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FIRST CHURCH
OF CHRIST
in PITTSFIELD
MASSACHUSETTS
PROCEEDINGS IN
COMMEMORATION
OF ITS
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH
ANNIVERSARY
FEBRUARY 7th AND 8th
19 14
Sun Printing Company
Pittsfield
■J
o
O
1231199
THE COMMITTEE in charge of the
PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK WISH TO
EXPRESS THEIR THANKS TO ThOMAS AlLEN,
Esq., of Boston, for his kind permission
to reproduce the miniature portrait in
WAX OF THE Reverend Thomas Allen,
WHICH IS HERE PRINTED FOR
THE FIRST TIME.
INTRODUCTION
At the Annual Meeting of the First Church on
January 8th, 1913, the Pastor spoke of the fact that
tJie One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the or-
ganization of the Church was only a little more than
a year away, and that a committee might well be
appointed to have general charge of preparations
for the observance of this occasion. Accordingly, it
was voted that he be authorized to name such a
committee. Three members of the general com-
mittee which served at the time of the One Hundred
and Twenty-fifth Anniversary, Mrs. Franklin K. Pad-
dock, Miss Elizabeth D. Davis and Mr. Henry A.
Brewster, were appointed as members of the new
committee, and also the following children of the
other three members of the former committee: Miss
Elizabeth W. Hinsdale, Mr. William L. Adam and
Mr. Thomas F. Plunkett.
On February 5th this general committee for the
One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary held its first
meeting and elected the Pastor as chairman and Mr.
Plunkett as secretary. Subsequent meetings were
held on March 27th, May 7th and December 3rd.
The details of preparation for the Anniversary were
turned over to the special committees on finance, in-
vitations, entertainment of guests, supper, pageant,
decorations, music, portraits, ushering, and program,
the names of whose members are given at the end
of this book. These various committees performed
their duties with remarkable energy and diligence.
Attractive invitations were engraved bearing the
pictures of the three meeting houses which the
Church has had; and about twelve hundred of these
invitations were sent out to descendants of the early
settlers, of officers of the Church and Parish, and of
members of the Church during the past one hundred
and fifty years, living outside of Pittsfield. A surprising
number of such persons were found ; and their answers
gave evidence of much joy in being thus remembered
and made mention of many sacred recollections. It was
evident that this Church has always had a wonderful
hold upon those mothered under its roof. Invitations
were also sent to all absent members of the Church
and Parish, to members recently dismissed, and to
all clergymen and others who have had close con-
nection with this Church. In addition to these, in-
vitations were sent to the five colleges to which min-
isters of this Church have gone to become their
presidents, namely, Bowdoin, Amherst, the University
of Texas, Lafayette, and the University of Michigan;
also to Williams College, and to professors in the An-
dover, Yale, Hartford and Union Theological Semina-
ries ; also to the presidents of the seven Congregational
benevolent societies, to the Massachusetts Congrega-
tional churches west of Worcester, to the Congrega-
tional churches and ministers of Berkshire County, the
ministers of all the churches in Pittsfield, and to many
others. As it was impossible to send separate invita-
tions to the descendants of the families of this Church
living in Pittsfield, special invitations were prepared
for each church in the city, which were read from
their pulpits, and were also printed in the daily papers.
Thus it was hoped that all would be reached who
were in any way connected with the Church or inter-
ested in it. The response to these invitations exceeded
all expectations. Somewhat more than a hundred per-
sons came from outside of the County to attend the
exercises of the Anniversary. A considerable number
were accredited representatives of churches in West-
ern Massachusetts.
The weather, both on the Saturday and on the
Sunday, was favorable, being cold enough to seem
seasonable and yet not severe. The program began
on Saturday afternoon, February seventh, the exact
date of the Anniversary, with a public meeting in the
Church at three o'clock. The Church was beautifully
decorated with evergreens and yellow genista, and be-
hind the pulpit, a single large white lily. Along the gal-
lery rails were hung the wooden shields bearing the
names of the eight foundation men which were used at
the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Anniversary, and
beside the pulpit stood a tablet on which were inscribed
the names of the past ministers of the Church. The Pas-
tor presided. The meeting was opened by the singing of
the hymn "Let children hear the mighty deeds. Which
God performed of old," (St. Martin's). This was follow-
ed by the reading of the One Hundred and Fifteenth
Psalm by Rev. Addison Ballard, D.D. ; and prayer
was offered by Rev. Charles J. Palmer of Lanesbor-
ough. The three historical papers and the Poem, which
appear elsewhere in this book, were then read, name-
ly: a General Sketch of the History of this Church, by
Dr. Henry Colt ; The Origin, History and Significance
of the New Year's Sunrise Prayer Meeting, by Miss
Julia W. Redfield; An Appreciation of the Ministry
of William Vail Wilson Davis, by Judge Charles L.
Hibbard; and the Poem, by Mrs. Augustus McK.
Gififord, read by her brother, Mr. Harold Stearns
Davis. The exercises were closed with the singing
of the hymn, "O God, beneath Thy guiding hand,"
8
(Duke Street), and the benediction by Rev. Payson
E, Pierce of the South Church.
At six o'clock supper was served in the Church
Parlor for the specially invited guests from out of
town, the ministers of the Pittsfield churches and their
wives, the Deacons of this Church and their wives,
and the members of the General Committee on the
Anniversary. More than a hundred persons enjoyed
the delicious meal which had been prepared. At seven
o'clock, it had been intended to have the informal
speeches made at the tables; but on account of the
large number who were anxious to hear them, it was
decided to have them given in the Church. The
speakers were President Harry A. Garfield, LL. D., of
Williams College, Rev. Henry G. Smith of Northamp-
ton, Henry M. Humphrey, Esq. of New York, and
General Morris Schaff of Boston. Following this
meeting there was given at half-past eight o'clock in
the Sunday School Room a Pageant of the history
of the Church, arranged and directed by Miss Mar-
garet MacLaren Eager. On account of the wide in-
terest aroused by this event of the program, it was
found necessary to limit the attendance to members
of the congregation of the First Church and their
specially invited guests. This restriction, unfortunate-
ly, kept away many persons who would have been
glad to come ; but on the other hand had the happy-
result of making the atmosphere of the production
much like that of family theatricals; and the informal-
ity and simplicity of the Pageant, in these circum-
stances, added to its effectiveness. The audience was
exceedingly sympathetic and appreciative.
On Sunday, the eighth, the first of the three ser-
vices began at half-past ten o'clock. The order was
as follows :
Sentences of Holy Scripture
Hymn — "All people that on earth do dwell" (Old Hundredth)
Invocation and Lord's Prayer
Responsive Reading — Psalm 145
Gloria Patri
Offering
Scripture Lesson — Ephesians 3:14-4:16
Duet and Chorus — "I waited for the Lord" (from the
Lobgesang), Mendelssohn
Prayer — by Rev. Raymond Calkins, D. D., Minister of the
First Church in Cambridge
Hymn — -"O God of Bethel, by whose hand" (Dundee)
Sermon — by Dr. Calkins.
Prayer
Hymn — "Our God, our hope in ages past" (St. Anne)
Benediction
At twelve o'clock special exercises were held in the
Sunday School. The Superintendent, Mr. William
A. Whittlesey, presided, and the singing was led by
Mr. Frederick T. West of Chicago, a former super-
intendent. An informal talk on the history of the
School was given by Mr. William L. Adam, the As-
sistant Superintendent. Through an unfortunate in-
advertence no stenographic report of Mr. Adam's
remarks was taken, so that his address can be re-
produced in outline only. He began by referring to
a recent fire on North Street opposite the site of the
fire of 1868 in which the records of the Parish were
destroyed. Partly on account of this loss, it is im-
possible to tell precisely when the Sunday School was
started, but it must have been about the year 1816;
so that, Mr. Adam went on to say, " If we should
have a birthday cake for the Sunday School on this
platform, to-day, there would be ninety-eight candles
10
on it !" The life of the school in later days was vividly
sketched ; and the whole of the address was greatly en-
joyed by the large number present, whether more by
the children than by the elders it would be hard to say.
In the afternoon, in accordance with the ancient
custom, a communion service was held at three o'clock,
the sermon being preached by Rev. Charles G. Burd of
Columbia University, Assistant Minister from 1908
to 1910. The deacons officiating were Messrs. James
Jacobs of the Second Church, George Shipton of the
South Church, W. Erving McArthur of the Pilgrim
Memorial Church, Alphonse C. Bouteiller of the
French Evangelical Church and Alexander Kennedy
and William D.Goodwin representing the First Church.
The order of the service follows:
Hymn — " For all the saints, who from their labors rest "
(Sarum)
Prayer
Responsive Reading — Psalm 84
Scripture Lesson
Anthem— "Rock of Ages" Dudley Buck
Sermon — by Rev. Charles G. Burd of Columbia University
Words of Invitation
Hymn — "Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts" (Hesperus)
The Communion
Hymn — "Bread of the world, in mercy broken" (Eucharistic
Hymn)
Benediction
On Sunday evening the closing service consisted
largely of music. The South Gallery was filled by a
chorus of seventy-seven voices, and the Church was
crowded to overflowing. The order was as follows :
II
Organ Prelude — Allegretto, from the Lobgesang
Mendelssohn
Chorus — " Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house "
Torrance
Invocation and Lord's Prayer — by Rev. Thomas Nelson
Baker of the Second Church
Hymn — "Angel voices, ever singing" (Angel Voices)
Organ Interlude — Andante, from the Fifth Symphony
Beethoven
Soprano Solo — "With verdure clad" (from The Creation)
Mrs. W. W. Mears Haydn
Responsive Reading — Psalm 95:1-7; — led by Mr. Paolo L.
Abbate, missionary in charge of the Italian Congrega-
tion
Gloria Patri
Organ Interlude — March and Chant Seraphique (In Me-
moriam) Guilmant
Scripture Lesson — Ephesians 1:15-23; by Rev. Ren6 Elsesser
of the French Evangelical Church
Chorus — " Te Deum " in B minor Dudley Buck
Prayer — by Rev. Warren S. Archibald of the Pilgrim Me-
morial Church
Bass Solo — "O holy Father, Who vi^atchest over us" Widor
Mr. Anthony Reese,
accompanied by Mr. Carl Escher on the violin
Address — by the Pastor
Chorus — " God hath appointed a day " Berthold Tours
Organ Interlude — "Angelus " Arcadelt
Hymn— "I love Thy kingdom, Lord" (State Street)
Prayer
Organ Postlude — "Hallelujah Chorus" Handel
(for which the Congregation rose)
Benediction
The Memorial Portrait Gallery in the prayer room
of the Parish House was open throughout Satur-
day and Sunday; and was viewed with interest and
delight by all. It included some three hundred por-
traits of former ministers and members of the Parish.
A complete list will be found in the Appendix.
GENERAL SKETCH
OF THE
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH
By Dr. Henry Colt
Twenty-five years ago it was the great privilege
of many of us to listen to an historical address on
the founding of this church by the Rev. Jonathan L.
Jenkins. That address, so accurate in its historical
details, so vividly portraying the tremendous sense of
obligation to which the founders of the church felt
themselves bound, the felicitous style of the writer, the
intense feeling in the delivery, the delineation of the
character of the men who were responsible for the
establishment of the church in the wilderness, the
wonderful tribute paid to the different pastors under
whose guidance the church grew and thrived, remains
preeminently the most noteworthy of the several
papers which were read on the occasion of the anni-
versary of the founding of this church.
It would be most presumptous in me to even at-
tempt to bring before you any new or original ma-
terial concerning the early history of the town and
church, as the subject v\^as so thoroughly and carefully
presented twenty-five years ago. I can do no better
than to briefly and liberally quote from what Dr. Jen-
kins and others brilliantly and accurately gleaned from
Pittsfield's history in its relation to this church and
parish, and take no shame in so doing.
14
Three years ago we celebrated the one hundred
and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Pittsfield,
and to-day we celebrate the founding of its first
church. You will remember possibly that in 1741 this
township was originally owned by three men, — John
Stoddard, of Northampton, Jacob Wendell, of Boston,
and Philip Livingston, of Albany. They were to see
to it that this land was to be settled upon by families
in accordance with the provisions of the grant of the
land from the General Court to the Town of Boston
from whom the three gentlemen above-named secured
their title.
Settlers came in slowly; some departed not liking
the country or thinking it too exposed to Indian depre-
dations, and it was not until 1761 that the town was
duly incorporated.
The compulsory support of religious worship was
imposed by Massachusetts upon those who settled the
townships. In Smith's history of the town he says:
" Whatever evils attended the compulsory support of
religious worship, perpetuated under circumstances to
which it was not applicable, it worked little but good
to those upon whom its requirements rested, while it
was essential to the future of Massachusetts that her
Puritanism should be preserved incontaminate. Not
to dwell upon its direct and palpable influence in pre-
venting that deterioration of morals and manners in-
cident to all frontier life, the attention to religious in-
stitutions, which Massachusetts plantations were for-
bidden to postpone, was of unbounded benefit in
securing rapidity and amity of municipal organiza-
tions, in elevating the tone of local sentiment and by
investing the new abode, however rude its cabins, with
the sanctity of home." In accordance, therefore, with
the instructions laid down for them, in 1761, the early
15
settlers petitioned that a suitable building should be
erected for church purposes. Several disagreements
arising, however, between the settling proprietors and
the actual settlers as to the size of the meeting-house,
the cost, the number of pews, the building itself was
not completed until 1770. It stood immediately in
front of this present church ; "a. plain, angular build-
ing, forty-five feet long, thirty-five wide and twenty
feet post; two stories high, with roof peaked after
the ordinary, modern style; covered with rough, un-
painted clapboards, with square windows, and, in the
middle of the south, east and west sides, doors of the
same Quakerish pattern ; without belfry, portico, pilas-
ter or bracket ; the ugly little barn-like structure about
to be consecrated by words and acts for freedom as
bold, as pure, and as ardent as any that were ever
spoken or done in American history." With the dif-
ficulties arising in the building of the first meeting-
house, there were difficulties also in calling and settling
a minister, theological rather than pecuniary.
There were several probationers, but it was surely
a fortunate circumstance that Mr. Thomas Allen of
Northampton was invited to preach as a probationer,
December the 9th, 1763. The formation of the church
as such was duly inaugurated by a meeting of " a
number of members belonging to different churches at
the house of Deacon Crofoot." This was on the seventh
of February, 1764. At the meeting at Deacon Cro-
foot's house there were present besides those ready
to undertake the church formation. Rev. Samuel Hop-
kins of Stockbridge and Rev. Ebenezer Martin of
Becket. A Confession of Faith and a Covenant
were drawn up, and signed by eight male members,
" who then and there united so as to form a church
of Christ in this place."
i6
The eight names signed to the Covenant and Ar-
ticles of Faith are: Stephen Crofoot, Ephraim Stiles,
Daniel Hubbard, Aaron Baker, Jacob Ensign, William
Phelps, Lemuel Phelps, Elnathan Phelps. At the cele-
bration of the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Anniver-
sary, Mr. Robert W. Adam read a most interesting
paper upon the lives of these men, called the Founda-
tion Men; it would be beyond the province of this
sketch to dwell upon their lives here or elsewhere, as
Mr. Adam has so thoroughly and delightfully por-
trayed their connection with the town and church.
Dr. Jenkins says these men were found "to serve as
Foundation Men, a happy use of Lord Bacon's term.
We recall and honor these men to-day. We write
their names on shields and hang them in the House
of the Lord." Of the Creed and Covenant Dr. Jen-
kins again says, "of the original Covenant no man
need be ashamed. Let me read its close. 'We do now
publicly espouse and engage in the cause of Christ
in this town, — promising to be faithful in the same,
and to endeavor to promote it in all proper ways, es-
pecially seeking to recommend our holy religion to
all by our strict and constant practice of justice, good-
ness, temperance, sobriety and godliness.' " It was
something in the beginning of a town's career to have
even eight men, confederated together for such an
end. Of the ministers who were present he says, " No
bishops living then or since, or before or now, could
impart more apostolic grace to an infant church."
Soon after this meeting this record is found: —
Pittsfield, Mch. 6, 1764-
The Church of Christ in Pittsfield this day met at
the house of Deacon Crofut and unanimously made
choice of Mr. Thomas Allen to settle with them in the
work of the Gospel Ministry.
Attest: Stephen Crofut, Moderator.
17
" It was the province of the Church to select the
minister, of the town if it approved to ratify the
choice, and fix the salary, and of the Proprietors of
the sixty lots, to provide the ' settlement ' or outfit of
the pastor-elect." Therefore at a meeting at the house
of Deacon Crofut, on the fifth of March, 1764, the
town concurred in the choice of the Church of a
pastor, Mr. Allen, and tendered him " a salary of
i6o per annum, to be increased £5 yearly, until it
should reach £80 which was then to become his stated
stipend."
Let me quote Mr. Allen's letter of acceptance : —
To the People of Pittsfield :
Dear Brethren: — Your invitation of me to settle
among you in the gospel ministry, I have received by
your committee chosen for that purpose; and I appre-
hend I have duly considered the same. In answer to
this, your invitation, I v^^ould say that having sought
divine direction, taken the advice of the judicious, and
duly consulted my own judgment, I cannot but think
it my duty to accept : and, accordingly do now declare
my cordial acceptance of the same. I take this oppor-
tunity to testify my grateful sense of your respect, shown
in that unexpected good agreement and harmony that
subsisted among you in the choice of one less than the
least of all saints to preach the unsearchable riches of
Christ. Nothing doubting but that at your next meeting
you will freely grant forty to fifty cords of wood an-
nually, or as much as you shall think sufficient, and some
small addition to my settlement, either by grant in work,
or whatever out of generosity by subscription or what-
ever way you please. I now stand ready to be introduced
to the work whereunto I am called, as soon as a con-
venient opportunity shall present itself.
These from your affectionate friend,
Thomas Allen.
Pittsfield, March 20, 1764.
i8
In April Mr. Allen was ordained. There were
present Rev. Jonathan Ashley of Deerfield, Rev. Tim-
othy Woodbridge of Hatfield, Rev. Samuel Hopkins
of Great Barrington, Rev. Thomas Strong of New
Marlborough and Rev. Adonijah Bidwell of No. i
(now Tyringham). "The whole," says Mr. Allen's
record, " was carried on with decency and order."
The sermon was preached by Rev. Mr. Hooker of
Northampton, who had been Mr. Allen's preceptor in
his divinity studies. On January 7th, 1765, at a meet-
ing held for that purpose it was voted : " That James
Easton and Josiah Wright sustain the office of Dea-
cons in this Church," thus completing the church
equipment.
The tribute which Dr. Jenkins pays to this epoch-
making Christian endeavor is well worth repeating
in its entirety, so forceful and illuminating is it in
its literary excellence and in its appeal to the reverence
of heroic ideals. He says, " Simplicity has its own
severe and impressive grandeur. It is no mean story
of worthy exploit, that of the Jesuits in Canada, with
pictures, crosses, processions, altars, vestments, chant-
ing. I witness all and allow it exceeding virtue: but
more and truer grandeur has that scene which we have
been looking upon, wherein men, plain men, self-
moved and self-sufficient, convenanted with one an-
other to serve Christ and maintain His cause here in
the wilderness and sought and secured approval by
truly apostolic men. The scene has no brilliance of
color, no movement of chant or processional, but has
a simplicity, seriousness, that makes it sure of being
immortal; forever appealing to men with increasing
force, as men rise into the life of ideas and of pure
feeling."
19
Thomas Allen, the first minister of this Church,
was born in Northampton, January 17, 1743. He
was educated at Harvard where he graduated in 1762
with high honors. His son, the Rev. William Allen,
writes that his "father was of middle height, and slen-
der, vigorous and active, of venerable gray hairs in
his age, of a mild, pleasant, afifectionate countenance;
hospitable to all visitors and always the glad welcomer
of his friends. He was very honest and frank and
had a keen sense of right and wrong and as he lived
when high questions were debated, it is not strange
that those whom he felt called upon to oppose should
have sometimes charged him with indiscreet zeal: but
he cherished no malice and his heart was always kind
and tender." The history of this man's life is well
known : serving his people as pastor for forty-six
years, a patriot, a militant churchman, preaching the
Gospel and commanding a body of patriots in the
march to the battle of Bennington, a believer in liberty
and holding his church and people together in the
stormy times of the Revolution. The home of Pitts-
field's first minister was just east of St. Stephen's
church, and in the original grant of land to Mr. Allen,
the boundaries of this tract extended northward nearly
to Orchard Street and to the eastward. " It included
one hundred acres for himself, another one hundred
acres adjoining was set aside for the minister's sup-
port." It is interesting to know that the minister's
lot included the land of the present parsonage on East
Street. When we remember what the name of Allen
has meant to this town and church, it seems almost a
sacrilege that the site of the home of the first minister
of this church should be thrown upon the market for
commercial purposes. Mr. Allen died at the age of
sixty-seven, February nth, 1810. Toward the end of
20
Mr. Allen's pastorate, serious discord arose in the
church, due in the main to bitter political differences;
and the tide of feeling became so strong that a separa-
tion of the church into two distinct bodies resulted.
Many of the wealthier members of the church seceded
and united themselves to form what was called the
Union Parish.
To preside over this church the Rev. Thomas
Punderson of New Haven was called in August, 1809,
and on the twenty-fifth of October was duly installed.
Three months after Mr. Punderson's installation, Rev.
Thomas Allen died. In Smith's History of Pittsfield
it states that the solemn tolling of the bell announced
to all within its sound that Thomas Allen had passed
away. "Of many — whether they had adhered to, or
become estranged from him in later conflicts, there
were few in whose hearts that solemn knelling, as
it came to them through the darkness, did not waken
the most tender and thrilling memories."
On August 10, 1810, the First Church chose Rev.
William Allen to succeed his father as its pastor; and
the parish concurring, he was duly installed.
The Union Parish decided to build a separate meet-
ing-house and it stood where the South Congregational
Church now is on South Street. " It was a neat, taste-
ful and convenient structure, with rather a graceful
spire, and was supplied with a bell. After the re-
union of the parishes it served a good purpose as a
lecture- and school-room."
The relations of the church and town are inter-
esting from the fact that practically up to 1788 the
church was the tozvn and the town the church. When,
however, members of other denominations became
citizens of the town, they naturally resented being
taxed for the support of a minister and a church with
21
whom they had no reHgious affihations and to whose
creed they might strenuously object. This was one
of the main issues in the separation of the parish in
1809. The vexed question was finally settled by a con-
stitutional amendment in 1834, enacting a statute which
" freeing towns from the obligation to support re-
ligious teaching and worship, left everyone free to
withdraw from his parish or society without joining
another, and declared that no person thereafter should
be made a member without his own express consent."
To re-unite the warring factions in the two
churches, that the political differences should be
smoothed over, that the wounds of conflict should be
healed, and that brotherly love should dwell among
the hearts of men. Rev. William Allen resigned his
pastorate and petitioned for his dismissal. This was
duly acted upon, and on February 25th, 1817, Mr. Allen
was relieved of his pastoral duties. After some deliber-
ation and an ecclesiastical council, duly convened in
July, 181 7, — carefully and prayerfully reviewing the
causes of the estrangement, and the reasons why the two
bodies should again be united, — it was voted by the
council that the union of the churches should be estab-
lished and it besought "the Great Head of the Church
to cement it with that love which suffers long and is
kind." "Soon and permanently the Congregational
Church and Parish in Pittsfield became as distinguish-
ed for peace and harmony as it had long been for the
reverse."
In order that the complete union of the two
churches should be perfected. Rev. Air. Punderson re-
signed his pastorate and was dismissed May 5, 1817.
His successor was the Rev. Henian Humphrey. He
came here from Fairfield, Conn., where he had been
settled for ten years. The call from the now-united
22
churches to act as their pastor was to the young clergy-
man a serious matter for consideration. He was aware
of the differences that had occurred, and shrank from
the prospect of a possible failure as a peacemaker
and a strong and forceful leader. That he, however,
did accept the call, and that under his wise guidance
the church in its re-united strength became again a
vital factor in the affairs of the town is well known.
Mr. Humphrey was installed in 1817, and after six
years of arduous work in the upbuilding of the church,
was dismissed in 1823 to become the President of
Amherst College. Of Mr. Humphrey, Dr. Jenkins
says, " Many honors came to the man of whom I
speak. His name is held in dear esteem in college
halls, among philanthropists, among a great host of
friends and by descendants proud of his blood in their
veins, who do him honor. We take no leaf from all
his wreaths : but the First Church of Pittsfield, re-
members, reveres, loves Heman Humphrey as the
man who made her peace, in virtue of whose bene-
diction there can be no more variance or strife in
the brotherhood he served." His home when he first
came to Pittsfield was upon the land which was later
owned by the Campbell family now included in the
street, Willis Place, and the home of Dr. William L,
Paddock. He resigned from the presidency of Am-
herst College in 1845, ^^^ " his former parishioners
plead with him to return to Pittsfield not now as
pastor, but as friend " and he so decided. A new
house adjacent to the Allen property having been
built, it was bought by his sons for his home. The
house is now occupied by Dr. Brace W. Paddock.
He lived here revered by his former parishioners and
townspeople until his death, 1861. His successors
were: Rufus W. Bailey, installed April 15, 1824,
23
dismissed September 2.J, 1827; Henry P. Tappan,
D. D., ordained September 16, 1828, dismissed No-
vember I, 1 831; John W. Yeomans, D. D., installed
March 7, 1832, dismissed in 1834; Horatio N. Brins-
made, D. D., a most beloved pastor, installed Febru-
ary II, 1835, dismissed September 9, 1841 ; John Todd,
D. D., installed February 16, 1842, and who died when
Pastor Emeritus, August 24, 1873.
