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SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 
 
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 HELD ON THE 
 
 LORD'S DAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1859. 
 
 THE FESTIVAL ON THE DAY FOLLOWING. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HENRY HOYT, 
 
 NO. 9 CORNHILL. 
 
 1861. 
 
^4^ 
 
 iD BY GEO. C. BAND & A.VEKY, 
 
 No. 3 Cornhill, Boston. 
 
SEMI-CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE. 
 
 ON THE PART OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 REV. A. L. STONE, 
 NATHANIEL WILLIS, 
 EDWIN LAMSON, 
 TIMOTHY FARRAR, 
 SAMUEL NEAL, 
 EZRA FARNSWORTH, 
 W. T. EUSTIS, 
 
 JOSIAH BUMSTEAD, 
 LEMUEL SHATTUCK, 
 PETER HOBART, JR. 
 HENRY HOYT, 
 LUTHER DANA, 
 T. W. NICKERSON. 
 
 ON THE PART OF THE SOCIETY. 
 
 E. W. PIKE, 
 TISDALE DRAKE, 
 E. A. BIRCHARD, 
 
 WILLIAM T. GLIDDEN, 
 B. F. CAMPBELL. 
 
.cktffittriflrg. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 ^HE Park Street Church was organized at 
 the house of William Thurston, on " Beacon 
 Hill," on the twenty-seventh day of Feb- 
 ruary, A. D. 1809. Early in the winter of 
 1858, the church voted unanimously to hold, on the 
 approaching fiftieth anniversary of its founding, its 
 semi-centennial celebration. A large committee was 
 at once appointed to make preparation for the suit- 
 able observance of the Jubilee, by whom circulars 
 were sent out, through the mail and the press, to all 
 surviving members of the church, past and present, 
 inviting them to participate in the celebration. The 
 hospitalities of the families of the Park Street people, 
 resident in Boston, were tendered to all members 
 of the church, from abroad, who should attend the 
 services. 
 
 The Park Street Society was invited to unite with 
 the church in the commemoration, and most cordially 
 responded, appointing on their behalf, to act in con- 
 
10 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 currence with the committee of the church, a com- 
 mittee of their own, who rendered most valuable 
 and efficient aid in devising and carrying out the 
 arrangements for the occasion. 
 
 The anniversary falling upon the Sabbath, it was 
 resolved that the three ex-pastors of the church still 
 living be invited to deliver discourses through the 
 day and the evening, — the Lord's Supper to be cele- 
 brated in connection with the sermon in the after- 
 noon ; — and that a Festival, with a collation, be held 
 in some public hall, on the succeeding day, for social 
 reunion and the exchange of such greetings and 
 salutations as the occasion might inspire. 
 
 The pastors of sister churches in the city of 
 Boston, and other distinguished gentlemen between 
 whom and the church there had existed any special 
 bonds of alliance, were invited to be present through 
 such parts of the celebration as their engagements 
 would permit them to honor. Aged members of the 
 church, and those most familiar with its early history, 
 were solicited to furnish their reminiscences of the 
 past ; and those who had been connected with the 
 choir in former years were invited to be present 
 and lend their voices in " the service of song." 
 
 It was also resolved that a sketch of the proceed- 
 ings should be preserved in a Memorial Volume, for 
 the use of the present members of the church, and 
 of those who should come after them. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 11 
 
 The Rev. Silas Aiken, d.d., of Rutland, Vt., the 
 Rev. Joel Linsley, d.d., of Greenwich, Conn., and 
 the Rev. Edward Beecher, d.d., of Galesburg, 111., 
 the three survivors of all who had previously filled 
 the pastoral office in the church, cheerfully con- 
 sented to perform the parts assigned to them in the 
 commemorative services ; and on the Lord's day, 
 February 27, a.d. 1859, pronounced the following- 
 Discourses in the Park Street Meeting-house, which 
 was crowded to its utmost capacity with a deeply 
 interested audience. 
 
♦ -M. 11 +- 
 
 mrtimg jjpsrmtrsL 
 
MORNING DISCOURSE. 
 
 BY REV. SILAS AIKEN, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR FROM MARCH 22, 1837, TO JULY 12, 1848. 
 
 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 " The Church of the living God, the Pillar and Ground of the 
 
 Truth." — 1 Timothy iii. 15. 
 >^ 
 
 jffvv HE Scriptures attach great meaning to the church, 
 ^^ — Grod's ecdesia, as the word itself denotes, — 
 the called of Grod out from the world. The church 
 holds a high place in Grod's moral administration. 
 That institution which by man's wisdom and philosophy 
 has been little accounted of, if not scorned and despised, 
 is none other than Grod's chosen instrument for carrying 
 into effect his purpose of redemption. The church, com- 
 prehending, of course, the ministry, — for ministry and 
 church are, in the main design, one, — the church is of 
 Grod's ordination. He laid the foundation, and planned 
 the superstructure, appointed its sphere of agency, pledged 
 his omnipotence for its security ; and while the heavens 
 declare his glory, and the firmament shows his handiwork. 
 
1 6 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 he designs to make known unto principalities and powers 
 his manifold wisdom, by the church. Thus will he humble 
 the pride of man. By an association, not of the wise and 
 mighty and noble after the flesh, but mainly of the poor 
 and base and despised of the world, he will show that the 
 foolishness of Grod is wiser than men, and that the weakness 
 of Grod is stronger than men, that no flesh may glory in 
 his presence. 
 
 In name and form of organization, patriarchal, Jewish, or 
 Christian, there is nothing essential. The form has been 
 wisely adapted to the varying exigencies of the world, to 
 the light enjoyed at different epochs, and to the specific 
 work to be done at particular times. In its essential 
 character, the church, however variously styled, is one and 
 the same in all ages. It may be designated as " the king-' 
 dom of heaven," in distinction from the kingdoms of this 
 world; or as " the house of Grod," built up of lively stones, 
 embodying his spiritual children, the home of their social 
 affection and blessedness; or as "the temple of the Holy 
 Grhost," the seat of his regenerating and sanctifying influ- 
 ence ; or as " the body of Christ," indicating the vital 
 union of believers with their Lord, — he the head and they 
 the members of the same body, one in spirit, in labor, in 
 suffering, and in joint heirship to the eternal inheritance ; 
 or, again, as " the pillar and ground of the truth," denoting 
 the high trust committed, of upholding the word and wor- 
 ship of God. But these are but different names of the one 
 church of the living Grod, — the chosen generation, the holy 
 nation, the peculiar people, who are to show forth the praises 
 
MORNING DISCOURSE. IT 
 
 of Him who has called them out of darkness into his marvel- 
 ous light. 
 
 That the youthful Timothy, now left in charge of the 
 church of Ephesus, might feel the importance of his work, 
 Paul, with the solicitude and affection of a father, addressed 
 to him this epistle, filled with wise counsel in regard to the 
 right performance of his ministry : These things I write, 
 hoping to come unto thee shortly : But if I tarry long, that 
 thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in 
 the house of G-od, which is the church of the living God, 
 the pillar and ground of the truth. Whatever shade of 
 meaning is to be attached to the figures here employed, 
 the main idea is obvious. The terms "pillar and ground of 
 the truth, explain and strengthen each other. God has 
 appointed the church to be the foundation and support of 
 revealed truth. 
 
 In illustrating this sentiment, I propose to inquire, what 
 we are here to understand by " the church," and what is 
 the office or mission of the church as " the pillar and ground 
 of the truth." 
 
 I. What is here to be understood by " The 
 Church ? " 
 
 The word church, in its religious sense, is employed in 
 the Scriptures with some variety of meaning. It is most 
 frequently used in the New Testament to designate a com- 
 munity of Christians, who meet for religious worship and 
 edification in a specified locality; denoting a single congrega- 
 tion or society of believers, — as the church of Ephesus, of 
 
18 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Corinth, of Colosse, of Sardis, and of the Thessalonians. It 
 is thus applied to the company of disciples dwelling and 
 worshiping together in the same city. 
 
 The word is used to designate the faithful in particular 
 households, — as the church in the house of Nyniphas, and 
 that in the house of Aquila and Priscilla, — though it is 
 probable that these household churches embraced believers 
 in the vicinity, who were accustomed to assemble with them 
 for spiritual fellowship. In this sense, the church denotes 
 any body of professed believers voluntarily associated for 
 the worship of Glod and the observance of divine ordinances. 
 The term is not employed to designate a sect, or the aggre- 
 gate of Christian societies in a province or kingdom, as 
 is done in our day. We read not of the church of G-alatia, 
 or that of Achaia, or Macedonia, but of the churches, each 
 congregation of Christians constituting a separate church. 
 
 The term is also applied to the whole company of visible 
 believers, — the universal church militant, — including all 
 true churches of Christ throughout the world. In this 
 sense, Christ is declared to be head over all things to the 
 church ', and against this church the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail. The church universal, embracing all who receive 
 and profess the faith and walk by the rules of the gospel, is 
 Grod's organization for maintaining his word and worship 
 in the world. In this sense, the word is evidently employed 
 in the text ; and its broader signification here, differs from 
 its more restricted import only as the whole differs from 
 a part. The main design of the church universal is also 
 that of the particular or local church. Xor can imperfection 
 
MORNING DISCOURSE. 19 
 
 or niisjudgment in the outward form destroy the nature of 
 the organization, or make God's purpose therein of no effect. 
 The visible church is God's institution, though gathered 
 according to man's fallible judgment. Tares may grow with 
 the wheat. Yea, in particular cases, the door of the church 
 may be left unguarded, and the unconverted find admission. 
 Sound doctrine may be exchanged for heresy, and the leaven 
 of wickedness may so taint the whole body that the house 
 of God at length becomes a synagogue of Satan. Of this 
 there are not wanting melancholy instances. But none the 
 less is it God's will that his people organize into churches, 
 for the upholding of his truth and worship. Organization is 
 necessary for the edifying of the saints, and for efficient 
 co-operation in saving the souls of men. The precise form 
 or polity thereof, the Lord, as I apprehend, has not pre- 
 scribed ; and let us beware of contending about shadows. 
 Form is something, but it is not the main thing ; and that 
 form is best which is most conducive to spiritual worship. 
 It is in regenerate souls, and in the indwelling spirit of 
 Christ, that the life and glory of the church consist. Where 
 these are, be the form or name what it may, there is a true 
 branch of God's church, the pillar and ground of the truth. 
 And while the institutions of man shall wax old and vanish 
 away, this church of God, built upon the foundation of the 
 apostles and prophets, shall live, an everlasting kingdom, 
 and throughout all ages be a standing proof of the divine 
 power and faithfulness. 
 
20 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 II. What is the Office or Mission of the Church 
 as " The Pillar and Ground of the Truth V 
 
 This is our second inquiry. Here mark the intimate 
 relation of the church to truth, — not scientific or philo- 
 sophic truth, but to that revealed word of God, which 
 enlightens, sanctifies, and saves the soul. The regenerate 
 church is in living sympathy with the mind of God. It is 
 a characteristic of the ecclesia, the called of God, that they 
 receive, hold fast, and practically exhibit, the divine word. 
 I observe, therefore, 
 
 1. That the church is the appointed guardian of the 
 truth. 
 
 Paul declared it a signal advantage conferred on the Jews. 
 that unto them were committed the oracles of God. And 
 if the possession of a few inspired writings was a matter 
 of such moment to the Jewish church, the possession of the 
 entire volume of revelation must be a more sacred trust 
 committed to the Christian. The preservation of the divine 
 word in its purity is a vital matter. To whose keeping could 
 it be safely intrusted ? Would fallen angels prove reliable 
 guardians of the truth ? Would unconverted men be such 
 an agency as divine wisdom would select for the purpose ? 
 Who but the regenerate church, the living witnesses to the 
 power of the gospel, are fitted to discharge the trust ? And 
 since the divine word is the appointed means of salvation, 
 and upon the knowledge and belief of that word depends 
 the everlasting destiny of unborn generations, when, since 
 the Lord's hand spread out these heavens, has he placed in 
 man's keeping a more sacred deposit ? God's revelation 
 
MORNING DISCOURSE. 21 
 
 of his own character and law and purposes ; of man's ruin 
 by sin, and redemption by the blood of Christ ; of the 
 renewing and sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit ) of the 
 doctrine of life and immortality ; of the endless blessedness 
 of the righteous, and the everlasting punishment of the 
 wicked ; and of the only way of salvation ; — are these 
 utterances of small concern ? 
 
 Receiving the Bible as a divine revelation, we regard 
 that book in a different light from all others. We make 
 a fundamental distinction between the writers thereof and 
 all other teachers. Here God speaks to mankind, and 
 reveals the only authoritative rule of faith and duty. The 
 Bible being the word of Grod, but one course remains ) we 
 are to hearken to its declarations as strictly and solemnly 
 true, and receive every doctrine and precept as from the 
 mouth of Grod, and bow to its decisions as the end of all 
 debate. We are not here listening to the opinions of men, 
 speaking as man's wisdom teacheth, but to the infallible 
 oracles of Grod. And though uttered by men, they are as 
 truly from Grod as if declared in our ears by an audible voice 
 from heaven. We hearken to these teachings as we hearken 
 to no other words. The men who spake by the Holy Spirit's 
 inspiration, were merely the organs employed by Grod for 
 the revelation of his truth. The message comes from Grod, 
 clothed with divine authority, unerringly true, and infinitely 
 important. We are not at liberty to alter, to modify, to add 
 or take away a jot or tittle, but are to receive the whole in 
 the filial spirit of faith and obedience. 
 
 Revelation is supernatural, and philosophy cannot explain 
 
22 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 it, as darkness cannot comprehend the light. Whatever 
 God declares, is to be received in its proper import, whether 
 it accords with onr opinions or contradicts them. " Let Grod 
 be trne, but every man a liar," is here the true philosophy. 
 And is it a small thing to be put in charge of such a trust ? 
 To say nothing of truth as the essential means of edifying 
 the church, is it a trifling matter to be the appointed guar- 
 dian of the divine word, on the faithful keeping of which 
 depends the fnlfilment of Gi-od's purpose of grace to a fallen 
 world ? To the church is this trust committed ; and how 
 well it has been discharged hitherto, you need not be told. 
 Amidst revolutions and tumults, and persecutions unto 
 death; upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, 
 the sea and the waves roaring, and men's hearts failing them 
 for fear ; through dreary centuries of darkness, superstition, 
 and apostasy, Glod's hidden ones have held fast the revealed 
 word ; and it is with adoring wonder and praise that we con- 
 template the fact, that to ourselves have been transmitted 
 in their fulness and purity the identical oracles of Grod 
 which were uttered by men of old, who spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Grhost. 
 
 But guardianship is not all, for — 
 
 2. Upon the church it devolves to defend and vindicate the 
 truth against the aspersions of enmity and unbelief. 
 
 God calls his people to contend earnestly for the faith once 
 delivered to the saints. No trait of unregenerate man is 
 more marked and universal than the dislike of evangelical 
 truth, and a desire to change it into a lie. Man naturally 
 hates the lmht that condemns him, and hence his turns and 
 
MORNING DISCOURSE. 23 
 
 shifts to get free from its annoyance. To the Jew the 
 doctrine of the cross is a stumbling-block, to the Greek, 
 foolishness ; and while the former would overlay the doctrine 
 with his traditions, the latter would substitute for it his 
 philosophy. No other book was ever so rancorously assailed 
 as the Bible. There have not been wanting those who 
 pronounce it all a fable. Infidel philosophy, like an unclean 
 spirit, has gathered its disciples to the battle, and in their 
 endeavors to destroy the credit of Grod's revelation, no 
 weapon of ribald jest or blasphemy has been left unem- 
 ployed. Such were they, described by Jude : Filthy 
 dreamers, speaking evil of things which they know not, — 
 clouds without water, raging waves of the sea, foaming out 
 their own shame ; complainers, walking after their own lusts, 
 their mouth speaking great swelling words, — sensual, hav- 
 ing not the Spirit. 
 
 From assaults of this kind, however, the Bible has little 
 to fear. A much more dangerous foe is that which, under 
 the name of Christianity, seeks to undermine its foundation ; 
 at one time by discarding the idea of plenary inspiration, 
 and again, by explaining away distinctive doctrines, and 
 divesting the gospel of all that is vital and authoritative as 
 a revelation from Glod, thus opening wide the floodgates of 
 rationalism and infidelity. Reason is exalted above revela- 
 tion, and presumes to decide what alone the Most High can 
 consistently say. The holiness of Grod, and his anger against 
 sin • the depravity and ruin of man, and his just desert 
 of damnation ; Grod manifest in the flesh, as an atoning 
 Redeemer • regeneration, by the Holy Spirit ; the essential 
 
24 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 distinction between saints and sinners; salvation by grace 
 through faith alone, and that the gift of God ; — these, it is 
 claimed, are antiquated notions, unsupported by the Scrip- 
 tures rightly interpreted, abhorrent to reason, and false. 
 The plain facts of revelation must bend to such interpreta- 
 tions as the wisdom of man can accept, and the cross of 
 Christ is made of none effect. Strange indeed, that after 
 the experience of almost sixty centuries, testifying that 
 human reason and philosophy are blind, and that the world 
 by wisdom knows not God, reason should now pretend to 
 supernatural discernment, arraign the doctrines of Christ 
 at her bar, and reject everything peculiar in them as 
 unworthy of God. But so it is. Man's wisdom exalts 
 itself against the truth of God, and scorns the Christ of 
 revelation. Human pride and self-sufficiency ignore the 
 plain testimony of the Bible, and mark out a broad and easy 
 way for the prayerless and unholy into the kingdom of 
 heaven. 
 
 Moreover, under the pretended sanction of revelation, 
 come various covert assaults from new discoveries and 
 improvements in religion, generally old heresies revived 
 under new names and combinations, perverting the truth 
 with pious glosses, or claiming to know the mysteries of God 
 by methods which entirely supersede the written word, or 
 substituting philanthropy for regeneration, and gain for 
 godliness, denying the Holy Ghost, and by nameless inven- 
 tions beguiling unstable souls to their ruin. These are the 
 fan in the Master's hand, for the purging of his floor, that 
 they who are approved may be manifest. Indeed, what 
 
MORNING DISCOURSE. 25 
 
 scheme of folly can be in such glaring opposition to both 
 the letter and spirit of the Bible as to fail of adherents 
 among those who love not the truth ? Nor in this does any- 
 strange thing happen. So it was in the apostolic age. One 
 declared the resurrection already past. Another pronounced 
 the resurrection of the dead an absurdity, saying, With 
 what bodies do they come ? And many denied the Lord 
 that bought them, and turned the grace of God into 
 lasciviousness. 
 
 Now by whom are these open and covert assaults upon 
 the word of God to be repelled ? Will the unregenerate, 
 whose hearts and lives are in antagonism to the truth, and 
 whose souls are yearning for deliverance from its stern 
 demands, enlist in such a work ? Did the thought ever 
 enter a sane mind, that the maintenance of law and order 
 may be safely left to those whose desires and interests are 
 on the side of transgression ? Was it ever known that a 
 prisoner at the bar wittingly brought forward evidence that 
 convicted him ? Or must the work of vindicating the word 
 and ways of God be assigned to those who have felt the 
 power and preciousness of the gospel, and to whose souls 
 the truth has proved spirit and life ? To the blood-bought 
 and regenerate church, God has committed this trust. It is 
 the friends of God who must rally round his standard, and 
 hold fast the form of doctrine delivered to them. They are 
 his witnesses in an unbelieving world j and, by pureness, by 
 knowledge, by the Holy Ghost, by godly sincerity, by un- 
 yielding faith, by exhibiting the transforming power of the 
 gospel upon their own hearts, and by an outspoken testi- 
 
26 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 mony, tliey are everywhere and at all times to hold forth the 
 word of life, commending the truth to every man's con- 
 science in the sight of God. 
 
 Hence, in addition to guardianship and defence, a third 
 point involved in the church's mission is — 
 
 8. The propagation of the truth. 
 
 This is a work of transcendent grandeur. It is the bring- 
 ing of this revolted world into subjection to Jesus Christ. 
 The truth may be essential to the growth of holiness in 
 believers, and their preparation for heaven. Within the 
 church, the efficacy of truth is to be manifested in mutual 
 fellowship, watchfulness, and aid. Its ministrations were 
 appointed for the edifying of the body of Christ. This 
 feature of God's design is not to be overlooked. But the 
 gospel was committed to the church in trust for a perishing- 
 world. " Go teach all nations," is her Lord's injunction. 
 " Freely ye have received, freely give." And is there not 
 something beautiful and fitting in God's plan of making 
 pardoned sinners the means of extending salvation to others ? 
 No sooner is one born of the Spirit, than the word of God is 
 in his heart, as a burning fire shut up in his bones, and he 
 is weary with forbearing and he cannot stay. His soul 
 burns to make others partakers of his joy. God has 
 ordained the blood-bought church to be the propagator of 
 his word ; and in this his people are coworkers with him 
 in accomplishing his purpose of grace. Would you know 
 the importance of this work ? See it in the mission and 
 sacrifice of the Son of God. He who alone bears the name 
 of God our Saviour, judged the salvation of man to be an 
 
MORNING DISCOURSE. 27 
 
 adequate reward for the humiliation of the manger, the 
 strong crying and tears of a suffering life, and the ignominy 
 of a malefactor's death. For the joy that was set before 
 him, Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame. The 
 greatness of the object gave dignity to his condescension, 
 honor to his poverty, splendor to his obscurity, beauty to his 
 life, and glory to his death. To Christ, the salvation of the 
 lost was all in all, from the manger to the cross. His heart 
 and life were full of it. His doctrine, and miracles, and 
 prayers, and tears, all had relation to it. Of such moment 
 was redemption in his view, that he gave his life a ransom. 
 Was that a false estimate ? Was the union of divinity with 
 humanity for the sufferings of death a thing uncalled for ? 
 Did the Son of Grod overestimate the value of the human 
 soul ? How sacred the trust committed by Christ to his 
 church. " Ye are the light of the world." " Ye are the 
 salt of the earth." " To you, my disciples, have I given 
 the revealed word, the ministry, the institutions and ordi- 
 nances of the gospel, and the Holy Spirit of promise. Glo 
 make my gospel known to every creature." The enemies 
 of Christ will not do this work. Grod will not send angels 
 to do it. He has expressly assigned it to his regenerate 
 people, the church. To them is it given to set forth and 
 hold up the word of life. By a holy example, by personal 
 activity and zeal for Grod, by self-denial and sacrifices, by 
 importunate prayer, by the armor of righteousness on the 
 right hand and on the left, they are called of Glod to diffuse 
 far and wide the knowledge of salvation. Theirs is an honor 
 which angels well might covet ; to be Christ's messengers 
 of mercy to the guilty, to show the way of life to the per- 
 
28 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 ishing, to wipe away the mourner's tears, to hold up the 
 lamp of life in the regions of darkness, and press forward in 
 the work of the Lord, until the earth is emancipated from 
 the thraldom of sin and Satan, and brought into the liberty 
 of the sons of Grod. Feeble as may be the instrument, it is 
 of Grod's appointment • and its feebleness will the better 
 illustrate the riches of his grace. This work will reach a 
 glorious consummation. While Paul plants, and Apollos 
 waters, and the people of Grod bring their peace-offerings of 
 thanksgiving, consecrating themselves, their substance, their 
 sons and daughters to the Lord, lifting up holy hands with- 
 out wrath and doubting, God will not fail to give the 
 increase. From the church shall again be sounded out the 
 word of the Lord, and in every place their faith to Grod- 
 ward shall be spread abroad. 
 
