.F8 S8 
 
 Copy 1 
 
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 1700 1900 
 
 THE vSTORY OF 
 A CHURCH FOR 
 TWO CENTURIES 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 AT THE 
 
 FIRST PARISH CHURCH 
 
 FRAMINGHAM 
 
 JUNE TENTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED 
 
 By CALVIN STEBBINS 
 (published by reque.st) 
 
 GEO. I.. CLAPP, PRINTER, SOUTH FRAMINGHAM, MASS. 
 1900 
 
i/oo 1900 
 
 THE STORY OF 
 A CHURCH FOR 
 TWO CENTURIES 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 AT THE 
 
 FIRST PARISH CHURCH 
 
 FRAMINGHAM 
 
 JUNE TENTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED 
 
 By CALVIN STKBBINS 
 
 (published by request) 
 
 GEO. t,. CI.APP, PRINTER, SOUTH FRAMINGHAM, MASS. 
 1900 
 
■YYvtu. S a-t^-^-ey^ 
 
 MINISTERS OF THE PARISH 
 
 John Swift, H. U., 1697. 
 
 Settled Oct. 8th, 1701 — Died April 24tli, 1745. 
 
 Mathew Bridge, H. U., 1741. 
 
 Settled Feb. 19th, 1745-46 — Died Sept. 2, 1775. 
 
 David Kei,i.ogg, D. C, 1775. 
 
 Settled Jan. 10th, 1781 to Jan. 20th 1830. 
 
 A. B. MuzzEY, H.U., 1824. 
 
 Settled June 10th, 1830 to May 18th, 1833. 
 
 George Chapman, H.U., 1828. 
 
 Settled Nov. 6, 1833— Died June 2, 1834. 
 
 WII.LIAM Barry, B. U., 1822. 
 
 Settled Dec. 16, 1835 to Dec. 16, 1845. 
 
 John N. Bellows. 
 
 Settled April 15, 1846 to Oct. 16, 1847. 
 
 J. H. Phipps, Har. Div., 1848. 
 
 Settled Nov 16, 1848 to 1853. 
 
 Samuel L. Robbins, Har. Div., 1833. 
 
 Settled 1854 to 1867. 
 
 Henry G. Spaulding, H. U., 1860. 
 
 Settled Feb. 19. 1868 to June 15, 1873. 
 
 Charles A. Humphreys, H. U., 1860. 
 
 •. ; ... ..^ ,.. ..; . ; ..; ; ; -^Nov. 2, 1873 to Nov. 1, 1891. 
 
 Ernest 'C BMiiH'.' ..::•" • 
 
 , , Settled Jan. 21, 1892 to Oct. 1, 1899. 
 
FORE-WORD 
 
 At a meeting of the members of the First Parish Church 
 in Framingham held on April 8th, 1900, in consideration 
 of the fact that the efforts for the incorporation of the 
 town and the organization of the church were simulta- 
 neous movements, it was voted to celebrate in some 
 appropriate manner the inception of the latter. A com- 
 mittee was appointed consisting of S. B. Bird, Franklin 
 E. Gregory, William F. Gregory, Sidney A. Phillips, 
 Joseph B. Cloyes, S. S. Woodbury, W. I. Brigham and 
 Edward W. Kingsbury to make suitable arrangements. 
 The committee invited the Rev. Calvin Stebbins to 
 prepare an address for the occasion. The invitation was 
 accepted and the address was spoken at the church on 
 Sunday, June loth. Later he was asked to furnish a copy 
 of it and it with the other services is now published. 
 
ORDER OF SERVICES 
 
 I. Organ Voluntary. 
 
 II. Exhortation. 
 
 We are gathered here today in the fullness of the Summer, 
 and on an occasion crowded with memories of the past, to 
 praise and worship the God of our fathers and our God. 
 His voice was heard in the morning of the world from afar, 
 and in the evening He speaketh at the door; He saw the end 
 from the beginning and wove the ages as upon a loom ; He 
 remembered the low estate of His children and bent to them 
 His testimonies from of old ; He made a way in the sea and 
 a path in the mighty waters for our fathers and brought them 
 in a way they knew not, and led them in paths they did not 
 know. 
 
 L,et us rejoice and be exceeding glad. Let us sing unto 
 the Lord a new song, and make known his deeds among all 
 the people. Let us talk of all his wondrous works, and sing 
 of the glories of his kingdom, which is an everlasting king- 
 dom, which makes the darkness light and the night to shine 
 as the day, and us able able to say with the men of old : — 
 "Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be 
 ignorant of us and Israel acknowledge us not ; Thou art our 
 Father, our Redeemer ; Thy name is from everlasting." 
 
 " Praise God, our Maker and our Friend ; 
 Praise him through time, till time shall end ; 
 Till psalm and song his name adore 
 Through Heaven's great day of evermore." 
 
6 The Story of a Church 
 
 III. Choir. 
 
 IV. The 84TH Psalm. 
 
 From " The/ Psalms,/ Hjunns,/ And/ Spiritual Songs/ of 
 the, Old & New Testament./ Faithfully Translated into/ 
 English Metre./ For the use, edification and comfort of the/ 
 Saints in publick & private, especially in New England./ 
 
 Cambridge,/ Printed for Hczekiah Usher, of Boston,/ 1665." 
 
 lyined, and sung, by the Choir and the Congregation. 
 
 To the chief Musician, upon Gittith,/ A Psalm for the 
 Sons of Korah./ 
 
 How Amiable Lord of hosts, 
 thy Tabernacles be ? 
 
 2. My soul longs for Jehovah's Courts, 
 
 yea it ev'n faints in me : 
 Unto the strong and living God, 
 my heart and flesh do shout. 
 
 3. Yea sparrow finds an house, her nest 
 
 the swallow eke finds out : 
 Wherein she may her young ones lay, 
 
 thine altars near unto : 
 O thou that art of armies Lord, 
 
 my King, my God also. 
 
