USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > The fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church of Hartford, Connecticut, March 21 to 28, 1915 > Part 1
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01804 3296
GENEALOGY 974.602 H25ASA
1865 FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASYLUM HILL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 1915
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سيه
The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church of Hartford, Connecticut March 21 to 28 1915
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T HE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY of the founding of the Asylum Hill Congrega- tional Church was celebrated by a series of ser- vices and social gatherings during the week beginning on Sunday, March 21, 1915, and in- cluding the Sunday following.
On Sunday, March 21st, at the morning service, Dr. Voorhees preached the Anniversary Sermon. In the afternoon there was a Communion Service, at which forty-three persons were received into membership.
On Tuesday afternoon, March 23d, which was the precise anniversary of the founding in 1865, there were Historical Exercises, including Greet- ings from the churches of Hartford, expressed through Dr. Rockwell Harmon Potter of the First Church, and two Addresses, on the Beginnings of the Church and on its Subsequent History, by Deacon Atwood Collins and Professor Waldo S. Pratt, respectively. In this service Dr. James W. Cooper of Hartford and Rev. Joseph Hooker Twichell of Milford, N. H., participated. In the evening there was a very large and impressive gathering of members of the church, representa- tives of other churches and friends from a distance at a reception in the Parish House in honor of the Pastor Emeritus, Dr. Twichell, at which ad- dresses were made by Rev. Philip C. Walcott of Naugatuck, Conn., who for five years was Assist- ant Pastor, and by Dr. Edwin Pond Parker, Dr. Twichell's lifelong friend. In connection with [3]
this occasion was shown an extensive exhibit of photographs and other objects, recalling the earlier members of the church and the stages in its development. Specially interesting was a series of pictures of Dr. Twichell himself at different periods.
On Thursday evening, March 25th, the Congre- gational churches of the city joined in a Union Service emphasizing the Leadership of the De- nomination in the Larger Concerns of the King- dom, with addresses by Dr. Hubert C. Herring and Dean Charles R. Brown, the Secretary and Moderator of the National Council, upon Our Social and International Obligations and on Our Educational Leadership. Parts in this service were borne by Rev. Charles F. Carter of the Im- manuel Church and Rev. Irving H. Berg of the South Church.
On Friday evening, March 26th, Mr. Edward F. Laubin, the organist of the church, gave an Organ Recital, assisted by Miss Marion Williams, violinist, and Mr. William H. Miller, violon- cellist.
At the morning service on Sunday, March 28th, President William Douglas Mackenzie of the Theological Seminary preached on The Ideal of the Church. At the noon session of the Sunday School Mrs. Duncan B. Macdonald recounted the history of the Early Days of the Sunday School. In the evening, under the leadership of Deacon Alfred T. Richards, the Young People's Associa- tion traced its development from the Young Peo-
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ple's Meeting and the Boys' Prayer Meeting of the early years.
In connection with the Anniversary a pamphlet was distributed describing the plan that had been adopted with reference to a series of memorial windows to be gradually provided for the church, illustrating Old Testament Leaders and Early Christian Teachers, this plan having been pre- pared by Professors Lewis B. Paton and Edwin Knox Mitchell. Just before the Anniversary the first of this series was put in place, a double win- dow commemorating Mr. Erastus Collins and his wife. Notice was also given that soon a window in memory of Mrs. Julia H. Twichell would be supplied.
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In the following pages will be found the Pastor's Anniversary Sermon, the Greetings brought by Dr. Potter, the three Historical Addresses by Mr. Collins, Mrs. Macdonald and Professor Pratt, and the Tribute to Mr. Twichell by Dr. Parker.
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THE ANNIVERSARY SERMON REV. JOHN BROWNLEE VOORHEES, D.D.
"Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations." -PSALM XC. I.
The selection of a text and theme for this occa- sion has been a somewhat perplexing matter, so many are the passages of Scripture of rich sug- gestiveness, and so many are the things which might be said and, indeed, ought to be said at this time. But the situation has been simplified in part by the ordering of our programme, which calls for an historical service on the afternoon of Tuesday, the day which measures exactly the half-century from that other March 23, 1865, when a little company, 114 in number, covenanted themselves together in the precious fellowship of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church.
It is not, therefore, with the details of the his- tory of the fifty years of our church life that I am particularly concerned. The history will be given by the two men best qualified to speak, Deacon Atwood Collins and Professor Waldo S. Pratt. My responsibility at this opening service is both less and greater than theirs, namely, to stir up your minds by way of remembrance of some of the deeper meanings of the event we this week celebrate.
As the majestic Psalm from which our text is taken was read in the morning lesson, our souls thrilled in response to its solemn words. To its deep, full-toned notes of human experience the [ 7 ]
thoughts of our hearts are attuned. At this service we do not want a scripture which is, so to speak, suitable for every day and deals with the common- place doings of our life. For this is different from other days. It has its own associations and sig- nificance. It may be difficult to define why a mere mechanical time-division should lift up one day above all the days round about it and make it glow with meaning and affection; but such is the order of our being that anniversaries do stand apart-they are days of awakened memory, quick- ened appreciations, rekindled devotions.
And this Ninetieth Psalm breathes the spirit of this special day. There is a detachment about it from the immediate, the temporary, the usual. Its unknown author, after length of days, is looking back upon years that have gone, seeking to read their inner meaning and to learn the lessons they would teach for the years that are to come. Thus are we at this hour-we look back upon the half- century of our church life, and would fain read the meaning of the years.
Thus looking back, is not our experience a du- plication of the Psalmist's? Above all else he was convinced of the greatness of his spiritual in- heritance. Religious faith, to him, was more than a personal experience ; it was an ancestral heritage. "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations." He did not separate himself from his spiritual ancestry. He said, "our dwelling- place in all generations," thus identifying himself with the vanished. God was precious not for the
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reason only that He was the refuge of his own soul, but because He had been the dwelling-place of the generations of his fathers. Like some ancient homestead where generation after generation had been born and lived and died, so had God through- out the ages been the shelter and refuge of His people. God was unspeakably nearer to the Psalmist, because He was his fathers' God.
And of what are we, who are looking back on the fifty years in which this church has existed, convinced so strongly as of the greatness of our spiritual inheritance? Of all that we possess in this household of faith, how little we have gath- ered together with our own hands! Of all that we possess, how great is that received from the faith- ful hands of those who now rest from their labors! The fathers have labored, and we have entered into their labors; they have planted and we have eaten the fruits thereof.
The first item of our inheritance is the one men- tioned by the Psalmist, our faith in God. If to our generation God is in any sense real, is it not, beyond all else, for the reason that we saw His reality to those who were before us? We may sometimes question our own, but we dare not doubt our fathers' experience of God. I am glad for myself that my faith in God is much older than I am, that its roots run far back in the past, that the God I try to serve is also the God of my fathers. Many of you now worshipping in this church are children and grandchildren of those who wor- shipped here forty and fifty years ago. Does not [9]
that fact argue that the God we trust is no lately found, untried God? Yes, yes, they who have gone before tasted and saw; therefore we know that the Lord is good. To-day our highest joy is this : We, too, believe in God. He has been "our dwelling- place in all generations." Let us, therefore, in sin- cere and humble gratitude for this greatest of bless- ings we can know on earth, our faith in God, make this high resolve: "Our fathers' God, we will exalt Him."
But the appreciation of our inheritance would be incomplete unless we had regard for the men and women who laid the foundations, material and spiritual, of this church. We are bound to them by warm, human ties of love and unpayable obli- gation ; and it is in recognition of our indebtedness to them that these days have been set apart for the expression of our gratitude.
And here we return thanks to God for the real piety, the true religion of the founders of this church. It is at this point that we touch the secret of the best things which have characterized our life. It is always easy to glorify the past, but it is not because of time's golden haze that we thus see the fathers and mothers of our Zion. To be sure, there were those interested in planting this church, because they thought it would help real estate values on "The Hill." Not a few seem to have favored the project as a community im- provement or speculation. But to find whence the Asylum Hill Church really came, the true ex- planation of its origin, we must go deeper than
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community pride and real estate speculation. There was a goodly group of people who had in their hearts what the Scotch call "the root of the matter." In the sincere religion and vital piety of those hearts there was spiritual life, life which had to grow; and the church which came into being was the visible fruitage only of the deeper and secret life.
Is there not significance in the old record of the first meeting held in the interest of launching a new church enterprise in this locality? It reads: "Mr. A. G. Hammond was appointed Chairman; Rev. Mr. Bullard opened the meeting with prayer. Mr. Erastus Collins then stated the object of the meeting to be to consider the wants of this locality in regard to establishing a Congregational Church on the Hill." There is a difference between the needs of a locality and its wants. Churches are needed in hosts of places where they are not wanted, but a church was wanted here. It was wanted because there was spiritual life, longings for spiritual fellowship, longings for common wor- ship and service. Go back and read of that busy Sunday School, five years older than our church organization; go back and read of those cottage prayer meetings in the early days when people came because they wished to, not because they felt they had to; go back and read of Professor Stowe's Bible Class crowding the chapel to the doors-and you will have a new sense of gratitude to those men and women out of whose religious faith was born the church we love and serve.
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To their faith was added something more. How rich we are in the vision of those men who came together in meeting after meeting during 1864 and 1865, and took counsel concerning the planting of this church! Vision has been defined as "seeing things as they are and then seeing things as they ought to be." They had vision after this sort, and it was vision plus determination that the things which "ought to be" should be. How seldom do we find the founders of a church taking the long, long look ahead as did these men! In starting a new enterprise the motto so frequently seems to be "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Only immediate needs are considered, only present problems are contemplated; and, beginning life with ill-considered and inadequate equipment, the church is embarrassed and handicapped from the start. But our fathers in Israel looked to the future even more than to the present and planned on gen- erous lines. They were confident of the develop- ment of the city and builded largely. When they reared this church in its noble proportions, there were, of course, not lacking those who thought it a vain and foolish extravagance. They criticised its liberal dimensions. There would never be wor- shipers enough to fill it, and the preacher would be a "voice crying in the wilderness." They laughed as did Noah's neighbors, when they saw the plans and specifications of the ark; but this ship, like his, has proved itself admirably adapted for future contingencies. After these many years we are grateful for those men of vision, who looked
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beyond their own day and planned for their chil- dren and their children's children, even more than for themselves.
And here let us thank them for their love of the beautiful, for in erecting their church in its splen- did magnitude they did not forget to make it beautiful as well. It is rather remarkable that, just at that period when ecclesiastical architecture in America was guilty of its most exquisite atroci- ties, so fine a structure architecturally was here erected. In recent years new beauty has been added by a treatment of the interior of the church, which made it in truer keeping with its Gothic principles; and we look forward to the installa- tion of windows which shall still further increase its loveliness. But if our church is beautiful to- day, thanks are due, not to ourselves, but to those of the early days whose good taste and appreciation of what was worthy the worship of God made pos- sible the later beauty of this house of prayer.
I fain would speak of other phases of our spir- itual indebtedness, the high ideals of those who planned the beginnings of its work and gave direc- tion to its ministry in the early days, the fine spirit of Christian consideration notable through all the years, the courage, which they exemplified, in the face of all the discouragements (and they were many) when they gave themselves to their great task fifty years ago.