 We may despise our birthright, and fail in duty. The 
 local church may fail ; but help shall arise from another 
 quarter. This world shall be evangelized. The mouth of 
 the Lord hath spoken it. And when by the faith, the zeal, 
 the united labors and prayers of the church, holding up and 
 setting forth the truth, idolatry has been abolished, the man 
 of sin dethroned, infidelity and falsehood put to shame, and 
 every kindred and people under heaven are doing homage 
 at the cross of Christ, — then will it be seen and known of 
 all men, that the church is " the pillar and ground of the 
 truth." 
 
 From the foregoing view we learn in what consists the 
 true prosperity of the church, whether of the church uni- 
 versal or the local church, — for both exist for the same end. 
 
MORNING DISCOURSE. 20 
 
 It is in fulfilling Grod's design, in preserving, defending, and 
 diffusing his truth. Here alone is found the standard of 
 the church's life. There is great misjudgment on this point. 
 Tests appropriate to worldly enterprises are often applied to 
 the church, and lead to fatal mistakes. The secular busi- 
 ness, or moneyed corporation, which secures patronage, and 
 where capital brings in large gain, is pronounced a success. 
 But the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, and its 
 prosperity is to be measured by no such rule. 
 
 The true life and strength of the church do not consist in 
 numbers. The one hundred and twenty disciples who met 
 daily in the upper room at Jerusalem, after Christ's ascen- 
 sion, were a thousand-fold more efficient for good than the 
 millions who composed the Jewish church of that day. 
 Provided the membership be of real Christians, full of faith 
 and of the Holy G-host, numbers give strength, and are to be 
 desired. But if, to secure numbers, the door of admission 
 is thrown open, and unconverted persons, without discrimina- 
 tion, are received, and by and by come to constitute a lead- 
 ing element, then comes paralysis ; a heart leprosy infects 
 the whole body, and what was ordained to be the exponent 
 of truth, becomes a household of heresy and deceit. Without 
 a living, pervading piety, great numbers bring great weak- 
 ness. The true end of the church is not answered by 
 wealth and learning and worldly influence in its members. 
 These things, consecrated to the glory of Christ, become 
 means of good. But riches and honors, with their usual 
 concomitants, are rarely associated with active piety. Their 
 tendency is to worldliness, to the pride of caste, to the pam- 
 
30 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 pering of those lusts which war against the soul. Coveted 
 as they may be, they are dead weights to spiritual growth. 
 
 Nor is the end of the church answered by union among 
 its members, unless such union is based on truth and holi- 
 ness. There may be union in error and sin. The tenants 
 of the graveyard do not quarrel. Strifes and divisions are 
 evils, nowhere more so than in the church ; but not the 
 greatest evils. When Luther posted his theses on the 
 church door of Wittemberg, he inaugurated division in the 
 church that then was, and Grod be praised for it. Strife in 
 the church may be nothing else than the struggle of truth 
 against error. It may be the effort of life to throw off a 
 superincumbent mass of death, and thus be a harbinger of 
 good. 
 
 Nor is the end of the church answered by outward forms, 
 and costly houses for worship, and imposing decorations, or 
 by captivating music, or by learned and eloquent preaching. 
 All these, strictly subordinated to the purpose of truth and 
 spiritual worship, are well enough ; but they enter not into 
 the essence of the church's life. When did the faithful 
 better fulfil their Lord's design, and achieve greater victories, 
 than when, hunted as wild beasts, they met in dens and 
 caves, and filled the night watches with songs of praise to 
 Christ as to Grod ? Amid imposing forms and gorgeous 
 rites, and all the appliances of art and taste, the Searcher 
 of hearts may see nothing but empty show, and hear nothing 
 but the sounding brass and the tinkling cymbal. No ; the 
 true life and prosperity of any and every church is found 
 in answering the end for which it was instituted ; in main- 
 
MORNING DISCOURSE. 31 
 
 taining the doctrine of the cross for its own edification, and 
 in setting forth and holding np the truth for the salvation 
 of the world. Fidelity to God's design, is the essential 
 condition of the church's preservation and success. God's 
 promise of perpetuity is not to be restricted to the church 
 universal. When has he abandoned to extinction the local 
 church that was faithful to its mission as the pillar and 
 ground of the truth ? When did the Good Shepherd desert 
 the feeblest portion of his flock, who were holding fast his 
 truth, and walking in his statutes, and fulfilling their true 
 mission ? Who does not know that it is only when a local 
 church has departed from the faith and practice of his 
 word, and failed to answer its design, that God abandons it 
 to spiritual blight and ultimate extinction ? 
 But I must hasten to a conclusion. 
 
 Beloved brethren and friends of this religious society, 
 to you the present occasion, marking the fiftieth anniversary 
 of the Park Street Church, is one of no ordinary interest. 
 In that interest I claim to share. If the labors of more 
 than eleven years in this pastorate ; if sharing your pros- 
 perity and adversity, your joys and sorrows, during that 
 time, has any meaning, then I have an interest in this day. 
 Upon the religious history of the period which called for 
 the formation of this church, I do not propose to dwell. It 
 is sufficient to say that after a season of studied reserve and 
 painful hesitation, there had been avowed a fundamental 
 departure from the faith of the New England fathers. The 
 ancient foundations were fast yielding ; all the Congrega- 
 
32 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 tional churches of Boston, save the Old South, were involved 
 in the defection, and Unitarianism was making inroads 
 throughout the surrounding country. 
 
 In this state of things, a few individuals, after prayerful 
 deliberation, felt moved to stand forth in the breach, and 
 hold up the standard of evangelical doctrine, then reproached 
 and ridiculed, and, by G-od's help, stay the flood of rational- 
 ism which was desolating the Lord's heritage. 
 
 The twenty-seventh of February, 1809, was a day fraught 
 with great issues, when that little band of twenty-six breth- 
 ren and sisters, in that private apartment, entered into 
 covenant with Grod and each other, to reaflirm and uphold 
 the doctrines of the cross, and thus rekindle the flame of 
 experimental piety then ready to expire. To this end they 
 at once set about the erection of this spacious temple, at 
 great personal sacrifice, and dedicated it, in the following 
 January, to the worship of the Triune Jehovah. And the 
 history of fifty years, with their results in this community, 
 shows that that consecration of hearts and of worldly sub- 
 stance to the glory of Christ, was approved of heaven. 
 
 Few of those who were first and foremost in this great 
 work remain to see this day. There was a man who took the 
 first pastoral charge of the infant church, at whose mouth 
 the trumpet gave no uncertain sound j a man endowed with 
 gifts and graces which eminently qualified him for the service 
 then to be done. As a son of thunder, and in strains sweet 
 as angels use, he vindicated and commended the doctrines 
 of the cross. The opinion has been expressed, and I know 
 of no reason for questioning its correctness, that amid great 
 
MORNING DISCOURSE. 33 
 
 services, in many important spheres of labor, Dr. Griffin 
 here did the great work of his life. Under trials which 
 few at this day can appreciate, he here wrought mightily for 
 God and truth. And it is said that not a few who came 
 into this house to scoff, remained to pray. The sword of 
 the Spirit in his hand was without a scabbard. His brief 
 labors of less than four years produced a marked effect. 
 The tide began to turn, and many were beginning to ask 
 for the good old way. 
 
 And there was his successor, an able and good minister 
 of Jesus Christ, a workman that needed not to be ashamed. 
 Frank, generous, discriminating, lucid in the exhibition of 
 truth, and pungent in the application of it, his ministry of 
 eight and a half years was fraught with rich blessings to the 
 church and society. Griffin and Dwight, who watched 
 over and guided the infancy of this church are not here 
 to-day. They have rested from their labors. To not a few 
 in this community, now pillars in this sisterhood of churches, 
 these names are still fresh and fragrant. Others who have 
 shared in the labors of this pastorate are here with us, and 
 will speak for themselves. 
 
 Then, as to the original members and those who early 
 joined them and shared their burdens and trials, many have 
 fallen asleep. With not a few of them I have taken sweet 
 counsel. I felt the warmth of their loving hearts. I wit- 
 nessed their labors of faith and love. Dark and sorrowful 
 were the days when devout men carried them to their 
 burial. Homes, and Homer, and Odiorne, and Hub- 
 bard, and others no less justly held in honor, are not here 
 
d4 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 to-day. And were Paul present, lie would not forget to 
 name, as his manner was, the pious women, who labored 
 much in the Lord, — the Phoebes, the Lydias, and Marys, 
 who were fellow-helpers to the truth. 
 
 And, of the early membership, there are also living ones, 
 still witnessing a good confession, of whom I may not speak. 
 Spared to see this anniversary, with what emotions do they 
 recall the scenes of bygone years ! Let the memory of the 
 founders, and their early associates, living and dead, who, in 
 that day of rebuke, here raised a standard for Christ, and 
 stood by it in peril and reproach, be fondly cherished by 
 those who have entered into their labors, 
 
 May this church, expressly established to uphold evan- 
 gelical faith and practice, and diffuse the knowledge of 
 salvation at home and abroad, remain firm on the foundation 
 of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief 
 corner-stone. May it fulfil its high trust, and stand forth in 
 all future generations, " the pillar and ground of the truth." 
 
 This fraternal gathering of those who are, and of those 
 who have been, members of the Park Street Church, with 
 the surviving ex-pastors, to unite in a tribute of acknowl- 
 edgment and praise to God on this occasion, how well is it 
 fitted to admonish us of that greater gathering, when all the 
 redeemed, from every nation and kindred and tongue, shall 
 come together on Mount Zion above, with songs and ever- 
 lasting joy upon their heads. The Lord grant that we all 
 may find mercy of the Lord in that day. 
 
Jtamitt Jliarnttm. 
 
AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 
 
 PREPARATORY TO THE SACRAMENT OF THE SUPPER. 
 
 BY REV. JOEL H. LESTSLEY, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR FROM DECEMBER 5, 1832, TO SEPTEMBER 28, 1835. 
 
 CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS ENFORCED BY 
 REDEEMING LOYE. 
 
 ^^%0 transient, in the mysterious orderings of Provi- 
 dence, was my connection with you as your pastor, 
 that I had but slight claims to a part in these 
 commemorative exercises. And yet I could not, 
 under the kind invitation extended to me, deny myself the 
 pleasure of meeting and greeting this beloved church, on 
 an occasion like the present, — a church dear to many, even 
 strangers in far-off lands, by reason of its well-known origin, 
 character, and history, its love for the truth, its hospitality 
 to the saints, its connection with missionary movements, 
 and its. liberal patronage of every good cause ; — how much 
 more dear to me, who, in years gone by, alike in health 
 and loss of health, shared so largely in its sympathy, for- 
 
 3* 
 
38 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 bearance, and generous kindness. The speaker will ever 
 recur to his pastorate here, — brief and imperfect, yet not 
 altogether fruitless, — as to a bright spot in a life which, 
 like many others in this world of change, has had its dark 
 shadows, as well as its cheering sunlight. 
 
 But I must not forget that the nature of the service 
 assigned me forbids anything beyond the most limited indul- 
 gence of personal feelings. While, therefore, there are 
 numbers of the membership of this church, now gone home 
 to glory, whose memory will ever be fragrant here, and 
 whose virtues I would gladly help to embalm, yet I bear in 
 mind that I should chiefly move you to honor that Saviour 
 whom they so ardently loved, considering that the grace 
 which shone in them was his gift, and that humility was 
 their brightest ornament. 
 
 You will find my text in 2 Cor. v. 13-15. 
 
 '•For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we 
 be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us; 
 because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead. 
 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live 
 unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." 
 
 Paul's preaching at Corinth, as he testifies, was with 
 " much fear and trembling," and therefore, perhaps, with 
 all the more prayer, and certainly with great success. He 
 gathered among that gay, pleasure-loving, and corrupt 
 people, a strong church. It was a church very dear to 
 him j but it was one also which occasioned him much 
 anxiety and sorrow of heart. There arose in it false teach- 
 
AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 39 
 
 ers, who strove to depreciate his character and weaken his 
 influence. Among other things they accused him of self- 
 glorying, and also with being carried away with an over- 
 wrought zeal. In the chapter before us, we have a virtual 
 reply to these charges. It develops the feelings which 
 animated and the principles which controled the apostle's 
 ministry. He acted in view of things unseen and eternal, 
 and by that standard he must be judged. His apprehen- 
 sion of the terrors and glories of the eternal world, made 
 him careless of the reproaches of men, and anxious chiefly 
 to please him to whose judgment bar he saw himself 
 hastening. Having felt in his own soul the " terrors of the 
 Lord," he labored in view and by means of them " to per- 
 suade men." Acting under the responsibilities of such a 
 ministry, so related both to time and eternity, to the glory 
 of G-od and the well-being of immortal souls, he and his 
 associates might indeed seem beside themselves; but whether 
 they were so judged by some, or whether, by others, they 
 were accounted sober and right-minded, it was their love for 
 Christ that furnished the key to their conduct. " Because 
 we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead. 
 And that he died for all, that they who live should not 
 henceforth live unto themselves." Observe here — 
 
 That Paul assumes as a well-known truth, that Christ 
 died for all. From this he infers another, even more vital, 
 in the gospel system, to wit, that all were dead, that the 
 race were hopelessly lost under the power of sin. And 
 since these things were so, he draws the conclusion that 
 those who live, those who through the sacrifice of Christ 
 
40 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 and the power of his Spirit are raised from the death of sin 
 to the life of holiness, should not live as before, unto them- 
 selves, but unto him who died for them and rose again. 
 
 Now, I do not propose an elaborate discussion of any one 
 of these great truths. The occasion forbids this. As to 
 their proofs the text is so explicit that I see not how any- 
 thing can be added to its clearness and force. And, more- 
 over, though fundamental truths must every where be dis- 
 cussed and established in men's convictions, yet I should 
 hope that he/'e, if any where in the world, a labored argu- 
 ment for essential Christian doctrine might be dispensed 
 with. For I run my eye back along the line of successive 
 generations, for at least fifty years, and what do I see ? 
 A little company of believers, perhaps some twenty or 
 twenty-five, banding together under a solemn covenant to 
 sustain and diffuse the very doctrines alluded to. Few in 
 numbers, and feeble in resources, they are strong only in 
 the belief of the truth, and in the purpose to maintain it ; 
 and above all, in their unwavering confidence in him who 
 " died for them, and rose again. " Few and feeble as they 
 are, and struggling with all the difficulties of a pioneer 
 enterprise, yet they draw off from the mother church, and 
 single-handed, on this beautiful elevation, on this consecrated 
 hill of Zion, they plant their standard and unfurl their 
 banner. And, blessed be God, from that hour to the pres- 
 ent has the true gospel been proclaimed from successive 
 pulpits to growing members. These pulpits, as they have 
 from time to time been built, have been consecrated to 
 Jehovah Jesus, the God of the Pilgrims, — the Father, the 
 
AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 41 
 
 Son, the Holy Spirit, — and they have resounded with these 
 great doctrines of a standing or of a falling Christianity, — 
 the moral ruin of man, — the redeeming grace of God, our 
 incarnate Saviour, — and that new birth, that new life of 
 love, which is by his Word and Spirit and their affiliated 
 truths. 
 
 In the strength of these doctrines of grace, this church 
 has moved steadily forward amid all changes through its 
 successive ministries, until, by the divine blessing, it has 
 gained its present strong position. This people, then, must 
 forget their origin and their entire annals as a religious 
 association, before they can repudiate fundamental truth, 
 and become careless of its defence and its diffusion. 
 
 But while I propose no formal attempt to establish the 
 doctrines of the text, yet so far as they enter into Paul's 
 argument for unselfish and holy zeal for Grod, they ought 
 also to find a place in mine. 
 
 " If one died for all/ 7 reasons the apostle, " then were 
 all dead." If God so loved the world as to give his Son a 
 sacrifice for its redemption, then, since in his benevolent 
 plans there can be no waste of happiness, no uncalled-for 
 suffering, therefore the world must have lain under the 
 power and condemnation of spiritual death. All were dead 
 and doomed. This is a first truth in the gospel scheme. 
 But it is one concerning which mere speculation is pre- 
 eminently fruitless. It is a truth to be felt. The conviction 
 of it must penetrate the depths of your soul. It is to our 
 purpose, therefore, to ponder the apostle's words, — " then 
 were all dead." 
 
4: 2 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 What is it to be dead, in the sense of the text ? To live 
 wholly to and for self, in opposition to living for Grod. It 
 is, to use Paul's language, to " walk after the flesh, and to 
 fulfil the desires of the flesh and the mind." In his epistle 
 to the Romans, and also in that to the Ephesians, he recurs 
 again and again to this truth, and does it, as in the passage 
 before us, with a view at once to magnify the condescension 
 and grace of Christ, and enforce the infinite obligations of 
 his redeemed people. He would have every believer now, 
 as hereafter in glory, turn from that height of privilege to 
 which grace has exalted him, and look down into " the 
 hole of the pit whence he was digged." He tells the 
 Ephesian disciples that it demanded the same power of 
 God to raise them from the death of sin, by which he 
 wrought when he raised up Christ from the grave. "And 
 you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 
 wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of 
 this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, 
 the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." 
 Among whom, not you only, but I with you, — "we all 
 walked in the lusts of the flesh, and were by nature children 
 of wrath, even as others." Wherefore, — he would say, — 
 forget not the wormwood and the gall of this your miserable 
 state, when ye were " aliens from the commonwealth of 
 Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no 
 hope, and without Grod in the world." And again, in the 
 same chapter, he adds : " But Grod, who is rich in mercy, 
 for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we 
 were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." 
 
AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 43 
 
 Now, my brethren, it seems to me worthy of special notice, 
 how this guilty condition of unregenerate man affected the 
 apostle's mind, and how he prefaces every appeal to Chris- 
 tians, as blood-bought souls, with a deeply shaded picture 
 of that moral ruin in which they had shared. But why, 
 
 Paul, art thou so much in earnest to live wholly for God 
 thy Saviour ? Ah, he replies, how can I live otherwise ? 
 
 1 cannot forget how dead I was in sin, how " mad upon 
 my idols," and how low my blessed Lord had to go down 
 into the pit to bring up and save my guilty soul. 
 
 Would to God, oh sinful man, I could suitably impress 
 thee with a sense of this overwhelming truth, that in thine 
 unconverted state thou art under the power of death ; alive 
 indeed to the world, but dead to Grod, dead to hope and to 
 heaven. Thou hast all the attributes of a moral being, and 
 of moral responsibility, but sold under sin ; the balance 
 of thy soul is utterly lost, and with disordered action and 
 fearful energy thou art rushing down to hell. Once, I did 
 not fully understand why Paul, in addressing Christians, 
 should insist so much upon the particular view of truth here 
 adverted to. A clearer insight into the Christian life 
 resolved the mystery. A deep experience of the power and 
 condemnation of sin, — a thorough law work, as the old 
 writers call it, — has much to do with a lively Christian 
 hope, and with stability and consistency of Christian 
 character ; and this deep work does not always precede 
 conversion. 
 
 Is there, then, any help for man, in his lapsed and low 
 estate ? Yes, blessed be Grod, in heaven there is both pity 
 
44 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 and power. " Out of Zion there comes a Deliverer, to turn 
 away ungodliness from Jacob." His name is Jesus, for 
 " He shall save his people from their sins." He saves by 
 giving his life a ransom for them, the just for the unjust. 
 He dies for all, that they who live should not henceforth 
 live unto themselves. Here, then, Paul's great argument 
 for renouncing the world culminates. It was a view of 
 Christ crucified for sinners, that first broke his heart, and 
 that afterwards never ceased to melt and move it. My 
 brother, are you sure that the same views ever broke your 
 heart? Do you remember and ponder as you ought, the 
 love of a suffering Saviour, either as a preparation for the 
 Holy Communion, or as an incentive to holy labors ? Such 
 meditations, particularly on the closing scenes of our Re- 
 deemer's life, should live in the perpetual imagination of 
 the believer's heart, for it is only as they do so that he can 
 be a living Christian. 
 
 Let us now glance at several considerations suited to 
 magnify the love of Christ for us, and, of course, to add 
 intensity to our love for Him j and — 
 
 1. This love is munificent. It is so alike in the extent 
 of its range and the richness of its provisions. Paul was 
 deeply impressed by this feature, and stretches every energy 
 of language to set it forth. He speaks of G-od as " rich in 
 mercy," of his superabounding love, of the riches of his 
 grace in Christ Jesus. Many think of the atonement as 
 made only for this or that individual or class of individuals, 
 — the elect subjects of its grace. But this is confounding 
 
AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 45 
 
 the provision with its application. Certain passages, stand- 
 ing by themselves, might bear the construction claimed j 
 but the general current of the New Testament is manifestly 
 in harmony with the plain language of the text. " God 
 so loved the world " that he gave his only begotten Son. 
 " He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, 
 but also for the sins of the whole world." 
 
 We rejoice in this view of atoning love. It invests it 
 with sublimity, with godlike greatness. It makes redemp- 
 tion to correspond with the grandeur of Jehovah's other 
 works. The natural sun does not shine for this or that 
 individual or community, but for the race. And so it is 
 with the Sun of Righteousness. " I am the light of the 
 world." Look at Grod's fullness of provision in the natural 
 world, — air, light, the dews and rain of heaven. They are 
 made for all, and free for all, though many abuse them, 
 and the good, the elect only, make them in the highest 
 sense personal blessings. Just so with the provisions of 
 grace in Jesus Christ. They are not only made for the 
 world, but are sincerely tendered to the world, — to every 
 creature. Let the atoning love of Christ then stand before 
 men and angels, in all its infinite sufficiency for dying men. 
 
 " Deep as our helpless miseries are, 
 And boundless as our sins." 
 
 This view is practical. It enlarges and quickens our 
 sympathies for a fallen world, — for men of every clime, 
 and color, and • caste. Since Christ died for the race, we 
 would live for the race. We can not rest till " one song 
 
46 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 employs all nations." To my own mind, the most affecting 
 stanzas that Watts ever wrote for the communion table 
 begins — 
 
 " Pity the nations, our God ! " 
 
 Again. 2. Christ's atoning love was not only large, but 
 free and cheerful. This greatly magnifies a self-sacrificing 
 affection. No constraint was laid upon the Eternal Word to 
 undertake the work of our redemption. It was on his part 
 a perfectly voluntary movement. " Lo, I come ; in the 
 volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do 
 thy will, myMjrod." We have Paul's authority for put- 
 ting these words into the mouth of our divine Redeemer. 
 And he himself says, — "I am the G-ood Shepherd. I lay 
 down my life for the sheep. No man taketh it from me, 
 but I lay it down of myself." And mark what follows, 
 " Therefore my Father loveth me, because I lay down my 
 life that I may take it again." It is certainly intimated 
 here that the cheerfulness with which the second person in 
 the Trinity entered on the enterprise of putting away sin 
 by the sacrifice of himself, enhanced the value of that 
 sacrifice in the eyes of the Father. Should it not, then, 
 render it doubly precious to us, and, as a constraining influ- 
 ence, doubly powerful? 
 
 3. Christ's atoning love was not only abounding and 
 free, but, — how shall I describe it ? — it was heroic, per- 
 severing, triumphant love. " Many waters could not quench 
 it." " Having loved his own, he loved them to the end." 
 How can this feature of the Saviour's love be adequately 
 
AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 47 
 
 displayed ? There is in the universe no parallel for it, — - 
 nothing in human or angelic love with which it can be 
 compared. You cannot imagine a case in which any crea- 
 ture, even the loftiest, should give himself to suffer for the 
 lowest, that would approach to a parallel. The sacrifice of 
 a creature for a creature, though rare, we can understand. 
 Magnify it as you may, it is still a finite transaction, and 
 has soundings which a finite line can reach. But, oh, the 
 love of Grod for sinful man ! — " such manner of love," as 
 John speaks, — so large, so free, so persistent ! Some, 
 possibly, may have carried love so far as to die for friends ; 
 but " Grod commendeth his love toward us, in that while 
 we were yet sinners," — enemies to his being, and rebels 
 against his throne, — "Christ died for the ungodly." He 
 knew well what glory and bliss he must leave behind, and 
 how low he must stoop. He foresaw our pride, ingratitude, 
 and base insensibility to the greatness of his sacrifice. As 
 our surety, Christ knew that he must bear the wrath of Grod, 
 the scorn of men, and the rage of devils. He must live 
 in daily contact with sin. He must submit to taunt and 
 mockery from the creatures he had made and even then 
 upheld, to the buffetings, the cruel smitings of the soldiers, 
 and the ignominy and anguish of the crucifixion. Mark 
 the merciless monsters that gather around the innocent 
 victim. See how they drive the ragged nails through those 
 hands that had never been raised but to bless, and through 
 those feet that had never moved but on errands of love. 
 And then consider that over and above all that we can see 
 and hear of the dreadful reality, there remains a mystery 
 
48 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 of suffering which we can not penetrate, a lower deep 
 which we can not fathom. We see the Father avert his 
 face, at the moment that agony thrills every nerve, and 
 the life-blood ebbs away drop by drop through every pore. 
 This is the last ingredient of bitterness that is thrown into 
 the cup, and the meek sufferer cries out, ' : My Grod ! my 
 God ! why hast thou forsaken me ! " And now, though 
 man is mute, and heaven seems to withhold its sympathy, 
 yet nature is moved. The sun is darkened, the rocks are 
 rent, the graves give up their dead. 
 
 " Oil. for this lore let rocks and hills 
 Their lasting silence break ; 
 And all harmonious human tongues 
 The Saviour's praises speak." 
 
 Christian, I counsel thee to retire often from the 
 world, and go stand over against the cross, or with the 
 loving Mary look into the sepulcher. See where the " Lord 
 of glory loved and died," and hear him say as you look, 
 '•Was there ever sorrow like unto my sorrow?" Let us 
 behold and meditate, until, with all saints, we comprehend 
 what is the height and depth, the length and breadth, of 
 that love which passeth knowledge. 
 
 I now add the fourth attribute of redeeming love, — its 
 disinterestedness. 
 
 The other attributes which I have named might possibly 
 characterize a love that had in it some alloy of selfishness. 
 And ah, my brethren, what drawbacks of this sort all human 
 philanthropy is subject to, we too well know. Every sincere 
 
AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 49 
 
 Christian has indeed some true love to God and his neigh- 
 bor, — for nothing short of this constitutes him a Christian, 
 
 — but how inconstant and unreliable ! In our good deeds 
 what a mixture of motives often consciously appears, and 
 in other cases, how self creeps in unconsciously. It was a 
 striking remark of one of the most liberal givers that I 
 have ever known, that it seemed to him there was scarcely 
 an act of beneficence he had ever done in which he could 
 not, on a searching review, discern some taint of selfishness. 
 Doubtless this judgment was too severe; but this we may 
 safely say, that whoever holds up his sacrifices for Christ 
 to the light of Christ's great sacrifice for him, will be the 
 most ready to fall down in the dust before God, and 
 pray that atoning blood may purify his holiest duties, and 
 " purge his conscience from dead works, to serve the living- 
 God." But oh, the love of a redeeming Saviour ! that was 
 wholly unselfish, — as pure as it was large and free. What 
 was there in poor fallen man to engage the notice of God ? 
 He could not, even if recovered from ruin, be profitable to 
 him. God could, indeed, through Christ, and only through 
 him, accept his imperfect services ; but not because he 
 needed at his hand any thing. It is God's delight to give, 
 
 — to bless out of his boundless store, — but how can infinite 
 fullness need or receive from finite measures ? God saw man 
 lying in all the ruin of his rebellion, and the compassion, 
 the mere good will of his loving heart, moved the enterprise 
 of his redemption. And the grace that drew the plan was 
 conspicuous at every step in its execution. Look at the 
 Saviour's life. What an impersonation of pure, self-sacrific- 
 
 4* 
 
50 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 ing love ! Mark his own words. " The Son of Man came 
 not to be ministered unto, but to minister." Truly, blessed 
 Saviour, thou didst not, as many who call themselves by 
 thy name, live to amass and enjoy, but to dispense and 
 to bless. Thou didst empty thyself of heavenly glory and 
 bliss, that thou mightest " fill us with all the fullness of 
 God." Thou wast in our sin-ruined and suffering world, an 
 angel of mercy, wearing out thy frail body, in which thou 
 didst humble thyself to dwell, in labors of love, — instruct- 
 ing the ignorant, reclaiming the wandering, composing the 
 distracted, healing the sick, and raising the dead. 
 
 Thus, my beloved brethren, I have placed before you a 
 miniature representation of your Saviour and his sacrifice 
 for sin, — that sacrifice, a view of which was with the great 
 apostle an ever-living incentive to holiness, — always present 
 to his mind to humble and quicken him, to mortify self and 
 sin, and constrain him to consecrate his entire being to the 
 glory of him who " died for him and rose again." And why 
 should it be a feebler power in your soul or in mine ? We 
 have before us the same great facts, — the eternal Word 
 turning away from all the glory and blessedness he had 
 " with the Father before the world was," the unselfishness 
 of his sacrifice, its infinite fullness and freeness, its deep 
 humiliations and sorrows, the greatness of that salvation 
 which, by mysterious agonies, he brought out ; — and, while 
 your heart melts, pass a step further, and consider that 
 discriminating love which has made you, as you hope, a 
 partner of this salvation, — which has "called you out of 
 
AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 51 
 
 darkness into God's marvelous light/' — saying, "Awake, 
 thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead." Oh yes, 
 Christian, it was that Almighty Spirit that raiseth up and 
 quickeneth whom he will, that raised you from the death of 
 sin and the grave of your lusts to the life of God, — that 
 made you a partaker of the divine nature, and gave you to 
 " sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." And ever since, 
 this love has followed you, — has kept your feet from falling, 
 and your soul from death. You owe it to this same grace of 
 Jesus Christ, that instead of standing aloof as a heartless 
 looker-on, or sitting in the seat of the scornful, you are 
 here to-day in the comfort of " a reasonable and holy hope " 
 in Jesus ; that his " banner over you is lovej " and that 
 you hear his gracious voice, saying, " Eat, friend ! drink, 
 yea, drink abundantly, beloved ! " Can you in the review 
 help breaking forth, " My Lord and my God," I acknowl- 
 edge thy perfect and infinite claims to all that I have, 
 and all that I am? 
 
 " Were the whole i*ealm of nature mine, 
 That were a present far too small; 
 Love so amazing, so divine, 
 
 Demands my soul, my life, my all." 
 
 The Christian, then, being no more his own, can no more 
 live or die to himself. This was Paul's doctrine, and this 
 was alike his manner of living and of dying. Do you, my 
 brother, order your life on such principles? Do you "keep 
 your heart in the love " of him who died for you, and now 
 lives and reigns for you? If the Saviour has occasion to 
 
52 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 say. ■• I remember the kindness of thy youth, the love of 
 thine espousals/' when every faculty and possession was 
 holiness to the Lord, does he find the same order of affection 
 still ? Search and see. for that dying love can not brook 
 a cold return, the very institution of the feast we celebrate 
 to-day bears witness. " Do this in remembrance of me." 
 
 In conclusion. I must add that while engaged in throwing 
 together these thoughts. I have not been without much 
 sorrow and heaviness of heart. I have compared Paul's 
 Christian life with my own; I have extended this compar- 
 ison to the ministry and to the church at large, and after 
 every allowance of charity. I find cause for personal and 
 general humiliation. It is meet that the great apostle of 
 the Gentiles should talk of the constraint of a Saviour's 
 love, for his life of toil and sacrifice for Christ and the 
 gospel's sake vindicates his profession ; and the churches he 
 planted imbibed his spirit. " To believe, to love, and to 
 suffer/' — this, it has been said, was primitive Christianity. 
 •■ The faith once delivered to the saints." says the ven- 
 erated Lyman Beecher. •• produced a piety of great solem- 
 nity and power. — a love for Christ so ardent, an avowal 
 of his death so undaunted, and an enterprise so effective, 
 that it moved on from conquering to conquer, through 
 honor and dishonor, through fire and blood." 
 
 But after all God's goodness, after all the light of prov- 
 idence since enjoyed, and all the illuminations of the Spirit, 
 where are we as Christian churches and Christian profess- 
 ors? Can we truly say that we ••live not unto ourselves?" 
 
AFTERNOON DISCOURSE. 53 
 
 Paul plead his love for a dying Redeemer as a reason 
 for a missionary zeal so ardent that it was accounted mad- 
 ness. Was his love then in fact excessive, and his zeal 
 insane ? If not, what shall we say of the present standard 
 of effort and sacrifice for the same glorious cause? We 
 have revivals and conversions, and I can not regard them 
 as spurious. Our churches are made strong in numbers 
 and resources; hut is the church, as at first, distinctively 
 a united, holy, and truly missionary church, — moved by 
 the constraint of dying love, and living for the salvation 
 of the world ? It should be so. This is the spirit of the 
 living Christian and of the true church. That most able 
 and excellent man and minister of Christ, the late Pres. 
 Olin, of the Methodist connection, says truly, in one of 
 his eloquent appeals to his own denomination in behalf 
 of missions, " Every Christian is born into the kingdom 
 of Grod a missionary and a propagandist, — not only a lover 
 of the truth, but a herald of truth." It is even so : like 
 the converted woman of Samaria, he desires and seeks, 
 and is ready to believe that he can accomplish the conver- 
 sion of all his impenitent neighbors. Why do we so often 
 see this first love and zeal of the young convert soon wax 
 cold. I fear we must refer it to the unspiritual and worldly 
 state of the church. His ardor does not avail to raise the 
 temperature of her zeal, but she, alas ! reduces his to the 
 low dead level of her own. Thus, a cold, barren religion 
 is propagated and perpetuated, and the salvation of a per- 
 ishing world is indefinitely postponed. 
 
54 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 I must not say more j but with such a subject, and on 
 such an occasion, how could I say less ? An angel's tongue 
 can not tell how much you and I need, and the world 
 needs, a more Christlike spirit, and a more apostolic zeal. 
 Oh, my brethren, when we look at the opening fields for 
 Christian effort, and the perishing multitudes that go to 
 form the harvest, must we not say with one voice, " if 
 there ever was a time when the church of Christ should 
 fall down on her face before the throne, and plead for a 
 new and holier order of Christians and of Christian min- 
 isters, men full of faith and the Holy Grhost, — that time 
 is now passing over us." 
 
 Dear brethren, how many praying men and women have 
 lived and labored and died in the faith of Jesus and as 
 witnesses for his truth, on this spot! Other men have 
 labored, and you have entered into their labors. I will 
 institute no comparison between the living and the dead. 
 Among the latter I call to mind some, both men and women, 
 of blessed memory, whose names can never be heard by 
 me, or by this church, but with tender, grateful emotions, — 
 now radiant in glory, and drawn into loving and everlasting 
 companionship with Jesus. If you make good their vacant 
 places, and fill the measure of their faithfulness, you will 
 do well; and if, through grace, you excel them, their pure, 
 celestial spirits will feel no envy or jealousy. Oh, no ! they 
 will exult rather in your holy love and fruitfulness in every 
 good work, and new songs of praise to the Grod of Salvation 
 will break forth before his glorious throne. 
 
AFTERNOON DISCOUESE. 55 
 
 " The Lord bless thee, and keep thee : The Lord make 
 his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee : The 
 Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee 
 peace." 
 
 At the conclusion of this discourse, seventeen 
 individuals present were admitted to membership in 
 the church, six by letter, and eleven upon the pro- 
 fession of their faith ; and the Lord's Supper was 
 administered to more than one thousand communi- 
 cants. Rev. Drs. Linsley, Aiken, and Beecher, with 
 Rev. Dr. Crawford, of Deerfield, Mass., son-in-law 
 of Rev. Dr. Griffin, the first pastor of the church, 
 officiated. It was a scene of tender and solemn 
 interest, never to be forgotten by those who par- 
 ticipated in it. 
 
ittftmtg 
 
 jjanmm* 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 
 
 BY KEV. EDWAED BEECHEK, D.D. 
 
 PASTOR FROM DECEMBER 27, 1826, TO OCTOBER 28, 1830. 
 
 " Patjx, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which 
 are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and 
 peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the 
 God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all 
 spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According as he hath 
 chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be 
 holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestinated us unto 
 the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good 
 pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath 
 made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through 
 his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 
 wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having 
 made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, 
 which he hath purposed in himself. That in the dispensation of the fullness 
 of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which 
 are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him. In whom also we have 
 obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him 
 who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." — Ephesians i. 1-11. 
 
 | E have in these words a comprehensive view of 
 
 cTj^ the history and destinies of the church of God. 
 
 •KjKJj? Elect, before the foundation of the world, to holi- 
 
 m* ness, predestinated to the adoption of children, 
 
 redeemed through atoning blood, — and all this not on 
 
 grounds of individual desert, but in order to consummate 
 
 an eternal purpose of God to reorganize the universe under 
 
 one head through Christ. 
 
 5 
 
60 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Such is the sublime and yet inspired view of the relations 
 and destinies of the church. Not indeed of any outward 
 worldly organization hearing that name, but of that redeemed 
 multitude, of every age, who are truly restored to the life 
 of G-od, and, as a glorious organic whole, are at last united 
 to him in the covenant of eternal love, and in the ever- 
 lasting fellowship of his kingdom and reign. 
 
 This result is represented as effected not suddenly, but 
 through a long course of ages, by a dispensation adapted 
 to secure this final issue only, in the fullness of times, — 
 that is, after a long course of development, ending in the 
 final judgment, and by which the universe shall be fully 
 prepared for the mature and glorious result. 
 
 Amid all the conflict which has existed on earth, to 
 make good a claim to the name and authority of the church 
 of Grod, those, and those only, will at last possess them, 
 who shall be found to have lived and acted in the closest 
 sympathy with him, in the development of those great ideas 
 that are involved in the execution of this eternal purpose. 
 
 It is a succession, from age to age, of divine ideas and 
 Christian experience, upon which depends the continuity 
 and connection of the church of Grod, and not an unbroken 
 line of outward organization. If the true divine ideas and 
 spirit die out, nothing remains but an organic corpse, falsely 
 called by the name of the church of Grod. 
 
 If you, beloved brethren, who are or have been members 
 of this church, are in that line of thought and experience, 
 then to you the words of my text apply, and I welcome you 
 to this review of the history of this church for the first 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 61 
 
 half-century of its organic life. But what is the history of 
 this church ? Grod only can give a full answer to that 
 question, for he only understands it as it appears in the 
 invisible world, and that is its true history. To understand 
 truly the history of this church, is to understand the divine 
 ideas, purposes, and emotions which gave rise to its organ- 
 ization, and have been unfolded in its progress. There is 
 a view of history, even of the history of the church, which 
 is superficial and narrow in its range of thought. It is 
 outward and human. It is a mere detail of facts and 
 statistics ) or, if underlying principles are considered, it is 
 from a low point of vision. 
 
 Thus viewed, the history of this church would unfold 
 in dry detail who were the originators of the enterprise ; 
 when, by whom, and how the church was organized ; what 
 were their doctrines and order ; who their successive pas- 
 tors ; what their yearly statistics of gain or loss, in mem- 
 bership, influence, and resources ; and what their present 
 numbers and power. Even from such a history, of such a 
 church, much beyond all doubt could be learned to interest 
 and instruct; and yet no just idea could thus be formed 
 of the peculiar and distinguishing ideas of God out of 
 which the movement sprung ; no thrilling emotions, no tide 
 of feeling, would lift the soul on high, nor would any 
 genuine insight be given into the spirit of the movement, 
 nor into its relations to the great whole towards which the 
 development of the divine purposes in the course of ages 
 is tending. 
 
 No one who believes that there is a Glod, will deny the 
 
62 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 simple but sublime doctrine of the text, that he worketh 
 all things after the counsel of his own will. His ideas and 
 purposes underlie the creation of the material and the 
 spiritual world, and give shape to the development of prov- 
 idence in both. Nor can there be any true history of the 
 church, nor indeed of any thing, which does not regard 
 primarily the development and embodiment of the divine 
 ideas. 
 
 These ideas are generally at first unknown to the masses 
 of men, and dwell as abstract conceptions in the minds of a 
 few, who, by communion with God, rise above their age. 
 But as these divine conceptions come into active develop- 
 ment from age to age, in order to assume their place as 
 reigning powers on earth, they cease to be abstract thoughts 
 of individual minds, and begin to embody themselves in 
 outward and visible organizations. These, too, are commonly 
 at first so feeble as to be overlooked and despised by the 
 great worldly powers ) and yet, as embodying the sublime 
 and deathless ideas of Grod, they are destined to an immor- 
 tality of ever-increasing power. They are a little leaven 
 in a vast mass, and yet destined to pervade and leaven the 
 whole. 
 
 The necessity of such an organic embodiment of ideas 
 implies that all things tend to and result in a designed 
 organic exclusion of them by the reigning powers of earth, 
 invisible and visible, and that they are resisted when they 
 put in their claim to be embodied and reign in human 
 society. Accordingly, the main element of the history of 
 this world, truly apprehended, is the resistance of organized 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 63 
 
 powers to the progress of these divine ideas. Often the 
 conflict over one idea lasts for centuries, until, at last, it 
 wins its day and place. 
 
 From this point, we are now able to approximate to a 
 true conception of the real church of Grod, in all ages, of 
 which we profess to be a part, and from our relation to 
 which arises all of our interest and importance. The real 
 church, in any age, consists of those, and those only, who 
 by regeneration and sanctification have been so brought into 
 intellectual and moral sympathy with God, that through 
 them he has developed his ideas and purposes, and embodied 
 them in human society. The true church, thus viewed, is 
 one and continuous, just as is Glod's plan. 
 
 The history of this world, then, is a history of conflicts 
 for divine ideas, as the proper and only lawful organic 
 principles of human society. 
 
 The progress in this warfare is, of course, onward and 
 upward. A divine idea, which has once conquered and won 
 its ground, is never lost on the great scale. Every such 
 idea is permanently retained, and becomes the basis of new 
 successive developments. 
 
 The whole system of society, growing out of and based 
 on this natural life, ought, according to the divine idea, to 
 be subordinated to the spiritual life. The final issue of all 
 things should be to produce, support, and perfect it, and so 
 reunite all again to Gk>d. So used, it has immense power ; 
 and this consummation is the perfection of the develop- 
 ment of Glod's ideas in this world. 
 
 We need not wonder, then, that the systems of hostile 
 
64 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 spirits ignore the true idea of life in God, and of the 
 analogies of natural to spiritual life, and of the subordina- 
 tion of the whole system to that end. Their policy is to 
 exclude God, and to enthrone creatures in his place. This 
 is done sometimes by a denial of his being ; at others, by 
 exalting him so far above human knowledge and sympathy, 
 that he ceases to be an active power in life, and created 
 beings take his place. Society, too, is organized to carry out 
 such a system, — to exalt creatures, and exclude the one true 
 God. Such organizations, too, may wield immense power, 
 of various kinds. Wealth, armies, intellect, fashion, num- 
 bers, rank, uphold the reign of apostasy from God. And 
 so great, for a time, is their power, that the simple, true, 
 sublime ideas of God seem weak, contemptible, and even 
 insane. 
 
 But they are never weak. True and sublime views of the 
 universal system may be held by individuals against an age, 
 and against organized power; nevertheless, they are sus- 
 tained by still greater power. God, and the invisible uni- 
 verse of holy minds, and the eternal order of things, 
 underlie and sustain them, and the eternal course of Provi- 
 dence will give them augmented power. Therefore, to give 
 God's ideas due power, there is needed a habit of transcend- 
 ing the senses and the present order of things, and looking 
 at the invisible world in the light of God. This is the 
 habit of faith, and it is the characteristic by which, in all 
 ages, the church has been united to God. Faith gives 
 present power to the spiritual universe, as it is, and in its 
 future developments. 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 65 
 
 To reveal the power of G-od's ideas in act, requires his 
 providence and time. It is the action of these elements 
 which produces the sublime results which characterize the 
 history of the church in all ages. The ideas developed are 
 God's; the system to which they belong is infinite and 
 glorious ; human power arrayed against them is great. One 
 or two often stand alone at the great points of conflict, 
 against the wealth, intellect, and physical power of an age. 
 They are ridiculed as visionaries, as abstractionists, as mad- 
 men. They stand for an idea, for a visionary and imprac- 
 ticable principle. They are contemned, hated, slain ; but 
 they die testifying to its truth and power. 
 
 God, meantime, and the invisible universe, work on. Cen- 
 turies roll by, and at last the contemned idea has triumphed ; 
 the invisible, intangible, impracticable truth is enthroned, 
 and sways its scepter over numbers, organization, force, 
 wealth, and is eternal. Now, too, wisdom reveals its true 
 worth, as more precious than gold. During the conflict, it 
 calls often for the loss of gold ; and when a conflict for a 
 divine idea comes on, men take their choice between it and 
 gold ; and often the men of wealth and standing prefer the 
 existing order of things, apparently so fixed and permanent, 
 and contemn the visionary advocates of intangible ideas. 
 Nevertheless, ages roll on, and God's ideas prevail, and 
 become the life of the ruling order of things ; they become 
 fixed and eternal. Thus, through successive ages, the divine 
 ideas, through organic development, advance from victory 
 to victory, until at last the glorious consummation spoken 
 of in my text, and so often referred to in the inspired 
 
6Q SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 oracles, is fully attained, all of God's eternal conceptions 
 and purposes are triumphant, the universe is reorganized in 
 accordance with them, and all false and hostile organizations 
 fall to rise no more. 
 
 This, then, is the sublime import of the text : that when, 
 after the course of ages, the fullness of time shall have 
 arrived, there shall be a reorganization of the universe, a 
 glorious and all-comprehending order of things, in which all 
 truth, and beauty, and power, will be harmonious parts of 
 one eternal system, centralized in God and the church by 
 the great redemptive work of Christ. It is this that invests 
 the history of the church in this world with its glory and 
 sublimity. 
 
 To the eye of man, in the hour of conflict, nothing 
 appears but weakness, suffering, and an endurance of con- 
 tempt, for something invisible, for a principle, a mere idea, 
 bringing no present profit or reward, but rather involving 
 sacrifice and loss. Yet, on the other hand, this idea is 
 God's idea ; the principle is a part of his infinite and 
 eternal system; and in due time the hour of its eternal 
 victory must come. 
 
 Let us trace, in a summary way, the course of this conflict 
 of ideas. First of all, man, in the earliest ages, not deny- 
 ing the being of God, set at naught his retributive justice 
 and power, in open and contemptuous insolence. This 
 development of depravity characterized the centuries before 
 the flood. Long life and great physical energies emboldened 
 them, and no previous history of divine retributions had 
 revealed the power and justice of God. For ages God 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 67 
 
 endured the increasing outrages of man, and at last disclosed 
 his purpose of judgment and retribution by Noah. And 
 here was developed the first great world-struggle for an idea. 
 That idea was the reality of the retributive power and 
 justice of God. These an impious world derided; and 
 openly contemned, in fearless impiety, the omnipotent ruler, 
 judge, and avenger. (See Jude 15.) Of this strife, heathen 
 mythology has preserved the image, in the fabled war of 
 the giants against heaven. 
 
 In this war, Noah stood alone against a world, the con- 
 temned advocate of an unpopular idea, the vindication of 
 the power and justice of God. But beneath these unpopu- 
 lar abstractions was the omnipotence of God, in them was 
 his vitality. Men scoffed and blasphemed, but God, and 
 Noah in him, won the day. The fountains of the great deep 
 were broken up, the windows of heaven were opened, and 
 the deluge swept to perdition the world of the ungodly. 
 So this conflict was decided, and a fear of the power and 
 justice of God fell upon the world, from which it never 
 recovered. It was conceded that there was no hope in an 
 open warfare with God, whatever might be the power 
 and numbers that might combine against him. 
 
 The next effort was to exclude the true idea of the real 
 God, creator of all things, as the present and active ruler 
 of this world. The creation of the world was denied. 
 Matter was declared to be self-existing and eternal. God 
 was exalted out of the reach of human conception, and 
 vice-gods, or men, were practically enthroned in his place. 
 Thus God, not denied or defied, was practically exiled. 
 
68 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Hence came polytheism, in its various developments; and 
 the organizations of the world were based on this assumed 
 system of things. Practically, gods many and lords many 
 ruled the world. All the wealth, intellect, numbers, and 
 military power of the world sustained polytheistic organ- 
 izations. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Tyre, Persia, Greece, 
 and Koine were polytheistic nations. They, too, had the 
 power of the world. The idea of one Grod, a spirit, the 
 creator of all things, a present Grod, who could be known 
 and loved, the life of all, holy, just and good, full of sym- 
 pathy and love, and yet an avenger of evil, — was a mere 
 visionary, impractical idea. To the true church alone it 
 was real and powerful, and to develop and defend it was 
 their great mission. For centuries this idea was the center 
 of world-wide conflict. All of the Old Testament was 
 written in view of it. But one nation, and that small and 
 relatively powerless, stood on the side of the one true Grod ; 
 and they were charged by the rest of the world with 
 illiberal and narrow-minded bigotry. Beneath the power of 
 this contempt, and worldly seductions addressed to their 
 depraved passions, this one people was so prone to apostatize 
 as to need correction by repeated chastisements and cap- 
 tivities. Yet Grod's elect, in every age, — even if alone, as 
 Elijah, — stood up in its defence. 
 
 When Christ came, this great conflict of centuries was 
 at its height. But he came to give to Glod's idea its final 
 and eternal victory. He came to recall the unknown Glod 
 from his exile, back into actual life, as a real, living Grod, 
 who could be known and loved. This was one great end 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 69 
 
 of the incarnation. It had been said, the eternal Father, 
 the infinite Grod, can not be known; let us enthrone gods 
 whom we can know. Christ revealed the supreme Grod in 
 human form, disclosed his ideas, purposes, and sympathies, 
 and said, " He who hath seen me, hath seen the Father." 
 In human form he atoned for sin, and thus secured the 
 influences of the Holy Spirit to reunite men to Grod in holy 
 knowledge and victorious love. And now where is this 
 idea of the one supreme Grod, a being who may be known 
 and loved, the true and only ruler of all things ? It gained 
 its victory centuries ago, and now the wealth and power of 
 the world obey it. Monotheistic nations are at the head of 
 the world in knowledge and civilization, in arts and in arms. 
 Polytheistic nations, once the rulers of the world, are in 
 universal decadence and decay. The balance of power was 
 changed forever, when Rome renounced polytheism, and 
 bowed to the cross of the despised Nazarene. 
 
 The recognition of the one Grod being thus restored, and 
 he being acknowledged as the practical ruler of all things, 
 the next step of Satan was falsely to organize human society 
 in his name, by radical corruptions of the true conception 
 of G-od, and a spurious religious experience, thus retaining 
 the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. This 
 was the deep root of the great apostasy so often and so fear- 
 fully portended in the New Testament. It originated in a 
 false and Grnostic idea of the material system and of natural 
 life; and the influence of this idea reacted on the concep- 
 tion of Grod. Thus, Grnostic ideas perverted and corrupted 
 the whole system. Marriage was pronounced impure. Cel- 
 
70 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 ibacy, fasting, and forms usurped the place of holiness. 
 Hence came the conception of a proud, heartless, unsympa- 
 thizing God. Hence came sacramentalism, formalism, and 
 outward organization. Hence came a worldly church in 
 league with the state. The whole was a form of godliness, 
 denying its power. But the true conception of Grod, thus 
 suppressed by Satan, could not die. It was destined to 
 have its resurrection, its conflict, and its victory. Nor could 
 the bondage of the human mind and of society, based on 
 this false conception of Grod, be eternal. It was destined 
 to be assailed and destroyed. Hence, in the fullness of 
 time, a new warfare for divine ideas was sure to begin. 
 Accordingly, the strife of ages has turned on the purpose 
 of Grod, to reveal and make efficient true conceptions of 
 himself, as the proper organic forces of human society, and 
 to give the true power of godliness an ascendency over 
 forms and worldly organizations and power. In doing this, 
 it became necessary to vindicate the duty of the correspond- 
 ing right of man to live for Grod in all things, whatever 
 anti-christian organizations might enjoin. This right ex- 
 tends not only to religious, but also to civil and political 
 life. For this idea the martyrs contended, who would not 
 take the mark of the beast nor the number of his name. 
 For ages, this was a mere idea, unable to organize itself 
 in any extended society. The beast and the woman in 
 scarlet ruled the world in Grod's name, and yet denied 
 him in idea and in life. At last, Grod moved the world 
 through the Reformation, and in part enthroned these ideas 
 in outward organizations, repudiating and refuting the 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 71 
 
 universal organic claims of Rome. But in part only, for 
 though Protestantism was detached from Rome, and ascet- 
 icism, and formalism, still, even Protestant kings and states, 
 from the habits of ages, claimed the right to decide how 
 men should worship God. 
 
 That the so-called Christian state was inferior to the Word 
 of God, and to individual conscience, in the field of religion 
 and church order, was yet to be learned • and the develop- 
 ment of this idea was the mission of Puritanism. It was 
 not at first fully apprehended. It needed centuries of 
 development in New England before it was fully disclosed 
 in its purity and power. But the peculiar church order 
 of New England tended to this result. It gave to each 
 church independent power, and made the Word of God the 
 only standard of doctrine and of order. Thus the despotic 
 power of great human centralization was paralyzed, and the 
 elements of the highest spiritual freedom were conferred 
 upon mankind. Long were the ideas underlying this great 
 result weak, persecuted, contemned. They were derided as 
 visionary abstractions, and as tending to disorganize human 
 society and reduce all things to chaos. But they have 
 triumphed. They are enthroned, and the whole world is 
 yet to yield to their sway. 
 
 Thus the battle for freedom to think and act for God in 
 all things was fought and won. But still another came 
 on, — the greatest, the most arduous, the most wide-reach- 
 ing of all. Men were next to be taught how to use that 
 freedom aright, and to defend the truth against an abuse 
 of freedom. Think, then, for a moment, how much this 
 
 6 
 
72 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 involved. All false conceptions of God introduced by past 
 ages, — all false decisions in doctrine made by force and not 
 by reason, were to be reviewed and corrected; all pious 
 frauds were to be renounced, that nothing but the true 
 character of God and his pure truth might remain. But 
 the possession of this liberty, and the undertaking of this 
 work, rendered certain an over-action and an abuse. It 
 was sure, as men are, that the truth itself would be assailed 
 as an ancient error; that the doctrines of Depravity and 
 Regeneration, of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atone- 
 ment, and of Eternal Retributions, would be called in ques- 
 tion and rejected; and the Bible itself be repudiated as 
 the basis of them all. Meantime, the progress of the induc- 
 tive sciences and of the arts would place new elements of 
 power in the hands of men, and start new theories of pro- 
 gress, and of the reorganization of human society under the 
 lead of the new ideas and forces of the ages. Where the 
 highest freedom had been reached, this battle would, of 
 course, be most intense, and therefore its center was in 
 New England. 
 
 The divine idea to be developed in opposition to this 
 movement was that the fundamental doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, truly apprehended, can be vindicated as ra- 
 tional in the center of the highest knowledge possible to 
 man, and of the most perfect freedom. The church was 
 now to say, Let all concealment and all force be abjured; 
 let the full and highest light of divine illumination be 
 invoked and enjoyed; let science be fully developed, yet 
 can the Bible be defended as the Word of God, and the 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 73 
 
 fundamental doctrines of Christianity as the only true 
 organic powers of human society, the only hope of the 
 world. At this point, Grod moved to develop new ideas, 
 and hence this church. Look at the case. The downward 
 progress of things had extended so far here that orthodoxy 
 was by the majority of the Puritan churches abandoned in 
 this city, as unworthy of the freedom and progress of the 
 age; the leading civil influences were arrayed against it; 
 the college of the State was made an engine of assault 
 against the faith of the fathers; the judicial power had 
 virtually made the church a mere appendage of the parish, 
 and the germs of a destructive criticism of the Bible began 
 to be developed on every side. Meantime, in this center 
 of New England, and even in the small remnant in the 
 churches planted by the fathers, the fire of piety was 
 burning feebly, and its energies were almost exhausted. 
 Many of the founders of Park Street, had sunk so low as 
 to feel incompetent to engage in social prayer. To meet 
 this crisis, there was needed, first of all, a revival of the life 
 of G-od, and then a power of learning to embrace the wide 
 range of thought involved in the work to be done. A 
 thorough vindication and exposition of the Word of Grod, 
 the invigoration and extension of revivals of religion, and an 
 energetic development of the spirit of benevolent enterprise 
 in the form of missions and reform ; — this was the sublime 
 work to be accomplished. And now, beneath the inspiring 
 influences of the eternal mind, came into existence the 
 different, but conspiring parts of a world-embracing system, 
 designed to develop and vindicate the great divine idea of 
 
7± SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 the age. They were like the wheels in Ezekiel's vision, 
 full of eyes, and animated and moved by one spirit. 
 
 To take the lead in the great work of biblical exposition 
 and defence, Andover Theological Seminary was founded, 
 and Moses Stuart called to his post, to thrill this nation 
 by the fiery enthusiasm of his spirit, and to arouse the culti- 
 vated intellect of the church to an intense and profound 
 study, exposition, and vindication of the Word of Grod. 
 As a counterpoise to the Cambridge apostasy, Amherst 
 College was endowed. Mills and his associates aroused the 
 churches to the great work of foreign missions, and the 
 American Board was organized, and all other parts of the 
 great system of evangelization and reform sprang into life. 
 The same movement called this church into being. The 
 men who moved in its formation were in full and profound 
 sympathy with all of this enlarged system of things. It 
 was founded for the exposition and defence of evangelical 
 truth, and for the extension of its influences throughout 
 the world, and into all departments of human thought and 
 action. It was to be a center of revivals at home and of 
 missionary enterprise abroad. Griffin bore aloft the ban- 
 ner of Grod, and soon, among its leading members were such 
 men as Evarts and Hill, whose labors in the cause of 
 foreign missions need no eulogy from me. Nor have I time 
 to trace in detail the enlargement of the church ; the labors 
 of its successive pastors ; its efforts in the organization and 
 support of new churches in the city and its vicinity ■ the 
 call of my honored father to this field of labor, and his 
 wide-reaching and victorious apostolic labors, and my own 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 75 
 
 labors for a time as the pastor of this church, in delightful 
 fellowship with him and other brethren beloved ; — the 
 fervor, the enthusiasm, and the energy of the great move- 
 ment were divine, and transcend my powers of description. 
 But I will endeavor to look at some of the conceptions 
 peculiar to this movement, and out of which its deepest 
 emotions and most fervid enthusiasm sprang. 
 
 In the first place, the doctrine of a spiritual millennium, 
 not far remote, and involving the perfect reorganization of 
 human society, as set forth by Edwards and Hopkins, 
 had taken possession of their minds and pervaded all their 
 anticipations. In this, are found the highest motives to 
 effort, and the justification of the highest hopes, and the 
 most earnest intellectual study. The victory of Christ is to 
 come, not by force, but by intellectual and moral develop- 
 ment. What encouragement, then, for the highest intel- 
 lectual and moral effort ! No form of millenarianism had 
 any power to weaken these convictions and to check such 
 a joyful and impulsive faith by portending the deterioration 
 of all things on the field of intellectual and moral conflict, 
 until Christ should at last interpose to effect by force what 
 he had failed to accomplish by the power of truth and of 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 It followed from this general view, that the channel of 
 divine power was to be, as of old, through revivals, originat- 
 ing from the direct and special influences of the Holy Spirit 
 attending the faithful and earnest preaching of the Word. 
 Connected with this, was the idea of a special relationship 
 
76 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 of this country to the renovation of the world. This idea 
 had been developed by the first President Edwards, and 
 had diffused itself through the religious convictions of the 
 masses. The ideas out of which it sprung, were simple and 
 obvious, and yet sublime. The magnitude of our prospec- 
 tive development, the freedom of our institutions, the room 
 for a glorious reorganization of all things, if the extent of 
 revivals and the power of sanctification should turn the 
 hearts of the majority with true devotion towards God. In 
 one of the yearly reports of Evarts, these ideas are devel- 
 oped with transcendent elegance and power. 
 
 Moreover, as the great renovation of all things was at 
 hand, and as an instrument of such power was needed, and 
 as the providence of God seemed to have been ordered to 
 prepare it, it came to be incorporated as an element of hope, 
 and almost as an article of faith, in the minds of the lead- 
 ers of this great evangelical reaction, and no less in the 
 hearts of the people. It created an all-pervading enthusiasm 
 of excitement like that which existed just before the coming 
 of Christ. It was also an article of belief that the agency 
 of the Holy Spirit would not supersede the wise use of 
 means, and hence the necessity of fitting our doctrinal 
 system more perfectly for its work by removing all human 
 additions and corruptions, and adapting it to act on the 
 mind in accordance with the divine laws of thought, emo- 
 tion, and choice established by Glod in the constitution of 
 the mind. This led to a revision of the theology of other 
 ages, and this led to controversy even among the good • and 
 in this controversy all the doctrines were re-debated, so 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 77 
 
 that the subjects of old discussions came up anew; as for 
 example, the trinity, the divinity, and incarnation of Christ, 
 the depravity and regeneration of man, the atonement, and 
 its issues and results. Yet it was not a mere repetition of 
 any discussion that had gone before. It was a review of 
 all things in the enjoyment of a new and unwonted freedom 
 on a field of moral influence of unexampled extent, and 
 with a power of social reorganization unknown before, and 
 with a proximity of final results on earth deeply stirring 
 the mind. If, now, we assume that in fact the ideas and 
 emotions of Glod were underlying all of this movement, and 
 tending to such final issues, we can form some conception 
 of the profound feeling that pervaded and bathed this period, 
 and made it a half century of the deepest, most absorbing, 
 most delightful, most heavenly emotion. 
 
 Let us look at some of the results. It has been a half 
 century of earnest intellectual effort, in a wide range of 
 thought. Revivals, biblical exposition and defence, the 
 translation of the Bible into the languages of men, the 
 theory and practice of social reform, have all been studied 
 in the light of a glorious coming future, and under the 
 stimulus of its highest excitement. It has been a half 
 century of revivals and of missionary enterprise. It has 
 been a half century of profound religious discussion and 
 controversy. Out of it, vast results, no doubt, have sprung 
 for coming ages. The records of this church show the 
 results, in part, of the revivals. The history of other 
 churches in this city springing out of the movement, the 
 invisroration of evangelical doctrine and the evangelical 
 
78 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 churches in the State at large, the increasing power of the 
 missionary enterprise and its results in all coming ages, the 
 formation of various associations for domestic missions and 
 evangelization, the inception of various measures of social 
 reform, — all of these things are to be regarded as the 
 results of the divine ideas and emotions out of which this 
 church grew; and in them this church has acted sympa- 
 thetically, and to them it has consecrated its resources. For 
 it is an eminent characteristic of a true church of Grod, that 
 it can not be narrow and local in its feelings. If it will 
 commune with Glod, it must extend its thoughts and sym- 
 pathies as far as those of God himself extend. Neverthe- 
 less, though so much has been effected, the main idea of 
 the times is still in conflict, and has not gained the victory. 
 Its complete victory implies a perfect development of the 
 true G-od, in his full intellectual and moral power, as in- 
 vested with all truth, beauty, honor, and right, as the great 
 organic power of human society, and yet in perfect consis- 
 tency with this, a deep and thorough development of human 
 depravity, and a regenerating power that shall penetrate to 
 its depths, and new create individuals and society at large. 
 This, I need not say, has not yet been obtained. 
 
 We are not to overlook in this review the reactionary 
 progress of the anti-christian principles of the age. They, 
 too, have revived, and reviewed, and reorganized all the old 
 forms of error. Atheism, Pantheism, Infidelity, Material- 
 ism, Spiritualism, Infidel Phrenology, Natural Theism, have 
 been developed with new power. All of these, however, 
 are not mere repetitions of old errors, — they partake of the 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 70 
 
 spirit of the age, and are revised, reviewed, and modified 
 for an end. The true answer to all these is the same, — a 
 full development of God. 
 
 The last great idea of the series is the idea of perfect 
 social organization in and through God. This is involved 
 in what precedes, but in this last half century it has come 
 more distinctly forward, and has been more definitely the 
 subject of study than ever before. The Christian doctrine 
 rests on the assumption that all minds were originally made 
 for God, but have been deranged and disordered by sin, and 
 that a renewed life in time is essential to their proper 
 reorganization, and that he has a right to diffuse that life, 
 and to claim room for its power in social systems, including 
 government, political economy, commerce, education, and 
 daily life. This divine idea, too, has begun its development 
 in weakness, and has had its martyrs. It is, to most even 
 yet, an abstract impractical conception. Slavery reacts at 
 its claims, and seeks to fortify itself in political constitutions 
 and parties. Governments repudiate its claims as visionary 
 and impractical. Political economy, arts, manufactures, 
 commerce, repudiate its laws. But the idea is a divine 
 idea. It has in God a divine life. It can not die. It will 
 gain power from year to year. It will embody itself. It 
 will array increasing moral power against all corrupt organ- 
 izations, till they are aroused to a last and decisive conflict. 
 Then God will come in supreme intellectual power and 
 majesty, and judge, condemn, and consume all false organ- 
 izations, and enthrone all his own ideas in those forms and 
 relations which are best adapted to this present earthly 
 
80 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 sphere. Then, after a long period of the glorious reign of 
 divine truth and order, will come a brief revolt and a fierce 
 onset of the powers of error, to be followed by the final 
 judgment, and the eternal reorganization of the universe so 
 emphatically spoken of in my text. 
 
 1. The true history of this church is not disconnected, 
 local, provincial; it is the result of the divine ideas and 
 emotions in ages past and for ages to come, and is, therefore, 
 intimately connected with God's great whole. It is a living- 
 part of that one great living body, the church, of which 
 God is in all ages the life. Since it has been a strife for 
 universal principles and a development of God's ideas, it 
 can not be disconnected and insulated; it is rather a part 
 of God's eternal, all-embracing chain of thought, plan, and 
 purpose, for all ages and all worlds. The deep channel of 
 God's emotions has been here revealed. 
 
 2. The future of this church may be more striking and 
 affecting than even the past, for the highest and mightiest 
 development of God's ideas is yet to come. Nevertheless, 
 to become meet for such a future, requires a peculiar and 
 correspondent preparation. The center of that preparation 
 is a higher intensity of life in God, based on a more perfect 
 knowledge of him, and a more perfect moral conformity to 
 him. This is essential in order to defend and rightly use 
 the freedom and organic power of this land. To defend it. 
 For the element of force and injustice in our national com- 
 promise is seeking to become the law of the land, in order 
 to enthrone organized wrong above the normal and free 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 81 
 
 development of a life in God. To this effort all the political, 
 commercial, and social depravity of our land will administer 
 strength. Nothing can prepare us rightly to meet it, but 
 a higher development of life in God, and of his moral power 
 through the church, and of a universal consciousness of 
 Christian unity in and through him. 
 
 Still more do we need higher measures of divine life, 
 in order to carry out all of God's organic ideas to their 
 perfection, in so great a field. Never was there a theater 
 of action so vast, with elements of so much power, to be 
 controlled. There is power in God for the emergency, 
 beyond all doubt • but that power needs a channel of devel- 
 opment. And, in comparison with the crisis, our ideas are 
 yet low and unworthy, and our moral power is weakness. 
 We need, then, in its fullest measure, the all-renovating 
 baptism of the Divine Spirit. 
 
 3. The review of the past calls for gratitude to God, and 
 should be so conducted as to exalt him, and not us, except 
 as in him. Not unto us, not unto us, Lord, but unto thy 
 name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. 
 
 His mercies have been in part common to you and other 
 churches. Others have been peculiar to you, according to 
 times and circumstances. Let all be so rehearsed and 
 acknowledged, that he shall be pleased with it, — as a 
 grateful commemoration of his mighty deeds, and not the 
 offering of incense to the pride of man. 
 
 4. This reunion should add new power to the fellowship 
 of the churches. To how many other churches is this 
 
82 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 church now linked by her own children, now returning to 
 renew the memories of other days, and to all by common 
 principles and interests. The tide of divine ideas and 
 emotions underlies us all, and lifts all together towards our 
 eternal inheritance. There is one Grod and Father of all, 
 who is above all, in all, and through all. There is one 
 Lord, one faith, one baptism. May his Spirit, then, make 
 us still more perfectly one, as Christ and the Father are 
 one, — even as he prayed before he gave himself to death 
 for our redemption. 
 
 5. The Grod who has done so much, can complete his 
 work by a final reunion of the sons of the pilgrims in one 
 common fellowship of love and faith. For this, in this 
 sacred hour, let us pray, in the full assurance of faith. 
 When we recall the prayers and labors of our pious fathers, 
 we can not doubt that their children are still beloved for 
 their fathers' sake. The excitement and alienation of con- 
 troversy have gone by. The evil tendency of false systems 
 is more and more revealing itself. Why should not the 
 Divine Spirit then be trusted, as able to bring all the 
 children of so beloved an ancestry to the unity of the faith 
 of the gospel in its purest and noblest forms ? How 
 glorious such a result, when the short episode of division 
 and strife has for ever passed away. 
 
 6. If there is so much sublimity and soul -elevating- 
 emotion in the review of the past on an occasion like this, 
 if there is so much joy in such a reunion, what must it be 
 to review all things from the throne of God ; and what 
 
EVENING DISCOURSE. 83 
 
 must be the joy of that final gathering that shall bring 
 home the perfected church to her eternal inheritance as 
 reigning in unity with God over a reorganized universe. 
 
 The conflicts of earth pass by like the shifting scenes of 
 a great drama. Generation after generation of actors dis- 
 appears. Where now are those beloved men who greeted 
 and sustained me when I came, young and inexperienced, 
 to this field of conflict ? Where are such as Evarts, 
 and Hubbard, and Homes, and Homer, and Odiorne ? 
 Where, too, are such as Edwards, and Wisner, and 
 Greene, and Cornelius ? The vision of these and many 
 other honored names passes before me at this hour. But 
 they are not with us, nor shall they return. But we shall 
 go to them. Yea, all the pure and noble of every age, 
 from their various fields of conflict and of victory, shall be 
 gathered together in one. What a reunion will that be ! 
 What a review of the past will it give ! What a sublime 
 vision of the future ! 
 
