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THE TRANSFORMATION OF 
 MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 NE who came recently to Massa¬ 
 chusetts from the Rocky Moun¬ 
 tain region remarked, “Massa¬ 
 chusetts has some of the ad¬ 
 vantages of Adam: she started first.” While 
 less literally true of Massachusetts than of 
 Adam, the statement has some bearing on our 
 theme. Try to see a few pictures. 
 
 I. 
 
 1620-1920 
 
 “Behold, l make -all things nezv.'* 
 
 “The breaking waves dashed high 
 On a stern and rockbound coast,*’ 
 
 not only in December, 1620, but for a long 
 while after that. Yet something more than 
 waves and rocks was continually in evi¬ 
 dence. First, a little group battling with 
 famine and disease, and almost but not quite 
 losing the battle. Then, an established com¬ 
 munity, small but reasonably secure and 
 decently prosperous. After that, the Colony 
 of Plymouth, with its grouped towns, its 
 free life, its thriving business. 
 
 Next comes the union with the Massachu- 
 
 3 
 
setts Bay Colony, so that the political entity 
 is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 
 which, instead of any King, God is officially 
 implored to save, in all public proclama¬ 
 tions. The “Old Colony” becomes hence¬ 
 forth only a colloquial name with no defin¬ 
 able reality to correspond to it. At this 
 stage of its life, Plymouth is a typical New 
 England community, with its traditions and 
 its opinions—a town of one great church, 
 whose congregation are all descended on at 
 least one side from the Mayflower group, 
 or from those who followed hard after the 
 Pilgrim company. Such a Plymouth one 
 sees in the stories of Jane Austin, or resur¬ 
 rects from the collected articles in Pilgrim 
 Hall. 
 
 It is a resurrection from beneath a mass 
 of change. The forty-one voters whose 
 names are attached to the famous “com¬ 
 pact” of the Mayflower cabin have become 
 twenty-five hundred. Hunting and trading 
 with the Indians would offer small prospect 
 of ability to conquer the high cost of living. 
 The port of Plymouth is comparatively of 
 far less importance than it was in the earlier 
 day. The Pilgrim fathers could no longer 
 be sure that they might maintain on this 
 
 4 
 
lonely shore their beloved language and 
 their own chosen church without the let 
 and hindrance that come from rivalries and 
 competitions. The community is composite. 
 Nationality is mixed. One-third of the 
 thirteen thousand folks in Plymouth were 
 born in foreign lands, and only a little more 
 than thirty-five per cent, of the people are 
 of stock that has been native for three gen¬ 
 erations. Religion is mixed. Where the 
 Pilgrims maintained their one democratic 
 pastorless church, no less than thirteen de¬ 
 nominations are established. Outlying 
 towns and villages have often split up in 
 the same way. Struggling, striving, push¬ 
 ing, hauling, such churches too often make 
 of their denominational shibboleths a penny 
 wherewith to hide the sun from their eyes. 
 It is interesting and significant that the one 
 church in Plymouth that is commonly 
 spoken of by name rather than by denom¬ 
 inational connection is the Church of the 
 Pilgrimage, spiritual successor of the May¬ 
 flower passengers. 
 
 The modern town of Plymouth occupies 
 itself chiefly with manufacturing. Over 
 half the people who are engaged in gainful 
 occupation derive their income from this 
 
 S 
 
kind of work. Some of the most famous 
 and profitable enterprises in the United 
 States are located here. All the problems of 
 the modern industrial community naturally 
 and inevitably exist—the mixture of races, 
 the diversity of economic conditions, the 
 variations of religion and irreligion, the 
 clash or the chasm between idealism and 
 materialism, between the traditionalist and 
 the radical modern. Surely no one who 
 prizes the Pilgrim heritage can think of 
 these things without squaring his shoulders 
 and setting himself for the defense of the 
 things he holds dear. 
 
 II. 
 
 1756-1919 
 
 "Establish the things that remain /' 
 
 When you compare the eight thousand 
 two hundred and sixty-six square miles of 
 Massachusetts with the two hundred and 
 sixty-five thousand, eight hundred and 
 ninety-six square miles of Texas, the old 
 Commonwealth looks small. But Massa¬ 
 chusetts has within fifteen per cent, or so 
 as many people as Texas has. Except 
 Rhode Island, it is the most densely pop¬ 
 ulated of the American commonwealths. 
 
 6 
 
Small as she is, she is packed tight with 
 human life. That is, she is packed tight in 
 spots! The hill country is different. The 
 Denver man, looking away from the majesty 
 of the Rocky Mountains on his mile-high 
 edge of the great plain, may think that 
 Greylock’s thirty-three hundred feet fit it 
 for a fairly good tee for a golf ball. But 
 if you have to climb those thirty-three hun¬ 
 dred feet, or half of them, you think of 
 something more strenuous than golf. Get¬ 
 ting up a “Jacob’s Ladder” is a discouraging 
 experience in some seasons of the year, and 
 keeping the ladder in shape for smooth go¬ 
 ing is even more discouraging. 
 