In 1844 the growth of the church and parish had
assumed such proportions that it was deemed wise
by several influential members that a second Congre-
gational church should be organized. In 1848 the
movement was definitely started. A building fund
was inaugurated, and later the old lecture-room on
South Street was purchased for the sake of the land
on which it stood, and a strip thirty feet wide from
the northern end of the parsonage garden was given
to the new society to enlarge the original purchase.
Thus the South Congregational Parish entered into
the town's history. The church building was com-
menced and was nearing completion, when it was de-
stroyed by fire September 15, 1849. The rebuilding of
the church was at once undertaken and it was com-
pleted and dedicated November 10, 1850, by one hun-
dred and thirty members who had been dismissed for
that purpose from the First Church. Its first pastor
was the Rev. Samuel Harris, of Conway, who was
installed March 11, 185 1. The offspring of the
Mother Church waxed strong and sturdy, and to-day,
self-reliant, growing in numbers, proud of its history,
it stands with its face to the East ready to do valiant
work for the best interests of the town.
John Todd was born October 9, 1800; he was a
friend and classmate at Yale of Rev. Dr. Brinsmade.
He came here from Philadelphia, where he had been
24
pastor for six years. For thirty-one years he was at
the head of this church, devoted to the people, to the
town and his country. A prohfic writer apart from
his strictly ministerial work, a lecturer, a skilled
craftsman with tools and lathe, " a true son of the
forest and mountains " loving the camp fire, the lakes
and streams of the Adirondack wilderness. His
" Students' Manual " met with instant success and was
a very popular work in its day. A large number of
men doubtless owe to this one book their first im-
pulses toward valuable educational ideas. To the
writer as a lad, Dr. Todd's personal appearance was
somewhat forbidding; tall, spare of frame, complex-
ion swarthy, bristling, spiky, white hair, black frock-
coat, a white neck cloth, a face rugged of feature,
wearing glasses, with eyes keen but kindly, frequently
twinkling with humor. After coming here, he writes
to a friend of the conditions as he finds them: "It
is a great, rich, proud, enlightened, powerful people.
They move slowly, but they tread like the elephant.
They are cool but kind, sincere, great at hearing, and
very critical. * * The ladies are most abundant
intelligent, refined and kind. A wider, better, harder or
more interesting field no man need desire." During his
long pastorate the church increased greatly in num-
bers and in Christian influence. On account of failing
health, in 1870, Dr. Todd in a communication to his
people requested to be released from the responsibility
and active duties of the pastorate, but desiring to con-
tinue with them as pastor emeritus, " so that he might
not feel that he was cut off from their sympathy."
His request was acceded to, but with the condition that
his resignation should be postponed for two years :
but in May, 1872, a sudden illness warned him that to
continue longer in his active work would possibly en-
25
danger his life. His request for release again being
presented, it was at once granted with the most fer-
vent expressions of love and sympathy. During his
last, long and painful illness he dictated one Saturday
evening the following note which was sent the next
morning to every pulpit in town :
"Rev. Dr. Todd having come to that border land which
lies in a deep valley before we reach the new Jerusalem,
and where he waits in entire uncertainty to know
whether he is to dwell under the light of the Sun of
Earth, or whether he may soon expect the full-orbed
rising of the Sun of righteousness upon him: in either
case he desires your prayers that, whatever may be the
will of God, his soul may rejoice in it, and that his
sins unnumbered may be all taken away by the Lamb
of God which taketh away the sins of the world."
He passed away Sabbath morning, August 24th,
1873, in the parsonage on South Street, which had
been his home during all his life in Pittsfield. During
the last year or two of Dr. Todd's retirement, the
active pastorate was filled by the Rev. Edward O.
Bartlett, who came here from Providence, R. I. He
resigned in January, 1876.
In April, 1877, the church was most fortunate in
its selection of a successor to Mr. Bartlett in the per-
son of Rev. Jonathan L. Jenkins, then settled over
the Congregational Church in Amherst. Mr. Jenkins
was born in Portland, Maine, November 27,, 1830, a
son of Rev. Charles Jenkins, who died when the son
Avas thirteen months old. The grandmother of Mr.
Jenkins on the maternal side, was a daughter of Presi-
dent Stiles of Yale; and a cousin of President Stiles
was one of the eight founders of this church. Mr.
Jenkins graduated from Yale in the class of 185 1,
also from its theological seminary, and was for a
26
short time at Andover. His first pastorate was at
Lowell, where he remained seven years. Following
the Lowell pastorate he was called to the Pearl Street
Church in Hartford and later to the Church in Am-
herst where he remained ten years. In July, 1877,
he was installed over this church, the Rev. Dr. Storrs,
of Brooklyn, preaching the installation sermon. After
serving this church for fifteen years, he accepted a
call to the State Street Congregational Church in Port-
land, his native city. He most acceptably presided
over this large, influential church for nearly ten years,
and then decided to relinquish active ministerial work.
The later years of his life were spent in or near
Boston, with frequent visits here, preaching in differ-
ent pulpits to the great delight and edification of his
former parishioners, and leading the serene, peaceful,
cultivated life of a gentleman and ripe scholar. Here
in this town which he loved, near the church of whose
history he was so proud, surrounded by those most
near and dear to him, he quietly passed away, August
15, 191 3, in the eighty-second year of his age. Much
could be said of Mr. Jenkins as a man and Christian
minister, of his keenness of mind, his unusual gift of
expression, his convincing logic, and that wondrous
gift, the gift of humor. He was tender in speech
and action when tenderness and sympathy were most
needed, seeing the best in men and women and shun-
ning that which was distasteful and of evil repute.
In connection with the celebration of twenty-five
years ago it was written of Mr. Jenkins : "He is
one of the most genial of men, and any wholesome
occasion that is social and familiar, that brings people
together, that makes and renews, and strengthens,
friendships, he enjoys with all his soul. * * * *
He is delighted with good old books, quaint furniture,
27
ancient portraits, and }ret no man reads with more
alertness the new thoughts of the day, or keeps better
informed of discoveries in the widening fields and
the fresh developments of the world as they touch
humanity, science and religion. The simplicity of the
old homes, characters, ways, beliefs, charms him.
The grandeur of the opportunities and achievements
of to-day thrill him." The celebration in which he
took such a prominent part was a rich treat to him,
and the strength and glory of the First Church of the
day were a satisfaction and a pride. In the intimate
relations with his friends, and in the charming circle
of his home life, Mr. Jenkins was at his best. Formal-
ity, when necessary and wise, he respected and ad-
judged highly; but the informality of the open fire,
the presence of congenial and intimate associates was
a stimulant to high thought and flashing wit. To the
natural courtesy of a man richly endowed by educa-
tion and social environments, was added a kindliness
of nature and expression that drew men and women
to him. In 1892, when Mr. Jenkins severed his con-
nections with this church, the record of the Parish
reads : " He has with rare intellectual power upheld
the dignity and influence of the pulpit in this com-
munity. He has not been content to give valuable
service to this Parish alone, but he has in many ways
contributed to the forwarding of good works in the
community of which the Parish is a part." In the
records of the ratification by the ecclesiastical council
of the action of the Church and Parish appears the
following : " We cannot dismiss our brother without
making common confession with the church which has
had the honor of his long and able service and with
the community distinguished by the luster of his pow-
ers and by his help in many good ways, that we are
28
losers of rare treasure. We shall miss a stimulating
and enlightening mind gifted with wisdom which is
according to godliness and with forms of sound words.
We shall be poorer in riches of grace and brotherly
kindness. We shall lose a preacher of Jesus Christ,
skillful to unveil before men the beautiful, command-
ing face of divine truth. Fortunate, indeed, will be
that people which shall receive the ministry of his
good words and good works making our loss its gain."
In 1894, on the 130th anniversary of the founding
of the Church, Dr. William V. W. Davis was installed
as its pastor. To another has been delegated the op-
portunity and privilege of expressing the appreciation
of his service to the Church and city.
Of the meeting-houses of this Church there have
been three. The various incidents relative to their
building, site, size and structure have been admirably
set forth in the paper by Mr. William L. Adam read
at the anniversary twenty-five years ago. To briefly
recapitulate may be of interest and value. The First
Church described in the beginning of this paper, built
in 1764, rough, crude, severe in its extreme simplicity,
served as a meeting-house for town and church until
1790. Then a little north of the old Church was erected
the second building. Its architect was Charles Bul-
finch, " the impress of whose skill," Mr. Adam says,
" is upon the enlarged Faneuil Hall, upon the State
House in Boston and upon the Capitol at Washington."
" This new building could have held within it three
houses as large as its little predecessor still standing
but a few feet in front of it." In 1834 it was slightly
damaged by fire, and again in 185 1 fire wrought havoc
with its interior. It was deemed unwise to expend
further sums upon its repair and alterations and it
was accordingly sold and moved from its foundations.
It finally became the property of Wellington Tyler,
29
who then conducted a successful young ladies' board-
ing-school, called the Maplewood Young Ladies' In-
stitute, and was used for a gymnasium and class rooms.
It is still to be seen forming a part of the Maplewood
Hotel property on North Street and used principally
as a music room. The third structure you see here
to-day, admirable in its architectural design with its
graceful springing arches, and well proportioned in-
terior; the most churchly building in town, a delight
to the eye, unconsciously demanding reverential
demeanor by its very beauty. The recent remodeling
has taken on the original design, harmonious in line
and detail. It was work well carried out, and due
credit should be given those who spent much time and
thought and love in making this house a fitting place
for the worship of God.
In closing this fragmentary sketch may I quote
from the paper on the relations of the Church and
Parish, read by the late Judge James M. Barker
twenty-five years ago? "For more than a century
and a half this ground has been set apart for religious
uses. Never has it known the ownership of a private
individual for private ends. No plough held by hus-
bandman seeking earthly harvest has scarred its sur-
face. By no structure reared for man's own gain, or
pride, or pleasure, has it ever been polluted. * * *
Even as this site has been saved throughout the ages
for its present use, so, by His Providence, have the
Parish and the Church been kept, and are today here !
Strong! But now with no strength borrowed from
the arm of civil authority, and in the present rather
than the standing order, ready and able, without forced
or extraneous human aid, to spread abroad yet more
effectually the ' glad tidings of great joy to all men.' "
Long live the First Church of Christ (Congrega-
tional) which is in Pittsfield !
/yonnt/i (i/i ^). Jyenk L f I ci -JJ ..Jj.
THE ORIGIN, HISTORY AND
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NEW YEAR'S
SUNRISE PRAYER MEETING
By Miss Julia Wallace Redfield
The origin of an idea is always interesting, — the
steam engine, the wireless telegraph, town meeting and
representative government, a free church in a free
state. Some origins are known, some disputed, some
duplicated, some legendary or unknown. In this last
category we must place the origin of the idea of a
New Year's sunrise prayer meeting. I have had ex-
pert help, from the Congregational Library in Boston,
from Yale, Hartford and Union Seminaries, but with
no results. Tradition says the idea came from Cole-
brook, Connecticut, but an antiquarian, old enough to
remember 1845, to whom an interested Colebrook man
referred me, writes : " I am sure you will find Cole-
brook an absolutely barren field for your purpose."
A possible clue in Goshen, Connecticut, was also bar-
ren. Somewhere in the Litchfield County hills there
may be a trail, but it is blocked by the fallen trees of
a century, and there is no thoroughfare.
In Pittsfield the path is plainer. My father moved
here in 1867. In the fall of that year, he was told that
the New Year's prayer meeting originated as a conse-
quence of the great Nettleton revival. It was a new
idea to him though he came from Cromwell, Middle-
Z2
sex County, Connecticut. The Nettleton revival was
well worth celebrating. It lasted in Pittsfield from the
spring of 1820 to October, 1821, and occupies a large
place in the religious histories of the time. This re-
vival was in the pastorate of the Rev. Dr. Humphrey
of the First Church, 1817 to 1823.
Carlyle says somewhere that all history is a mis-
take. The first suspicion that this tradition was not
true came from reading the histories of this revival,
and then Dr. Humphrey's biography by his son. Rev.
Dr. Zephaniah Humphrey and his son-in-law. Rev. Dr.
Henry Neill. Dr. Neill was pastor of the church in
Lenox, and later lived in Pittsfield several years. If
an institution so honored and loved as this had been
founded in Dr. Humphrey's pastorate, it could not
have escaped notice in this biography. Some years
later his daughter, Miss Sarah W. Humphrey, of
radiant memory, wrote the sketch of her father's life
for the Humphrey genealogy, but she has no word
of the establishment of the New Year's prayer meet-
ing. Family and local pride would have ascribed the
prayer meeting to his pastorate if possible. The mis-
take probably arose from the confusion of the Nettle-
ton revival with another great one, which lasted at
intervals from 1812 to 1816. The Pittsfield Sun of
February 17, 1875, has a leading article on " Some
Great Revivals." After telling of the origin of the
Methodist Church in Pittsfield, it continues : " The
spirit of the Lord was at work in all denominations,
but with no marked effect in Pittsfield. There were
too many dissensions among His people. These dis-
sensions, mostly of a political character, began to abate
at the close of the war of 1812. Pittsfield churches
shared in the great refreshing of 1815, and manifested
their harmony by uniting in instituting the New
33
Year's prayer meeting, January first, 1816, which has
since become one of Pittsfield's most cherished insti-
tutions."
At the meeting on New Year's day, 1880, Deacon
James H. Dunham of the South Church made an ad-
dress on the origin of the New Year's prayer meeting,
reported in the Sun of the fourteenth of January of
that year. Deacon Dunham said : "I will answer the
question long and often asked, that according to the in-
disputable authority of the late Mrs. Fenn, the custom
of holding this meeting was commenced on the morn-
ing of the new year of 1816, while the Congregational
denomination, which then composed a great majority
of the people of the town, was still divided into two
parishes. The people had already become sensible of
the folly and wickedness of this division, and this
New Year's morning union prayer meeting was an in-
dication and effect of the new desire for the harmony
which in 181 7 resulted in the union of the two churches
under Dr. Humphrey. It is called the town prayer
meeting because when it was established, the First
Congregational Parish was a town parish, and its
meetings town meetings." The Pittsfield meeting is
unique in this respect, that being founded as a town
meeting in the old town church, it has continued such,
so that all inhabitants of town and city, who profess
and call themselves Christians, of every name, and
many others beside, have united in sustaining it. All
other New Year's meetings are church prayer meet-
ings. Deacon Dunham became a resident of Pittsfield
in 18 19, and attended almost every New Year's prayer
meeting from that date to his death in 1890. He was
a careful man, whose statements were thoroughly to
be trusted. At the one hundred and twenty-fifth anni-
versary in 1889, Mr. Dunham wrote the paper on "The
Missionaries from the First Church."
34
Mrs. Curtis T. Fenn (Parthenia Dickinson) daugh-
ter of one of Pittsfield's oldest families, was born here
in 1798. She united with the First Church in 1816,
leaving it in 1850 when the South Church was formed.
She was one of the original members of the Free
Will, and in her later life laid the corner stone of
the House of Mercy. She died in 1878, honored and
respected, keeping her memory and interest in all town
affairs to the last.
What were the dissensions which split the First
Church, whose quieting was the direct cause of the
establishing of the New Year's prayer meeting? They
were not theological. The Unitarian controversy which
convulsed eastern New England made no trouble here.
The division was political, social, financial, based on
different theories of government, and different ideas,
according to the point of view, of the necessary or un-
necessary participation of the United States in the
world-politics of the time. I take these facts entirely
from a bound volume of contemporary pamphlets on
both sides, which is in the Athenaeum. The division
began in the last days of Washington's administration,
and was only quieted after the peace of 1815. The
leaders were the Rev. Thomas Allen, for the Repub-
licans (the Democrats of to-day) ; and for the Fed-
eralists, Woodbridge Little, trustee and benefactor of
Williams College, and Ashbel Strong, one of the Mas-
sachusetts Committee of Correspondence, to whose
potent influence the union of the thirteen Colonies was
largely due. New England's fisheries and her ocean
carrying-trade were crippled by the Napoleonic wars.
A possible port in China was the only one in the world
left open to her, while Jefferson's embargo shut up
her ships in our own harbors. A grave financial his-
1231139
35
torian* writes that the efforts of Albert Gallatin,
Jefferson and Madison's Secretary of the Treasury,
for honest dealing and sound finance, only served to
increase the fury of the anti-Federalists. Large in-
vestments of foreign capital in our untried securities
were denounced as engines designed to overturn our
civil liberties. Byron says historians should be made
up of wrath and partiality. You may accuse me of
both, if I confess entire sympathy with Little and
Strong. They were challenged from the pulpit for
more than four years before they acted. They were
Lowell's men, " stern men with empires in their
brains." They could not sit quietly in the circle of these
hills, like another Appalachian America, and see the
strong currents of new national life run round their
citadel. They were of the men of whom Senator Lodge
writes in his History of Boston that the action of the
New England towns shook the country and forced
the repeal of the embargo. They would not have been
worthy of Bunker Hill behind them and Gettysburg
and Mission Ridge ahead if they had done otherwise.
One of these pamphlets states this was the only
church in New England so divided. The trouble be-
gan Thanksgiving Day, 1802, when several men left
the meeting house during the sermon. In 1803 the
Pittsfield Sun writes of the Federalists, " Their party
spirit is hostile to all friendly intercourse, destroys
good neighborhood, warps the judgment, and under-
mines the whole system of moral virtues; makes men
' tygers,' cruel and sanguinary, — that Federal malig-
nity, insolence, fine and imprisonment were opposed
by Republican meekness, patience and generosity." In
a sermon, November 15, 1804, we find this sentence:
(*) Horace White: "Money and Banking," page 286.
36
" In Federalism we see nothing but oppugnation to
the principles of the Christian religion and to the
genius and spirit of the Gospel." In February, 1807,
the first step was taken to divide the church. A mu-
tual council was asked for on the thirtieth of April,
which was refused then, and later in the same sum-
mer. In December, a large section of the church ap-
plied to the Legislature for the organization of a new
parish. In 1808, the Union Parish Church was or-
ganized. In February, 1809, those who had left the
First Church were laid under censure, " after a scene
of altercation, lasting till near night, an exhibition of
vehemence and passion which covered the friends of
religion with the deepest blush of shame." These are
the words of the Rev. William Allen. At this time
the membership of the Union Parish consisted of
forty persons, thirty-six of whom came from the First
Church, seventeen men, later reduced to sixteen " one
having confessed his sin." Some were then under
censure, and the rest were yet to be dealt with. The
male members remaining were seventeen ; females,
sixty ; a proportion familiar in later times. Mr. Allen
writes, August 1809, " In the First Church at the
last communion nine males were present, forty fe-
males. One or two males may yet withdraw. The
only effect will be to make themselves liable to censure
and if that is ineffectual, to excommunication with the
others." An ex parte council was called in August,
1809, consisting of Rev. Mr. Collins of Lanesboro,
Rev. Mr. Catlin of New Marlboro, Rev. Samuel Shep-
ard of Lenox, and Rev. Dr. Alvin Hyde of Lee. An
address was sent to them, from which I take two
paragraphs. "An ex parte council, of which you were
members, met in this town on the first day of August,
in consequence of letters missive from the separating
Z7
members of this church, who have for a long time
been under its censure and suspended from its com-
munion, as disorderly walkers and covenant breakers,
with a view to exonerate them from the just censures
of this church, and did vote, it was expedient to form
another church here, and that the censure passed on
such members should be no bar to their being admitted
into the church, and they did appoint you, we are
told, to come here and incorporate these censured
members into another church. You have supported
and encouraged these offenders in a clandestine man-
ner for years past. You come here as promoters of
sedition and rebellion in the church of Christ. Your
procedure cannot help the cause of Federalism in this
town and County which is its principal object, but will
prove its overthrow, and bring it and yourselves into
disgrace, and divide the church in this County, a ma-
jority of whose members are believed to be Republi-
cans, whilst you cast us out of your communion, they
will cast you out of theirs." One of the charges
brought against Rev. Thomas Allen was that he spent
more time in the Sun printing office, writing editorials,
than in his study, composing sermons, and was often
seen in that office an hour after sunset on Saturday
evenings. That was a total disregard of the fourth
commandment. The biographer of Dr. Humphrey
writes : " The sunset of Saturday was the hither
bound of holy time. Then work ceased, and all were
enjoined to lay aside worldly cares, and compose
themselves for the worship of the following day."
She describes the division thus : ** The church was
rent by a political convulsion. After seven years of
division in separate churches, and much bitterness of
feeling and recrimination, there was found to be a
strong and genuine disposition to re-unite. Both pas-
38
tors resigned. The two congregations came together
under the old roof, and Dr. Humphrey was invited
to take the task of promoting organic union, a difficult
work. Neighborhoods and families had been involved
in the long-standing and bitter quarrel, but under his
judicious management, and by the exercise of patient
energy and wise counsels, old wounds were healed
and the spirit of harmony took the place of discord."
Church records are spicy reading. When the
move was made to return to the First Church, it was
not received graciously by them. The vote passed in
church meeting, June 30, 1815, reads: "As they pro-
fess repentance of their sin in leaving us in an irreg-
ular manner, now, therefore, although retaining our
persuasion that the foundation of the church of Union
Parish was laid in error and irregularity, yet influ-
enced by the desire of promoting the interests of the
Gospel of peace, we vote that we will hereafter over-
look, in our measures of discipline, the offence which
has been acknowledged and will treat the church of
Union Parish as a Christian church."
The Rev. Thomas Punderson was installed over
the Union Parish Church in October, 1809. He came
from Goshen, Conn., where he had studied theology
with Rev. Asahel Hooker. Among his fellow students
were Heman Humphrey and Noah Porter, whose only
sister Mr. Humphrey married. Mrs. Humphrey was
the first President of the Free Will Society, organized
in August, 1819. Some of us remember her, an alert
and vigorous old lady, living until 1868 in the house
on the northeast corner of East and First streets, now
occupied by Dr. Brace W. Paddock.
Now that we know the actors in the drama, I enter
upon what Professor Harnack calls " unrestrained
suppositions." We have seen that tradition has con-
39
fused two revivals. Little is known of Mr. Punder-
son, but I am inclined to think that tradition has con-
fused the Litchfield County towns, and that if the
prayer meeting idea came from Connecticut at all,
it came with him from Goshen. Dr. Hyde of Lee was,
of course, his friend, being a member of that ex parte
council which ordained, installed, and later dismissed
him. The prayer meeting was begun in Pittsfield in
i8i6 during Mr. Punderson's pastorate. One like it
was begun by his friend Dr. Hyde in Lee nearly at
the same time. In a letter dated January 4, 1819, Dr.
Hyde writes : " On the morning of New Year's day
we had a meeting for prayer and praise at the meeting
house just as the sun rose, attended by nearly five
hundred people. It was truly a solemn hour. The
same has been our practice for several years."* His-
torians have an axiom that " One fact is gossip and
two are history." Here are two facts in Pittsfield
and Lee. A son of this church, Rev. William W.
Rockwell, Professor of Church History in Union
Seminary, after much research says: "I am incHned
to think it originated here." The idea may have orig-
inated in Mr. Punderson's brain and heart. While
history has forgotten him, tradition ascribes it to his
native state. Certainly these men originated and fos-
tered it in the two Berkshire towns. We may be very
sure that, finding such an instrument ready to his
hand, instituted to promote harmony, Mr. Punderson's
fellow student, Dr. Humphrey, pastor of the re-united
(*) The late Marshall Foote of Lee used to say that he was
taken as a child about twelve years old to the first meet-
ing in 1818. Dr. Rowland, for many years pastor of the
church in Lee, questioned the accuracy of the statement
as it does not agree with Dr. Hyde's record of " several
years."
40
church, strengthened it in critical years, and that the
Nettleton revival assisted his efforts.
The Rev. Dr. Edward Taylor of Binghamton, New
York, born in Lee in 1821, wrote to that church in
1901 : "One of the most spiritually fruitful instru-
mentalities of my ministry has been the meeting on
the morning of the New Year. I have attended eighty
such, being taken to the first in my mother's arms.
Wherever I have been pastor, this service has been
permanently established, and its three stout stitches
of Praise, Prayer and Purpose have turned a good
hem on many a year that would otherwise have raveled
out." Dr. Taylor lived until 1902, not missing one
of eighty-one meetings on New Year's Day in Lee and
in thirteen churches which he served.* I know of only
one of these which is not now held, Hinsdale. So far
has the little candle lighted in Pittsfield thrown its
beams. Dr. Llewellyn Pratt started a New Year's
prayer meeting in North Adams, and afterwards in
Norwich, Conn. The latter has been given up. The
only other one of which I ever heard is in the Fourth
Presbyterian Church in Albany, founded by New Eng-
land people in 1829. This is held at six o'clock in the
morning. I went once.
Our forefathers, like the Athenians, were very
religious. New Year's Day was to them a season of
searching self-examination, of stern resolution and re-
newed consecration. Probably for these reasons they
(*) These churches were Hinsdale, Mass.; John Street Pres-
byterian Church, Lansing;burg, N. Y. ; Kalamazoo, Mich. ;
South Congregational Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. ; First
Congregational Church, Binghamton, N. Y. ; Norwich,
N. Y. ; Plymouth Church, Utica, N. Y. ; Newark Valley,
N. Y. ; Greene, N. Y. ; Cortlandt, N. Y. ; Oswego, N. Y. ;
Whitney's Parish, N. Y. ; and Susquehanna, Penn. I
owe this information to Dr. Taylor's son, Mr. L. W.
Taylor of Binghamton.
41
selected that day for their town prayer meeting. Noth-
ing with a poHtical taint could have been chosen. But
there were ardent souls in Pittsfield who were not
satisfied with one sunrise prayer meeting. We owe
to Mr. Robert C. Rockwell the discovery in the files
of the Pittsfield Sun that a prayer meeting was holden
in the Pittsfield Meeting House with fervour and holy
zeal, at the rising of the sun — 4.30 a, m. — July 4, 1825,
and for three years thereafter. The contagion of
example spread. The Berkshire Association, at their
meeting in New Marlborough, November 9, 1827,
recommended to the churches a religious observance of
July Fourth — a good thought in itself — but accom-
panied by the recommendation that the day be com-
menced with meetings for prayer at sunrise. Since
1828, Pittsfield seems to have left the rising with the
sun on the Fourth of July to a less religious rising
generation.
During Dr. Todd's life the ministers of the town
always sat in front on the deacons' seat. This was
changed because it was thought that the laymen were
overpowered by the galaxy of ministers, and would
speak better if the clergy were scattered through the
house. This custom has varied in recent years. No.
tradition has come down to us of any special New
Year's day. Mr. Gilbert West has attended these
meetings since 1842, having missed but one in seventy-
two years, on account of a funeral out of town. On
his authority we know that the meetings in 1852 and
1853 were held in the hall of Burbank's old block
over Cooley's store, which the old church was occupy-
ing after the fire of January 9, 185 1. In January,
1854, what did a New England Puritan community
think of this Gothic roof which might be in the Eng-
42
lish Berkshire? The rill has now grown into a river.
The current moves so calm and deep that it leaves
little history behind it.
Many people say that the special characteristic of
this meeting is its atmosphere. A letter from a mem-
ber of the Lee church describes this well. " The New
Year's prayer meeting is one of our institutions, and
has been held from time immemorial. It was origin-
ally a sunrise meeting, but in these degenerate times
it is held at the rational hour of eight. In former
times families ate by lamp light, and the chapel was
lighted in the same primitive way. Breakfasts were
in vogue then, but a second cup of coffee was ready
on the return from the meeting, and there were drop-
pers-in of people who had driven from a distance to
the service. It is a meeting always full, and men
are always seen there who may not enter the chapel
again for another year. Veterans come and reminisce,
and young people are expected to be in attendance,
no matter what the gaieties and late hours of the night
before. The traditions of the meeting are cherished
by generation after generation, and we hope it will
never be discontinued."
Those of us who have been here long will always
associate
" While with ceaseless course the sun "
and
" Great God, we sing that mighty hand "
with the greetings of neighbors and friends in the
aisles and on the steps of this church. Deacon Dun-
ham said in 1880: "Strangers and visitors in town
express great delight in these meetings. I well
recollect General Briggs' expression in regard to the
first one he attended. He knew nothing of it until
he came into the street and asked why the bell was
43
ringing — there was but one — and was told it was for
the New Year's prayer meeting of the town. He re-
solved to attend, and doing so, was delighted. To
him the idea of the whole town assembling at such a
time and for such a purpose, was so good and so
appropriate that he attended the meeting as long as
he lived, and he was a man the people delighted to
hear."
Of what significance has the meeting been all these
years ? No earthly commission can answer that ques-
tion or estimate the value of the product. Spiritual
things are spiritually discerned. Mrs. Stowe says in
" Old Town Folks " : " The briefness of these periods
and the inevitable gravitation of everybody back to
earth has sometimes been mentioned with a sneer."
Churches have died and towns degenerated in Massa-
chusetts. Dr. Jenkins in his pastoral prayer used often
to return thanks for the restraining grace which pre-
vented us, so that we never had behaved as badly as
we might. As a community, if we have not behaved
as badly as we might, we have by no means lived up to
high civic ideals or to our own best leadership.
Individually, if once, before New Year's Day is over,
the quick word has been checked and a more gracious
one spoken; if once the Golden Rule has conquered
David Harum's version, " Do to the other fellow what
he would do to you, and do it first," the blessed law
of habit has taken a new hold, and it is easier to
do the generous and true thing later in the year.
" One of Pittsfield's cherished institutions." Why?
Because we believe — no, we go farther. In Jean In-
gelow's words
"We know past all doubting truly,
A knowledge deeper than faith can dim,"
44
that on the moral and religious qualities, represented
however imperfectly, by such institutions as this, rests
our only hope of the permanence of city, state and na-
tion. Lord Haldane, speaking to the American Bar
Association in Montreal last summer, said he had cross-
ed the Atlantic to advocate for the three nations in
their international relations, the moral rules enjoined
by private conscience and the spirit of the community
for which English has no word, but which the Germans
call sittlichkeit; the system of habitual or customary
conduct, ethical rather than legal, embracing all those
obligations of citizenship which it is bad form or not
the thing to disregard, the social penalty for which is
being cut or looked at askance. Such a community
spirit might rule here that a new citizen of Pittsfield
should feel the surrounding pressure of this sittlichkeit
so that an intuitive sense of moral obligation would
lead him to present himself and his family before God
and the assembly at the New Year's prayer meeting,
and if he did not, he should realize the intangible but
by no means unfelt sense of the community that such
attendance is expected of him.
In the darkest days of Holland's struggle the
Prince of Orange took for his motto : "Je maintien-
drai " — I will maintain. We do not know the mean-
ing of the word struggle. It may lie ahead. Some-
times we seem to
"lightly hold
The prize which brave men died to gain."
But granite underlies New England yet, though loose
gravel and shifting sand may be uppermost. The
courage and endurance of Leyden and Plymouth can
be relied upon when needed. " We will maintain "
the faith of our fathers, living still, as represented by
45
such institutions as Pittsfield's New Year's sunrise
prayer meeting against attacks indifferent, scornful,
insidious or stormy. When the thousand years of
Canterbury and Winchester shall have been equalled
and passed, and the sun rises on New Year's morning
over the jewelled whiteness of our New England
hills — ours just as much then as now — some one will
be heard singing
"And here Thy name, O God of love,
Their children's children shall adore.
Till these eternal hills remove,
And spring adorns the earth no more."
WMiam r^WSL.^ QQ)
AN APPRECIATION OF THE
MINISTRY OF
WILLIAM VAIL WILSON DAVIS
By Charles L. Hibbard
The occasion and subject make it fitting I choose
a text for this address. In the thirtieth chapter of
Ezekiel, the thirty-third verse, we read : "And when
this Cometh to pass (lo, it will come) then shall they
know that a prophet hath been among them."
Some recent author, whose name and book escape
me, has spoken of his principal character in this man-
ner and I quote it as an appropriate foreword : " You
had but to see him to know that he was not quite the
ordinary man. There was something lofty and detached
about his face. He was of those who are just one
step ahead of their own generation. If he lived to
be an old man, humanity would have caught up with
him and he would die abreast of his times. All his
life he had cherished the ineradicable conviction that
Something was coming, Something Big and Beautiful
and that Something Christ."
The twelfth minister of this church was the Rev.
William Vail Wilson Davis. He succeeded the Rev.
Jonathan L. Jenkins who had been here for fifteen
years and whose resignation was, on July 25th, 1892,
formally acted upon by an ecclesiastical council held
pursuant to letters missive sent out from this church.
The call to Dr. Davis was accepted by him in a letter
48
received by the joint parish and church committee
on Monday, September 4, 1893. The pastorate was
thus vacant a Httle more than a year.
Dr. Davis was born on February 17, 1851, in
Wilson, New York. He fitted for college at Willis-
ton Academy in Easthampton and entered Amherst
from which he graduated in the class of 1873. Im-
mediately afterward, he went to Constantinople where
he had received an appointment as professor in Robert
College. After a year's work, he resigned and travelled
extensively through the Oriental countries. This
experience, though short in duration, had a profound
effect upon his life, mental outlook and interests. Re-
turning to America, he taught for a time in Amherst
but, yielding to the deep spiritual suggestions and de-
mands of his nature, he soon forsook the teacher's
chair and began to study in Andover Theological Sem-
inary from which he graduated in 1877. In Septem-
ber of that year he was ordained to the ministry and
immediately became pastor of the Franklin Street Con-
gregational Church in Manchester, New Hampshire,
succeeding Rev. Dr. W. J. Tucker, who was later Pres-
ident of Dartmouth College. From this position he
resigned in 1882 to accept the pastorate of the Euclid
Avenue Presbyterian Church in Cleveland, Ohio, then
one of the largest and most influential churches in that
state. Because of Mrs. Davis's health, he resigned
this position after five years of most successful work
in the midst of congenial surroundings and among
cordial friends. The Union Congregational Church
of Worcester next sought and received his services.
His growing reputation as a scholar and preacher had
preceded him and there he labored faithfully and suc-
cessfully until this church sought and invited him to
be its pastor and preacher. He was thus a little over
49
forty-two years of age when he came to Pittsfield with
his wife and their young family. He had just entered
upon the period of middle life when his natural powers
were at their best. Here for seventeen years he labored
and gave of his best and, on the twenty-fifth day
of August, 1910, left us in the full strength of his
body and mind and seemingly with many long years
of service before him.
This is a sketch in brief of the life of the man
of whom I speak to-day, but it is the least and most
unimportant side.
It now becomes my privilege to speak of him as
preacher, as pastor, as citizen and as man. But how
shall I analyse his personality and present the influ-
ences which he gave forth in this church and commun-
ity with justice and wisdom, his was so singularly an
elusive personality and at times difficult to understand.
Perhaps I shall do best and be most just if I briefly and
fairly state the conditions under which he came into
this church and the manner in which he met them.
When the pastorate became vacant, there was a
division of sentiment which expressed itself forcibly
in certain directions but never affected that sense of
loyalty and devotion to the church as a whole which
has been such a distinguishing characteristic of this
people. Because of this condition of affairs a rather
impersonal feeling of cordiality and responsiveness
awaited any man called to fill the vacancy.
Dr. Davis had first to meet the test in the pulpit.
This church had for fifteen years listened to Dr.
Jenkins. His was a wondrous gift of graceful speech.
Words flowed golden from his lips. There was a
charm of diction rarely found, a perfect choice of
word and phrase, a richness and mellowness of tone
which delighted the ear. And all clothed the thought
50
of an educated, cultivated, original thinker. To come
into this pulpit, with the still lingering aroma of all
this charm and inspiration about it, was no mean task
or test. Yet Dr. Davis was equal to the task and
testing. Perhaps he had not quite the charm of lan-
guage of which I have spoken but his speech came
strong, vigorous, fresh, impressive and distinguished
by rugged eloquence and convincing earnestness. It,
too, clothed no mean thought. The early training
of the scholar and the teacher, perhaps better, the
strong, natural, mental attitude showed vigorously in
his pulpit and public utterances. To many at first his
speech was difficult and hard to follow but not so to
one who became accustomed to his enunciation or was
attentive to the spiritual elements so markedly found
in his addresses. He at once took front rank among
our preachers and maintained that position to the end.
He was no servile follower adopting the path hewn
out by another. He did his own thinking. It is no
easy task to stand in this pulpit Sabbath after Sabbath
for seventeen long years and preach sermon after ser-
mon without repetition or without loss of power. To
be always in front of your congregation in spiritual
and mental leadership is the true position of the suc-
cessful minister, and this Dr. Davis always was. Many
of his sermons were built about a skeleton of philos-
ophy and full of philosophic phrases and ideas difficult
for the lay mind to grasp, but no sermon ever here
fell from his lips, which, understood, failed to uplift,
encourage, lead on to God and the coming of His
Kingdom here on earth. Viewed in the large aspect
he was a mental giant and filled this pulpit with dig-
nity, with honor and with power, a fit successor to the
strong men who had preceded him. So great was this
intellectual power that his field of activity might have
SI
been country-wide, but with inborn loyalty he saved
for and gave to this church alone his best thought.
He had next to meet the test of social relationship.
Here too he was judged by a standard exceptionally
high, for his predecessor had a social charm, a personal
magnetism and a quality of good fellowship rarely
equalled. Naturally Dr. Davis could not be like an-
other — he must be himself. His nature was not one
which fell readily into close personal relationship.
He came into our midst, established himself as a part
of our community life, entertaining and being enter-
tained, and forming immediate, close friendship with
those who understood him and his longings but he
was not very successful with those who made com-
parisons. He was easily the foremost in all gather-
ings and a master in the art of conversation — this
through sheer force of intellect rather than charm of
manner or thought.
The weakest element in the church at the time
of his coming was its young people. Of this I speak
with especial knowledge. Dr. Davis at once saw this
weakness and rallied about him all of the boys and
girls, the young men and young women. They came
into the church in large numbers with fresh and vig-
orous enthusiasm, with inherited loyalty to the insti-
tution and with no prejudices. Dr. Davis's influence
was immediate, strong and effective. The vigorous
condition of this church to-day is largely due to that
quick grasping of his opportunity and the steady,
strong, uplifting leadership which he maintained to the
end. It is probably true that we have not and cannot
grasp the true measure of this influence. But I am not
far wrong in saying that this was Dr. Davis's greatest
52
achievement in this church, and one for which this
people should not only honor him but be profoundly
and eternally grateful.
And now I speak of him as a part of and a force
in this community. He had a peculiarly sensitive and
responsive nature. From the first, he was at home in
these hills. Through the long summer days and the
cold crisp months of winter, he walked abroad and
drew in with every breath inspiration and enthusiasm.
He was responsive to all of nature's moods. The
jubilant notes of the birds, the slow, steady march up
our mountain sides of life in the spring, the dying
glories of our autumn foliage, the whispering winds
in the pines, the waving grain fields, the sun-kissed
waves of our mountain lakes, the deep blue of our
June sky, the lazy drift of summer cloud, the ma-
jesty and glory of the stars in their ordered courses,
the hush of noon, the soft breath of night, even the
fierce and rending crash of summer rain and fury
of winter storm, all found in him a responsive lover.
Each and every one of them was but evidence of the
love, the gracious tenderness, the bounty, the majesty,
the glory and the power of the great Creator with
whom he came through these manifestations into close
communion.
With John Burroughs he found "^each day too
short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the
walks I want to take, all the books I want to read,
all the friends I want to see." With him too he loved
the feel of the grass under his feet and the sound of
running streams by his side. " The hum of the wind
in the tree tops " was always " good music " to him
and " the face of the fields often comforted " him.
He found with Tennyson in the "flower in the crannied
wall " an expression of the will and love of the
S3
Creator. And when he was tired and lonely he sought
Mother Nature and so found rest and inspiration and
came more and more to feel the beauty and wonder
of Hfe.
It was his joy to live here and be thus in close
and constant communion with all the beauty with
which nature had endowed us, and it was while upon
an expedition in the mountains to see and enjoy one
of our especial places of beauty that he met with the
accident which took him from us.
He was laid to rest in our peaceful cemetery in
the midst of " The Beautiful Mountains " where he
wished to sleep the long sleep from which there is
no awakening.
To Dr. Davis Pittsfield meant home. And he was
proud of this, his city. He could not bear to see any
of its natural or acquired beauty destroyed. He it was
who urged the City Beautiful. I give but one ex-
ample of his interest. He could not look upon our
filthy, unclean, unattractive Housatonic without a vis-
ion of what it might be. In his travels in England he
had seen many a similar stream embanked and puri-
fied and thus made a joy and a delight. He could
see our river thus cared for and urged it with voice
and pen.
Dr. Davis came to Pittsfield when it had a great
deal of the old town about it. There still lingered
much of the old-time idealism of the Puritan. It was
an orderly town. God-fearing and law-abiding. A
few men controlled and that wisely and with unself-
ish purpose. Moreover there was much civic pride
born of inherited traditions of loyalty and devotion
to the place of one's birth or long-time adoption. Then
began our commercial development, expanding popu-
lation and inevitable change in ideals and loss of con-
54
trol by men of the type I have mentioned. Our newer
citizenship was made up in a measure of a relatively
unstable class, here in Pittsfield for a few years and
then gone. They had no local family interests, — the
old ideals and life were totally unknown, — in many
cases the people came from communities totally unlike
ours. They could not be expected to feel the same
interest or preserve the old traditions. During Dr.
Davis's service we changed from a steady, thrifty
city of small population, with much of the old village
life, to a bustling, modern, commercial community.
With his sensitive, quick perception, he early felt these
changes, some of which he feared meant a moral
loss to the city. He was so responsive to all of our
traditions of Puritan ancestry and teaching, so in-
tensely spiritual in his thought, that he could not sit
idly by. So he came to develop, to practice and to
preach that community idealism which was so char-
acteristic. Somehow even though the task were her-
culean, he must gather under his influence all the
strangers and newcomers. He must hold aloft the
old standards of right living, thinking, being, and invite
all men to join with him as soldiers of the Cross.
Many people thought him impractical and said it is
vastly more important to have our factories, our work-
shops and our stores, to increase in population and be
heralded as the growing city than to preserve old
time worn Puritan notions. But are we quite sure
that Dr. Davis did not have a keener, larger sense
than most of us of the dangers of misguided, uncon-
trolled growth of city life? That we have preserved
so much of all that is good and true in our civic life
and spirit is in no small measure due to his warning
and guiding voice and pen.
55
He entered into our civic life again in his interest
for the pubHc schools. His travels abroad had served
to show him many mistakes, perhaps inevitable, in our
public school system. In season and out he talked
and wrote for the payment of more adequate salaries to
our instructors and the raising of the standard. The
German youth with his capacity for work, thorough-
ness of preparation and insistence in application to his
task was a model constantly held up to our view, nor
did he fail to see the great points of advantage in the
English schools. But time fails me to speak of all
his interests in and labors for this city. I can but
mention a few. Suffice it to say, his voice, his pen,
his leadership was always for the upbuilding of a better
community life.
And I may now speak properly of another of Dr.
Davis's visions which is personal for us, that of a
new organ and an arrangement of the pulpit similar
to the one where I now stand. To him this church
building was sacred. It is built on living rock and
the land on which it stands has never known private
ownership. To him that living rock was Christ. He
felt as have all true worshipers here the solemn dig-
nity, the spiritual atmosphere, the uplifting beauty,
yea the very presence of God in this house of wor-
ship. Thus he would have made worship more holy
with music, and house more beautiful with skilled
workmanship and loving care.
But his interest was not confined to his own church,
nor did it content itself even with those of all other
denominations in our city. He early found another
problem which attracted his attention and gave to
him much concern, that of our country churches. His
fellow-laborers in the distant villages and on the moun-
tain tops of our New England towns were to him
56
real heroes of the faith. Living and laboring for a
miserable pittance in these lonely places where there
is so much to discourage and so little to sustain and
uplift the worker except his faith in God, these men
excited his unbounded admiration. He was wont to
refer to these co-workers as " our humble brethren,"
not in any sense of comparative greatness on his part
but with profound respect for their devotion, self-
sacrifice and faith. Many a word of kindly sympathy,
many a gift of book or money went unheralded from
him to these friends who so much needed encourage-
ment and aid. His suggestion at some convention of a
celibate clergy for the country church did not meet
with ready favor but grew out of a profound knowl-
edge of the harshness of conditions, the poverty of
life, the sacrifice involved in the attempt to bring up
a family upon the salary paid. It had a solid basis
in good sense and justice and in any event served to
sharply call attention to the intolerable conditions. He
has gone, but the conditions which he so strongly felt
and condemned remain. What better memorial to
him, what finer tribute to his years of self-sacrificing
labor, thought and prayer could this church build or
pay than to establish a fund for the assistance of the
struggling churches of this county?
From our own standpoint and judged selfishly, we
must not let religion die out and the name and worship
of Christ be unknown in these our little settlements.
Dr. Davis would rejoice to see this church become the
great, wise, bountiful helper of these struggling
churches. What individual grows except in selfishness
who is self-centered and does nothing for his less for-
tunate brothers? The church whose life runs clear
and strong is that one which establishes and maintains
missions where its workers and its money labor to-
57
gether for the upbuilding of God's Kingdom. What
finer memorial then, what could be more in answer
to his oft-repeated prayer, his yearning love for this
church and these his friends and people than that the
First Church of Christ in Pittsfield should forever
mark this day by establishing its good-will fund for
the assistance of the weaker churches of this County,
that it should become like the Old South Church of
Boston, the encouraging force and power working
through these lesser agencies for the making of the
people of these towns fit citizens of this region which
so reflects the loving kindness of our common Father?
But I must give my final estimate and appreciation.
Before I do so, it will be fitting to speak this word.
In his later years, there came into Dr. Davis's life
a great sorrow, a sadness and a void which could
not be filled. Shall we not pause for a moment to
pay reverent tribute to her who in purest love, with
true wifely devotion, sympathy and insight, for many
years travelled the way of life in his company? In
all the arts and graces of true womanhood, wifehood
and motherhood, she was never lacking. Upon her
he leaned, to her he came in his sorrows and dis-
appointments ; after her going more and more did he
dwell in those secret places of the Most High where
he felt and believed he had spiritual communion with
her, his well-beloved wife. His wounded heart found
comfort in that phrase which he so often left to other
stricken ones — "In His will is our peace." After
this there entered into his life a true personal sym-
pathy with all who mourned. He seemed so much
more human, for he too had passed through the valley
of the shadows ; he had fought the fight and come out
conqueror. For him thereafter death had no sting
58
and the grave no victory and he could give this mes-
sage to all with a knowledge which convinced.
And so he lived and labored among us, giving,
enriching, leading. Shall I be misunderstood if I
say that he gave far more than was given to him, that
this people was not always as kind, as responsive, as
friendly as it might have been?
He yearned for human sympathy and friendship
with an almost unnatural yearning and the pathetic
thing about it was that this very yearning repelled
the sympathy and affection he craved. His heart
and love went out in boundless measure to his people
all through his service here and he never could under-
stand just why he had their respect, their honor and
their affection but not their intimate companionship ;
and it is hard to explain this unless we ascribe it to
a personality which was too idealistic, too intellectual
and too refined, too, shall I say it, intensely earnest
and grave, for ordinary daily companionship.
Then too he was often misunderstood but that
surely is not an offense or a characteristic to be criti-
cised. Somewhere Emerson says : " Is it so bad then
to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misundersood,
and Socrates and Jesus and Luther and Copernicus
and Galileo and Newton and every pure and wise
spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be mis-
understood."
Carlyle voiced the same opinion when he said, "But
great men are too often unknown, or what is worse,
misknown."
If he was misunderstood, it was because he dwelt
on too lofty a plane, his thought in the higher realms
and his spirit untouched by the common, coarse things
of daily living.
59
But what an influence to have had in this church
and community those long years! What was it for
the youth of this church now its strength, its great
strength in their young manhood and young woman-
hood and their middle age, to have seen and heard
and known this man!
Can you not see him now in this place? See that
tall, angular form, ungraceful but suggestive of
power and strength. See that grave face, that finely
shaped head " where dwelt a most busy mind," that
countenance seamed with its furrows of care and deep
thinking and yearning; and when he rises to speak,
can you not hear those vigorous, rounded sentences
clothing no mean repetitions of undeveloped ideas,
feel the " thrill of new thoughts or old ones in the
new form of individual inspiration " ? A power of
highest order brought to us those strong messages of
warning, of love, of encouragement, of hope. He saw
with a clear eye the Christ Vision, — he knew what it
was to have enthroned in men the Christ Master, — he
knew the power of prayer, — he saw the dangers of this
materialistic age, — he had studied history, — he could
foresee the future, — he was filled with the spirit of
service, — and he could not, would not rest until he
had made his beloved people see and feel as did he.
What influence that steady leadership exerted here,
no man can tell or measure. Perhaps much of it was
unknown to him and those whom he influenced, but
to have the visions he had, to make his people see
as he saw, and to always lead us bearing aloft that
Christian ideal for seventeen years was an achievement
the power and force of which no man can measure.
He married many of us, he baptized our children,
he received us and our children into this church and
6o
he buried our dead. We would be scarcely human
did we not hold him in most kindly, loving, reverent
memory.
This church has had great men at its head. He
was worthy to be of that circle of leaders. We do not
know what the future has in store for this people or
this church. We do not know what this city of ours
may become in the years to follow, we do not know
whether the traditions of the fathers will be the tradi-
tions of the children, but this we do know: that the
power and influence of Dr. Davis did not pass with
his going but live on and that the people of this church
and the children's children of this people shall rise up
and call him blessed. "And when this cometh to pass
(lo, it will come) then shall they know that a prophet
hath been among them,"
y-nteyTLOr (>f ^^tn^it (^/lurc/i of (j/iri.>t-
'J9I5
THE POEM
By Fannie Stearns Davis Gifford
Shadow and sun on the high weather-vane;
Whisper of snow, rustle of April rain;
Clock hands that creep, inevitable, slow;
Long ivy-leaves that sweep and shine and blow;
Dark doors swung wide, — a golden dusk, — a sound
Of serious organ-voices; — silence crowned
With song and prayer and wonder. Year on year
Slow Sabbaths find us still returning here.
Up in the darkening rafters old dreams cling.
Up in the skyward tower old bells sing.
For all the swift new feet along the aisles,
Old faces greet us with unshadowed smiles;
Quaint shapes surprise us at the pew-heads. We
Remember, and look forward, soberly.
O House where God has showed His face of old!
House that our Fathers founded, with the bold
Sure homely faith we covet even now, —
Gather us close! Unmurmuring we bow
Beneath thy light and shadow. What are we
Save little children, in thy mystery?
Save little children, turning home to prove
Once more the ancient miracle of Love?
62
For, though God walks among the hills to-night,
Though the faint stars are His, and all the white
Wild glory of the moon; though He may stir
Deep in the heart of many a wanderer,
Or throb in city streets, or flash His face
From the mad turmoil of the market-place.
Yet, in this House, whereon His seal was set.
Shall He not draw us closer, closer yet?
Shall He not touch our darkened eyes, that we
For one true hour, may drop the scales, and see?
See the strong Past, the stronger Future, when
The ways of God shall grow more wide for men, —
When mortal hands shall fold immortal fast.
And Faith step free, as never in that Past?
O House that God has loved, once more we prove
The ancient joyful miracle of love.
Almost from out that cloudy golden space
Brightens the secret wonder of a Face :
Echo on echo, heavenly-clear and proud,
From outmost star, from earth-drawn cloud to cloud,
Through waiting arch and rafter sweeps the Voice,
"Lift up your hearts! O lift them high! Rejoice!"
ADDRESSES AT THE PUBLIC
MEETING SATURDAY EVENING
In opening the meeting, the Pastor said: The
first speaker whom we are to hear this evening
is one to whom we are glad to hsten for many
reasons. The name of WiUiams is connected with the
early history of Pittsfield in several respects. You
may remember that among the very first settlers in this
neighborhood was a certain Colonel William Williams,
not related so far as I know to Colonel Ephraim
Williams who, I believe, founded by his bequest the
free school which grew into Williams College; but
Colonel William Williams did have the distinction of
being the ninth person to unite with this church. He
came next after the eight foundation men, and he
was from the time of his settlement in Berkshire
County one of the most important personages in the
County north of Stockbridge, holding many civil
offices and being a leader in the church as well as a
leader in the state. He was an own cousin of Jonathan
Edwards, and a nephew of Colonel John Stoddard, one
of the three original grantees of this township. So
that the name of Williams is one which has been
familiar always in this town, and it is perpetuated by
the name of one of our streets, as you know.
There was another Williams, Mr. John Chandler
Williams, who not only himself was well known as a
citizen of Pittsfield, but whose wife became famous
by saving the old elm in the year 1789, when they
64
were planning to build a new meeting house for the
First Church and seemed to think for some reason
that they must cut down the old elm. You will
remember how Mrs. Williams is said to have placed
herself and her apron between the wood choppers
and the tree, and absolutely forced them to cease op-
erations ; as a result of which her husband gave to
the town land on the south side of the street in con-
sideration of the church's giving an equal amount of
land to the town on the north side.
So there are these two Williams families with
which we are associated in the early history of Pitts-
field. But I fancy that we should all say that we are
far prouder and think far oftener of our nearness
to the College at Williamstown ; and there are many
ways in which the close friendship between the church
and the college has been renewed and kept up from
generation to generation. A number of ministers of
this town have been trustees of the College. Dr. Hum-
phrey was a trustee, Dr. Bailey was a trustee, and Mr.
Brinsmade also. Dr. Todd, in whose memory this
pulpit stands here, and to whom this church owes so
much, is remembered gratefully in Williams College,
having been a trustee for twenty-seven years ; and as
you may have noticed this afternoon, we acknowledged
our obligation again to Williams College in the
fact that the two gentlemen who spoke to us are both
of them graduates of Williams College, and I presume
that the two ladies who furnished the other contribu-
tions to the afternoon's program would be graduates
of Williams College if they had been able to be such.
We are glad for these reasons and many more to
welcome as our first speaker this evening the Presi-
dent of Williams College, whom, though he has been
in that high office not yet six years, we have already
come to look up to and to admire as a sagacious admin-
istrator, a leader of scholars, and a true maker of men :
President Garfield.
PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S ADDRESS
When your pastor invited me to attend on this
occasion and speak a few words of greeting from
Williams College, I accepted with pleasure, the more
so because Mr. Gregg informed me that I might, as I
have done, drop off a train on the way from New
York to Williamstown and deliver my message in-
formally.
Not only am I pleased to bring you a greeting
from the College among the hills because of its re-
lation to Pittsfield and to many connected with this
church, but also because it gives me an opportunity
to speak a word for myself. Because your minister
has been good enough to say that I might speak quite
informally, I venture to let memory lead the way.
Thirty-two years ago, when I was a student in Wil-
liams College, it was my privilege to attend this church
while on a visit to Pittsfield of a Sunday. This place
of worship, which has built itself so naturally and
inevitably into your affections, is therefore associated
with my first impressions of your delightful city and
of the family who since that time have been my
friends. When, after my college days, I had settled
in Cleveland, I came to know and love the pastor
of our church, Dr. Davis. He left us and came to
this church and for many years served you as your
pastor.
During five delightful years in Princeton Univer-
sity I was associated with and became affectionately
fond of a descendant of your first pastor. Professor
6S
Allan Marquand and I frequently spoke of Pittsfield
and of this church. It has given me great pleasure
to meet one of his family here this evening, and to
have brought back to my mind what I possibly should
not have remembered, that the pastor and ancestor
of whom Professor Marquand used to speak was your
first minister. In a certain sense, therefore, I have
a personal interest in this occasion as well as an
official one.
I assure you that Williams College does not forget
that it is related in many vital ways to Pittsfield and
Pittsfield's institutions. We are proud of the city
to the south of us. It is a place of distinction and of
peculiar charm. When we think of Berkshire County,
Pittsfield inevitably comes to mind. Like the County,
it possesses a quality better felt than described. Her
church-going people are still thoroughly and typically
New England. Religion and education are never far
apart in their minds. Williams College serves the
need on the side of higher education, supplementing
the work of the churches. The College and the
churches are the two great dynamic forces of the
County; they are more than dynamic, they are living
forces, inheritors of the best traditions of New Eng-
land, and should never cease to stand side by side in
the regard of her people. Secular and religious edu-
cation must continue in the future as in the past to
be fellow-workers, if citizenship is to be characterized
by purity and high-mindedness. Western Massachu-
setts still cherishes some of the old ideals of New
England. We have departed from the standard of
New England theocracy, and yet its influence is still
felt, for here more than elsewhere we keep church
and college always in view as closely related institu-
tions. Our ideal is the trained mind actuated by the
67
dynamic of the spirit. We believe that the trained
mind becomes a danger and a menace unless it is
guided, inspired and held to a high character of work
by that which the church seeks to contribute to us all.
In conclusion, I beg to express the hope, as I en-
tertain the belief, that throughout the years to come
the relation between Williams College and this church
and all the churches of Pittsfield, and of Berkshire
County, will continue to be the relation of sister in-
stitutions holding to the same high ideals, intent on
the same great tasks, dedicated to the service that
makes all institutions so dedicated great and noble.
ADDRESS BY REV. HENRY GOODWIN SMITH
ON REV. THOMAS ALLEN.
Introducing the Rev. Henry G. Smith of Northamp-
ton, the Pastor said:
The next speaker this evening comes to us from
the city of Northampton. The relations between
Northampton and Pittsfield in the early days of this
town were close and many. As I was saying a few
moments ago, the first one of the three original
grantees, in fact, the very first person to whom was
granted by the General Court a part of this territory
which is now Pittsfield was Colonel John Stoddard
of Northampton; and as many of you know, Parson
Allen came from Northampton. Four out of the eight
of his foundation men came from Northampton : Aaron
Baker and the three Phelpses, whose names you see
on the shields.
The first call which Thomas Allen received to the
First Church in Pittsfield may not be remembered by
you all, though it is given in Mr. Robert Adam's paper
on "The Eight Foundation Men," read at the One
68
Hundred and Twenty-fifth Anniversary. He tells the
story, which had come down in the Baker family,
that when Mrs. Baker, Aaron Baker's wife, happened
to be back in Northampton for a visit, she called
upon Mrs. Allen, Thomas Allen's mother, and young
Thomas not being very well she said to him, " Thomas,
why don't you come up to Pittsfield and be our min-
ister?" The church was then in the midst of its thirteen
years of candidating for its first minister ; and in answer
to that question, Mrs. Allen spoke for her son and said
to Mrs. Baker, "Pittsfield ! why that's the end of the
earth. H Thomas goes up there he'll fall ofif " Thomas
came, however, as we know ; and not only did he avoid
falling off, but he remained here for forty-six years ;
and no doubt this is perhaps the greatest debt that
Pittsfield owes to Northampton, — that Northampton
gave to this parish and this town its first minister.
Hence there is a peculiar appropriateness to-night in
the privilege that we have of listening to one who
is not only a native and a resident of Northampton,
but is a direct descendant both of Thomas and of
William Allen: Rev. Henry Goodwin Smith of the
Second Church in Northampton, who now will
address us.
Mr. Smith said:
I never was in this pulpit before; that is, in this
incarnation. But this pulpit and this town seem
strangely familiar. Is it because I have — pardon my
speaking thus, I cannot otherwise — is it because I
have within my veins eighty years of Pittsfield life,
of the Colonial, the Continental, and the Constitutional
eras? Is it because I claim fifty-three years of your
first history?
Mr. Gregg has kindly relieved me of my Northamp-
ton introduction to my speech. Northampton sent the
69
aristocrat, John Stoddard, the magnificent, the "river
god," who plotted out here his barony of twenty-four
thousand acres. Northampton exiled to these western
wastes her noblest and most famous son, before Berk-
shire was Berkshire or Pittsfield was Pittsfield, John
Stoddard's nephew, Jonathan Edwards, spiritual aris-
tocrat. Northampton sent you her yeoman-born, Har-
vard-bred, ardent young preacher of the Gospel of
Christ, just at his majority, Thomas Allen, Spiritual
Democrat, Thomas Allen, whom Catherine Sedgwick
has called the "priest of the valiant heart, who served
his people in the days of the oppression of the king."
Thomas Allen, Professor Bliss Perry calls the " most
picturesque figure in the history "of this American
Piedmont ; Thomas Allen, William Cullen Bryant said
stood alone, or almost alone, among the New England
clergy of his day as a defender of Jefferson and of
political democracy.
Thomas Allen was the only one of the eight sons
of his father and his famous mother, Betty Allen,
who was named out of the New Testament. All the
other seven were named from the Old Testament,
and he ought to have been, too. He ought to have
been Phineas or Joshua. Thomas was a misnomer,
for no doubter was he, and there is no doubt about
him. No man ever doubted his piety, no man ever
doubted his patriotism, and no man ever doubted
his politics.
My old aunt, I believe his only living grand-child,
the youngest daughter and only surviving child of
President William Allen, sends her benison from her
quiet chamber to her friends, to the descendants and
posterity of the congregation and parish that loved her
ancestor. She told me this little incident of the last
years of Thomas Allen, related by some old resident
70
of Pittsfield. In his feebleness, one Sabbath he was
in his high pulpit and below were spread the emblems
of the communion meal. He became faint, and the
deacons, the authorities of the church, rushed up to
the pulpit to aid him, but his daughter-in-law, Mrs.
Thomas Allen, Jr., who sat in the minister's pew,
walked swiftly forward to the communion table, poured
the wine from the chalice to the cup and carried it up
— bold feminism of her day — to the pulpit, and " ad-
ministered " the wine to the stricken man. Another
incident is connected with Mrs. John Chandler
Williams who has been already mentioned here
to-night. The story runs that one day young Tommy
Allen was seen in the street by his father's house
horse-whipping one of his father's opponents, possibly
a parishioner also, and Mrs. Williams looked from
her house across the square and saw the transaction.
Being an ardent defender of her pastor, seeing that
the whip was becoming useless from excessive use,
she brought him out a new horse whip, crying, " Lay
on ! Tommy, lay on ! " Old Thomas Allen, the father,
came from out his parish house, and saw the situation,
and mildly remarked, " Forbear ! my son, forbear ! "
Young Thomas looked at his father and he looked at
the lady; chivalry overcame filial obedience, and he
obeyed the lady. I should like to leave this problem
of ethics to the Bible class of the First Church. Did
young Tommy obey the fifth commandment and honor
his father, or did he not? There is just as much to
be said for one side as the other.
Genealogy is a remarkably interesting game. You
can get out of it just what you want. I sat down
the other day with a lead pencil and multiplication
table, and my first discovery was this : — that I had eight
great grand-parents, four of them men, and four of
71
them women. That's no novel situation. You have
eight great grand-parents, and so has everybody. Adam
had; no, Adam did not, but the multipHcation table
will upset the best system of theology. Of these eight
great grand-parents, I find Thomas Allen a very highly
satisfactory one to hark back to. He was all that a
great grand-parent ought to be. He was picturesque.
He was positive. He was prophetic.
I am not here to speak for the whole Allen gen-
ealogy. I would refer you to that volume entitled
" The Descendants of Elder John Strong, of North-
ampton," but William Allen, his son, my grandfather,
was a man of distinctly different type. In his day an
apostle of peace as his father was the advocate of
war, he was the leader of the American represent-
atives to the great international peace conference held
at Versailles in 1849. I hold in my hand a little
testament that any doubting Thomas may examine
afterwards, presented to the American delegates of
the peace society by the English delegates, and signed
by the honorable name of Richard Cobden.
William Allen followed his father in the pastorate
of the Pittsfield church. He left this place and
succeeded his father-in-law, John Wheelock, in the
presidency of Dartmouth College. Dartmouth College
was a fresh-water college, — always has been, — but just
then it was a hot-water college in the days of the
famous " case," and William Allen soon left the
situation and went to Brunswick and Bowdoin College
where he lived for twenty years, and then returned
and spent his last thirty years in Northampton. So
you see Northampton gave you Thomas Allen and
took again William Allen. You have Thomas Allen
coming, but we have William Allen going.
72
Of the descendants of William Allen, I am here to
speak for one daughter living. The full genealogical
roster has worked out differently every time I have
tried it. There are, I believe, nine grandchildren
living, five of them Aliens. The name of Allen dies
out with my generation, the fourth from Thomas in
the line of William. Fifteen, I think it's fifteen or
sixteen, fifteen great grandchildren, and fifteen great
great grandchildren of Thomas Allen now living, two
of them living in Williamstown, some of them in Cuba,
some of them in Kansas City, Worcester, Amherst
and elsewhere, all up-to-date twentieth century
children, vigorously practicing eugenics. I presume
it's the way with all the other great grandchildren of
Thomas Allen, the fighting parson of White Plains,
Ticonderoga, and of Bennington.
Thomas Allen left five heirlooms, and I want you
to go into executive session this evening as executors
and help me in the disposal of these five treasures.
Item I. Two large, cut-glass, crystal decanters,
assimilated by the fighting parson at the battle of
Bennington from a Hessian surgeon. Where are
those cut-glass decanters? I should be willing to
exchange them for some valuable manuscript, which
I have here and which I wish to present to the church
a few moments later.
Item 2. A valuable parcel of real estate situated
in or about the center of the town of Pittsfield. I
believe your residents are familiar with its location and
its later fortunes.
Item 3. A collection of manuscript of Thomas
Allen's sermons, addresses, political editorials, etc.
As to the sermons, they say there were two thousand
seven hundred of them written in shorthand. That
was a very shrewd thing for a clergyman of that day
n
to do who wished to be thoroughly up-to-date and
preserve to remote posterity his reputation for ortho-
doxy. I have here also with these sermons a paper
on Federalism. Here it is. It looks cool, but it's siz-
zling from top to bottom, from center to circumfer-
ence. I wish to present these papers in the name of
the living descendants of William Allen to the church
at Pittsfield. You know what to do with them better
than any one else may. I fancy that there are among
them facts which have not yet been covered in your
written history. Certainly this remarkable paper on
Federalism I have never seen quoted. Possibly you
knew about it and never desired to quote it, but you
are going to hear a little of it to-night before you get
through, and I think a good deal of it is going to
appear in the Springfield Republican before this cele-
bration is concluded.
Item 4. A sample of old-fashioned, genuine New
England piety. A reason, and it's not modesty either,
forbids my saying just where this has gone to or
disappeared to, but I fancy that my old Northampton
aunt, his only surviving grand-daughter, might rightly
claim, while she would never claim it for herself, if
not the monopoly, at least all the available assets of
this particular portion of his heirlooms.
Item 5. A brand of red-hot, Jeffersonian Dem-
ocracy. Where did Thomas Allen come by his radical
politics? How did it come that the New England
parson, the person of the community, naturally allied
to the well-to-do and the aristocrats of the community,
with his theology supporting his most strenuous claims
to supremacy over the non-elect, with every instinct of
self-preservation, of theology, of tradition, and of
social intercourse, that would ally him with the
Federals, how came it about that Thomas Allen
74
through his generation stood here unflinchingly the
advocate of the ideaHsm of the French Revolution and
of Jeffersonianism ? You may explain it possibly
through the cropping out of original sin. I would
prefer to regard it as the direct inspiration of the
Almighty. I explain it thus. The man whose heart
was fused and fixed in the principles of the Declaration
of Independence was unchanged through his genera-
tion. In the ebb tide and the compromise and the
practical opportunism of his day, he held his absolute
devotion to the principle upon which the nation was
founded, which was pure democracy. I take it that
the message of his day was that of a political prophet,
which is just as essentially the message of our own
day. Thomas Allen was a Lincoln republican. Well,
that means nothing. Taft and Roosevelt and Wilson,
Mark Hanna, and the Springfield Republican are all
Lincoln republicans. That means American. But
Thomas Allen znfas a Lincoln republican, and in his
heart burned unquenchably the belief that the Federal-
ism of his day — whether he was right or wrong isn't
to the point, he believed it, — that the Federalism of
his day was a compromise with aristocracy and with
monarchy; that the two logical forms are an out and
out monarchy, and a democracy based upon the equal
rights of all men, and this is the reason of his fervor,
and the fury of his utterances. Federalism to him
meant the little clique of aristocrats of the village or
the State who claimed for themselves the authority and
the power to administer the affairs of government for
others. That was his belief, and in that belief he split
your church in two. Was he right or wrong, politi-
cally? I do not know any more than you do, but I
believe that for this generation and for the next the
attitude of Thomas Allen toward the State, and toward
75
the social and the political aspect of the Kingdom of
God are greatly needed.
Enough for politics. My last word to you is this :
In that plain old meeting house on an April day in the
last years of the eighteenth century, Thomas Allen
stood before his congregation and preached the funeral
sermon of his beloved daughter, Mrs. White, who had
died in London a few months before. Would that I
could quote it either literally or in spirit ! He showed
the soul of that exiled child of his, uttering her last
farewell, speaking her words of courage to her own
father who was then bowed breaking under the
burdens of his controversy, speaking her farewell to
her friends, and to her family ; and then in conclusion
he turns and speaks to her, a wondrous message from
his own breaking father's heart, as he calls upon the
angels to defend her, the Christ above to accept her,
and the heavens to receive her spirit. So, after all the
turmoil of politics, I would leave that last impression
of the faithful parish priest, who baptized and married
and buried the generations of this community, and who
stood through all his days as the parson or the "person"
of his parish.
ADDRESS BY HENRY M. HUMPHREY, ESQ.,
ON DR. HEMAN HUMPHREY
Introducing Mr. Henry M. Humphrey, the Pastor
said:
The First Church in Pittsfield has many reasons
to be grateful to Thomas Allen, and she is glad to have
reason to thank this descendant of his not only for
coming to us to bring this inspiring message, but also
for giving to us these treasures of his, which now are
1^
to be ours, and shall ever be valued and prized. We
thank him most heartily for his kindness and his
generosity.
You heard this afternoon the beautiful tribute
which Dr. Jenkins, in his address twenty-five years
ago, paid to Dr. Heman Humphrey. With his words,
we shall do well to remember a sentence at least of that
which Dr. Todd has said of him, in his historical
sermon preached in 1873. Dr. Todd said of
Dr. Heman Humphrey, " He had more sanctified
common sense than any man I ever met." A great deal
there was in those plain words. We are fortunate and
honored to-night in having with us a grandson of
Heman Humphrey, Mr. Henry M. Humphrey, of New
York, who now is to speak to us.
Mr. Humphrey said:
It is fifty-three years since Heman Humphrey died.
It was fifty-three years previous to that time that
he married Sophia Porter and settled in Fairfield, his
first pastorate, from which he came to Pittsfield in
1817. Prof. David Swing said: "The block of time
called fifty years is made more significant when they are
formative years. To measure the value of moral
influences one cannot call in as witnesses a few hours
or days. At the end of a half century we may all
venture to give an opinion for or against the applicant
for remembrance." Heman Humphrey's block of fifty-
three years were largely formative and sometimes sur-
prisingly prophetic. About ninety years ago came his
farewell address to the first missionaries of "the
American Board" to the Sandwich Islands, now a part
of the United States. Later an address on "Slavery";
ended in the United States soon after his death.
11
From 1832 to 1834 Choctaw and Cherokee Indians
were forced by the State of Georgia to emigrate,
despite United States treaties and wonderful progress
in civilization made by those Indians. It was a com-
pleted defiance of the United States by a single State
and an absolute nullification of United States treaties
by the State of Georgia. His publishers state that Dr.
Humphrey was the first who uttered remonstrances
from the pulpit against Indian oppression. In 1829 Dr.
Humphrey took up the cause of the Choctaws and
Cherokees and delivered an address at Amherst, Hart-
ford and other places, on "Indian Rights and Our
Duties." I give extracts from that address.
"Shall I be told that 'all this is idle preaching' and
that I have entirely mistaken the policy of Georgia in
reference to the Cherokees — that she has no thought
of compelling them to emigrate. I am astonished that
such an expedient should be resorted to, to quiet the
friends of the Indians and ward off public remon-
strance. It is an insult offered to the common sense
of the nation. What? Tell the Indians 'We want
your country and you had better leave it — you can
never be quiet and happy here ?' and then because they
do not take your advice, cut it up into counties, declare
all their laws and usages, after a certain day, to be
null and void, and substitute laws, which it is known
they cannot live under ; and then turn round and coolly
tell the world, 'Oh, we mean no compulsion. The
farthest in the world from it! If these choose to stay
why by all means let them remain where they are.'
"These are the tender mercies of which we shall
undoubtedly learn more in due time.
"It amounts to this : 'You have got a fine farm and
I want it. It makes a notch in the corner of mine. I
will help you to move five hundred miles into the
78
wilderness and there give you more and better land
which you can cultivate and enjoy 'as long as grass
grows and water runs' (these last words in quotation
marks and Dr. Humphrey's foot-note, " Query, How
long does water run in the region destined for the
future residence of the Indians?"). 'You must go:
however do just as you please. I shall never resort to
any other compulsion, than just to lay you under
certain necessary restrictions. Perhaps, for instance,
as I am the strongest and you have more land than
you want, I may take two-thirds or three-fourths of it
from you ; but then there shall be no compulsion ! Stay
upon what is left if you choose. I may also find it
necessary to ask you for your house, and if you should
not give it up. I may be driven to the necessity of
chaining you to a ring bolt and giving you a few salu-
tary stripes — not to compel you to flee from your
habitation, the moment you can get loose (for com-
pulsion of all things I abhor) but just to induce you to
emigrate willingly.'
"I maintain then, that it is the bounden duty of the
General Government to protect the Indians, not only
in the enjoyment of their country but of their laws. If
it is possible for treaties to bind a nation in any case,
then are we bound. If there is any such thing as public
faith then is ours solemnly pledged to a single tribe,
nearly twenty times over. If that pile of Indian
treaties, now in the office of State, is anything more
than a pile of frauds and insults, then the Government
must interpose its strong arm to prevent aggression."
He was only about two years ahead of his time in all
this.
He virtually concludes with:
"If such encroachments acquiesced in, do not pre-
pare the way for putting shackles upon our children,
79
they must be protected by higher munitions than con-
stitutional bulwarks. This I am willing to leave upon
record and run the risk of being laughed at for fifty
years hence." He lived just long enough to see those
whose names are on yonder monument shoulder the
"higher munitions" for the preservation of the Union,
thirty-two years after his prophecy.
He delivered the second annual address of the
"American Sunday School Union."
His address against "Duelling" created a sensation.
If I did not frequently pass the tomb of Alexander
Hamilton I would not realize that such a code ever
existed in the United States.
Along with these are his books and pamphlets and
newspaper articles on issues and interests of Church,
State, County, Town and personalities.
Foreign Missions have widened marvelously and
yet from his " Letters to a Son in the Ministry,"
published in 1842, I sent two pages to the Presbyterian
Board of Foreign Missions and they thought them
enough of a "forward movement" more than forty
years after they were published, to copy and send at
once to fifteen thousand ministers.
A speaker in 191 1, not 181 1, referred to the
Amherst Collegiate Institute with the remarks "When
Dr. Humphrey assumed the headship of this callow
school the difficulties which beset the task seemed
insurmountable. Many people were opposed to the
founding and endowment of a new College in Massa-
chusetts — was not Harvard sufficient?"
A few years ago I handed that Collegiate Institu-
tion inaugural to a college president whom I believe
second to none in his knowledge of the college curri-
cula of Europe and the United States. He returned it
8o
to me with "Do you know that President EHot of Har-
vard has only just come to Dr. Humphrey's 1823 in-
augural point of view?"
President William T. Foster wrote "The Admini-
stration of the College Curriculum" which when issued
about three years ago by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
was welcomed for its thoroughness and up-to-dateness.
One reviewer writes : "Harvard alone has upon her
records the story of a half-century of elective studies.
Some interesting and little known facts are
recorded, notably the importance of several smaller
colleges as pioneers of the elective system. Bowdoin
and the University of Virginia were abreast with
Harvard in taking about the year 1825, certain clear
steps toward the broadening of the curriculum. At
the same time Amherst went still further. In 1826 the
Amherst faculty presented to the Governing Boards
what President Foster does not hesitate to call 'an in-
spired report' advocating a radical adoption of the
elective method." President Foster says further
"The report is an extraordinary document, at least
half a century ahead of its time." This report
of the Amherst faculty is two in one, the first part
August 21, 1826, and the second December 5,
1826, signed "in behalf of the Faculty, H. Hum-
phrey, Amherst College." One needs to read the
whole report to realize its initiative, virility and
also guarded quality. The President of the callow
school of October, 1823, had by December, 1826, three
years, begun to set the pace for the twentieth century,
but none could be less conscious of its reach, except that
in a sense, he profoundly believed in the eternal prin-
ciples underlying all that he attempted.
On Easter morning in April, 191 1, two handsome
Tiffany windows were unveiled in the First Congre-
8i
gational Church of Fairfield, the gift of Mr. Saltus, in
memory of Rev. Noah Hobart and Rev. Heman Hum-
phrey, both former pastors. The address of Dr. Child
on the life and work of Dr. Humphrey was masterly
and is printed in full in the Bridgeport Standard of
April 17, 191 1. Dr. Child draws from the well known
incidents and writings of Dr. Humphrey's life, but
interweaves them with references to the formative
years of Mr. Humphrey's pastorate in Fairfield and
local continuing influence since.
To bring references to him down to this hundred
and fiftieth anniversary week, I quote from The New
York Times Book Review of last Sunday. A sub-
scriber writes asking the value of "a copy of the 'New
England Primer' with introduction by the Rev. Dr. H.
Humphrey, President of Amherst College, printed in
Worcester, and containing all the usual features of the
earlier editions, also the 'Dialogue Between Christ, a
Youth, and the Devil.' I know from the introduction
that it was printed after 1823, but it is undated."
How do I, sixty-seven years his junior, remember
him as he seemed to me at home in Pittsfield? I was
present at the golden wedding; heard Dr. Todd and
others speak, but remember little that was said except
as I read their words later in life. I remember Dr.
Humphrey as he looked at family prayers, preaching
and in the daily round. I remember the squirrels in the
great tree that was rooted partly in the Humphrey lot,
partly in Mrs. O'Sullivan's and considerably in the
East Street sidewalk. Also the little pile of stones just
outside the porch door of his study, ready to use on
squirrel-chasing dogs. I knew that he was working to
have the town lots kept for Pittsfield boys free baseball
82
grounds instead of being leased to circuses, and I tried
to make him admit that he wrote the articles in the
Eagle signed "An Old Baseball Player."
I remember that we "kept" Saturday after sun-
down, and our football was placed for a rush with the
last departing ray of Sunday and that our rush was
sometimes premature, the result of a cloud or the like.
As one of my cousins said "unkeeping" Sunday night
was "like having an orange when you haven't had any-
thing to eat all day." I remember Robert Pomeroy
vividly as one of those who dropped in to help
"unkeep" in quiet, friendly, cordial chat with Dr.
Humphrey.
At that time prize fights, national and international,
were held at "Chatham Four Corners," where the
states meet and make quick transit from interruption
easy. After the fight the principals and admirers would
come to Pittsfield, to the old "Berkshire," and take the
chances of being arrested by Sheriff Willis. Dr. Hum-
phrey hated the demoralization of all the fights and
the brutality of most of them, and was ready to give
the law any moral or other required support, to sup-
press them. One night after a big fight. Dr. Humphrey
said at the supper table, "The train was late at Rich-
mond and I had nothing to do but read the account of
that terrible prize fight." How we boys chuckled, when
by ourselves. "Grandfather reading that fight ! he liked
it all right." No doubt we thought of it when he put
the emphasis into such athletic metaphors of St. Paul
as "So fight I, not as one that beateth the air."
Long before that he taught college students the
value of a training which could make sinews and
muscles like steel and hair as soft as an otter's fur,
but his training took the direction of farm work, walk-
ing, running and ball games rather than boxing. Am-
83
herst was one of the first, probably the first college to
take up athletics as training for the occupations of
adult life.
A scrap book of Dr. Humphrey's writings in news-
paper clippings has recently come into my possession.
A few of them would in parts be called "preachy" or
"pretty pious" but even that ministerial style of his
time is full of his robust, original quality. I quote
from his article in the "Culturist and Gazette" signed
"East Street," of which the topic is "Shade Trees and
Sidewalks."
"Without eulogizing this fast age in all of its enter-
prises it seems to me we are not fast enough in beauti-
fying our rapidly growing village when it can be done
with so little expense. Our sidewalks are not near wide
enough, and none of them are properly graded. On all
our thoroughfares near the centre of our village, they
ought to be at least eighteen or twenty feet wide. On
North, South, East and West Streets, taking ofif twenty
feet on each side would leave seventy-five feet for the
travelled road. Now is the time to make sidewalks for
future generations as well as ourselves. Very few vil-
lages have so fine a soil or smooth and cheap sidewalks
as Pittsfield. Instead of the clay which requires flagg-
ing throughout, we have the fine gravel that when
trodden, becomes almost as hard as a pavement and as
dry in a few hours after a rain. Shall we have the
trees, which might cost twenty-five cents apiece, set out
and warranted for tw^o years ? Shall we carry out these
and other improvements to beautify the village, attract
the notice of strangers and induce gentlemen of sub-
stance and character to come and settle among us ?"
During the Civil War a Northern woman said,
"But Mr. Lincoln, you think God is on our side, don't
you?" The President replied: "Madam, I hope that
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we are on God's side." Heman Humphrey's absorbing
idea was to get God's point of view in every particular
matter, as he came to it. He delighted in search for the
mind of God in nature and human nature as well as in
the Scripures. That is the way he attained the sanctified
common sense that Dr. Todd said he had sent around
the world for fifty years.
We would not go home till morning if I quoted
and expressed my appreciation of what his brethren
have said of him. It makes one humble to read Dr.
Todd's address at the golden wedding of Dr. and Mrs.
Humphrey and his funeral sermon on Dr. Humphrey.
The heart and capacity to write such tributes is akin
to rightfully winning them. Could any man have
really deserved such loving, honest appreciation of
his friends? They were as much to him as he was to
them. It was the mutual capacity for all that is best
that made friend, pastor, men, women and children of
Pittsfield so much to each other ; and they molded each
other in developing that capacity.
GENERAL MORRIS SCHAFF'S ADDRESS
Introducing General S chaff , the Pastor said:
Many of you will remember the Poem of the One
Hundred and Twenty-fifth Anniversary of this
Church, entitled "A Prayer for Church and Town."
We are honored and fortunate in having the author of
that poem here to-night. This celebration would not
have been complete without him. We all are glad now
to listen to him. General Schaff.
General S chaff said:
I think I should feel more at ease if I were not up
in this pulpit. [General S chaff then descended to the
floor of the church].
8s
Surely, my friends, it is a great pleasure for me to
meet with you once more, yet that pleasure is marred
a bit by a reference to some lines I wrote, for, as you
know, the man in a community who has the least
weight is the fellow that tries to write poetry. But let
all this be as it may, it was my fortune to be here at
the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Anniversary of this
venerable Church. It had then at its head Jonathan L.
Jenkins, and it seems fitting and proper that at the very
outset I should say a word about him ; for besides being
the best preacher I ever heard, one of the most sug-
gestive talkers I ever met and one of the most con-
genial companions that ever graced a table or a hearth,
he was a very dear and steadfast friend. I need not
recall to you who remember him his distinctively
aristocratic personality, those flaming dark eyes, or
that voice that rose and fell through all the compass
of feeling. No, like all men of genius, he left his mark.
Jenkins ! friend of other days ! we are here celebrating
the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of your old
church. Tender are our memories. You are not for-
gotten, and your old congregation wafts a greeting to
you on that other shore.
Of all the elements in our being the spiritual is
altogether the most vital and potent. The mystery of
life, time and space, each in its way so vastly deep,
impenetrable and immeasurable, yet and notwith-
standing, under the realms of the spiritual they lie
comprehensible and passive, passive as the fields under
the sunlight. And as the sunlight warms and converts
the soil of the fields into living form and being, clothed
in strength and beauty, so up out of the soil of the
heart the spiritual in man through creative feeling
brings aspirations which from time to time bloom with
visions, visions that penetrate life's mystery and then,
86
leaping time and space, carry us into the presence of
the infinite, the beneficent presence of God himself;
and only ceases its efliorts when it has revealed a beau-
tiful land — a reward for the righteous, a consolation
for the weary and the tear-shedding poor.
No, friends, I am not trying to preach, but religion
is not a figure of speech. It is a reality ; it is a living
thing; it is a valid, heaven-inspired, solemn truth, and
its dwelling place is the heart of man.
If, to use the language of the Bible, we apply our
hearts unto wisdom and turn from this rather blazing
fireside of poetry to that of cold reason, it takes but a
moment for us to discover that this old church of
Pittsfield is an embodiment, as this church and all
churches have been, of man's instinctive aspirations,
and on those instinctive aspirations alone the founda-
tions of all government and progress rest. Now, if
this be a truth, and I believe it to be a very profound
one, don't let us make any mistakes. Although you
are proud of your mammoth General Electric plant,
your banks, and your world-famous mills, yet they in
themselves do not suggest justice, charity, or magnan-
imity, the characteristics and the life blood of modern
civilization, for they are essentially of and belong to
the kingdom of mammon, while this church belongs
to that other kingdom, the kingdom that is referred to
in the Lord's Prayer by the Nazarene, that wisest
counsellor and statesman, that best friend of the poor
and heavy-laden, he who first opened the door to the
hope of immortality, moreover the first and best gen-
tleman that the world has ever seen.
Look, then, at this church from any point of view,
worldly, social or spiritual, and you cannot help but see
and feel what it is and what it must have been to the
intellectual life of Pittsfield. In years it dates back to
87
1764, the very dawn of the era of the greatest event
that the world has seen since Luther's time. The voice
of the ages spoke to its founders and out on the fields
of the Revolution they fell for that new-born country.
Their sons, leaders in state and town, by their courage
and high standards of civic life, have given a pride to
Pittsfield and to every man that hails from Berkshire.
Oh, Pittsfield friends of that kind and class of my
own day — yes. of my own day — who worshipped here !
At the very thought of them that door opens and here
they come marching down the aisle again. Here come
the Colts, the Warriners, the Barkers, the Russells.
I am afraid I shall forget some of those names — down
the aisle they come. Robert Adam, Pingree, Dawes,
Edward Learned, Ensign Kellogg, Taft, the Redfields,
Plunketts, the Wests, Paddock and Hull, here they
come. And last, but not least, here comes, too, my
dear friend, the war-tried, gallant Joseph Tucker.
Heavy and wooden is his labored tread, for you know
he lost a leg at Port Hudson : a kindlier face, a warmer
heart, never adorned a pew or a judicial bench than
that of Judge Joseph Tucker. Hail, hail, I say to you,
Tucker and all of those friends of my youth, all hail!
And O, old bell, in this steeple, I have heard you
clang this town's and this nation's joy, I have heard
you toll the town's and the nation's sorrow, and I have
heard your tones die away over these leaning meadows
and over these laurel-blooming and sky-propping hills.
Ring on ! ring on in the days to come as you have rung
to me in the days that have gone by ! Ring on, calling
us all to upright lives, to be generous and kind to one
another, and inspire us to lead our town, and above all,
our country in the path of righteousness, for righteous-
ness exalteth a nation. God bless this old church this
day and every day on to the end.
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In closing the meeting, the Pastor said:
I am sure that we must have felt that the words
to which we have Hstened, especially those which have
been spoken by the last of the friends who have ad-
dressed us here, have been truly more appropriate to
this church and this room than they could have been
appropriate to the gathering about our supper tables;
and that we must go from this meeting with a new
sense of the sacredness of the Church of Christ, of
every church of Christ, of this church of Christ in so
far as it is a true church. We are able to realize, all
of us, a little more clearly than we have before, what
it means in a community to have had for one hundred
and fifty years consecrated Christian men and women
wisely and faithfully led and served, and to have their
children's children following in their footsteps, doing
God's work in their own town. We have not begun to
honor them all to-day. We have spoken but a few of
the names ; we have told but a few of the noble words
and deeds ; but enough has been said to make us re-
member more constantly, more conscientiously, I trust,
our own duty to the church, to the community, to God,
in the days that are just to come. May God's blessing
go with us all from this meeting.
THE SUNDAY MORNING SERVICE
OPENING SENTENCE
"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence
Cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which
made heaven and earth." (Ps. 121 :i,2).
INVOCATION
God of our fathers, we their children lift up our
hearts unto Thee in thankfulness, in faith, in hope,
in love. Thou hast been mindful of us in the days
that are past. We beseech Thee to bless us in the
days that are to come ; and above all to make and
keep us ever mindful of Thee. We ask it in the
name of Christ our Saviour.
PRAYER BY DR. CALKINS
Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
Who hast promised that whensoever Thy people meet
together in prayer Thou wilt be present to bless them,
and hast taught Thy faithful people that they should
not forsake the assembling of themselves together, but
that in every place where prayer is wont to be made
there art Thou : Hear, we beseech Thee, the prayers
and supplications of Thy people here present, and
grant us, O Lord, our God, all things that are needful
for this our present life and for our everlasting sal-
vation. Hear our prayers of thanksgiving and of
praise, O Lord, our God, for all that Thou hast done
90
for us Thy children from the beginning of our Hves
and even to this hour. We do bless Thee for the
beauty of the world which Thou hast made, for the
succession of day and night, summer and winter, seed-
time and harvest, and that Thou hast not left Thy-
self without a witness in the world which Thou hast
made. We do bless Thee for all those blessings tem-
poral and spiritual which we have continually received
at Thy hands, for food and for raiment, and all the
comforts and conveniences of this life; but O Lord,
our God, above all else, for Thy unfathomable love
in that unspeakable gift of Thy son, our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, who is our only means of grace,
who is our only hope of glory. We do bless Thee
that when Thou didst deliver him up for our offences
Thou didst raise him again for our justification, by
whose resurrection from the dead we have hope of
everlasting life. For all the promises of Thy Holy
Word, for all the comforts of our most holy faith,
for our Christian baptism, instruction, upbringing, for
those our parents, teachers, friends, who have com-
municated unto us their faith and have given unto us
the imperishable possessions of our lives, we offer
our thanks and our prayers of gratitude and of praise.
And O Lord, for Thy church that Thou hast placed in
this world we do bless Thee. For the saints, apostles,
prophets and martyrs who in every day and gener-
ation have witnessed to Thy unchanging and un-
dying truth, into the welcome and reward of whose
labors we ourselves are entered, we thank Thee. Es-
pecially we bless Thee for this church that Thou hast
planted in this place, which Thou hast watched over
by Thy holy spirit, guided by Thy presence and com-
forted with Thy truth. We bless Thee for all those
Thy servants who here from year to year and from
91
generation to generation have broken the bread of
life to those who have worshipped here, and have in-
structed them out of Thy Holy Word: who have
been true shepherds to the flock and have given us
an ensample of a godly, holy life. We ask Thy bless-
ing upon Thy servant who now ministers to this peo-
ple. We pray Thee that he may be enriched by Thy
spirit, comforted by Thy grace; above all that his
may be such purity of life that he may adorn the
doctrine that he teaches, that he may rightly and duly
administer Thy holy sacraments and lead this Thy
people into the fullness of Thy truth and the glory
of Thy life. We bless Thee for all those Thy servants
who, having witnessed here a good confession, have
now fallen on sleep and are gathered unto their fath-
ers ; and we beseech Thee that a double portion of
their spirit may rest upon us Thy children and upon
our children's children, that we may imitate the ex-
ample of their patience, and at last may enter into
the joy of their resurrection. And now hear the
prayers, we beseech Thee, of this people gathered in
this Thy house. Thou, O Lord, dost know what are
the deepest needs and desires of our hearts; Thou
canst answer them every one. Hear the prayer of
the penitent, O Lord, our God, that he may feel his
sin to be forgiven, that he may feel himself to be
washed and to be clean, to have a new heart and a
right spirit given unto him, that henceforth he may
obey the commandments and walk in the way of Thy
truth. Hear the prayers of those who are tempted, and
who feel themselves to be assailed by sins well known to
themselves and to Thee. Help them, we pray Thee, to
put on the helmet of salvation which is the word of
God and to come off conquerors through Him who
loved us and who gave Himself for us. Hear the
92
prayers, O Lord, our God, of those who are conscious
of some burden not known unto others, but well known
to themselves and to Thee. Help them to lay their bur-
den at Jesus' feet. Give them strength, O Lord, our God,
to take it up again in memory of Him who bore the
cross for us on Calvary, and to endure to the end with
joy unspeakable and full of glory. And Lord, hear
our prayers, we beseech Thee, for all sorts and con-
ditions of men. We pray for those who know nothing
of the story of Jesus and His love. Hasten the day,
we beseech Thee, when the whole world shall be cov-
ered with the knowledge of God as the waters cover
the sea; and grant that this Thy church may be a
light that is set on a hill, whose out-goings shall be
to the ends of the earth. Hear our prayers for those
our friends, our neighbors, members of our families,
present or absent, whose names we now mention in our
hearts in silent prayer before Thee. Bless, O Lord,
our God, those that are sick of body, and if it be Thy
will restore them to health and to strength, or else
dispose their souls to Thy salvation. Hear our prayers
for all travellers by land and by sea. Protect them in
all dangers to which they may be exposed, and bring
them at last to their homes in peace. Hear our prayers
for young men and young women absent from their
homes. Keep them, O Lord, in Thy faith and fear.
Confirm and strengthen them in every good and holy
resolution, that they may offer up themselves to be
a living and a holy sacrifice in Thy sight. And O Lord,
our God, hear us as we pray each for all and all for
each, that this may be in very truth at this hour a
house of God, a place of prayer, the gate of heaven;
that here we may feel ourselves to be caught out of
the stress and burden and sorrow and weight of this
world and to be carried into the joy and glory and
93
peace of Thy presence, into that secret place of the
Most High where no plague can come nigh us or our
dwelling, because the angels of the Lord are bearing
us up in their arms lest we dash even our foot against
a stone. Hear this our common prayer with the for-
giveness of our sins. Answer not the words of our
petition, O Lord, our God. Answer Thou to the deep-
est longing and aspirations of our hearts, that we
may be a people whose God is the Lord, and that we
in the light of His life may continue, until our journey
too shall end ; that we may dwell in the house of the
Lord forever; through riches of mercy in Christ
Jesus, our Lord, to whom with Thee and the Holy
Ghost be all honor and glory, world without end.
— Amen.
SERMON BY DR. CALKINS
Our text this morning is found in the book of the
Revelation, the third chapter and the eighth verse :
" Behold I have set before thee an open door,
which no man can shut."
This is the word of a prophet to a church in Asia
two thousand years ago; but when a man opens his
mouth to prophesy about the Church in the day in
which we live he is very likely to invert that verse,
and to make it read like this : " Behold I have set
before thee a door that is shut and no man can open
it." In other words, there are plenty of people who
have their doubts about the future of institutional
religion, in the day in which we live. That the spirit
of Jesus Christ will survive, that the ideals of Christi-
anity will prevail, they do not doubt ; but they cherish
the idea that the Church has for her chief possession
not a present and not a future, but only a past.
94
There is a very comfortable persuasion upon the
part of most people who are outside of the Christian
Church, and a very uncomfortable persuasion upon
the part of some people who are inside the Church,
that it has seen its best days. Our Lord said that He
would found His Church upon a rock and that the
gates of hell should not prevail against it; but if we
are to listen to what a good many people say in our
day we must incline to the persuasion that the gates
of hell already have prevailed against it. We are sur-
rounded by an insistent and by a voluminous senti-
ment to the effect that the Church has fallen upon
evil days and is in itself in a very bad way. To a
great many people the Christian Church presents the
spectacle of singing " Onward, Christian Soldiers,"
at the same time that it is itself steadily falling back-
wards. Our papers and our magazines are filled with
articles about the ebb of ecclesiasticism, and about the
decline of institutional religion, and about the failure
of the Church. Especially we are asked to cast our
eyes behind us, and to contrast the plight into which
we are now fallen with the Church as it used to be
in the good old days of our fathers. We are reminded
how the Church is put to it in our day to get reputable
timber for her ministry, so that whereas we used to
have wooden churches and granite ministers, now all
too often we have granite churches and wooden min-
isters. We are asked to contrast the position of the
Church in the community as it exists to-day with the
position which it used to possess when all but a frac-
tion of the community would be found within the
Church, and the fraction that was outside was the
least influential portion of it; whereas now we are
told there is only a fraction of a community that is
interested in the Church and that too is the least in-
95
fluential portion of it. So that too many people it
seems like mere irony to quote this word of a prophet
of the Christian Church, " Behold I have set before
thee an open door, and no man can shut it."
I ask you on this anniversary occasion to look at
the Church as it exists to-day in our modern social
order. We have taken the backward look. Let us
take the forward look. We have seen what our fath-
ers have done. Let us see what there is for us to do.
We have rendered account of whence we have come.
Let us render account of whither we are going. We
have seen what the Church was. Let us see what the
Church is. And I have recorded my own persua-
sion in the text which I have chosen. I announce
as the burden of my message to-day the conviction
that the Church not only is not moribund, but that she
was never more alive; not only that she has a future,
but that she never had such a future ; not only that
the door before her is not shut, but that it was never
wider open. Not in irony, but in deliberate prophecy
I give you the word of our text, " Behold, I have set
before thee an open door, and no man can shut it."
In the first place, then, let us try to rid ourselves
of the delusion that there existed somewhere behind
us a kind of an ecclesiastical paradise; that there was
somewhere in the days of our fathers a golden age of
the Church to which we must look back but to which
we can never look forward. Really I do not know of
any well-accepted idea which can so little stand the test
of history. When I turn the pages of my church his-
tory and try to locate an ecclesiastical paradise, I am
as much put to it as the archaeologist is when he turns
up the soil of Mesopotamia and tries to locate a
Garden of Eden. The fact is that each is a myth;
that neither has any actual or historic existence.
96
Summon to your aid all the church history that you
ever knew or ever hope to know, and tell me where-
abouts in the past you are going to locate the Garden
of Eden in the history of the Church. Will you go
back to the New Testament times? Well, already
you find the story of a prayer meeting that ended in
a brawl, and you find that all St. John can say of a
certain church is that the Lord God would spew it out
of his mouth. If you examine the halcyon ante-
Nicene days, already you find the good old church
fathers arming themselves to the teeth in order to
defend nice points in theology, and find churchmen
prepared to throw each other bodily out of the Church
because of hair-breadth variations in the interpreta-
tion of a single text. I suppose that the person who
is even most in the grip of this delusion, that there
does exist somewhere in the past an ecclesiastical para-
dise, would pass over rather rapidly the middle ages,
and even the days of the Reformation when Martin
Luther threw his ink pot at a personal devil, and when
John Calvin declared that unless the Lord God should
descend from above, they would be engulfed in bar-
barism. Now I think that most people when they try
to locate this good old time in the history of the
Church think of our New England days, and of the
Church as it used to exist in the days of our New
England fathers. But Mr. Fosdick in his recent ar-
ticle in the Atlantic Monthly has pointed out how
difficult it is to find good old church days even in the
history of New England. Will you set it down, he
asks, in those days when the Congregationalists of
Massachusetts and when the Episcopalians of Virginia
were trying to set up a state church that should be
supported by a public tax? Will you put it as late
as 1833, when Lyman Beecher bewailed it as an in-
97
tolerable calamity that people of a different religious
persuasion from his own were not compelled to con-
tribute to his salary? Will you set it down in the
days when no Governor Hughes could depend on any
general sentiment to support him in his assault upon
public gambling, but when many a meeting house
went up in the city of New York erected by means of
a public lottery? Will you put it down in the days
when no such books as Jesus Christ and the Social
Question, or as The Social Aspects of Christianity
were so much as dreamed of, but when Tennyson's
aunt could rock herself back and forth weeping copi-
ously because she said the Lord God had elected her
to everlasting salvation but had damned her neighbors
who were just as good as she? Shall we go back to
the days of Jonathan Edwards who pictured the Lord
God holding souls over a brimstone pit, or shall we
go back to the days of John Ruskin who declared that
his Sundays used to cast their shadows upon his life
three days in advance? If we go back to the good
old days of John Higginson, we find him preaching
in Salem and declaring that the cause of a pure re-
ligion was exceeding decaying and expiring in this
country, and when we listen to Cotton Mather, preach-
ing in his good old days, we find him declaring that
" the body of the rising generation is a poor, perishing,
unconverted, and except the Lord God pour down His
spirit, an undone generation." And I fancy that if
we should read the letters and confessions of the min-
isters who used to preach in what are called the good
old New England days we should find more real pessi-
mism and more lamentation than ministers are guilty
of in even their most lugubrious moments in the days
in which we live. The fact is there have been no good
old days. The straight and narrow path has never
98
been overcrowded. The kingdom of Heaven has never
been taken by violence. When our Lord said that
just one handful of seed was going to fall on good
ground, He spoke a parable not only for His time
but He spoke a parable for all time; and when he
told his first band of twelve disciples that there would
be many a house and many a city that would turn
them out, he was speaking the truth not only for that
apostolic band, but for every band of his true apostles.
There never have been any good old days, li you
will read the church history of your fathers, you will
make up your mind that you would not bring back
the Church of your fathers if you could. It was a
good Church for their day, but it is not a good enough
Church for our day. Perhaps their meeting houses
were crowded two or three times of a Sunday; but
these congregations had not begun to grapple with the
problems of their world or the problems of our world,
and they were not sending out one single missionary
to testify of Jesus Christ in foreign lands. The Church
of our fathers was a good Church, but the Church of
their sons is a better Church, and one does not need
to be a deluded optimist if he cherishes the conviction
that the Church of our sons is going to be even better
and stronger than the Church of their fathers. "Be-
hold, I have set before thee an open door, and no
man can shut it."
I want to revive your faith, if it needs any re-
viving, in the Church of Jesus Christ. I want you
to have an intelligent and an invincible persuasion
that it has its place in the world of our day just as
surely as it had its place in the world of yesterday.
I want you to feel that the Church has greater things
before it than it has behind it; that there is indeed
before it an open door, and one that no man can shut.
99
Now, I grant you that some doors are shut and
no man can open them. For example, the Church is
no longer a means of secular education. Well, it was
once. There was a time when people came to church
not only to worship, but they came to church to get
information. There was a day when a church pastor
was the only college graduate in town. Harvard Col-
lege was moved to Cambridge in order that its stu-
dents might have the benefit not only of the piety
but also of the learning of Thomas Shepard. But
that door is shut, and no man can open it. To-day
theological students come to Cambridge in order that
they may get their learning and culture from Harvard
University. Every pastor knows that there are people
in his pews that know more than he will ever know,
and that they have on their shelves at home books that
will tell them more than he can ever tell them. That
door is shut and no man can open it.
Also there was a time when the Church was the
center of the social life of the community, and when
the people came to church not only to meet with their
God, but to meet with their fellow-men. That is why
church buildings were called meeting houses. Out
from their separated and isolated homes people came
to a common meeting place where they could not only
share their experience with their Maker, but where
they could share and compare their experiences with
each other. Now that door is shut and no man can
open it. Our social order is honeycombed with all
kinds of organizations that provide that sort of recre-
ation for the people of to-day. The Church ought to
provide fellowship and it is providing fellowship, but
the Church is no longer needed as the center of social
recreation.
100
There was a time when the Church was a dis-
penser of charity. What if a man wanted clothing?
He came to the Church. What if he wanted care
when he was sick ? It was the Church that helped him.
And that door is closed and no man can open it.
Every charitable institution in this or any other com-
munity is a child of the Christian Church, but no-
body recognizes that fact; and if a man goes to a
hospital or if a man receives relief, he does not feel
that he owes anything to the Church. The door is
shut and no man can open it.
But I want to tell you that while it is true that
these doors are shut and no man can open them, it is
also true that there is one door that is open, always
has been open, always will be open, and no man can
shut it. Jesus said, " I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he
shall live forever." Jesus, said " I am the good shep-
herd, and I lay down my life for the sheep." " I am
the door. By me if any man enter in, he shall go in
and out and find pasture." And the Church of Jesus
Christ is called to be the Christ of God to human so-
ciety, to break the bread of life to famishing multi-
tudes, to lead them out into green and living pastures,
and to provide for scared and scattered multitudes of
men by sacrificial love a leadership that shall bring
them Home. Deprived of its other and its subordinate
functions, the Church is thrown back upon its real
mission. " Behold, I set before thee an open door,
and no man can shut it."
This door cannot be shut because the hunger and
thirst of the soul for a living God remains unchanged
from age to age. The questioning mind and the
wondering heart and the suffering soul can find its
satisfaction alone in the contemplation, the knowledge
lOI
and the service of God. The human mind may advance
in wisdom, but the universe will never be so cheapened
that it will fail to inspire awe, and human life will
never be so materialized that moral obligations and
spiritual aspirations will cease. Now to bring down
the life and the presence of God to do its sacramental
work upon the human life and the human heart, that
remains the mission of the Church in this age and in
every age.
I will grant you at once that merely as an agent for
secular culture or merely as a dispenser of secular
information, or merely as a doer of secular tasks, the
Church has no future. But I tell you, too, that as a
channel for the communication of spiritual grace and
as a center for the inspiration of spiritual life, the
Church not only has a future but it never had quite
the future that it has to-day. A truly spiritual Church
has absolutely nothing to fear in this age or in any
age, and I am inclined to think, rather less in this age
than in any age. Unless thoughtful observers are much
mistaken, there is a tremendous turning toward the
sources of spiritual life upon the rank and file of
men and women who are living just in the days in
which we find ourselves now. All over this land of
ours there are multitudes of men and of women who
have been trained in modern ways of thinking and
who are quite beyond the reach of ecclesiasticism and
quite beyond the reach of dogmatism, who have
yet a great hunger and a great thirst in their souls,
and are panting even as a hart for the water brooks
for the knowledge of a God that is alive. These
people do not want a complicated faith, and they are
not looking for an elaborate faith, but they do want
to believe in something. Witness, for example, the
extraordinary sale and circulation in our day of re-
102
ligious books, the demand for which far exceeds the
supply. Think of the vast circulation of such books
as those of Mr. Dresser and of Mr. Trine, books that
are not very serious literature, and books really which
are not very serious philosophy, but books which are
sold by the hundreds and thousands because of the
hundreds and thousands of us who want by some
means to get in tune with the Infinite.
People are beginning to have their misgivings in
the day in which we live. They are having desperate
misgivings about the power of material things perman-
ently to satisfy the human soul. There are thousands
of men to-day whose property lies on their soul just
like a dead weight. There are thousands of people
who, if they could underscore one verse in the New
Testament and declare out of their own experience
that that was God's truth, would underscore this verse :
"A man's life consists not in the abundance of
the things that he possesses, but in love, joy, peace
in the Holy Ghost." People are having their misgiv-
ings about the ability of science really to answer the
questions on which a man's health and happiness and
holiness depend. People are waking up to the fact
that science really asks more questions than it answers.
What science has done is to make a world for us
that is a nightmare if it has no God somewhere in it.
What science has done is to lift the heavens so far
above our heads as to frighten us, and literally to take
the solid ground from beneath our feet, so that a man
looks around in the kind of a world that science has
made for him in our day, and feels that he will go mad
unless there is an intelligence and unless there is a
love there somewhere. People are finding it much
more easy to believe in the God of Abraham and of
Isaac and of Jacob than to think of themselves as
103
clinging to the thin outside crust of a planet that is
being hurled through abysmal distances at simply in-
credible velocity without an eye to look on or an ear
to hear or a heart to care. That thing has become
unbelievable.
Again, people are having their misgivings about
what popular philosophy has to say on the subject
of sin. Think of reading such words as these, for
example, in Collier's Weekly. I quote them roughly.
" People are having their misgivings as to what a
popular philosophy has to say on the subject of sin:
that if a man sins to-day it is largely a matter of
temperament. He sins because his grandfather was
a sinner, or he sins because he lives on the wrong
street corner. Now, that ought to comfort a man,
but somehow it does not, and it ought to take the
ache out of his heart, but instead it leaves it there.
It leaves him with the blight of sin on his soul and it
leaves him with a heart that is ashamed. So that
men are beginning to turn back to the old Book
which when it talks about sin does not say any cheap
and easy words about it at all, but before it gets
through talking about sin tells a man that there is
a God with Whom there is forgiveness, that He may
be feared, and speaks to him the words, ' Go and
sin no more.' "
Then there are people in this world who are des-
perately tired. But when they look at their business
they do not find rest there; and when they look at
the stars they do not find rest there; and when they
look in their newspaper there is nothing restful there.
And they are beginning to listen to the Voice of Gal-
ilee that said, " Come unto me and I will give you
rest."
104
Or again, there are multitudes of lonely people:
people that just want to be loved, people that want
to be taken care of. When they started out to live
they did it with a stout heart, but if you should try
to define the state of heart they are in now, all you
could say is that they are homesick. And they are
beginning to listen to the words of a Book that tells
them that " behind this rude and temporary universe
of ours there is a Being of love that knows how to
get close to the littlest child or to the oldest man when
he is sick at heart because of his loneliness." People
are standing up by hundreds and thousands all around
us and they are saying, "What consolation have we
got anyway, that we should turn our back upon this
consolation? Has our heart then got so strong by
the wear and by the tear of the centuries that no longer
we have a sin that needs to be forgiven and no longer
have we a sorrow that needs to be comforted? Has
our science become so acute as to wipe failure out
of a man's life? At last has evolution produced a
man who is and knows himself to be all-sufficient and
all-sufficing?" If only we had eyes to see and hearts
to feel it, we would know the throb of a great multi-
tude who want to get back to God, back to the Bible,
back to Jesus Christ. " Behold, I set before thee
an open door, and no man can shut it," for the reason
that you cannot still that hunger, and you cannot hush
up that cry, and you cannot put your hand up to crush
the unrest of that troubled heart.
I grant that people are crying less for theology
and I know that they are crying out less for doctrinal
and ecclesiastical controversy. But that does not
mean that they are crying out less for religion. They
want less of the paraphernalia, but they want more of
the power. They want less of the husk, but they want
105
more of the kernel. They want a religion; a religion
that will cure their maladies, and above all, a religion
that will supply a real uplift and re-enforcement to
what they know to be the inadequate spiritual re-
sources of their own lives. People have found out that
the cares of this world are so many, and its problems
are so heavy, and its perplexities strike so deep, that
they can be saved only by a great tide of spiritual
vitality; and they have made the discovery that if
that tide is to flow forth from any source, it will flow
forth from the very throne of God. " Behold, I have
set before thee an open door, and no man can shut
it." Think of a spiritual church standing in a day
just like ours, witnessing for the things wherein all
men are one, witnessing for all the things whereby all
men live. A thousand voices call for it, but what they
call for is a spiritual church that is just anointed,
transfigured and inspired by the very mind of Jesus
Christ.
Let me go one step farther and point out that when
a truly spiritual Church thus satisfies the restless
human heart, it will help to solve every problem of
a restless outside world. Now if there is one word
that can characterize the world in which we live, it is
the word Unrest. Think of the books that line our
book shelves with the word Unrest as their titles:
our social Unrest, our industrial Unrest, our political
Unrest. Trace all this unrest to its source, and you
find that source to be the restless human heart. This
heart-restlessness has gone on in ever widening circles
until it has literally covered land and continent, earth
and sea and sky. How put an end to our unrest?
Only by putting an end to the restlessness of the hu-
man soul. In other words, the real problem before
us is not an economic problem, and it is not a social
io6
problem. It is neither an industrial problem, nor a
political problem. In the last analysis, it is just a
spiritual problem. Human society, we have come to
understand, is never going to be saved into sweetness
and soundness except by the moralization, except by
the spiritualization of its members. A right spirit
will be far more searching, far more exacting, and
far more effective than law, regulation, or legislation.
We must pacify the human heart before we can put
the world at rest. And men are looking all around
them for some force that is adequate to the task. What
will solve our spiritual problem? What will set at
rest the human heart ? And men are realizing as never
before that there is only one force that can give rest
to the human heart, and that is the mind of Him who
said, " Let not your heart be troubled." " That mind
penetrates all the perplexities of human relations and
solves the problems of life in all of its phases. It is
upon the Spirit of Christ working through individuals
and shaping and inspiring our politics that we must de-
pend to straighten out the tangles in our affairs. That
is the only force that is equal to so huge a task: that
can make capital duly tolerant of labor, and labor duly
tolerant of capital, that can keep the spiritual in
control of the material, and can bring liberty and op-
portunity to all creatures to work out all that there
is in them of good." What the world needs as never
before is the mind of Jesus Christ.
" Behold, I have set before thee an open door."
In the realization of this vast fact will you tell me
when in the whole history of the Christian Church
it had an opportunity commensurate with the oppor-
tunity as it exists to-day? Look down for a moment
into the coming years and imagine what it will mean
if the world of our possessions becomes also the world
107
of our faith; if the world of our knowledge becomes
also the world of our hope; if the world of our power
becomes the world of our love. I tell you, eye hath not
seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the
mind of man to conceive what confessors of Jesus
Christ can do in the day in which we live if they only
love God. The Church has no power aside from the
dignity and presence of Jesus Christ. The Church has
indescribable dignity and power if possessed by the
mind of Jesus Christ.
People talk sometimes about the foolishness of
preaching. There is some preaching that is foolish,
but there never was quite such a chance for a spiritual
preacher as in the day in which we live. When I
think of the kind of preaching that I think men want
in our day, I remember some words that Phillips
Brooks once wrote after he had heard George Mac-
Donald preach. " There were all the good and there
were all the bad elements in the man's style; manly,
rugged honesty, with some tendency to sentimen-
tality. But over and through it all there was this
quality : it was a message from God to those people
by him. The man struggled as a child struggles with
his imperfectly mastered tongue that will not tell the
errand as he received it and had it in his mind. As I
listened, I seemed to see how weak in contrast was
the way in which other preachers had amused me or
challenged my admiration by the working of their
minds. But here was a real Gospel, here were real
tidings." It is such spiritual prophecy communicating
the mind of Christ that constitutes the open door to
the preacher of our day.
io8
It is the Spirit of Christ that alone gives vitalizing
power to Christian living and opens wide the door
to the humblest follower of Jesus Christ to-day. For
faith ultimately is not taught from this pulpit or from
any other pulpit. Real faith is not taught at all; it
is caught. And let a man's life somehow be sur-
charged with the spirit of Jesus Christ and he will
communicate it to a hundred other lives with which he
comes in contact. To every Christian life is offered the
infinite possibility of being a bit of leaven in the lump
which can transmit its own hidden secret power, till
the whole lump be leavened with the sacramental
grace of Jesus Christ.
What can the Church do, men ask, in such a day
as this? Well, what can it do? What can it do but
to strike its spiritual note clearly and strongly? What
can it do but to lift its life up to the very highest
spiritual levels that it knows anything about? And
that is all it has to do. And when it has done that,
it will answer the prayer of Jesus Christ for his own
Church, that He might present it to Himself pure,
without wrinkle, without spot, unto the day of Jesus
Christ.
My dear friends, on this anniversary Sunday
morning, I want you to believe in your Church as
you never believed in it before. I want you to be-
lieve it has a mission and an opportunity such as it
never had before. I want you to dedicate yourselves
to it as you never dedicated yourselves to it before,
that the word of true prophecy may be realized, " I
have set before thee an open door, and no man can
shut it."
log
Oh, holy Sabbath bells,
Ye have a pleasant voice.
Through all the land your music swells
And man with one commandment tells
To rest and to rejoice.
As thirsty travellers sing
Through desert paths that pass
To hear the welcome waters spring
And see beyond the spray they fling
Tall trees and waving grass :
So we rejoice to know
Your melody begun,
For when our paths are parched below,
Ye tell us where green pastures grow
And living waters run.
For His dear name's sake, Amen.
CLOSING PRAYER BY DR. CALKINS
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, grant, we be-
seech Thee, that thy Holy Spirit may rest upon us at
this hour. Fill us with all joy and hope in believing,
O Lord, our God. Grant that the words that we
have heard this day with our outward ears may, by Thy
grace, be so grafted inwardly in our hearts that they
may bring forth in our lives the fruit of good living,
to the honor and praise of Thy Name, through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen,
SERMON AT THE COMMUNION
SERVICE
By Rev. Charles G. Burd
" Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving
against sin." Hebrews 12 .-4.
What a splendid challenge this is ! What a fitting
climax to the preceding chapter! For in the eleventh
chapter, you remember, the apostle has been eulogiz-
ing the heroes of the faith — Abraham, Gideon, and the
martyrs. Then he bids his own followers lay aside
every weight that they may contest with like heroism ;
and finally he urges them to the utmost exertion, in
the words of the text : " Ye have not yet resisted
unto blood, striving against sin."
We do not know to whom this epistle was ad-
dressed other than that they were Hebrew converts ;
we do not know what their condition was or how
greatly they had suffered for the cause of Christ;
we do not know, of a certainty, who the author was
But what matters it? We have its splendid record
of noble heroism, and the summons to courageous
action. And who of us who profess the name of
Christian can be unmoved?
Judging from internal evidence the apostle who
penned this message was trying to prepare his fol-
lowers for some day of sore trial. They were men-
naced by some threatening evil, and the time was
approaching when their courage would be tried to the
uttermost. The year was about 70 A. D. — a time
112
filled with persecutions of all sorts, a time of terror
and anguish, a testing-time for all who professed
themselves followers of Jesus. Many a Christian
community had been destroyed through the hatred
of the Roman Emperors; many a Christian man and
woman had suffered dreadful tortures ; many had
resisted unto blood. It was not a time for ease and
indolence, for indifference and cowardice ; but for
the greatest courage and faith. This the apostle knew,
for after setting forth the splendid heroism of the past,
he calls upon these Hebrew converts for a like hero-
ism. He reminds them of the cloud of witnesses, he
bids them " call to remembrance the former days in
which they themselves endured a great testing," and
he tells them of the greater trials to come. Instead
of allowing them to rest content, he summons them
to the utmost exertions with the words, " Ye have
not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin."
I have chosen this verse for my text, for it seems
to emphasize a side of the Christian life too often
forgotten, to-day. It is a call not to passiveness, but
aggressiveness ; not to a meek waiting for the King-
dom to come, but to a heroic and persevering assault
on the enemies of the Kingdom ; not to a sitting down
content with victories already won, but to a struggle
to the death. This is one good thing about the Bible
— it keeps the soul alive; it does not allow us to rest
upon our laurels, but urges us on from conquest to
conquest. It is wholesome medicine to turn back at
times to the prophets of Israel — those brave, patient
men who fought so unflinchingly against the en-
trenched evils of their day — the idolatry, the immor-
ality, the godlessness so prevalent; Isaiah, Amos,
Hosea, Jeremiah, — and no one is more inspiring than
Jeremiah. In one place, when he is discouraged, he
"3
calls upon the Lord and receives this cryptic answer:
"If thou hast run with the footmen and they have
wearied thee, how canst thou contend with horses?
And if in a land of peace thou art scarcely secure,
how wilt thou do in the pride of Jordan?" The pride
of Jordan being the dangerous ground by the river
where the vegetation was rank and fever-breeding and
where wild beasts made their lair; a place of the
greatest menace to health and to life. The prophet
asked for an answer of peace and assurance, and he
was told that there were greater dangers ahead. What
he had endured was as nothing to what he was to en-
dure. And it was only too true. In a short time Ne-
buchadrezzar was besieging Jerusalem and carrying her
people away in chains, and the prophet was an exile.
Surely the Bible doesn't promise an easy life to the
servant of God. If we are looking for an easy time,
we should not choose the road of righteousness, for it
is narrow and rocky and too often leads to the crown
of thorns and the cross.
This is the message of the apostle to his people,
however, and it applies to us also. Ye have done well,
but there is far more to do; ye have run with the
footmen, now run with the horsemen; ye have been
sorely tested, but ye have not yet resisted unto blood.
Why is it, I wonder, that so many look upon the
religion of Christ as a religion of passiveness, of
peace, when it is one continuous struggle against evil
within and without? To be sure, Jesus promised us
peace — " My peace I give unto you ; my peace I leave
with you," but he also said — " I have come not to
bring peace but a sword."
In the sermon on the mount, he said : " Resist
not evil." But, again, he said, " Let him who hath
no sword, sell his cloak and buy one." A noted Eng-
114
lish writer says, apropos of this: "Christianity
is made up of contradictions which counteract each
other. There has ever been room in it for a St.
Francis, praising all good, and for a St. Jerome,
denouncing all evil ; for priests that did not fight
and for crusaders that did. All that the Church did
was to prevent either of these good things from oust-
ing the other."
This is cleverly said, but the writer has confused
the letter with the spirit, the Church with Christianity.
The Church ever has been full of contradictions;
Christianity — and by Christianity I mean the true re-
ligion of Christ — Christianity has ever had but one
central message — " Resist evil." To be sure, some of
Jesus' sayings seem to contradict each other; but
when we interpret them in the light of his life, we
realize that such contradictions do not really exist.
His message is so plain that he who runs may read.
And although some of his sayings would seem to
mean that the Christian is to sit passive in the face
of evil, we know that such is not the case. The whole
life of Jesus was a continual resistance against evil,
from the day when he went apart into the wilderness
to the day when his hands and feet were pierced with
the cruel nails. 'T came not to send peace, but a
sword." And, although he promised his disciples
peace — his peace, it was the peace that comes only
after conflict.
Truly the followers of Jesus have never had an
easy time of it; nor will they have until evil is con-
quered. The history of the Christian Church is not
one of peace and quiet. One has but to recall the
struggles from the days of Nero to the present — the
martyrs, the Hugenots, the Waldensians, the Puritans,
to realize this beyond a doubt. And the Church that
"5
is enjoying peace has surely shut her eyes to the evil
so prevalent. We sometimes forget that the Church
is not a hospital, but a fortress ; and that we Christians
are not pensioners but active men-at-arms. This is
the truth that the apostle was emphasizing to his fol-
lowers : " Gird yourselves ; the hosts of evil are all
about you; quit you like men; be strong. Resist —
resist unto blood !"
The word resist, in the original Greek, means
standing out against, enduring steadfastly. As used
here it might apply to a Marathon runner as he nears
the goal, covered with sweat and dust, ready to drop
from weariness, but struggling on. It might refer
to the gladiator in the arena, fighting desperately
against overwhelming odds — the plaything of a Caesar
• — faint and bloody, yet never yielding. For the apos-
tle has just been speaking of the contest, bidding his
followers cast aside every weight and the sin which
besets — that is, which clings about them as a garment
retarding their progress ; and to contest, to endure with
patience. But do not think that patience, as used
here, means passive resignation, bloodless inactivity.
Far from it; it means rather the endurance of the
soldier who repels the enemy's charge again and again,
the endurance of the martyr under the tortures of the
rack.
Such endurance, such resistance as was displayed
by Luther, when he said, " I will go to Worms though
there be as many devils there as there are tiles on
the houses " ; such as Savonarola offered against the
aggressive evils of the church of Rome; such as Lin-
coln made when he stood firm against the wrongs of
slavery, trying to avoid war if possible, but never yield-
ing; such resistance as the Christian heroes of all
ages have shown — the prophets, the martyrs, who
ii6
through endurance " subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, stopped the mouths of Hons, turned to
flight the armies of the ahens " — the Abrahams, the
Stephens, the Livingstones, the Pitkins of the ages —
the heirs of the Kingdom.
A resistance unto blood; but their own blood, not
the blood of slaughtered foemen. A conquest
not in the name of self, but of right. Not in the
spirit of hate, but of love. What can be nobler?
What more deserving of our reverence and imitation?
Surely, one of the most divine traits of man is this
spirit of endurance for a noble cause, in the face of
great, overmastering difficulties. Who can read the
story of Captain Scott in his fatal expedition to the
pole without being deeply moved? who can picture
his patient, uncomplaining, heroic struggle without
a catch in the throat, as, with death staring him in
the face, he writes :
" I do not regret this journey, which has shown
that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one an-
other, and meet death with as great fortitude as ever
in the past. We took risks ; we knew we took them.
Things have come out against us; and we have no
cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Provi-
dence, determined still to do our best to the last."
Splendid! And although the object may seem un-
worthy to some, who can estimate the moral value
of such an exhibition of manhood and self-sacrifice?
Resisting unto blood.
Or if you will see a man with a nobler motive,
read the journal of David Livingstone during the
last few days of his fatal struggle. Wading in water
up to his waist, ready to drop from, weariness and
malarial fever, surrounded by hostile natives and the
dangers of a tropical forest, he writes: "I am pale,
"7
bloodless and weak from profuse bleeding, and but
for help could not move a hundred yards, yet nothing
earthly will make me give up my work in despair. I
encourage myself in the Lord, my God, and go for-
ward." To open the dark continent to the light. Re-
sisting unto blood.
And if we would have a still nobler example of
such endurance, let us turn our eyes to Him who
blazed the trail, who charted the wilderness of life,
who taught men the great lesson of self-sacrifice, of
undying devotion to a noble cause.
" Who died that we might be forgiven,
Who died to make us good,
That we might go at last to heaven,
Saved by his precious blood."
The cross of Christ! What a stupendous mystery
it is!
We do not understand the part it plays in the re-
demption of mankind, but we do know that it is the
supreme test of endurance, of eternal love, of resist-
ance against evil.
And who can look at that cross without a tinge of
shame? Before it, how mean appear our struggles,
how petty our conquests ! As we gaze upon it, the
superscription appears altered, and instead of the
taunting words of Pilate — " The King of the Jews " —
we read the condemnation of the apostle: "Ye have
not resisted unto blood, striving against sin." " The
martyrs of all the ages have died for truth and
right; what have ye done?"
What have we done ? How much of an effort have
we made in this eternal struggle against evil — evil
in our own souls, evil in the world about us? How
half-hearted we have been, how indifferent ! We have
ii8
made some effort, all of us, but we have not resisted
unto blood. We did run well, but were soon weary;
we put our hands to the plough, but we turned back,
or we followed in a heartless manner. Many of us
have allowed the weeds of sin to choke our very souls
— selfishness, avarice, greed, impurity. And we stand
condemned.
I need not mention these sins one by one. Each
one knows his own. And each knows how poor and
half-hearted has been his struggle to overcome. Some
have sinned in the grosser ways; some in the subtler.
But all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God. Some have been indifferent, saying — " What is
the value of all this effort? This life is all. Let us
eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."
Others have made some conquests and are resting
content. " We are better than many of our neighbors
— we are abstemious, we are honest, we are truthful.
Have we not in thy name cast out devils, and done
many mighty works? Surely God cannot expect
perfection of us."
Still others have started out bravely, but have lost
courage when the inherited and the acquired sins
seemed so impregnable. Yes, temperament is strong,
and no man or woman reaches middle life without
times of despair at the slight advance made in self-
mastery.
How poor and weak is all such apology in the
face of the heroism of the past! Can we be content
with our little conquests, with such examples before
us? How far would we get in the work of Hfe, if we
approached it so half-heartedly? We would be ashamed
to attack our business problems with as little heart.
The successful business man to-day must be ever on
the alert; he must work twelve, yes, fifteen hours
119
every day to conquer; he must throw himself into his
business with absolute abandon. The scientist, the in-
ventor cannot attain his goal without striving to the
utmost. See the years that Thomas Edison worked to
perfect his little incandescent lamp; see the time and
strength that Dr. Carrel has put into his medical
research. And shall we expect to conquer the in-
grained sin of ages with less effort? No! Resisting
unto blood — that is our duty. Getting a grip on that
besetting sin and casting it away forever. Standing
with back to the wall against the many temptations and
forcing them to retreat. Masters of our fate; cap-
tains of our souls.
But the conquest of self is not all. When we have
overcome the evil within, there is still the evil with-
out. Even if our homes are swept and garnished,
there is plenty of dirt outside. And our duty as
Christians is not done so long as there is sin in the
world about us. Why do men still recline on the
mediaeval idea that to save one's own soul is enough?
Surely, Jesus never taught such a selfish Gospel.
" Follow me, that I may make you fishers of men."
" Go into all the world, and make disciples of all peo-
ples." " Depart from me, for ye did not minister unto
the least of these, my brethren."
Christianity and selfishness are as far apart as
nadir and zenith. Christianity means brotherhood,
and so long as one soul is unsaved, our salvation is
not assured ; so long as one soul is struggling in sin —
and we are conscious of it — our duty is not done ; we
have not yet resisted unto blood.
We may not have been the cause of the evil about
us, but we are to blame if it continues. We are our
brother's keepers. The danger that threatens him
threatens us. And that there are many and great
120
evils about us we all know too well. There are ills
enough in home, in business, in state, to stagger any
but brave souls. We see them right here around us;
we read of them every day in newspaper, periodical,
and novel, — the evils of the saloon, and of the dive,
the prostitution of justice, the many dishonesties in
business, the exploitation of labor by capital, the op-
pression of the poor by the rich and powerful, graft
and mal-administration in public office, class-hatred,
child-labor, — an endless host.
On one side a state shaken to its very foundations
by the dishonesty of scheming politicians; on the
other a huge corporation beggaring many dependent
souls through its gross mismanagement. Here a mur-
derer buying his freedom despite the laws of man and
of God; there a great city given over to the powers
of evil through the corruption of its officials. Here
the stability of the home threatened through lowered
standards and too easy divorce; there the Church
itself endangered by too lax Sabbath laws. On all
sides, the suffering caused by selfishness, lust, greed.
And, shut our eyes as we will, the evil is there — we
know it. Surely there is much to be done; and no
man can call himself a follower of Christ who is not
in some way trying to right these wrongs. They
may not all come within our reach ; we may not agree
on our definitions of them, but there are some at
our very doors, some that we can remedy. It is no
time for pessimism, for the world is growing better;
a casual glimpse at the history of the past will satisfy
us of this. But the advance is slow. Our fathers
have done much; they have left much to be done.
We have done much, but not all we could, and the
times are ripe. Never were there nobler leaders —
men and women in all ranks of society — statesmen,
121
educators, attorneys, philanthropists; but they need
our help ; they cannot conquer alone. And if we are
loyal to our traditions, we will not sit idle. Until
we have done our part, we will not rest content. We
must resist unto blood, if we would be followers of
Christ. "A high standard," you say, " an impossible
ideal." Well, perhaps; but one glorious thing about
Christianity is that it is always beyond us. We can
never sound its depths, or climb its heights; the best
endeavor of man always falls short of its ideals. The
man who has forgiven seven times, is bidden to forgive
seventy times seven; he who has been buffeted, is
commanded to turn the other cheek; we are told to
go the extra mile, to love our enemies, and to pray
for those who despitefully use us. Discouraging at
times, I admit; but, as Robert Browning says: —
"A man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's heaven for."
And to the courageous soul, this is a glorious truth —
"the glory of going on." Always gaining, yet never
attaining. Climbing one height only to find a height
that is higher. Conquering one foe, only to face one
more powerful. Such has been the ideal of the
world's great heroes: Siegfried, striving with dragon
and with fire ; King Arthur and his Round Table, the
Red Cross Knight, Bunyan's Pilgrim— what are they
all but types of the courageous soul, never daunted,
never despairing — always longing for harder quests.
" One who never turned his back,
But marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break;
Never dreamed though right were worsted
Wrong would triumph.
Held, we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake."
122
And would we be sharers in their heroism — we must
follow their leadership. Can we do it? Is it possible
to make head against the evils of the day, to stand
firm against them until we have conquered? In our
own strength, no! But with divine aid, we can.
The apostle points the way when he says: "Con-
sider him that endured, lest ye be wearied and faint
in your minds." Consider him ! Let your mind dwell
on Jesus, the great Saviour of man, the great victor
over sin, him who loved us and gave himself for us.
Consider him — his patience, his fearlessness, his won-
derful strength; his divine pity, his unchanging love;
yes, consider him and let your soul take courage. But
most of all, consider the source of his power. Jesus
was strong because the divine strength, the divine
courage nerved his arm and fortified his soul; be-
cause the divine purpose was his ; because he was
in close communion with his Father; because he and
the Father were one.
" Believest thou not that I am in the Father and
the Father in me; the Father that dwelleth in me, he
doeth the works." And that same power may be ours.
"Verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me,
the works that I do, shall he do also; and greater
works than these shall he do." Consider him lest ye
be wearied and faint in your minds.
Did you ever stop to think that the ideal heroes
of the past failed when they trusted to their own arms ;
but with their God-given weapons, conquered? What
was Siegfried without his divine sword, Arthur with-
out Excalibur, the Red Cross knight without his glis-
tening shield and blazoned cross, the pilgrim without the
armor of God! And though these are imaginary
heroes, they teach us the greatest truth of life, that
the divine is omnipotent. The prophet of old saw
123
it when he said : " Ye shall not fear them, for the
Lord God shall fight for you." The apostle knew
it when he said: ''We are more than conquerors
through him who loved us." Livingstone knew it
when he said : "I encourage myself in the Lord my
God and go forward." It is the great truth that has
come ringing down the ages, from the lips of prophets,
apostles, martyrs— "The Lord of hosts is with us."
With his help we cannot fail.
And it is our duty to carry on the noble work they
have begun; it is ours to wage unyielding warfare
against the hosts of evil, to follow our great Leader
to the end — resisting unto blood.
" Soldiers of Christ arise,
And put your armor on.
Strong in the strength which God supplies
Through his eternal son.
" Stand then in his great might
With all his strength endued.
And take to arm you for the fight.
The panoply of God.
"That having all things done.
And all your conflicts past,
Ye may o'ercome, through Christ alone,
And stand complete at last,"
THE EVENING SERVICE
INVOCATION BY
REV. THOMAS NELSON BAKER
OF THE SECOND CHURCH
O God, our Father, we thank Thee for this time
when we can remember that for a period of one
hundred and fifty years Thou hast been making good
Thy promise to build here Thy Church against which
the gates of hell shall not prevail. We thank Thee
for the men and the women who have given Thee
their lives in which to build their Church. We thank
Thee for the children of these fathers and mothers,
who, generation after generation, have been giving
their lives to Thee in which to build Thy Church. We
thank Thee, O God, for the spirit of helpfulness that
has pervaded the life of this Church from the begin-
ning until now. We thank Thee for the healthy spir-
itual condition of the Church at this time, at the age
of one hundred and fifty years. We thank Thee, O
God, for the hopeful outlook. We thank Thee for all
the noble souls who have given themselves here as
Thy servants : who stand and make it their own busi-
ness to make men remember that their citizenship is
not only of this world but in heaven.
O God, our Father, as we recount the great deeds
that have been wrought by the great souls here, and
remember the great good that has been done, help
us to remember that except Jehovah build the house,
they labor in vain that build it. Help us to remember
126
that whatever worth while has been accomplished
here through these years has been accomplished not
by might nor by power, but by Thy spirit.
And O God, we pray Thee that after having
listened to the great deeds of the great souls who have
wrought and worked here for Thee, we all together
shall end with the disciples upon the mount, where
we shall see Jesus only, and where we shall hear Thy
voice saying unto us, " This is my beloved son in
whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him." And help
us, O God, to hear Him, and may this Church be
a place in which the Spirit of God may have His right
of way in the lives of the children of those who have
gone before, and that great good may be done, to the
glory of Thy name and to the salvation of the souls
of men. Amen.
PRAYER BY REV. WARREN S. ARCHIBALD
OF THE PILGRIM MEMORIAL CHURCH
Infinite Father, Father of all men and of the Lord
Jesus Christ, Thou art worthy to be praised with all
glory and honor and power, for Thou hast lifted up
around us the magic and the mystery of the day.
Thou hast covered the day with night, and crowned it
with the glory of the stars; Thou hast prepared for
us, children of the day, a way through the day and
night, far beyond the sun and stars, even the way of
our Lord Jesus Christ, unto whom be the glory and
the power and the dominion and the beauty of holiness
both now and forever more.
Infinite Father, as we lift up to Thee our prayer,
we praise Thee for the Puritan and the Puritan
Church, for the men in all centuries who have left
127
their country and have gone in search of a far country,
that is, an heavenly one. We praise Thee and v^e mag-
nify Thy name for the men who in perils manifold
crossed the hungry seas, and established a Church in
liberty in this new world. We praise Thee for the men
who levelled these forests, cleared these fields, and
planted a Commonwealth and a Church. We praise
Thee and we magnify Thy name for the brave women
who in starry solitude, in strange dangers, and in heavy
toil reared up godly families and noble and beautiful
households. The wilderness and the solitary places
have been made glad by them. We praise Thee
and we bless Thee for this heritage, the Church
of the Puritans and the prophets, who have resisted
unto blood King and Emperor, Pope and Bishop,
and the mobs of men, in order that Thy liberty and
Thy righteousness might be established upon earth.
God of the fathers, be Thou with the sons of the
fathers. God of the nations, be Thou with the
sons and daughters of the nation. God of the
Church of Christ, Thou who hast blessed the Church
in the past, we beseech Thee, bless the Church of
the Puritan in the years to come. Ennoble the
Church ; enable her to endure hardness like a good
soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ. So discipline her,
so restrain her, so govern her, that she may be fitted
like a good sword to Thy right hand. Even so, Lord
Jesus Christ, arise, shine, let the enemies of Thy
Church be scattered. Ennoble Thy members, so that
they may fight like good soldiers; so that they may
dash in pieces like a potter's vessel the injustice, the
oppression, the tyranny of the times. Glorify Thy
Church, Lord Jesus Christ. Hear us, as with trem-
bling, with reverence, and with fear we pray that the
glory of the cross may be the glory of the Church. We
128
pray for the fellowship of Thy suffering, we pray for
the fellowship of Thy cross, we pray for the austerity
of a pure life. Sanctify Thy Church, O Lord Jesus
Christ, so that we, casting aside every weight and
looking eagerly into the wide years, may truly see that
we are pilgrims and sojourners here as all our fathers
were. Open our eyes to see that holy city which hath
foundations. Open our eyes to see that unseen com-
panion, who walks beside us on the road, until our
hearts burn within us, and the Scriptures are opened
to our understanding. Even so come, Lord Jesus.
Enter into Thy Church. Purify our hearts until we
see Thee. Open these windows and these doors until
the vista rolls before us of a Church which is eternal
and against which not even hell can prevail. Even so
come. Lord Jesus Christ. Breathe Thy Holy Spirit
into all the members of this body, this society of Thine,
until the Church shall be the mystic body of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Even so. Lord Jesus, come. Amen.
ADDRESS BY THE PASTOR
In St. Paul's second letter to the Church at
Corinth, the eighth chapter, the fifth verse, we read:
"And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave
their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the
will of God."
From this text, one hundred and fifty years ago. Rev-
Samuel Hopkins of Great Barrington, preached the
"lecture," as it was called, which followed the organiza-
tion of this Church ; the meeting for organization hav-
ing been held in the house of Deacon Stephen Crofut,
and the lecture being given in the meeting house just
after. And after this lecture, the eight foundation
129
men whose names you read to-night upon the shields
on either side of this house along the gallery rail, —
these eight foundation men were declared to be a
Church of Christ. Those same words of St. Paul
I would leave with you to-night.
" First they gave their own selves to the Lord."
There you have the secret of any Church's success.
It makes no diflference whether the Church is great
or small, it makes no difference in what country the
Church happens to be, it makes no difference what its
denomination may be: the secret of its success or of
its failure as a Church of Christ depends exactly and
precisely and eternally upon whether or not its mem-
bers have given themselves first to the Lord.
There are a good many things which men and
women would rather give first to the Lord. They
would rather give their money. We sometimes think
that people are not specially willing to give their
money, or specially willing to give it to the Lord even
if they are willing to give it otherwise, but they are.
They are giving it continually. They are giving it
in Pittsfield. They are giving it in the form of pew-
rent, and they are giving it in the form of contribu-
tions to the House of Mercy and the Associated Char-
ities and the Day Nursery and a dozen other worthy
and good causes. They are giving it for foreign mis-
sions and for home missions. They are giving their
money and they are giving it with surprising gen-
erosity, but a good many of these same people have
not yet given themselves with their gifts. They are
willing to give their money to the Lord through all
these channels, but when it comes to themselves, that
is a very different and a far harder thing to do.
And people are ready to give their time and their
strength to the good causes which are promoting the
130
coming of God's Kingdom. They are willing to help
in those ways often because they see others doing
the same. They say they believe in the Church and
they are willing to back it up, and they do, in large
measure; but when you bring them face to face with
the searching personal question, they are not ready
to admit that they have given themselves to the Lord.
" Son, give me thine heart." That is the desire
of the Lord Christ. That is the longing of God, the
Father in Heaven, toward every one of his children.
Think not that you can satisfy God any more than
you can satisfy your own father or your own mother
with any lesser gift than the gift of your own love
and your own loyalty and your own self.
That, I say, is the secret of any and every Church's
success. It is the secret of whatever glory this Church
may have won in the past. It will be the secret and
the cause of whatever glory and success and prosperity
this Church may have in the days to come. Nay,
further, this is the secret of success eternally for every
human soul, for every man and every woman in this
room. " First they gave their own selves to the
Lord " ; not " second," but " first." How true is it
of us to-night? How true shall it be of the Church
of Christ in Pittsfield, — well represented, I think, by
this congregation. Not the First Church only, not the
First Methodist or the First Baptist or St. Stephen's
or any other of the different organizations which
we speak of day by day, but the whole Church of
Christ in Pittsfield, Protestant and Roman and all.
Shall the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ be true
to Him? It will depend wholly upon whether the
members of His Church first have given themselves
to Him.
131
God grant that we may make it true of ourselves
this night. Amen.
CLOSING PRAiYER
Almighty God, our eternal Father, we thank and
praise Thee for the Church of Christ in this town.
We thank and praise Thee for that which it hath
been under Thy providence and under Thy blessing
in the years that are past. We trust Thee to be to
us in the years to come our God, our Father, and our
Friend, still. O Lord, our God, our fathers' God,
grant, we beseech Thee, that the Church of Christ in
this town may be, with every year that passes, more
truly One Church ; that the unity of Thy spirit which
is the bond of peace may be made manifest and mighty
among us ; and that together, in loyalty to the name of
Jesus, we may seek to know and to do His will in this
community. So let Thy blessing abide with us now
and evermore; Amen.
THE MEMORIAL PORTRAIT
GALLERY
Of great interest was the collection of the portraits
of men and women who had gone to their reward
and had from time to time been members of the
Church, or had worshipped in its several meeting
houses. Most generous and prompt was the response
of the townspeople to requests made for the loan of
pictures ; and hundreds of citizens besides our invited
guests lingered for a while, and then returned many-
times to look at the pictures of those who in days that
are gone had gathered in this historic church, and
many of whom had labored with unceasing zeal in
the Master's vineyard. No more appropriate part of
the One Hundred and Fiftieth Celebration could have
been undertaken than the memorial portrait-gallery;
and while the work of the present-day Church should
be aggressive and onward, still anniversary celebra-
tions would fail in their mission, if we did not stop
and consider the helpful influence, the unbounded
loyalty, the devoted service and the earnest, conse-
crated lives, that have been the heritage of our Church
from those who have been members or worshippers
within its walls. Many of the subjects of the portraits
were not only active in the Church, but foremost in
the work and life of the old town; and builded well
the foundations of our present beautiful city. Many
portraits were of those who in a quiet way had re-
garded the First Church as their religious home ; and
while perhaps not active members, still had a part in
the Church's history. Some were but slightly con-
134
nected with the parish. Other pictures recalled those
who had gone out from the Church into other fields
and had labored long and faithfully until called to
their reward.
Grouped on the south wall of the prayer meeting
room, were the portraits, (so far as it was possible
to obtain them) of former pastors and ministers who
have been prominent in the religious Hfe of the County.
This group included Rev. Thomas Allen; his son
and successor Rev. William Allen, D. D. ; Rev. Heman
Humphrey, D. D., the third pastor; Rev. Henry P.
Tappan, D. D., the fifth pastor; Rev. John Todd,
D. D., the eighth pastor; Rev. Edward O. Bartlett,
the ninth pastor ; Rev. Jonathan L. Jenkins, D. D., the
tenth pastor, who was serving the Church at the time
of the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Anniversary
celebration in 1889; and Rev. William Vail Wilson
Davis, D. D., the eleventh pastor, who died in 1910.
There were also portraits of Dr. Stephen West of
Stockbridge, who took part in the organization of this
Church; Rev. Joab Brace, D. D., the father-in-law
of Rev. Dr. Todd ; Rev. Alvan Hyde, who was pastor
of the Church at Lee from 1792 until 1833 ; and near
by was the portrait of Rev. Solomon Allen, pastor of
the Church at Brighton, N. Y., who often preached in
the Pittsfield church, and was the brother of Rev.
Thomas Allen and the father of Phinehas Allen, the
founder of the Pittsfield Sun.
The portraits were artistically arranged on the
walls of the prayer meeting room and parlor; their
presence brought forth many expressions of feeling
and many were the reminiscences and bits of history
unfolded, until it almost seemed as though the good
people represented by the portraits were here once
again and helping us celebrate the One Hundred and
Fiftieth Anniversary of the founding of the Church.
135
Below will be found a catalogue, as nearly complete
as could be made, of those whose portraits were con-
tributed, with the dates of their birth and death.
Adam, Robert William 1825-1911
Allen, Rev. Thomas (First Minister) 1743-1810
Allen, Rev. William (Second Minister) 1784-1868
Allen, Rev. Solomon 1751-1821
Allen, Phinehas 1776-1868
Allen, Fanny Tileston Clapp (Mrs. Phinehas) 1801-1891
Allen, Phinehas, 2nd 1807-1873
Allen, Maria Clapp (Mrs. Phinehas, 2nd) 1807- 1866
Allen, Thomas 1813-1882
Allen, Ann Russell (Mrs. Thomas) 1823-1897
Allen, Jonathan, 2nd 1786-1866
Atwater, Charles 1857-1900
Axtell, Harriet Dickinson (Mrs. William D.) 1821-1898
Bacon, Ezekiel 1776-
Bacon, Abigail S. (Mrs. Ezekiel) 1775-
Bailey, Dr. Charles 1818-
Bailey, Caroline W. Goodrich (Mrs. Charles) 1822-
Bagg. Martin, ist 1745-
Bagg, Clarissa Newton (Mrs. Jedediah) 1800-
Barber, Emily G. Dyer (Mrs. Jerijah Morton) 1835-
Barker, Otis R. 181 1-
Barker, Electa T. (Mrs. Otis R.) 1818-
Barker, John Vandeburgh 1807-
Barker, Sarah A. (Mrs. John V.) 1810-
Barker, Judge James Madison 1839-
Barker, Helena Whiting (Mrs. James Madison) 1843-
Barrett, Jedediah Foster 1819-
Bartlett, Rev. Edward O. (Ninth Minister) 1835-
Beers, Mrs. Martha 1832-
Bissell, Sarah S. 1855-
Brace, Rev. Dr. Joab 1777-
Brewster, Dr. Oliver E. 1816-
Brewster, Clarissa A. Allen (Mrs. O. E.) 1816-
Brewster, Edward S. 1842-
Brewster, Martha, 1848-
Brewster, Mrs. John M. 1787-
Brown, Henry Clinton 1779-
Brown, Mary Kilborn (Mrs. H. C.) 1788-
Brown, Agnes Center Buell (Mrs. George W.) 1815-
Brown, Nathan Gallup, 1818-
Brown, Sarah Ann (Mrs. N. G.) 1823-
Buell, James 1784-
Buell, Agnes Center (Mrs. James) 1784-
Burd, Sarah C. (Mrs. Charles G.) 1875-
870
861
895
899
824
867
904
904
902
896
853
905
889
905
909
907
904
857
866
906
865
889
876
838
876
908
884
890
874
864
911
136
Campbell, George W. 1804-1880
Campbell, Harriet Pomeroy Atwater (Mrs.
George W.)
Campbell, Luc}^ Laflin
Campbell, Dr. Robert
Campbell, George
Campbell, Matilda Jenkins (Mrs. George)
Campbell, Abby M.
Campbell, Mary Emmes
Carter, Josiah
Carter, Julia Fenn (Mrs. Josiah)
Carter, Mary P.
Carter, Stella A.
Clapp, Jason
Clapp, Cecilia Eldridge Luce (Mrs. Jason)
Clapp, Edwin
Clapp, Lyman
Clapp, Colonel Thaddeus
Clapp, Elizabeth Campbell (Mrs. Thaddeus)
Clapp, Thaddeus
Clapp, Lucy P. Goodrich (Mrs. Thaddeus)
Clark, Rev. Solomon
Clark, Lucy E. Richards (Mrs. Solomon)
Chapin, Mrs. David
Clary, David A.
Chickering, Benjamin
Chickering, Louisa G. Baldwin (Mrs. Benjamin)
Chickering, Elvira P. Allen (Mrs. Henry)
Childs, Dr. Henry H.
Colt, Ezekiel Root
Colt, Electa Campbell (Mrs. E. R.)
Colt, James D., 2nd
Colt, Sarah Root (Mrs. J. D., 2nd)
Colt, James D., 3rd
Colt, James D., 4th
Colt, Henry
Colt, Elizabeth Goldthwait (Mrs. Henry)
Colt, William Francis
Colt, Alice O. (Mrs. William Francis)
Colt, Robert
Colt, Catherine M. Cooley (Mrs. Thomas G.)
Converse, Matilda Shumway (Mrs. Everett H.)
Collins, Dwight M.
Cooley, William B.
Cooley, Mary Ann Spellman (Mrs. W. B.)
Cooley, Mary J.
Cooley, Abbie L. Goodrich (Mrs. William H.)
Crosby, John
Crosby, Annie M.
1822-
[912
1763-
1852
i7QS-
1866
1811-
[878
1814-
[882
1837-
[903
1851-
[899
1819-
[906
1825-
[913
1850-
[901
1854-
[909
1782-
[868
1800-
[873
1809-
[884
1811-
[8S3
1792-
[865
1796-
[88i
1821-
[890
1825-
[908
1811-
[902
1820-
[903
1809-
[890
1824-
[891
1824-
[889
1816-]
[863
1812-
[893
1783-]
[868
1794-
[860
1793-1
t875
1768- ]
[856
1771-1
[865
I 797-1
[822
1819-1
[881
1812-]
[888
1812-]
[890
1 848-]
t883
1852-1
909
1807-1
[864
1828- 1
897
1840-1
911
1833-1
912
1800-1
870
1802-1
[895
1833-1
913
1840-1
907
1 829-]
902
1862- 1
900
137
Dawes, Hon. Henry Laurens
Dawes, Electa Sanderson (Mrs. H. L.)
Davis. Rev. William Vail Wilson, D. D., (Eleventh
Minister)
Davis, Rebecca Frances Stearns (Mrs. W. V. W.)
Davis, Henry G.
Davis, Mary B. Dowse (Airs. H. G.)
Davenport, Helen B. (Mrs. Robert H.)
Dewey, Erastus
Dewey, Alatilda M. (Mrs. Erastus)
Dickinson, John
Dickinson, Mrs. Oliver P.
Dunham, James H.
Dunham, Jarvis N.
Dutton, George N.
Dyer, Alfred T.
Dyer, Emily C. (Mrs. Alfred T.)
Eaton, Frances M. (Mrs. Arthur W.
Fairbanks, Jabez Wilder
Fairbanks, Harriet Stocking (Mrs. J. W.)
Fenn, Curtis T.
Fenn, Parthenia Dickinson (Mrs. C. T.)
Ferrey, Moses H.
Ferrey, Mrs. Moses H.
French, Alice G.
Fletcher, Rebecca Morrison Hunter (Mrs. A. M.)
Foxcroft, Mrs. George A.
Foote, Mary Dewey
Gamwell, Lorenzo H.
Gamwell, Emeline A. Varney (Mrs. Lorenzo)
Gamwell, William W.
Gleason, Monroe
Goodman, William W.
Goodman, Mary E. Jones (Mrs. W. W.)
Goodman, Deacon Titus
Goodman, Clarissa
Goodrich, Levi Weight
Goodrich, Abigail P. (Mrs. Noah W.)
Guilds, Gerry
Guilds, Jane Horner (Mrs. Gerry)
Haight, Ellen L. Gleason (Mrs. Jonathan)
Harding, William Greenough
Harding, Nancy Pepoon Campbell (Mrs. W. G.)
Hawkins, William J.
Hibbard, Fred W.
Hinsdale, James H.
Hinsdale, Mary Livingston Gilbert (Mrs. J. H.)
Hinsdale, Frank W.
I8I6-
1903
1822-
1 901
I85I-
I9I0
1848-
1907
I82I-
1863
1825-
1900
1878-
1908
1789-
1865
1795-
1865
1769-
1855
1766-
1847
1803-
1890
1828-
1 891
1828-
1 891
1840-
1906
1840-
1897
1855-
1909
1803-
1872
I8I2-
1897
1792-
I87I
1798-
1878
I8I3-
1878
I8I3-
1893
1868-
1909
1865-
I9II
I8I8-
1894
1833-
1873
I82I-
1896
I8I9-
1908
1850-
I9I3
I8I4-
1898
I8I4-
I86I
I8I8-
1893
1785-
1857
1785-
1868
I8I3-
I89I
I8I2-
1872
I8I5-
1896
1853-
1894
1834-
1908
1839-
1874
1836-
1878
1873-
1903
1833-
I9I2
1848-
I9I2
1826-
1906
138
Hinsdale, Judge Theodore 1772-1855
Hinsdale, Nancy 1769-1851
Hulbert, Charles 1825-1875
Hulbert, Fanny Dunham (Mrs. Charles) 1818-1900
Hulbert, Maria P. 1856-1905
Hull, James Wells 1842-1911
Hull, Mary Griffith (Mrs. Oliver S.) 1803-1883
Hull, Isaac Griffith 1827-1913
Hurd, Mrs. H. M. 1815-1895
Hubbard, William 1801-1868
Hubbard, Mary Warner (Mrs. William) 1807-1887
Humphrey, Rev. Heman (Third Minister) 1779-1861
Hyde, Rev. Alvan, D. D. (Minister at Lee, Mass.) 1768-1833
Janes, Colonel Ethan 1784- 1865
Jenkins, Rev. Jonathan L., D. D. (Tenth Min-
ister of Church) 1830-1913
Kellogg, Ensign H. 1812-1882
Kellogg, Caroline L. Campbell (Mrs. E. H.) 1814-1908
Kellogg, Austin W. 1820-1885
Kennedy, Isaac C. 1824-1898
Kennedy, Mrs. Isaac C. 1822-1906
Lane, Mrs. Maria Peck 1830- 1898
Lane, John Peck 1853-1893
Loop, Carrie Carter (Mrs. A. A.) 1847- 1892
Maclnnes, Annie Adriance (Mrs. W. D.) 1864-1912
Martin, Calvin 1787-1867
Martin, Calvin G. 1820- 1842
Martin, George C. 1827-1859
Merrill, Captain Hosea 1761-1853
Merrill, Sarah Phillips (Mrs. Hosea) 1763-1850
Merrill, Phillips 1790-1873
Merrill, Frances A. Stanton (Mrs. Phillips) 1794-1867
Morey, Daniel C. 1814-1896
Morey, Rebecca M. Mattison (Mrs. D. C.) 1817-1880
Newton, Edward A. 1785-1862
Paddock, Dr. Franklin Kittredge 1841-1901
Paddock, Frank Eugene 1876-1892
Parker, John Churchill 1822- 1881
Parker, Lydia Goodrich (Mrs. John C.) 1823- 1912
Parker, Linus 1790-1872
Parker, Sophia Churchill (Mrs. Linus) 1792-1872
Partridge, John 1804-1870
Partridge, Mrs. John 1815-1875
Partridge, James H. 1810-1895
Partridge, Olcott O. 1873-1912
Paul, Miss Anna Maria 1816-1911
139
Peck, Otis 1795-1874
Peck, Mrs. Otis 1800-1872
Peck, Frederick C. 1830-1910
Peck, Mrs. F. C. 1840-1875
Peck, Martha A. 1834- 1897
Peck, Jabez L. 1826-1895
Peck, Henry Oliver 1895-1912
Pingree, Thomas Perkins 1829- 1895
Plunkett, Thomas F. 1804-1875
Plunkett, Harriet Merrick Hodge (Mrs. T. F.) 1826-1906
Plunkett, William R. 1831-1903
Plunkett, May Kellogg (Mrs. W. R.) 1848-1881
Pomeroy, Lemuel 1778-1849
Pomeroy, Theodore 1813-1881
Pomeroy, Fanny S. (Mrs. Theodore) 1814-1851
Pomeroy, Mary Harris (Mrs. Theodore) 1826- 1863
Pomeroy, Edward 1820-1889
Pomeroy, Robert 1817-1889
Pomeroy, Mary Center (Mrs. Robert) 1820-1889
Power, John T. 1844- 1890
Redfield, Charles B. 1818-1876
Redfield, Mary A. Wallace (Mrs. C B.) 1826-1913
Robbins, Oliver W. 1812-1899
Robbins, Mrs. Oliver W. 1815-1911
Robinson, Deacon William 1810-1902
Rockwell, Judge Julius 1804-1888
Rockwell, Elizabeth 1888-1911
Root, Washington M. 1823-1884
Root, Mrs. Washington M. 1827-1869
Root, Graham 1820-1880
Root, Dr. Oliver S. 1799-1870
Root, Henry 1784-1863
Root, Thankful Johnson (Mrs. Henry) 1785-1865
Russell, Solomon L. 1791-1882
Russell, Solomon N. 1822-1899
Russell, Franklin W. 1841-1908
Russell, Zeno 1834-1881
Russell, Charlotte M. Rice (Mrs. Zeno) 1835-1903
Russell, Frank 1857-1908
Russell, Solomon Clark 1887- 1900
Russell, Mary 1828-1862
Russell, Lucy Maria 1807- 1884
Saunders, Anna Goodrich (Mrs. Edwin) 1820- 1887
Sears, James 1818-1897
Sears, Lydia C. Merrill (Mrs. James) 1822- 1897
Shaw, Henry 1788-1857
Spear, Rev. C. V. 1825-1891
Spear, Relief L. (Mrs. C. V.) 1824-1883
Spear, Esther Dyer (Mrs. Nathaniel)
Sprague, Minnie Lane (Mrs. F. E.) 1861-1907
Stearns, Miss Eliza 1833-1906
140
Stevenson, Sarah H. (Mrs. John M.)
Strong, Thomas Barnard
Strong, Charles W.
Strong, Mrs. Charles W.
Taft, Henry W.
Talcott, WilHam H.
Tappan, Rev. Henry (Fifth Minister)
Taylor, Thomas
Taylor, Lewis W.
Taylor, Eliza
Teeling, William H.
Teeling, Elizabeth German (Mrs. W. H.)
Todd, Rev. John, D. D. (Eighth Minister)
Todd, Mary Brace (Mrs. John)
Tucker, Judge Joseph
Walker, John A.
Walker, William M.
Walker, Mrs. William M.
Warriner, James
Warriner, John R.
Warriner, James L.
Warner, Thomas
Warner, Miss Sophia S.
Weed, Sarah Russell
Wells, Clara
Wells, Harriet Edna Murray (Mrs. William M.)
Werden, Amy A. Paul (Mrs. Elias)
Werden, Mary
West, Rev. Stephen, D. D. (Pastor at Stock-
bridge)
West, Abel
West, Matilda Thompson (Mrs. Abel)
West, Dr. Charles E.
West, John C.
West, Lydia Maria Goodrich (Mrs. John C.)
West, Mary Elizabeth Goodrich (Mrs. Gilbert)
West, William Bagg
West, Jessie Campbell (Mrs. John K.)
White, Elizabeth (Mrs. William P.), daughter
of Rev. T. Allen
Whitney, Mercy Partridge
Whittlesey, William A.
Whittlesey, Russell
Wilcox, Nancy Bradley (Mrs. Marshall)
Willis, Gen. Nathan
Willis, Lucy Fearing (Mrs. Nathan)
Willis, William Henry
Wilson, Solomon L.
Wilson, Mrs. Solomon L.
Williams, Lucretia (Mrs. John Chandler)
Wood, Moses H.
1823-
1908
1780-
1863
1840-
1906
1844-
1911
I8I8-
1904
1876-
1912
I80S-
1880
1793-
1875
1822-
1897
1805-
1883
1820-
1900
1823-
igo6
1800-
1873
1809-
1889
1832-
1907
I82I-
1864
I8I0-
1870
I8I3-
1883
1797-
1865
1827-
1888
1829-
1898
1774-
1864
1806-
1858
1828-
1912
1820-
1873
1834-
1911
1822-
1905
1857-
1912
1735-
1819
1780-
1871
1782-
1866
1809-
1900
1811-
1893
1816-
1895
1826-
1913
1852-
1913
1849-
1903
1775-
1798
1795-
1872
1849-
1906
1887-
1911
1825-
1911
1763-
185 1
1774-
i860
1819-
1882
1810-
1891
1753-
1834
1822-
1913
THE PAGEANT
PRELUDE
THE SPIRIT OF THE HILLS.
An Indian call is heard in the distance followed
by a soft crooning melody drawing nearer and nearer,
and an Indian warrior enters led by the Spirit of the
Hills. Enter the Spirit of Religion. She bears a torch
in one hand and a Bible in the other. Placing the
open Bible before the Indian, she points to it as though
explaining its teachings. The Indian raises the Book
and as she points upward and onward he turns and
follows her.
PART ONE
EARLY DAYS
Recitative — The Spirit of the Hills.
Episode i — The Coming of the Pioneer Settlers, 1752.
Interlude — The Spirit of the Hills.
Episode 2 — A Gathering of the People to consider the
building of a Meeting House.
Episode 3 — Conversation between Deacon Crofoot and
Mrs. Aaron Baker.
Interlude — The Spirit of the Hills.
Episode 4 — The Founding of the Church. The Spirit
of Religion, the Foundation Men, the Coming of
Parson Allen.
Interlude — The Call to Arms.
Episode 5 — The March to Bennington.
142
PART TWO
NINETEENTH CENTURY DAYS
Episode i — The Choir of the First Church in 1823.
Interlude — The Stone Church.
Episode 2 — The Sunday School in the Fifties.
Episode 3 — A Free Will Meeting in the Sixties.
Episode 4 — After the Sunrise Prayer Meeting.
PART THREE
THE twentieth CENTURY
Interlude — The Spirit of the Hills.
Episode i — The Mission Band on the way to a meet-
ing.
Episode 2 — The Knights of King Arthur.
Finale — The Spirit of Religion leads onward and up-
ward. Singing of "Onward, Christian Soldiers"
by all.
PARTICIPANTS
The Spirit of the Hills Miss Elsa MacLaren Eager
The Spirit of Religion Miss Wilcox
The Indian Mr. Anthony Reese
Early Settlers
Daniel Hubbard Mr. R. P. Parker
Stephen Crof oot Mr. A. H. Wood
Jesse Sackett Mr. P. Doremus
Nathaniel Fairfield Mr. J. Yohannan
Solomon Deming Mr. L. M. Cain
The Deming Family Mrs. Cain and Children
Foundation Men
Stephen Crofoot Mr. A. H. Wood
Ephraim Stiles Mr. J. J. Frank
143
Daniel Hubbard Mr. R. P. Parker
Aaron Baker Mr. C. W. Power
Jacob Ensign Dr. Kinnell
William Phelps Mr. S. G. Colt
Lemuel Phelps Mr. L. M. Cain
Elnathan Phelps Mr. H. W. Andrews
Townspeople
Mesdames Wood, Cain, Whittlesey; the Misses Wilcox,
Sylvester, Wood, Mawhinney; Messrs. Wraught, Turner,
VanderWater, Fletcher, G. E. Whittlesey, Plumb, Maclnnes.
Parson Allen Mr. M. D. Steever.
The Choir
Mrs. W. E. Bagg, Mrs. Trowbridge, Miss Walbridge, Miss
Chesney; Messrs. C. E. West, Francis, Bradford West, Orr.
The Sunday School
Mr. F. T. West, Mrs. Collins, the Misses Thomson, John-
son, Chaflfee, Priscilla Colt, Marion Spall, Mabel Rawlings,
Elizabeth and Jeannette Hover, Marion Sargent, Ruth Hunt,
Lena Bouteiller, Beatrice Faulkner, Mary Reid, Dorothy
French, Minnie Dorgan, Alice Crawford, Doris Turner,
Charles Bouteiller, Zenas Colt, Albert Williams, Douglas
Smith, Jack Barker, Edward Spall, Frederick Francis, Jennie
Burt, Helen Martineau, Marguerite Sargent, Grace Sargent.
The Ladies of the Free Will
Mesdames Trowbridge, Rockwell, C. L. HIbbard, F. T.
Francis, Willard, C. W. Power, Chafifee; the Misses Peck,
Ballard, Blatchford, Turner, Colt, Wellington.
The Gentlemen
Messrs. Lawrence, C. E. West, Adam, W. A. Whittlesey,
M. S. Wellington, John Power, Colville Vance.
The Mission Band
Caroline Chaffee, Alice Steele, Wendell Harrington,
Beulah Coleman, Ruth Jones, Margaret Kinnell, Helen Jenks,
Lena Bouteiller, Annie Stronach, Georgiana Crawford, Edna
Abbott, Margaret Barnes.
144
Knights of King Arthur
John Frank, George Kinnell, David Kinnell, Lincoln
Cain, John Power, James Colt, Charles Hibbard, Whitmore
Parker, George Seager, William Barnes, Alden Sampson,
Colville Vance, Norman Blanchard, Allen Davis, Kenneth
Williams, Maxfield Smith, Jack Brackin, George Dutton,
Jairus Burt.
SPECIAL COMMITTEES
FINANCE
Messrs. Joseph F. Titus, Chairman; Henry Colt, M. D.,
Frank W. Dutton, Irving D. Ferrey, Charles E. Hibbard, Al-
exander Kennedy, Henry R. Russell, George H. Tucker,
Hiram B. Wellington, William D. Wyman.
INVITATIONS
Edward T Slocum, Esq., Chairman ; Miss Anna L. Dawes,
Mrs. James W. Hull, Miss Lucy H. Neill, Mrs. John M.
Stevenson, Mr. Harlan H. Ballard, Mr. Robert H. Davenport,
Mr. William D. Goodwin, Mr. E. Archie Jones.
ENTERTAINMENT
Mr. Charles H. Wilson, Chairman; Mrs. William L.
Adam, Mrs. Robert P. Parker, Miss Jane A. Russell, Mr.
Carl B. Lindholm, Mr. Loring G. Robbins.
SUPPER
Mrs. Harry G. West, Chairman; Mrs. John Barker, Mrs.
William J. Baughman, Mrs. William H. Hall, Mrs. Edward
N. Huntress, Mrs. Edgar T. Lawrence, Miss Mabel I. Mills,
Mrs. John B. Thomes, Miss Adelaide L. Waite, Miss Edith
A. Waite.
PAGEANT
Miss Frances D. Robbins, Chairman; Miss Frances G.
Colt, Miss Marjorie T. Gregg, Mrs. Pomeroy W. Power,
Mrs. George H. Southard, Mrs. Miller D. Steever, Miss Char-
lotte R. Titus, Miss Lucy D. Thomson, Mrs. Robert K. Wil-
lard, Mr. Irvin P. Thompson, Mr. Charles E. West.
145
DECORATION
Miss Caroline S. Tucker, Chairman; Miss Fanny E. Colt,
Miss Martha G. B. Clapp, Mr. Arthur N. Cooley, Mr. George
C. Harding.
MUSIC
Mr. Frank D. Taylor, Chairman; Miss Mary A. Bissell,
Mrs. Dwight M. Collins, Mrs. Charles L. Hibbard, Mr. Clif-
ford Francis, Mr. Thomas F. Plunkett.
PORTRAITS
Mrs. Allen H. Bagg, Chairman; Mrs. Charles E. West,
Miss Ara West, Mrs. William C. Stevenson, Miss Sara S.
Tucker, Mr. Allen H. Bagg.
USHERING
Messrs. Frank R. Whittlesey, Chairman; Reginald M.
Wentworth, Edward G. Guilds, Nelson A. Foote, Ralph D.
Head, M. D., John I. Olney, L. Pomeroy Russell.
LITERARY PROGRAM
Mr. William L. Adam, Chairman ; Mrs. Frank K. Paddock,
Rev. James E. Gregg.
INDEX
NoTK. — In this index the names in the list of
the Memorial Portrait Gallery are not included.
Abbate, P. L., 11
Adam, R. W., 16. 67, 87
W. L., 5, 9, 28
"Administration of College Cur-
riculum, The," 80
Allen, Betty, 69
" Phinehas, 134
Rev. Solomon, 134
" Rev. Thomas.
15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20,
34, 37, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72,
73, 74, 75, 134, 141
" Thomas, Jr., 70
" Mrs. Thomas, Jr., 70
" Rev. William, 19, 20, 21,
36, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 134
Amherst College. 6
Collegiate Institute, 79
Congregational Church,
25
American Board. 76
American Sunday School Union, 79
Archibald, Rev. W. S., 11, 126
Bailey, Rev. R. W.,
22
, 64
Baker, Aaron. 16
, 67
, 68
" Mrs. Aaron,
68,
141
Rev. T. Nelson.
11,
125
Ballard. Rev. Dr. Addison,
7
Barker, James M.,
29
Barkers, the.
87
Bartlett, Rev. Edward 0.,
25,
134
Beecher, Lyman,
96
Berkshire Inn,
82
Bidwell, Rev. Adonijah,
18
Bouteiller. A. C,
10
Bowdoin College,
6
Brace, Rev. Joab,
134
Brewster, Henry A.,
5
Br'ggs. General,
42
Brinsmade, Rev. Horatio N,
„ 2£
;, 64
Bulfinch, Charles.
28
Burd, Rev. Charles G.,
10,
111
Calkins, Rev. Raymond,
9, 89, 93, 109
Catlin. Rev. Mr.. 36
Cherokee Indians, 77, 78
Child, Dr., 81
Choctaw Indians, 77, 78
Chorus. 10
Collins, Rev. Daniel, 36
Collier's Weekly, 103
Colt, Dr. Henry, 7, 13
Colts, the, 87
Committee, General, 5
Committees, special, 144, 145
Communion service, 10, 111
Crofoot, Dea. Stephen, 15, 16, 141
Crofut, — see Crofoot.
Davis, Miss Elizabeth D., 5
Harold S., 7
Rev. Dr. William V. W.,
7, 28 134
Call, 47 ; education, 48 ;
Robert College, in, 48 ;
Franklin Street Church,
Manchester, at, 48 ; Eu-
clid Avenue Presbyterian
Church, Cleveland, at, 48 ;
death, 49 ; as preacher,
50 ; in social life, 51 ; and
young people, 51 ; in
community, 52 ; burial
place, 53 ; public schools,
interest in, 54 ; church
building, interest in 55 ;
and country churches,
55 ; his wife, loss of, 57 ;
misunderstood, 58 ; In-
fluence, 59.
Mrs. W. V. W., 48, 57
Dawes, Henry I^., 87
"Dialogue Between Christ, a
Youth, and the Devil," 81
Dickinson, Parthenia, — seeFenn,
Mrs. C. T.
Duelling, 79
Dunham, J. H. 33, 42
Eager. Miss M. M.,
Easton, James,
Edwards, Jonathan,
8
18
63, 69, 97
Eliot, President Charles W., 80
Elsesser, Rev. Rene, 11
Ensign, Jacob, 16
Escher, Carl, 11
Euclid Avenue Presbyterian
Church, 48
148
Index — Continued
Fenn, Mrs. C. T., 33, 34
First Church. General Sketch of
History of, 13 ; forma-
tion, 15 ; covenant, 15
first meeting, record of
16 ; discord in, 20 ; se
cession of members, 20
relations with town, 20 .
21 ; re-union with Union
Parish, 21 : 125th Anni-
versary, 27 ; meeting
houses of, 28.
Foote, Marshall, 39
Fosdick, Rev. H. E., 96
Foster, Pres. W. T., 80
Foundation Men, 16, 67, 141
Franklin Street Congregational
Church. 48
Free Will Society, 38, 142
Gallatin, Albert, 35
Garfield, President H, A., 8, 64
Gififord, Mrs. A. McK., 7, 61
Goodwin, W. D.. 10
Gregg, Rev. J. E., 5, 7, 11, 63,
64, 67, 68, 75, 84, 88, 128
Haldane. Lord, 44
Harris, Rev. Samuel, 23
Hibbard, C. L., 7, 47
Higginson, John, 97
Hinsdale. Miss Elizabeth W., 5
Hobart, Rev Noah, 81
Hooker, Rev. Mr., 18
Hooker, Rev. Asahel, 38
Hopkins, Rev. Samuel. 15, 18. 128
Hubbard, Daniel, 16
Hughes. Gov. Charles E., 97
Hull, .Tames W., 87
Humphrey, Rev. Heman, 21, 22.
32, 33, 38, 39, 64, 134,
his life, period of, 64
Indian oppression, re
monstrances against, 77
78 : publications, various
79 ; Amherst Collegiate
Institute, at. 79. 80
"New England Primer"
introduction to. 81 ; rec
ollections of. 81 ; sports
interest in. 82 ; newspa
pers, contributions to, 83
Mrs. Heman, 38
Henry M.. 8. 75, 76
Miss Sarah W.. 32
" Rev. Zephaniah. 32
Hyde, Rev. Alvan. 36. 39, 134
Jacobs, James, 10
Jefferson. Thomas, 34, 35
Jenkins, Rev. Charles, 25
Jenkins, Rev. Jonathan L., D.D.,
13. 16, 18. 22, 25. 26, 27,
28,43,47,49,76,85, 134
Kellogg. Ensign. 87
Kennedy, Alexander, 10
King Arthur, Knights of, 142
Lafayette College, 6
Learned. Edward, 87
Letter of Acceptance of Thomas
Allen, 17
"Letters to a Son in the Minis-
try," 79
Lincoln. Abraham, 83, 115
Little, Woodbridge, 34, 35
Livingston, Philip. 14
Livingstone, David, 116
Lodge, Senator Henry C, 35
Martin, Rev. Ebenezer,
Marquand. Prof. Allan,
Mather. Cotton.
JicArthur. W. Erving,
Mears, Mrs. W. W..
Meeting-house, first.
Meeting-houses. 28, and see
frontispiece.
Memorial Portrait Gallery, 10,
Michigan. University of.
Mission Band,
Missionaries from The First
Church,
15
66
97
10
11
15
133
6
142
33
"Indian Rightsand Our Duties,"
Invitations sent,
77
6
Neill. Rev. Henry. 32
Nettleton revival. 31, 32, 40
"New England Primer," 81
"Old Town Folks," 43
One Hundred and Twenty-fifth
Anniversary, 5, 16, 85
O'Sullivan, Mrs., 81
Paddock, Dr. Brace W., 22, 38
Dr. Frank K.. 87
" Mrs. Frank K., 5
Dr. W. L., 22
Pageant. 8, 141
participants in,
142, 143. 144
Palmer, Rev. C. J., 7
Pastor, the, — see Gregg, Rev.
J. E.
Pearl Street Church, Hartford, 26
Phelps. Elnathan, 16, 67
Lemuel, 16, 67
William, 16, 67
149
Index — Continued
Pierce, Rev. Payson E.. 8
Pingree, T. P., 87
Plunketts, the, 87
Plunkett, Thomas F., 5
Pomeroy, Robert, 82
Porter, Noah, 38
Sophia, 76
Portraits, contributed, catalogue
of, 1.35-140
Portrait Gallery, Memorial,
11, 13.3
Pratt, Dr. Llewellyn, 40
"Prayer for Church and Town,
A," 84
Programs, Sunday services ;
morning. 9 ; afternoon,
10 ; evening, 11.
Punderson, Rev. Thomas,
20, 23, 34
Redfield, Miss Julia W., 7, 31
Redflelds, the, 87
Reese, Anthony, 11
Rockwell, Robert C 41
Prof. William W„ 39
Rowland, Dr., 39
Ruskin, John, 97
Russells, the, 87
Saltus, Mr., 81
Schaff, Morris, 8, 84
Scott, Capt. Robert N., llfi
Shade Trees and Sidewalks, 83
Shepard, Thomas, c>9
Rev. Samuel, 36
Shipton, George, 10
Slavery, 76
Smith, Rev. Henry G., 8, 67, 68
Smith's History. 14, 20
South Congregational Church,
20, 23, 34
"Some Great Revivals," 32
State Street Congregational
Church, Portland, 26
Stiles, Ephraim, 16, 25
Stiles, President, 25
Stoddard, John. 14, 63, 67, 69
Storrs, Rev. Dr., 26
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 43
Strong, Ashbel, 34, 35
Rev. Thomas, 18
Sunday School, exercises in. 9
Sun, Pittsfleld, 32, 35, 41, 134
Sunrise Prayer Meeting ; tradi-
tional origin, 31 ; Dea.
Dunham, testimony of,
33 ; split in Church, 34 ;
re-union. 38 ; Mr. Pun-
derson, 39 ; Dr. E. Tay-
lor, testimony of, 40 ;
Fourth of July meeting,
41 ; atmosphere of, 42 ;
in Lee, 42 ; significance
of, 43.
Swing, Prof. David, 76
Taft, Henry W.,
Tappan, Rev. H. P.,
Taylor, Rev. Edward,
L. W.,
Texas, University of,
Todd, Rev. John,
87
23, 134
40
40
6
23, 24, 25,
41, 64, 76, 81, 84, 134
Tucker, Joseph, 87
Tucker, Rev. W. J., 48
Tyler, Wellington, 28
Union Parish,
20,
36,
38
Warriners, the.
87
Wendell, Jacob,
14
West, Frederick T.,
9
Gilbert,
41
Dr. Stephen,
134
Wests, the.
87
Wheelock, John,
71
White, Horace,
35
Whittlesey. William
A.,
9
Williams College, 6,
6.3,
64,
66,
67
Williams, Col. Ephraim
»
63
John C,
63
" Mrs. John
c,
64,
70
Col. Willi
iam.
63
Willis, Sheriff.
82
Woodbridge. Rev. Timothy,
18
Wright, Josiah,
18
Yeomans, Rev. John W.,
23