But perhaps I may gather it all up in one word, when I call you to remember our spiritual heri- tage in the sacrifice of the founders. They did [13 ]
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what they did here at a cost. They subscribed to that fundamental law of all spiritual achievement and progress, self-sacrifice. This church exists to-day and we worship here, because these men and women gave-gave their thought, their time, their service, their means, themselves. I do not know how busy they were, but they were not too busy to give to the church time and energy which some of us might think out of all proportion. I do not know how unselfish they were, but they seem to have counted their own ease and comfort of minor worth, where their church was concerned. I do not know how much money they had, but they gave of it lavishly, and though in later years this church has given not sparingly to its own work and to others' needs, it is no disparagement to say that in sacrifice the giving of the later years has not matched the giving at the first. They had their anxieties and their problems. It could not be otherwise in working out a scheme so liberally conceived. But in all that I have read or heard of those days of the beginnings, the outstanding thing is the real joy they had in what we call their sacrifice. "A work that requires no sacrifice does not count for much in fulfilling God's plans," wrote General Armstrong of Hampton, and he added, "But what is commonly called sacrifice is the best, happiest use of one's self and one's re- sources, the best investment of time, strength and means. He who makes no such sacrifice is most to be pitied. He is a heathen because he knows noth- ing of God."
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In overflowing measure spiritual privilege has been poured out upon this, our beloved church; but the toll is not complete until we speak of God's best gift to "The Asylum Hill Congregational Church." When God would greatly bless a people He finely furnishes some choice servant, endues him richly with His grace and sets him in the midst of them. In one case a Moses, in another a Samuel, now a Luther, again a Phillips Brooks. To this church He gave Mr. Twichell, pastor be- loved for all the fifty years. No one, least of all myself, has right to speak of the fifty precious years that you have been his people and he has been your pastor. Such privilege is uninterpretable by one outside.
"Now I saw in my dream that they went on, and Great-heart went before them." This is what he has been, a true Great-heart, chosen of God to lead you to the Celestial City. How much you have to thank him for! He helped you one by one through many a Slough of Despond, and his arm has been your strength over the rough places of the way. When you wandered at By-path Meadow, his voice called you back. In the Valley of Humiliation his courage supplied your need. How often at the Hill of Difficulty have you heard the cheery call, "Come, come, sit not down here; for a little above is the Prince's arbour!" Some of you might have lingered at Vanity Fair but for him; he persuaded you that it was better far to seek the Delectable Mountains and the Palace Beautiful. You sometimes lost faith in yourselves, [15]
but Great-heart was always confident that you would yet prove yourselves good soldiers of Jesus Christ. More than once he stormed the walls of Doubting Castle and rescued you from the clutches of Giant Despair. He loved your children, as did the Great-heart of whom Bunyan speaks. They never knew the time when he was not their best friend. He taught them early to seek the Celestial City, and it was his friendly strength and comrade- ship that kept them in the way. All over the land are the boys and girls of yesterday, the men and women of to-day, who are thankful for nothing so much as for the inestimable privilege of Mr. Twichell's friendship, which has been the abiding inspiration of their life.
The Pilgrim's Progress is never wholly easy, but how much you have been saved who have not been called to journey alone, but have had the encour- agement and cheer of Great-heart's company! Great-heart was well acquainted with Him who was King of the Place, and he made the road almost beautiful before your feet. Many whose names are precious to you have already crossed the River, but they went down to its waters without fear, because Great-heart was with them even unto the end. What a goodly company it will be in the fellowship of the Redeemed when all who have been helped by Great-heart are gathered into the City.
For fifty years, as men count their time, has this church fulfilled in this place its ministry of the worship of God and the service of men, fifty years
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of blessing and of spiritual privilege. If to-day we have been thinking of the men and women, and of the man, to whom we owe so much, it is that on the morrow we may commit ourselves the more completely to the God, their God, and ours, to whom we owe everything. And, looking forward to the future, we link ourselves to our children and our children's children by those words with which at the beginning we linked ourselves to our fathers and our fathers' fathers. "Lord, Thou has been," Thou wilt for ever be, "our dwelling-place in all generations."
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GREETINGS FROM THE CHURCHES
REV. ROCKWELL HARMON POTTER, D.D.