 4. O blest are they within thy house 
 
 who dwell, still they '11 thee praise : 
 
 5. Blest is the man whose strength 's in thee, 
 
 in whose heart are their wayes. 
 
 6. Who as they pass through Baca's Vale, 
 
 a fountain do it make ; 
 Also the pools that are therein, 
 their fill of rain do take. 
 
 7. From strength to strength they go : to God, 
 
 in Siou all appear. 
 
 8. Lord God of hosts, O hear my 
 
 prayer, 
 O Jacob's God give ear. 
 
For Tivo Centuries. 7 
 
 (2) 
 9. Behold, O God, our shield, the face 
 of thine annointed see. 
 
 10. For better 's in thy Courts a day, 
 
 than elsewhere thousands be: 
 I rather had a door-keeper 
 
 be i' th' house of my God, 
 Than in the tents of wickedness 
 
 to settle mine abode. 
 
 11. Because the Lord God is a Sun, 
 
 he is a shield also : 
 Jehovah on his people grace 
 
 and glory will bestow : 
 No good thing will be hold from them 
 
 that do walk uprightly, 
 
 12. O lyord of hosts, the man is blest 
 
 that puts his trust in thee. 
 
 V. Prayer. The Rev. Henry G. Spaulding. 
 VI. Response. Solo by Mr. Howard Mason. 
 
 VII. Hymn^ By Samuel Lo7ig fellow. 
 
 • O Life that maketh all things new, — 
 
 The blooming earth, the thoughts of men, — 
 Our pilgrim feet, wet with thy dew, 
 In gladness hither turn again. 
 
 From hand to hand the greeting flows. 
 
 From eye to eye the signals run. 
 From heart to heart the bright hope glows. 
 
 The seekers of the Light are one : 
 
 One in the freedom of the truth, 
 
 One in the joy of paths untrod. 
 One in the soul's perennial youth, 
 
 One in the larger thought of God. 
 
 The freer step, the fuller breath, 
 
 The wide horizon's grander view. 
 The sense of life that knows no death, — 
 
 The Life that maketh all things new. 
 
8 The Story of a Church 
 
 VIII. Sermon. By the Rev. Calvin Stebbins. 
 
 IX, Prayer. 
 
 X. Hymn. By Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 Read by the Rev. Horatio Stebbins, D.D. 
 
 of San Francisco, California. 
 
 We love the venerable house 
 
 Our fathers built to God ; — 
 In heaven are kept their grateful vows, 
 
 Their dust endears the sod. 
 
 Here holy thoughts a light have shed 
 
 From many a radiant face, 
 And prayers of humble virtue made 
 
 The perfume of the place. 
 
 And anxious hearts have pondered here 
 
 The mystery of life, 
 And prayed the eternal Light to clear 
 
 Their doubts, and aid their strife. 
 
 From humble tenements around 
 
 Came up the pensive train, 
 And in the church a blessing found 
 
 That filled their homes again ; 
 
 They live with God ; their homes are dust ; 
 
 Yet here their children pray, 
 And in this fleeting lifetime trust 
 
 To find the narro^v way. 
 
 XI. Benediction. 
 XII. Organ. 
 
 W. E. Chenery, Organist. 
 Howard Mason, Chorister. 
 
For Tivo Centuries. 
 
 SERMON 
 
 I stir up your pure minds b)' way of remembrance. 
 
 2d Peter Hi, i . 
 
 But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call 
 heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers. 
 
 T/ie Ads xxiv, 14. 
 
 It has been suggested that there are two kinds of 
 memory. One belongs to the individual and has to do 
 with his life only; it connects his today with his 
 yesterdays, and gives continuity to his existence in time. 
 The other takes him out of himself and brings him in 
 contact with immortal principles as illustrated in the lives 
 of others, and associates his life with exalted feelings and 
 heroic deeds. When his pure mind is stirred by way of 
 this remembrance, he is taken out of his personal 
 experience and made partaker of another and a higher 
 spirit. In response to its suggestions, he sets apart days 
 in which to commemorate the announcement of great 
 principles in politics, morals and religion. He keeps the 
 birthdays of men he has never seen, decorates public 
 halls, squares and gardens with the representations of 
 heroic and civic virtues; he keeps the centennial of the 
 state, of the incorporation of the town and of the 
 fonnation of the church. This is the principle that brings 
 us together today that our pure minds may be stirred by 
 way of remembrance. 
 
 The incorporation of this town took place in the last 
 year of the seventeenth century and about the same time 
 the people went about the organization of a church. It 
 was a period of great financial depression, accompanied 
 
lo The Story of a Church 
 
 with spiritual dejection throughout all New England, and 
 especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The old 
 century went out in gloom, and the new came in with a 
 joyless morn. The period has been rightly called "The 
 dark days of New England." The first generation, the 
 sturdy men who laid the foundations and built the 
 basement story of our great structure of nationality, had 
 gone, and the great generation which achieved our national 
 independence was yet to come. 
 
 In the meantime there was little, apparently, before the 
 people but a hard struggle for life. The witchcraft mania 
 had left a baleful trail behind it. The disastrous failure 
 of Sir William Phipps's expedition against Quebec had 
 broken the spirit of the people, carried mourning into 
 hundreds of homes, left the borders open to the hostile 
 incursions of French and Indians, had loaded the colony 
 with debt, and an attempt to create money out of the 
 public credit had resulted in great financial distress. 
 Disasters on sea and land came thick and fast: hurricanes, 
 hail-stonns, floods whose violence changed the channels of 
 rivers, ministers' houses struck by lightning, and great 
 loss of cattle :- 
 
 To Horses, Swine, Net-Cattel, Sheep aud Deer, 
 Ninety and seven proved a mortal year, 
 
 a scarcity of food, high prices, the coldest weather in 
 winter since the country was settled, all this did not fail 
 to have its impression upon the minds of the people. 
 The tone of social and moral life had deteriorated, and 
 there was a marked change in manners for the worse, but 
 theology was triumphant. It was under these circum- 
 stances that the people of the new town laid another 
 burden upon themselves and went about to build a church. 
 Two hundred years is not a very long period in the 
 history of English-speaking men in their old home, but 
 it is a long period in the New World. It measures one 
 
For Tzvo Centuries. ii 
 
 half the time since Cohimbus discovered America, and 
 about all the time that his great discovery has been a 
 blessing to mankind. 
 
 This period of two hundred years has been a field for 
 the action of occult and powerful forces, and through their 
 agency amazing changes have been wrought in every 
 department of human life. It seems impossible that the 
 present should be the legitimate child of the past. Yet 
 the men of old were the makers of today, but were 
 unconscious of what they were doing. There are few 
 more striking illustrations of the presence of a divine 
 hand o;uidino; in the affairs of men than the fact that men 
 are not allowed to be frightened by foreseeing the results 
 of their labors. If the founders of this church could 
 have foreseen the results of these two hundred years, 
 they would have dismissed at once the thought of 
 building a church for such an end. And this is true in 
 regard to every church in Christendom. 
 
 The Puritans brought with them to this country two 
 institutions which were almost co-eval with the origin of 
 man. Both had the same object in view — the realization 
 of the moral law in hmnan conduct. One speaks in 
 a command, and says to all for the good of all : "Thou 
 shalt "; the other is voluntary, and speaks in a vow: "We 
 will." The one is society in state, the other society in 
 church. 
 
 A great experiment was to be tried here with both these 
 forms of society The experiment in state was no other 
 than to see whether the social pyramid would stand more 
 steadily on its base than as heretofore on its apex. The 
 experiment in the church was equally bold ; it was no 
 other than an attempt to organize a voluntary body, 
 without priest and without ritual, which should be self- 
 governing and be able to meet the moral and religious 
 wants of human nature. 
 
 We are here today to rejoice in the fact that the First 
 Church in Framingham has weathered the storms and 
 
1 2 The Story of a Church 
 
 vicisitudes of two centuries ; that it has adjusted itself to 
 the changed conditions and wants that have occurred in 
 that time ; that it has today no quarrel with civilization, 
 science or reason, and that it brings to us the lesson, ever 
 old and forever new, that is folded up in those four words 
 of amazing import and exhaustless significence, — God, 
 immortality, duty and liberty. 
 It has been wittily said that : — 
 
 Little of all we value here 
 
 Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 
 
 Without both feeling and looking queer. 
 
 In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, 
 
 So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 
 
 The tree and truth have this in common, — they both 
 grow, and truth grows forever ; it has perennial youth, 
 and an institution that embodies it and grows with it, that 
 can adjust itself to a fuller life and afford its tenant larger 
 accomodations as the generations come and go, is here to 
 stay while truth has need of it. 
 
 It might seem pleasant to look in upon the fathers as 
 they gather for the first time in the new meeting house on 
 the hill in yonder cemetery. We should without doubt, 
 find them all there, for, as John Adams said, — " Man is 
 a church-going animal" ; at least he was in those days. 
 But only the most tolerant, and the most gifted spirits of 
 today, could enter into those services two hundred years 
 ago and rejoice with them that do rejoice. 
 
 The fathers of New England, as was natural, brought 
 with them many old-world habits of thought and feeling 
 and planted them here, but it is strange that the survival 
 of the spirit of caste should have been fostered in the 
 services of the church. "It is somewhat noticeable," 
 says one of our historians, " that equality in the worship 
 of a common Creator has been as little observed in 
 democratic New England as in any country classed as 
 civilized, if, indeed, it has not been less observed." 
 { Adams'' Three Epochs^ 11^ 7JP-) 
 
For Two Centuries. 13 
 
 The assignment of the pews and sittings in the meeting 
 house was a very important subject and one that had to be 
 handled with great caution. This little church in the 
 wilderness was keenly alive to social distinctions, especially 
 in worship. In the town meeting all men were equal, 
 The ballot-box swept away all distinctions. 
 
 The spirit of caste took refuge in the Church in a form 
 that had already an unenviable reputation on account of 
 the fierce imprecations called down upon the heads of 
 those who sought the chief seats in the synagogues. But 
 our fathers were Old Testament Christians. 
 
 In this church at first the most highly esteemed 
 situations for worship were under the galleries, and the 
 representatives of social position and wealth secured these, 
 and with the permission of the town built pews for 
 themselves and their families, and without permission cut 
 doors and windows of all shapes and sizes in the walls. 
 Our fathers had some strange notions on this subject of 
 pews. At Braintree, the town gave William Rawson the 
 privilege of building a pew, between or upon the two 
 beams over the pulpit, but in such a way as not to 
 obstruct the light. {Brainlree^ Toiu7i Records^ ^6.) 
 
 The body of the church was filled with benches. The 
 half of the floor and galleries to the left of the minister 
 was assigned to the women and the right to the men, and 
 the boys were put by themselves, and the tythingman 
 was instructed to see to it that they did not neglect the 
 means of grace. The town records show how the dignity 
 of the sittings was adjusted. It was voted: "That in 
 dignity the seats shall rank as follows : — the table ( the 
 deacon's seat ) and the foreseats are the two highest ; the 
 front gallery equals in dignity the second and third seats 
 in the body of the house; the side galleries equal in 
 dignity the fourth and fifth seats in the body of the 
 house." The worshipers here were very jealous of their 
 rights, and the deacons were requested to take special 
 
14 TJie Story of a Churcli 
 
 notice ' ' that all persons do keep to their own seats 
 appointed to them and keep out of the seats of others 
 whereby the Sabbath is profaned." 
 
