instruction the town should give to Great Britain in regard to the Stamp Act. It was Jonas Clark who wrote these instructions and presented them to William Reed, the representative of the town. The papers reveal Mr. Clark as a statesman of parts, as well as a minister of religion. He stood in the rear of his church and was an eye-witness to that early morning fight in '75. Next day he preached about it, and he also wrote a narrative to append to the sermon which is altogether the most in- spiring account ever written. It is . presented with all the particularity of an eye-witness, and probably of a participant; for who doubts that every preacher in those days fit to carry a Bible carried a gun. Jonas Clark's theology seems not to have made him unchristian, and if less progressive than Christ he was more progressive than his pre- decessor, John Hancock. It was this second meeting house which witnessed "the birth of American liberty"; but in 1794 Lexington felt the need of something finer, and at last it de- clared for pews, a steeple, and a bell which should toll a curfew, and toll too for the dead. Here also we have the first account of a singing Unitarian Olljnrtli l^cxtngton, jMassnchasttis Photograph by B. E, Whitcher, Lexington, Man. FIRST PARISH CHURCH, LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS Whose meeting houses have been the scene of much Revolutionary story, and are most intimately allied with war history First Church, Lexington, Mass. 151 school — ^that parent of the church choir. Pres- ently, Dr. Watts 's hymns were chosen, and Rob- ert Harrington, Jr., set the tunes. Just before giv- ing up the second meeting house the fall vote was cast, marking the introdtiction of the Bible as a part of the church service. This happening came with the present of a Bible from Governor Hancock. It was a large, handsome volume and the appreciation of this new glory doubtless in- spired Lexington folk to let "the Scriptures be read as a part of divine service for public worship for the future." The ministry of John Hancock and Jonas Clark covered more than a hundred years. The last memorandum in Jonas Clark's diary is "Finished haying to-day." The Revolution may almost be classed with the religious wars because "almost ever5rwhere men looked upon the war as a holy war." Samuel Adams said, "This union among the colonies, and warmth of affection, can be attributed to nothing less than the agency of the Supreme Being." Ever5rwhere in these New England churches there reigned preachers imbued with warlike spirit, preaching war and resistance. Men went forth to battle from under the hand raised in benediction. They marched impressed 152 Old New England Churches that they fought first for God, since they had established themselves for religious liberty be- fore they had battled for civil right. When news of the Lexington fight reached a little neighbouring town one Sunday afternoon, sig- nal shots were fired, men took their firelocks, bade their families farewell, and hurried to the dea- con's yard. There the old preacher, standing among them, read from the Bible, offered a prayer, invoked a blessing and then "twenty men with knapsacks on their backs and muskets on their shoulders marched on forth to Boston," two hundred miles away. Lexington history honours such names as Jedediah Munroe who, wounded in the morning, rode in the afternoon to spread the alarm among the citizens; and Jonas Parker of whom Everett says, "History, Roman history, does not furnish an example of bravery that outshines that of Jonas Parker." It was the art of war which the colonists had learned in the enemy's service, that was to undo the enemy; yet when a battle was lost, the Puritans saw God's chastening hand; when a battle was won, they rejoiced in the evidence of His favour. Thus the cry was still: " Dieu et mon droit! " At last the Revolution ceased and there again First Church, Lexington, Mass. 153 at Dudley's tavern Lexington churchgoers warmed themselves in winter, — ^the women in the parlour, where they ate their lunches, and the men in the barroom where they took flip and gossiped about the war, about military victories past, civil vic- tories to come, and who can say what dreams of ambition came to those men of the New World at a time when every man was monarch! People now began to relax. The reaction was well nigh hysterical. The days were only just passed when the pulpit preached " Let the young woman refuse to give her heart and hand to the young man who will not give his heart and hand to the war for the independence of the state." War ever breeds a race of patriots, but the Revolution did more. It brought recovery from a frightful degeneracy that theology in the hands of the Puritans was promoting. Lexington meeting house never better fulfilled its mission of saving men than on the morning of that fight on the Common when Parker shouted to his soldiers, " Every man of you who is equipped, follow me! and those who are not equipped, go into the meeting house and furnish yourselves from the magazine and imme- diately join the company. ' ' The meeting house was just as useful as an arsenal as it had been as a church. CHAPTER IX First Church, Dedham, Massachusetts THE first meeting house was established in Dedham July i6, 1637. The first preacher was Mr. John AUin and he ministered to thirty families. Dedham, unlike most of the settlements, formed her civil institutions before she established her church; but in Dedham, as in New Haven, the settlers first worshipped under a spreading tree, and did not wait for the erection of its meet- ing house. The congregation of Dedham, however, was migratory in that it identified its early meetings with no one spot, but moved from grove to grove. Legend has it that the tree where the first worship was held was on the east side of Dwight's brook, and another tradition tells us that it stood (vhere later the meeting house was built. A little before Davenport went to New Haven to hold his first meeting in Robert Newman's bam, a committee was chosen in Dedham to " contrive the frame of the meeting house to be in length thirty-six feet and twenty feet in breadth, and between the upper and nether sills in the 157 158 Old New England Churches sides to be twelve feet." The inhabitants were to contribute part of the lumber, the rest was to be paid for. Since the "going" was most un- favourable in Pebruary, when the vote was taken, it was decided that the timbers were to be loaned by the citizens, to whom the town would give a bond to replace them when needed. After the site for this meeting house was chosen, it was changed, for the " loving satisfaction unto some neighbours," to the east side of the river which was to be known long after as Dwight's Brook, and building lots near the church were given to those who lived at a distance. John AUin was among the first thus to "homestead." When it came to the meeting house roof, the town delegated certain persons to "mowe, gather up and bring it [material for thatch] home" with such assis- tance as they might need, to be had " at the town charge." But years were to elapse before the first meeting house should be finished, and it was not until 1647 'that the aesthetic development of the town had reached that point where the citizens should " declare that they will have the meeting house lathed upon the studs, and so daubed and whitened over workmanlike." That first house occupied less ground than the FIRST CHURCH. DEDHAM, MASSACHUSETTS Whose vestry is larger than the original meeting house of this society First Church, Dedhant, Mass. iS9 vestry of the present one, and yet it was not in order until 1658. The extreme liberaHty of church rule in the community is worthy of record. Dedham and New Haven shine in their respective ways by contrast. The former church declared itself "no way intending hereby to bind the conscience of any to walk by this pattern, or to approve of the practice of this church further than it may appear to be according to the rule of the Gospel." The sentiment of brotherly love rather than of ecclesias- tical admonition seems to have dominated the community. In the beginning people assembled at each others houses every fifth day for the pur- pose of becoming familiar with the "spiritual temper and gifts" of each other, and they met "lovingly to discourse and consult together" upon civil and ecclesiastical questions. Mr. John AUin, R. Wheelock, John Luson, John Frayry, Eleazer Lusher, Robert Hinsdale, and ultimately Edward AUeyn and Anthony Fisher were selected to organise the church; but alas! this relatively easy-going company had hard work to choose within itself. Anthony Fisher was rejected; another was "too much addicted to the world"; of a third it is written, i6o Old New England Churches "'the Lord left him without any provocation thereto, to such a distempered flying out upon one of the company' who had been deputed to 'follow home some things close upon him,' that, remaining 'stiflfe' he was 'given over.' " At last when all ■was in order, letters were despatched to the elders and brethren in Boston, Roxbury, and other churches, entreating their presence on the "eighth day of the ninth month," and the hope was im- plied that neither the "season of the year nor the rawness of the new plantation " would compel them to decline the invitation. The result of this was a goodly gathering, at which the hand of fellowship was extended by the visiting elders, and the First Church in Dedham became a fact. Either the good people of Dedham exercised too much particularity and fastidiousness in the selection of those who should represent them in the church, or else there was a deal of worldliness as well as brotherly love existent in that infant civilisation, for first one disqualification and then another ruled out their choices and they were for a long time without church officials. At last, when a ruling elder became absolutely essential to the spiritual progress of Dedham, the con- gregation's choice was narrowed down to two — First Church, Dedham, Mass. i6i Hunting and Wheelock. Again Roxbury and Dorchester were called in and Hunting became their choice. Wheelock withdrew with the philo- sophical remark that he " marvelled he was ever thought of for the office." Thus the ancestor of the founder and first president of Dartmouth College lost his opportunity and Dedham was unaware of its own. Immediately after Mr. AUin's ordination and the selection of church officers, the business of saving the souls of the little community began, and on the following Sunday a general baptism of children took place. A social, chatty, gossipy interchange of views, notions, and plans and a general brotherly agree- ment to disagree seems to have been the comer stone of Dedham beginnings. The early history of the church recounts no quarrels worthy of record; no extraordinary happenings of any sort. So far as history furnishes us with details we must infer that the settlers attended strictly to their business and took no part in those religious controversies of the time which more or less excited the other colonists. They con- cerned themselves with establishing a burial place, with fencing and smoothing and clear- ing and with all the details that were to 1 62 Old New England Churches mean home and fireside and happiness. There was an order of the General Court which required the Selectmen " to see that the catechising of the children was not neglected," and we read of even more vulgar cares — "some persons are incon- siderate enough to tie their horses to the ladder of the- meeting house, thus causing it to be dis- placed, or 'plucked' to 'pieces,' and obstructing the passages to and from the door." As far as one can infer from the records, the most exciting question for a time was how to seat the congregation. The town was constantly voting on this subject, and the matter seems to have received the most prayerful consideration. Dedham certainly lacked discretion in that she seated the boys all together. It was John AUin, first pastor of Dedham church, equable in disposition and disinclined to controversy, who was chosen to present the sentiments of the elders when in 1646 it became necessary to defend the rights of the colonists against a British Parliament. This he did with all the vigour of a more belligerent man. Theo- logical differences forced him at last into the field of controversy, and with the help of the Rev. Thomas Shepard, of Cambridge, he wrote First Church, Dedham, Mass. 163 the "defence of the nine positions or ques- tions." In 1 67 1 the first pastor died; three days later his wife died also, and they were buried in the same grave. By this time the little meeting house "12 feet in the stud" in which "a new gallery" had al- ready been set up — ^though one cannot imagine how — ^this little box of religious teaching was practically a ruin, and the inhabitants voted before another year to build a new house. The voting was carried on in a primitive way. White and red com was used; the white standing for the "ayes" and the red for the "noes. " The second house is said by the Rev. William Adams to have been raised on the 17th of June, 1673. It prob- ably stood on the same site as the first house, but Dedham folk are less prodigal of their recorded history than are they of many other settlements, and the date is only traditional. It seems to have been determined, however, that the house should embody "three pair of stairs at three respective comers," north, east, and south. Men, women, and "lads" were to be oppositely seated, the " lads" being classified with the women. It is not at all certain when this building was 164 Old New England Churches first occupied nor under what conditions, but in the spring of 1674 it was agreed: "With Widow Ellis and Widow Dunkley to procure the bell to be sufficiently leened on the Lord's day and in season, to keep the meeting house clean, and to take care of the doors and windows that damage come not into the glass." Even by 1674 dilatory Dedham had not finished its house. After it had been occupied for eighteen months the selectmen sent for the carpenters to come and complete their job. Among the several thou-shalt-nots of the town we learn that when a horse was tied to the meeting house ladder its master was fined sixpence, and that fine was paid to Robert Onion. These trivial items of town history are stated in fuller detail than are import- ant facts. Dedham had its bell-ringer and its dog-whipper, and the business of the latter was to "whip dogs out of the meeting house and to go upon errands for the reverend elders"; also to take care of the " cushion and glass," that is, of the hour glass. The "lads" and the complaining congregation, which was now officially seated, were continual sources of anxiety and distraction to the officers of the church. The " lads " were tried in different First Church, Dedham, Mass. 165 parts of the house; sometimes in the aisles, some- times at the foot of the pulpit stairs, but always geographically located so that they were under the espionage of the good folk of Dedham town. In Dedham sanctuary not only sex but age was classified, and we find the old women, and young maids separated — one cannot imagine why. The idea of accommodating an ever-increasing people was to construct and re-construct and re-re- construct, galleries and galleries. In 1700 the place was so full of galleries that more were im- possible, but twelve or fourteen feet was pro- posed to be added to the structure on the west side. Before happy Dedham got to the point of carrying out this plan, another com vote was taken and it was decided to "enlarge below and make lights above." Up to this time the church had been pewless, but presently those who chose to put in pews at their own expense were per- mitted to do so " on the sides of the meeting house below that were without seats." Dedham con- structed its meeting house in sections so that, like Mr. WiHer's suit of clothes, before it was complete the first parts had lost their useful- ness. The town seemed prone to circumlocution in other than architectural ways, and it did not 1 66 Old New England Churches speak of "roof" but of "outside covering." The church bell was rung by some one standing in the body seats in the lower part of the house. The village was not gathered about the meeting house as in other settlements. The house stood almost isolated while the people lived apart on their farms, notwithstanding the grant of_ lots near at hand. In 1 761 it was decided, either by the com vote or in some less primitive manner, to build a new house, which was to have a steeple and two porches. In time it acquired a third. The north sill of the new house occupied precisely the place of the old; but alas for Dedham, its new meeting house did not arrive until two years later, and no one can tell when it was first occupied for re- ligious purposes. Certain it is that the new structure had a velvet cushion in its pulpit and a curtain for its window, and that the young ladies who furnished these things were given thanks. Mr. Dexter, a son of one of the church's pastors, donated a clock and his mother a Bible. The fifty pews on the first floor* went to the highest bidder according to location, but the bidding consisted of a formal rating, he who paid the highest town tax having the first choice, and so First Church, Dedham, Mass. 167 on. These pews seem to have been held in per- petuity, passing from the original purchaser to his descendants or heirs so long as they contrib- uted to the support of the minister. The heavy taxpayers of those days appear to have been Samuel Deiter, Dr. John Sprague and Dr. Nathan- iel Arties in the order named; but the town was growing rich or vain, and besides the original fifty, there was a demand for nineteen more pews. The music was a feature of great importance, and in 1785 it was voted to sing "without the deacon's reading," but five years later Mr. Abner Ellis was requested to make use of some instru- ment "to strengthen the bass." All Dedham was willing, and desired this change but they did not get about making it until 1803, when they purchased a bass-viol. Dedham, in common with other congregations, had hinged seats in its church and these were put up when the congregation arose for prayer. So much of energy was employed that it was necessary to make a protest. A gentleman who was present at this proceeding for the first time in some other church is said to have become panic- stricken, and leaped into the aisle, supposing the gallery was falling. Doubtless this contrivance 1 68 Old New England Churches helped the " lads " not a little to endure the hours of prayer and preaching. It would give them something to live up to and something to re- member afterward. During the occupancy of the third structure, many were unable to pay the rates in money, and the equivalent in other things was taken. There are mentioned in the records two bushels of wheat at eight shillings, shoes at five shillings, a peck of samp at one shilling, a quarter of beef of the church's cow at seven shillings, a fowl at eightpence, a bushel of rye at four shillings, four and a half bushels of turnips at four shillings, mowing, making, and carting eight loads of hay at sixteen shillings, a load of clay at three shillings, a bushel of Indian com at three shillings, a quar- ter of veal at one shilling, weaving cloth, two shillings, six pounds of candles at three shillings, weaving forty yards of cloth, eighteen shillings and six pence, " a side of pork to our pastor " four- teen shillings. "Payed by Widow Moe in scol- ing for our pastor's sone, ten shillings." These items give an idea of values at that time, and of the manner in which people adjusted their debts. The spirit of tolerance and geniality was epito- First Church, Dedham, Mass. 169 mised in a sermon by the Rev. Samuel F. Havens. In discussing alterations made in the meeting house, he said: "The change embraced many separate parts and details. It would be strange if all would be equally acceptable to all; if no one found any- thing to criticise as to colour, form, size, or posi- tion; if everyone should agree that the pews are all right and the pulpit all right; that every touch of the brush, every part of the trimming, every panel and moulding, every part of light and shade exhibited in the frescoe was just what it should be and could not be better; it would be strange if all should so agree. It would be what never before happened since the world began in any similar case; it would be something new undey the sun. Individuals have preferences; tastes and judgments differ. This is inevitable. For myself, I am not disposed to criticise. The committee had a hard task to perform, and they acted conscientiously. They gave their time and thought to the subject and they should have our thanks." This gentle speechment concerning things mun- dane and only fairly important is a reflection of the community's attitude toward things doctrinal. There was considerably more of the sentiment "love your neighbour" in this little settlement than was to be found elsewhere, and its prosperity in those early days justified the mood. The 170 Old New England Churches watchword of New England was "survival of the fittest" and Dedham was not behind in that amazing hard thriftiness. In 1701 the citizens gave "notis to a leame gearle whose name is Wodekins (she was staying at Edward Cook's house) that she doe depart out of Dedham." How antithetical this is to our civilisation that protects and fosters the merest chance of life in its weaklings! Perhaps such acts in those days were self -defensive, but in the light of a more benevolent time they seem hard indeed, and un- worthy of those whose deeds were all done in the name of God. Public spirit flourished. The citizens donated liberally to Harvard College, and they also voted twenty pounds a year to be paid for eleven years, and more than that if it were practicable for the town, in order to have a local school properly con- ducted. Dedham showed more altruism in lend- ing to its neighbours in times of battle, crop- gathering, etc., than did most other settlements. The " wretched boys " were so great an element of disturbance in all churches in the colonies that they were disposed of with difficulty. The Puri- tan felt it necessary to the good of the youngster's immortal soul that he should be caught young and First Church, Dedham, Mass. 171 thrust as far into heaven as was possible to human and Puritan endeavour. It was in Dedham that John Pike was paid sixteen shillings a year in 1723 for "keeping the boys in subjection six months," but when John's second period of serv- ing came around he demanded that his wages be doubled, and unwillingly the sum was voted. Two centuries later, we would rather have doubled salaries than have those dead and gone boys sup- pressed — they were the antidote to the Puritan fathers! CHURCH OF THE PILGRIMAGE, PLYMOUTH, MASS. Copyright. Tgo6, by A. S. Burbat^ CHURCH OF THE PILGRIMAGE, PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS In whose arst house Miles Standish worshipped and which he garrisoned, and where Roger Williams preached ®1|? iHnnorial OII|urrI| to tl|? ftlgrttttB Jtrat Partslj, f Igmoutly. Mubb, 'aiia pfayets i6t fain were offered. 17s "P ^ hortation and benediction as he announces the fun- damental principles of religious liberty. Between these figures is the stained glass Window representing the "Signing of the Compact" in the cabin of the Mayflower. This was the gift of the New York Society of Mayflower Descendants and was designed by Sperry and made by Tiffany. The East Window over the gallery presented by Edward G. Walker, represents John Robinson delivering his farewell address to the departing pilgrims at Delft-Haven. The pulpit was given by the descendants of John Howland and the large chairs by Mrs. Sarah Brew- ster Reed. The organ was given b"y private con- tributions, and the font by the New Jersey Society of Mayflower Descendants. The communion table is the gift of Mr. George P. Hayward, a descendant of White and Winslow. The ancient silver used in the communion services is kept at Pilgrim Hall and there are deposited also the church records, dating back from the beginning. The broad and liberal Pilgrim spirit is shown by the words of Robinson inscribed on the wall to the left of the pulpit; "The Lord hath more Truth and Light yet to break forth from his holy word;" a sen- tence from his address to the Pilgrims just before they departed from Leyden; and their simple faith is set forth in the earlier covenant as given by Bradford in his history; "These people, as ye Lord's free people joyned themselves (by a covenant of the Lord) in ye fellowship of ye gospell, to walke in all his wayes made known or to be made known unto them according to their best endeavours, whatsoever it should cost them, the Lord assisting them; and that it cost them something this ensuing history will declare". 'Jipgen Job 'Trint, 'Tlynioulh :.'-■¥ 1-;-, -. ^ r.^. - -^^^:--- -S^^tiji^'i _-:'-- Copyright. 1906, iy A. S. Burbani CHURCH OF THE PILGRIMAGE, PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS In whose first house Miles Standish worshipped and which he Rarrisoned, and where Roger Williams oreached CHAPTER X Church of the Pilgrimage, Plymouth, Massachusetts THE sermon preached in Pl5niiouthon Decem- ber 21, 1621, by ruling elder WilliamBrewster was in all probability the first printed sermon among those delivered in New England. Elder Brewster's name was not placed upon it but there is much internal evidence to establish it as his, although there is a bare possibility that it was delivered by Robert Cushman. The. subject was eminently fitted to the conditions: " Let no man seek his own wealth: but every man another's wealth." These friends on an alien soil had much need of brotherly love; and the Plymouth church had its beginning on a broad and loving platform. This particular sermon was the first Thanks- giving of the Pilgrims in this country, and it was celebrated because of "our harvest being gotten in." Then came the dreary winter and the uncertain spring, followed by a severe drought, and in July, 1623, the first fast day was observed and prayers for rain were offered. 17s 176 Old New England Churches The supplications of the Pilgrim fathers were remarkably personal and specific, such as this one by the Rev. Mr. Miles: " O Lord, thou knowest we do not want thee to send us a rain which shall pour down in fury and swell our streams and carry away our haycocks, fences, and bridges; but. Lord, we want it to come drizzle-drozzle, drizzle-drozzle for about a week. Amen." We more readily make acquaintance with the settlers by reading the diary of Elder Bradford who marched with Miles Standish to reconnoitre and explore the New World about Plymouth. He tells of the forest tangle which " tore our very armour in pieces," and gives an intimate glimpse of these fine adventurers: "We brought neither beer nor water with us, and our victuals was only biscuit and Holland cheese and a little bottle of aqua vitae. . . We were heartily fraught and sat us down to drink our first New England water with as much delight as we ever drank in our lives." On that expedition William Bradford was caught by the leg in a deer trap set by the Indians, "a very pretty device made with a rope of their own making." Miles Standish, that gorgeously fine figure in history, sat in the first meeting house Church of the Pilgrimage, Plymouth, Mass. 177 and doubtless helped in its development; though certain it is he was more useful on the outside of it than in, his spirit being more military than spiritual. He always had his "awkward squad" in fighting order on Sunday. His men — " assembled at his door and from his door each man with his musket and Captain Standish with his side arms and cane in his right hand walked to church three abreast while the captain took his place at the preacher's left." When the military spirit is en evidence colonial history becomes inspiring: so brave a showing is made with so little! The first Thanksgiving in New England was mightily celebrated in Plymouth, for did not Mr. Standish provide a display awe-inspiring to the Indians as well as amusing to the settlers? Three days were given up to the programme, the English exploiting themselves for the entertainment of their Indian guests, who in turn caused "much merriment with native games and sports, and the exhibition of mother wit and drollery." Early in church history came Lyf ord and Rogers, personoB non gratcB by reason of their lack of char- acter; and it was not until after 1628 that the church found relief by calling the Rev. Ralph 178 Old New England Churches Smith to its pulpit. Then came Roger WilHams, broad and generous minded, who could not have found himself too distressfully " cabined, cribbed, confined" by the demands of the Church of the Pilgrimage, because Plymouth stood as an ex- ample to the other colonies, of generosity rather than of severity in its application of theological doctrine. The Plymouth church was a sort of leaven for the heavy doctrines prescribed else- where. It was misfortune, in the guise of disease and death, which brought about the fixing of parishes on a broader basis than they would otherwise have had. Hard times caused con- siderable interchange of sympathy among the people, and it happened that while Endicott was establishing the Puritans in Salem, the almost universal illness in that settlement compelled him to call upon the services of Dr. Samuel Fuller, a deacon in the Separatist church in Plymouth. The demands of hospitality doubtless compelled Endicott to forego any expression of those extreme views which were Salem's, and enabled the Doctor to speak more of his own principles which were Plymouth's. Thus the Governor found his prejudices giving way as such are likely to do in the presence of kindly and Church of the Pilgrimage, Plymouth, Mass. 179 tolerant feeling. A letter of Endicott's, written about this time, is evidence that men of one fair purpose may not regard dissimilarity in forms with any great regret. The disease which prevailed at that time was to be pathologically expected, but there is an inclination to resent so much misfortune when the purpose of these people was all for good, as they understdbd it. On the top of the risks and agonies of colonisation came the effort of Bishop Laud and the rest of the Established Church to deprive the colony of the rights that had been granted it, an attempt to interrupt civil and ecclesiastical government and to impose a new condition upon the colonies. The menace passed, however, and in 1636 we find the Church of the Pilgrimage under the direction of Mr. John Rey- ner; later on the Rev. Charles Chauncey came as his assistant. In 1637 the "Plymouth meeting house" ac- quired "somewhat" by inheritance from one of the colonists, and it was probably about this time that the first church building of the Pilgrims was erected. An old deed refers to the north side of the Town Square as "the spot where the old meeting house stood." After the death, in i8o Old New England Churches 1644, of William Brewster, one of the pioneers of the Church of the Pilgrimage, affairs were at such an ebb in the settlement that the question of abandoning it utterly became a serious one. The project was never fully executed, but there were a good many whose discouragement was so great that they dared anew and went elsewhere. As Plymouth records have it, " Thus was this pres- ent church left like an ancient riiother grown old and forsaken by her children"; which phraseology suggests a pathetic sentimentality on the part of the Puritan fathers, not unlike that which has induced a latter-day writer to refer to the "old families of Chicago." After 1654 the Church of the Pilgrimage was left pastorless for fifteen years, and this must be attributed to a too great economy on the part of the townspeople who refused to pay a minister of education and ability. Under the pastoral control of John Cotton, son of the celebrated Cotton of Boston, the church's fortunes were greatly imperilled, there being only forty-seven resident members. But Plymouth had the glory of "advancing the Gospel of the King- dom of Christ" since she gained a large body of recruits known as "praying Indians" and estab- Church of the Pilgrimage, Plymouth, Mass. i8i lished several churches among them. Mr. Cotton, as well as Eliot the great apostle, preached to the Indians in their own tongue. After a season of adversity a new meeting house was put up, and meantime many churches had been raised and had prospered as offshoots of the Plymouth settlement. After Cotton left the pulpit, the Rev. Ephraim Little came to it and he was the first minister buried in the Plymouth burying ground. A period was marked in the history of Plymouth as well as in all colonial ecclesiastical history, by the coming of Whitefield and the "Great Awakening." Such a preacher, even one with less of Whitefield's magnetism and extra- ordinary power of persuasion, would have found favour with a generous congregation such as Plymouth's. He created much dissension and resistance in other places, but was hospitably welcomed at Plymouth, where he preached twice. This church split on doctrinal grounds and a third congregation was organised which built a church for itself; but "the society was never large though comprising much of the wealth and fashion of the town." When, in 1776, it was dissolved, we may assume that the perils of the wonderful year again brought the congrega- i82 Old New England Churches tion together on the ground of the common good and that the factions joined in building a new- meeting house. Liberal though it had been, Plymouth desired to be yet more so, and in 1800 we find the Rev. James Kendall established in the pulpit and ' running things on a basis broad enough to offend a good many people and induce them to break up again. On the first of October, 1801, half the congregation withdrew and reorganised on an independent plan. The first Sabbath school was started in 18 18 with Ezra Collier as superintendent. The name, " Church of the Pilgrimage, " was not bestowed until a new house was built in 1840, almost upon the site of the first church. Very near it is Burial Hill where some of the Pilgrims rest, but we have an account of a fearful flood soon after the time of settlement which swept through the town, laid bare the dead bodies of those who had died by disease, and carried them out to sea. In Plymouth we must assume that rum was in demand for the Pilgrims as it was for the Puritans elsewhere, because it was a matter worthy of uni- versal comment that as late as 1831, ameeting house was put up without its assistance. It is recorded Church of the Pilgrimage, Plymouth, Mass. 183 that "the workmen refrained entirely from the use of ardent spirits." One author calls attention to the fact that those who went to sea began to "reform in the raatter of intemperance earlier than did those who staid on land and built meet- ing houses." "We must conclude that it was not incompatible with a good landing in Heaven to get drunk, but a good landing on shore was very problematical under the same circumstances. Extreme license in some direction was necessary to keep those fettered people from going mad. " Ruhm and cacks " were voted for the raising of the meeting house as certainly as were pounds, shillings, and pence. In one town there was ap- propriated "10 gal. of rum at 8 pounds to raise the meeting house, and 3 pounds went to the local doctor 'for setting his bone Jonathan Strong, and 3 pounds 10 shillings for setting Ebenezer Burt's thy.' " There seems to be a relation of ideas to figures and facts in this statement. The Sabbath day strictures in Plymouth have been elsewhere noticed. It was here that " a man was sharply whipped for shooting fowl on Sunday; another was fined for carrying a grist of com home on the Lord's-day, and the miller who allowed him to take it was also fined. Eliza- 1 84 Old New England Churches beth Eddy of the same town was fined in 1652, I OS for 'wringing and hanging out clothes.' " " At Plymouth a man who attended his tarpits on the Sabbath, was set in the stocks. James Watt in 1658 was publicly reproved 'for writing a note about common business on the Lord's-day, at least in the evening somewhat too soon!' A Ply- mouth man who drove a yoke of oxen was 'pre- sented' before the Court, as was also another offender who drove his cows a short distance 'without need' on the Sabbath." Yet Plymouth was relatively liberal in her Sabbath day dis- cipline. It was in Dtmstable that a soldier was fined forty shillings for "wetting a piece of an old hat to put in his shoe." Evidently the good folk of Dunstable did not understand that soldiers and chilblains wait for no Monday. There are a good many sad blots upon New England colonial history. Its witchcraft, its cruel punishmentSj its intolerance of all views but its own, worst of all the buying and selling of himian beings — its epoch of slavery! New England may in some degree have atoned for this latter shame by her bitter arraignment of the South two centuries later, and her demand that even at the cost of a nation of lives slavery Church of the Pilgrimage, Plymouth, Mass. 185 must be abolished. New England had so many more crimes to atone for than had her southern brethren that we can partly understand if not always sympathise with her zeal and supereroga- tion. We get a peep into the scholastic situation in Plymouth when we read that in 1694 "the town declared themselves to be against warning town meetings by papers set up for that end " — doubt- less meaning papers posted on the church door — " but to Expect warning from Cunstables by word of mouth when ever there shall be occasion." Now all "warnings" were habitually posted — the most convenient method of advertisement, unless the majority of the townspeople were unable to read. It was only when illiteracy