 Close to the southeastern corner of the 
 Bay State’s hilliest county is an abandoned 
 cellar hole. Here once stood the First 
 Church of Christ in Sandisfield. It was or¬ 
 ganized in 1756, and proceeded with prompt¬ 
 ness and efficiency to the business of 
 eighteenth century churches: to wit, the 
 training of men in the ways of righteous¬ 
 ness, peace and prosperity. It sent out pio¬ 
 neers to settle the prairies. It contributed 
 leading citizens to the villages and cities 
 that sprang up in the valleys. It produced 
 at least one lieutenant governor of the Com- 
 
 "7 • 
 
 l 
 
monwealth. It was a brotherly church, too. 
 Eight years after the Sandisfield pioneers 
 located on their hill-top, another group of 
 travelers came over the hills and found a 
 broad basin to which they gave the name of 
 Pittsfield. In course of time, they began 
 the building of a meeting-house, and the 
 Sandisfield folk hastened to lend a hand. A 
 collection of more than three hundred dol¬ 
 lars was taken and sent to aid the First 
 Church of Pittsfield to build a house to the 
 glory of God. 
 
 One hundred and fifty years or so after 
 that collection was taken, lightning struck 
 the Sandisfield meeting-house. It had been 
 left stranded for years by the passing by 
 of the railroad to other places. Meanwhile, 
 Pittsfield had become a busy manufacturing 
 city, with a population increasing by leaps 
 and bounds. Its First Church now raises 
 and expends on local work and missionary 
 outreach nearly or quite twenty thousand 
 dollars a year. But the lightning left only 
 a cellar hole on the hill where its elder sister 
 had stood. 
 
 The cellar hole is not all. The new 
 church was built on a new site. As the 
 older families died out or moved away, new 
 
people came. Some of them were Jews, 
 who clung to their faith and were too prej¬ 
 udiced against the name of Christ to give 
 the church a ready opportunity; but some 
 were of a different sort. The present clerk 
 of the church bears a Finnish name, though 
 she does her work in the spirit of New 
 England’s best traditions. Though only 
 ten resident members are on the roll of the 
 church, it still holds its place as the spiritual 
 center of the little community. 
 
 If you measured churches as you do fac¬ 
 tories, a church of ten members, with no 
 clear prospect of growth, would have to 
 be sent to the scrap-heap. But let it go 
 there, and there is grave danger that sooner 
 or later another decadent community will 
 act as a moral fester in the body politic. 
 The Home Missionary Society makes no 
 apology for using part of Pittsfield’s twenty 
 thousand dollars to help Sandisfield “carry 
 on.” 
 
 III. 
 
 1820-1920 
 
 “From weakness were made strong.” 
 
 Not many miles below Northampton, an 
 ancient overflow of lava from the volcano 
 now called Mount Tom pushed the Con- 
 
 9 
 
necticut River a mile to the east of a due 
 north and south course, producing a sort of 
 promontory which slopes quite steeply from 
 high ground in the center to the banks of 
 the river. At the end of the eighteenth 
 century a group of settlers formed on the 
 high land what was known as the Ireland 
 Parish of West Springfield. They organ¬ 
 ized a Congregational church, but the pres¬ 
 ence of a resourceful group of Baptists led 
 to the organization almost immediately of 
 a church of that denomination, also. For a 
 quarter of a century the two churches 
 united in supporting Baptist pastors. In 
 1823, however, there were those who were 
 restless under such an arrangement, and the 
 Domestic Missionary Society of Massachu¬ 
 setts sent a worker into the field for eight 
 weeks, the expense being met by gifts made 
 for that special purpose. 
 
 Four years later the churches divided, the 
 Baptists building a new meeting-house and 
 the Congregationalists continuing in the old 
 building, of which it was said that it was 
 owned by both denominations together and 
 would bless the world more if reduced to 
 ashes than if suffered to stand. Out of a 
 population of five hundred, the Congrega- 
 
 10 
 
tionalists claimed fifty families to the Bap¬ 
 tists thirty-five, but the Baptists had the 
 greater wealth, the total valuation of the 
 property of the Congregationalists being 
 between fifty and sixty thousand dollars. 
 Not only had this church no building of its 
 own, but it had never had a Congregational 
 pastor and had never kept any records. 
 