 Wealth has wiped out most of these distinctions in the 
 church, but one was especially tenacious of life and many 
 of you may recollect it. Behind the men's seats, or up 
 in the corner of their gallery, was the place of dignity for 
 the colored population both slave and free , for the slave 
 was here in early times. The Rev. John vSwift, the first 
 minister of the church, owned live of his fellowmen. 
 The parson does not seem to have been a hard master. 
 After the first secession from the church, about the year 
 1 735) Nero, one of his slaves followed those who left and 
 joined the chiuxh in Hopkinton on the same conditions as 
 the others. The rights of his mind at least were respected 
 by his master. Mr. Swift however showed that he had a 
 will of his own. He refused to give the seceders letters 
 of dismissal from this church. They were however 
 received into the church at Hopkinton and years of 
 controversy made the case very celebrated in the history 
 of ecclesiastical polity in New England. 
 
 There is something like irony in the fate that lifts one 
 of the humblest worshipers in a church to fame and leaves 
 his betters to be forgotten. Just before the Revolution a 
 slave belonging to Major Lawson Buckminster joined this 
 church under the " half-way covenant," which indicates 
 to us that he was a very sensible man. He joined the 
 ' ' Minutemen ' ' also and when the first alarm came he 
 went to Lexington, Concord and Cambridge. He enlisted 
 at once for three months, and, as his master was a patriotic 
 man, he received without any doubt his liberty. He then 
 enlisted for eight months, then for three years and at the 
 expiration of the time enlisted again for three years and 
 was honorably discharged at the close of the war. This 
 man, Peter Salem, as he was called, was at Bunker Hill 
 and Saratoga, as his tombstone in the cemetery testifies. 
 
/'};;■ Tzvo Centuries. 
 
 15 
 
 111 the Trumbull Gallery at New Haven, hangs a 
 picture of the Battle of Bunker Hill by our great histori- 
 cal painter, John Trumbull. The thousands from all 
 parts of this wide land who look in admiration at the 
 noble work of the artist, will not fail to notice the colored 
 man in the foreground behind the retreating Americans 
 adjusting his firelock as for one more shot in defense of the 
 half finished redoubt. 
 
 One of the greatest orators of our country, and indeed 
 of our century, said on Bunker Hill, as he pointed to the 
 noble shaft : — "It is the monument of the day, of the 
 event, of the battle of Bunker Hill ; of all the brave men 
 who shared its perils, — alike Prescott and Putnam and 
 Warren, — the chiefs of the day and the colored man 
 Salem, who is reported to have shot the gallant Pitcairn 
 as he mounted the parapet." 
 
 Whatever our fathers may have done and whatever we 
 may do, it is well to bear in mind this one fact: that there 
 is a church of the living God on earth, the great church 
 of history. In this church where the immortals are 
 gathered no questions are asked about a man's social 
 position, wealth, color, orthodoxy, or heterodoxy. The 
 brave heart loyal to truth and liberty gives a man a place 
 in the ranks of the just, and humanity is satisfied, for no 
 one is ashamed to stand beside Peter Salem at Bunker Hill. 
 
 Important as the meeting house of our fathers was in a 
 religious point of view, as the meeting place with God, 
 it was also the meeting place with men, and was the 
 centre of their social and political life. They never 
 allowed any superstitions to grow up around it. They 
 had no such feelings towards it as the Catholic or the 
 Episcopalian cherish for their places of worship, nor even 
 the milder reverence that has grown up in the minds of 
 their children in this irreverent generation. 
 
 There was no sacred enclosure ; the ground in front of 
 it was usually the training field, the stocks were in close 
 
1 6 The Story of a Church 
 
 proximity to the door, and the whipping post was not far 
 off. The ammunition and arms were stored in the loft 
 over the auditorium, and the minister was allowed to 
 store his corn there, but not in such quantities as to 
 endanger the building; in one case the poor man was 
 limited to two hundred and fifty bushels. In the audito- 
 rium the town meetings were held, and they were of 
 frequent occurence. 
 
 The church and the town were virtually one until the 
 charter of William and Mary, when a property qualifi- 
 cation took the place of a theological. But the two 
 continued to act together until the constitution in 1820 
 which completed the separation of church and state. 
 When the first minister of this church was settled, the 
 town acted in its corporate capacity in calling him, and 
 all the inhabitants were assessed to build the church, pay 
 his salary and the running expenses. 
 
 But the outward history of a church is of little conse- 
 quence compared with the history of the progress of its 
 thought. To understand this we must take a general 
 survey of the religious thought of New England during 
 these two hundred years, and then we shall be able to see 
 more clearly the work done here. 
 
 The discussions in the New England churches were not 
 at first of a theological character, but were confined chiefly 
 to matters pertaining to church polity or government. 
 This was natural, as they were departing widely from the 
 usages of the reformed churches. The first churches in 
 New England were bound together by a covenant and not 
 by a creed, and, while on friendly terms, were wholly 
 independent of each other. There was nothing in the 
 covenant of the First Church at Salem that an ordinary 
 Unitarian would object to. Indeed it is inscribed on the 
 walls of the church today and reads as follows : — " We 
 Covenant with the Lord and one with another; and do 
 bind ourselves in the presence of God, to walk together 
 
For 7 wo Centuries. 17 
 
 in all his ways, according, as he is pleased to reveal him- 
 self unto us in his Blessed word of Truth." 
 
 These discussions finally culminated in the Synod of 
 Cambridge in 1648. The churches were all but two 
 represented and adopted with singular unanimity a plat- 
 form prepared by Richard Mather. It laid down the 
 doctrine that every candidate for church fellowship must 
 satisfy the church as to his knowledge of Christian 
 doctrines and the reasons therefor, and have experienced 
 what was called regeneration. The standard of the West- 
 minster Assembly of Divines was adopted and the 
 churches of New England became hot-beds of dogmatism 
 and intolerance. 
 
 After the settlement of the question of church polity 
 the people turned their attention to theology and became 
 the most Calvanistic people in the world, with perhaps the 
 exception of the Scots. The five points of Calvanism 
 covered the whole field of their thoughts. 
 
 It is a very striking illustration of the complete revolu- 
 tion that has taken place in religious thought in New 
 England that the themes which occupied the attention and 
 thought of the fathers have lost all interest for the 
 children. They have disappeared from the life of today 
 and hardly left a wreck behind them. There are probably 
 very few persons in this audience, if any, or in this town, 
 whether orthodox or heterodox, who could name "the 
 Five Points of Calvinism.'' We are not told by any 
 high authority in spiritual things that: "The times of 
 this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all 
 men everywhere to repent." "But brethren I would not 
 have you ignorant ' ' of what the fathers thought vital to 
 salvation. The Five Points are as follows: — 
 
 I. Predestination, or particular election. 
 II. Irresistible Grace. 
 
 III. Original Sin, or Total Depravity. 
 
 IV. Peculiar Redemption. 
 
 V. The final perseverance of the Saints. 
 
i8 The Story of a Church 
 
 It was a period of astonishing theological activity. In 
 illustration of these frightful themes whole bodies of 
 divinity were published, but they were first delivered as 
 sennons. Samuel Willard left a work entitled "A 
 complete Body of Divinity," which was published in a 
 huge tome of nine hundred and fourteen pages, each page 
 having two columns, in small and compact type. It was 
 all delivered in two hundred and fifty sermons in the 
 nineteen years, extending across the period of the organi- 
 zation and early years of this church. 
 
 But whatever we may think of the theology of John 
 Calvin, we must acknowledge that Calvinism has produced 
 a very remarkable race of men, and has left to us a royal 
 inheritance of political institutions and liberties. It was 
 not a bad mental stimulus and the child was early exer- 
 cised and trained in it. He was not sent to a girls' school, 
 but he was given the catechism of the Rev. John Cotton, — 
 " Milk for New England Babes Drawn from the Breasts 
 of both Testaments for their Spiritual Nourishment." 
 You may think that there was little milk in it, but you 
 may be assured of this one thing, — there was no water. 
 The child had a rugged training and acquired a mental 
 culture of inestimable value. He was taught to think 
 clearly and deeply. Thus Calvinism nursed, educated 
 and armed with invincible might an antagonist who by 
 and by would question not its reasoning but its premises. 
 
 But Calvinism as exhibited in Puritanism not only 
 exercised the reason, it strengthened the domestic affec- 
 tions, and through them brought into the field of church 
 polity another factor. In the Puritan church everything 
 culminated at the communion table, and no one could 
 approach it but a member of the church who was sound 
 in his belief and had had personal assurance of his own 
 regeneration, and only such had a right to bring their 
 children forward for baptism. But the younger generation, 
 although good men living blameless lives and who had 
 
For Tzvo Centuries. 
 
 19 
 
 themselves been baptised in infancy, did not join the 
 church. The position of their children was pitiable 
 enough ; they were little pagans who had strolled into the 
 services of a Christian church, but were outside its guard- 
 ianship and beyond ' ' the ecclesiastical inspection ' ' that 
 goes with baptism. 
 
 The parents were anxious to have their children 
 baptised, and, on the ground that they were born into 
 the church and entitled to its care and nurture, the church 
 yielded and parental affection triumphed over orthodoxy. 
 This is known in our history as " the Half-way Covenant. ' ' 
 It met with little opposition, as the grandparents who had 
 the matter in their hands wished to have their grand- 
 children baptised and see them under the protection of the 
 church . 
 
 The half-way-covenant theory is usually looked upon 
 as the mother of that brood of heresies known as Unitarian- 
 ism. However this may be, it introduced into the polity 
 of the church of that time a new principle, a principle 
 that announced that the church was made for man and not 
 man for the church. It was the beginning of a movement 
 which in time changed the church from a little private 
 party of "visible saints," who thought they had been 
 elected from the foundation of the world to be the especial 
 recipients of divine favor, and made it an organization 
 of men and women whose object it was to succor, 
 and cultivate all noble aspirations after the divine and 
 quicken and energize all kindly feelings towards the 
 human. 
 
 It was the beginning of a great advance in thought, 
 feeling and practice. Some of the bars were removed 
 and not even Jonathan Edwards could put them back, and 
 he lost his pulpit at Northampton for trying to do so. 
 Let me quote on this point the words of an accomplished 
 historian whose recent death we all have reason to lament. 
 
20 The Story of a Church 
 
 The Rev. George Leon Walker, D.D., in a lecture deliv- 
 ered to the students of a theological school has said : 
 
 " It is no exageration to say that, though the Congregational 
 churches of New England have rejected the Half-way-Cov- 
 enant theory, they are today generally admiuing to iull 
 communion a membership which exhibits less clearly under- 
 stood and realized convictions of sin and of the necessity of 
 atoning grace as the only hope of lost men than under that 
 system were often expected of those who came only halfway 
 within the covenant doors." — ( Some Religious Aspects, 174.) 
 
 In the fourth decade of the eighteenth century it was 
 noticed that a marked decadence of religion and morals 
 had taken place and a thorough reform was called for. 
 
 The man was at hand to organize the crusade and 
 restore the old discipline and rigidity. The powerful 
 genius of Jonathan Edwards now came to the front. He 
 was unsurpassed as a dialectician, but his clear, calm, cold 
 and merciless logic was reinforced by an imagination that 
 the greatest poets might have envied, which gave to 
 everything he said an intense realism. He appealed at 
 once to the mind and heart, to the reason and to the 
 feelings. The dogmas of Galvanism in his hands ceased 
 to be mere theological abstractions that might lie dormant 
 in the soul until the day of judgment, but dreadful reali- 
 ties of imminent and supreme importance, and he 
 introduced and emphasized with great skill a new feature, 
 the personal responsibility of the sinner for his graceless 
 state. "The Great Awakening" was the result of his 
 preaching. Whitefield came from England with his 
 blazing oratory to swell the influence until the country 
 was in a whirl of religious excitement of the greatest 
 intensity. "The dry bones of the prevailing orthodoxy 
 rattled, and the people came to Christ in flocks," as 
 Edwards said. 
 
 The excesses of the movement were very great, and 
 some questioned the spirit, whether it was of God or no. 
 
For Two Centuries. 2i 
 
 Among these was Charles Channcy, one of the leading 
 ministers of Boston. He opposed the whole movement, 
 publicly denounced Whitefield, and entered into a discus- 
 sion with Edwards himself. But the Lord's Supper was 
 more strictly guarded and the road to church membership 
 was made more difficult and thorny than before. The 
 result, however, was not encouraging. When the excite- 
 ment subsided and men began to think once more, a 
 reaction set in which produced astonishing results. 
 
 The reaction brought together scattered influences that 
 had been working for a long time in silence. The clergy 
 and the laity began to study in the spirit of real investi- 
 gation, and heretical views ceased to be feared. At the 
 close of the "Great Awakening," a Boston bookseller 
 bought out an edition of Emlyn's "Humble Inquiry," 
 in which was stated very cogent reasons for not believing 
 the doctrine of the Trinity. The great teachers began to 
 give reasons for the opinions they taught, and did not 
 depend upon scriptural proof-texts. The War of the 
 Revolution had a tremendous influence upon the religious 
 thought of the people, for of religion it may be said, as 
 Hosea Bigelow said of its great coadjutor: 
 
 " civlyzation does git forrid 
 Sometimes upon a powder-cart." 
 
 The humanities began to come into the foreground and 
 scholastic dogmas sank into the background. When the 
 alarm was sounded it was too late ; the great majority of 
 the people in the leading churches had ceased to be 
 orthodox. 
 
 The legitimate result of these reactionary and advancing 
 forces was American Unitarianism. As a movement it 
 was open to the influences of all the ages, and has been so 
 far open to the influences of the age that was present as 
 time advanced. It allowed human nature its right to 
 speak on the high problems of the soul, of time and 
 
22 The Story of a Church 
 
 eternity, and it affirmed with all its strength the veracity 
 of its intellectual, moral and spiritual convictions. It has 
 drifted, rather than been guided by any human hand, 
 through many stages of experiences and many phases of 
 thought, and has been vexed by many sharp controversies, 
 but its discussions have seldom descended to wrangling. 
 At last it has taken a position upon which all can stand. 
 
 The youngest church in Christendom, it has accepted 
 the oldest and the simplest statement of faith and practice 
 in the world. This statement is an affirmation of the aim 
 of all the various manifestations of religion on earth. It 
 is so broad that it takes in all the races of men and is 
 good for all time and eternity. Its disciples may be 
 denied the name of Christian, they may themselves think 
 they are or they may think they are not ; it is not a 
 matter worth disciissing. But it is well to remember that 
 you have the only bond of union and liberty in Christen- 
 dom that has the express and unequivocal sanction of 
 Jesus of Nazareth. He said of the two great command- 
 ments of the law which are inscribed on your banner : 
 "Do this and thou shalt live." 
 
 When we pass from the broad stream of the general 
 history of the Church to the history of individual churches, 
 we find ourselves very often, alas, in eddies, whirled about 
 by angry waters that chafe and foam and fret and are 
 dark with mud, and full of floating debris which has 
 drifted in from all directions. Men are never absurd on 
 purpose, but a church quarrel comes very near the line 
 that divides the reasonable from the great inane. I have 
 never heard one cited as an evidence of "total depravity." 
 Perhaps it would prove too much and weaken the cause. 
 
 It is not worth our while to rake the ashes of the past 
 for the dying embers of old church quarrels. They are 
 in their origin usually of a personal nature, and they try 
 to invest themselves with ecclesiastical dignity by putting 
 on a dress clumsily patched up oiit of so-called Christian 
 
For Two Centuries. 23 
 
 doctrines. It is astonishing how pious and orthodox men 
 will grow when they are like to get worsted in a church 
 quarrel. They are then just in a condition to do an 
 incalculable amount of harm, that does not die when the 
 original actors are dead, buried and forgotten, but illus- 
 trates the truth of Mark Anthony's saying: — " The evil 
 that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with 
 their bones." But the kingdom of God suffereth violence 
 and violence taketh it by force. There is no better 
 evidence of the vitality of the church than that it can 
 stand a succession of these rackets. This churcli has 
 great vitality. 
 
 The original covenant of this chiirch, signed by 
 eighteen persons (men) on the 8th of October, 1701, is a 
 document of about two hundred words in one sentence. 
 ( Forty years later Jonathan Edwards proposed a covenant 
 of one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight words. ) It 
 began in the conventional form of the time with a 
 confession: — "We do, under a soul-humbling and abasing 
 sense of our utter unworthiness of so great and high a 
 privilege as God is graciously putting into our hands, 
 accept of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for our 
 God in covenant with us," and so forth. 
 
 The humility expressed in the early covenants, so 
 foreign to our thought and feeling, was not of the Uriah 
 Heep type. The familiar couplet of the New England 
 Primer : — 
 
 "In Adam's fall 
 We sinned all," 
 
 is very democratic in its spirit ; it puts kings and priests 
 on a level with the lowest, poorest and weakest, and 
 humility is the only becoming state of mind, for "all are 
 made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, 
 and the pains of hell forever." Humility is the only 
 
24 The Story of a Church 
 
 possible state of mind for him who believes this and sees 
 the everlasting glories on the one hand and the everlasting 
 fires on the other. 
 