was general that it became necessary to cry the news from the housetops, and hence Plymouth's unique method of "by word of mouth," leads us to infer The bell of the Plymouth meeting house must have existed in 1679, for at that date the con- stable was " ordered by the Towne to take course for the sweeping of the meeting house and the Ringing of the bell and to pay an Indian for the killing of a Wulfe." Plymouth was very natur- 1 86 Old New England Churches ally the nucleus of many outlying parishes, and in 1635 the demand was made by several families of Bndgewater for " a way " from Bridgewater to the Plymouth meeting house. We cannot decide whether their zeal was prompted by spiritual demands or by trade convenience, for their peti- tion was rendered thus: "God, by His providence, hath placed the bounds of our habitation in Bridgewater, and in the eastward side of the town, and about two miles from the meeting house and the mill, and some of us have had no way into the town but upon suffrage upon other men's lands. We think it very hard that living in a wilderness we can- not have a convenient room for highway." In the matter of seating its congregation, Ply- mouth doubtless had the original problem. Negroes and Indians were placed together in the meeting house and despite the fact that there was a differ- ence of a good many sweat glands to the square inch in favour of the Indian he could make no objection since he too was a slave, having been taken in war and sold to the Pilgrim fathers. However, "the owners of the seat before where the Indians and negroes set, at the meeting house, Doe give 3 pounds toward erecting a plase for said negroes and Indians to sett in elsewhere." Church of the Pilgrimage, Plymouth, Mass. 187 This seems exceedingly captious, considering the many other annoying things they had tolerated without protest. Since the Fugitive Slave Law- had its origin in New England at a time when the Puritan legislatures desired to regulate their laws in accordance with those of the Mosaic period of history, the thoughtful man experiences some confusion. It has been pointed out by one bril- liant author that " their fugitive slave law should have been taken from the 23rd chapter of Deuter- onomy." But these Pilgrims were men of ob- stinacy rather than of mentality, and were so harassed by their superstitions that it is wonder- ful they achieved so much by way of bringing order out of chaos, and not that they often failed to be coherent in the relation of their deeds to their doctrines. One is inclined to become an unmitigated optimist after reading of those mar- vellous times, for he can hardly again doubt that order is the pre-ordained end of all things. In accordance with the New England colony law, Plymouth from the beginning determined that "solemn compaction or conversing with the deviU, by way of witchcraft, conjuration, or the like" should be held "capitall offences lyable to death." Thus despite her relative liberality we 1 88 Old New England Churches must charge herwith the cruelty practised elsewhere in New England — conscientious, except in men like Cotton Mather or Nicholas Noyes, in whom cruelty became conscious without conscientious excuse. In these witchcraft records lie perhaps the most extraordinary examples of degenerate im- pulse in the history of the world. Acts of persecu- tion were the direct emotional outlet for degenerates like Cotton Mather and other preachers who had achieved a certain limited intellectual development but whose trade it was to suppress all human im- pulse. The wholesale slaughter inaugurated in or- der that men like Mather might be able to in- dulge themselves, under the cloak of religious zeal, in the indecencies and vicious propensities common among the Puritans of that time would have been considered by many the prerogative solely of cloistered monks; and the facts induce distressing speculations. The revelation of much that is unprintable for general reading might, if it could be presented, tend to soften the bitter judgment that this generation is inclined to mete to those early Puritans; because that un- printable testimony would at once relegate to the hospital many of those men who seemed zealous to the point of crime. FIRST CHURCH, DORCHESTER, MASS. CHAPTER XI First Church, Dorchester, Massachusetts THESE first settlers of "ye Town of Dor- chester took up every one his spot to set down upon, pretty thick together at ye north- erly end of ye Town." This was the beginning. The history of Dorchester is reckoned from the first Sabbath, the sixth of June, which followed the coming of the colonists to this spot. A week later, early in the morning of Saturday, the booming of ordnance heralded the arrival of the Arabella, the flag ship of the New England fleet bringing Governor Winthrop, Deputy Gov- ernor Dudley, and all their company to lay the foun- dation of the Massachusetts Colony. They arrived with the Royal Charter. The sacrament was administered in Dorchester on that second Sun- day amid general rejoicing. This act of com- munion was possible because the settlers had come from England a regularly organised church with pastor and officers, the only instance of the kind in America. Dorchester town was not incorporated until 191 192 Old New England Churches the following September, and it was so christened partly because many of the settlers came from a town of the same name in England and partly because Mr. White, a former minister, had been lovingly known as "The Patriarch of Dorchester." His activity in the new Dorchester's early civic aflFairs earned for him still another title of affection and dignity, "The Father of the Massachusetts Colony." Let the imagination carry us back to the time when the little fort was built on Rock Hill. Men kept watch at night to guard their homes, and when that first low- thatched church was raised "the builders every one had his sword by his side, and so builded!" The catch-phrase used by the men of Dorchester was taken from the Book, " In the time of trouble God shall shelter me in His pavil- ion, in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me." Surrounding the church, the sign of their single purpose in life, those fought for existence who had been " persons of good rank and circum- stances in their native country, and had been brought up in a delicate manner," and we are told that " of those that were compelled to live in tents, and lie upon or too near the cold moist earth before they could be provided with more con- First Church, Dorchester, Mass. 193 venient dwellings, several were seized with the scurvy from which they died." The history of no parish is so touchingly told as Dorchester's by its own people. No modem words could present so vivid a picture, so certain a reflection of conditions as do the simple utter- ances of the dead and half-forgotten members of that little pioneer community. Therefore, for the most part, Dorchester shall speak for itself after two hundred and seventy-five years. The church was replanted in America probably in 1630, having had its beginning in England in March of the same year, but we do not read of the existence of the raeeting house " for ye public worship of God" until 1633, and even then its historian adds: "we having no Account when it was built." That the intervening years were full of deso- lation cannot be doubted. It was in 163 1 that Captain Clapp expressed the universal distress: "O ye hunger that many suffered, and saw no hope in an Eye of Reason to be supplied, only by Clams and Muscles and Fish; and Bread was so Scarce, that sometimes ye very Crusts from my Father's table would have been very sweet unto me ; and when I could have Meal & Water & Salt boiled together, it was so good, who could wish it better." With a commendable desire to show a more hopeful 194 Old New England Churches side of the picture he adds " later there was Roast Goat." Of the time when the church was established, Blake records, " This year ye Plantation Granted Mr. Israel Stoughton liberty to build a Mill upon Neponsit River which I suppose was ye first Mill built in this Colony, and ye Sd River has been famous for Mills ever since." There is no positive evidence that the Dorchester church was furnished with deacons but there is a tentative record that John Moore, John Gaylord, and William Rock- well were accorded the title though it was not officially given. The whole story of the First Church of Dorchester is more or less inchoate. It refused the innovation of an organ until 1 841. In Judge Sewall's diary we find entries that make the cold on those desolate Sabbath days seem to have been more intense in Dorchester than elsewhere. " The communion bread was frozen pretty hard." he writes, "and rattled sadly in the plates," and he comments further on the "extraordinary winter and snow. Bread frozen at the Lord's table and yet it was very comfortable at the meeting." He tells of a new-bom babe who was brought into this frightful atmosphere to be baptised. The cheerfulness and patience conveyed in the rec- First Church, Dorchester, Mass. 195 ords left by these Dorchester chroniclers touch the heart and give deeper meaning to their con- dition. Stoves were unknown there until nearly- one hundred years after the First Church was founded, and then they won their way only after rauch travail on the part of the advanced minds of the parish aided by the New Englander's appre- ciation of a joke. In his history of the Second Church, Captain John Codman relates: "At last the stove party was victorious. Old 'Uncle Ned Foster' was foremost in the opposi- tion. He threatened to sign over but finally he concluded to remain loyal and sit it out. So on the first Sunday after the stoves had been intro- duced the old gentleman occupied his pew as usual, the stove pipe being directly over him. There he sat with no very saintlike expression during the sermon, a red bandanna spread over his head and his face corresponding to it. A general smile spread over the house, the minister himself catching the infection, for almost everybody ex- cept 'Uncle Ned' was aware that the day being rather warm no fire had been lighted." One is tempted to wander from one adminis- tration to another and recount only the illustrati^v^e anecdotes of Dorchester's first church. We have everywhere intimate glimpses into church doings. "Uncle Daniel Davenport," the sexton, regu- lated the matter of foot-warmers. He and his 196 Old New England Churches son preceded the congregation on Sunday mornings laden with foot-warmers which they distributed among those who had paid for them. The first meeting house was raised in 1631, near the comer of Pleasant and East Cottage streets on AUin's Plain. It was about "12 feet in the stud," built of logs and thatch, within a stockade, and it became at once the arsenal of the town. Cannon were fixed upon the roof and sentinels kept guard. The town week began on the second day of the seven, the church week on the first, and the same building served for religious meet- ings and for the transaction of town business. The church was the safe-deposit for the whole village, and we may picture family processions each evening wending toward it bearing articles of value to be kept within for safety. The Rev. Mr. Maverick, the beloved first preacher, nearly put an end to the usefulness of this first structure. WhUe drying powder in the church he blew up a whole keg, burned the thatch on the roof, singed his own clothes, and created a universal diversion in Dorchester. During the first year of this church, the people of Roxbury joined Dorchester in worship, since at that time they had no church of their own. First Church, Dorchester, Mass. 197 After a while local enterprise undertook "to build stairs on the outside and the loft to be laid and a window in the loft." Four years after its founding, new-comers to Dorchester had over- crowded the town so much that nearly half the congregation agreed to move elsewhere in order to give place to the new arrivals ; and part of the church withdrew to Windsor, Connecticut. A beautiful hospitality this — ^that people should cheerfully abandon their homes to give place to the newcomer, presumably not yet inured to hardship. Mr. Maverick's death made way for Richard Mather, the third minister of this church, reckoning the Rev. John White, promoter of the colony, as the first. We find on the church records of Dorchester apropos of Mather, the following : " Third in New England Dorchester Was this ordained minister, Second to none in fruitfulness, habits and cheerfulness, Divine his charms, his years seven times seven, Guiding men's souls from earth to heaven, Prophet's reward he can know above, But great's our loss by his remove " a This is not poetic but it bears the hall-mark of sincerity. At the time the Rev. Jonathan Burr was called to assist Mr. Mather there were several points of 198 Old New England Churches difference between them, and a convention to adjust these was called nine years after the organi- sation of the church. After four days' discussion the meeting decided that "both sides had cause to be humbled for their failings for which they were advised to set a day apart for reconciliation." Was this reconciliation perfunctory and official or did it really mean renewed spiritual and brother- ly alliance? Dorchester for a long time was content with its first meeting house. It worshipped within the stockade — sentinelled, patrolled, cannon- guarded; but in time there came a demand that " for peace and love's sake there shall be a new meeting house." The second house was built very near to the first, but about twenty-five years later it was moved to Meeting House Hill. Dr. Robert Thax- ter's house helps to identify the site. Consider- able diplomacy had been exercised in Dorchester before this removal, because three citizens, bent upon improvement, agreed together that a new gallery should be put into the church. Having some doubt of the result of a vote these three cannily approached the selectmen, sep- arately and individually, to obtain their con- First Church, Dorchester, Mass. 199 sent. They doubtless urged the affair on per- sonal grounds; and presently, without any offi- cial action having been taken, the gallery was put up. This caused a division of feeling in the town, and when the matter was investigated the select- men treacherously declared they had never sanc- tioned the addition, and that they even objected to it because it excluded the light. We shall never know whether the Selectmen had just awakened to the situation and resented the fact that they had been cozened, or whether with latter-day acumen, they had decided beforehand that this would be their course in case their sin should find them out. Though a meeting was called to settle the affair, the gallery was allowed to stand— -being already built— but alas, it was 'not to stand for those who had lobbied for it. The three exclusive gentlemen were asked to acknowledge their frowardness, which they did in these terms: "We whose names are underwritten do acknow- ledge that it was our weakness that we were so inconsiderate as to make a small seat in the meet- ing house without more clear and full approba- tion of the town and selectmen thereof." Some excuses followed and the document pro- ceeded: 200 Old New England Churches "Therefore we desire that our faihng therein shall be passed by; and if the town will grant our seats that we have been at so much cost in setting up, we thankfully acknowledge your love to us therein, and we do hereupon further engage ourselves that we will not give up or sell any of our places in that seat to any person or persons but who the elders shall approve of, or such as shall have power to place men in seats in the assembly." This sadly humiliating document was signed by Increase Atherton, Samuel Procter, and Thomas Bird. We read in the "annals" that "This year [1638] arrived here on August i6th the Revd. Richard Mather, that was a long time after Pastor of this Church, and with him a great Number of Godly people that Settled here with him. There came with him 100 pasengeers & 23 Seamen, 23 Cows and Heifers, 3 Sucking Calves, & 8 Mares, and none Died by ye way, though they met with as terrible a storm as was almost ever heard of." The fine hospitality of these people, already com- mented upon, is best described by themselves, since it is done with a sweet absence of self-con- sciousness : "This year made great alterations m ye Town of Dorchester, for Mr. Mather and ye Godly First Church, Dorchester, Mass. 201 people that came with him from Lancashire want- ing a place to settle in, some of ye People of Dor- chester are willing to remove and make room for them, and so Mr. Warren and about half ye church removed to Winsor in Connecticut Colony, and Mr. Mather and his people came and joined with Mr. Maverick and that half of ye church that were left, and from these people so united are ye great- est part of ye inhabitants descended." It was William Poole of Dorchester who made the epitaph for his own tomb which has come down through generations in this more concise form: " Behold and see as you pass by, As you are now, so once was I, As 1 am now, so you must be. Prepare to die and follow me." The original was: — " Ho Passenger, 'tis worth the Pains to stay And take a Dead man's Lesson by ye Way; I was what now thou art, and thou shalt be What I am now, what odds 'twixt me & thee! Now go thy way; but stay, take one word more, Thy StaflE for aught thou know'st Stands next ye Door, Death is ye Door, ye Door of Heaven or Hell : Be warn'd, be arm'd, Believe, Repent, Farewell." The coming of George Whitefield, the itinerant preacher, made its impression in Dorchester as elsewhere, and here he " preached generally twice a day, sometimes in ye Meeting houses and of- ten in ye Fields unto vast assemblies." Dor- chester records state apropos of Whitefield, that " there has also in many places been a very great 202 Old New England Churches addition to the churches; doubtless there will ere long be some printed account of it." The same writer tells us that he is " at present of the Opinion that some things are by some persons carried too far contrary to ye design of ye Holy Spirit." There is a fact stated somewhat profanely, yet with Christian intent, that in the year fol- lowing Whitefield there was: " an early frost which much Damnified ye Indian com in ye Fields, and after it was Gathered, a long Series of wet weather & a very hard frost upon it that damnified it a great deal more." At a town meeting in 1668 Nicholas Bolton " Did agree to tend ye meeting house and keep it in decent order, and to ring ye bell in ye year insewing; for which he is to have £2) of which los of it in money if it can be gott, or otherwise to have 3d upon ye shilling for that los." John Capen and Samuel Clapp made the bargain with him. It was agreed at a meeting on March 12, 1687, that " Sergt. Leadbetter " — the name suggests a superiority in prayer or song — "was ordered to speak with Isaac Reill to make a way up to the bell" and on the fifth day of March, 1 732, the town First Church, Dorchester, Mass. 203 of Dorchester was " Legally Warned that there be allowed and Payed out of ye Town Treasury the sum of £3 I OS toward ye ringing of ye bell in the evenings of nine of ye year Ensuing." The second meeting house, following the migratory one of Meeting House Hill, was built on the northwest comer of Church and Winter streets. It was square, two-storied, and had a centre tower which contained the bell. The first meeting was held there November 17, 1678. In 1743 a third meeting house was built, a little south of the second. An elm tree presented by William Swan now marks the spot where the pul- pit of the third house was located. A remark- able piece of engineering was undertaken with this building through the ingenuity of Deacon Edward Pierce. In 1795 he had the house divided along the ridge pole, and the halves moved apart fourteen feet. Then he moved the tower and the steeple seven feet and reunited the structure by new material. The steeple was on the west end and there were several entrances for that side, besides a porch on the east, and several erratic architectural introductions elsewhere. It was an ingenious contrivance and helped out with the over-crowding not a little. So much rum 204 Old New England Churches and other refreshment were deemed necessary by the workmen during the process of "raring the meeting hous " that casualties were frequent. In 1 75 1 Dorchester acquired an English-made bell which served for many impressive purposes. It summoned Dorchester to meeting on Sabbath; it called together the city fathers; it rang for fire; it rang for death; it rang for peace; but after about one hundred years of speech it began to show its age. It cracked, was recast, and again hung in the First Church steeple where it rings to-day. Deacon Ebenezer Clapp has told the story of the First Church interior and told it well. He says: " On entering the inner door of the meeting house, and turning directly to the left, I went about twenty feet, then turned to the right and went a few feet, and was led into the second pew on the left ; the pews were square, seats all around, flag bottomed chairs in the centre, rungs in the pews, where the children coiold peep out, like lambs from a sheep-pen. At prayer-time I was placed in one of those aforesaid flag bottomed chairs, there to stand through the service (from which I had a good view out of a south and east window) ; for all stood through that performance, and they were deemed lazy Christians who being able-bodied did not comply." First Church Dorchester, Mass. 205 We read sympathetically of the fears, the ter- rors of that little company of Dorchester, know- ing that "the people conceived themselves in danger, when they lay down and when they rose up, when they went out and when they came in; their circumstances were such that it was deemed necessary for every man to be a soldier." The pathos of the story is emphasised by the simplicity of its telling, so obviously was it set down without intention to impress, merely to give a patient relation of fact. An old record says : " In the absence of bread, they feasted them- selves with fish. The women once a day, as the tide give way, resorted to the muscle and clam banks, which were a fish as big as a horse muscle, where they daily gathered their fami- lies' food, with much heavenly talk of the pro- visions Christ had formerly made for many thousands of his followers in the wilderness. Quoth one, 'My husband has travelled as far as Plymouth (which was near forty miles) and hath with great toil brought a little com home with him; and before that is spent the Lord will surely provide.' Quoth the other, 'Our last peck of meal is now in the oven at home abaking, and many of our godly neighbours have quite spent all, and we owe one loaf of that little we have.' Then spake the third, 'My husband hath ven- tured himself among the Indians for corn, and can get none; as also our honoured Governor has 2o6 Old New England Churches distributed his so far, that a day or two more will put an end to his store, and all the rest; and yet methinks our children are as cheerful, fat, and lusty, with feeding upon these muscles, clams, and other fish, as they were in England with their fill of bread; which makes me cheerful in the Lord's providing for us, being further confirmed by the exhortation of our Pastor to trust the Lord with providing for us, whose is the earth and the fullness thereof.' And lo, as they were thus encouraging one another they lifted up their eyes and saw two ships coming in; and presently this news came to their ears that they were come from Ireland full of victuals." As we read, our own hearts beat more quickly in sympathy with the rejoicing felt more than two hundred and fifty years ago. A fairly complete record tells us that there were fourteen men of title to be found in the settle- ment, " Mister " at this time being a prefix of much distinction. Members of the Dorchester church largely con- stituted the original congregation of the Second Church of Boston. One of these, Christopher Gibson, admitted as free man in 1631, left a generous legacy "for the promoting of learn- ing in Dorchester," and with this was purchased "the school pasture." Disinterested benevolence on the part of citizens is everywhere visible. First Church, Dorchester, Mass. 207 John Gomall, a tanner, left by his will the value of forty pounds out of his tan yard "to be put into the hands of some godly and honest man, to be by him loaned, from time to time, to some poor, honest, and godly mechanick to assist in setting him up in business." The first code of laws of the Colony of Connecti- cut was compiled by another of Dorchester's early citizens, who must share the honour with Dr. Roger Ludlow, Esq., of Hartford. Colonel Pierce kept a careftil diary and one can be thrilled by its briefest entries, because it is imbued with the spirit of a time marked by the absorption and excitement attendant upon early revolution- ary conditions. On March 20, 1764, there was considerable irritation on the part of the church- goers, which Colonel Pierce found of sufficient importance to mention in his diary: "Mr. Bow- man desired to have them sing twice in the fore- noon." On April 3, 1771, "I set a post and an elm tree at the meeting house." On March 14, 1773, "Mr. Bowman refused to baptise Mr. Hall's child although he demanded it in public." It is perfectly obvious that Mr. Bowman was persona non grata in that congregation, but at last on December 14th, according to Colonel Pierce's diary, 2o8 Old New England Churches "Was a church meeting, and the council dis- missed Mr. Jona Boman from the church this day. We have had eight months controversy with Mr. Boman but got rid of him at last by paying him 450 pounds a year to go away." Obviously the historian's figures are wrong. Now begins the strain, the excitement of the Revolution. "June 13, 1774, the soldiers land at Boston." September i, 1774, "There was an alaram; there was about 8 or 9 thousand men met at Cambridge." October 4th, 1774, "We had our training at Dorchester." November 17, 1774, "The officers of this regiment met at Stouton to choose their field officers. Chosen for the same Lemuel Robinson, Deacon Gill, and Joseph Voce." April 19, 1775, "This day there was a terrible battle at Lex- ington and Concord between our people and the soldiers which marcht out of Boston; the soldiers fired on our people, and then the battle began, and there were about 40 of our people kild and 190 of the soldiers, as near as could be recollected." After this there is little in the diary that does not breathe of war and patriotism, though we do find that on May 14, 1778, Mr. John Minot "Enoculated his family with smallpox much against the minds of his neighbours," and that on May 31st of the same year "there was near Photograph by Halliday, Basic- MEETING HOUSE HALL, DORCHESTER, MASSACHUSSETS The first church in Dorchester, in the building of which (original) "everyone had his sword by his side, and so builded" > First Church, Dorchester, Mass. 209 a hundred prayed for this day under the occasion of the smallpox in Dorchester." Dorchester's early church records are perhaps more representative than any other, of the extraordinary choice of baptismal names at that time. We find the males named "Comfort, Consider, Dependence, Desire, Freegrace, Friend, Hopestill, Praise-ever, Preserve, Purchase, Rejoice, Remember, Return, Standfast, True-cross, Unite, Vigilance, and Watching." And the females, "Amity, Christian, Hope, Repent, Rest, Thankful, Virtue, Waitawhile, and Waitstill." A very slight exercise of imagination enables us to read a volume into the personal history of the people who obviously commemorated events, psychical situations, and secret intelligence in the names of their children. The epitaphs on the old grave-stones suggest an inclination to waggery in the town; for example that to the memory of three brothers, Thomas, Joseph, and Bray Clarke : " Here lies three Clarks, their accounts are even, Entered on earth, carried up to Heaven." This conversion of a surname to an Englishism to suit the exigencies of the occasion seems to rob the departure of these three gentlemen of much of its seriousness. ■f: ■ BROOKFIELD CHURCH, BROOKFIELD, MASS. CHAPTER XII Brookfield Church, Brookfield, Massachu- setts THERE was worship in Brookfield, presum- ably under a tree, a good many years be- fore the church was organised, but at length one was established under the direction of the General Court very much as a Carnegie library would be to-day. Before privileges were given by the General Court to this parish, before land was set aside for it, there had to be a guarantee that twenty families would be there within three years. The minister must meet the approval of the Court, his support be provided for " either by setting apart of lands or what else shall be thought mete." Thirteen years after this the settlement was incorporated and called Brookfield, but there had been a church building previously, although we have no details concerning it; and before it was built services were held in the houses or in the fields. On August 4, 1675, the little settlement and its church were wiped out. Indians came down upon them, fired the village, and destroyed it. Those of the in- 213 214 Old New England Churches habitants who escaped came back to the settle- ment later and brought others with them. After this their formal worship was intermittent and services could be held only when a minister could be secured. The year 1698 "marked the beginning of a continuous church and ministry," and 20 pounds were raised by the town toward a preacher's support. The supervision of the General Court over Brook- field was rigid and extremely paternal, for its yearly grant was made to the parish " always provided that the ministers employed should be approved by the ministry of the neighbouring towns." As yet there was no church building, but Gilbert's fort, which afterward became the residence of the one settled minister, was chosen as a place of regular worship. In 17 16 the new meeting house built on the old site was completed, its minister was or- dained and installed, and Brookfield parish became an established fact. It was a very orderly settle- ment. Its affairs were carried on in a housekeeper- like way, and when it was actually organised it was "Voted to give Mr. Cheney for his salary fifty- two pounds yearly for three years, and to raise 40s a year until it comes to 70 pounds and then to stay." "Voted to build him a house and bam accord- Brookfield Church, Brookfield, Mass. 215 ing to the dimensions he has given, Mr. Cheney providing glass, nails, and iron." "Voted to break up, fence and 'fitt' to sow eight acres of land." "Voted to get Mr. Cheney 25 cords of wood yearly, his lifetime." "Voted to give Mr. Cheney each man one day's work for six years his house and bam to be built in four years, always providing Mr. Cheney be our ordained minister." This is an exceptionally coherent and well thought out document for that time. The divi- sion of labour for Mr. Cheney's benefit and the relative liberality of Brookfield's provision for him are most unusual in the history of New England parishes. No wonder that their first preacher dwelt with them for thirty years. Later on, Brookfield split into two parishes, the present town of Warren having branched off from the orginal settlement. Trouble came to the parish in 1749 when a new building was taken under advisement. A lack of tact on the preacher' s part did not help the situation. Foster'"s Hill had been the site of the first church and it was then the centre of the settlement, but in the course of years the residential centre changed, and many had to travel, miles in order to reach the church. Everybody wanted a new house but 2i6 Old New England Churches everybody also wanted a different site. The ecclesiastical difficulties did not affect the town administration, as they might have done in other instances, the town and the church being largely independent of each other. At last the people agreed upon " the height of land near Seth Banis- ter's, now known as the Mall." The house was built, and the first service was held in it on the fifteenth of September, 1754. The materials of the old house were used in finishing the new, but the choice of " spot " on which to build it brought about the division of the old precinct and parish. "On October i6th, same year, the parish at a regular meeting held in the new meeting house, voted to assess the inhabitants the yearly tax, including the minister's salary — 64 pounds; also something for finishing the new meeting house. The next day, October 17th, a petition was sent to the General Court containing the requests, — First to restrain the parish from collecting the said tax, and second to see if the parish might not be equally divided." In response a committee from the council and house of representatives was sent to Brookfield to investigate the conditions. , The report was that the feeling of bitterness had become so intense that division seemed the Brookfield Church, Brook-field, Mass. 217 only way to settle the trouble. Division was the result. More than forty years afterward the creed was changed from Trinitarian to Unitarian, and after this the preachers were chosen largely for their liberality. The Rev. Micah Stone came to the church in 1800, chiefly because of his breadth of theological opinion. "But whether the people grew more liberal, or Mr. Stone less so, or both, is not known." Howbeit, he was dismissed after twenty-six years, on the plea that his preaching was too evangelical. Whether Brookfield knew it or not, this could hardly have been the reason. After twenty-six years of acceptable service, one man, circumscribed by continuous living in one lo- cality with one people, is not likely to change his point of view very materially. In all probability Mr. Stone was as liberal in 1826 as he was in 1800, but the young folks had grown up in these twenty- six years, and what seemed liberal to the old folks doubtless appeared conservative to the young. The pastor who had so faithfully served them was permitted to preach if he chose on those Sun- days which chanced to find the congregation preacher-less, and if anybody wished to hear him he was at liberty to do so. Mr. Stone accepted a 2i8 Old New England Churches bonus of one hundred dollars and the situation. Later the more conservative enlisted with " Priest Stone," as he was called, to form the first evan- gelical society in Brookfield, and under these con- ditions he preached for twenty-five years more, when he died. For five years Brookfield had a really scholarly man in the Rev. George R. Noyes, who preached to the church, newly made Unitarian. Very soon he resigned his ministry to become a professor in Harvard University. In forming the Evangelical church a lawsuit grew out of theological disagree- ments. The communion service had been made by Paul Revere in six pieces and it was the gift of the widow of Ephraim Barttell, who left a bequest of one hundred pounds for the purchase. The deacons who left the original church with Mr. Stone, carried off this service. In many instances, for example in the case of King's Chapel and Dr. Caner, this portable property seems to have met many vicissitudes. According to Massachusetts law, the deacons of a church are the custodians of all its furniture and at the time they carried off the Brookfield service nobody protested; but they went too far, when they refused to lend these vessels for the purpose of celebrating the com- Brookfield Church, Brookfield, Mass. 219 munion. The church went to law about it; the parish won and got back the vessels they never would have fought to claim if the deacons had been a little more accommodating. After the Revolution the church acquired a steeple, a bell, and a clock, and in 1797 the music was attended to, -but it was not until 1822 that Brookfield church got a stove or until 1830 that it had a library. The Brookfield meeting house, like others, was used for all public purposes, town caucuses, voting, and so on. Part of the time the town paid rent to the church. The church covenant in 171 7 contained three hundred and ninety-nine words; but the last covenant — 1890 — ^was expressed in twenty-five words, proving that considerable simplicity had slipped in along with regeneration. Brookfield was a unit in going to war. We find for eight unbroken generations, public service ren- dered by some of its families. In 1904, for the first time, the parish celebrated the anniversary of its church organisation. The occasion revealed a curious error in history — which is an argument in favour of the preservation of records, especially those of public interest. The present town of Brookfield, having been 2 20 Old New England Chufches designated the "Third Precinct" by the General Court in 1754, was universally supposed to be the third church of the old town. Minister and people therefore planned to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, but the first record, dated January 15, 1755, began thus: " A legal meeting of the parish was held in the meeting house." At once the question arose, " How came a parish just created to have a meeting house?" On reading further it was found that nothing but routine parish business was done. Clearly there was another chap- ter. It was found at last in the form of a package of loose sheets of paper of all sizes, but of undoubted authenticity, containing the record of the parish previous to the division of the old First Precinct. These records soon cleared up the mystery by showing that when the section was divided into the First and Third Precincts the church was left in the Third Precinct, with all its equipments, in- cluding the pastor. They also showed every action: the vote to build, to discontinue services, to tear