From the First Church of Christ in Hartford I bring greetings of heartfelt congratulation and of earnest good will to the Asylum Hill Congrega- tional Church on this, the occasion of its Fiftieth Anniversary. The mother, full of years, bids me bear her blessing to the youngest of her daughters, to tell you that her love for you has not abated, that her care for you has become a joy in fellow- ship, that her hope for you, justified by the years, grows brighter as she bids you go forward into the future, where larger and greater hopes await you for their fulfillment.
Not without the pain of travail did the mother send you forth. When yesterday I turned to the old register of the First Church to find on every page the record, under date of March, 1865, of strong men and gracious women dismissed to be- come charter members of the Asylum Hill Church, I felt again the pang that must have been in the heart of dear old Dr. Hawes, as at the close of his ministry he saw this company, gathered by his virile preaching, nourished and strengthened by his rugged faith, leave the flock that was his joy and his care, and go apart to undertake this new enterprise. As in the earlier years of his min- istry, in 1824, he saw a goodly company remove to establish the old North Church, and in 1832 another company withdraw to establish the Fourth [19]
Church, as in the midst of his most fruitful years he saw a still stronger company separate to estab- lish the Pearl Street Church, so fifty years ago, just as he was laying down the burden he had borne so long, he saw these men and women leave his congregation and the immediate fellowship of the church that he served, to undertake this new and most promising and hopeful task. It was not easy for the First Church to send away any one of these companies drawn from her membership. It has not been easy through all these fifty years to con- tinue to send men and women to these churches, originally drawn so largely from her own body, to have part in the extended and varying ministry of these churches, her daughters, which have be- come by the passing of the years her sisters in the service of the Kingdom. But the First Church believed then, and the First Church knows now, that this outplanting of her life has been for the upbuilding of the Church of Christ in the old town and the new city, has been for the strengthening of the Kingdom of God in ministries to all human need, and whatever of regret there has been in her heart in the past is abundantly compensated by the joy that is now hers in your strong and vigorous present and in that large and rich future which you and she together face for the service of Christ's Kingdom here and everywhere.
Many personal ties have bound these churches through these years. Little children born in our homes and baptized at our font have been taught by you the things of the Kingdom, and trained by
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you in the ministries of the Gospel. Aged folk grown feeble with the years have found their weakness met at your hospitable threshold, and have linked our prayers with yours in their holy devotions. Young men and maidens from your fellowship and from ours have labored together in manifold ministries of Christian service, have passed from one fellowship to the other without the sense of strangeness at either door. Strong men and women from your life and from ours have laid their hands to every good work within the circle of the city, and have found by their fellowship in common tasks a realization of their fellowship in a common devotion. Above all, your beloved minister and teacher has been the beloved son and brother and father in the Gospel of the ministers who successively during fifty years have served us in the things of the Kingdom. To him when he came to serve you fifty years ago came Joel Hawes, the virile and the rugged, the blunt and the hearty, to give his blessing. And to our minister when he came not long since, all untrained and ill-pre- pared for his great task, came your beloved teacher and leader to give his blessing, to offer his counsel, to pledge his friendship and his loyalty in vows that have been abundantly fulfilled, and in a min- istry for which thanks has daily been given to God. So has he bound together our past and our present for us, and we trace the apostolic succession of our ministry gratefully and gladly to-day through the clasp of his brotherly hand and the benediction of his gracious presence.
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It is my joy to speak for the churches of our order in the city. I bring the blessings and the good will of the Second Church of Christ with those of the First, and of all their daughters and children in the faith. You have never failed us in undertaking the tasks which the history of the past has laid upon us. You have never failed us in loyal co-operation in every good work for the extension of the Kingdom of our Master. This sisterhood, from the youngest to the oldest, now disposed and furnished for the common task as they have not been for a hundred years, greets you eagerly, grate- fully, gladly, prays for you hopefully and trusts in you confidently for the service you are to give in the new day unto which we have come.
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