 There was a time when men believed that they were 
 born children of wrath, but that God had opened a way of 
 escape and had given them assurance of it. We today, 
 both orthodox and heterodox, are prone to forget that the 
 infinite Originality is equal to any condition a human soul 
 may be in and can give it the peace of heavenly places if 
 it looks up to God. 
 
 This covenanting with God is at best a matter of 
 legality, and belonged to the thought of a people who 
 clung to the idea of commercial relations in spiritual 
 things. There is a vastly higher relationship folded up 
 in the familiar words taught us at our mother's knee, 
 "Our Father who art in Heaven." The simple question 
 for us to settle is whether we feel the latter as strongly as 
 our fathers did the fonner. 
 
 It was without doubt understood that the creed of the 
 Church was the Confession of Faith adopted at Boston in 
 i6So. But the Church was not up in all respects to the 
 requirements of organized Congregationalism. The office 
 of Elder does not seem to have been provided for. The 
 theory was that the will of Christ ought to govern in the 
 Church. But who was to interpret that will? In the 
 New England theocracy it was not revealed to the church 
 members but to the elders. When the elder ordered 
 business or administered admonition, every faithful soul 
 was expected to assent, and if he did not he was held as 
 "factious and obstinate." The elders have been rightly 
 called "a speaking aristocracy in the face of a silent 
 Democracy." With this class of ecclesiastical tyrants 
 this church would have nothing to do. The church was 
 right, for the office of elder has no foundation in either 
 Scripture or reason, and was an invention of John Calvin. 
 But the rejection of this functionary caused a great deal 
 
For Two Centuries. 35 
 
 of trouble and was one of the causes of two secessions 
 from the church. The spirit of dissension ran so high at 
 one time that the Lord's Supper was omitted, and at 
 another time that a day was set apart for humiliation and 
 prayer on account of dissensions. 
 
 It is a very significant fact that while the Great Awak- 
 ening was in progress and the churches in the neighbor- 
 hood were aroused, and Edwards himself preached in this 
 immediate vicinity, he was not asked, so far as I can find, 
 to occupy this pulpit ; Whitefield preached in town once 
 but not by invitation of this church. The people seem 
 to have objected to the methods pursued, and the name 
 of their minister is not among those who signed the great 
 declaration of approval. 
 
 But quite as significant of the tone and temper of the 
 people is their action at the ordination of their second 
 minister, the Rev. Matthew Bridge. A committee was 
 selected " to be the mouthpiece of the church at the coun- 
 cil." They proposed to the candidate two questions; one 
 of a general nature as to church government, and the second 
 was, "if in important matters he was willing to take the 
 vote of the church with uplifted hands." His answer 
 was satisfactory to the great majority. But a protest was 
 sent to the council against the ordination of the candidate 
 on the ground that * * the scope and tenor of his preaching 
 was unsatisfactory, that many such doctrines, as we 
 esteem of greatest importance, are wholly omitted or at 
 best slightly touched upon in his sermons, particularly the 
 doctrine of original sin, the imputation of it ; the total 
 loss of the image of God in the fall of Adam ; the wrath 
 and curse of God consequent thereon," and six other 
 doctrines that have the genuine ring of the faith once 
 delivered to the saints by John Calvin. 
 
 Mr. Bridge was, however, ordained, as he said, "on the 
 old foundation." The dissenting brethren seceded and 
 formed a new church which had a short history, and the 
 
26 The Story of a Church 
 
 newly ordained minister was left to pursue his work in 
 peace for years to come. After his death the church was 
 without a settled minister for some years, but at the close 
 of the Revolutionary War the people called the Rev. 
 David Kellogg. He was a conservative man who held 
 orthodox views, loved peace, and did what he could for 
 union. He reinstated the reading of the Scriptures as a 
 part of the church services, which was looked upon as 
 "unedifying" in the churches of New England, and the 
 town granted eight dollars to purchase a Bible for the 
 pulpit. He was also instrumental in inducing the people 
 to use Watts's Hymns and Psalms. 
 
 This church as an organization, like many others at 
 that time, was steadily declining in numbers and power, 
 owing to a very gradual and silent change that was taking 
 place in the minds of men. During Mr. Bridge's admin- 
 istration, extending over twenty-nine years, from 1746 
 to 1775, eighty-one men had joined the church on 
 confession of faith. During the administration of Dr. 
 Kellogg, extending over forty-eight years, from 1781 to 
 1829, there were only sixty-nine. 
 
 A crisis was approaching and its coming was accelerated 
 by a meeting held on the 24th of April, 1826, at which a 
 parish was duly organized according to law. From this 
 time all connection between the town and the parish 
 ceased, and the church became independent of civil 
 authorities. This movement opened the way for the 
 parish to take a hand in the management of affairs and 
 have a voice in the proceedings, and the need of an assist- 
 ant to the now aged Dr. Kellogg afforded an occasion. 
 
 It was, however, soon apparent that the church and the 
 parish were not likely to agree in the selection. They 
 sought to bridge over the difficulty by employing preachers 
 of the old and the new school to occupy the pulpit alter- 
 nately. But the experiment was a failure, and nothing 
 remained but a trial of strength, and the parish was 
 
For Two CentJiHcs. 27 
 
 victorious. The minority seceded. This was the third 
 secession from the church in its history. The first two 
 were failures, but the third was a success. It took the 
 name of the " HoUis Evangelical Society" — a name 
 sacred to Unitarians, and we have to thank them for edu- 
 cating the Rev. Minot J. Savage for our ranks. 
 