down the old meet- ing house, and to instruct the minister to hold future services of worship in the new meeting house, thus proving that what was supposed to be the third was in reality the first church of the old town. FIRST PARISH CHURCH: OLD NORTH EAST CHURCH, BROOKFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS Whose communion service was made by Paul Revere, given by Mrs. Ephraim Barttell, and finally carried off by the deacons of the original society ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH, MARBLE- HEAD, MASS. CHAPTER XIII St. Michael's Church, Marblehead, Massa- chusetts UNTIL we read of the first church build- ing in New England in 17 14, the history of St. Michael's, Marblehead, is obscure. One writer of records suggests that the parish had not been without service all this time, but that in all probability the "frigates and merchant vessels that touched at Marblehead on their way to Boston supplied a chaplain or lay reader." When St. Michael's Church was built the town of Marblehead was very near dissolution. It had no trade and no enterprise. The people lived to themselves with isolated interests. There seems to have been no political, sentimental, or military resistance when from time to time En- gland's acts aroused the other colonists, almost without exception; but Marblehead was all alive when pirates or a press-gang threatened their fisheries or themselves. It was General Nicholson who headed the subscription list when money was needed to build this church. His govem- 223 224 Old New England Churches mental methods were not all that could be desired, but he has left behind a proper record as a friend, as a promoter of education, and as a man who resented the ills of the badly used and that he tried to remedy them. King's Chapel in Boston and Queen Anne's already existed when St. Michael's was built, but this church alone remains an en- during monument to the Episcopal faith in New England. In all probability, the names on the early parish records of patrons to this church and contributors to its fund, implied " non-resident members " and it is likely that the church was really brought into being by the transient "masters of English ves- sels trading at this port." Part of St. Michael's records were incorporated with those of King's Chapel, Boston. Though lost to local fame they have become a part of New England history. In looking over the documents of this Episcopal folk we find much less of illiteracy than we do in the records of the Puritans. There is still much to be desired in the way of spelling, but they would pass a fair examination. General Nicholson took with him to England a petition to the " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts" which bore a I « a St. Michael's Church, Marhlehead, Mass. 225 request that a preacher be sent to Marblehead " with all convenient speed, with the usual salary- allowed their missionaries": "Of what consideration your petitions are, will be seen by the niimber of their names and the value of their subscriptions underwritten. We must also add that the town of Marblehead (next Boston) is the greatest place of trade in this prov- ince, daily adding to their numbers persons chiefly of the Church of England. And by the blessing of God we have a certain prospect that the church here will be every day increased and fiotuished more and more." From what we know of Marblehead at that time we can judge that the truth was stretched slightly in the interests of acquiring a preacher. The town's opportunities may have been as great as Boston's commercially, but she had neglected them woefully. By this petition we see that the church was a missionary result of that well-ordered institution — ^the Church of England. Here was no wretched log hut, no fanatical sufferings undertaken by the people, no glorying in unnecessary affliction such as the Puritans felt, but a very orderly erection of a structure, the material of which was im- ported complete from England. The house was raised on the second day of September, 17 14, 2 26 Old New England Churches with or without the usual allowance of "ruhm and cacks." The arched roof, simulating a cross, can still be seen under another roof of peculiar shape. The Rev. William Shaw came to the community the year following the petition. Considerable trouble arose presently when the selectmen and assessors undertook to tax the people of St. Michael's to support the Congregational preachers, declaring that the law of the province decreed that this tax must be paid. St. Michael's people declared they "would not pay tribute to dis- senters." Then came still another Puritan society and St. Michael's was overwhelmed indeed, since it worshipped with neither society and yet was expected to pay tribute to both. The rector felt especially beset, and he wrote home to England that a new meeting house had been built in "damnable spite and malice against our church." The poor man must have known better when he said it, but he was sorely tried and had plenty of cause for resentment. The people of the parish voluntarily contributed to their own church, but they still resented taxation for the Puritan meet- ing houses, though in consequence their estates were likely to be confiscated. Obviously this St. Michael's Church, Marblehead, Mass. 227 was the Puritans' opportunity. The Church of England had made it exceedingly warm for their fathers, and now in the very teeth of the Puritans was set down a woebegone little parish which it was quite likely the fathers could make one bite of. As soon as the church came into existence not only was it taxed to maintain the meeting houses but it was loaded down also with taxes levied in the spirit of reprisal, and the situation became so intolerable that an appeal was made to the Gov- ernor, who attempted to restrain the selectmen and assessors without success. A joke appeared through all the tragedy when the parish clerk undertook to expound the Gospel and run opposition to the rector. This was beyond ministerial endurance and the rector fled to England. His successor came out in the "dead of winter." If he had arrived in the summer doubtless he would have found it cold enough, but by spring the parish seemed to have warmed considerably and his administration was a success. This second rector, Rev. David Masson, finding his people still serfs to the Puritan meeting house, made a successful appeal to the Governor. By this time the parish had undertaken to meet all charges resulting from resistance on the part of the churchmen to 228 Old New England Churches the undesired tax levied upon them. The selectmen and assessors of Marblehead were rendered power- less and St. Michael's became an unhampered fact. By 1724 it was a fairly comfortable and suc- cessful parish, and application was made for its christening to General Nicholson, at that time governor of South Carolina. He named the church, and then St. Michael's prudent, deter- mined, and successful Mr. Masson went hence to take part in the marriage ceremony of George Washington and Mrs. Custis. Thus began the romantic, sentimental, and vicariously military history of St. Michael's. The first brass chandelier of colonial associa- tion was given to the church in 1732 by John Elbridge, Esq., collector of the Port of Bristol, England, along with an oil portrait of himself. In 1745, the beautiful communion service of solid silver was presented by David le Gallis. Need- less to say St. Michael's suffered no disturbance through Whitefield's visit, although Puritan Marblehead went into the ordinary emotional ferment. The reasonable methods of the Estab- lished Church had by this time begun to have their effect upon the Puritans, and St. Michael's ac- quired supporters from the enemy's party. St. Michael's Church, Marblehead, Mass. 229 The Hon. Samuel Rhodes relates an interesting incident that concerns the Rev. Peter Bours, one of St. Michael's rectors: " It seems that among other servants the rever- end gentleman owned a very ill-tempered and vicious woman. One night in a fit of indignation she attempted to take the life of her master and the next day, having some regard for his personal safety, he sold her. With the money thus pro- cured Mr. Bours purchased a lifesize portrait of himself, painted by one of the most celebrated artists in the country. This portrait is now in the possession of a member of the parish." By 1763 Marblehead had become a successful town. Its commerce had increased, it had a good foreign trade, and as a port it was only second in importance. In 1766 Marblehead elected the only churchman who sat in the General Assembly. Then came the Stamp Act, and it was on board a Marblehead merchant ship that the first blood- shed of the Revolution occurred. This was the direct result of the " impressment of American seamen." Not unnaturally the churchmen were on the fence. They were more entirely without any other interest than the propagation of the Gospel, as they understood it, than were the Puritans themselves. Being a missionary people. 230 Old New England Churches their hearts were in England, and for that matter so were their interests, hence it was not unnatural that the Puritans should denounce their church as "nursing her children with milk unfriendly to the sons of liberty." Whitefield came again and sent to the devil, as far as was in his power, " the church, the rector, and all belonging to it," which did not make the parish of St. Michael's look any more favourably upon the cause of those who were by this time "Americans." New England was now " home " to many, and the terms patriotism, treason, goodness, wickedness, right and wrong had become so confused, motives so confounded, interests so divided, that Marble- head did not know in its own New England phrase "whether it was coming or going." Even if the Revolution had not extended beyond the little com- munity of Marblehead, she would have had pretty much all she could do to sort her own affairs. In 1 77 1 we find in the church of St. Michael's an attention to detail and personal comfort that is quite as startling as it is interesting. A door was cut in the side of the church to suit the convenience of a fat man who was much too large "to enter an ordinary pew door" and this in the records is rather delicately alluded to thus: "At present it St. Michael's Church, Marblehead, Mass. 231 is convenient to keep open the door leading into the garden of the late William Bourne, Esq." And now for the first time we read of a reason- able grievance against St. Michael's church. Un- til this time the Puritans had been merely exercis- ing their privilege of persecuting people who did not "live and move and have a being" pre- cisely as they did, but now the question became more than one of personal prejudice. The Church of England stood for the Tory element, and was, of course, execrated. The members were divided necessarily, a good many of them strongly op- posing the measures of the British Government, but at the same time determined to maintain their religious preferences and privileges. This was but a preliminary skirmish; when it came to the real battle, Marblehead was a unit, and it was largely Marblehead that supplied the Ameri- can navy. It was Marblehead's own son, James Mugford, who captured the British vessel Hope, which bore munitions of war. To add to the ferment, St. Michael's rector proved his courage by openly declaring himself a loyalist. Mr. Samuel Rhodes writes deprecatingly: "Mr. Weeks, though an exceedingly pious and efficient minister, was not very discreet, and took 232 Old New England Churches no pains to conceal his loyalty to the King and his desire for the overthrow of the enemies of the Crown." Most of us will be likely to disagree with the spirit of this judgment. Mr. Weeks may have been indiscreet, but it is certain that his down- right courage added dignity to St. Michael's and gave to it a profounder meaning than all the com- bined ministerial discretion of New England could have done. His determination to read prayers for the preservation of the royal family did not do England any great deal of good, and it raised a tempest in the home teapot, already big enough since the tea-tax, but his moral courage made for good nevertheless. Those who found the situation hardest were the staunch patriots among the churchmen. One of these was a major in the Marblehead regi- ment, and another a commander at the battle of Bunker Hill. Boston clergymen may have been in accord with Mr. Weeks, but they had stopped praying for the royal family while he continued to do so for more than a year after the Declaration of Independence was signed. In a fair-minded, Christian spirit he put up petitions for the royal family as well as for the Hottentot, and doubtless St. Michael's Church, Marblehead, Mass. 233 he prayed even for the Puritan. In all probability he mixed his values, feeling that the Puritan most needed his prayers, while he probably prayed for the royal family from courtesy and fondness. In time this had to be stopped as it was too much for htmian nature and patriotism. The Provincial Congress came down heavily upon Mr. Weeks, and St. Michael's church was closed. When Indepen- dence was declared, all Marblehead went mad, the church bells rang for a week, bonfires burned on every hilltop for seven nights, and even St. Michael's had to join the procession, because men broke in, pulled the royal coat of arms from above the chancel, and rang the bell till it cracked. The rector continued to hold service in private houses and consistently prayed for his king and for his enemy the Puritan; but in the end it was majority-rule and he had to flee to Nova Scotia. Some of his people went with him, and they took the communion service along, but must have had a change of heart because it was afterward restored. The amazing zeal of this society was demon- strated in an act of Ashley Bowen who, fearing that in some riotous outbreak all copies of the Book of Common Prayer might be destroyed, 234 Old New England Churches copied with his own hand the entire volume; a remarkable and laborious undertaking. Chant- ing was introduced at St. Michael's, for the first time in America, probably in 1786. At this time there came to the support of the church. Colonel William R. Lee, Colonel Marston Watson, Captain Joshua Orne, Captain William Blackler and the Hon. Samuel Sewall. Captain Blackler commanded the boat on that bitter Christmas night on which George Washington crossed the Delaware to fight the battle of Trenton. Mr. Harris's pastorate began in 1791, and he resigned only to become president of Columbia College in New York. The church fell upon parlous times almost immediately after the resignation of the Rev. Benjamin Bosworth Smith, who became rector in 18 18. St. Michael's was closed, the glebe was sold to pay off the parish debts, etc., and it was doubtful whether the church would ever be opened again for liturgic services. An at- tempt to re-charter the building and turn it into a " Congregational meeting house " was pres- ently made by Mr. Reed when the Channing movement was in full swing, but the old pro- prietors objected. The Bishop of the Diocese made a protest to the Legislature, and with the St. Michael's Church, Marblehead, Mass. 235 Rev. Mr. Carlisle's help succeeded in maintaining the status of St. Michael's. This imminent peril roused the parish. The church was opened, ser- vices reestablished, and in 1833 we find it on its feet again. The old church has a record of no less deter- mined purpose and strength in overcoming ob- stacles than that of any of the Puritan churches. St. Michael's trials differed from those met by the Puritans in establishing their houses. Its pur- poses were different, and so were its methods; but with all their disagreements the two peoples were bound to meet upon the common ground of sincerity and strength, and we lose sight of all but the similitude of Christian virtues. FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, SALEM, MASS. CHAPTER XIV First Congregational Church, Salem, Massa- . chusetts THE Salem church was the first Congre- gational church completely formed on the American continent. The organisation was made in July and August, 1629, and the only freemen in Salem at that time were necessarily church members. In all probability ministrations at Salem began under the traditional tree, though there is no specific record to that effect; we do know how- ever, that the congregation worshipped from 1629 to 1634 in an unfinished building. Not long after this, money was appropriated to erect a meeting house, and bills were paid " for daubing and glazing." In 1639 there was an agreement made with John Pickering to build a new meeting house, but in all probability this was only an addition. The detail of agreement with Picker- ing includes "one catted chimney 12 feet long . . . sufficient windows . . . and a pair of stairs to ascend to the gallery." In 1647 we read of 239 240 Old New England Churches this fragmentary structure that " Mr. George Cur- win and Wilham Lord have undertaken to provide stone and clay for repairs. . . . Mr. Curwin has promised to provide for covering the meeting house 500 nails, and is promised to be paid to his content." This matter of nails was not so trifling in a day when temporarily empty buildings were burned by miscreants for the chance of stealing the nails from the ruins. Finally in 1670 this patched-up little house gave place to one upon land donated by the town " at the west end of the old meeting house toward the prison." The old building continued to have its uses, becoming a " skoole house and watch house." It was to be carried " into some convenient place where it may be reformed for the town's use " and "the old pulpit and the deacons' seat be given to the farmers." No part of it was to be lost, and New England economists distributed the under- pinning and the clay of the old meeting house to Mr. Fisk. The remnant of the structure found a noble use for a long time after this, it being converted into a place "for teaching reading, writing, ciphering, and navigation." There is a tradition, but no record, that later a part of the old meeting house was used as a tavern. This First Congregational Church, Salem, Mass. 241 tradition is preserved through the Pierce, Pope, and Proctor families, Hneal descendants of Thorn- dike Proctor, locally celebrated in his time, and who is supposed to have bought part of the old meeting house for -tavern purposes. Local history seems to substantiate this legend, but there are certain architectural peculiarities of the present building which compel one to believe that it is identical with the first church, though the fact cannot be established with certainty. The details are de- ductions and facts drawn from a report made by C. M. Endicott, Francis Peabody, George D. Phippen, A. C. Goodell, and Ira J. Patch in i860. The people occupied their third house in 17 18, and worshipped there for one hundred and eight years till the present brick structure was dedi- cated in 1826. In common with most of the meeting houses of New England, those of old Salem were thatched and daubed, because shingles and clay boards (clapboards) were practically out of the question. The name of Thatcher is one so prevalent in New England as to suggest that thatching was the business of many of its citizens. The family names of the Puritans were often descriptive of 242 Old New England Churches their callings as witness Wainwright, Baker, Hooper, Farmer, Currier, and Turner; and their baptismal names as surely reflected their mental and spiritual sympathies. Weeden in his eco- nomic and social history of New England discusses thatchers' tools in 1662, and mentions the exist- ence of the business in 1690, hence there were certainly thirty years of thriving business for the thatchers. The coarse mixture of grass, straw, and clay applied to the inner and outer walls, and so universally used, should have given rise to a Dauber family who might well have run the Thatchers close in point of numbers. To "daub" Salem meeting house cost the sum of 17s lod in 1638. In Salem we find the same conditions of peril, fear, and crude defence, which confronted the settlers throughout the New World; but the people not only sentinelled their church for temporal safety, but patrolled the town to impress its citizens into the spiritual Kingdom. It was customary during the infant history of this church that two should be appointed each Sunday to go into the town to reconnoitre and make note of those found lying about the meeting house or "at home" or "in the fields" unable to First Congregational Church, Salem, Mass. 243 give a good account of themselves ; unable to tell to the satisfaction of the investigators why they were not at church. This constabulary was after- ward required to take the names of such delin- quents and give them over to the magistrate who was to proceed against them. In turn the con- stables were under the sharp surveillance of the selectmen who travelled with them, compelling them to do their duty. The doors of the meet- ing house were guarded, none could get out until the services were done, and all the boys were compelled to sit on the stairs. There were three pairs besides the pulpit steps, which always received the worst of the lads since there the congregational eye could best be focussed on them. In Salem town was also a dog-whipper whose duty it was to keep dogs out of the meeting house. Listen to this: " In the church of Salem, the women, in times of service, have their faces covered with a veil." Is not this a revelation of a persistent gallantry with which even Puritan strictures could hardly cope ? Also, "They had for the more order in their church, to keep people from sleeping, a man that wholly tended with a short clubbed stick, having at one end a knop and at the other a fox tail, with which he would stroke the women's faces, that were 244 Old New England Churches drowsy with sleep, and with the other would knock unruly dogs, and men that were asleep." This with much else was printed by Thomas Maule in 1695, but the publication was suppressed by order of the General Court. The method of making church collections estab- lished social precedence. The magistrates and chief gentlemen came up first on one side, deposited at the deacons' seat their offerings — money, papers or other chattels — and then passed back to their seats by another way. We have in Salem a frightful scene of darkness and horror which conscience does not permit us to pass by lightly. It cannot be dispassionately considered, even in the softening light of spiritual zfeal, but can be excused only and contemplated with an3rthing like temperate feeling if we re- gard this early settlement as the camping ground of those whose original and sanctified purposes had so far got the upper hand as to make them a mad community. That so liberal a mind as that of Roger Williams should have touched at any point those mad souls of Salem, seems a peculiar irony of fate, and one cannot but wonder if it was the tre- mendous reactionary effect of that incongruous First Congregational Church, Salem, Mass. 245 association of Williams and Salem which was the occasion of New England's development a hundred years ahead of herself. Salem intolerance gave birth to a liberalism which was to lead to the premature glory of New England, because Williams was to found a state upon the basis of civil and religious freedom. A frightful tragedy was connected with this First Church of Salem: the Rev. Hugh Peters, one of its earliest ministers, met a brutal death in England some years later. When he first returned to that country he said, in a sermon which he preached before both houses of Parliament, " I have lived in a country where, in seven years I never saw a beggar, nor heard an oath, nor looked upon a drunkard." Thus did he reflect the social and economic conditions of our country in 1645. It was this man's magnificent service among the Puritans which made him a subject of royal in- vective, and upon the restoration of Charles II he was condemned to death. He charged his homeless, unhappy daughter to return to New En- gland if possible, and to "go in good company and trust God there; the church are a tender company." In the course of time came the Rev. Nicholas Noyes who took so startling a part in the history 246 Old New England Churches of witchcraft. With this man as leader, Salem had forced upon her a horrible moment in history. The grotesque and fearful doings of that time were better left without further discussion. The details have been given to us complete from time to time by many writers; but those conditions should be given no more than a chronological place in any history of to-day. Benjamin Lynde's wonderful diary tells us that on January 27, 17 18: "Mr. Fisk was chosen by the members of the first parish church in Salem to be their minister (by their usual and ancient sign of holding up the right hand) which was also entered in the parish book. N. B. This choice was in their old meet- ing house, being near forty of the members present, voting all for him, nemine contradtcente." Thus we learn that the " com vote, " taken oy many of the settlements, was not a parliamentary characteristic of Salem procedure. There was majority rule in the town. In taking the vote it was " Ye that are so minded, hold up your hands — ye that are otherwise minded, hold up your hands." This last ministerial choice in the old meeting house seems to have been, unsanctified, because there is a very vivid account in Benjamin Lynde's First Congregational Church, Salem, Mass. 247 diary, written at least eighteen years after, of an effort to placate Mr. Fisk. The entry says that on July 22, 1736, there was "A Private Fast on the part of the aggrieved congregation or Society meeting in the old House, humbly to seek out God for the restoring peace, and healing our divisions and bringing us to a good settlement under a godly minister. Mr. Chipman began in prayer by putting us under examination of ourselves, whether we have not been the instrumental cause of these long divisions and several harsh pointed heads, without the least charging Mr. Fisk, his party, only that God would give him repentance and something of a reunion of his adherence with us; too long." In these last two words we probably have a con- census of the congregation's opinion. Lynde writes further of Mr. Fisk taking his sermon from "3d Jeremiah, 17, wherein he ran very high in, and for, the ecclesiastical authority of ministers, and expostulated with the present Society, and put them on examination whether God's anger might not be on account of their remissness and careless receiving the communion under Mr. Fisk' s administration. ' ' Mr Fisk must have very completely disrupted the church for on Monday night; the second of August 1736, 248 Old New England Churches "The members of the ist church of Salem, viz.; the aggrieved brethren, to the number of 2 1 , met at Timothy Lindall's, Esq., his house, to recognise and renew the original covenant of said church, from which Mr. Fisk, our late pastor, has gone off, and carried away a number with him, to the denying this ancient church's principles." Thus Salemites lived more or less impatiently under the burden of their own mistake for nearly eighteen years. It is only in the history of this town that we have an5rthing like a complete account of the burial customs of New England, which were, ap- parently, more comfortable than the customs of the living. The price of digging a grave in Salem was eight shillings, except in winter, when it was more. In 1691 such services, including the "ring- ing the bell for a man or a woman" were 3s. The chimney of the meeting house was the place in which the coffin rested, and it was forbidden " to run or go before or abreast with the corpse or relations." If it was a man who had died, the coffin was immediately followed by men; if the deceased was a woman, then the coffin was fol- lowed by women. When one dead of smallpox was to be buried, the constable walked before to give notice of the danger of infection, and such bur- First Congregational Church, Salem, Mass. 249 ials took place arbitrarily at three o'clock in the afternoon. There was a law passed in 1737 that no funeral should be held on the Sabbath. This law was for a long time in operation. Until 1742 it was the custom to furnish large quantities of wine and cider, sugar and spices, at the funerals even of paupers, but this was temporarily prohibited in 1748. There is a clause in Thomas Barton's will, however, written in 1751, which speaks of such pomps for the dead as were mostly quite foreign to the living. By the same document he leaves to his wife " all my gold rings had at funerals save what may be made use of at my own funeral." What a revelation this is of certain forms of vanity in those times! Later on there was much resent- ment toward any sort of mourning apparel which came from England, because the colonists feared it would encourage England in her system of colonial taxation. Apropos of burial customs, a desolate and fearful suggestion is to be found in certain records. It was necessary in those days to seek some place for the dead more or less in- accessible to wolves, because they were " troublous aggressors on such enclosures." Salem was the scene of much accident and vio- 250 Old New England Churches lence in its early days. The careless discharge of guns, drownings, and avalanches of snow occa- sioned many casualties. Mr. Skelton's servant came near adding to the list of tragedies, for " she was so frozen in the snow one morning as she was one hour before she could get up; — yet she soon recovered." Woe to him who was not in accord with Salem church. It was " for hard speeches against Salem church" that "Philip Ratclif was sentenced to pay forty pounds fine, to be whipped and have his ears clipped and to be banished." Men re- ceived God at the point of the bayonet, as it were. One man was cut off from the church for neglect- ing to have his child baptised. But the zeal of the preachers so far outstripped the endurance of the parishioners, it became necessary to de- clare that every "worshipping assembly should close in time to reach home before dark." There was much opposition to the fanaticism which amounted to madness in Salem, and the intolerance of the church caused many to go away. Lady Deborah Moody left the town and moved to Long Island because she was "admonished here for denying infant baptism." Men and women were arraigned for absence from worship, First Congregational Church, Salem, Mass. 251 and people were even imprisoned for entertaining those who were antagonistic to the church. All those who resisted these frightful severities, needed to the full the courage of their con- victions, and they seem to have had it. Though stripped, whipped, and tied to a cart's tail, they returned to their own houses still to protest, still to maintain as much as they could of their rights as human beings rather than as church vassals. The dissenters from Mr. Fisk's ministry were indeed tenacious of their purpose and principles, but the parson was no less so, and for a very long time his spirit appears to have made up for the discrepancy in numbers upon his side. Finally, his enemies definitely determined to exclude him from the meeting house and to hire another preacher. Samuel Mather was spoken of as Fisk's suc- cessor, and those of the church who were against Mr. Fisk assembled to discuss the matter. Some- one was appointed to prevent the preacher getting into his pulpit; but his friends were there also, and a hand-to-hand encounter took place. He and the Rev. Mr. Mather attempted to exhort and pray each other down, but Mr. Mather and his adherents, being able to make more noise than Mr. Fisk and his adherents, got the best of 252 Old New England Churches the battle and Mr. Fisk withdrew, taking part of the audience with him. The afternoon witnessed a repetition of the quarrel and the uproar became so great that Mr. Fisk could not make himself heard, and had to withdraw again. His adherents followed. Later he found favour in Boston where a convention of ministers undertook to up- hold him. This was made an occasion for legis- lative action and a good many ministers fell under censure at the time; but Mr. Fisk's followers raised a meeting house for him, though the workmen were ordered by the Government to stop. His meeting house was raised only three perches and eleven feet from the parish meeting house where his enemies congregated, and the worst that Salem could do was to order that his building be moved forty perches from the original meeting house. Salem was an ideal field for Whitefield's emotional and exciting methods, and when he came there, according to his journal, he "Preached to about 2,000. Here the Lord manifested his glory. In every part of the con- gregation persons might be seen under concern. Mr. C — ^k (Clark), a good minister, seemed to be almost in Heaven." came there, according to his journal, he "Preached to about 2,000. Here the Lord manifested his glory. In every part of the con- gregation persons might be seen under concern. Mr. C — ^k (Clark), a good minister, seemed to be almost in Heaven." First Congregational Church, Salem, Mass. 253 The church was the scene of more riot on the occasion of Mr. Leavit's ordination. Again the Fisk imbroglio was the immediate cause of this. The sheriff was ordered to take Mr. Leavit from the pulpit; whereupon that officer threw a hat in the preacher's face and drove him out; Mr. Leavit and his followers being forced to retire to " Kitchen's Orchard " where the preacher was ordained under a tree. At last the dissensions in Salem church became so great, its intolerance so shameful, that it seemed likely to become a pariah among churches, and the First Church of Gloucester passed the sentence of non-communion upon it. This "was done deliberately and with a great deal of awfulness and solemnity." But "awfulness and solemnity" were a fitting climax to so black a record as Salem's was at that time. LONGMEADOW CHURCH, LONG- MEADOW, MASS. CHAPTER XV LONGMEADOW ChURCH, LoNGMEADOW, MASSA- CHUSETTS ALONG meadow on the Connecticut River just north of the state Hne suggested the name for this town, or possibly, having the name in mind, the people who settled there sought for a long meadow in their leaning toward viriU and similitude. At any rate the name of the town is Longmeadow, and the lay of the land makes it appropriate. Freshets came and settlers went, as a conse- quence, to higher ground until at last they found themselves a mile east of the river, some distance from their original camping ground, but they still retained the name Longmeadow for the settlement. No longer menaced by the river, they built a meeting house in 17 14. It was the usual kind — ^logs, thatch and clay — and it served them for fifty years. At the end of the half cen- tury they were ready to build a new house aided by bequests. The new building had been put up nearly on the site of the old, but the legacies left 257 25 8 Old New England Churches were contingent upon the erection of a new church nearer to the people or the removal of the old structure in that direction. The latter was done, the old house being remodelled. There is much romance connected with this Longmeadow church centred round its preacher Stephen Williams. At ten years of age he with his family were taken captive by the Indians at the time of the Deerfield massacre, and carried to Canada. Eunice, his sister, after the recapture and redemption of her family still remained among the Indians and married one of them. From Eunice Williams's line came the "Bourbon Prince." All favourable evidence received with the utmost cred- ulity cannot point to a king of France as this boy's father. Nothing- is more convincing of the unromantic fact that the priest who afterward found himself very near to a throne was an Indian and not a Bourbon, than his picture. A compari- son of the photograph of the Dauphin of France with that of the Rev. Eleazer Williams is accepted as evidence of his royal parentage by those who believe in that story. Different people see things in different ways. Mary C. Crawford has told the picturesque side of this story and told it well, but even so, we cannot believe the beady-eyed priest ' 'A FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, LONGMEADOW, MASSACHUSETTS Whose meeting house pulpits were occupied by the " Bourbon Prince," the Rev. S. R. Storrs, and the Rev. John Peter Harding — famous preachers of famous times Longmeadow Church, -Longmeadow, Mass. 259 to be a Bourbon simply because we should like to do so, as a fine finish to a fine story. Doubtless there was a discrepancy about the birth of Rev. Eleazer Williams but that doesn't necessarily make him the Dauphin of France. Longmeadow does not accept the Bourbon story, but a man need not be even a king in order to be no prophet in his own country. The story will bear another century of investigation before it is definitely re- jected, certainly before it is definitely received. The preacher, Stephen Williams, showed more than ordinary acumen in getting proper terms from the parish to which he was called before he went to Longmeadow, and he began his ministry there under exceptionally favourable circum- stances. One of the Longmeadow preachers was the Rev. S. R. Storrs, Jr., father of the famous preacher in the Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn. The latter was the third of a preacher family who seems to have excelled in many ways. Edward O. Wolcott, aUnited States senator from Colorado, was bom in the Longmeadow parsonage. Forty-two years of service in the church made the Rev. John Wheeler Harding known as the "Archbishop of Longmeadow." The present pastor of the Longmeadow church 26o Old New England Churches has given us a very good idea of the Rev, Mr. Storrs, who succeeded Williams and long preceded the great Brooklyn divine: "The favourite chaplain on the muster field, well mounted, with shining Blucher boots and cocked hat, he delighted in the hearty welcome of his fellow soldiers. While more elegant, he was not the equal of his predecessor in patience and equanimity. It ruffled him greatly to have the bell stop tolling when he was but half way across the green. Once with all sincerity and solemnity he preached his farewell sermon. Hav- ing relieved his feelings, he continued a score of years longer in the same pulpit. He rode home from the First Church in Springfield without preaching the lecture because the parish author- ities had failed of their repeated promise to cut down an apple tree behind the pulpit window which had too often obscured his vision. He magnified the divine sovereignty, and was per- tinacious on the decrees. An arrangement having been made with Dr. Howard of Springfield for an exchange, they met halfway on horseback. Said Storrs, 'Brother Howard, you see how it was ordained from all eternity that you should preach my lecture.' Said Howard, 'I don't see it! and if it was so decreed, I'll break it!' The good brethren got warm; each turned his horse for home; but Dr. Storrs fired the parting shot: 'If you won't preach my lecture, that was decreed.' " This church had a Paul Revere bell but it lasted only five years. The Longmeadow people were '^r- Old Hadley Meeting House Since 1808 this beautiful church has been standing in the quiet town of Hadley, '" "" ■■ Ti,- _ ggj.jgg Qf Architectural Monographs.) Massachusetts. Railroads Save Money With Paint By Kenneth Stock A MONG paint consumers of the nation, the -^*- railroads rank very near the top. Paint saves the railroads hundreds of thousands of dollars an- nually. A concrete example of the enormous saving is illustrated by a case at Sioux City, low^a. Paint is going to save the five roads entering that city and the city government $2,160 annually for the next twenty-five years. Although this is only a small sum compared to the vast wealth of the railroads, it shows how such savings on all railroad equipment run into at least six figures. The saving at Sioux City is going to be ef- fected through the deci- sion of engineers to paint annually the steel sur- faces of a 1,400-foot viaduct, which is used as a street to span 18 tracks of the five railroads in the heart of the city. Engineers from each of the five railroads re- cently gathered at Sioux City to make an inspec- tion of the viaduct. After the inspection it was decided to paint the via- duct annually to prevent its deterioration. This will enable the present structure to continue in use for the next twenty-five years. The viaduct, which is 1,400 feet long, was con- structed in 1910 at a cost of $104,000. It is made of reinforced steel. Situated as it is in the heart of the city, it is one of the main traveled streets. There is almost no substitute street for the viaduct, which leads to the stock yards, Sioux City's largest single industry. Construction of the viaduct has made travel along the street both speedy and safe, where formerly crossing the great number of railroad tracks was hazardous. More than one hundred trains pass daily under the main span of the viaduct. As the locomotives pass under the structure, the sn^okestacks heVb forth Copyright N. Y. Central R. E. Even the plutocratic railroads surfaces of the viaduct, and because these surface repeatedly are subjected to the action of the acif the steel has become very much deteriorated. ThI engineers discovered this deterioration, which the explained was caused by the lack of paint on th steel surfaces. The estimated cost of painting the bridge ar nually is $2,000. Replacement within a few yeai[ of some of the steel parts of the bridge, which hav become weakened will cost $6,000. Annus painting and replaci ment of some Steel piecr will be all that will I necessary for the viadu( in the >vay of maintei ance for the n e x twenty-five years, tl engineers declared. TlJ total cost for this peric therefore will b $56,000. I On the other hand, I was pointed out that I the viaduct was nc painted annually, a ne\B superstructure will t' needed within the ne> five years, at an expenditure of about $120,000. An nual interest on this amount would be $5,400, at th rate of 4J^ per cent. The annual average cost o, repainting the structure including repairs, will b $2,240, and thus a saving of $2,160 a year will b effected by adoption of the painting plan. While the most important, the financial is no the only advantage of the painting plan. It wil eliminate for at least twenty-five years the incon- venience that would be caused both the city and thi railroads if a new viaduct were to be built. It would eliminate the problem of financing the nt\\\ viaduct. Railroads are slow in authorizing expendi-r tures for new projects, but appropriations for t^ upkeep of existing facilities are obtained much ' easily. And *'0 th^ ncunf-ir'- -^1^-' ttt'*' \- n Co., 1926. find paint a real economy. I Longmeadow Church, Longmeadow, Mass. 261 so unroariously happy over the ending of the War that they rang their bell till they cracked it. Paul Revere recast it and it rang on. Long- meadow's men tramped a hundred miles to Boston to get into the Revolutionary War without delay. Nevertheless, the Revolution brought to Long- meadow parish, as to other parishes, some differ- ences between pastor and people. Dr. Williams was a royalist. "Perhaps it was the conservatism of old age, perhaps it was the fearfulness of age that the efforts of the colonists would be in vain. All his life Dr. Williams had been loyal to the King, and he did not propose at the age of eighty-two to leave off praying for him. In those days the congregation stood for prayer, the hinged pew seats turning up to give more standing room. Having endured prayers for the royal family as Igng as they could, the patriotic but discourteous parishioners signified their indignant protests by slamming the pew seats and sitting down. Nor was it any better after Independence was declared. The pastor wrote in his diary, under date of August II, 1776: 'This day I read publickly, being required thereto by the Provincial Council, the Declaration of the Continental Congress for Independency.' " Longmeadow stands preeminent as a maker of several kinds of romance. In the cemetery of 262 Old New England Churches this First Church of Christ is buried a woman "who postponed her funeral by rising from her coffin. Later she married and became the mother of seventeen children. Her epitaph ought to be 'The last state of that woman is worse than the first.' " There is a gentle and unique custom of Long- meadow church which has prevailed for a genera- tion or more: " After the Children's Day services in the church the long procession marches down the central walk of this beautiful 'God's acre,' the Sunday school children leading, laden with flowers, with which they strew the graves of all who in the last twelve-month have been laid to rest. With a history as long as its street, with sympathies as broad, and with a constitution as sturdy as its ranks of elms, the First Church of Christ in Long- meadow has for one hundred and ninety years maintained alone the Protestant worship of the community, happily incorporating into its mem- bership those of many other communities who have found a home in the old town." FIRST CHURCH, NEWPORT, R. I. CHAPTER XVI First Church, Newport, Rhode Island NEWPORT adopted the Connecticut habit of beginning the Sabbath at sunset on Saturday and ending it at Sunday's sunset. One peculiar custom on Sabbath days was the meeting of heads of famihes, on the grass plot in front of the church where a kind of gossiping con- vention was held until after the first prayer was finished; then the men entered the church boldly, unconscious of creating any disturbance, and took their places. This continued for a long time, until one cheerful Sunday morning when ihey met as usual to discuss the crops and what-not, the Hon. William Elery came into the yard and re- marked blandly, " Gentlemen, I perceive that you do not like short prayers." "Oh, yes," they responded, "we prefer such." " Well," the old man remarked, " I cannot under- stand how that can be when you never come in in time to hear one." This put an end to the Sunday morning con- vention in the churchyard. 26s 266 Old New England Churches In the Second Congregational Church of New- port the Rev. Dr. Channing preached. He was a timorous man, full of physical fears, and it is related that when he was called out in the night to attend the dying, or those who otherwise had need of him, he always besought some one to go with him. There are many delightful anecdotes told of him in " Early Recollections of New- port," by George C. Mason, who was most frequently his conductor on those night excursions. At one time Channing was called out to baptise a parishioner's infant child, thought to be dying of scarlet fever. The reverend doctor remem- bered that another parishioner had a remedy for this frightful disease and with the loving hope that he might be able to save the child he aroused the house of his neighbour at one o'clock in the morning. After much entreat)'- the old lady whose assistance he sought, consented to call the formula out to him from the window. Channing hurried away but arrived only to find the child dying and that he must hasten the rites of baptism. He was called up for all sorts of things — on one occasion to calm the tremors of a young wife whose husband had dined not wisely but too well First Church, Newport, R. I. 267 and had in consequence gone to bed where he dined, leaving his wife to think out the cause of his absence as best she might. The church goers are vividly described as "men in coats of many colours, small clothes, knee-buckles, silk-thread, and woollen stocks, shoes with buckles steel-plated, hightop boots, cocked hats and wigs of every sort and hue; and the women in huge sharp-pointed bonnets, well starched stomachers, close fitting gowns, white belts, and many gold beads, hoop earrings, and with gloves manufactured at the Point, from sheepskin gener- ally coloured blue." Newport was founded by an outcast people, suspected and distrusted. Her territory was claimed by any one who happened to covet it. There is a story of a clergyman who went with some companions to visit a member of his church who lived at Lynn. Coming from Newport, he was regarded as an outlaw and the beadles of the town seized him while he was preaching at his friend's house. The Court sentenced him to fine and imprisonment but he was given the alter- native of a severe whipping. Mr, Holmes, one of the two who accompanied the Newport preacher to Lynn, was offered no 268 Old New England Churches alternative in the shape of a fine, and he was whipped so severely that Governor Jenckes de- clared "He could not take much rest except by supporting himself upon his elbows and knees." Of necessity Rhode Island knew nothing but domestic trade, being cut off from all commerce with the other colonies. This compelled her to be more resourceful than she might otherwise have been, and to-day her independence may be the sign and symbol of the difficulties of her early condition. She did her own fighting, her own praying, and achieved her own success, ha\ing the advantage or disadvantage of none of that inter-dependence and reciprocal condition known to all the rest of New England. Therefore her history stands the mightiest among all the colonies. Rhode Island became the haven of Quakers, Jews, and of nearly everyone else who was under the ban of Puritan intolerance. The United Colonies commissioners hunted the Quakers to Rhode Island and demanded that she practise upon them the same persecutions that they met with else- where, but the dignity of the law in the Rhode Island Legislature was not to be despised: " As concerning these Quakers (so called) which are now among us, we have no law by which to First Church, Newport, R. I. 269 punish any for only declaring, by words, their minds and understandings concerning the things and ways of God, as to salvation and eternal condition." Rhode Island even to-day is, in point of self- reliance, a nation within a nation. Some of the Legislature's replies to the exigent demands made upon it by other colonies are of the rarest in point of wisdom, gentleness, and vigour, and the papers of state are unique among nations. Precedence in point of age is given to the first Newport church over the Providence church. When the second meeting house was built, William Peckham became its pastor. He was supported by weekly contributions and there is a suggestion in the records that these were levied according to the scriptural demand of one-tenth of each man's substance. Peter Foulger, the maternal grandfather of "New England's most wonderftd son, ' ' Benjamin Franklin, went out from this church as a missionary among the Indians. He became a member of that first Baptist church in Newport about one hundred years before the Revolution. In 1729, Dean Berkeley wrote a letter which to-day gives us a fairly good idea of the social and spiritual situation in Newport at that time. 270 Old New England Churches There were fotir sorts of anabaptists, there were Presbyterians, Quakers, Independents, and " many of no profession at all," and yet we find less dis- sension upon matters of religion, less social divi- sion, more unanimity in governmental affairs than we do anywhere else in New England. Newport had a population of about six thou- sand. The one hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the island was celebrated by the erection of a new house of worship. Whitefield, reasonably enough, was not welcomed by Rhode Island folk. It would have been strange if such an emotional, passionate creature had been re- ceived with approval by these people of calm, utilitarian judgments. In 1773 the meeting house was greatly enlarged, and in 1778 the King's troops entered and took possession. In a controversy between Providence and New- port as to which could properly lay claim to being the first Baptist church in America the amusing statement was made by the Rev. S. Adlam, one of the Newport preachers, that as Roger Williams was only four months a Baptist he could not in any sense be accredited the father of the Baptist society in this country; and in other First Church, Newport, R. I. 271 unreflective words he sought to shear Williams of his glory. Whether Roger Williams did or did not found a Baptist church in America — ^whether he ever was a Baptist — has nothing whatever to do with the matter. His four months' experiment in the Baptist doctrine it is unnecessary to con- sider in establishing his relation to the Church. He was so much more than a Baptist that he made the Baptist Church a possibility in Rhode Island. As a fearless man he founded a state and established a condition which made the Baptist, the Quaker, the thinker along an}?- independent line, possible at that time in America. If Roger Williams acknowledged the Baptist Church, even for four months or for four days, the Baptists should appreciate the fact that so able and so good a man ever gave that denomination precedence. Notwithstanding Newport's early treatment of the problem we have distressing accounts of slave barter. The .deacons in the church dealt in slaves and one of them we read was "accus- tomed to give thanks" each first Sunday morn- ing after the safe arrival of his slave ship. He formulated his gratitude by thanking God " that an over-ruling Providence hath been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another cargo of 272 Old New England Churches heathen to enjoy the privileges of the Gospel." It is in Newport annals (a letter) that we are told of a slave woman who, on the voyage from Africa, developed symptoms of smallpox, whereupon she was thrown overboard and drowned in order that the rest on board should not have the disease communicated to them. A somewhat more stren- uous method than vaccination, but exceedingly efficacious. In Newport, as in all the other colonies, rum stood not only next to the law and the Gospel but frequently beside it. We read that once a year farmers drove into Newport with their products and took in exchange first of all rum, next tobacco and salt codfish. If they had any room left on their sledges and any money in their pockets there was a little tea and coflfee added as an excessive indulgence to the women folk. The first house of worship at Newport was at Greensend and its first preacher was Dr. John Clark. Dr. Adlam says : "Among the evils that have resulted from the wrong date of the Providence church has been the prominence given to Roger Williams. It is greatly to be regretted that it has ever entered First Church, Newport, R. I. 273 into the minds of anyone to make him, in America, the founder of our denomination; in no sense was he such; well would it be for Baptists and for Williams himself if his short and fitful attempt to become a Baptist be obliterated from the minds of men." This suggests that however capable a chronolog- ical historian Dr. Adlam may be, he is hardly to be trusted to think unaided. In those days a bellman was employed to walk the streets, and his term of office was for a year " as the town shall agree, " which may have meant "for life or good behaviour." His duty was to ring the bell upon the occasion of any extraor- dinary excitement in the town, such as the im- portation of fruit or fish, and in his instructions we find " he shall not need to stop at each place, but going along give notice thereof by a laud noise." The town seal bore the device of a sheep. It was Peter Easton and John Clark's executors who were commissioned to lay out the first burial ground. Early in Newport history Benedict Arnold moved to the town, and at once he be- came a proprietor. A year later he was made commissioner and presently president of the colony. This name Arnold, latterly so infamous, we learn' from Newport annals had its place among thoe of honest fame. FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, PROVI- DENCE, R. I. Photograph by E. E. SoderhoUz, Boston SPIRE OF THE OLD NORTH, OR CHRIST CHURCH, From which the lantern was hnng as a signal to Paul Revere Photograph by E. E. SoderkoU,. Boston SPIRE OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, PROVIDENCE, CHAPTER XVII First Baptist Church, Providence, Rhode Island RELIGIOUS beginnings in Roger Williams's land were no less definite than in the other settlements, but the movementcannotbe geograph- ically located. During the first sixty-two years of Providence history there was no church structure, but nearly every house in the settlement was in its turn again and again a place of worship. The Church has been spoken of literally as " the church that was in their house." In clement seasons ser- vices were held in the open, and of all stories of colonial life at that time, that of Roger Williams's land is the most pleasing. Long after the settlement of the town we know that there was no building for public purposes, as the annual town meeting was held "before Thomas Field's house, under a tree, by the water- side." The meeting house arrived in 1700, and is perhaps the only instance in the New England colonies of being the donation of its preacher. It was the gift of the Rev. Pardon Tillinghast who 277 278 Old New England Churches was most generous in his policy and who for thirty-six years refused a salary from the peo- ple ; though he refused a salary for himself, yet he declared it to be the duty of the townspeople to support the preachers who should come after him. Tillinghast's example of serving for love of his calling and humanity is not at all exceptional; nor is the action of the townspeople in permitting him so to serve, for we read of curious things in the way of self-denial and starvation wages of preachers throughout New England. The condi- tion of a parson was well nigh hopeless unless he was a man of many trades. Agriculture was almost a necessary adjunct to the spiritual pro- fession. One critically fervent deacon was heard to remark, "Wall, our minister gives so much attention to his farm and orchard that we get pretty poor sermons, but he's mighty movin' in prayer in caterpillar and cankerworm time." When the Rev. Mr. Miles prayed God to send rain that would come " drizzle-drozzle, drizzle- drozzle for about a week" we may assume that he was not without agricultural interests. But if the preacher got no salary he was treated with some indulgence, as one town's records show by First Baptist Church, Providence, R. I. 279 a vote "to procure Rales antof to Fence the minnerstree Fresh meddo the Rev. Noble Evrit to make the Fence & keep it in Repare." There must be some privilege implied in this, if one could make the orthographic connection. The same historian assures us that the preacher was permitted to act as street cleaner if he found himself short of funds and fuel; and it is certain that more than one New England parson made ends meet by sweeping the meeting house for the hire of three dollars per year — or less. These three dollars must have been disbursed far apart to make ends meet, or else the legitimate salary as preacher was unprecedentedly liberal. The same preacher had to "winge" or rub down the principal seats the day after he swept, and he had several other occupations, but these domestic ones are unique. The parson who could collect his salary had to be ingenious indeed. With all these conspicuous examples of parsimony on the part of the Pilgrims and of abject poverty on the part of their preachers, it is refreshing to hear of one so prosperous that he was able to make the gift of a meeting house to his people. The house was no larger than the cabin in which Roger Williams began to preach when he 28o Old New England Churches went to Salem, and it was used for ■ twenty-six years. We have only a tradition that it was built " in the shape of a haycock, with a fire place in the middle, the smoke escaping from a hole in the roof." One of the great men of those early Providence days was the Rev. Chad Brown who, with his descendants has been identified with most of the religious, educational, literary, and commercial interests of Providence. When the time came for a new meeting house one was put up on the old site, and there were then two thousand people in this original Rhode Island settlement. New churches came, notably St. John's Episcopal church, founded by the noble Huguenot, Gabriel Bernon, and the First Congregational, and here, too, the miserably persecuted Quakers found refuge, put up their house, and worshipped in it umnolested. Competition is the life of other things than trade, and the competition in meeting houses ran high in Providence, an evidence of a flourishing spirituality if church building be the sign. The second meeting house of the Baptists had a fine aisle from the door to the pulpit, and its plain benches gave way to' pews on either side. Fkotograph by F. H. Caswell FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, SHOWING PARSONAGE, NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND First Baptist Church, Providence, R. I. 281 There was an entrance on the south side of the building — doubtless because "at high tide the water flowed nearly up to the west end." The names Brown, Winsor, and Burlingame became identified with this pulpit during the fifty years that followed. There was a considerable time of passivity then, and in 1770 the Rhode Island College, an enterprise of the First Baptist Church, was transferred to Providence from its mother town of Warren. The college infused new life into the community and brought with it that liberality which belongs to culture and scholarship. The "Great Awakening" came to Providence, as to the other colonies,, in more ways than one, but not entirely through Whitefield. With the fine "University Hall" in its sight, the parish was spurred on to new deeds and decided it must have another meeting house, more ornate, more in keeping with the development of the town. The Baptist Society received its charter at that time. The feeling of fraternity existing between this society and the college was very fine and inspiring; a splendid advantage to both. In negotiating for new church lots an Episco- palian was called in to act as middleman. The lots were bought and acknowledgment made to 282 Old New England Churches William Russel for his excellent services, all in the space of two days. Two weeks after the first meeting called to consider this new enterprise, a committee was sent to Boston to look about, decide upon the architectural details of the new house, and to contract for the timber that would be needed. But the committee was painfully particular, and its chairman finally took the mat- ter into his own hands and drew up the plans himself. A beautiful generosity of purpose made the charter of that Baptist Society unique. In an historical discourse the Rev. Henry Melville King has said, " No truer, no grander, no more unanswer- able Magna Charta of human liberties was ever penned." The meeting house, which had been designed with so much care, was ready for the dedication nine months after its beginning. Nine days after the dedication the steeple was put up. Two thousand pounds of the cost of this meeting house was raised by a state lottery, a means not unusual at that time, though one cannot be entirely certain whether it was interest in the prize or spiritual zeal which assembled so much money in so short a time. Perhaps not least interesting, possibly amusing. First Baptist Church, Providence, R. I. 283 detail, was the tablet which ornamented the church, bearing the legend, "Built for the worship of God, and to hold commencements in." The congregation grew so greatly that sixty pews were built into the galleries. Of this church Governor Arnold said: "A building far surpassing any then existing on this continent for the worship of God; and which to-day has few if any equals and no superior in any points of architectural elegance." A clock was placed in the spire at the beginning, but it was of the old-fashioned sort with black dial and gilt figures, so that about 1873 Mr. Henry C. Packard replaced the old face with a modem illuminated dial. The bell bore an interesting inscription: " For freedom of conscience the town was first planted, Persuasion, not force, was used by the people; This church is the eldest and has not recanted. Enjoying and granting bell, temple and steeple." Later when the bell cracked and was recast it lost much of its weight, and also its quaint inscription acquiring simply an historical one. Again it cracked, was recast, and its inscription was phanged. It recorded Roger Williams as the first pastor, and stated that this was the first Baptist church in America — a mistake. A crystal 284 Old New England Churches chandelier was given to the church by the daughter of Nicholas Brown, to be lighted for the first time on the evening of her marriage. In 1822 stoves were placed in the house. Before that time the family procession, servants following in the rear with foot-stoves, was a part of the Sunday pagean- try. In time the church organ came ; but singing had been introduced sixty years earlier, despite the objection of the Rev. Samuel Winsor who resigned his pastorate because "singing in public worship was very disgustful to him." The church became strictly modem in 1850 when candles and oil were replaced by gas. Rhode Island church rule reflected her civil law, and there is no story of oppression found in either civil or ecclesiastical records. In 1784 the Legislature enacted that no person bom after the first day of March that year should be held as a slave, and three years later there were several penalties attached to slave-trading in that state. This is the only instance of the slave-trade having been repudiated in New England simply on humane grounds. The concerted action of New England later had its political and commercial aspects, but here in Roger Williams's land the rights of human beings were established without First Baptist Church, Providence, R. I. 285 respect to race, colour, or previous condition of servitude! Massachusetts alone seems to have been in step with Rhode Island in this march to Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; although freedom was anticipated in Connecticut in the year 1784 the law there was so formed that slavery must necessarily exist in that state for twenty-nine years thereafter. The New Haven Gazette of November 9, 1786, printed the following: "To be sold at public vendue on Tuesday the 29th of November inst. at the dwelling house of Captain Enos Atwater, of Cheshire, deceased, a good Negro Wench, about twenty years old. Also a brass-wheel'd clock, a weaver's Loom with tackle, sundry featherbeds and furniture and a variety of household furniture too numerous to mention." This certainly proves that in 1786 the anti-slave law was not in force, and even in 1797 an adver- tisement in the "Gazette" shows it to have been still inactive since men were then bought and sold. But in Rhode Island it was decided that the way to reform was to reform, and its anti-slavery law became a fact in letter and in spirit. Fashion was unhampered in this church: Men and women were privileged to wear what they 286 Old New England Churches chose at a time when Cotton Mather was regulat- ing the fashions in Boston according to his idea of what was godly. A young woman of Rhode Island who was visiting in Boston wrote in her diary in 1676: " I cannot help laughing at the periwig of Elder Jones which has gone awry. The periwig has been greatly censured as encouraging worldly fashions not suitable to the wearing of a minister of the gospel, and it has been preached about by Mr. Mather, and many think he is not severe enough in the matter, but rather doth find excuse for it on account of health." This entry is evidence of two things: first, that these strictures concerning matters of personal privilege were strange and amusing, to the people of Rhode Island; and, second, that general education in Rhode Island was far in advance of general education in the other colonies, for this letter is perfectly well spelled and coherently expressed, though written at a time when in the town of Northampton (to be specific) it was voted "not to be at, any expense for schooling girls." New England maidens were not . supposed to be worth educating, and in one locality as late as 1792 girls were only permitted in the town schools between May and October. First Baptist Church, Providence, R. I. 287 There was so little of superstition in the colony that its churches furnish no romance which depends thereupon for its picturesqueness, and but little that is lurid. This colony seems to have been the first in New England to exist in the spirit of the great device of M. Louis Blanc's banner: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternity. Rhode Island rose by this, stood by it, and ever since has lived by it. All honor to Roger Williams's land! CENTRE CHURCH, NEW HAVEN, CONN. CHAPTER XVIII Centre Church, New Haven, Connecticut THERE came ou-fe of England in 1637 a great man, John Davenport. After divers misad- ventures in his efforts to found a settlement in the name of the Church, he arrived with his little band of disciples at Quillypiac — Queenapick — Quinnipiac — ^The City of Elms — ^New Haven. Under a spreading oak on the morning of April 18, 1638, John Davenport first preached to the little company who had come thither to make their homes. His sermon was taken from the fourth chapter of Matthew, the Temptation in the Wilderness. He "insisted upon the temptations of the will, made such observations, and gave such directions and exhortations as were pertinent to the conditions of his hearers." At night he announced that he had "enjoyed a good day." The oak tree which formed the initial place of worship for Quinnipiac grew near to College Street, "about forty-five feet east." To follow the history of this consecrated elm further, tradition has it that two generations of Beechers hammered 291 292 Old New England Churches upon an anvil which was supported by a section of that tree ; the horse-shoeing shop of the Beechers was on College Street near to the place where the elm stood. John Davenport, the strong and gracious spirit who presided over this small body of people, was known to the Indians as the "so-big-study-man"; and this could have been no misnomer for a man who left more than a thousand dollars' worth of books behind him at a time when such literary investment might well have stood for a Camegiean prodigality in literature. Primitive as were the conditions, the founders of the New Haven colony, who are synonymous with the founders of Centre Church, lived with a relative degree of magnificence. Theophilus Eaton's house had nineteen fireplaces within it and John Davenport's is said to have had thirteen. Davenport arrived at Quinnipiac with twin deter- minations: to found a settlement which should be governed by the Church, and to establish a great nucleus of learning. After a desperate season, during which the settlers lived in cellars — the only part of their homes then habitable — a season of alternate hope and despair, John Daven- port, witnessing no ecclesiastic or civil advance- Centre Church, New Haven, Conn. 293 ment in the colonial organisation, determined to bring order out of chaos, and a meeting was called in Robert Newman's bam. This was on June 4, 1639. The colony had been composed of Puritans and Separatists. The Separatists were led by Samuel Eaton who finally merged his own authority in Davenport's purpose to establish a civil government which should be in all things amenable to the church. The minutes of that meeting in Robert Newman's bam were spread by Newman. Twelve men were chosen to select in turn seven who were to organise the church. These seven were Theophilus Eaton, John Davenport, Robert Newman, Matthew Gil- bert, Thomas Fugill, John Punderson, and Jere- miah Dixon. The elective franchise was limited to church members. As a result of this June meet- ing, the First Church of Christ in New Haven was established on the 22nd of August, 1639. The ecclesiastical administration in New Haven was to be the antithesis of the liberal adminis- tration at Plymouth. Under the leadership of Davenport it was determined to confine the administration of civil government to churchmen. Thus New Haven out-Puritaned the most Puritan principle, but there was nevertheless a peculiar 294 Old New England Churches discrepancy between this fanaticism and the liberalism exercised within the church itself. For example, there was no such formula as a con- fession of faith adopted by the First Congrega- tional Church of New Haven. The seven persons chosen by the twelve constituted the church by "covenanting together." It is to be assumed that the seven men satisfied one another that their opinions accorded, but a formal confession of faith was waived. While liberal within their own institution, the early church in the New Haven Colony was rigid in its application to state interests. It was necessary to have acknowledged Christianity and to have identified one's self with the church before a citizen could be accorded the right of suffrage. The first meeting house of Centre Church was used for the sessions of the General Court as well as for ecclesiastical purposes, and since the Court must be composed of church members the religious sentiment of the people was not offended. The early colonists were utilitarian above all things. Contributions to the church were made not only in money but in many chattels. The running out of the sand from the hour glass usually determined the length of the sermon, Centre Church, New Haven, Conn. 295 but if a preacher, drunk with his own eloquence, turned the glass, thereby signifying that he meant to speak longer, the congregation were not lost to all sense of their privileges as human beings and were likely to show signs of disapproval. The first meeting house, built in 1640, was fifty feet square and the frame was too light to support the weight of the tower, so that it became necessary to shore up the posts. In time the shoring decayed, and it was feared the meeting house would fall; therefore in January, 1660 the town became divided vipon the point of repairs. Should both the tower and turret remain and the shores be renewed? At last it was determined that the tower and turret be taken down and the shores renewed. The customs of that adventurous congregation were picturesquely severe. Men were compelled by law to provide themselves with six charges of powder and shot when they came to the meeting and the women folks were carefully instructed as to what they should do in case they were attacked by savages while in church. In New Haven bullets passed as currency, valued at a farthing each, so that it became necessary for the colonists to go well provided with ammunition, if not with 2g6 Old New England Churches money. It was ordered that fanners should not leave " more arms at home than men to use them " and they were to have "all piercing weapons furbished up and dressed." It was ordered that the " tower of the meeting house be kept free from women and children sitting there, that if there be occasion for the soldiers to go suddenly forth they have free passage." There was a watch in the turret, armed men paced the streets, and cannon were mounted. Thus the church was garrisoned. Sentinels patrolled in front of the church, and the monotony of three-hour sermons with hour-long prayers was broken more than once by disorders of so serious a sort that they were reported at the General Court. On the sixteenth of June, 1662, the congregation was diverted by a soldier who sought to amuse himself by throwing lumps of lime at the army. In return he was very effi- ciently kicked by a fellow warrior. It is recorded that "Mrs. Goodyear's boy had his head broken that day in meeting, on account of which a woman said she doubted not that the wrath of God was upon us." But on the whole the military was kept well under the hand of the church and drilled to prayer and psalm singing. The New Haven soldiers were somewhat differ- Centre Church, New Haven, Conn. 297 ently accoutred from those of other settlements. Instead of the coats "basted with cotton-wool" they were heavily wadded and cushioned like upholstery, as a protection against Indian arrows. This must have added greatly to the gaiety of nations if not to military appearance, but in the matter of warmth doubtless the soldier had greatly the advantage of the civilian. We know that the congregation assembled to the beat of drum because it is recorded that, in 1647, Robert Basset was chosen to dnim "twice upon Lordes Dayes and Lecture Dayes upon the meeting house that soe those who live f arr off may heare the more distinkly." Thus it became the custom of the New Haven colonists to come from their homes upon the second beat of the drum which sounded from the meeting house tower, and to enter the church. Basset, the drummer, behaved in a most dissolute fashion and dis- honoured his calling by getting ten men very drunk on "six quarts of strong liquor." It is recorded that "the miscarriage continued until betwixt ten and eleven of the clock to the great provocation of God, disturbance of the peace, and to such a height of disorder that strangers won- dered at it." As a consequence of that unseemli- 298 Old New England Churches ness Drummer Basset was fined five pounds, whereupon he quitted New Haven. The rigours of this religion were as severe as the rigours of the New England winter. The- man who was late or absent from the service was fined, though it is said his excuse might be that his clothes were wet in the Saturday's rain and he had no fire to dry them by. The children who huddled together on the pulpit stairs during service made so much noise that action was taken to prohibit their presence. When collection time came, wampum, fruit, and produce of all sorts were taken to the deacons' seat. The men and women sat apart from each other but the soldiers were evenly divided, one-half of them sitting on the women's side and the other half on the men's. The matter of apportioning seats to the congregation was taken up at a General Court on the tenth of March, 1647, and occasioned no little resentment and dissension. Later, in order to assuage many heart-burnings, there was made "the little seat" and "the seat before the little seat" by which not only the last became first but the first remained first, and per- sons were assigned seats in front of every front seat in the meeting house. During this time the Centre Church, New Haven, Conn. 299 Governor's wife became a cause of much solicitude because she did not accept Mr. Davenport's find- ing that "Baptism has come in place of circum- cision, and is to be administered to infants." Mr. Davenport asserted that "with a blessing from God for the recovery of some from this error and the establishment of others in truth, only Mrs. Eaton (received) no benefit at all." Indeed, Mrs. Eaton's conduct became so remarkable "as to suggest the conjecture that she was either insane or in that state of nervous excitement that borders on insanity, and that medical treatment would have been more in order than church discipline." Thus, the Centre Church had what might have been called its domestic as well as its official trials. About 1662 the alleys of the meeting house had become "so filled with blocks, stools, and chairs that it hinders a free passage," and low benches were built at the ends of the seats for young people to sit upon. But the church grew and grew until about a year later the selectmen were "desired to speak with some workmen to see if another little gallery may not for a small charge be made around that [which] is already." About the same time it was ordered " that Sister Preston shall sweep and dress the meeting house 300 Old New England Churches every week, and shall have one shilling a week for her pains." Here in Centre Church was inaugurated the custom of rising and remaining standing while the text was being read. This custom was ini- tiated one Sunday afternoon after Mr. Davenport had preached a sermon in the morning advising such an expression of reverence for God's Word. Every custom in that New Haven church was stern and rigorous, yet however strong the spirit there is historic evidence that the flesh was weak: " The wampum that is put into the church treasury is generally so bad that the elders to whom they pay it cannot pay it away." Indeed the abuse became so flagrant that a neces- sary order was issued that " no money save silver or bills " be put into the contribution box. It may be well to mention that thereafter contributions fell off surprisingly. Finally, in 1670, the New Haven colony outgrew its first church. By that time children's children had so greatly increased the population and the congregation that the old meeting house was too small; so in 1669 the town declared by vote for a new meeting house of stone and brick. Details as to dimensions, the amount of expenditure, and Centre Church, New Haven^ Conn. 301 the limit of time for the debt to run were agreed upon, but about three weeks later complaint was made that " the committee for the meeting house informed the town that not any person doth yet appear to build the meeting house." Many months later, no one having yet appeared to build the meeting house, it was decided in council to enlarge the old one, but the architectural result was not admirable. The windows in the new part were of different size from the windows in the older part, and the new lumber cast reflection upon the clapboards of the old. Like the woman who bought lace curtains and had to refurnish in order to live up to them, it was voted "that the old meeting house be new boarded and that the windows in the old house be enlarged like the windows in the new part of said house." It may be assumed that the addition to the meeting house had been made inharmonious either by the architect or those who were directing him, with malice aforethought, but the new plans were to be very specific. There was to be "a door in the house where George Pardee now sitteth and an- other door opposite to it on the other side, so a convenient alley across the house before the dea- cons' seat ; and a stairs up into the gallery behind 302 Old New England Churches the pulpit." But even this carefully wrought plan was changed later. On the fourteenth of November, 1670, the original meeting house of the Centre Church at New Haven was sold " to the town's best advan- tage" and a new house was set up. In April, 1 68 1, a church bell having been brought into the harbour, it suggested to the congregation the need of a bell, and " for the present it was desired that Mr. Thomas Trowbridge would, if he can prevail with Mr. Hodge, the owner of it, to leave it with him until the town hath had some further consideration about it." In short, should New Haven raise money for a church bell or not? Then in August "the owner of the bell had sent to have it sent to the Bay in Joseph Alsop's ves- sel," which being interpreted, seems to mean that New Haven had failed to pay for its purchase, be- cause the reason of its return was " it having lain so long it would not be handsome for the town to put it off." Immediately "after a free and large debate " the Centre Church decided to pur- chase the bell for seventeen pounds, and there- after it was himg. About that time the townsmen agreed that Joseph, the son of George Pardee, should become bellringer upon all such occasions Centre Church, New Haven, Conn. 303 for which hitherto a drum had been beaten. Also he was to ring the bell at nine o'clock every night. Thus civilisation marched on in the New Haven colony. During these years, New Haven not finding a way to establish its college on its own ground, had been contributing annually t6 Harvard what had come to be known as "college com." While the people of New Haven were doing this cheerfully enough Providence began to speak in a back- handed manner for unborn Yale. President Duntser of Harvard, having fallen into dis- grace on doctrinal matters, had been deposed and Harvard had been for a year without a presi- dent. The misfortunes of Harvard inspired the New Haven colony to renewed action, and they determined to turn their contributions toward home. The first to take practical action toward the establishment of Yale College was the scholarly and gentle William Hooke, preacher in Centre Church. If the titles of some of his sermons may be called indicative, one may assume that he antici- pated the modem love of the spectacular in litera- ttire. The title of one of his sermons was "New England's Teares for Old England's Feares." William Hooke had left England because of his 304 Old New England Churches religious convictions, but returned because of his friendship for OUver Cromwell. Ultimately he became chaplain to Cromwell at Whitehall. It was his love for his home in the New World that induced him to leave to the church his "home lot " to be a standing maintenance either toward a " teaching officer, a schoolmaster, or the benefit of the poor in fellowship." It was upon this "home lot" that all the rectors and presidents of Yale College, from Cutler to the elder Dwight, lived. It is hardly possible to discuss the New Haven church history without including much of Yale's early history. The first pastor of Centre Church bom on American soil was Mr. Pierpont, and his best claim to fame was the foundation of Yale. He was one of the ten ministers whose contri- butions from their own meagre libraries began the college library, and it was through the per- suasion of Mr. Pierpont that Elihu Yale by his splendid gift made the college at that time pos- sible. As the founder of a great line James Pierpont was a success. It was his daughter who married Jonathan Edwards, and he may reckon among his descendants the elder President Dwight, the younger President Woolsey, the present MEETING-HOUSE, PETEEBOEO, N.H. Centre Church, New Haven, Conn. 305 President D wight, Theodore Winthrop, and others who have, almost in unbroken line, contributed to the splendid fortunes of the New World. The Reverend Mr. Pierpont had his romances, and it has been said by a clever writer that he was "early and often a widower." It was to Centre Church that his young wife went on the first Sun- day after her marriage, dressed, according to cus- tom, in her wedding gown. This pretty vanity cost her her life; she caught cold and died three months later. The Reverend Mr. Pierpont mar- ried in turn Sarah Haynes, granddaughter of the Governor, and then a granddaughter of Rev. Thomas Hooker, who was famous as pastor and leader of the colony. It was to this preacher that the famous " Pierpont Elms " were brought as a gift from Hamden. In his time the clergy- man was to be maintained by free-will offerings. His house was to be the most stately in the town. But in 1697 " after long debate, the town by their vote granted to pay Rev. James Pierpont annually, while he shall preach the Word of God to us, the sum of one hundred and twenty pounds in grain and flesh, also to supply him with firewood annually," whUe the Reverend Mr. Pierpont stipulated that " the offering be brought to the house of God with- 3o6 Old New England Churches out lameness or reflection on the ministry in the respective years." The second meeting house gave place to a third building — ^still upon the original site — 'm_i2STi^^'^ i^ time came Mr. Whittelsey, but wars and rumours of wars had be- gun to disturb the New World. It was into the third meeting house that Wooster marched with his company of men to receive ministerial bene- diction before he and his soldiers should depart for the war. Upon being told that Mr. Whittelsey was absent the gallant Wooster marched his men into the church, himself into the pulpit, and preached to his soldiers for their betterance and for the strengthening of their courage, after which they marched out across the Common and away to war. Neither battles nor sudden death, neither internal dissensions nor the great Revolution interrupted the service of Centre Church. It was in Centre Church that the regicides, Whalley and Gofle, found support and their pro- tection was urged. It was John Davenport who bravely and tactfully preached at the right mo- ment to " entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." The courageous man knew that the regicides were being sought and he thus counselled his congregation in their Centre Church, New Haven, Conn. 307 behalf. Later he sheltered the men in his own house. The messengers of the king who were seeking Gofle and Whalley attended the Centre Church but found no encouragement, because again Davenport chose his text wisely and read: "Hide the outcasts; betray not him that wan- dereth; let my outcasts dwell with you, Moab; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler." These happenings took place in the second meeting house to which there came later one "James Davids," a mystery to the town, his dignity and culture making friends for him, but ever exciting curiosity. After his death he was found to have been John Dixwell, one of the three regicides of King Charles. In time this house was outgrown by its con- gregation and more room, more of modernity and beauty were demanded. Then in 18 14 came the fourth house on the same site, ultimately to be made larger. The old churchyard, with its ancient dead had to give place to the convenience of the living, and the process of removal began. There rested dead whose names are historic and who had had their places in the splendid development of a nation. Room was needed but not all were to go. The new building was 3o8 Old New England Churches extended over one hundred and thirty-nine graves. FHckering gas Hghts emphasise the weirdness of surrounding low rafters that serve for the crypt's roof and for the church's flooring. The stones are placed without relation to compass or symmetry. They are blackened and crumbled, but bear splendid testimony to the probity and worth of those whose graves they mark. Benedict Arnold's first wife is buried there, and the former time is linked with to-day when one reads the name of Hayes — President Ruther- ford B. Hayes's grandfather and grandmother. The Trowbridge family rests there — ^twenty- five strong. It is one of this family, Mr. Thomas R. Trowbridge whose activity has preserved in its present excellent state, this little gathering of the dead. It is he who has promoted the level- ling of the ground, the cementing over of the graves which now form the flooring of the crypt. This effort has preserved a place unique in this country and of interest to all who yield to the New England past its proper sentimental value. One Trowbridge epitaph leaves naught unsaid of a man's iisefulness as a citizen and a man. It tells us that Captain Joseph Trowbridge was "A Centre Church, New Haven, Conn. 309 man diligent in business, strictly honest in his dealings, skilful and prudent in his affairs, gen- erous in his donations to the public and to the house of God." Not far away lie the bones of Mary Edwards, "the amiable and excellent consort of Jonathan Edwards." Drowned accidentally while driving. The oldest stone marks the resting place of Sarah Trowbridge. Its date is 1687. The last burial was in 181 2 and was that of the wife of Chauncey Whittelsey. "Margaret, first wife of Benedict Arnold, died June 19, 1775, in the thirty-first year of her age." Here too rests Jared IngersoU of "Stamp Act" fame — "A man of uncommon genius whch was cultivated by a liberal education at Yale College, and improved by the study of mankind and laws, policy and government." Mrs. Katharine Dana's virtues are chronicled thus: "Frugal and hospitable, compassionate and liberal." Mrs. Rebekah Hayes was the "Amiable and virtuous consort of Cap- tain Ezekial Hayes" and the great, great grand- mother of President Hayes. Perhaps nothing so demonstrates a New World characteristic as do the unmarked graves of a now famous family. Before the destruction of 3IO Old New England Churches the old burial ground the Wyllyses had found places in the centre of it, but their graves were unmarked for the very good and obvious reason, given in the terse words of a member of the family, "if Connecticut couldn't remember the Wyllyses their memory might rot." The first woman buried in the ground without was Martha Town- send. In death the members of the colony seemed to seek proximity to each other even as in life they had pressed together for mutual protection and help. The record gives sixteen bodies to sixteen square feet. In 1784 much that was unseemly for so fair a spot was removed, in time the Green being cleared of pound and jail and almshouse and the stocks. When those reminders of misfortune were gone the beautiful Common became sacred to the three churches now occupying its middle space. It was Mrs. Tuttle who first gave the name " City of Ekns " to New Haven, and her poetic thought had its inception in the gift of elm trees from William Cooper to James Pierpont, the preacher. Then, too, there was the "Franklin Elm," ac- quired from Jerry Allen by Thaddeus Beecher for a "pint of rum and some trifles." It was planted on the day of Benjamin Franklin's death. CENTRE CHURCH, NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT The Memorial which allegorically tells the story of the church's beginning Centre Church, New Haven, Conn. 311 Few places are so rich in tradition as this place of the "Green." It was there that Benedict Arnold assembled the Governor's Guard to lead them to Cambridge to swell the patriot army. Here Lafayette reviewed troops and Washington passed to church at Trinity. To tell half its legends would require much space. Those names firmest linked with New Haven history are found for the most part chronicled upon the church walls. They are Davenport, Eaton, Hooke, Pier- pont, Hayes, Street, Whittelsey, Taylor, Bacon, Stewart, Dana, Trowbridge, Hillhouse, Austin, and many more. The symbolic window above the pulpit tells in gorgeous colour the whole splendid story — Daven- port preaching beneath the oak, the seven men who planned the future of the church symbolised by the seven-branched candlestick, the armed men, listening women, and awe-smitten children; the story of the wilderness, the bravery, the faith and hope that were to waken a new day and found a new race. UNITED CHURCH, NEW HAVEN, CONN. CHAPTER XIX United Church, New Haven, Connecticut THE history of the United Church is man rather than meeting house history; but the man is one so well known in letters and public life that it were impertinent to attempt his auto- biography with less than completeness, and com- pleteness cannot be hoped for in the limited space given to this meeting house story. Doctor Theodore T. Hunger, pastor emeritus, has largely made the history of the United Church, for many years. He has instituted changes and inspired a mostly united people with that faith, hope, and charity which has for decades been the key-note of his published work and private teaching. The Church was planted in this most fanatically religious colony more than one hundred and sixty years ago. The foot-stove is well within the history of the present building — ^which has the distinction of being one of the last in New Haven to be laid in that brick pattern known as Flemish bond. It is a part of the story of the present house that its early preachers have preached muffled in 315 31 6 Old New England Churches overcoat and furred gloves, but there is no story of frozen zeal to record. Whether the fashions dictated the manner of pulpit may be problematical, but it is certain that if it had nol^ been greatly elevated as it was, the flaring bonnets of that first generation in the history of the present house, would have sent the preacher into total eclipse. One of the former buildings was known as the Blue Meeting-house, and when the new one was put up, a piece of the stair railing of that blue house was en evidence. Since that time it has formed a part of the attic staircase of a house on College Street. It still retains its original colour, and should be incor- porated after some fashion in the present build- ings, and restored as often as might be necessary to preserve its original blue, since it would one day fix the physical characteristics of an early Puritan meeting house with more of accuracy than legend can do. None of such details is un- important when history comes to be made. There is tradition for it that Fair Haven folk came to worship barefooted, as far as the green, and there they sat down and put on their shoes and stockings. This was less than a hundred years ago, and in the history of the Blue Meeting-house. Pholugruph by the Finlcy Sludio, New Haven UNITED CHURCH. NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT Which stands as the symbol of Independent Citizenship, and being, with the Old South of Boston, the first churches to separate state and ecclesiastical interests United Church, New Haven, Conn. 317 Like the foundations of the Old South Church society in Boston, the United Church came out of the separation of ecclesiastical interests from those of the state, and Doctor Hunger has presented this matter best of all in his historical discourse on the United Church. "We must remember, as we recall the history of the First Church during the period when this church was extricating itself from it and for some years after, that it is the history of a state as well as of a church, and that sentiments and actions which seem to spring out of the chtirch may properly be referred to the state; that is, they may be regarded political rather than religious. The distinction is real, and should be made in behalf of men who were moved by the fervottrs of both politics and religion. On the other hand, we do not regard the founders of this church with sufficient honour unless we keep in mind that their separation from the First Church was a political as well as a religious move- ment. In fact the political features strike deeper and are more important than the religious. The religious changes would have soon come on, even as they did, but the political changes were radical anb fundamental." So one and indivisible were Church and State 3i8 Old New England Churches interests in this colony, that it was a question whether business transactions could be considered legal unless conducted by church members. A protest was made against this one hundred years before the resistance took actual form in the founding of the United Church. Doctor Hunger has called attention to the in- evitable weakness that must have followed this situation, since "at last the church became simply a pathway to civil rights — a means and not an end. . . . The church hindered the growth of those seeds of freedom and popular gov- ernment which had been brought from England, and the state choked the currents of spiritual life in the church." It was of an early understanding of this situation that the United Chiirch was bom. Doctor Hun- ger regards the time of "Great Awakening" and Whitefield's emotional excesses in the light of a spiritual performance, much needed, at the same time giving that moment its proper value as one more superficial than profound, and says, "whatever its excesses, it marked the condition out of which it came, and of which it was the reaction," and he epigrammatically adds, " action and reaction are equal, and interpret each other." United Church, New Haven, Conn. 319 But he gives that hour a spiritual rather than a simply emotional value — in which he may or may not be right; probably not. It would seem to many of us an instance of universal hysteria — culminating in a war which cleared the air. The United Church did not find its people free to separate themselves from the parent First Church by any means. The divorcement was a long and difficult process, during which both socie- ties found themselves wickedly embroiled and full of trouble. But the new church stood for freedom of citizenship and conscience as opposed to ecclesias- tical slavery, and the success of its cause was for- gone. As was usual in the history of most of the dis- senting offshoots of original colonial churches, the United Church wished to maintain the right to be considered the original organisation, reestablished, instead of a new organisation; and not unnatur- ally, the parent organisation objected to second place; thus, after separation was determined on, there was plenty of room for controversy which from first to last was the breath of life to the Puritan Church, and its real reason for existing. No one seemed to remember that the Jjeople were organised on a basis of religious argument where- in it was declared that the first should be last, and 320 Old New England Churches no one accepted a back seat with grace, much less with eagerness. But consistency nor self efface- ment were basic characteristics of those Puritan folk. They were the most egotistical and pre- sumptuous people, preaching humility and sub- mission. The United Church began with the association of forty-three persons who met together for fast- ing and prayer. Although the new chtirch had gained its freedom from the parent organisation, it continued to pay taxes into the treasury of the original church for seventeen years, which did not tend to lessen the antagonism. The lot upon which the first building of the United Church was placed, measured "about" six rods on Chtirch Street, and Doctor Hunger calls atten- tion to it that "in those days they measured their doctrines more accurately than their land." As usual it was continuous persecution which finally established the United Chtirch, and pres- ently we find it with a settled ministry and a "blue house," which caused the First Church to proclaim it a public nuisance and to take action against it as such. Possibly, there was some aesthetic cause for war; at any rate the factions grew so hot that a watch was set upon the new United Church, New Haven, Conn. 321 blue building to prevent those of the First Church cutting the timbers and jeopardising the lives of the congregation. Soon after this Whitefield came a second time, and, finding no place for him in the First Church pulpit, preached from a plat- form placed before the house of James Pierpont. In 1748 the United Church made new friends, and a new society was formed by "voluntary compact," in which there was but one woman — the women had dominated by numbers in the first society while in the present society there is no woman. There is little or no history of the first administration which covered a period of only two years, but with the coming of the second preacher, the Rev. Samuel Bird, an effort was made by the United Church to heal the breach between itself and the First Church. Samuel Bird had consented to take the pulpit only on condition that strife should cease. But at that time the First Church would have none of reconciliation and the trouble continued, although Samuel Bird was settled in the pulpit. Probably the First Church suspected that the overture was made because the United Church's congregation most of all desired the services of the preacher "who demanded peace before ordination. 322 Old New England Churches Almost at once, upon his coming, the diffi- culties changed complexion, becoming politi- cal rather than ecclesiastical. The United Church, having paid taxes for many years to the First Church, had no mind to abandon its rights in the property of the First organisation, while the First Church was now quite ready to shake off its former supporters. The settlement of this controversy was as full of humotir as was any part of the ecclesiastical war. The First Church re- tained its building, while the bell and such prop- erty as belonged to the society before its divi- sion were to be held by the two societies. In that period of its history while the United Church was the Fair Haven Chiu-ch, Jonathan Edwards, son of Jonathan Edwards and Sarah Pierpont, came to preach and his perhaps is the only his- toric name associated with the United Church pulpit. After a time that ruling passion of the Puritan wherever he may be found — dissension and dis- cord — showed even in the new society, and a part of the people who had weathered so much together, decided to "go off and worship by themselves," and so retired to the State House for a time. After that came the customary trouble over the United Church, New Haven, Conn. 323 "half way covenant," and the new society lacked none of those encotiraging difficulties of irritation and discord upon which the faith was certain to thrive. But the enduring moment in the early history of the pulpit belonged to Edwards, whose eloquence was so passionately used against the institution of slavery. Doctor Hunger wrote: "It is my guess that Washing- ton, who attended service at the Episcopal Church in the morning, passed by the larger and first Fair Haven church on the Green and went to the Blue Meeting house in order to hear Doctor Edwards whose reputation was general, and that perchance the Father of his country was better satisfied than if he had heard a disquisition on man's natural ability to repent." Doctor Hun- ger was very likely a good guesser. While the preachers of the United Church were mostly men of conscience, the record is not quite clear of dishonest doings. The ^ Rev. Doctor Dutton concealed slaves in his own bam, helping to rob men of their property, misusing the law thus, and aiding numbers of negroes thus to pass into Canada. Probably the men who did these things made these deeds accord in some fashion with their ideas of honesty, but only the complicated 324 Old New England Churches Ptiritan mind could have done it. They were not greatly concerned with the rights of property, unless the property was theirs. Out of chaos of thought and feeling grew a fixed and progressive organisation whose name to-day indicates fraternity and permanency. FIRST CHURCH, HARTFORD, CONN. CHAPTER XX First Church, Hartford, Connecticut BRAINTREE in Essex County, England, was the original home of the Hartford church. The emigrants of 1632 found a place to settle in Newtown, now Cambridge, Massachusetts. The meeting house which the people built had " a bell upon it." Four years later the congregation arose and went elsewhere, carrying with it the pastor and teacher. The most interesting thing about the removal was the difficulty with which it was accomplished. The people had to go through the trackless forest driving one hundred and sixty cattle before them, living upon milk, and avoid- ing wild beasts and savages as best they could. The first Hartford meeting house was built " a little north of where the Universalist meeting house now stands." One historian tells us that it was thatched, but it was more likely to be tiled or shingled as in that vicinity there was much of such material used in preference to thatch. In 1649 'this first building became unfit for public worship, and it was given to Mr. Hooker, 327 328 Old New England Churches who had preached to the congregation in England, had been their pastor at Newtown, and had mi- grated with them to Hartford. In 1648 the second house of this church was buUt. Mr. Hooker ministered there for fourteen years, and must have had exceedingly gentle methods for during that time we read of only one person being admonished and but one excommunicated. Since nearly all New England lived to exercise its con- science vicariously, to admonish everyone, every- where, at every time, we regard a peaceful eccle- siastical administration as bizarre, and surely not conservative since severity established the rule. The Rev. Thomas Hooker revealed himself very completely when he came to die. " Last words " are apt to be given more importance than they deserve, but Hooker's "last words" are worth remembering: "You are going to receive the reward of your labours," said a friend to him comfortingly. "Brother, I am going to receive mercy,'" was the gentle Hooker's response. It was he who declared, "The foundation of authority is laid firstly by the free consent of the people"; and of this Dr. Bacon wrote. First Church, Hartford, Conn. 329 "That sermon by Thomas Hooker from the pulpit of the First Church of Hartford is the eariiest known suggestion of a fundamental law, enacted not by any royal charter, or by concession from any previously existing government, but by the people themselves — a primary and supreme law by which the government is constituted and not only provides for the free choice of magistrates by the people but also sets the bounds and limita- tions of power to which each magistrate is called." It was but eight months later that the Funda- mental Laws were " sentenced, ordered, and de- creed," and we feel that Thomas Hooker should share the honours with Roger Ludlow. An historian tells us that Hooker's "writings were valued with those of the very first class of New England Divines," but this by no means implies that they were valuable either as literature or philosophy. Though there were among these preachers more than one hundred university grad- uates, some of them classmates of Jeremy Taylor, George Herbert, and Milton, it does not follow that a Shakespeare or a Sophocles was developed in the group. That university class turned out Miltons and Puritans. We have Cotton Mather's "Magnalia" as the standard of literature produced by these men, and that leaves everything in literature to be 330 Old New England Churches desired. As revelations of much restricted minds made in a directly personal fashion, these pen- performances have their value, but if one wants helpful information, given with anything ap- proaching literary charm, he turns to the delight- fully frank and simply expressed revelations to be found in the diaries of such men as Benjamin Lynde and the sturdy Sewall. These two had too rauch virility to lose their identity in the dominant superstitions of the times ; yet they had enough temperament to be played upon very positively by Puritan purpose. The Hartford church records were early de- stroyed, so that we are left without certain official data; but we know that in 1670 there was a division which led to a new organisation. People began to be admitted to the church under the "Half Way Covenant," and this caused much distraction. The third house was dedicated December 30, 1 739, and it stood very nearly on the site of the present one, dedicated in 1807. The low state of Chris-, tianity was deplored soon after the new form of covenant was adopted. The " Half Way Covenant " seemed to result in half way Christianity, and little vitality remained in the congregation. First Church, Hartford, Conn. 331 The church did give one contributor to literature in its pastor, Dr. Strong, but he was modem in the history of New England divines, and by the end of the eighteenth century this literature of the New England church was in very good com- pany. Men had by that time developed a sense of humour which began to create in them a sense of proportion hitherto painfully lacking. During his ministry Dr. Strong ran a distillery as a side issue, but his enterprise terminated un- fortunately in 1798, when judgments were granted against his property "and in default of that, against the bodies of Messrs. Strong and Smith on the judgment against them." The preacher went to New York as a matter of prudence; but presently finding himself in the hands of the sheriff, he said he would go with him if compelled, " but if he went he wotdd never enter the pulpit again"; where- upon the sheriff compromised the matter in some fashion and released the preacher. The ruin of the Doctor's spirituous affairs seems to have been the renaissance of the spiritual condition in his church, and a tremendous revival followed. When he had to forsake his rum- making Mr. Strong concentrated all his forces upon a volume of sermons which are said to have 332 Old New England Churches been "eminently fitted to awaken and promote a quickening of ecclesiastical piety." Later he tried to reconcile Eternal Misery with Infinite Benevolence, and it is said of his discourses that " Unlike a great proportion of the sermons at that time, they are readable and might be effectively preached to-day." The revival conducted by Dr. Strong was notable. Certain commonplace details marked at that time extraordinary periods in the church history. Just before Dr. Strong's death stoves were intro- duced into the meeting house and the pulpit was lowered. It has been lowered three times since, so that originally it must have been a remarkable height. The protracted meeting had its Con- necticut birth here. Among other meeting house gossip it is chronicled that Thomas Woodford was employed . to advertise lost things. The town order was framed thus: "If any person hath lost anything that he de- sireth shall be cried in the public meeting, he shall pay for crying of it twopence to Thomas Wood- ford to be paid before it be cried; and the crier shall have a book of the things that he crieth." The authority for this detail is the Rev. Samuel Peters, who has also stated that which Hartford First Church, Hartford, Conn. ^^;i would probably like to repudiate: the first witch in America was condemned and executed at Hart- ford through the efforts of that church. Deacon John Edwards, uncle of the famous Jonathan Edwards, preserved with care the small- est recorded details, and from that source we learn that ten nails in the old meeting house build- ing were sold for fourpence half -penny. Slave labour was employed in the construction of the third house, and the lime used in building was procured from shells that were brought from the seacoast for that purpose. To raise the spire-pole of the building it took a deal of spirit not only of the temperamental sort but of the kind to be had from two gallons of cider, two quarts and a pint of rum " to treat the hands when histed up ye Spire Pole into ye Tower." Again there was consumed eighteen quarts of rum "when rayzed the Spire." This was only a part of the refreshment demanded for one end of the work. It gives us pause when we try to calculate what it must have required in the way of liquid measure to set up the entire structure. There were " waits in ye windows " of this house, which were procured by JohnBeauchamp from Bos- ton, which tells us that such machinery is not entire- 334 Old New England Churches ly modem; but with all its conveniences, its hour glass, its velvet cushions, its gorgeous weather- cock, its fine window hangings, the congregation sat without a stove until late in Dr. Strong's time. The contribution box was not then, as we now frequently find it, an amusing little corn-popper shoved before the people, but a substantial box placed in the Deacon's seat, and the people walked to it. The magistrates went first, then the Elders, and the rest of the congregation that had anything to give brought up the rear. As the contributions were as likely to be punipkins as coins, these pro- cessions were not without picturesqueness. There was much dissatisfaction in regard to establishing precedence in seating the congrega- tion. In Hartford five picked men laboured long over the problem, and after seating the people according to the committee's conscience and judg- ment, we find Joseph Gilbert, Jr., "setting forth sundry grievances respecting the seating of our meeting house, and more especially the committy seating him." Six others were chosen to do the work, but in trying to please everybody they pleased nobody and in their turn gave it up. A committee of three untried men followed but in the end it was decreed: First Church, Hartford, Conn. 335 "That the Inhabitants of the society for the future, and until otherwise ordered, have Liberty to accommodate themselves with seats in the Meeting house at their discretion, any measure this society hath heretofore taken for seating the house notwithstanding." Until 1767 there was much objection to Dr. Franklin's "lightening rods" but in that year the congregation probably felt that it had received a special revelation on the subject, for Hartford church was struck by lightning which shattered its steeple, killed one young woman, and wounded several others. " In the midst of this excitement they were desired every one of them to return to their seats, and join in singing a song to the praise of Almighty God." If we doubt their discretion we cannot but admire their obstinacy. It seems that God could not have displeased these Puritans unless He had chosen to treat them civilly. They finally accepted the electrical exhibition as a gentle indication that their notion about "lightening rods" was all wrong. A good many had objected to the " erec- tion of sharp points "—even as the Chinese pro- tested against railroads, because their super- stitions made parallel lines a cause of apprehen- sion; though the Puritans would consider the 336 Old New England Churches Chinese in the direct line of the missionary. Those who objected to "sharp points" "wished that it might not be a means of drawing down Divine displeasure" instead of safety. As a clever historian puts it : "With the needed appropriation for repairs to the steeple was included the amount required to procure the much despised protectors; and 1767, I think, may fairly be entered on our annals as the year when the lightning rod man discove;red Hartford." Foot-stoves were finally put out of the meeting house in 1830, stoves having arrived fifteen years before. After that any foot-stoves found in the house after service were removed to the por- tico by order of the committee. One of our greatest scientists belonged to this church, Horace Wells, who gave to the world the principle of anaesthesia in surgery. Out of this church also came two men who " made the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear," inventing a system of " deaf and dumb " language. If Connecticut contributed the meeting houses, its meeting houses contributed the men who in- vented certain equipments of war, revolving arms, submarine torpedoes, breech-loading guns, and First Church, Hartford, Conn. 337 other mechanisms which make for peace. Who now goes to war without Connecticut? Some of the most extraordinary movements in science as well as in ecclesiasticism may be traced to that First Church of Hartford; and thus its influence probably reaches farther round the world than that of any other organisation in ex- istence. People were assisted amazingly to go to meeting in those days. In Ipswich when an inhabitant failed, with his wife, to go to church, the General Court ordered that the selectmen should sell the man's possessions, so that he and his family might live near the meeting house, and thus find it more convenient to attend its services. It became necessary for the Court to regulate the peaks of men's shoes because they had grown so long they interfered with kneeling in God's house. The General Court ordered that no man should wear gold or silver lace or buttons unless he was worth two hundred pounds ; neither should he walk in great boots because leather was scarce. Times had changed when Benjamin Franklin stood at the bar of the house of Commons in 1766. On examination he was asked "What used to be the pride of America?" 338 Old New England Churches "To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain," Franklin answered. "What is now her pride?" "To wear their old clothes over again until they can make new ones." There were marvellous burial customs in that day. When Winthrop died a barrel and a half of powder Tvas burned, though why the Puritans should do anything so supererogatory cannot be imagined since it was taken for granted that death itself implied fireworks and a hot time for most people. At the death of the Rev. Thomas Sheperd, Judge Sewall writes in his diary, " It seems there were some verses, but none pinned on the herse. Scholars went before the herse." This gives the key to certain surviving customs. People went to funerals from the same motive that takes them now to a game of Bridge— to win : this extraordinary man, Sewall, who turned his soul inside out on paper, mentions also in his diary, apropos of his refusal to go to the funeral of a wicked man: "Had gloves sent me but staid at home, and by that means lost a ring." Doctor Andrew Eliot must according to calcu- First Church, Hartford, Conn. 339 lation have received one hundred and twenty- nine pairs of gloves at funerals, baptisms, and weddings during thirty-two years; and he turned about sixty-four dollars' worth of these to good account. FIRST CHURCH ("OLD JERUSALEM"), PORTLAND, ME. CHAPTER XXI First Church ("Old Jerusalem"), Portland, Maine THE history of this parish begins when the four towns, Portland, Falmouth, Cape Elizabeth, and Westbrook were incor- porated under one government and called Fal- mouth. In 1725 there were but forty-five fami- lies in the town of Falmouth and the meeting house had existed about five years. At first it was the living room, so to speak, of all the people. This region so far away from the centre of New England civilisation, was poorer and more desolate than most of the settlements, even in their beginnings; and Falmouth seems to have been less purpose- ful, therefore unorganised. The settlement was too poor to have a preacher when the meeting house was made, and it necessarily served as a barracks for fishermen or soldiers, and also as a sort of inn at which visitors could put up. Until 1725, when the Rev. Thomas Smith came, the parish had been only itinerantly served, 543 344 Old New England Churches With his coming there rolled in upon Falmouth that seventh wave which brings prosperity, and we read of the glazing of the meeting house — with glass furnished by Governor Wentworth — and of its being handsomely finished on the out- side. Ihis was the beginning of the first church in Portland as distinguished from that of Fal- mouth. Just one hundred years after that time the last church was erected. Tranquillity had come to the town with a ratification of peace with the Indians ; and it was a sense of remoteness doubt- less that gave the citizens courage to improve their condition. The first established preacher, the Rev. Mr. Smith, made for himself so firm a place in the hearts of his parishioners that in the spring of 1734 they volunteered to build a fortification around his house, the work to be done by relays of fifty men. This stockade was built with watch boxes upon which swivel guns were mounted. Next they began to discuss the erection of a new church. The citizens were not unanimous in desiring it, and both parties met, each with the purpose of main- taining its own view, but they must have got to- gether on a common ground, for the Rev. Mr. Smith declared this to be the " happiest meeting Falmouth ever had, " and the result was the new church. ' First Church, Portland, Me. 345 The first service held in it was on the 20th of July, 1.740. The old building became the town house, and served for civil purposes until it was burned in the fire of 1775. This second meeting house of Portland, or Falmouth, was originally without a spire and there was some division of opinion about securing a bell. Those who lived too far away to be profited by a bell were not altruistic enough willingly to be taxed for the benefit of others. However, in 1758, a bell was procured and a frame made to hold it was up put near the meet- ing house. In its detached and isolated position this bell became a scarecrow, and soon a steeple became through pride, a part of the Portland meeting house equipment. By the time more room was needed in the second meeting house a unique architectural plan of making it was em- ployed. The end of the house was sawed off, moved away the desired distance and a piece put in. Three years later the bell frame was made a part of the meeting house structure. The next step in this church's history was when the old building gave place to a fine new one of granite. The old church was a battered veteran, having stood bombardments and stiatterings by British balls, but in its remote position it had 346 Old New England Churches , escaped fire. One of the balls which pierced the building and fell into the house was affixed to the ceiling in the new church, and afterward a chan- delier was suspended from it. It had seemed impossible in 1758 for the congre- gation to live in peace and unity, and the town split into four parishes. Those living far from the church had continually agitated the question of moving it into town, but when the repairs, the new equipment of bell and steeple, and even an associate pastor came to the vote it was plain to the dissenters that the church never would "move into town," hence they decided to build a house of their own. There was always a lack of unity among the citizens. There were no large or embarrassing disagreements but many petty annoyances that made commonalty of feeling and action in the parish impossible. Perhaps the most serious distraction was that which had to do with the situation of the church — the in- convenience of its location — for it had not been erected under the colonial rule that the meeting house should be the " centre of the town." Even had the usual dispute arisen, " Where is the centre of the town?" it might have been somewhat better to have placed it with an attempt at focus. First Church, Portland, Me. 347 Somebody might then have been pleased, but as it was nobody seems to have been pleased. Though this was one of the most conservative of all parishes, settlers, elsewhere persecuted, came to Falmouth to escape. Tate and Brady's hymns were used in the church until 1802. It was in the second exclusively church building that the convention was held which framed the con- stitution of Maine. At this time occurred the ordination of the Rev. Mr. Smith. The one memorable day in a New England parson's life was that of his ordinatioil. A county fair years later brought together no more people under no more gala conditions than did the ordination of a preacher in New England. It is not often that from so dry a source as sta- tistics one can extract much colour and vitality, or pictures of riot and license, but memoranda of these ordination affairs present these things. There were processions of councilmen and gentlemen, townsmen and countrymen. The band played and the edibles went round, the meeting house filled and emptied and filled again to overcrowding, and more money was spent by the town, which as- sessed it out of the citizens, in one day than the preacher got in a year. We read in the records 348 Old New England Churches of one town the following ordination bills, all met by its citizens: 433 dinners £44 ^s 6d 178 suppers 818 Keeping 32 horses 4 days . . 3 6i bbls. of cider . . . . 411 25 gal. of wine 9 " 2 gal. of brandy & 4 of rum . i 16 Loaf sugar, lime juice & pipes . i 12 "32 horses 4 days" tells us that the ordination probably lasted as long as rum and the town's exchequer held out. When New England got religion or a preacher it got them bad; but gaiety they seem to have had worse. The meeting house all these days was so crowded that we read in one town they were seated upon the beams over the congregation, and to quote from a letter written at the time: "^ There was a disturbance in ye gallery when it was filled with divers negroes, mulattoes, and In- dians, and a negro called Pomp Shorter belonging to Mr. Gardner was called forth and put in ye broad aisle where he was reproved with great awefulness and solemnity. He was then put in ye deacons' seat, between 2 Deacons in view of ye whole Congregation, but ye sexton was ordered by Prescott to take him out because of his levity and strange contortions of countenance, giving great scandal to ye grave deacons, and put him in ye lobby on ye stairs. Some children and a mulatto woman were reprimanded for laughing at Pomp Shorter." First Church, Portland, Me. 349 The Rev. Thomas Smith made a note in his diary to the effect that "when Mr. Foxcroft was or- dained at Gloucester we had a pleasant journey home. Mr. Longfellow was alert and kept us all merry. A jolly ordination. We lost sight of decorum." But the New England preacher's ordination was the end of cakes and ale for him. He usually spent the rest of his life in trying to collect some part of the salary that had been voted him. It is said there were not three rich men in the town of Portland, yet Sir William Pepperell and Samuel Sparhawk, his son-in-law, lived there. There was a ferry kept by Lieutenant Ben- jamin Wright with whom it was arranged that the inhabitants "on this side of the river as occasion calls for it, shall be carried over to meet- ing without paying ferriage." The historian men- tions in conjunction with this enterprise of the lieutenant's, " It is noticeable that in early records all the minor military officers have their titles perpetuated. This is according to law." The decree reads, it is " ordered that all military officers elected shall retain their titles ever after unless they are promoted." Byron described military glory as " being shot through the body and having 35 o Old New England Churches your name spelled wrong in the Gazette. " These may have been the conditions in England but in New England a lasting provision for glory's perpetuation was made. We have a description of a certain remarkable interior of one of these several meeting houses belonging to the first parish: "The pulpit was opposite the front entrance in the middle length of the house. It was a for- midable looking structure painted white, re- lieved with green, and over the standing place for the minister was the inevitable elaborate sound- ing board of the time, hanging by a rod from a pineapple in the centre and not more than three feet from the minister's head. . . . The mas- sive timber of the frame was of white oak and selected with as much care as if it was going into a frigate." William Goold in his "History of Portland" presents his reminiscences most picturesquely: " An incident comes to my mind. In October, 1 82 1, Rev. Mr. Payson (before he was a D. D.) was invited by the Portland, Maine, Bible Society to address the seamen. . . . The seamen were numerous, and were a much more distinct class then than now in dress and manners. They did not often hear a sermon. The 'Old Jerusalem' as the memorable church was called, was chosen. It was a season in which there were many sailors in port and an effort was made to have them fill First Church, Portland, Me. 351 the lower floor of the church. All sailor board- ing house keepers were invited to go with their boarders. It was a novel. occasion and all went. Horatio G. Quincy, a Universalist, kept the large- est and best house^and it was standing in Fore Street between Portland pier and the custom house. Mr. Quincy marshalled his own men, and all other sailors who would join him, which made a long and remarkable procession. Quincy had a heavy wooden leg and when the procession went through the waiting crowd, cheers could hardly be suppressed, but when that worthy, wounded man entered the uncarpeted aisle with his wooden stump, his well-known step awakened the enthusiasm of the audience. They forgot the place and the day, and gave a round of ap- plause. The house was packed as it never had been before. . . . The speaker had been de- picting the final judgment and used this language : 'Then our world, driven by the last tempest, will strike and be dashed to pieces on the shores of Eternity. Hark! What a. crash ! ' At this point an excited sailor jumped to his feet and cried out, 'She has struck!' which caused those in the gal- lery to try to look below, thinking the over- crowded galleries were giving way. A board on which several men were standing broke, which added further to the panic- Some of the lower window sashes were gotten up and many jumped to the ground. In the gallery many climbed into the braces." In 1774 the bell "tolled all day as the harbour of Boston was shut up." Despite its own trials, 352 Old New England Churches the bell continued to record the vicissitudes of the country for many a year. In 1791 it was. "voted to recast the bell provided the expense does not exceed one-half of what it cost to recast it before." One historian says that the sextons of all other churches waited for the bell of "Old Jerusalem" to give the first note. When it gave the alarm of fire no bell stopped ringing so long as this one continued to give tongue. It was a veri- table aristocrat of a bell. There is much personal history connected with the old meeting house. When at last it was pulled down the ordinary methods of razing did not avails and it fell reluctantly only after the posts had been sawn asunder and the heavy oaken beams cut. The local poet seems to have got loose, but we forgive him for his apparent sincerity: "Five score years it stood; Yes, they built it well, Though they built of wood; When that house arose. For its crossbeams square, Oak and walnut fell. Little worse for wear, ■ , ' Down the old house goes." OLD NORTH CHURCH, PORTSMOUTH, N. H. CHAPTER XXII Old North Church, Portsmouth, New Hamp- shire THE people of Portsmouth established themselves in the interests of their trade, which was fishmongering. A church and par- sonage were built without the strong eccle- siastical impulse dominant elsewhere, and Ports- mouth was two years behind New Haven and several other colonies in settling her minister. Twenty of the townsmen deeded to their church wardens "50 acres of land for a glebe, " and in 1657 a substantial meeting house was built a few rods south of the South mill dam, a hill being chosen for the site. The congregation had not been without preachers during its infant years, but these had for the most part been itinerant. Public spirit rather than spiritual enterprise seems to have been the occasion of the new meet- ing house. In 1658, while the structure was in progress, Joshua Moodey was called to the pulpit. If Portsmouth had been a long time in arraigning itself with the godly it did not lack energy when 3SS 356 Old New England Churches the time came for declaring itself on the Lord's side, and it made a cage of discipline. Its con- gregation had to be good, recognise the purpose of the meeting house and the function of the new minister, or forthwith be caged. Those who slept or who took tobacco on the Lord's day through the church service were immediately placed be- hind bars. Not only were the delinquents of the congregation thus treated, but over in Massachusetts the sauce for the goose was mete for the minister, in case he absented himself a month from public worship and could not pay his fine of forty shillings. In these circumstances the preacher was "to be set in the cage or stocks not exceeding three hours according to the discretion of the church." Ports- mouth's finer sensibilities demanded that even her stocks should be enclosed within a cage, and on top of the cage was set the pillory. This extraor- dinary machinery was to protect its prisoners from being pelted with refuse while undergoing punishment. There seems to have been no special theological rigidity in Portsmouth but much practical ex- hibition of a determined spirit. The rod was not spared to the spoiling of the congregation, and in 1662 it is recorded that "a cage be made or Old North Church, Portsmouth, N. H. 357 some other means invented for such as sleepe on the Lord's Daie." The church, here as elsewhere, served as a kind of ledger for the townspeople who brought wolves* heads on which to collect bounty. At Portsmouth these heads were nailed upon the meeting house door; near by in Hampton parish, it was ordered that they be nailed "to a little oke tree at the northeast end of the meeting house." These may have been the superfluous heads that cotold not find room on the door. Doubtless wild-cats' ears ornamented the church walls, since there was also a bounty on them. We know Dedham paid sixpence for "an inch and a halEe of the end of a rattle snake's tail with the rattle." Portsmouth had its share of difficulty with its boys, and if a bit of town news quoted in the New Haven Chronicle of March 13, 1787, establishes the average of male births we cannot but extend our sympathy to that early community. " There are now living in this town a lady and gentleman who have not been married more than twenty years, and yet have eighteen sons; ten of the number are at sea, and eight at home with their parents." 358 Old New England Churches The preacher who made church history in Portsmouth was the Rev. Mr. Moodey, without question one of the ablest and bravest of New England divines. Most of these preachers had every difficulty to contend with, except a lack of spiritual zeal; but that was always present, there- fore it became with most of them largely a matter of formulating and regulating that which existed so dominantly. Mr. Moodey, however, had to be largely creative in his sphere, but in all probability Portsmouth found even a forced religious sentiment an advan- tage to the community. It certainly existed more as a luxury to be indulged in wheti there were time and means for it, than as a necessity to be maintained before all other things. That first preacher must frequently have gone into the highways and byways and compelled his people to come in. He must have established that which until his coming had been alien to them — spiritual desire. He did not even find the tools of his trade on coming to Portsmouth. Professing Christ- ians came from elsewhere in time, and thus the leaven of righteousness was introduced into this very materially conceived and established church. They came because they could " no longer satisfy Old North Church, Portsmouth, N. H. 359 themselves to live without those strengthening and satisfying ordinances which their souls had tasted the good of in times past, and others well effected to the work, professed their longings after the fat and marrowed things of God's house." Besides the preaching in the church, house-to- house meetings were held by these new-comers. Although the meeting house had been biiilt in 1658, it was not until 167 1 that the solemn or- dination of Mr. Moodey took place. A deacon was chosen at the same time. After this we read of ten years of peace and equity in Portsmouth, during which there were no dissensions in the church important enough to record; but then came a conflict between civil and ecclesiastical authority which temporarily interfered with the welfare of the town. A member of the church was charged with false swearing in some matter relating to his fishing business. The affair was hushed up and the governor took no action, but the minister was alive to his function as spiritual guide, judge, and executioner if need be. In a strenuous sermon he denounced the evil of false swearing and called the man to account. The offender was not able to sit silent under this scathing arraignment. Therefore he made a public confession of his guilt. 360 Old New England Churches Governor Cranfield was in no mind to pardon this independent action of Moodey's and he determined to ruin the Portsmouth preacher. The Conform- ity Act of Charles II was his opportunity, and in his official capacity Cranfield issued an edict that " all persons who desired it should be ad- mitted to the Lord's Supper according to the lithurgy of the English Church." After having this decree formally set forth, the governor sent Moodey word that he and two friends would, in his church, partake of the sacrament on the fol- lowing Sabbath. This placed Moodey on the horns of a dilemma: account to his governor or account to his God? There seems to have been no hesitancy on his part as to which horn 'he should seize. He refused to receive the governor and his friends, and in turn was thrown into jail in New Castle. One of his little flock wrote patheti- cally at the time to a citizen of the small Ports- mouth community: "Our menester lyees in prison and a famine of the word of God comeing upon us. . . . The Sabbath has come but no preching at the Banke motyones have been made that Mr. Moodey may go up and preach on the Lord's daye tho' he come down to prison at night, or that any naibor mini- sters might be permitted to come and preach, or Old North Church, Portsmouth, N. H. 361 that the people might come down to the prison and heare as many as could, but nothing will doe. Good Mrs. Martin was buried being not able to live above one Sabbath after the shutting up of the doors of the sanctuary." The desolation of that community without its preacher, its utter dependence upon the spiritual rule for which Moodey stood, are perfectly pre- sented by this cry from one of its citizens. Mr. Moodey eloquently wrote to a brother miifiister imploring his assistance for his people: "Oh consider that my poor flock have fasted about forty days and must be an hungered. Have pity upon them, have pity upon them, O, thou, my friend, and when you have taken yr turn we shall hope for some other. Let this good work for the house of God be done that you may be blessed of God for good. You will thereby not only visit me in prison, but feed a great multi- tude of the hungry and thirsty little ones in Christ, which will be accounted for at that day." Throughout New England chronicles there is described no more distressful situation than this be- cause in no other community was the dependence on its spiritual head so entire as it was here. The anguish of people and preacher are fairly and impressively expressed: Moodey' s sense of being needed and their sense of need! 362 Old New England Churches Moodey was released thirteen weeks later on condition that he leave the colony. He went to Boston and remained there for ten years, but his people were never forgotten by him, and they claimed his advice and received it, as in the former days. It was permitted him to return to the parish in 1693 and to minister there for four years before he died. His last words were: "The life of the churches, the life of the churches; I beseech you to look after that." The relation between Moodey and his parish was more intimate than almost any other we read of at that time. There was a loving tenderness, a compelling humanity in all that was said and done. His preaching must have been powerful for we read of families that came many miles through the coldest winters and in the dreadful heat of New England summers, regularly, to hear Moodey during all the years of his gentle admin- istration. The comfortless meeting house, crude and badly built, nevertheless endured for fifty years, but at the end of that time the town decided to build a new house on another comer of the glebe land. Much local excitement and opposition prevailed. The town was divided, and even while Old North Church, Portsmouth, N. H. 363 the building was going up the question was un- settled : Should the new house stand for the First Church — the new minister Mr. Rogers, be trans- ferred from the old pulpit to the new; or should those in favour of the new house form a new con- gregation and consider itself an infant parish with- out history, without tradition, without martyrs, with naught but a pastor? At last some sort of an understanding was reached, Nathaniel Rogers was moved from the old house to the new, and the First Church prevailed. Following the house-warming came new ambi- tions to the town. It must have a clock, it must have a bell; and hence it was decided that the privilege should be granted to a "person or ntmiber of persons to give a clock at their own cost, to set it up in the steeple of their Meeting house, so that its hammer might strike on the bell." Daniel Pierce with several other citizens finally made the purchase of a clock and gave it to the town on the 25th of March, 1749. The clock struck the hours so that the congregation, in a single gift, acquired its twin wish, for clock and bell. No other clock was needed for many years, but at length Mr. Simon Willard made a new one that did its work faithfully and acctirately for fifty 364 Old New England Churches years, and at the end of that time it was pro- nounced as good as new. In 1856, it was deter- mined that the original bell should be used with the comparatively new clock, which had told time for only half a century; but the old bell found a watery grave. It was sent to England for repairs and lost on the voyage. The second preacher of Portsmouth church, Nathaniel Rogers, was the son of a president of Harvard College. By that time Portsmouth had be- come distinguished for the elegance and splendour of its living, its generosity, its hospitality, and its wealth. It may have been its spiritual birth which had reacted so splendidly upon its fortunes, or its well being may have been due to the hard- headed trade-instincts of its fishermen-founders, but most likely it was a happy result of the com- bination, good sense and spiritual aspiration. We have record of "cocked hats and gold-headed canes, embroidered waistcoats and gold-laced coats," which "glided up the aisles of the old meeting house ; while chariots with liveried footmen were standing at the door. ' ' It was to this new mag- nificence that Josfeph Buckminster came in 1779. All the while Portsmouth had lived somewhat ahead of its time, and finally in 1835 a new meet- Jfl*!-;---. •> T?-. .,■»!(,- J.™,j;f^; Courtesy oj Rev, L. if, Thayer OLD NORTH CHURCH, PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE Whose meeting house history tells a story of greater prosperity than that of any other meeting house in New England Old North Church, Portsmouth, N. H. 365 ing house was to be had; modem in style, quite up to the most exigent demands of its congre- gation. While the house was not a new structure,, it was a completely remodelled one. The Rev. Edwin Holt was the first to occupy its pulpit. When it was decided, about 1855, to rebuild from sill to steeple, not more than, thirty-seven parish- ioners were needed to meet the subscription of twenty-four thousand dollars, so generous and public-spirited were the people of the parish. It is said that no " schism or fatal alienation has sprung up between the members, though at times the religious character of the church has been mournfully low." In all its history we read of fraternity, energy, generosity, public spirit and a devotion to its several preachers, which its. preachers in turn reciprocated. At that time was a steadily growing prosperity, and among all New England churches Ports- mouth's seemed to stand apart as peculiarly healthy and successful in purpose and inclination. 'Wl- OLD ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, PORTS- MOUTH, N. H. CHAPTER XXIII Old St. John's Church, Portsmouth, New Hampshire THE first public worship in Portsmouth, then known as Strawberry Bank, was Episcopal, but the first parish was Puritan. Sir Richard Gibson was the first pastor of St. John's but he was not well liked by the parish, i£ we may judge by his own statement, "I was called by this man a base priest, whereby I was much disparaged in my ministry. "^ There seems to have been nothing against Gibson except some irregularities in the performance of mar- riages and baptisms. In all probability he acted conscientiously enough and the faults were techni- cal. There is a deal of romance connected with this parish and it begins promptly. The church was built in 1732 and the Rev. Arthur Browne became at once its rector. It was he who married Governor Benning Wentworth to Martha Hilton, the governor's housekeeper. Of Martha we have a picture made poetic by Longfellow, and the fact that the governor married her testifies either 369 37° Old New England Churches to her charms or to his lack of taste. The former is the more likely, for the governor no sooner died than she was wedded again, almost before her mourning was wrinkled. Longfellow has immor- talised her thus: "'O, Martha Hilton, fie, how dare you go About the town half dressed and looking so?' At which the gypsy laughed and straight replied : 'No matter how I look; I yet shall ride In my own chariot, ma'am.' " Rev. Arthur Browne greatly objected to solemnis- ing the governor's marriage on account of the difference in age between bride and groom; but the general unfitness of the match may have been the more vital cause. Governor Went- worth was sixty years old on his wedding day and he revealed his intentions to the Rev. Arthur Browne under truly picturesque circumstances. His birthday was being celebrated with magnifi- cence and lavishness. The rector Browne was an honoured guest since "in those days church and state were never far apart, even on occasions when each heartily disapproved of the other." With the walnuts and the wine, or more likely, with the " soldiers' drink, " the girl slipped into the room by prearrangement with the Governor who arose, welcomed her, and amazed his guests Old St. John's Church, Portsmouth, N. H. 371 by demanding that the Rev. Mr. Browne then and there perform the marriage ceremony. The rec- tor hesitated but the governor produced a ring, placed it on Martha's finger " . . . . and that was all : Martha was Lady Wentworth of the Hall." This venture was fatal to the governor, for he died very soon after. Martha seemed deter- mined to go through the family, for she next married Michael Wentworth, the governor's brother; and again St. John's rector officiated. Another romantic marriage recorded on the register is that of Col. Theodore Atkinson, Jr.; and in connection with this name we have much more incident than is associated with the church. The story of the Portsmouth marriages has been told elsewhere with much literary charm, and need not be particularly discussed here since it bears only indirectly upon the church's history. It was in St. John's Church that Mr. Rousselet began his courtship of Miss Catherine Mofifatt. He handed her the Bible with the fifth verse of the second epistle of John underscored: " And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another." 372 Old New England Churches Whereupon Miss MofEatt indicated the first chap- ter of Ruth, the sixteenth verse: "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people will be my people and thy God, my God. Where thou diest, will I' die, and there will I be buried ; the Lord do so to me and more also, if aught but death part thee from me." The site for St. John's Church on Church Hill was given to the parish by an Englishman, and the first structure was Queen's Chapel, so named in honour of Queen Caroline. She, in recognition of this christening, sent the parish a Bible, prayer books, and a communion service. The last is still in use. The Bible came to be known as the "vinegar Bible." Franklin Ware Davis presents its history thus: "It was published in 17 17 by John Basket of Oxford, the 'King's printer,' on the best of vellum. A mistake was made in the guide line at the head of one page in the gospels, and the compositor made a few volumes and his employer's name fa- mous ever after by setting up the words 'parable of the vinegar' instead of 'the vineyard.' Forty copies had been struck off before this was noticed. Of these only four exist to-day. These are at St. John's, Portsmouth; Christ's Churtih, Bos- ton; Christ Church, Philadelphia; and the Len- ox Library, New York." Old St. John's Church, Portsmouth, N. H. 373 Franklin Davis gives us another detaU of interest. When independence was declared, and prayers for the English sovereigns had become objectionable, there was pasted over the old ones certain new forms of prayer. This was done either in a spirit of thrift or as the result of necessity, since probably new books were unobtainable. An English officer in looking over the prayer book found the extraordinary readjustment and in his rage cut out the page with his sword. This is not well authenticated but it makes a good story, and it were a shame to lose a good story even if' one must make poor history. St. John's bell has its history also. When Pepperell stormed Louis- bourg his men captured the bell which had hung in the French cathedral. This was presented to Queen's Chapel in 1806. The chapel was burned and the bell was cracked in the heat but afterward it was recast by Paul Revere. In 1896 it again cracked and the successors to the Paul Revere com- pany again recast it. It now bears the words, "From St. John's steeple I call the people On holy days To prayer and praise.' These lines were an inspiration of one of the Went worths. 