 Let, then, the thought of these things elevate and inspire 
 us, as we separate and return to our various fields of labor. 
 We are still one. There is one God and Father of all, 
 who is above us all, and in and through us all. There 
 is one Lord, one faith, one baptism ; nor shall the all- 
 comprehending purposes of God fail of a glorious fullfil- 
 ment. When the fullness of times shall come, we shall 
 be gathered together in one, in a reorganized universe. 
 The reign of error, sin, and discord shall end, and truth, 
 holiness, and divine concord shall reign and triumph ever- 
 more, — to the glory of the Triune God. 
 
igmus. 
 
HYMNS. 
 
 f*|LN the worship of the clay, two original hymns, 
 
 ^J prepared for the occasion by Hodges Reed, 
 
 w Esq. of Taunton, Mass., formerly a member of 
 
 & the Park Street Choir, were sung, the whole 
 
 congregation uniting their voices in the service. 
 
 THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 
 
 Who are the viewless ones 
 
 That hover o'er us now, 
 Well pleased to see the wanderers come, 
 
 In their old home to bow ? 
 They are our fathers in the Lord, 
 Who went, long since, to their reward. 
 
 We seem to hear, once more, 
 
 Those startling trumpet calls, — 
 Again the sleeping echoes wake 
 
 Within these hallowed walls : 
 Blessing and honor, glory and power, 
 Unto the Lamb for evermore. * 
 
 *Dr. Griffin, tlie first Pastor, often repeated, with great effect, Rev. v. 13. 
 ' Blessing, and honor,'' &c. 
 
SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Another man of God * 
 
 Points to the upward way. 
 Whose earnest voice, though hushed in death, 
 
 Eings in this house to-day. 
 His pleadings, once baptized with tears. 
 Still linger 'mid revolving years. 
 
 These servants of the Lord, 
 
 With Jesus at their side, 
 And many a trophy, gathered here. 
 
 Who in the faith has died, — 
 Are they not present with us now, 
 While we within this temple bow ? 
 
 Ye men who broke the bread 
 
 Of Heaven, and led the way, 
 And all ye children who return 
 
 To your old home to-day, 
 Sing of G-od's We and faithfulness. 
 Of which we all are witnesses. 
 
 * Rev. S. E. Dwight, D.D., the second Pastor. 
 
89 
 
 THE LITTLE ONE A THOUSAND. 
 
 Came hither, fifty years ago, 
 
 A little praying band, 
 And built a house unto the Lord, 
 
 And viewed the promised land. 
 They went forth weeping, scattering seed. 
 
 But now again are come, 
 Bringing their garner full of sheaves, 
 
 To shout the harvest home. 
 
 Of all that praying band, who first 
 
 Went forth the fields to till, 
 The most are garnered in the skies, — 
 
 The few are with us still. 
 And while they linger on the verge, 
 
 To count their victories o'er, 
 Behold the signal — ■ " GrOD is trtje," 
 
 Upon the further shore. 
 
 Yes, " Grod is true." The little one 
 
 Has to a thousand grown ; 
 Then let us pray and labor on, 
 
 Till all our work is done. 
 The fields are white, and whiter now 
 
 Than fifty years ago ; 
 And still the promise of the Lord 
 
 Stands good for those that sow. 
 
nlinzl. 
 
ix3 
 
 THE FESTIVAL. 
 
 half past two o'clock on Monday after- 
 noon, February 28, nearly one thousand per- 
 sons assembled in the Boston Music Hall, 
 and were conducted to their seats at the 
 refreshment tables by E. W. Pike, Esq., Chief 
 Marshal of the day. The sketch of the proceed- 
 ings through the afternoon and evening, is taken 
 from the full and excellent report of the Boston 
 Evening Traveler, in its issue of March 1. 
 
 The semi-centennial anniversary of the organization of 
 the Park Street Church was celebrated yesterday by a 
 festival at the Music Hall. The occasion was one which 
 will be long remembered by all who were present. There 
 were plates set for over nine hundred persons. The dinner 
 was provided by J. B. Smith, and we believe all were 
 amply supplied with every thing desirable to eat. The 
 tables occupied the entire body of the hall. Tables were 
 also set upon the platform, where clergymen and other 
 invited guests were seated. 
 
94 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 While the company were coining in, a voluntary was 
 played upon the organ, and afterwards a glee was sung 
 by the choir of the Park Street Church, under the direc- 
 tion of Professor Frost. The singers were located in 
 the second balcony, opposite the platform, and performed 
 their part of the exercises in fine style. 
 
 PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW OF THE HALL. 
 
 As soon as the company were all seated at the table, 
 Rev. Mr. Stone, who presided on the occasion, announced 
 that there were artists present who desired to take photo- 
 graphic views of the scene. He jocosely requested all to 
 take the best position they could, with their pleasantest 
 smiles ; and when all were still, he would give three raps 
 upon the table as a signal for the artists. This was done, 
 . and the pictures were taken. 
 
 A blessing was then asked by Rev. Dr. Aiken, of Ver- 
 mont, after which the edibles upon the tables were discussed 
 in right good earnest by the nine hundred hungry guests. 
 
 invited guests. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Stone sat in the center of the table upon 
 the platform. Upon either side of him were seated Mrs. 
 Crawford, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Griffin, the first 
 pastor of Park Street Church, her husband, Rev. Mr. 
 Crawford, Rev. Dr. Blagden, Rev. Dr. Linsley, Rev. 
 Dr. Aiken, and Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher, (the three 
 last the surviving ex -pastors of the church,) Rev. Mr. 
 Haskell, of the Maverick Church, East Boston, Rev. H. 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 95 
 
 M. Dexter, of the Pine Street Church, Rev. Dr. Ander- 
 son, and Rev. Dr. Treat, of the American Board, Rev. 
 Mr. Johnson, of the Bowdoin Street Church, W. T. 
 Eustis, Esq., Hodges Reed, Esq. of Taunton, Rev. Mr. 
 Thwing, of Portland, Rev. W. T. Eustis, of New Haven, 
 Rev. Dr. Davidson, Rev. E. Aiken, returned missionary, 
 Deacons Henry Hill, Julius A. Palmer, John Proc- 
 tor, N. Willis, Tylor Bacheller, E. Lamson, Henry 
 
 HOYT, E. FARNSWORTH, J. FULLARTON, C. C. LlTCHFIELD, 
 
 T. Thwing. Also, J. V. Bacon, Peter Harvey, Edmund 
 Munroe, E. W. Pike, Samuel Neale, T. W. Nicker- 
 so n, and a large number of ladies who were wives of the 
 gentlemen above named. 
 
 THE FEAST OF REASON. 
 
 At the conclusion of that part of the feast which per- 
 tained to the wants of the inner man, Rev. Mr. Stone 
 addressed the guests as follows : — 
 
 SPEECH OF REV. A. L. STONE. 
 
 " Fathers, Brethren, and Friends : It is a most 
 enviable privilege to stand here to-day and be the voice 
 of welcome from the old church to her returning and gather- 
 ing sons and daughters. This privilege is accorded to me 
 not because that voice of welcome could not be more 
 felicitously uttered by some other son of our venerable 
 
96 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 parent, but because it was thought to belong to the place 
 which I fill and the relations which I sustain. 
 
 " I speak, then, the mother's greeting to her many chil- 
 dren. She might almost ask, ' Who are these that fly as 
 a cloud, and as doves to their windows ? ' A proud and 
 joyful mother is she to-day. Not yet in her age, but in 
 her prime ; keeping her golden bridal, and yet counting 
 two thousand to-day that salute her with filial voices. 
 
 " You have come at her call from the East and the 
 West, — -from the North and the South, — the adopted homes 
 sought far and near, — the fields of labor in which you 
 have found room to toil for the Master. 
 
 " The happy mother leans towards you with open arms. 
 Her heart is large enough to cherish you all. She takes 
 you to her bosom. She falls upon your neck and kisses 
 you. The whole home is moved at your coming. The 
 walls there greet you, and the stately spire, — and the 
 bell striking out joy-peals, — the pulpit and the pews, — 
 the aisles worn by the pacing of your feet in other days, 
 
 — the organ, with its choral pipes, — the room of social 
 prayer, most like heaven of any place this side the celestial 
 gate, — the table around which we have met for banquets 
 whose sweetness only the feasts of immortality can surpass, 
 
 — all that your eyes have looked upon long since, and 
 your hands have handled, and your hearts in absence 
 have remembered, pronounce to you, ' Welcome ! welcome 
 home ! ' 
 
 " You know not how precious a legacy your memory is 
 to us. We do not forget that you have been ours. You 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 97 
 
 are still and for ever ours. The children that go out from 
 their father's house, and wed, and light up hearthstones 
 of their own, are non^ the less for that of the old home- 
 stead still. You bear our name abroad. We quote you, 
 and rejoice in you. On our anniversaries, we commemorate 
 you. And blessed is this hour which brings you back 
 again. Our festival were most incomplete without you. 
 It were like a family thanksgiving with the elder children 
 absent. Nor does it grieve the good mother that some of 
 her children are not. She has no more illustrious names 
 graven on her heart than some that are spoken now in 
 heaven ; no sweeter joy than she feels as she bends above 
 their dust and whispers to herself, ' They rest from their 
 labors, and their works do follow them.' 
 
 " Among the living, we greet here to day, first of all, 
 those surviving successors in the ministry of that great 
 name under which this enterprise was first set forward. Nor 
 are we even without a representative of that name itself. 
 A daughter of the first pastor of this church, with her 
 partner, himself an honored and able minister of the gospel, 
 sits at our board to-day. 
 
 " Three of those who have broken here the bread of life 
 to this people, — filling together in their time of actual 
 service, seventeen years of the life of the church, — are 
 present on my right hand and my left in this scene ; and 
 yesterday we heard their voices again, waking the old echoes 
 amid the walls that witnessed their faithfulness of long ago. 
 Beloved and honored brethren, suffer me, in the name of 
 all to whom you have ministered here, whom you have led, 
 
98 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 and taught, and blest, and comforted, — on behalf of many 
 homes where your names are still the dearest household 
 words spoken, — in the names of those once baptized by you, 
 who have since shot up into the youthful strength of the 
 church, — in the names of those who have since your time 
 gathered to these portals and entered into your labors, — 
 to give you the truest welcome our hearts can bestow, 
 
 "Here before me, too, are church builders, — men and 
 women who went forth from the threshold of home to found 
 other Christian enterprises, to lift other walls and altars 
 for prayer and praise, and the utterance of the truth as it 
 is in Jesus, themselves built into the rising masonry as 
 living stones, — leaders of spiritual colonies, — self-sacri- 
 ficing men, — laying themselves down out of sight as foun- 
 dation stones for others to build upon. The mother that 
 parted with you cheerfully, though tearfully, welcomes you 
 back this day. 
 
 " Here are those whom the various providences of Grod 
 have led from post to post, from family to family of his 
 people, but never separate from the fellowship of the saints. 
 You are brothers and sisters here, as truly as you can be 
 any where, and as such we greet you. 
 
 " Here are the veterans who have stood the brunt of 
 many a spirited conflict on this field, — 'listed for life in 
 this regiment, — soldiers of the old wars here waged and 
 won, with battle-scars of their youth upon them, and ready 
 to do and dare yet for Christ, till he crown them in the day 
 of final triumph. We welcome you with your stars of 
 honor, set not on your breast, but in the diadem of Jesus. 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 99 
 
 " Here linger yet the founders of the church. They 
 are few in number, and bowed with the weight of years. 
 But four of that original twenty-six survive in our ranks. 
 Two of them, the senior deacon and his wife, are living in 
 the midst of us, and are at our table to-day. The snows 
 of fifty years have sifted upon their locks, — or those wintry 
 frosts have thinned out those locks till but few remain. 
 What thoughts must be in your hearts, venerable friends, 
 as you recall the old times. 
 
 " How easily you look across the breadth of those fifty 
 years ! Their farther shore is nearer and clearer to you 
 than the morning of yesterday. How well you must remem- 
 ber the early struggles, your comrades and fellows, the 
 hopes and fears, the fluctuations of advance and retrogres- 
 sion, the meetings for prayer, the adventurous outset in the 
 great scheme, which is now historic. Behold your vine, 
 the vine God planted by your hand ; see whereto it has 
 grown. Ah, how many purple clusters have ripened upon 
 its boughs, — how many weary ones have sat in its broad 
 shadow. How green and flourishing it is now. Say, has 
 not God been faithful ? Has he not heard your prayers, 
 and crowned your hopes ? More than the light of youth 
 beams in your eyes, as you survey this past. Ah, the 
 light of the eternal day, of the now setting sun is dancing 
 there. How many on earth bless your name and memory ! 
 We bless you in the name of the Master Builder. The 
 ends of the earth, the islands of the sea, bless you. Bless- 
 ings from hundreds and thousands of redeemed souls shall 
 be your welcome at the portals of heaven. 
 
100 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 '• What changes hare you seen, what changes has the 
 world seen, since fifty years ago ! Other voices here will 
 recall those changes more vividly than mine can do. What 
 changes we shall see, and the world shall see, before another 
 fifty years shall have elapsed, who can prophesy ? 
 
 11 Our places will most of them be vacant. These little 
 ones of ours will stand up to recall the impressions of this' 
 hour. The grand purposes of G-od will have rolled on, — 
 the deep, broad tide carried forward all its crested and 
 rejoicing waves. Then, as now, the unseen guests will not 
 fail the gathering. 
 
 " The unseen guests ! We have greeted and welcomed 
 the living. May we greet you from your heavenly man- 
 sions ? Can ye hear mortal voices ? Welcome, thrice 
 welcome, to the scenes of your earthly labors and sacrifices. 
 Spirits of G-riffin and Dwight, of Dennie, and Dana, 
 and Odiorne, of that other beloved and benignant Dwight, 
 of Homes and Homer, of Evarts, and Hubbard, and 
 Safford, — your names are a fragrant memorial from 
 generation to generation of those who have followed you. 
 Heaven's banquet can scarcely be sweeter to you than ours 
 to-day. You are over the river. Drop your mantles upon 
 us that follow you. 
 
 " But I occupy too much of the time of this assembly. 
 Other voices will better continue this strain, and in their 
 various addresses cover all the record of our past." 
 
 At the conclusion of Mr. Stone's address, there was 
 applause from all parts of the house, after which the choir 
 struck up " Auld Lang Syne." 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 101 
 
 RELIC OF REV. DR. GRIFFIN. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Stone then held up to the audience what he 
 called a relic of Rev. Dr. GrRiFFiN. An arm-chair, in 
 which he (Mr. Stone) had sat at the communion-table 
 on the last Sabbath, and in which he had been permitted 
 to sit, thus far, during the festival. 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF REV. DR. GRIFFIN. 
 
 He then introduced the first baby that was baptized in 
 Park Street Church, fifty years ago, a daughter of Rev. 
 Dr. Griffin, — Mrs. Crawford, of Deerfield. She could 
 not, said Mr. Stone, speak for herself on that occasion, but 
 he thought her husband could speak for her. 
 
 This announcement produced great sensation in the hall, 
 during which Mrs. Crawford rose. She could not control 
 her emotions. 
 
 REMARKS OF REV. MR. CRAWFORD. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Crawford, of Deerfield, then rose, and after 
 much applause, said he could not express the gratification 
 which he felt in standing as the representative of Dr. 
 Griffin. He was gratified to receive an invitation to be 
 present, and had looked forward to the occasion with very 
 great interest and pleasure ; and this had increased every 
 moment since he had been in the city. In alluding to the 
 rise and progress of Park Street Church, he said that the 
 little one had, literally, become a thousand. Many had gone 
 up from the church to receive their reward, but what a 
 multitude remained. 
 
102 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Job said, " I would not live alway/' Dr. Griffin, when 
 at the meeting of the American Board in Newark, N. J., 
 said that he thanked Grod that good men might die. The 
 church was the place where Grod trained up men for his 
 kingdom, and where he prepared them for the church tri- 
 umphant above. If that object were attained here, then 
 the great object of life would be attained. While sitting 
 in his seat, he could not help thinking of those who had 
 gone up on high. His own church had its representatives 
 above. Many persons had been aided on their way to 
 heaven by the Park Street Church. Those good men who 
 knew that church from its commencement, might be then 
 looking down upon the scenes before them. If so, they 
 must regard them with the most intense interest. 
 
 He closed by expressing his cordial sympathy with the 
 church, and his earnest desires for its prosperity. 
 
 Mr. Stone then read the following letters. 
 
 FROM REV. N. MURRAY, D.D., OF ELIZABETHTOWN, N. J. 
 " Elizabethtown, February 21, 1859. 
 
 " To Edwin Lamson, Esq. 
 
 " My dear Sir : Your very kind note, inviting me to 
 the semi-centennial celebration of Park Street Church, is 
 at hand. Most gladly would I accept the invitation, were 
 it in my power ; but the services preparatory to our com- 
 munion forbid me to do so, — and you will please convey 
 my regrets to your committee and people that I cannot 
 mingle with them on that joyous occasion. 
 
 " Some of my most pleasant associations are connected 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 103 
 
 with the church of Park Street. Its building was amongst 
 the first fruits of the revival of the doctrines of the West- 
 minster Symbols in your city. Its first pastor was subse- 
 quently my venerated teacher in college, Dr. Griffin, — a 
 name dear to the American Church. In the seventh year of 
 my ministry, I was invited to be its pastor twice, and twice 
 I was compelled to decline the invitation, as much in view 
 of my own incompetency for the place, as for other causes. 
 Some of its men and members have made an impression 
 on my mind which can never be effaced. Among these 
 was Judge Hubbard, who yet stands out before me in all 
 his fine proportions, as a model man and Christian. And 
 I have truly rejoiced to hear of your prosperity ; and that 
 through the changes and chances of fifty years you have 
 been growing like the cedars of Lebanon. May old Park 
 Street remain what it has always been, — a fortress for the 
 defence of the truth in the midst of error, — a lighthouse 
 to direct many a weary pilgrim, toiling over the sea of life, 
 to a safe harbor and a quiet anchorage under the shelter 
 of the Rock of Ages. 
 
 " With the kindest regards to your pastor, committee, 
 and people, I am, my dear sir, 
 
 " Sincerely yours, N. Murray." 
 
 FROM REV. DR. HAWES OF HARTFORD. 
 
 "Hartford, Feb. 23, 1859. 
 
 "Messrs. E. Lamson and T. W. Nickerson : — 
 
 " Gentlemen : I have received your kind note, inviting me 
 to be present at the semi-centennial celebration of the Park 
 
104 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Street Church. I should be exceedingly happy to comply 
 with your request, and participate in the services of that 
 interesting occasion, but the present state of my health 
 forbids the hope of enjoying that privilege. 
 
 " 1 trust the good Lord, who has so abundantly pros- 
 pered your church from the first, will be present, and make 
 the occasion one of great interest and spiritual improvement 
 to all who shall assemble. 
 
 " I have some reason for feeling a peculiar interest in your 
 church, having been twice invited to become its pastor. 
 But the Lord provided better both for you and for me ; for 
 you in sending you a better minister, and for me in keeping 
 me in my place. 
 
 " But though I can not be present with you in person, I 
 shall be in spirit, and my heart prompts me to send a sen- 
 timent, — not a toast, to be drank over the wine-cup, as of 
 old, — which you will dispose of as you think proper. 
 " Yours, in the bonds of Christian love, 
 
 " J. Ha wes. 
 
 " Sentiment. — -The Park Street Church, — a forlorn hope 
 in a dark and trying day; victory perched on its standard, 
 established on truth, and borne aloft by faith and love; 
 there may it abide till all conflict with sin and error be over, 
 and the church itself be absorbed in the Church of the 
 First-born in heaven." 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 105 
 
 FROM REV. DR. DWIGHT, OF PORTLAND. 
 
 " Portland, Feb. 23, 1859. 
 
 " Gentlemen : Permit me to express through yourselves 
 my thanks to the Park Street Church for their ' cordial 
 invitation ; to me to be present at the approaching celebra- 
 tion of your fiftieth anniversary. The occasion will be one 
 of deep interest, not only to the multitude there assembled, 
 but also to its many absent friends who have been acquainted 
 with its history, and who have rejoiced in the prosperity 
 with which the Saviour has abundantly blessed it. As the 
 church of which my brother was the second pastor, and the 
 term of which connection was one of the happiest and most 
 useful portions of his ministerial life, I need not add that 
 the celebration would have a peculiar interest for myself, 
 were it in my power to be present. 
 
 " The circumstances of indisposition in my family, and 
 of a late absence from Portland, which renders it necessary 
 for me to be at home on the coming Sabbath, will preclude 
 my acceptance of the invitation which you so kindly tender. 
 Believe me, gentlemen, to be, 
 
 " Truly yours, 
 
 " W. T. Dwtght." 
 
 Mr. Stone then held up several antiquated papers, one 
 of which, he said, was the charge delivered by Rev. Dr. 
 Codman of Dorchester, to Rev. Edward Beecher, the 
 third pastor of Park Street Church. He would not read 
 the charge, but he would charge Dr. Beecher to stand up 
 on his feet. 
 
106 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 REMARKS OF REV. EDWARD BEECHER, D.D. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Beecher said lie must first present to the 
 church the message of his father. Had it not been for his 
 age and feeble health, he would have been present. He 
 sent his warmest expression of sympathy for the church, and 
 wished him to speak of his desire to be with them on the 
 anniversary occasion. 
 
 Dr. Beecher said that there had been one thought that 
 had occupied his mind since he had been present in Boston. 
 He had turned over the manual of the church, and had 
 looked back to its organization. The number that met in a 
 private house to join the church was small. The sermon 
 was preached by Rev. Dr. Morse, from the words in the 
 Psalms — "Save now, I beseech thee, Lord; send now 
 prosperity." He thought of that in connection with the 
 gathering on the anniversary occasion, and he felt that the 
 prayers of that day had been answered. When the request 
 came to him to be present, he thought he could not leave 
 his work in the far West; but he remembered that fifty 
 years did not come round very often, and that it would be 
 fifty years before there would be another occasion like the 
 present, and so he concluded to come on. 
 
 In thinking of the older persons connected with the 
 earlier history of the church, he had been reminded of what 
 his father said when he went to see the people of his first 
 charge : " If I wish," said the old gentleman, " to see my 
 old people, I must go to the graveyard." In looking round 
 the church on the last Sabbath, he saw very few of the old 
 people; the faces were nearly all new to him, and yet they 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 107 
 
 were not unknown to him in heart. In comparing the faith 
 of the projectors of Park Street Church, he was reminded 
 of the faith and enterprise of the men who went to the 
 West to found towns and cities. Little villages had grown 
 to be large cities since he had been there. The little band 
 that formed the church did not see the results that would 
 follow; but there were around them the unseen laws. 
 Angels saw the coming conflict, — that gathering of forces 
 which it was the privilege of the men of the present day to 
 appreciate. Glod had the whole enterprise marked out. 
 
 Dr. Beecher then spoke of the four years of his father's 
 ministry when the whole city was alive, — when it was as if 
 the very hills were ringing with the cry of fire, — when 
 there was one continued rush onward in the conflict. The 
 end had not yet been seen. The stopping-point had not yet 
 been reached. The men who formed the church stood as the 
 representatives of principles above them; and so the church 
 to-day stood as the representatives of principles above it. 
 They were not half up to the thoughts of the great Word. 
 Great as the results had been, they were but the beginning. 
 The intensity of the conflict was to come. The church was 
 as much below what it would be at the end of the next fifty 
 years, as the little band was below the church of to-day. 
 He closed by invoking the blessing of heaven upon the 
 church, that they might apprehend, in some measure, the 
 purposes and plans of Grod, and co-operate with him in his 
 great work of saving men. 
 
 After a song by the choir, Mr. Stone presented another 
 yellow document, put into his hand by Judge Farrar, 
 
108 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 viz. a copy of the address delivered by Rev. Dr. Codman 
 on the occasion of the installation of Rev. Dr. Linsley. 
 He asked the audience whether they would have the doc- 
 ument or the living voice. 
 
 REMARKS OF REV. DR. LINSLEY. 
 
 After long applause, Rev. Dr. Linsley responded. He 
 had a heart to express what he desired, but no tongue. He 
 had had a hearty welcome, and he expected he would; but 
 he had found that the half had not been expected. He had 
 met friends from all parts of the land with warm and loving 
 hearts. He then indulged in some pleasing reminiscences 
 of persons connected with the church in olden times. 
 
 Their first struggle gave character to the work. He 
 always wondered where Park Street Church got her dispo- 
 sition to give to benevolent objects; but he knew now that 
 the secret of it was to be seen in the very beginning. After 
 relating a number of facts in connection with Dr. Griffin, 
 he concluded by saying that those who first founded the 
 church had to endure an amount of obloquy unknown in 
 these later years. He would never forget the present occa- 
 sion, and he said it seemed to him like the beginning of 
 heaven. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Aiken was next introduced, as the pastor whose 
 labors the church had enjoyed the longest, and whose name 
 was like a household word. 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 109 
 
 REMARKS OF REV. DR. AIKEN. 
 
 Dr. Aiken rose amid great applause, and expressed his 
 gratitude for the hearty welcome he had received. When 
 he came to Park Street Church he knew that, from the 
 beginning, it had been identified with Christ's kingdom. It 
 was perfectly clear that God meant that the church should 
 raise his standard. It was of little consequence what became 
 of individual members, — the church would live. Let that 
 church, said Dr. Aiken, in which I have spent the best part 
 of my life, continue to cherish an interest in the kingdom of 
 Christ and identify itself with all the benevolent enterprises 
 of the day. Glod had much for the church to do, and in 
 the great day it would be clearly seen for what it had been 
 organized. After indulging in some reminiscences, he closed 
 amid applause from all parts of the house. 
 
 The choir then sung another glee, after which Dr. 
 Blagden was introduced. 
 
 remarks of rev. dr. blagden. 
 He spoke of the great doctrines of the church over which 
 he was placed, which were embodied in its creed, and said 
 those doctrines must not be forgotten. He rejoiced that 
 they had been ever taught in Park Street, Pine Street, and 
 other churches in the city. The young people wanted to 
 be indoctrinated, and he thought they should. As min- 
 isters, never be ashamed of the name of John Calvin. 
 It had been said that the Old South Church was shivering 
 in the wind. He did not believe this j and if persons would 
 
110 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 look up to the confession of faith of the church, they would 
 find there was no cause for such a remark. 
 
 That confession was so strong, it sometimes made him 
 shiver to read it. The Old South had its advantages 
 and disadvantages. It was a rich church, and had been 
 called an aristocratic church j and this was one of its dis- 
 advantages. He appealed with great earnestness to all the 
 members of the churches to go on in their mission, and 
 do more good in the future. 
 
 Mr. Stone then said, that having heard from their rich 
 and aristocratic mother, it would be pleasant to have a little 
 filial greeting from the Union, or Essex Street Church, one 
 of the daughters of Park Street. He regretted, however, 
 that the pastor was not present. The second daughter was 
 the Hanover Street, now the Bowdoin Street Church, first 
 built in 1825, and rebuilt, in 1832, in Bowdoin Street. 
 He wished the old man eloquent [applause] could be 
 there to greet them ; but there was one who could speak 
 for the church, viz : Rev. Mr. Johnson, the present supply. 
 
 REMARKS OF REV. MR. JOHNSON. 
 
 Mr. Johnson's remarks were very brief. He spoke of 
 Bowdoin Street Church as yet alive, with good stanch 
 timbers in her ship. If it had gone, sometimes, almost 
 under the waves, it had gathered strength to breast and 
 surmount them again. He invoked Grod's blessing upon 
 the Park Street pastor, about to launch upon the wave, and 
 hoped he would come back invigorated and strengthened 
 in body and mind. 
 
THE FESTIVAL. Ill 
 
 Dr. Beecher then delivered a message of friendship and 
 good-will from his brother, Henry Ward, and said that 
 his father was the author of the words, " shivering in the 
 wind/' as applied to the Old South Church. 
 
 Dr. Blagden replied pleasantly that it sounded like his 
 father ; and he remembered of hearing him say, " When 
 you express a truth, light it up with a metaphor ; " and he 
 supposed that this was the way he used the words " shiver- 
 ing in the wind." 
 
 Mr. Stone then said, after we had two daughters, we 
 then had twins, — referring to the organization of Salem 
 and Pine Street churches, in September, 1827. They sent 
 ten members to Pine Street, and thirteen to Salem Street. 
 
 Mr. Dexter was then introduced. 
 
 REMARKS OF REV. MR. DEXTER. 
 
 Mr. Dexter said that he believed it was a fact in natural 
 history, that, in a double birth, one had an unequal share 
 of strength. The history of the last thirty years proved 
 that Pine Street was the weaker of the twins. He believed 
 that the church had been rightly named, for it had pined 
 from its beginning, and had been in the woods ever since it 
 was born. It had never been troubled with the disadvan- 
 tages of the Old South Church. 
 
 Mr. Dexter then spoke of the prospects of his church, 
 and alluded to their intention to build, and hoped, when 
 the time came, the help that was needed would come. He 
 was repeatedly applauded during his remarks, especially in 
 those which alluded to Mr. Stone in his anticipated voyage. 
 
112 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 He closed with a beautiful sentiment to the Park Street 
 pastor. 
 
 Other . remarks were made by Deacon Palmer, Deacon 
 Hill, Kev. Dr. Anderson, and William T. Eustis, Esq. 
 We have only room for the remarks of the latter, which 
 contain much valuable information relating to Park Street 
 Church. 
 
 REMARKS OF WILLIAM T. EUSTIS, ESQ. 
 
 Mr. Eustis commenced his speech by alluding to the 
 generations of men which rapidly succeeded each other, 
 and quoted the following passages of Scripture. 
 
 " One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare 
 thy mighty acts." 
 
 " They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and 
 shall sing of thy righteousness." 
 
 He then stated that Park Street Church was organized 
 February 27, 1809. The church edifice was dedicated Jan- 
 uary 10, 1810 ; sermon by Dr. Edward Griffin, the 
 officiating clergyman, who at that time was Professor at the 
 Theological Seminary at Andover, but was regularly installed 
 as pastor of Park Street Church and Society July 31, 1811. 
 
 The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
 sions was established by the General Association of Congre- 
 gational Ministers, June, 1810. About five months after 
 the dedication of the Park Street Church, on the sixth of 
 February, 1811, the first missionaries of the American 
 Board were ordained at the Tabernacle Church, Salem. Dr. 
 Griffin took part in the services on that occasion. 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 113 
 
 The church has furnished eight missionaries for the 
 foreign mission field, viz : four males, and four females. 
 Males, — Chamberlain, Winn, H. A. Honey, and Ed- 
 ward Aiken. Females, — Ellen Stetson, Mary Winn, 
 Maria Grozier, E. Edwards. Also, two Secretaries of 
 the Board, — one, who sustained the duties of the office 
 nearly ten years, has entered into his rest, — the other, 
 after having filled the office of Assistant Secretary for eight 
 years, in 1832 was appointed Secretary in full, the duties 
 of which oflice he still discharges with distinguished ability, 
 having labored faithfully for thirty-five years. May he 
 long be continued to witness the success of the work in 
 which he has been so diligently engaged. 
 
 Two Treasurers, — one of whom discharged the duties 
 of the oflice about ten years, the other, after having given 
 thirty-two years of the most active portion of his life to 
 the service of the Board as Treasurer, voluntarily resigned 
 his oflice four years since, but the Board have still the 
 benefit of his valuable services as a member of the Pruden- 
 tial Committee. One Secular Agent, — for many years 
 engaged at the Missionary House, in contributing to the 
 temporal comfort of the missionaries by attending to their 
 outfits and their secular wants, as indicated from time to 
 time by orders sent from their several fields of labor. 
 
 In the latter part of the year 1811, the Foreign Mission- 
 ary Society of Boston and vicinity originated in Park Street 
 Church, and was formed in the house of one of its mem- 
 bers. The object of this Society was to raise funds for 
 
114 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 the foreign mission cause. This was the leading society 
 in the United States for this object. 
 
 The monthly concert was first commenced by members 
 of the Park Street Church, early in the fall of 1817. It 
 was soon followed by the Old South. In June, 1818, by 
 vote of the two churches, a union was agreed to be held 
 in Park Street, which was established July 6, 1818. In 
 January, 1820, Essex Street united with us by invitation, 
 and since then other churches have been connected with 
 us. 
 
 The contributions of Park Street Church to the foreign 
 missionary cause have been as follows : — 
 
 Monthy concert $27,586 38 
 
 Individual contributions .... 74,950 81 
 
 $102,537 19 
 
 After making allowance for the amount contributed by 
 other churches at the monthly concert, it is fair to calculate 
 that nearly $100,000 has been contributed by this church 
 and society for this object. 
 
 Press. For thirteen years this church furnished an effi- 
 cient and accomplished editor of the Panoplist and 3Iis- 
 sionary Herald, the latter devoted to the cause of Missions. 
 
 The foreign mission press was first suggested and started, 
 it is believed, by a member of this church; for this object 
 the sum of $13,400 was raised, of which S3, 350, or one 
 quarter of the amount, was contributed by a few individuals 
 of this church. 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 115 
 
 The Boston Recorder — believed to be among the first 
 religious newspapers — ■ was published by our highly re- 
 spected and venerable brother, Deacon Nathaniel Willis, 
 on the fifth day of January, 1816, and has been continued 
 to the present time, exerting an unabated influence in favor 
 of Christian Missions. 
 
 On the fifteenth of October, 1819, an event occurred, and 
 a scene was exhibited in Park Street Church, which has 
 not been surpassed for interest or importance in the history 
 of missions. The Sandwich Island church, consisting of 
 seventeen members, viz : Rev. Hiram Bingham, Rev. 
 Asa Thurston, Daniel Chamberlain, Dr. Thomas 
 Holman, Samuel Whitney, Samuel Ruggles, Elisha 
 Loomis, and their wives, John Honoore, Thomas Hop- 
 poo, W. Tennore, natives of the Sandwich Islands, was 
 duly constituted, with religious services in the vestry, by 
 Drs. Morse and Worcester, and Rev. Mr. Dwight, our 
 pastor. In the evening, a sermon was preached by Rev. 
 Mr. Bingham ; and on the next day another sermon was 
 delivered, by the Rev. Mr. Thurston. 
 
 The present number of members in regular standing 
 in the church at the Sandwich Islands is twenty-two thou- 
 sand five hundred and thirty -five, contributing annually 
 more than twenty-three thousand dollars for the support of 
 the gospel and religious institutions. 
 
 The whole number that have been connected with the 
 church since it was organized is not less than thirty-five 
 thousand. Thus, a "little one" has become literally more 
 
 9* 
 
116 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 than a thousand. Truly, " this is the Lord's doing, and 
 it is marvelous in our eyes." 
 
 Since that time various bands of missionaries have re- 
 ceived their instructions in this house, numbering in the 
 whole nearly two hundred persons. We may truly say 
 this is a missionary house, and the ground on which we 
 stand is holy. 
 
 In the summer of 1815, the American Educational So- 
 ciety was formed in Park Street Vestry, and a committee 
 appointed to draft a constitution. 
 
 In the early part of the year 1826, the idea of a national 
 society for home missions was suggested at a meeting of 
 friends at the house of a member of this church, which 
 led to the formation of the American Home Missionary 
 Society of New York, May, 1826. 
 
 January, 1826. At the urgent request of that apostle 
 of temperance, the Rev. Dr. Edwards, the first meeting 
 for conference on the subject of temperance reformation, 
 in Park Street Vestry, resulted in the formation of the 
 American Temperance Society, and associate societies. 
 
 In October, 1824, a movement made by a member of 
 Park Street Church (Rev. Lewis Dwight), resulted in 
 the formation of the Prison Discipline Society, in which 
 Howardian work he labored with untiring zeal and success, 
 as agent and secretary, until his death, three years since, 
 having accomplished the great work of reform in the 
 prisons of our own country, and also exerted an influence 
 over the Christian world. 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 117 
 
 There might he many other incidents of interest referred 
 to in connection with Park Street Church and Society, but 
 I have, in these remarks, purposed mainly to confine myself 
 to Park Street Church as connected with the missionary 
 cause, and thus being truly a missionary church • and I 
 can not better conclude what I have said on this subject, 
 than to use the words of one to whom I am principally 
 indebted for the facts I have stated, which were embodied 
 in a manuscript report made by him to Park Street Church, 
 in 1843. I allude to the late Judge Samuel Hubbard, 
 for many years a dearly beloved and highly esteemed and 
 revered member of this church, till his death, in Decem- 
 ber, 1847. 
 
 " The venerable fathers of Park Street Church, of 
 whom we may be permitted to name Bumstead, and 
 Homes, and Homer, and J. W. Jenkins, had it in their 
 hearts, when they agreed to erect this beautiful house of 
 worship, to pray that it should be the way of holiness; a 
 place in which the ransomed of the Lord should return and 
 come to Zion with songs ; a place in which the precious 
 messages of salvation should be freely communicated to 
 thousands ; that it might become a church whose spirit 
 should be the spirit of missions ) and though the eye of 
 faith was not then opened to embrace within its vision the 
 foreign fields in Asia, Africa, and the Islands of the Sea, 
 nor the mind to contemplate that ' the wilderness and the 
 solitary place should be glad for them, and the desert 
 should rejoice and blossom as the rose,' yet, as the fair 
 flower is wrapped within the swelling bud, and the limbs 
 
118 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 of the mighty tree lie folded in the parent nut, so the 
 germ of the missionary spirit existed in the hearts of the 
 founders of this chnrch j and when the Lord of Missions 
 cast a ray of heavenly light upon the first missionaries, 
 and the founders of the American Board, and opened to 
 their admiring view the prospect of Christian enterprise 
 in heathen lands, and turned their pitying gaze upon the 
 dark places of the earth which are full of the habitations 
 of cruelty, then the Lord also moved the spirit of these 
 brethren, and they and their associates became a missionary 
 church." 
 
 We may, then, ask if the supply of missionaries, of offi- 
 cers, of counsellors, and agents for the Board, — if the 
 establishment and maintenance of the united monthly con- 
 cert, — if the collective monthly, annual, and individual 
 contributions, — if the consecration of the house to the 
 reception and ordination of missionaries, — if family hos- 
 pitality and personal kindness to those servants of Christ, 
 — if perseverance in these things from year to year, — if 
 the combinations of these constituents are the elements 
 of the missionary enterprise, — if these are the measures 
 the Lord of Missions points out and approves, — then the 
 church in Park Street, with humility ', but with consistency, 
 may claim the name and honor of a missionary church. 
 
 And let us animate our hearts with the hope that in 
 days to come, when the Sandwich Island churches shall 
 teach their children the names of Bingham, and Thurs- 
 ton, and Chamberlain, and Coan, and Worcester, 
 and EvABTS, and shall tune their voices to sing the praise.- 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 119 
 
 of hini who redeemed them, in that noble anthem, " Head 
 of the Church Triumphant," — when, from age to age, 
 they shall trace their origin as a Christian people to the 
 far distant shore of America, — that then also shall the 
 church in Park Street, — the place of their birth, — be 
 sounded out in harmonious numbers, and its hallowed walls 
 be held in everlasting remembrance. 
 
 The exercises of the afternoon were closed at half past 
 five o'clock. 
 
 THE EVENING. 
 
 The company reassembled at half past seven o'clock, in 
 Music Hall. After some time spent in social conversation 
 and promenade, Rev. Mr. Stone called the audience to 
 order. 
 
 Deacon Lamson read some extracts from the diaries of 
 members of Park Street Church, which we should be 
 glad to publish, if we could find room. 
 
 After a few remarks by Rev. Mr. Eustis, of New Haven, 
 letters were read from different persons, some of which we 
 give. 
 
 LETTER FROM PROF. SHEDD. 
 
 "Andover, February 24, 1859. 
 " Gentlemen : I have received your note of February 
 16, conveying the vote of the Park Street Church, inviting 
 
120 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 me to be present at the coming celebration of the fiftieth 
 anniversary of their foundation. I regret extremely that 
 my engagements will prevent me from accepting this invi- 
 tation. Please to express my sincere thanks for this 
 courtesy, and my hearty wishes for a happy and profitable 
 reunion of the widely scattered membership of a church, 
 so closely identified as that of Park Street, with the inter- 
 ests of evangelical Christianity in both the past and the 
 present. 
 
 " With high respect, I am 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 "W. G. T. Shedd." 
 
 LETTER FROM PROF. STOWE. 
 " Theological Seminary, Andover, Feb. 26, 1859. 
 
 " Pear Brethren : I am very much obliged to you for 
 your kind invitation extended to me to be present at the 
 semi-centennial anniversary of the formation of the Park 
 Street Church in Boston. 
 
 " Though I was very young fifty years ago, I well remem- 
 ber the simplicity of faith and the warmth of love which 
 characterized those who took the lead in that great effort, 
 and I well remember, too, the bitter hostility and crushing 
 obloquy against which they had to struggle. All the world 
 was against them, but God was with them; they fought 
 a good fight, and Christ gave them the victory. 
 
 " I very much fear that a violent cold, under which I 
 am now laboring, will deprive me of the pleasure and 
 privilege of being with you in bodily presence ; but my 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 121 
 
 spirit surely will sympathize and rejoice with yours on 
 that occasion. 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 "C. E. Stowe." 
 
 LETTER FROM REV. DR. JENKS. 
 
 " Crescent Place, Feb. 26, 1859. 
 
 " My dear Sir : I have received from you the committee's 
 kind invitation of the 16th inst., to attend the semi-centen- 
 nial celebration of Park Street Church and Society, and 
 am very grateful for it. 
 
 " But, with much regret, I am obliged to state that it will 
 be out of my power, however strong my desire, to attend it; 
 my painful lameness still continuing, and disabling me from 
 being abroad. 
 
 " I am sorry for this disappointment, especially, because, 
 although I was never a regular member of Park Street 
 Church, having gone down to Maine in 1805, and not 
 returning till the close of 1817, I was yet acquainted with 
 most of the founders, only a few of whom, comparatively, 
 are now living; and have ever felt a deep interest in the 
 success of their very important, highly consequential, and 
 signally blest enterprise. In this spiritual and temporal 
 prosperity I sincerely rejoice, and pray that the whole body 
 may ever enjoy the good will of ' Him who dwelt in the 
 bush/ and the continual presence and blessing of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 " Though not myself a personal member of the church, 
 as I have said, yet my family was permitted the privilege 
 
122 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 at the Seamen's Meeting, from its commencement in 1818, 
 to the formation of the church under my care in Green 
 Street, and the erection of its house of worship, — a priv- 
 ilege for which I have ever been grateful. 
 
 " Repeating my earnest desire and prayer, that the meet- 
 ing and all its accompaniments may receive the approbation 
 and blessing of ' Him who is over all things to his church,' 
 and author of all its vitality, I remain, dear sir, with affec- 
 tionate respect, and in the best bonds, 
 
 " Your, and his people's servant in the gospel, 
 
 " Wm. Jenks." 
 
 REMARKS OF REV. DR. ADAMS. 
 
 Dr. Adams, of Essex Street Church, was then called 
 out. He said he should have been present in the after- 
 noon, had not parochial duties absolutely prevented. He 
 made a neat allusion to Park Street steeple, as ten feet 
 higher than the State House, as illustrating a beautiful 
 truth. It was the Aaron of the commonwealth standing 
 beside the Moses of the state. The significant truth was 
 that the gospel soared over the law. He hoped it might 
 be always so. 
 
 After music by the choir, Rev. Mr. Kellogg, of the 
 Seamen's Bethel, made some capital remarks, which brought 
 down the house. He hoped Mr. Stone would come home 
 copper-fastened, and coppered up to the bends, ready for 
 his work again. 
 
 A part of Mr. Frost's choir then came down to the 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 123 
 
 platform, and sung, with great effect, a piece entitled 
 " Speed Away," designed especially for Mr. Stone's bene- 
 fit. It was loudly applauded. 
 
 PRESENTATION TO MR. STONE. 
 
 After a little respite for promenading, Benjamin Cal- 
 lender, Esq. stepped forward upon the platform, and 
 presented Rev. Mr. Stone with a draft on Baring 
 Brothers & Co., London, for two thousand dollars, and 
 a policy of life insurance for which seventy-two dollars 
 and fifty-two cents had been paid. This was contributed 
 by the pew-holders of the parish, and was given with the 
 greatest cheerfulness, and with scarcely any trouble of 
 collecting. The presentation was accompanied by the fol- 
 lowing speech. 
 
 REMARKS OF MR. CALLENDER. 
 
 " Mr. Stone : It was my pleasure to be on the com- 
 mittee to communicate to you the unanimous vote of the 
 proprietors of Park Street Church, tendering to you a vaca- 
 tion of six months, at such time during the present year 
 as may be agreeable and convenient to yourself. 
 
 "It is now very generally known that you have accepted 
 that offer; also that you intend visiting the old world, and 
 to leave New York, in the steamship Africa, on the second 
 proximo, for Liverpool. 
 
 " Again the pleasant duty devolves on me of presenting 
 to you, in the names of those attached to the paper I hold 
 in my hand, the necessary funds to defray the expense of 
 10 
 
1 24 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 your intended tour, as a slight token of their regard and 
 affection ; and I know it will be as gratifying to you in 
 receiving it, as it is to me to be the medium through 
 which it is offered, to know it comes from cheerful givers, 
 — it is a voluntary freewill offering from the heart. 
 
 "Allow me to express the hope that your journey may 
 be pleasant and prosperous, that your fondest anticipations 
 may be fully realized, and that in due time you may return, 
 with renewed health and strength, to resume the important 
 duties of your profession as an ambassador of God." 
 
 REV. MR. STONE'S REMARKS. 
 
 Mr. Stone replied in his happiest manner, taking occa- 
 sion to remark that he was not surprised at the gift, for 
 it was just like his people. Xo such act of theirs could 
 take him by surprise. He also said that he did not go 
 abroad because he was in ill health. He had no complaint, 
 chronic or otherwise. He was somewhat weary and wanted 
 rest. It had been a desire and dream of his life to visit 
 the old world, and he had always said that, if he went, 
 he should go when he was buoyant and vigorous. He 
 would not say parting words. He could never part from 
 his people, — no, not for a day, nor an hour. He would 
 carry them with him, and keep the hope, in peril and in 
 calm, that they would dwell together for ever. 
 
 We had full notes of Mr. Stone's remarks, but we are 
 obliged to make only the above meager abstract. 
 
 There was a general shaking of hands with Mr. Stone 
 after this, and at ten o'clock the company dispersed, all 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 125 
 
 feeling that the day had been one of unusual enjoyment, 
 without any thing to mar the pleasure from beginning 
 to end. 
 
 To the correspondence already introduced, as read 
 in connection with the history of the successive 
 pastorates of the church, is added this greeting of 
 one of her son?, now exercising the ministry of the 
 word. 
 
 LETTER FROM DR. RAY PALMER. 
 
 " Albany, February 22, 1859. 
 " My dear Sir : I greatly regret that my engagements 
 will not allow me to unite with the members of Park 
 Street Church, the present and the past, in the celebration 
 of its fiftieth anniversary. Your kind letter inviting me 
 to this, affected me not a little by its personal allusions, 
 and awakened many recollections. It was in the autumn 
 of 1821, — eight-and-thirty years ago, — that I became a 
 regular attendant at Park Street. The interior of that 
 noble sanctuary as it then was, and the audience as it then 
 appeared, are completely daguerreotyped upon my memory. 
 The beloved and honored Dwight, in the freshness of his 
 manly person, and the vigor of his powers, spoke words 
 of earnestness and unction from the pulpit. Before him 
 sat an audience, which, by its size and character, might 
 well inspire the preacher, so far as any human inspiration 
 
126 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 could avail. Evarts, Hubbard. Homer, Homes, Bum- 
 stead, Willis, Odiorxe, Proctor, Hill, and others, 
 a long array of faces, I see as then they looked. A few 
 still linger with us, but far the greater number of the 
 prominent men in that assembly, including the gifted 
 pastor, are now, it is not to be doubted, in the general 
 assembly and church of the first-born in heaven. 
 
 " For about two years I sat in those heavenly places ; 
 and those years covered the period of that remarkable 
 revival by which such an impulse was given to evangelical 
 religion in the midst of prevailing error. Of that Zion 
 it shall eternally be said, that this and that man were born 
 there. There, I trust, the divine life was begun within 
 my soul. There I entered into the bonds of the covenant, 
 giving myself publicly to Christ ; and as I recall now some 
 of those first seasons of the communion of saints around 
 the Saviour's table, they seem to have been earnests of 
 the fellowship of the perfect church above. I was but a 
 child in years, — literally the least of all the saints, — when 
 I united with the church ; and I have never ceased to 
 remember gratefully the condescension of the pastor, and 
 the kindness of all towards me, by which I was upheld 
 amidst many temptations. In a word, that I am a Chris- 
 tian and a minister, I owe, under God, in no small measure, 
 to influences connected with the Park Street Church. She 
 is, indeed, the mother of us all. As such, she is worthy 
 of all love and honor. May she still bring forth fruit in 
 old age, and be rich in blessings for generations yet to 
 
THE FESTIVAL. 127 
 
 " Be pleased, my dear sir, to convey my sincere regret 
 that I must deny myself the pleasure of being with you, 
 and the assurance of my enduring interest in the church. 
 May God's abundant blessing rest on its present honored 
 pastor, and on all its present members ! 
 
 " I am, my dear sir, with Christian affection, 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 " Ray Palmer. 
 " To Peter Hobart, Jr. Esq." 
 
\hhnt i&Mt\. 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PARK STREET CHURCH. 
 
 CHIEFLY FKOM COPIOUS STATEMENTS PREPARED BY DEACON 
 
 NATHANIEL WILLIS, THE LATE JUDGE SAMUEL 
 
 HUBBARD, AND PETER HOBART, JR. 
 
 m 
 
 ^HE commencement of the present century 
 found the congregational churches of this 
 1L2J C1 ty * n a s^e of deep spiritual declension. 
 Y The piety, fidelity, and spirituality of the 
 mass of their members were flickering like the light 
 of a dying lamp. The Christianity of the day re- 
 tained in its external forms and aspect much that 
 was venerable and conservative, but its life and 
 power were gone ; the real, throbbing, earnest soul 
 of it was stifled and palsied. The voice of the 
 pulpit enforced, not without strength and cogency, 
 the decencies, charities, and virtues of a high-toned 
 "morality, but seldom echoed the thunders of a vio- 
 
132 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 lated law. or the melting accents of Calvary. There 
 were no revivals quickening the people of God. 
 awakening and converting the impenitent. There 
 were no associations in the midst of us to print and 
 scatter tracts, to distribute Bibles, to undertake the 
 conquest of the heathen world for Christ, The 
 only religious meetings of the week were on the 
 Sabbath. There was no evening lecture, no altar 
 of social prayer, no intercessions in concert for the 
 coming of the kingdom, no schools for the religious 
 education of the young, no weekly religious peri- 
 odicals, discussing earnestly the signs of the times, 
 the demands of the age, great questions of faith and 
 practice, or giving tidings of refreshing visits of the 
 Spirit abroad, and thus quickening the sympathies 
 and animating the activities of Christians at home. 
 Something of this dullness and deadness in the 
 churches was doubtless a legacy from the war of 
 the Revolution. The heroic part which this young 
 metropolis acted in that great struggle, the sieges 
 and distresses she endured, the sacrifices she made 
 in the common cause are matters of history, familiar 
 to every American school-boy. Her walls and strands 
 battered now by friendly, now by hostile cannon, — 
 the British army quartered for months upon her 
 citizens, — the bights around her crowned by en- 
 trenchments and blazing with watch-fires and artii- 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 133 
 
 lery, opposed and insulted by an insolent and 
 dissolute enemy in her own streets, one of her 
 sanctuaries desecrated to serve the purpose of a 
 riding-school and pistol-gallery for cavalry officers, — 
 another demolished and burned for firewood, the 
 arts of peace interrupted ; the rule of magistracies 
 and civil tribunals set aside for the stern arbitra- 
 ments of martial law, — such a history left not only 
 physical but moral effects behind, from which it 
 took long to recover. In the demoralizing influences 
 of this, so recent scourge, the secret of the low 
 estate of the churches is partially disclosed. 
 
 But there was yet another cause, not then so 
 clearly defined, but, in the light of subsequent his- 
 tories, more distinctly discerned, that contributed 
 powerfully to the disastrous result. A wide doc- 
 trinal defection had extended from pulpit to pulpit, 
 and from mind to mind, till, with a large majority 
 of the worshipers in churches of our order, some of 
 the prime articles in their formulas of faith, first, 
 that grand central doctrine of a divine and atoning 
 Saviour, and- the other and dependent doctrines 
 Avere discarded and outlawed. The substituted 
 gospel, earnest enough in the cause of human 
 amelioration, philanthropic and outspoken on the 
 subject of social and personal wrongs and great 
 public evils, broke no spiritual slumbers, rolled no 
 
134 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 shocks of alarm against the careless, unrenewed 
 heart ; did not feed the sonl of the humble believer, 
 and healed slightly the hurt of man's mortal dis- 
 ease. Thus every church of the connection, of 
 which w^e speak, with but a solitary exception, still 
 keeping its time-honored name of " Old South," 
 " faithful found among the faithless," had tacitly or 
 avowedly fallen away from " the purity of the faith 
 once delivered," as hitherto held in their " con- 
 fessions." 
 
 It was time for Providence to work. The hearts 
 of a little band of brethren, in the church just 
 named, Avere burdened with the desolations of Zion. 
 The visit of G-od's Spirit to some of the Baptist 
 churches of the city, farther quickened and encour- 
 aged them. They desired to unite with these more 
 revived brethren and churches in a weekly evening- 
 lecture. A vote of the church was obtained in favor 
 of the measure. But it was not to be carried into 
 effect. A powerful opposition arose on the part of 
 the Society, with which a few members of the 
 church also made common cause, and the hopeful 
 movement was crushed in the bud. Defeated and 
 disappointed in this direction, but with no thought 
 of giving way to the prevalent influences, eight 
 of the brethren struggling thus for a higher type 
 of piety, and one more soon after added to their 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 135 
 
 ranks, formed themselves into a society for mutual 
 religious improvement. This society held its weekly 
 meetings, frequently enjoying the ministrations of 
 the Rev. Dr. Eckly, the pastor of the Old South, 
 and kept the evangelic flame alive in their own 
 hearts and in the community. Such, however, was 
 the lack of courage and confidence with private 
 Christians of the time, and such the meager growth 
 of Christian graces and accomplishments, that for 
 several weeks no member of this little association 
 could lead the devotions of his brethren in audible 
 prayer in their meetings. 
 
 Parallel with this movement there was also a 
 little circle of pious ladies, who held stated meet- 
 ings for prayer, to lament over the degeneracy of 
 Grod's covenanted ones, and beseech the return of 
 his gracious presence. 
 
 In these days, the idea of building a new house 
 of worship, and forming a new organization in sym- 
 pathy with their views, was frequently in the thought 
 of these brethren, though rather as a thing fervently 
 desired than an enterprise actually embarked in. It 
 was a good seed, germinating and nurtured under 
 the genial influences of praying and believing hearts, 
 till the fullness of time should come. Thus passed 
 the first eight years of the century. In the sum- 
 mer of the year 1808 the evangelic element received 
 
136 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 a new impulse and fresh vigor from the visit and 
 labors of a southern clergyman, Rev. Dr. Kollock, 
 of Savannah, Georgia. He came in the fullness 
 of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. " He 
 spoke," says one who heard him, " with irresistible 
 energy and power. Unaccustomed as we were to 
 hear any thing moving, his appeals came upon us 
 like thunder. Crowds hung upon his lips, and 
 confessed the power of earnest truth, earnestly 
 preached." 
 
 And now the ripened thought of the little praying 
 band was ready for utterance, — the conception for 
 execution. Had Ave such a man, they said in their 
 communing together, to go in and out before us, 
 to deliver the messages of the gospel, drooping 
 Zion should be revived and the city shaken from 
 its trance. 
 
 Conference was had with the southern Doctor, 
 and the hearts of those who waited for the conso- 
 lation of Israel were cheered by the assurance he 
 gave, that if they would build a house for God and 
 form a church, he would become their pastor. By 
 such histories and agencies did the great Head of 
 the church prepare the way for the rearing of 
 another fortress in Zion, that should stand for the 
 defence of evangelic truth, and be a rallying-point 
 in the great strife against sin and error, till, in all 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 137 
 
 this holy war, there shall be left unsubdued no 
 enemy of the cross of Christ. 
 
 As to the steps, by which the enterprise was 
 commenced, a brief record must suffice. The few 
 whose hearts were enlisted in it felt the magnitude 
 and difficulty of the undertaking. The churches, 
 from which they might have expected the most as- 
 sistance, were most opposed to their object. Their 
 own numbers were small. Large expenditures were 
 required at the very outset. Whither to turn for 
 help or even sympathy they knew not. But they 
 had settled it in their souls and before God that 
 the thing should be done. From the commence- 
 ment, amid all their embarrassments and disappoint- 
 ments they never despaired of success, — they never 
 grew faint of heart. 
 
 In a short time they had forty thousand dollars 
 pledged for their work, a lot of land purchased 
 for half that sum, and felt that they were war- 
 ranted in proceeding to organize themselves into 
 a church of Christ. A confession of faith was 
 reported and adopted, the identical confession to 
 which we now subscribe, and five churches of 
 the city and vicinity were invited to meet in coun- 
 cil and assist in the organization. These were 
 the Old South and Federal Street, in Boston, the 
 church in Charlestown, the church in Cambridge, 
 11 
 
138 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 and the church in Dorchester. The two churches 
 in the city declined the invitation to act on the 
 organizing council. The others met by their pas- 
 tors and delegates, Rev. Dr. Morse, of Charles- 
 town, Rev. Dr. Holmes, of Cambridge, and Rev. Mr. 
 Codman, of Dorchester, with lay brethren of good 
 repute, at the house of Win. Thurston, on Beacon 
 Hill, on the 27th of February, 1809, and came to 
 the following result: — 
 
 The council, after having deliberately weighed 
 this important subject, and seeing no reason why 
 the request in the letter missive should not be 
 granted, — Toted, unanimously, that we are satisfied 
 with the proceedings of the brethren about to be 
 formed into a Congregational Church, in the town 
 of Boston, and are ready cheerfully to assist in this 
 organization. The exercises of the occasion were 
 introduced with prayer by Rev. Dr. Morse. The 
 fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles was 
 then read, and, after singing, an appropriate dis- 
 course was delivered by Rev. Dr. Morse, from 
 Psalm cxviii. verse 25, " Save now, I beseech thee, 
 Lord, Lord I beseech thee send prosperity." 
 The articles of faith and government were then 
 read by the scribe, and signed in the presence of 
 the council, by nine brethren and twelve sisters. 
 They were then declared duly organized, and Rev. 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 139 
 
 Mr. Codman expressed to them the fellowship of the 
 churches. The same evening, before the council dis- 
 solved, five members were added, by profession, to 
 the newly formed fraternity. 
 
 Immediately upon its organization, the church 
 voted to extend a unanimous call to Rev. Dr. Kol- 
 lock, to become their pastor ; also to invite Dr. 
 Griffin, of Newark, professor elect at Andover, to 
 officiate once on each Sabbath in connection with 
 the former. Dr. Griffin at once signified his willing- 
 ness to conclude such an arrangement. Meanwhile 
 the matter of building was pushed diligently for- 
 ward. On the 1st of May, 1809, the corner-stone of 
 this house was laid, with appropriate ceremonies, in 
 which Rev. Drs. Holmes and Morse again assisted. 
 In June, the church were cheered by the arrival of 
 Dr. Griffin, and aided by his counsel, and heard his 
 voice occasionally in the ministration of the gospel, 
 though they had not yet set up for themselves the 
 ordinances of public worship. But now their faith 
 and constancy were to be severely tried. In Sep- 
 tember, a communication was received from Dr. 
 Kollock, declining their call. The Presbytery would 
 not dismiss him. A remonstrance signed by three 
 thousand persons was presented against his leaving 
 his post at Savannah. Neighboring ministers and 
 laymen, including those of other denominations, 
 
140 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 threw their arms around him and would not suffer 
 him to depart. This was a terrible shock to the 
 high hopes of the little church in Boston. It 
 almost threatened their very existence. Many of 
 the subscribers to the enterprise withdrew their 
 names, so great was the disappointment and loss 
 of interest. Still, the brethren could not go back. 
 Their bark was on the sea, the voyage was before 
 them : come storm or calm, fair winds or foul, they 
 must keep their course. A unanimous call was 
 extended to Dr. Griffin, to become the pastor. It 
 was declined. Calls were subsequently presented 
 to Rev. Dr. Nott, President of Union College, Rev. 
 Dr. Romeyn, of New York, and Rev. Gardner 
 Spring, of Andover, and a second time to Dr. Nott, 
 but all without success. 
 
 Meantime, the house of worship was completed, 
 at a cost altogether of over seventy thousand dol- 
 lars ; and on the tenth of January, 1810, the dedi- 
 cation sermon was preached by Rev. Dr. Griffin. 
 The summer and autumn following were occupied 
 in urging and reurging the fruitless calls just men- 
 tioned. Another year passed away, and still the 
 little flock were shepherdless. February 1, 1811. 
 the church again tendered the pastoral office over 
 them to Dr. Grifftn, after much conference, and 
 another determined and self-denying effort of " the 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 141 
 
 subscribers," in which thirty thousand dollars were 
 raised to pay their debt, and place their enterprise 
 on a safe pecuniary footing. 
 
 On the first of May, 1811, Dr. Griffin accepted 
 the call, and on the thirty-first of July he was duly 
 installed. The installing council met in the land 
 office, in the new State House. The public exer- 
 cises at the church were as follows : — 
 
 Introductory Prayer, by Rev. Dr. Morse, of Charlestown. 
 Sermon, by Eev. Mr. Worcester, of Salem. 
 Consecrating Prayer, by Rev. Dr. Holmes, of Cambridge. 
 Charge, by Rev. Mr. Greenough, of Newton. 
 Right Hand of Fellowship, by Rev. Mr. Homer, also of 
 
 Newton. 
 Concluding Prayer, by Rev. Mr. Huntington, of Old South. 
 
 Thus, at length, after a weary interval of two 
 years and five months, after many disheartening 
 failures and reverses, the long sickness of hope 
 deferred was relieved, the little band was equipped 
 and officered for service, and good auguries and 
 favoring providences seemed to cheer them on their 
 way. 
 
 We pass now to note the later progress and 
 fruits of the enterprise of which we have thus seen 
 the beginnings. 
 
 And, first, the changes in the pastoral office. 
 
142 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 These have been frequent. The ministry of Dr. 
 Griffin continued three years and nine months. 
 He was succeeded by Rev. Sereno E. Dwight, who 
 was ordained September 3, 1817, and dismissed 
 April 10, 1826, after a ministry of eight years and 
 five months. Rev. Edward Beecher was ordained 
 as pastor in December of the same year, and exer- 
 cised his ministry for three years and ten months. 
 After an interval of two years, Rev. J. H. Linsley 
 was installed, December 5, 1832, and continued in 
 office two years and ten months. After another 
 interval of eighteen months, Rev. Silas Aiken was 
 installed on the twenty-second of March, 1837, and 
 dismissed the twelfth of July, 1848, having held office 
 eleven and a quarter years, longer by some years 
 than any of his predecessors. The present pastor 
 was installed January 25, 1849. 
 
 2. The accessions to the church since its organ- 
 ization to the present time, have been as follows : — 
 
 Five on the day of organization, makii 
 
 original members . 
 Before the installation of Dr. Griffin 
 During his ministry 
 In the interval previous to the settlement of Mr 
 
 DwiGHT 
 
 During Mr. Dwight's ministry 
 
 In the interval following his dismission 
 
 with the 
 
 
 
 26 
 
 
 18 
 
 
 93 
 
 t of Mr. 
 
 
 
 44 
 
 
 321 
 
 
 20 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 
 
 143 
 
 During Mr. Beecher's ministry . 
 
 173 
 
 In the interval following .... 
 
 39 
 
 During Mr. Linsley's ministry 
 
 99 
 
 In the interval 
 
 10 
 
 During Mr. Aiken's ministry 
 
 425 
 
 In the interval subsequent .... 
 
 3 
 
 Since the settlement of the present pastor . 
 
 681 
 
 In all, counting the original members, 
 
 . 1,952 
 
 3. The views of this church in respect to the 
 policy of church extension in the city, have always 
 been of a liberal and generous tone. 
 
 In 1819 ; the Essex Street Church was formed ; 
 and after their division, in 1822, Park Street sent 
 eight members to strengthen the hands of a feeble 
 minority. 
 
 In 1825, the Hanover Street Church, now the 
 Bowdoin Street, was formed, and Park Street sent 
 twenty -two members to their help. Pine Street 
 and Salem churches were organized in 1827, and 
 Park Street offered another contribution of twenty- 
 one members. At the original organization of the 
 Central Church, in 1835 ; twelve more were cordially 
 dismissed from our ranks. In 1842, the Mount 
 Vernon Church was organized, and again the vital 
 strength of this church was drawn upon. Park 
 Street stands in the midst of these churches, like 
 a venerable mother surrounded by her foster chil- 
 
144 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 dren, looking around upon them with a maternal 
 affection and pride, and cherished in their hearts, 
 as we rejoice to know, with all the ardor and 
 strength of filial love. 
 
 4. Revivals. The first general and powerful re- 
 vival of religion in the history of the church, oc- 
 curred in the city in 1823, commencing in Park 
 Street ; and, as the fruits of it, three hundred and 
 forty-eight converts were added to the churches in 
 the city and vicinity, and Hanover Street Church 
 was built as an expression of gratitude to God. 
 
 Another outpouring of the Spirit followed, in 
 1826 and 1827, which resulted in the establishment 
 of two new evangelical churches, Pine Street and 
 Salem, and the addition to this church of one hun- 
 dred members. 
 
 In 1831 and 1832, the Spirit returned again with 
 power, and the new song was loud in the midst of 
 the churches. 
 
 In the three years commencing with 1840, a 
 blessed and powerful work of grace was carried 
 forward in this church, during which time two hun- 
 dred and fifty converts were received to our com- 
 munion. 
 
 Another season of refreshing was enjoyed in 1849 
 and 1850. 
 
 In the years 1857 and 1858, under the labors of 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 145 
 
 Rev. Charles G. Finney and Mrs. Finney, a deep 
 and searching work of the Spirit was witnessed, in 
 which many professors of religion renewed their 
 experience and their hope, and probably not less 
 than six hundred souls were converted, of whom 
 about two hundred united with this church. 
 
 The connection of this church with the movements 
 of modern Christian benevolence, and especially with 
 the cause of foreign missions, has already been 
 clearly set forth in another page of this volume. 
 To this statement it may be added, that the annual 
 meeting of prayer for the descent of the Holy Spirit 
 upon the colleges of the land, was at first and for 
 some time a private meeting with this church, till 
 it was proposed by a member that the effort should 
 be made to commend the day to more general ob- 
 servance, and the concert of prayer for this object 
 now kept in both hemispheres is the issue of that 
 obscure beginning. 
 
 In all this history, we find a pledge of God's 
 faithfulness for the days to come ! 
 
146 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 PARK STREET MEETING-HOUSE. 
 
 <S§- 
 
 HE following facts relating to the Park Street 
 ^ Meeting-house were furnished, at the request 
 Qy±5 of one of the deacons of the church, by Dr. 
 eJ N. B. Shurtleff, and published in the Bos- 
 ton Journal. 
 
 For some time previous to the fall of the year 1808, 
 the religious sentiment having been somewhat extraordi- 
 narily aroused in Boston by the eloquent and impassioned 
 preaching of Rev. Henry Kollock, of Savannah, a dis- 
 tinguished Doctor in Divinity, it was considered expedient 
 and practicable that there should be gathered in the town 
 another church, which should be established especially with 
 a view of promoting the system of theology generally denom- 
 inated " Evangelical " by its adherents, in order to dis- 
 tinguish it from others which had of late become very 
 fascinating and popular, and which had grievously fallen 
 off in strictness as to the observance of the precepts and 
 practices of the early New England Christians. Twelve 
 congregational churches only had been formed previous to 
 this time ; and of these, two had been united together soon 
 after the close of the war of the Revolution, under the late 
 Dr. Latiirop, — the place of worship of the Second Church 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 147 
 
 having been demolished by the British during the siege 
 of Boston, and the Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton, pastor 
 of the Fourth Church, having died not long after the evac- 
 uation of the town took place ; two others, which had 
 severally been under the charge of Rev. Samuel Mather 
 and Rev. Andrew Cro swell, had altogether decayed, 
 and their houses of worship fallen to another sect, the 
 Universalists. The youngest of the nine remaining churches 
 had been gathered about seventy-four years, and with all 
 of the other eight, excepting the Old South, which even 
 wavered, had passed to Unitarianism. While Congregation- 
 alism exhibited such a state of things, the Baptists stood 
 firm, and kept alive the evangelical faith, and through 
 the instrumentality of such shining lights as Stillman and 
 Baldwin, with the occasional assistance of such preachers 
 as Kollock, brought about the sentiment which exhibited 
 itself so strongly among a few at that time. 
 
 On account of this state of religious matters, and because 
 of the influx into Boston of many pious people from the 
 neighboring counties and States, the measure of establishing 
 a new church became not only necessary but imperative ; 
 and near the close of the year 1808, active exertions were 
 commenced by a few enterprising and religious persons for 
 gathering a new church and for obtaining subscriptions, 
 and making collections of money in order to defray the 
 expenses of erecting a new building for a place of worship 
 on the Lord's day, and for such other religious meetings 
 as might be convened upon the secular days of the week. 
 More than usual interest was taken in the undertaking, from 
 
148 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 the belief that Dr. Kollock, to whose ministrations they 
 had listened with so much profit and pleasure, would be 
 able to relinquish his pastoral charge in Savannah, and 
 remove to Boston. But these hopes were never realized, 
 the society in Savannah being unwilling to part with their 
 much esteemed pastor, and there being prevalent fears that 
 the severe and rigorous winters of the North would not agree 
 with his constitution, which had already been impaired, 
 notwithstanding residence in the genial and more temperate 
 climate of the South. 
 
 On Monday, the twenty-seventh of February, 1809, the 
 church was regularly formed by an ecclesiastical council, 
 held at the house of William Thurston, Esq., an attor- 
 ney of considerable note, and there the first religious exer- 
 cises of the new church were held. Not a few of the older 
 inhabitants of the city remember well the lofty mansion of 
 this gentleman, as it presented itself to the sight of all, in 
 the days of its magnificence, from its towering eminence 
 upon the summit of the once high hill of Bowdoin Street, 
 — for even in those days the southerly slope of the street 
 which now entirely bears that name was so called, although 
 the northerly portion, falling off towards Cambridge Street, 
 still retained the name of Middlecot, in honor of the 
 ancient possessor of the land out of which it was laid, — 
 and many undoubtedly will never forget the same building, 
 shorn of its pristine glory, standing upon the high preci- 
 pice formed by the removal of the greater part of the soil 
 of the same hill, overtopping the chimneys of the neigh- 
 boring houses. 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 149 
 
 As might naturally be supposed, a central position was 
 sought for, the population of the more southerly and west- 
 erly portions of the town being at that time largely on the 
 increase. The old building, which had been erected in 
 the town's necessity for a granary, was rapidly falling into 
 decay and disuse, and thus a spot was opportunely offered 
 which, of all others, seemed most desirable on account of 
 its eligible situation, being on one of the principal avenues 
 of the town, and having an uninterrupted chance of light 
 on three of its sides. This site, which was readily selected 
 and soon purchased, presented a southeasterly front of 
 eighty feet upon the main street, then known as Common 
 Street, and now as Tremont Street; on the southwest, it 
 faced the Common, and the new mall, one hundred and 
 eighteen feet ; and on the northeast it overlooked the middle 
 burying-ground, often spoken of as the Common Burying- 
 Grround in the olden times, but now known familiarly to all 
 as the Granary Burial-Grround, and in which rest the ashes 
 of many of the honored fathers of the town. What better 
 position could be had for the new meeting-house ? It was 
 exactly in the centre of the peninsula ; its front would be 
 accessible from a street of the most ample dimensions; on 
 one side there would be a view of the most agreeable 
 character ; and on the other, constant monitors of the 
 short duration of earthly life, and the surety of an eternal 
 departure from the endearments of this world. In the 
 language of the day, " for salubrity of air, beauties of pros- 
 pect, and general accommodations, there was no situation 
 of equal extent in the capital that exceeded the premises," 
 
 12 
 
150 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 The place itself was not entirely destitute of historical 
 interest. In the earlier days of the town, it was part of 
 the now contiguous burial-ground, and was nearly at the 
 extreme limits of the settlements, joining upon the Common. 
 As time wore on, a street was laid out on the southwesterly 
 side of the lot, extending to the Beacon or Sentry Hill, 
 which took the name of Centry (or Sentry) Street. Then, 
 when the need came, a building eighty feet by thirty feet, 
 for a public granary, was erected on the end fronting on the 
 principal street. This was constructed of wood, with oaken 
 timbers, and was intended to hold about twelve thousand 
 bushels of grain, annually purchased and stored by the 
 agents of the town, and sold at a small advance to those 
 whose exigencies required such a consideration. The old 
 and gloomy looking building, used in its latter days as an 
 inspection office for pot and pearl ashes, and also for nails, 
 and finally as a mart for second-hand furniture, has not 
 entirely passed from remembrance. It stood in its lot until 
 the year 1809, when it was taken down to give place 
 to the meeting-house. 
 
 Further up on the street were large brick buildings, 
 called the Almshouse and the Workhouse, and a smaller 
 one, of the same material, called the Bridewell, for disor- 
 derly and insane persons. The Almshouse, which stood 
 on the corner of Beacon Street, was erected in the year 
 1686, and was two-storied, with a gambrel roof and pro- 
 jecting gable ; to this, in a subsequent year, was added 
 a wing. Its use was confined to the aged and infirm poor. 
 The Workhouse, a somewhat larger structure, about one 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 151 
 
 hundred and twelve feet in length, with gables, and also 
 two-storied, was built in the year 1738, and was exclusively 
 appropriated to the vagrant, idle, and dissolute of the town. 
 The Almshouse and Bridewell were both standing when 
 Bonner published his plan of the town, in 1722, and, to- 
 gether with the Workhouse, were in use until the comple- 
 tion of the Almshouse that was erected at Barton's Point, 
 on Leverett Street, and which was opened for occupancy 
 at the close of the year 1800. Of course, the buildings 
 for the poor and dissolute were not on the site selected 
 for the meeting-house, but on the adjoining lot of land, 
 which extended to the corner of Beacon Street, near the 
 New State House, as the capitol was then generally styled. 
 A little more than sixty years ago, the Sentry Street of 
 our fathers did not present so inviting an appearance as 
 does the Park Street of our own day. The old dingy 
 buildings and the broken fences have disappeared, and 
 stately houses have succeeded in their places. No more 
 will the staid townsman nor the jocund youth, proceeding 
 to the Common in wonted manner on Election and Inde- 
 pendence days, be interrupted by the diminutive hands 
 thrust through the holes in the old Almshouse fences, or 
 stretched from beneath the decaying gates, and by the small 
 and forlorn voices of the children of the destitute inmates, 
 entreating for money ; nor will the cries of the wretched poor 
 in those miserable habitations be heard calling for bread, 
 which oftentimes the town had not to give. Those days 
 are passed, and one would almost desire, when reading the 
 record of those times, that the remembrance of them was 
 
152 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 gone also. But a great lesson of charity has gone with 
 them ; for how many of the benefactors of the town made 
 their first essay in almsgiving when they unconsciously 
 dropped their little coin into those outstretched hands ? 
 
 In the year 1795, the fathers of the town rightfully 
 determined that such things as the then existing poor- 
 houses should no longer be a reproach to them. They 
 resolved to sell those estates which were in such pitiful con- 
 dition and to purchase a more commodious place near Bar- 
 ton's Point, where more comfortable and capacious buildings 
 should be erected for their destitute and sick. The deter- 
 mination was accomplished very soon after the resolve, and 
 Col. Thomas Dawes, an honored and enterprising citizen, 
 who had sustained in an eminently successful manner all the 
 offices which his fellow-townsmen could give him. Samuel 
 Brown, a merchant of much wealth and note, and pos- 
 sessed of great public spirit, and Judge George Richards 
 Minot, one of the distinguished historians of Massachusetts, 
 had full powers granted them by the town to carry out 
 these intentions, and well they performed their duty. 
 
 On the ninth day of November, of the year 1795, the 
 Granary lot was sold at public auction to the highest bidder, 
 a noted person of that day ; and it may appear to some 
 a curious fact that, on that occasion, about nine thousand 
 four hundred and forty square feet of land, situated in the 
 center of the town, brought only the sum of eight thousand 
 three hundred and sixty-six dollars and sixty-six cents, 
 a small fraction over eighty-eight cents a foot. From 
 General Henry Jackson, the title of the land passed into 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 153 
 
 the hands of feoffees of the wife of the late James Swan ; 
 from them to the daughters of the same lady and their 
 husbands ; and from them, on the thirteenth of April, 1809, 
 to Caleb Bingham, bookseller, Andrew Calhottn, mer- 
 chant, and William Thurston, Esq., Trustees of Park 
 Street Church, in consideration of the payment of twenty 
 thousand dollars. The removal of the public buildings, and 
 the erection of good houses on Park Street, had thus more 
 than doubled the value of the neighboring estate in about 
 fourteen years. 
 
 The committee for purchasing the lot of land, and super- 
 intending the erection of the meeting-house, was chosen 
 at a business meeting held on the evening of the twenty- 
 seventh day of February, 1809, the day on which the 
 church was formed. It consisted of seven persons, four 
 of whom were members of the church, and three were from 
 among the subscribers, who were not communicants ; and 
 of these, John E. Tyler, Esq. was selected to act as 
 chairman. At the same time, Deacon Elisha Ticknor, 
 formerly a schoolmaster, but at that time doing business 
 as a grocer at the well-remembered sign of the Beehive, 
 in that portion of Washington Street that was formerly 
 known as Marlboro' Street, was chosen treasurer to the 
 subscribers. In this capacity Deacon Ticknor served one 
 year, and then, on the twenty-seventh of February, 1810, 
 Ebenezer Parker, a noted shoe-dealer, was elected in 
 his place, and continued in that service more than twenty 
 years. 
 
 More than forty thousand dollars having been subscribed, 
 
154 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 the building committee commenced operations, and on the 
 first day of May, 1809, the corner-stone was laid at the 
 southeast corner of the foundation, with appropriate re- 
 ligious exercises, the prayer and address on the occasion 
 being by Rev. Drs. Holmes and Morse. Beneath the 
 stone was deposited a plate, upon which was engraved the 
 following inscription : — 
 
 " Jesus Christ, the chief corner-stone, in whom all the building 
 fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. 
 This church formed February 27, and this foundation laid May 
 1, 1809." 
 
 Peter Banner, an ingenious architect, was selected to 
 do the carpenter's work, and Benajah Brigham the mason 
 work. The first intention was to have a plain building, two 
 stories in hight, to be constructed of common bricks, with 
 a tower and belfry; but the good sense of the building 
 committee changed the material, and, at an extra expense 
 of about one thousand one hundred and fifty dollars, face 
 bricks were substituted for those of a more ordinary quality. 
 
 The building as erected covers nearly the whole lot. Its 
 large tower supports a capacious belfry. This last contains 
 a bell, which, as the following document shows, was pre- 
 sented to the church. 
 
 " Boston, July 21, 1810. 
 " To the Church of Christ worshiping in Park Street. 
 
 " Sirs : We, the undersigned, present what we have subscribed 
 for a Bell for the church on Park Street, to you for your accept- 
 ance towards paying for said Bell. That you may grow in 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH, 155 
 
 grace, increase in holiness, be cemented in love, and abound 
 with the meekness and humility of Him whose Blood was spilt 
 on Calvary's cross, are the ardent wishes of us, your friends." 
 
 The document was signed by Benjamin Shurtleff, and 
 twenty-two of the principal members of the congregation. 
 Over the belfry are two octagonal rooms, and above these 
 a base for the spire. Surmounting these stands the spire, 
 fifty feet in hight, crowned with a ball and vane. The 
 extreme hight of the vane from the street below it is, by 
 actual measurement, two hundred and seventeen feet and 
 nine inches. 
 
 It was not originally intended that the meeting-house 
 should have a steeple ; but the desire of the public was so 
 great that a building occupying a position so conspicuous 
 and imposing as this, and commanding such an extensive 
 view in all directions, and itself so prominent a mark of 
 observation from all parts of the town and surrounding 
 country, should be thus ornamented, it was determined that 
 one of extraordinary proportions, extending much farther 
 into the skies than was elsewhere to be seen on the penin- 
 sula, should be placed upon the meeting-house, as it were 
 to serve as an index for all wayfaring pilgrims, pointing 
 to that heavenly home to which the lessons and ministra- 
 tions in the tabernacle below so distinctly directed. Indeed, 
 there is a tradition now extant, and reasonably well authen- 
 ticated, that one of the most wealthy and liberal of the 
 subscribers made it a condition of his gift that the amount 
 of his subscription should be thus expended. Be this as 
 
156 BEMI-CENTBNNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 it may, few if any have ever regretted the determination, 
 and none, it is hoped, would wish to remove from the 
 building the interesting structure so long the delight and 
 pride of Bostonians, and for many years the wonder of 
 visiting strangers. May it remain for ages to come a relic 
 of the past and a pleasant remembrance of our fathers. For 
 nearly half a century this majestic spire has withstood the 
 burning heats of summer's sultry sun, and the freezing 
 cold of inclement winters. The storms have raged, and 
 northwest winds have roared around it ; gales which have 
 uprooted the massive elms of our magnificent Common, 
 have passed it unheeded ) even the earthquake's shock, and 
 the lightning's fiery blast, have shaken yet spared it ; and 
 Time, old Time, which subdues all things, has laid a gentle 
 hand upon its head, and its pride has not yet been bowed. 
 What time and the elements have suffered to endure, let 
 man preserve. 
 
 From the time of laying the corner-stone, the building 
 proceeded rapidly ; and on the tenth day of the succeeding 
 January, in the year 1810, the meeting-house was dedicated 
 with becoming services. The sermon — and one of the 
 highest order it was — was preached by Kev. Edward 
 Dorr Griffin, then stated preacher to the Society, and at 
 the same time Bartlett professor of pulpit eloquence in the 
 Andover Theological Seminary. Dr. Griffin selected for 
 his text the following words of King Solomon, being the 
 eighteenth verse of the sixth chapter of the Second Book 
 of Chronicles : — 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 157 
 
 " But will God in very deed dwell with men on earth ? 
 Behold heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee ; 
 how much less this house which I have built." 
 
 The following are among the closing paragraphs of this 
 remarkable discourse : — 
 
 " In this house the gospel will be to some the savor of 
 life unto life, and to others the savor of death unto death. 
 Should this church stand a century and a half, and its seats 
 be generally filled, how many thousands will hear the gospel 
 within these walls ! Millions of times will all those thou- 
 sands look back from eternity to this house, with inconceiv- 
 able pleasure or pain. By all those thousands the effect of 
 its erection and dedication will be felt, millions of ages after 
 this world is no more. These measures, then, I consider 
 as the antecedents of happiness and misery greater than 
 the mind of man can now conceive. The time will come 
 when not a tongue in the universe will make these measures 
 the subject of a jest. I am prompted," said he, " not less 
 by justice than by feeling, to commend, in terms the most 
 respectful, the exertions which have been made by the 
 proprietors of this house. That so small a number of men 
 should complete so spacious and beautiful an edifice in the 
 course of eight months, is a wonder which has no parallel 
 in the history of American churches. May this structure 
 long stand a monument of their liberality and zeal for the 
 worship of God ; and may they, and their children, and 
 their children's children, find within these walls the means 
 and earnest of eternal life ! We have abundant reason to 
 
158 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 acknowledge the goodness of God in bringing this important 
 enterprise to so happy an issue, without the sacrifice of any 
 lives, or material injury to any person. I tender you my 
 hearty congratulations on the occasion, and invite you, my 
 dear brethren, to join in thanksgiving and praise to him 
 who has graciously prospered our humble endeavors. On 
 every wall and door let your faith read this inscription : 
 ' Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain 
 that build it/ " 
 
 No material changes took place in the meeting-house for 
 many years, until about the year 1824, when, for the sake 
 of improving the financial condition of the Society, thirty 
 vaulted crypts, valued at about twelve thousand dollars, were 
 built beneath the northern side of the house. Since that 
 time, and quite recently, the building has been remodeled, 
 its roof raised, a good basement story constructed, and the 
 pews and pulpit renewed, and made to conform to the 
 improvements of the times. The steeple also has under- 
 gone a most thorough repair, and bids fair to stand many 
 years, an ornament to the city, and the first endeared object 
 to present itself to the eye and gladden the heart, not only 
 of the home-bound mariner, but the weary traveler from 
 any region or direction whatever. 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 
 
 159 
 
 MEMBERSHIP. 
 
 Original members, with those professing 
 
 at the organization, . . . . 26 
 
 Added by letter 811 
 
 Added by profession .... 1,115 
 
 Total 1,952 
 
 Of these, 675 were males, and 1,277 females. 
 
 Dismissed to other churches . 
 
 811 
 
 Died 
 
 255 
 
 Excommunicated . 
 
 37 
 
 Connection dissolved 
 
 2 
 
 Total removals . 
 
 . 1,105 
 
 PRESENT NUMBER. 
 
 Males 
 Females 
 
 Total 
 
 283 
 564 
 
 847 
 
 Of the children of the church, the number of those 
 
 who have become ministers of the gospel, is 13 
 
160 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Of the entire membership of the church, the num- 
 ber of those who have exercised the Christian 
 ministry, is . . . . . . .23 
 
 Of those who have been dismissed to other 
 churches, there have been elected to the office 
 of deacons in those churches, so far as known, 33 
 
 DEACONS. 
 
 John E. Tyler, chosen December 8, 1809, died January 
 
 26, 1821. 
 
 Josiah Bumstead, chosen December 8, 1809, died Sep- 
 tember, 1859. 
 
 Jeremiah Evarts, chosen May 4, 1819, died May 10, 
 1831. 
 
 John C. Proctor, chosen May 4, 1819, resigned August 
 24, 1827. 
 
 Henry Hill, chosen March 2, 1825, resigned April 21, 
 1837. 
 
 Nathaniel Willis, chosen September 19, 1827, resigned 
 September 3, 1847. 
 
 Nathaniel Dana, chosen May 14, 1835, resigned Feb- 
 ruary 5, 1847. 
 
 Daniel Safford, chosen June 14, 1837, resigned May 
 
 27, 1842. 
 
 Edwin Lamson, chosen July 12, 1842. 
 George Russell, chosen March 10, 1847, died March 
 1857. 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 1 01 
 
 Henry Hoyt, chosen April 28, 1847. 
 Ezra Farnsworth, chosen December 14, 1853. 
 Tyler Batcheler, chosen September 17, 1857. 
 Jacob Fullarton, Jr., chosen October 13, 1857. 
 Charles C. Litchfield, chosen October 13, 1857. 
 
 COMMUNION FURNITURE. 
 
 Large Table Cloth, presented by Andrew Calhoun, 1809. 
 Small Table Cloth, presented by Asa Ward, 1809. 
 Baptismal Fount, presented by Ebenezer Parker, 1809. 
 
 First. Presented to the church by Aaron Hardy, 1809. 
 Second. Presented to the church by Henry Homes, 1809. 
 Third. Presented to the church by Thomas M'Clure 
 
 and Zacharias Thayer, 1819. 
 Fourth. Purchased by the church, 1822. 
 
 DONORS OF GOBLETS AND SPOON. 
 
 George J. Homer, Nathaniel Willis, 
 
 John E. Tyler, Haskell & Hale, 
 
 William Thurston, John C. Proctor, 
 
 Josiah Bumstead, David Chamberlain and others, 
 
 William Ladd, Maynard Ellison and others, 
 
 David Baxter, Hannah Haskins, 
 Mary Mason, 
 
162 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 BAPTISMS DURING FIFTY YEAES. 
 
 Infants and young children . 591 
 
 Adults 174 
 
 Total 765 
 
 THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 
 
 Sabbath Schools, in the Orthodox churches in 
 Boston, it is supposed, originated in a meeting of 
 members of Park Street Church, in the year 1817. 
 Rev. Dr. Griffin was present, and took a deep 
 interest in the subject. 
 
 A free conversation was held, in which objections 
 were raised, viz : that it might be a desecration of 
 the Sabbath ; that children ought to be instructed 
 at home by their parents ; and that professing Chris- - 
 tians ought to be at home, engaged in reading, medi- 
 tation, and prayer, instead of going abroad to teach 
 the children of other families, on the Sabbath. 
 
 To this it was answered, that Sabbath-school teach- 
 ing was a missionary work, designed to gather, from 
 the streets and wharves, children who were neg- 
 lected by their parents, and suffered to go abroad 
 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 163 
 
 oh the Sabbath, when they were generally engaged 
 in play or mischief. It was for this purpose that 
 they were established in England, by Robert Raikes, 
 and they had there been the means of doing great 
 good. 
 
 It was finally determined, at that meeting, that a 
 school of that description should be commenced ; 
 and William Thurston, Esq., (the first name at- 
 tached to the covenant of Park Street Church,) who 
 had no children of his own, was requested to act 
 as superintendent of the school. This school was 
 established in the Town Schoolhouse, on Mason 
 Street. 
 
 Schools similar to this were afterwards established 
 in other sections of the town. The " Society for the 
 Moral and Religious Instruction of the Poor," being 
 organized about that time, took the general superin- 
 tendence of all the schools, appointed the superin- 
 tendents when vacancies occurred, visited and ex- 
 amined the schools, by committees, quarterly, and 
 contributed to their pecuniary wants. 
 
 Some years after this, the " Boston Sabbath School 
 Union " was formed, which took the care of the 
 schools into its own hands ; but they were not con- 
 nected with any particular church until some years 
 after the Society's supervision commenced. 
 
 In the fall of 1829, two members of the Park Street 
 
1 G4: SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Church, — a lady and a gentleman, — after conversa- 
 tion on the subject, determined to attempt the estab- 
 lishment of a Sabbath school in Park Street Lower 
 Vestry, to be gathered principally from the congre- 
 gation. Notice was given from the pulpit of this 
 intention ; parents were requested to send their chil- 
 dren : and youth, under age, were invited to meet 
 and form a Bible class. 
 
 The first meeting of the school was held " Sun- 
 day, December 13, 1829." There were present 
 three male and three female teachers ; . ten male 
 and eleven female scholars. Joseph Jenkins was 
 superintendent, Horatio M. Willis was secretary, 
 Nathaniel Willts took charge of the female Bible- 
 class, A. Ellison, B. Bennet, Mrs. Eustis, Mrs. 
 Beecher, and Miss Barker, were teachers of other 
 classes. 
 
 At the second meeting, December 20, two dollars 
 were received from Mr. EL H. Barton, father of two 
 female scholars, in aid of the formation of a library. 
 On the next Sabbath, one dollar was received from 
 a teacher, and twenty-five cents from a scholar, for 
 the same object. December 20, the first address 
 was made to the school by Rev. Louis Dwight. 
 
 At the time that Park Street School was estab- 
 lished, many teachers and scholars belonging to Park 
 Street congregation were engaged in other schools, 
 
HISTORIC SKETCH. 165 
 
 from which they were not disposed to withdraw. It 
 was stated at the time, that about one hundred mem- 
 bers of Park Street Church, of both sexes, were thus 
 engaged. 
 
 I. SUPERINTENDENTS OF THE SABBATH SCHOOL IN 
 PARK STREET VESTRY. 
 
 Joseph W. Jenkins, from December 13, 1829, to June 
 
 1, 1834. 
 William T. Eustis, from June, 1834, to October, 1837. 
 Daniel Safford, from October, 1837, to June, 1839. 
 William T. Eustis, from June, 1839, to October, 1845. 
 Henry Hoyt, from October, 1845, to October, 1847. 
 S. Ingersoll Lovett, from January, 1850, to January, 
 
 1852. 
 E. S. Chesbrough, from January, 1852, to January, 
 
 1854. 
 Samuel Gregory, m.d., from January, 1854, to January, 
 
 1856. 
 Thomas N. Nickerson, from January, 1856, to January, 
 
 1859. 
 
 II. MISSION school in mason street. 
 
 Established by two young ladies of the church, in 1855. 
 Erastus Smith has been superintendent from 1855 to the 
 present time. The whole number of teachers and scholars 
 is two hundred. 
 
166 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 III. MISSION SCHOOL IN REVERE STREET (COLORED). 
 
 This school was first established in 1829. It was taken 
 under the care of Park Street Church in 1859. since 
 which time J. G-reen Jones has been superintendent. 
 The whole number of teachers and scholars is one hun- 
 dred and thirty-five. 
 
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