 The people of the First Parish immediately erased the 
 names of the second and third persons of the Trinity from 
 their covenant and called a minister. Their intelligence 
 and their theological position is clearly indicated by the 
 character of the men they invited to take part in the ordi- 
 nation of their new minister. They named for the sennon 
 Dr. Channing or the Rev. James Walker, for the ordaining 
 prayer Dr. Lowell, and for the concluding prayer the 
 Rev. Raph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 Now that the noise of the controversy has died away it 
 is pleasant to note the undertones of kindly feeling that 
 have come down to us. The First Parish put on record 
 an expression of their sorrow that so many of their fellow- 
 worshipers and their old minister had left them. Dr. 
 Kellogg was invited to sit with the council at the ordina- 
 tion of his successor, but declined on account of the 
 infirmities of old age. He was invited to occupy his old 
 pulpit afterwards and did. At his funeral the minister of 
 this church, the Rev. William Barry, the conscientious 
 and graceful historian of the town, took part in the 
 services. It had been decided by the Supreme Court of 
 the Commonwealth that a church separating for any cause 
 from a parish loses its existence in the eye of the law, and, 
 therfore, that the seceding body could have no right to 
 either the name, furniture, records or property of the 
 church. The First Parish appointed a committee to confer 
 with a committee of the new church and instructed them 
 to make this proposal : — That the records go to the First 
 Parish and the communion service to the new church ; it 
 was accepted. The time is coming when the proud and 
 
28 The Story of a Church 
 
 opinionated with their egotism will vanish and only the 
 bright side of these old stories will find a place in our 
 remembrance. 
 
 It would be pleasant, did time permit, to look in upon the 
 charities of the church, — and there are plenty of illustra- 
 tions of the great human heart that was in it, — and to 
 speak of private generosity that with wise foresight has 
 blessed the present and the future. It would be pleasant 
 to speak of those men of culture and deep moral convic- 
 tions who have stood in this place and spoken for God and 
 duty, and to remind you of those brave men whose hearts 
 "on war's red touchstone rung true metal," — and among 
 them stand two of your own ministers, Matthew Bridge 
 and Charles A. Humphreys, who ventured their lives, one 
 to throw off the yoke of an English king, the other to 
 redeem the land from the more odious tyranny of a slave- 
 holding oligarchy; it would be pleasant to speak of those 
 men of affairs who have taken no unimportant part in the 
 great business of the world, and of those who have been 
 interested in the world of letters, one of whom has become 
 the conscientious and painstaking historian of an unpop- 
 ular cause, — the Loyalists of the Revolution. 
 
 It is a pleasant duty to pause in the rush of affairs and 
 commemorate the heroic virtues of the men and women 
 who toiled in the past and made the summits of the present 
 accessible to their children ; summits where the air is 
 invigorating and bracing, and the outlook is wide, and 
 where the native spiritual instincts of the soul, those 
 
 "High instincts, before which our mortal nature 
 Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised ; 
 Which be they what they may, are yet the fountain 
 Light of all our day ; the master light of all our seeing," 
 
 can act with greater freedom and power. 
 
 It is indeed a blessed privilege, as well as a duty, to give 
 thanks for the organization through which the fathers 
 
For Two Centuries. 
 
 29 
 
 wrought with such beneficent results for us and those who 
 come after us. We celebrate today the formation of that 
 Organization two hundred years ago. What are its rela- 
 tions to us now? Is it like "a Pine-tree Shillino- " 
 valuable chiefly on account of its age, or is it about to 
 enter upon a larger field of action and exert a greater 
 influence than ever before with the coming in of another 
 century? 
 
 It has helped the fathers to deliver themselves and their 
 children forever from the thrall of cruel creeds, and from 
 those grim idols "graven by art and Man's device," called 
 theological dogmas, some of which had a striking resem- 
 blance to Moloch, "horrid king," who " made his grove 
 
 The pleasant valley of Hinnon, Tophet thence 
 And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell." 
 
 Their efforts have left us an atmosphere unpointed by 
 brimstone-fumes, and a sky without a trace of apocalyp- 
 tical phantasmagoria. It was, indeed, a great work, but 
 a greater remains to be done, and it is a work in sweet 
 accord with the spirit of a Christian church ; a work not 
 of destruction or of theological controversy, but of discus- 
 sion and education, peace and union. 
 
 Human nature as we have come to see it, is not a 
 devilish anarchy, but a hierarchy of powers, rising one 
 above another until the highest brings the human into 
 communion with the divine. Each has rights in its own 
 sphere, but the lower has no rights except to serve when 
 the higher makes its demands. 
 
 It is the high function of the Church today to remind 
 us of the great possibilities of our nature , to encourage 
 us to trust our spiritual intuitions as we trust the revela- 
 tions of our sense ; to show us that ' ' the perennial foun- 
 tains of religion lie in the primal essence of the reason and 
 the moral conscienciousness," and that there we find " a 
 
30 The Story of a Church 
 
 Spirit that beareth witness with our spirit that we are chil- 
 dren of God ; " to so cultivate the devout trusts and habits of 
 the soul as to enable us to read aright the moral significance 
 of the past and separate with unerring instinct the truth of 
 God from the egotism of man ; to so nourish the spirit of 
 humility that we may ever be seekers and learners ; to so 
 inspire our minds with the spirit of reverence that we may 
 walk with uncovered heads, not only in the presence of the 
 sublime manifestations of nature, but in the presence of 
 sobbing grief and kneeling penitence; to so emphasize the 
 power of the conscience as to make us sure ' ' our sins will 
 find us out ; " to so encourage us to believe in the good and 
 its final triumph over evil that the night will shine as the 
 day, while we work or wait for the dawn ; and to impress 
 upon us the all-consoling fact that, whatever may happen, 
 the infinite Love and Care is so great that even ' * the hairs 
 of the head are all numbered." 
 
 On these grounds and for these causes the Church makes 
 today its appeal to you all, both young and old. It is the 
 noblest appeal that was ever made to man, for it makes 
 possible a glorious state of society based on a reasonable 
 and consecrated obedience of the tw^o great commandments 
 of the law, — love to God, and love to man. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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