374 Old New England Churches The "church dole" grew out of a legacy left by Col. Theodore Atkinson to furnish bread which each Sunday to this day is dealt out to the poor of the parish. The loaves are heaped in the baptismal font. The story of Washington's visit to this church in 1789 enriches its history. He wrote of the event in his diary Nov. i, 1789: "Attended by the President of State (Gen. Sullivan), Mr. Langdon, and the marshall, I went in the forenoon to the Episcopal church under the incumbency of Mr. Ogden; and in the afternoon to one of the Presbyterian or Congregational churches in which a Mr. Buckminster preached." Upon that occasion the President was clothed in black velvet, ornate with jewelled buckles. Es- corted to Queen's Chapel he entered Governor Went worth's pew, which was newly equipped for the occasion with red plush curtains while a wooden canopy above it bore the royal arms. Washington sat in one of the two chairs given by Queen Caroline to St. John's— which woxild seem to be the irony of fate. Later, when the chapel was burned, one of these chairs was destroyed. Since tradition when in doubt always plays the trump of romance, it is stated that the chair preserved was the one Old St. John's Church, Portsmouth, N. H. 375 Washington sat in, but there is no certainty of this because when one was destroyed its counterpart was made at once and no distin- guishing mark was placed upon either. St. John's church at one time tried to rid itself of an objectipnable rector. The congregation decided that he ought to resign, but instead of conducting the matter in a suave and unobtrusive manner a pari^ meeting was called. It came to naught and a second meeting was called a week later. The rector, learning that a disposition was to be made of him of which he was not expected to approve, decided to have a hand in the matter-, and when the meeting convened the objectionable rector was found to be in the chair ready to pre- side at his own funeral. The situation must have been embarrassing for both parties, certainly for the parish; but one of the wardens, much flustered, jumped up and demanded of the chairman, " Ain't there any possible way to get rid of a minister when the parish don't want him?" The chairman replied tranquilly, " I don't know that there is." This was too much for the warden and he tearfully shouted, " He hain't got no human heart in him." Having impressed his parish that he could do 376 Old New England Churches as he pleased, the reverend gentleman finally withdrew and sought another church. On the morning before Christmas, 1806, Queen's Chapel was burned down and the members of St. John's parish were housed with those of the North meeting house. The Rev. Mr. Buck- minster of the North Church preached the Christ- mas sermon to the united congregations, using the text, " Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire." To the new church which was immediately built and called St. John's, Trinity Church of Boston contributed one thousand dollars. St. John's has had its place in fiction, for Sarah Ome Jewett describes it in " The Country Doctor." The credence table is made of wood which was once a part of the United States frigate Hartford, the flagship of Admiral Farragut at the capture of New Orleans. The church's equipment has come from all parts of the world, the font being a trophy taken by Colonel Tom Mason from the French at the capture of Senegal. Tradition has it that the French had stolen it from a heathen temple. The "Brattle organ" once owned by Thomas Brattle, was imported from London in 17 13. It Old St. John's Church, Portsmouth, N. H. 377 was originally left to Brattle Street Church in Boston and was " Given and devoted to the praise and worship of God in the said church, if they shall accept thereof and within a year after my decease, pro- cure a sober person who can play skilfully thereon with a loud noise." Brattle Street Church did not comply with the conditions, lacking either a man of sobriety or one who could make a loud noise, and the organ went to King's Chapel, and afterward to St. Paul's in Newburyport. It did service there for eighty years, and finally in 1836 St. John's became its home. In St. John's burying ground lie all the Went- worths and their families, with the exceotion of the last generation. An amusing story is told of one of St. John's rectors. Dr. Burroughs, at a little village called Gosport on the Isle of Shoals, a favourite summer- ing place, where he was in the habit of going for the hot months. On one occasion he remained four weeks, and as the little church was unused, the village having no pastor, the Reverend Doctor, wishing to do a graceful act, preached in it for four Sundays. The time came for his departure 378 Old New England Churches and no vote of thanks had reached him. He at- tributed this to an oversight ; but as he was about to enter the boat which was to take him from the island, a boy came running down to the dock waving a piece of paper that looked to the Doctor as if it might be the delayed vote of thanks. He began to consider a suitable reply to send back, but when he opened the paper he found it to be a bill for the use of the church for the four Sundays. The good Doctor meekly paid and meekly de- parted. We have on the records of this church much that is unique ; for example an entry of a death : " An infant child, aged three weeks, unbaptised of Mr. & wife of sore mouth and fits"; there are a good many unquotable items which have reference to disease and death. Old St. John's has more legendary history than any other church in New England. The curfew was still rung and the church still sentinelled, ten years ago in picturesque and primitive Ports- mouth town. FIRST CHURCH, DOVER, N. H. CHAPTER XXIV First Church, Dover, New Hampshire DOVER was the first settlement in the state of New Hampshire, and seventeen years after its beginning at the "Neck," "the inhabitants of Dover, having stiffered much from great irregu- larity in their civil and ecclesia,stical affairs," sub- mitted itself to the laws of England. The next year they decided " to be ruled and ordered in all cases, civil and criminal, and to be subject to pay in church and commonwealth as the inhabitants of Massachusetts pay." Thus they fell under the administration of Massachusetts. The first Congregational church in Dover was established in 1638, probably some time in Novem- ber. Unlike the churches of many of the other colonies this one was organised by a little company who had come to this country unhampered or unsustained, by religious views and theories. They were a little company of fishermen whose time was given over to catching and selling; but they brought with them a pastor, the Rev. WiUiam Leveridge, and they by no means 381 382 Old New England Churches regarded spiritual affairs inconsequently. The im- migrant preacher did not remain long with the colonists but removed to Boston. An elevated site was chosen for the first meeting house and it was "beautiful for situation"; but like other structures of those days it was of logs and mud, probably not "daubed over workman- like." Dover had lived for fifteen years after its settlement without a meeting house. The first preacher of the organised church was the Rev. Hansard KnoUys. In all probability he was not severe enough to control these prac- tically-minded men, who seemed so much less spiritually developed than their neighbours. In short it was the misfortune of these early Dover- ites to have in ecclesiastical control men who were more or less divided between their theological responsibilities and things mundane, but Mr. KnoUys must have been a man of considerable force of one kind or another since he created con- siderable disturbance. During the first five years of their church rule, the good people of Dover found it necessary to establish a strict guardianship over their preachers, but they met with better fortune when the Rev. Daniel Maud came. He remained their preacher 'W^lf^^'T^^^iff^r^r?:^^ 77;ia!5^FlflPSSf5J^-r FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, DOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE Which is almost the only early Colonial church of the Puritans whose record is without the blot of witchcraft First Church, Dover, N. H. 383 for many years. The best that has been said of the early ministers who tentatively occupied this pulpit is that they died in the odour of sanctity, but it is certain that Daniel Maud also lived thus. The town records of 1642 declare that " Mr. Maud and his wife do enjoy the house in which they then lived during their lives, provided he continued as a teacher or pastor, and if it please God to call him to it," and more than this he received nearly two hundred dollars a year. Dr. Mather represents Mr. Maud as the first strictly convenable divine of the Dover church, and reckons him among the most in- fluential crusaders in the wilderness. Between 1647 and 1662 the church reckoned among its elders a Wentworth, parent to the gover- nors of that name. At that time affairs at Dover were settled by arbitration. This method of adjusting a settlement of local disagreements was not uncommon, but it was customary here to choose three or more Dover citizens each year to settle difficulties between citizens. The custom speaks with a loud voice for that individual in- tegrity which could command the confidence of a whole people. Dover escaped the blot of witchcraft history but 384 Old New England Churches it has much of intolerance to record. The Quakers were treated with great severity. The citizens whipped "three traveUing Quaker women" out of town and also gave thirty stripes at the cart's tail to Edward Wharton. These stripes were judiciously distributed — ten in each of three towns — ^before the unhappy Quaker finally reached his home in Salem, where probably he was hanged as a witch. But in their atrocities the colonists were conscientious, because " the prevalent opinion in most sects in that day was, that tolerance was sinful." The Dover church was the last church in New England to give up the apostolic practice of baptising the children of communicants only. Later, with other churches, it formed the "half- way covenant" plan. Then came the frightful massacre on the 28th of June, 1689. Friday was indeed a fatal day to these fishermen settlers, for upon that day full fifty people were killed or taken prisoner by the Indians. Mr. Pike was the next preacher, and his early dis- missal did not advance the spiritual welfare of the unhappy settlement. He had no impedi- ment of soul, but alas, he was uncertain of speech and confusing to the people of Dover. But spirit- First Church, Dover, N. H. 385 ual prosperity was at hand, and a new epoch in the history of Dover arrived when the Rev. Jona- than Gushing came to preach. By this time there were churches in the nearby towns of Somers- worth, Harrington, Durham, Lee, and Newington — ofEshoots from the town of Dover — which main- tained a sort of family supervision among them- selves. It is said that they spent much time in " watching over each other and admonishing each other in the Lord." Even during Mr. Cushing's ministry we find the independent, liberty-loving Doverites wandering far from ministerial gui- dance; though there is considerable disciplining recorded in this administration. It is noted "that in the days of Mr. Gushing there was a deacon in the church by the name of John Hayes. There is now a John Hayes, deacon of this church, but what is more remarkable, that same John Hayes and that same Rev. J. Gushing were both great grandfathers of our John Hayes and were both also great grandfathers to Brother Peter Gushing at present a deacon in this church." This coincidence was discussed in a Thanksgiving sermon in 1838, The Dover church rejoiced in an historian when Dr. Belknap came to its pulpit. It was in his day 386 Old New England Churches that a privilege, which long continued to be given to preachers, was established. He demanded four Sabbaths of each year to himself "during which he might be absent from his people and devote the time to journeying or to any purpose which might please him." This may have been a plea for the indulgence of his literary pursuits, but we cannot regret that he arrogated four weeks in the year to himself on any account. So modest a re- quest, so momentously recorded, reveals how persistently those early preachers laboured. The reverend man deserves to be remembered as much for the humane precedent he established as for his history of New Hampshire. One of Dover's parish historians declares that during Dr. Belknap's ministry "A firm attachment to evangelical truth and a spirit of loving piety, the two essential con- stituents to the religious prosperity of any people appear not to have been remarkably prominent." However this may be, there was during this time a deal less of punishment, censure, and internal dissension in Dover than in the other more strictly spiritual communities. After Mr. Belknap left came a season of pulpit disturbances. Either the preachers who sought the parish assumed too First Church, Dover, N. H. 387 liberal an attitude toward morals or else Dover was too exacting, because again and again the pulpit was badly supplied and preachers came and went with irritating frequency. With the probable exception of Exeter church the Dover church is the oldest in all New Hamp- shire, but it has been the^ least fortunate. By 1838, on its one hundredth anniversary, fifteen ministers had filled its pulpit, but only five of these seem to have met the spiritual requirements. A pledge to abstain from the use of " ardent spirits . . . and from the traffic of the same" be- came a suggestive condition of church member- ship, but we do not hear of casualties from drunk- enness in Dover such as were attendant upon the "raring of the meeting hous" in many of the colonies where rum was one of the perquisites. In 1833 signs of the " intrenchments and flan- kerts " which surrounded the first Dover church were still to be seen. Near to that meeting house they built the gaol, and the church itself was used both for worship and for the transaction of town business. Here as elsewhere the drum was beaten to call the folks to meeting, and Richard Pinkome was the citizen who was "ordered to beat the drum 388 Old New England Churches for meeting on the Lord's-day." There was a very excellent and practical reason for this use of the drum in preference to the bell in those ever warlike times. Horns and conch shells, drums and rattles, were more in consonance with the wild unformed conditions, and less characteristic- ally evident, when Indian bands waited only for opportunity to fall upon a community unawares. The bell in such times would have seemed a direct challenge to destruction. The old walls of the First Church doubtless witnessed an extraordinary exhibition when the ecclesiastical quarrel between KnoUys and Lark- ham took place. On that occasion KnoUys, the Puritan preacher, marched to the court room, which was in all probability the meeting house, armed with a rifle and bearing a Bible "mounted on a halberd for ah ensign." Larkham and his followers did not accept this challenge but called upon the people of Portsmouth for assistance. This could not be rendered because Dover was not in its jurisdiction, but the governor came up in a boat with an armed party to the rescue of Larkham. Eventually three men, of whom Hugh Peters the famous Salem preacher, was one, be- came a commission appointed by the Governor First Church, Dover, N. H. 389 of Massachusetts to settle this dispute. Their findiiig was a tolerant one, in that they decided both parties were at fault, and the excommunica- tion of the one and the fines and banishment of the other were revoked; thus they hoped to re- store peace. The original meeting house witnessed another picturesque incident when the Doverites declined to recognise the agents of foreign proprietors. They refused to be taxed and persisted in cutting down trees that bore the arrowheads — signs of the absentee owner. Their resistance was extremely spirited, and when warrants were issued against the offenders, and the sheriff and his forces tried to seize them at church, a tremendous riot arose which interrupted the sermon. A liberty-loving woman hurled the Bible at the head of one of the officers with such certain aim that it knocked him down and fairly stopped the proceedings. In- deed the sheriff and his posse were so badly treated that we read " they were glad to escape with their lives." The early fortification about this meeting house was of logs built upon an earthen intrench- ment, and at the diagonal comers there was some sort of circular tower — doubtless sentinelled 390 Old New England Churches ■ — the remains of which can still be seen. From those towers the watcher, in his strange armour (probably the ordinary " coat basted with cotton- wool") could sweep the river, the houses on the Cocatco bank, and have all the region beyond, on the Maine shore, in full sight. The heads of families marched to meeting armed, and the guns were stacked in the church entry. Onslaughts were frequent and more than once the service was interrupted by the sentinel's call, whereupon the whole congregation went forth to battle and many were picked off by single shots as they left the meeting house. But it was Dover's own treacher- ous treatment of the Indians which brought upon it much of the evil warfare. One minister of this early church was also gover- nor of the plantation. Town and church records were identical but there was not that interdepen- dence of church and state in the Dover settle- ment which was to be found in the Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies. We read of a new meeting house in 1655 — built on the site of the old one — which was "16 feet stud, with 6 windows, 12 doores fitt for such a house, with a tile covering and all the walls planck." But in 1758, in Jonathan Cush- First Church, Dover, N. H. 391 ing's time, the third meeting house was built. The northern end was rebuilt into a dwelling house and sold; then in 1829 came the fourth house. Dover knew much of vicissitude and perhaps not much of spirituality, but with that brute force and human assurance which accounts for most col- onial success, she finally lived, moved, and had an orderly being. FIRST CHURCH, CONCORD, N. H. CHAPTER XXV First Church, Concord, New Hampshire IN CONCORD the conditions of the, township grant declared " that a convenient house for the worship, of God be completely finished within the time aforesaid [three years] for the accommo- dation of all such as shall inhabit the aforesaid tract of land." The first public assembly was for the purpose of worship, and this was on May 15, 1726. There were two services on that day at Sugar Ball Plain, where those that had come to survey the township, some of the proprietors and a committee of the General Court, were in camp ; and it was also immediately "agreed and voted, that a block house ... be built at Penny Cook for security of the settlers." At the same time a commi-fetee of five was appointed to super- vise the erection of this house, and the structure was to be used primarily for defence, as the word- ing of the vote indicates; but as was usual in these settlements, it was to serve a double pur- pose, and thus were fulfilled the two conditions of the land grant. 39S 396 Old New England Churches This first place of worship and fort combined was placed in the midst of the forest; windows high from the ground for the better security of those within; built of logs and with an earthen floor. The grist mill and the saw mill, those two most important structures of early New England, did not come until after this church-fort was built. A couple of years later Concord under- took to improve the interior because the inhabi- tants expected "a learned orthodox minister" to settle among them. The settlement at that time was the geographical limit of New World civilisation, and the church marked the frontier. In all probability the surveyors and proprietors who encamped here at the earliest date completed the church-fort structure, and had all in readiness for the settlers before they came. Jacob Shute says "that in the fall of the year 1727 " he assisted in moving up the first family that settled at Penny Cook, and that he there found a meeting house built. In Concord history this is called the second meeting house but it was probably the first struc- ture given over entirely to the worship of God. The women of the parish did their part when it came to the days of the meeting house "raring," First Church, Concord, N. H. 397 by furnishing the men engaged, with "such re- freshments as the nature of the arduous work required." The house had neither steeple nor chimney. There was no organised town government in Concord at the time, so that the church had to be built by individuals organised for the purpose, and they were called the Proprietors of the Meet- ing House. The settling of Concord has its unique phase. The proprietary right to the land was under dis- pute and the point was not settled for years. It was necessary in order to colonise there at all that men who believed in what they were doing and who had the courage to maintain their rights, as they understood them, should become the settlers. They had to have faith in their own judgment and yet be willing to take chances on having their investment one day rendered futile and possibly a dead loss to them. They had to be men of some means and of undoubted moral courage in order to cope with this situation. Therefore, both as men of property and men of character, those of this settlement of Concord were somewhat excep- tional. It was not until thirteen years had passed that Concord was confident of what she owned. 398 Old New England Churches The preacher who had the parish in 1764 left a diary which suggests the new life, the new im- petus toward development that the town received when at last "the Bow controversy" was settled. This man writes: "April 20. Set out 20 apple trees in ye Island orchard and in ye Joel orchard." "April 23. Bot 40 apple trees of Philip Eastman, brot. ym home and set ym out." "April 24. Set out about 60 young apple trees in ye house lot." "May 2. Set out eight elm trees about my house." "June 17, 1782. Voted to finish the meeting house in said Concord." "Voted that the com- mittee consist of three." "Voted that Colonel Timothy Walker, Mr. Robert Harris, and Mr. Joseph Hall be a committee for the purpose aforesaid' ' ; and about that time it was decided that the town should purchase the interest of the proprietors in the meeting house. In the course of time (about 1783) we have an account of a fine flamboyant structure. We know there was a belfry and a steeple, and on the spire was a gilt weathercock made of copper which weighed fifty-six pounds and was four feet high. It had glass eyes and a superabundance of tail and "it always looked ready for a fight, eccles- iastical or civil." Upon the belfry ceiling the First Church, Concord, N. H. 399 thirty-two points of the compass were boldly painted in fine primitive colours. Here as else- where, the seats were hinged and were emphati- cally banged down at the preacher's "Amen." There was a "Pretentious sounding board, of elaborate workmanship, as curious of design as it was inno- cent of utility. . . . The pulpit was reached by a flight of stairs on the left side, ornamented by ballusters of curious patterns, three of which, each diflEering from the others, stood upon each step and supported the rail. The ptdpit, striped stair carpet, the red silk damask cushion upon which rested the big Bible, blazing in scarlet and gold. ... At the foot of the public stairs stood a short mahogany pillar upon which on baptismal occasions was placed the silver font." When the choir sang the singers were concealed behind a red curtain. When they ceased the curtain was opened. There is perhaps no other record of so frank an acknowledgment of the painful. The Concord meeting house shut out from view the facial contortions of a country choir, permitting it to reveal itself only when all was said and sung. The first indication we have of class distinction in Concord is a record of an application made by Mr. James Scales for the privilege of building a 400 Old New England Churches pew, and this he was permitted to do " in the one- half of the hindermost seat at the west end of the meeting house that is next the window." The old men of the congregation sat apart i^ a place provided for them at the base of the pulpit, and wore a sort of uniform — ^white linen caps in summer and red woolen caps in winter. In Con- cord the Sabbath meeting was quite as much a social event as it was a spiritual indulgence. Bou- ton's history describes how intimately the persons, not only of Concord but of the outlying towns, knew each other. Here they met on a Sunday, convening doubtless at the noon hour, when they gossiped together until the second service, ex- changing news from all parts. The meeting house was also a place where military orders were given and received. Captain Joseph Walker's cavalry command dwelt in Concord and its outlying vil- lages, and there on Sundays he transmitted to his men orders when and where to meet, what to do, and how to do it. Down under a tree at the bot- tom of the hill, west of Richard Bradley's, history has it that the boys and young, men stopped to put on their shoes of a Sabbath, and the young women to put on clean white stockings after com- ing from a distance and before entering the meet- First Church, Concord, N. H. 401 ing house — not an aesthetic scene but a very picturesque one. The horse block on the west side of the meeting house served the women for mounting and dismounting from the piUions on which they rode behind their husbands, and those who used the block paid for it at the rate of a pound of butter apiece. When the long- wished-for bell, which weighed twelve hundred pounds, was finally put into the belfry, the whole valley rejoiced, and the year after its acquisition it was ordered to be rung thrice a day for seven Sundays — at seven o'clock, at noon, and at nine of the clock at night. Concord salaries were always magnificent. The first bellringer, Sherbtirn Wiggin, received twenty- five dollars a year, and modem business methods prevailed, for he was required to give a bond for the faithful performance of his duty. There was one reversal, however, of present methods: val- uable offices were annually sold to the lowest instead of to the highest bidder. The sexton's salary increased sixty per cent, in eight years, which indicates a relatively fine increase in the town's prosperity. The second house was en- larged in 1828, many changes being made inside and the whole structure greatly improved. Then a 402 Old New England Churches strange thing happened. Though enlarged to meet the pressing need of room it was found that almost at once the congregation began to dimin- ish. This was simply a coincidence, several other religious societies having been formed which drew many from that first church. The new and mightier structure seemed so bamlike and com- fortless that they built again in order to pro- vide themselves with a cosy house. Concord people were able to build, to move in, to move out, and do pretty much as they pleased by rea- son of their opulence and uncomplicated way of thinking. A dheerful people met in the old house to say farewell before they moved into the new. In the second meeting [house all sorts of assem- blies were held that have had significance in state history. The convention which was to plan some sort of government for New Hampshire met there. The first legislature for Concord assembled in this house, and there also were held no less than fifteen sessions of the General Court. The first legislature had to adjourn to another building because the church was too cold, and one historian very neatly describes the sit- uation: First Church, Concord, N. H. 403 "If in winter the cold in God's house was in- tense, they shrugged their shoulders, worked their toes, and, so far as they could, got carnal warmth from the fervour of their devotions. But it must have been very chilly for the ungodly on such occasions. Tliat at the noon intermis- sion some have sought spiritual invigoration at Hanaford's Tavern nearby, may have been in- excusable, but it was not inconsistent with the native depravity of that time." However, if the church was cold, Concord hos- pitality was very warm indeed. There is a tradi- tion that Colonel Timothy Walker, a member of the legislature at Concord, told other members who were complaining of their boarding houses "That if the General Assembly would hold its next session at Concord they should be as well accommodated as at Exeter and for half the money. Thereupon the assembly adjourned to Concord." When Colonel Walker mentioned this at home, the good folk of Concord opened their houses, took in the members of the General Court, and must have been pretty satisfactory hosts, for forty-four sessions of the General Court were held there between that time and 18 16 when Concord became the state capital. When the stove was introduced into the Con- 404 Old New England Churches cord meeting house there was even more excite- ment and resistance than in other houses when this extraordinary epoch in their history was reached. Indeed the opposition was so tremen- dous that the stove was introduced only on a com- promise — as a kind of sop to pubHc prejudice — something like that compromise which was made at Webster in 1832 — "to dispense with the fire within the stove the first Sabbath in each month through the cold season." The third meeting house was in 1842, and then in 1874 came the fourth. Concord had vicissitudes similar to those of the rest of New England; but, like most New Hamp- shire towns originally founded by work-a-day folk in the interests of trade, an exercise of ex- cellent common sense adjusted its difficulties and minimised them before those of its neighbours. In short. New Hampshire folk lived not by bread of the Gospel alone but went down to the sea in ships, discreetly sold what they caught, invested economically in religion as in other things, and prospered mightily. CHURCH OF CHRIST, HANOVER, N. H. CHAPTER XXVI Church of Christ, Hanover, New Hampshire THE Church of Christ at Dartmouth Col- lege" was gathered at Hanover, New Hampshire, by Eleazer Wheelock, founder and first president of Dartmouth College, January 23, 1 77 1. The building is exceptional in being al- most without picturesque history, in furnishing an extraordinary exhibition of ecclesiastical diffi- ctilty, and in having sent forth an amazing num- ber of great men. It was literally a church in the wilderness, giving form, together with the college, to the purpose expressed in the motto signifi- cantly engraved on the college seal. Vox clamantis in deserto. The twenty-seven persons with whom the church was organised were members of Dr. Wheelock' s "family," that is, his wife and children, the stud- ents of the college, and the labourers in his em- ploy. These lived under his immediate con- trol in the two buildings put up in the little clear- ing of the pine forest which covered the college plain. There was a log "hutt" and a large rude 407 4o8 Old New England Churches structure for the students and labourers. The nearest neighbour could only be found at the end of a three-mile ride " through one continuous and dreary wood." In no other instance do we find a simultaneous beginning of educational and ecclesiastical in- terests. Hanover church we may regard as the religious side of the college, and the. college Presi- dent was its minister till his death in April, 1779. The college continued to furnish preachers to the church for many years. From the nature of the case it was from the outset without ecclesiastical affiliations, but as time passed, and churches were organised in the neighbouring towns, Hanover church adopted the Presbyterian form of government and united with others to form the " Grafton Presbyter." Among the early elders was Bezaleel Woodward, a trustee and professor in the college, prominent in public affairs, edticational and political as well as re- ligious. He was leader in the movement to es- tablish the state of New Connecticut, which it was hoped would be made from the portions of New Hampshire and Vermont, on either side of the Connecticut River. The church flourished greatly under its early pastors, though for Church of Christ, Hanover, N. H. 409 many years it had no house of its own, and had to depend on the hospitality of the college. The services were held in the college chapel, used also for the commencement exercises of the college. For the latter it was too small, and as the college could not afford to erect a larger building, a movement was started in 1775 by the residents of the village to build a " meeting house," large enough for the ordinary Sabbath services and for the greater gatherings at the college commencements. In that year there was built a meeting house of the ordinary New En- gland pattern of that time, relieved only by a "belcony" at one end, which rose in a spire, one hundred feet in height, surmounted by two gilt balls. Within could be found the high pulpit, overhung by a sounding board. There were gal- leries around three sides, of which the front seats in part were reserved for "music" and the whole interior was painted white with a slight tint of blue. The building was guiltless of any means of heating, and in winter the breath of the wor- shippers often formed a cloud in front of the pulpit, so that fervency of devotion was the only source of warmth. The house was dedicated in Decem- ber and immediately occupied, the proprietors 4IO Old New England Churches taking the pews on the floor and the students being assigned to the west gallery. The col- legiate character of the congregation was thus preserved. A dispute arose not long after the erection of the building about its use by the col- lege, and consequently the president withdrew his students to the chapel. They soon returned, and since then the building has been used con- tinuously as the place of worship for the college as well as for the public exercises of commence- ment and other academic exhibitions. In the course of the century the building has several times undergone repair and enlargement. The first spire became unsafe, and was replaced in 1838 by a cupola which still stands. The change in sacred music, first marked by the pass- ing of the fugue, before the period of choral music, led to the substitution of the organ for the violin, bass viol, and trombone. In 1889 Mr. Stanford White finally turned this church into a building whose dignity of proportion, chaste ornamenta- tion, and harmonious colouring make it one of the finest representatives of colonial architecture in New England. Its combination of plain exterior and simple artistic interior have given it the fitting title, the "New England Cathedral." Mr. Church of Christ, Hanover, N. H. 411 Hiram Hitchcock's generosity made this excellent result possible. There the successive generations of Dartmouth students have received the instruction and in- fluence connected with the services of the church. Attendance upon the Sabbath services was in the beginning compulsory, and for two-thirds of a century the students came together for worship twice each Sunday. Afterward for twenty-five years they had to attend but one service, and com- pulsory attendance was finally given up. The building is still the home of the college church, but it invites, does not compel, the presence of the students, and the congregation has not shrunk in consequence. Among those who have been not merely wor- shippers within the walls of the college church but members of the organisation, are many whose names have been prominent in educational and religious leadership. A large company of mis- sionaries went out from the church headed by Mason Goodell, who translated the Bible into Armeno-Turkish, and Daniel Temple of the same college class, an author and publisher of Christian literature in the Orient. Divinity and education are represented by such men as Francis Brown, 412 Old New England Churches President of Dartmouth during its great contro- versy with the state, Zephaniah Swift Moore, President of both Williams and Amherst Colleges, John Torrey, John Wheeler, and James Marsh, all Presidents of the University of Vermont, Charles A. Aiken, President of Union College, and a host of others prominent as presidents, professors, and educators. Among the living it will be enough to mention Francis Brown, grandson of the one above mentioned, biblical scholar and professor in Union Theological Seminary, and Francis E. Clark, founder of the Christian Endeavour Society. At the college anniversaries held in the building, many men of promise and of note have been pres- ent. In 1 80 1 Daniel Webster delivered here his graduation speech, and his subject was not the literary or forensic theme expected: he spoke of the discoveries of Lavoisier in chemistry. At that time this was news, not history. Here also Rufus Choate spoke at his graduation in 1820; and Salmon P. Chase at his graduation discussed "Literary Curiosity." At other times large audi- ences have listened to Edward Everett, to Ralph Waldo Emerson, to William M. Evarts com- memorating Chief Justice Chase, to Rufus Choate, in his maturity, delivering his eulogy on Daniel Church of Christ, Hanover, N. H. 413 Webster, to Senator T. F. Bayard on the same theme, and so late as 1901, at the centenary of the graduation of Daniel Webster, to Congress- man McCall, recalling the services and the charac- ter of the great statesman. Few buildings out- side the centre of population, and few within them, have witnessed so many gatherings of so many notable men. The Church of Christ at Dartmouth College as a religious organisation has had an eventful his- tory. The Grafton Presbytery to which it be- longed became extinct before 1800 by the gradual withdrawal of its members to adopt the Congre- gational form. The church at Hanover, however, made no change, so that it was for several years the sole remnant of Presbyterianism. This steadfastness was not so much the result of a set purpose on the part of its members, — ^for the change of polity by its neighbours was not without its influence, — as of the relations of the church to the College, whose President, John Wheelock, son of the founder, held to the Presb5^erian form. The position of the College determined that of ^the church. A professor in the one being the pastor of the other, his college duties took precedence of his church relations, and the members of the 414 Old New England Churches church resident in the village, though in the major- ity, occupied a secondary position. They were not sufficient in numbers or in resources to organise a separate church, and readily accepted what came through their association with the College. The College elected a professor of divinity to preach to the students, and the church could only accept the choice, with the implied control of its af- fairs. This relation continued without much fric- tion until _i 804, when Roswell Shurtleff was elected Professor' of Divinity, with the expectation that he would become pastor of the church in place of Professor Smith, who had for some time wished to withdraw. Mr. ShurtlefE was acceptable to the students and to the members of the church, but President Wheelock, for personal reasons, de- sired to have him only as colleague to Professor Smith, whom he wished to retain as pastor. Out of this grew a bitter and protracted controversy, resulting in a division of the church and indirectly in the famous controversy between the State of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College. In the early days of this church many persons joined it who lived across the Connecticut in the adjoining towns of Norwich and Hartford, Ver- Church of Christ, Hanover, N. H. 415 mont. On the formation of a church in Norwich the members resident in Hanover transferred their connection to it, but those in Hartford still retained their connection at Hanover though they had withdrawn from all participation in the affairs of the church and from attendance upon the services. They went so far as to build themselves a separate house of worship, and, with- out reference to the Hanover members, issued a call to a minister. President Wheelock who had great influence with them, owing to services he had rendered, persuaded them to assert their right to vote at Hanover, and a meeting was called to consider Mr. Shurtleff's relation to the church. By a bare majority they voted to ask him to be colleague with Prof. Smith and not sole pastor. This proposition was utterly distasteful to the Hanover members, except three of four, and they resolutely determined not to allow a situation to be thrust upon them by those who had no interest in it. Long negotiations followed between the parties, and when no agreement could be reached the Hanover members proposed the calling of a general council for advice. This was refused by the other side and after all means had been tried without success the Hanover members called an 41 6 Old New England Churches ex parte council, before which they laid their case, the other side also appearing. As a result they were organised into a new church on July 2, 1805, under the title of "The Congregational Church at Dartmouth College," while the Hartford mem- bers still kept the title of "Church of Christ at Dartmouth . College," though they lived, with few exceptions, in another town and state and had nothing whatever to do with the college. This outcome was so unsatisfactory that before a year was out the new church again proposed a council to see if some means of union could be devised. After mjich discussion a council was agreed on and it met in 1806. It recommended a plan of union for the two churches, retaining the Presbyterian form, which was accepted by both, but the old church modified its form of accep- tance so as to make it ineffective, and in fact never followed its directions. The new church vainly attempted to live up to them and after four years, acting on the advice of the Orange Association, it resumed its independent state under the Congregational form, which it has retained to the present day. The old church, which also changed to the Congregational form at a later day, became extinct in 1844, leaving the Hanover Church of Christ, Hanover, N. H. 41 7 offshoot as the representative of the original church. But the quarrel in the church passed to a wider sphere, for President Wheelock attempted to make the Trustees of the College a party to it, and, failing in this, became so embittered that he appealed to the state legislature, making charges of malfeasance against the Trustees. The acts of the legislature which resulted from his appeal changed the charter of the College and led to the famous Dartmouth College case, which, carried through the state courts with the aid of Jeremiah Smith, Jeremiah Mason, and Daniel Webster, was taken to the Supreme Court at Washington. Pleaded there by Joseph Hopkinson and Daniel Webster it gave the latter an opportunity for making the greatest forensic argument in the annals of the American Bar, which resulted in the decision delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, establishing securely the foundation of. eleemosy- nary institutions, through the inviolability of contracts. The church continued under the care of Pro- fessor Shurtleff till 1828, and since that time it has been fortunate in the permanency of its pas- torates. For several years there were frequent 4i8 Old New England Churches changes, but in 1841 Rev. John Richards, D. D., came to its pulpit, which he occupied eighteen years till his death in 1861 when he was succeeded by Rev. S. P. Leeds, D. D., who remained as pastor of the church for forty years, a longer period of service in a college pulpit than that of any other man who has held such a position in New England. For years there was in connection with the pas- torate a board of college preachers, but this was given up when compulsory attendance by the stu- dents was abandoned; and the church is now under the pastoral care of Rev. A. W. Vernon. In 1905, on the completion of a century since its organisation as an offshoot of the original church, it adopted the name chosen at the beginning, and it is again the "Church of Christ at Dartmouth College." It has always been known as the "College Church," but the early connection by which the professor of divinity was the pastor of the church came to an end on the retirement of Professor Shurt- leff. By that time the church felt strong enough to support its own minister, though not without financial help from the college, which has always been generously given, and in 183 1 it settled by its own choice on the Rev. Robert Page. Since his Church of Christ, Hanover, N. H. 419 time the pastors of the church have had no official relation to the college till in 1904 the Rev. Mr. Vernon was elected Professor of Biblical Liter- ature at the same time that he was elected to the pastorate of the church, and with the help of an assistant pastor, he performs the duties of both offices. Besides the ordinary growth of the church many revivals have marked its history. In 18 15 and 182 1 there were* notable movements by which forty or more members were added to the chxirch each year. Again in 1858, 1875, 1879 and 1885 there were many additions. The present mem- bership is 242, and the total number borne on the roll since organisation is 899. CHURCH OF CHRIST, BENNINGTON, VT. CHAPTER XXVII Church of Christ, Bennington, Vermont THE ecclesiastical history of Vermont is necessarily of a more robust sort than that to be found elsewhere in New England. The Green Mountain State had its beginnings during political dissensions and coming war, and the spirit of the time could not have resulted in anything more forceful and virile than the con- ditions — even ecclesiastical conditions — ^which we find. The church history of Bennington given here will necessarily be largely anecdotal, and a good deal of the anecdote may seem rather strenuous; but the men of Vermont were stren- uous, and the reminiscences which are directly linked with the church seem precisely to reflect the men and the hour. When a handful of imperfectly armed men can walk up to a fort full of properly equipped if im- properly drunken soldiers and capture the outfit with recourse to nothing mightier than a dozen judiciously assembled words from the English language we are justified in saying that those men 423 424 Old New England Churches stand first in importance at roll call. Whether the British did surrender "in the name Of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress" or whether these words are as apocryphal as William Tell, it little matters. The legendary story of that sur- render may be bad fact but if so, then it is the finest piece of fiction in the world, and perfectly presents the spirit of the surrender. Benning- ton's secular history began in some such way as that. Bennington's ecclesiastical history stood first in the territory that was called Vermont. Secular affairs at the crisis-chapter of Bennington history — ^that tim when Ethan Allen marched across the page — ^were made up of things which had become to the Green Mountain State a religion; namely resistance, patriotism, and fight! Meeting house history in Bennington began a good while before this Revolutionary history, but as one reads he is inclined to believe that unconsciously Vermont was ^getting ready all of the time. The moment does not find the man unless the man is there waiting for the moment. All the world waited but it was given to Bennington to have the man in its midst. For thirteen years the township remained an Church of Christ, Bennington, Vt. 425 unbroken wilderness. From the beginning, how- ever, the town's name was fixed: it bore that of the governor of New Hampshire. Event- ually, the place was settled by accident. Cap- tain Samuel Robinson passed that way after a campaign against the French, got lost, liked the country he found himself in — which was afterward to become Bennington — and de- termined if he ever found Massachusetts again he would return with enough people to settle the country. He fulfilled his intention, and Benning- ton first existed as an active corporation when a proprietor's meeting was held on February 11, 1762. Benjamin Harwood inaugurated the gather- ing of the first census by being bom the following January. At the first "proprietor's meeting" they chose Deacon Joseph Safford, Esq., Samuel Robinson, John Fassett, Ebenezer Wood, Elisha Field, John Bumam, and Abraham Newton a committee to look out a place to set the new meeting house. The men fixed upon the northeast comer of the right of land No. 27. The meeting house placed, all other improvements radiated therefrom — new roads, new buildings, and the like. It was voted that "the road from the meeting house to 426 Old New England Churches Samuel Safford's will be the main road, and shall be four rods wide." The lands of Bennington were taxed to build the meeting house. A tax of six dollars on each right of land was levied, but the sum secured thus seems not to have sufficed, as those who gave were summoned to convene to see if they would not make a further subscription. The house had no steeple and it had a second story, or perhaps an attic, which served as a schoolroom for a good many years. There were square pews in the house and they bore little railings on top, composed of small balusters not always firmly set, and little fingers used to work tentatively at these rounds of wood, finding out which were loose, thus beguiling the long, tedious prayer and sermon hours. Certain it is that the babies played, and likely the older fry amused itself too, for on March 22, 1777, the Revolutionary War was suspended long enough for Bennington to vote that " such persons as do continue playing in the meeting house on the Lord's-day, or in the worship of God, be com- plained of to the committee of safety of the town, who are hereby authorised to fine them discretion- ally." The meeting house served for town-house as Church of Christ, Bennington, Vt. 427 well, and it was in this first house that the people gave thanks for their success at Ticonderoga — Ethan Allen coming home to take his part in the meeting. The Rev. Mr. Dewey, a few months later, preached war on the Sunday before the battle of Bennington, and afterward the Hessians and other prisoners were housed in the meeting house for safe keeping. There was a good deal that was humourous in a grim way in that excit- ing time. When these captives of the battle were marching sadly toward the church they had to pass the Catamount Tavern— a specimen of fine truculent nomenclature— and as they passed the landlord came out. With much impressiveness he invited the prisoners in to dinner as it was quite ready, having been haughtily ordered the day before by the British officers who expected to arrive after the battle, under somewhat different auspices. The first legislature of Vermont assembled in the first meeting house, as did many subsequent legislatures. It was probably to that first Sunday after Ticon- deroga that the legend of Allen's promptitude in claiming his own, belongs. Town history has it that a long Thanksgiving prayer in which the 428 Old New England Churches preacher was giving God all the glory of the Ticonderoga victory, was interrupted by Allen shouting out, "Parson Dewey, Parson Dewey, Parson Dewey!" and on the third count Dewey was compelled to pause and open his eyes. Then said Allen, "Please mention to the Lord about my being there!" A famous murder trial was held in this first meeting house since it was also the court house; and Pierrepoint Edwards came from New Haven to serve successfully for the defence. There were certain interesting conditions relat- ing to Bennington settlement which reflect ways, and means. For instance it was determined by the original settler. Captain Robinson, that those who were Congregationalists should be per- mitted to live on the Hill, but those of any other denomination must buy their land and settle in some other part of the township. Hence Cap- tain Robinson's formula, "To what denomination do you belong, my friend?" When this question was one day launched at a man who came to buy some land, he inquired, " What in h has that to do with you?" — ^The man didn't acquire the "Hill" property! This Church of Christ in Bennington which Church of Christ, Bennington, Vt. 429 existed in 1762 was the result of a coalition be- tween the Bennington and Westfield churches, the pastor of the latter becoming the pastor of the united people. Each church joined the other " with uplifted hands before God," and this marked a new growth in the land. The covenant of the church seems to have met with vicissitudes. It certainly was lost, and was found among some papers that were thrown into the street. It was mutilated and about one-third of the sig- natures were on the missing portion. Perhaps the most profound anxiety on the part of that early church was how to pay the minister. He was to receive fifty pounds during the first year. Not only the members of the church but the whole congregation contributed to this, and collectors were chosen to get together the money; but to collect the preacher's salary was a matter of high finance, even of statesmanship, in those days. At one time it was the duty of the colonial preacher to collect his own salary, and as it was dribbled out to him by the people it was necessary for him to go visiting each week in order to exist at all. This made him naturally detested, and he might well have been called the town beggar. Even after the matter of salary was negotiated 430 Old New England Churches by assessment, he was oftener without it than not. In one New England parish the preacher's salary being forever in arrears, he was compelled at last to bring suit against the town. When the case was up for consideration the parish spokes- man asked, "Well, what do you want now? If we haven't paid up, we gave you the improve- ment of the island and about thirty acres of land besides. Isn't that enough without asking for your salary?" "Yes," answered the preacher, "you did give me the island. I have mowed it and I don't want a better fence around my cornfield than one winrow of the fodder it cuts. If you should mow that island you speak of with a razor and rake it with a comb, you wouldn't get enough from it to winter a grasshopper." The preacher got nothing after thirty-six years' of work for the parish, and at last his persistence so disturbed these godly folk that it was "voted thet ther meting hous shuld be shot up so that no parson shuld open the same so that Mr. John Robrson of Duxborrough may not get into the meting hous to preach annay more without orders from the towne." To survive such hardships required the spirit of a Fenelon who asked " little Church of Christ, Bennington, Vt. 431 from men," tried to "render them much and ex- pect nothing in return." This matter of preacher's salaiy was Hke to have been Bennington's Waterloo, but dpubtless its own battle did much to heal ecclesiastical breaches: if the colonists disagreed under many creeds yet they all fought under one flag. These disagreements in the church interrupted and indefinitely postponed infant baptism. They al- together disorganised the town and congregation, and it was not until after 1780 when the preacher's salary was fixed, that the many dissensions in the church ceased. Other troubles followed. One of their ministers Mr. Avery, brought a slave into the town and insisted upon his right to hold her. There was small toleration of slavery in Vermont, and Bennington did not agree with its pastor. One member of the church had to be placed under discipline "for withdrawing himself from its com- munion upon its affirming that it would commune with a brother who might have a slave." In all probability this man's action represented the majority of sentiment in Vermont, but it was not church policy to permit so striking a resistance on the part of its people, and the disciplinary measure of excommunication followed. We have 432 Old New England Churches a fait concensus of Vermont opinion in the fol- lowing document: "Headquarters Paulet, Nov., 28, 1779. To whom it may concern, know thee: whereas, Dinah Mattis, a negro woman, with Nancy, her child of two months old, was taken prisoner on Lake Champlain with the British troops some- where near Colonel Gilliner's garden, the twelfth day of inst. November, by a scout under my com- mand, and, according to a resolve passed by the Honorable Continental Congress, that all prizes belong to the captivators thereof, therefore she and her child became the just property of the capti- vators thereof, I being comprehentious that it is not right in the sight of God to keep slaves ; there- fore obtaining leave of the detachment under my command to give her and her child their freedom; I do therefore give the said Dinah Mattis, and her child, their freedom to pass and repass anywhere through the United States of America, with her behaving as becometh, and to trade and traffic for herself and her child as though she were free bom, without being molested by any person or persons. In witness whereunto I have set my hand and subscribed my name. '"(Signed)' Ebenezer Allen. "Captain in Herrick's Regiment of Green Mountain Boys." Perhaps In no region do we find such emphatic individual characteristics as we do in Vermont. These were necessarily the cause of a good deal Church of Christ, Bennington, Vt. 433 of disagreement and irritation two hundred years before the comers were rounded off, but under- neath that aggressive individualism lived the hardy sentiment which conceded to each man his right to think and to act altogether as he pleased if he did not interfere with any one else's to do the same. We seem to have at this time in Vermont a nearer approach to Mill's notion of government than in any other place in New England: law, for the purpose of giving every- body the greatest possible liberty, and protect- ing individual liberty first of all! When the government chose Bennington as a dep6t for public stores, it chose discreetly, as was proved when Burgoyne came to rob it. In time the influence of Whitefield was felt in Bennington, and what was considered to be a spiritual regeneration began in the old meeting- house, but that proving inadequate to hold the people, a three days' meeting was held in the open air. Of the many ancedotes recorded, there is certainly one, prophetic in spirit of the lineal Bennington hero who made that anecdote of Manila possible in 1898. When the Rev. Mr. Dewey began life he learned the trade of carpenter, and when he took to preaching, he found his 434 Old New England Churches experience useful. When the first meeting house was being raised there was a lack of men at the work. Mr. Dewey who was standing near — possibly consecrating the deed with prayer — came forward and said to the builder, " 'Do you take a pole and help lift with the men, and I will give the word of command,' The builder com- plied. At that instant two men came riding up on horseback from the south. They dismounted and also grasped the poles. Mr. Dewey gave the word of command and the side of the frame went up forthwith to its perpendicular position, was fastened, and the raising of the building was com- pleted without further delay. He also builded or superintended the building of the house in which he resided." — ^We find the Deweys in command even back there in seventeen-something. There are enough humourous anecdotes loose in Vermont, to lighten the gravity even of the Puri- tan faith. FIRST CHURCH, NEWBURY, VT. CHAPTER XXVIII First Church, Newbury, Vermont IN NEWBURY the tithing men were a sort of local police. The name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, "tithing" meaning parish. In New England the duty was by no means confined to eccle- siastical supervision. Tithing men in Newbury were recognised more nearly according to their original func- tion in Old England, and instead of being chosen by the selectmen, as they were in Massachusetts and elsewhere, their office came by town appointment. There must have been a period of degeneracy among the people of this region, for upon the occasion of electing a preacher to the office of hog constable, known as "hog-reeve," he thanked his fellow-townsmen for the honour, and declared the nomination to be appropriate; "for I came among you as a shep- herd among his flock, but if you have so far de- generated as to become a herd of swine, it is fitting that I should be hog constable." The Reverend Wit was let off. Concerning this office there is an 437 438 Old New England Churches anecdote related of one of Newbury's own preachers, Dr. Calvin Jewett. He was moderator of the town meeting, and when the choice of a hog constable came under consideration, a good many people who seemed about to be offered the nomi- nation, were prepared to decline it. The public- spirited preacher lectured the meeting upon its lack of conscientiousness, pointing out that the office was one of much importance, it was neces- sary that it should be filled, and it was an honour no good citizen could afford to forego. Imme- diately the good Doctor was elected hog con- stable. He regarded it more or less as a joke and went home, but the jest took on tragic proportions when he was awakened at midnight by some of his neighbours who counselled him that since the office was so important, it was certainly neces- sary that there be no vacancy, and that they had brought a justice of the peace with them to swear the preacher in. The history of that first meeting house in New- bury is clouded, if not inchoate. We know that it was the orthodox log cabin and 28 by 25 feet in dimension. The people of Newbury tired of it and wanted "to see where the town will agree to meet on the Sabbath the spring and summer Courtesy oj W. C. Prentiss, Newbury, Vl. FIRST CHURCH, NEWBURY, VERMONT The church whose Thanksgiving Day was delayed because there was no molasses in the parish First Church, Newbury, Vt. 439 ensuii^," from which we infer that they did not intend to meet in the old house. But in 1771 the town had done nothing and the church-going folk again asked "if it will do an3rthing to the meet- ing house." There is some record that during the year there was the frame of a meeting house put up on the Little Plain, but the geographical sit- uation did not please the people, and it was taken down to be put agaih on the Ox-bow. In 1773 there was a town vote " to finish the meeting house that is now raised, the owners giving in what is done, " and " that the notes that were given to build a meeting house be given up. Captain Hazen giving him a bond which Haverhill took of New- btuy for building the same." There is no account of any special action being taken in the matter. A term of the Court of Common Pleas met at Robert Johnston's Inn and on the third day there was an adjournment to inspect "the building intended for a court house and jail in this town- ship." The Court was pleased, apparently, and appropriated more money to finish the building, directing that the workmen were " not to be over nice in doing it." In this we have meeting house history, because the court house and the meeting house were the same, judging by later records. 440 Old New England Churches The structure was called indifferently the state house, the court house, and the meeting house. There was a meeting house developed by piety alone somewhere about 1776. At that date it had been some time in building and was probably unfinished, for the town voted " to build pews and seats in the meeting house on the vacant ground." This building may also have been used as town house, but it is difficult to get details. At any rate it was used for worship for about fifteen years, by which time the structure called the old meeting house was built. This was in 1788, and in looking over records one grows optimistic and is about to believe that a Newbury meeting house pure and simple is reached, till one finds that the legislature met here for the October session, 1787. This meeting house was not without its anec- dotes, indeed the whole meeting house history of Newbury seems largely anecdotal. The house itself was a sort of anecdote. Certainly it was more of a happen-stance than a circumstance. In that early house the men were seated on one side, the women on the other. One Sunday when Mr. Powers was preaching he became greatly disturbed by much whispering in the house, and he ceased his First Church, Newbury, Vt. 441 sermon to rebuke the brethren for this unseemliness. A deacon arose and told the Reverend Mr. Powers that the men were not whispering, that the dis- turbance came from the women's side, where- upon Mr. Powers perceiving the impotence of censure remarked " then it is of no use for me to say anything." About 1798, when the inhabitants became desperate, we find included in the "warnings" for the town meeting in March the following: " to see if the town will repair the old meeting house, so that it may be of some advantage to the in- habitants and take some method to do the same." An agent was appointed to look after this matter, but he could not have been very happy over the appointment because he was sharply limited to the expenditure of fifteen dollars. Probably he gave it up for we read that nothing happened, and after a time the house was pulled down. That Vermonters were gastronomes there can be no doubt as even their church history bears witness: the pumpkin pie delayed the celebration of Thanksgiving a great many weeks on one oc- casion. The Thanksgiving proclamation had not reached Newbury until after the day appointed for it. but the people determined to celebrate. In 442 Old New England Churches taking stock it was discovered that there was no molasses in town, whereupon a local proclamation was issued for the postponement of Thanksgiving until the arrival of the molasses which was ex- pected from Charlestown. All Newbury was on the qui vive. Days came and went but not the molasses consignment. What was to be done? Give thanks without pumpkin pie? Never! Without pumpkin pie why Thanksgiving? As weeks passed melancholy settled upon Newbury, but in course of time they gave thanks. We do not know what they did when the molasses finally arrived. Perhaps they gave thanks the second time. People came from long distances and many villages, to convene at this church in Newbury. Women living on the other side of the Wells River took off their shoes and stockings and carried their children across the ford on their backs. This was hardly an energy inspired by spiritual necessity but rather by social inclination. The isolation of those days was awful. The social uses of the meeting house were notable and cherished. (Ullf iUrmniial (Eliitrrli to tl|^ pUniuta "The stone sill or threshold of the church at Delft- Haven, where Robinson prayed with his flock just before they embarked and which was undoubtedly pressed by his feet and theirs, and was I suppose the last object now remaining which their feet touched before they went on board, has lately been broken and taken out, and I have secured a considerable part of it. A block about 12 inches by 9 and 3 inches thick, bearing an inscription. The three C's I suppose mean 1500. That num- ber is often so e.xpressed in like inscriptions found in Dutch churches. The church is said to have been built in 1516." Two tablets are placed on the wall of the gallery commemorating, the two ministers whose pastor- ates combined covered 100 years. Rev. Chandler Robbins and Rev. James Kendall. The stained glass figures back of the pulpit were presented by the New England Society of Brooklyn, N. Y. "to emphasize the fact that the civil and re- ligious liberty we now enjoy originated in large meas- ure with the brave men and women who founded the Plymouth Colony". The artist Mr. Edward Peck Sperry of New York, has portrayed symbolically in the windows these two kinds of liberty under the manly forms of a Pilgrim soldier and a Pilgrim minister. Civil liberty is represented by the soldier, who is a soldier only in order to protect the liberty he per- sonifies, for his sword is sheathed, never to be drawn except to defend the right — a Hberty based upon the compact of the Mayflower, found in the open book resting upon his knee. Religious liberty is represented by the minister, who holds in one hand tie scroll of the moral law, while his arm rests upon that foundation of truth, the Holy Scriptures, ,nnd his right hand is raised in ex- hortation and benediction as he announces the fun- damental principles of religious liberty. Between these figures is the stained glass Window representing the "Signing of the Compact" in the cabin of the Mayflower. This was the gift of the New York Society of Mayflower Descendants and was designed by Sperrj^ and made by Tiffany. The East Window over the gallery presented by Edward G. Walker, represents John Robinson delivering his farewell address to the departing pilgrims at Delft-Haven. The pulpit was given by the descendants of John Rowland and the large chairs by Mi's. Sarah Brew- ster Reed. The organ was given by private con- tributions, and the font by the New Jersey Society of Mayflower Descendants. The communion table is the gift of Mr. George P. Hayward, a descendant of White and Winslow. The ancient silver used in the communion services is kept at Pilgrim Hall and there are deposited also the church records, dating back from the beginning. The broad and Uberal Pilgrim spirit is shown by the words of Robinson inscribed on the wnll to the left of the pulpit; "The Lord hath more Truth and Light yet to break forth from his holy word;" a sen- tence from his address to the Pilgrims just before they departed from Leyden; and their simple faitli is set forth in the earlier covenant as given by Bradford in his history; "These people, as ye Lord's free people joyned themselves (by a covenant of the Lord) in ye fellowship of ye gospel], to walke in all his wayes made known or to be made known unto them according to their best endeavours, whatsoever it shoidd cost them, the Lord assisting them, and that it cost them something this ensuing history will declare". %0!ier! Job T'rint, T'lymoulh IFtrst fartsl^ J^lijmoutli, Mvlbb. THIS Church was organized at Scrooby, England in 1606, and in 1608, under the leadership of Brewster and Bradford crossed the channel to Holland; tarried at Amsterdam a short time, and finally, with Rev. John Robinson as its minister, settled in Lcyden. In 1620 the Mayflower broug,ht to these shores a large portion of the congregation aiKl others followed in the Fortune 1621 and in the Ann 1623. Services were held at first in the Common House where Cushman delivered in 1621 his sermon on the Sin and Danger of Self-Love. Later the lower story of the fort on Burial Hill was tlie meet- ing house — the fort above and the church below of the Pilgrim story. The first edifice for worship was built in 1648 on the northerly side of what is now Town Square and on this building hung the first church bell. Daring the ministry of Rev. John Cotton this church was taken down and in 1683 a new one built nearly on the site of the present church. It is described as forty-five feet by forty on the floor, sixteen in the walls, unceiled, with a Gothic roof, diamond glass windows and a small cupola and bell. A third building on the same spot, replaced this in 1744, and in. 1831, the fourth meeting house was built with a tower where hung the bell cast by Paul Revere. In 1892 this was destroyed by fire. The corner stone of the present church was laid in 1896, and the edifice dedicated in 1899 as a Memorial Church to the Pilgrims. The old bell of Paul Revere was recast and replaced in the belfry. The architects of the church were Messrs Hartwell, Richardson and Driver of Boston and material used is seam-faced granite with Ohio sandstone trimmings. The entrance is modeled after the Norman doorway of St. Helen's, the quaint parish church at Austerfield, England where Bradford was baptized in 1590. The tablet at the right of the entrance bears this inscription : The Church vf Scrooby, Leyden and the Mayflower, Gathered on this hillside in 1620, Has ever since preserved unbroken records, And maintained a continuous ministry. Its first covenant being still the basis of its fellowship. ^ In reverent memory of its Pilgrim Founders This fifth meeting house was erected A. D. MDCCCXCVII. In the vestibule are four tablets which give the Covenant of 1676, the names of the ministers, the elders and the churches which were formed from this. Covenant of the First Church In ye name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in obed- ience to his holy will and divine ordinances. We being by the most wise and good providence of God brought together in this place and desirous to unite ourselves into one congregation or church under the Lord Jesus Christ our Head, that it may be in such sort as becometh all those whom He hath redeemed and sanctified to himself. Wee doe hereby solemnly and religiously (as in his most holy presence) avouch the Lord Jehovah the only true God to be our God and the God of ours and doe promise and binde our- selves to walke in all our wayes according to the Rule of the Gospel and in -all sincere conformity to His holy ordinances and in mutuall love to and watch- fullnesse over one another, depending wholy and only upon the Lord our God to ena'ble us by his grace hereunto. From This Church Scrooby 1606 Plymouth 1620 Were Formed The First Church in Duxbury 1632 First Church in Marshfield 1632 First Church in Eastham 1646 First Church in Plympton 1698 First Church in Kingston 1717 Second Church in Plymouth 1738 Third Church in Plymouth 1801 Now Church of the Pilgrimage Elders of the First Church William Brewster 1620-1644 Thomas Cushman 1649-1691 Thomas Faunce 1699-1746 Ministers of the First Church At Scrooby England 1606-1608, Richard Clyfton and John Robinson. At Amsterdam 1608-1609, Richard Clyfton and John Robinson. At Leyden 1609-1620 John Robinson, At Plymouth Ralph Smith 1629. Associate to Ralph Smith, Roger Williams 1631 John Raynor 1636 Associate to John Raynor, Charles Chauncy 1638 John Cotton 1667, Ephraim Little 1699, Nathaniel Leonard 1724. Chandler Robbins 1760, James Kendall 1800 Associate to James Kendall, George W. Briggs 1838 Henry L. Myrick 1853, George S. Ball 1855, Edward H. Hall 1858. Edward H. Hall 1859, Frederick N. Knapp 1869 Edmund Q. S. Osgood 1878, Charles P. Lombard 1888, John Cuckson 1901Arthur B; Whitney 1911. Present minister, Arthur B i Whitn a y i Alfred R. Hussey. The stained glass windows in the upper vestibules give scenes from Pilgrim history and are the gift of Mrs. Caleb Brewster Hackley. The stone set into the floor of the church, just under the gallery, was given by Hon. Geo. F. Hoar in 1896. An extract from the letter accompanying his donation sufficiently explains its character.