 The first mention of the work in a pub¬ 
 lished report is presented by the Domestic 
 Missionary Society in 1827. “The situation 
 of this parish is interesting. The Congre¬ 
 gational Church in it has received consider¬ 
 able accessions within two years, and sev¬ 
 eral members express their opinion that the 
 people will be able to support the ministry 
 there, with the aid of seventy-five dollars 
 per ann. from this Society.” The several 
 members were too sanguine, however, for 
 though their suggested amount was not ex¬ 
 ceeded for a year or two, one hundred dol¬ 
 lars a year was soon found to be necessary 
 for the support of a minister. When one 
 finds it reported that the pastor received 
 from the field two hundred dollars, it is seen 
 that he did not work for great gain even at 
 the larger figure. 
 
 By 1840, however, the church was able to 
 
 11 
 
go alone, except for a small lift in 1850, 
 just as the great change came to the com¬ 
 munity it served. Down in the river bot¬ 
 tom, where the falls of South Hadley came 
 pouring over the rocks, men had at last suc¬ 
 ceeded in building a dam and drawing the 
 water stored above it back and forth across 
 the lava promontory in an S shaped canal. 
 A railroad was built to connect this site 
 with the newly extended Boston and Al¬ 
 bany Railroad, and the opportunity of de¬ 
 veloping a new industrial community was 
 offered. In 1848, the home missionary was 
 at work at “Ireland Depot,” though but lit¬ 
 tle is said about the nature and success of 
 his work. By 1850, however, we find men¬ 
 tion of “Holyoke, the name recently given 
 to the ‘New City’ on the Connecticut River. 
 Among the three thousand or four thousand 
 souls already gathered in this rival to Law¬ 
 rence and Lowell, a Congregational Church 
 of about twenty members was organized 
 during the past year, but they cannot as yet 
 sustain a minister without missionary aid.” 
 The next year the church is properly named 
 as the Second Church in Holyoke, and com¬ 
 ment is made as follows: “By reason of 
 the stagnation of business in this new man- 
 
 12 
 
ufacturing ‘city/ many of the most reliable 
 members have removed.” In 1852 we read, 
 “By a great effort the Society have paid off 
 their debt, and sustained preaching, having 
 received some aid therein from the Manu¬ 
 facturing Company and other benevolent 
 individuals.” “The pulpit has been supplied 
 chiefly by the professors of Amherst Col¬ 
 lege,” is the next year’s note. “When the 
 new meeting-house, now going up, is com¬ 
 pleted, a permanent ministry will be sus¬ 
 tained without aid from this Society.” For 
 four years this prediction seemed to be in 
 process of smooth fulfillment, but the 
 church appears again in 1857, where we are 
 told, “This church, founded, and for years 
 fostered, by the funds of this Society, has 
 been brought back to its former dependence 
 on missionary aid, solely by depression of 
 manufacturing interests in the place.” This 
 dependence continued for no less than eight 
 years, during which there is mention of 
 much fluctuation of business and instability 
 of the population. Ten years from the 
 founding of the church only two of the orig¬ 
 inal members were left. Sectarian move¬ 
 ments drew some away, the charge being 
 made that pecuniary considerations were 
 
 13 
 
sometimes used to accomplish such a re¬ 
 sult. One pastorate was wrecked and an¬ 
 other begun before the last appearance of 
 the church in the aided lists, in 1864. 
 
 . 1919 finds Holyoke secured, as well as 
 diversity of business and accumulation of 
 resources can secure any city, against the 
 sort of depression that threatened the life 
 of the city and the church in the middle of 
 the nineteenth century. The “Ireland Par¬ 
 ish” church, moved from its rural surround¬ 
 ings to the center of the residence district 
 of the city, maintains its ministry to the 
 community in a fine brick edifice, by means 
 of the interest, the devotion and the gifts 
 of more than five hundred members. The 
 church of “about twenty” has grown until 
 it can report one thousand three hundred 
 and seventy-five members; while Grace 
 Church, organized as a branch of the Second 
 Church, and still part of the same corporate 
 organization, includes one thousand and 
 eighty-five more. Situated on the main 
 business street of the city, with a plant soon 
 to be reconstructed into ideal fitness for 
 diversified service, with generous appro¬ 
 priations for maintaining an adequate staff 
 of workers, with a large proportion of its 
 
 14 
 
membership giving time and thought to the 
 interests of the Kingdom of God, at home 
 and abroad, the Second Church justly claims 
 place among the leading churches of our 
 order. 
 
 Successes like these can hardly await 
 many of the churches of the old Common¬ 
 wealth now looking for and receiving the 
 help of their more prosperous sisters. But 
 the transformation wrought in changing 
 Holyoke from a lonely height to a busy city 
 is typical of Massachusetts history. In such 
 places lie our problems, in such places our 
 opportunities, in such places, to some ex¬ 
 tent, thank God, our successes. 
 
 15 
 
THE CONGREGATIONAL HOME 
 MISSIONARY SOCIETY 
 
 287 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK