USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > Centennial memorial of the First Baptist Church of Hartford, Connecticut, March 23d and 24th, l890 > Part 3
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How events have moved on since then! Our second war with Great Britain, our Mexican war, our colossal struggle with the rebellion ! The invention of the steamboat, the railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, the cotton-gin, the sewing-machine, gas-light, electric light, coal-oil-light, steam printing-presses, photogra- phy, electro-plating, wonderful modes of bridge-build- ing, scientific agriculture, ploughs, stores, new processes in iron and steel, new and wonderful machinery in every department of work! The list is as remarkable for what it omits as for what it suggests. Then too the opening of the Great West to the Pacific, the discovery of gold in California, the vast rush of immigration from foreign shores, till four millions of people have become over sixty millions, and thirteen states have become forty-two. Certainly if the founders of this church could mingle with us to-day, we should find it hard to under- stand their quaint, odd manner and strange old-fashioned ideas. And they would find it equally difficult to be- lieve that this was the city in which they once lived, that we were their modern representatives, and that but a hundred years had elapsed since they founded this church.
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REV. A. J. SAGE, D. D.
If there is reason to regard the secular history thus limited as possessing a peculiar interest, to an appre- ciative mind the religious history of the same period is not less interesting. Our church was founded at the very beginning of a century of revivals, and out of those revivals have grown the great missionary and other evangelical movements of the nineteenth century. These movements have been attended with important changes in doctrinal teaching, in modes of religious experience and church life.
The great religious event of the eighteenth century was what has been known as the Edwards revival. It began about 1740 and continued with varying degrees of intensity for a number of years, finally disappearing about 1750. Its most conspicuous promoters were Jon- athan Edwards, the Tennents, the Wesleys and White- field. Methodism took its rise about the same time in England, being formally established in 1739.
This revival has a large place in the history of the times. It was made the subject of a special memoir by Jonathan Edwards, and was the occasion of much else that he wrote, such as his work on the Religious Affec- tions. It had also, in my estimation, an important relation to the political history of the century ; for as it extended over all the land and was the occasion of pro- foundest feeling and of interchange and communion of sentiment between different parts of the country. I
cannot avoid the belief that it prepared the way for that unity of feeling and purpose which kept the colonies together during the Revolution. The Edwards revival laid the foundation for inter-colonial patriotism, and
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founded that sentiment which so recently fought to a successful issue the war for the Union.
But when we come to make a numerical estimate of results, we are astonished to find that as the product of this much blazoned movement, there were added to the churches only about forty thousand persons.
We see also another remarkable fact. This celebrated religious movement disappeared in an outburst of fanat- icism and was followed by a long period of indifference. In Connecticut, especially in the eastern portion, sprang up a certain frenzy of extravagance under the leader- ship of the Rev. Mr. Davenport, and the conclusion of the great movement was a pain to its warmest friends and promoters. Then for forty years there was a dearth of revival influence. Religious zeal seemed to have ex- hausted itself and suffered a reaction.
The beginning of the great revival period which fol- lowed this reaction has generally been placed in 1792. But Dr. Fish in his work on Revivals dates it from the outbreak of revivals in 1790 in two Baptists churches of Boston. Certainly it is a happy thing for us to asso- ciate the beginning of our church history with the com- mencement of a period which in some respects is the most remarkable in Christian history since the early cen- turies of our era. Taking these Boston revivals as our initial date, two years later, in 1792, we find a revival springing up in Haddam, Conn., under the ministry of him who was afterwards so widely known as Dr. Edward D. Griffin. The great work in Haddam, Conn., was followed by another equally remarkable under the preaching of Dr. Griffin as pastor in New Hartford,
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Conn. He afterwards became pastor at the celebrated Park Street church in Boston, where the power of his work was continued. About the beginning of this cen- tury a powerful revival influence was felt in Kentucky and neighboring states, marked by extraordinary physical phenomena, called variously the " jerks," "the power," etc. During this period, continuing for years, tens of thousands were added to the churches.
For decades afterward revivals were experienced in different parts of the land, as, for example, in Farming- ton, Conn., where there was a continuous state of revival for a year, during which about a hundred were added to the church through conversion. In his lectures on Re- vivals Dr. Finney, that most extraordinary man of God and evangelist, whose auto-biography every mature Christian should read, speaking from a date about 1836, remarks that in the continuous revival of the previous ten years a hundred thousand persons had been con- verted and brought into the Presbyterian churches. Compare these figures with the forty thousand of the Edwards revival.
The next great awakening of revival interest is wit- nessed in 1857 and 1858. A period of disasters in busi- ness and great financial depression was attended with a general turning of the hearts of the people to the Lord. The outward form of this revival was determined by a movement among a few gentlemen in New York city, who met at noon each day for prayer. In a short time this noon-day prayer-meeting became known throughout the city, and afterward throughout the land. It is still continued, and has been known for a third of a century
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as the Fulton Street prayer-meeting. It set the pattern for religious services throughout the country. Noon-day prayer-meetings were organized in the cities and villages all over the land. The talents of laymen were called into requisition. Conversions occurred in great num- bers. They were not attended with the remarkable phases of personal experience which had been so con- spicuous in former revivals. Men and women accepted Christ as Master and Savior with less difficulty and painfulness. During a single year 500,000 souls were converted to God.
This was the last great national awakening. But glancing over the period of which we have spoken we may well call it a century of revivals. It has been at- tended with almost a continuous sweep of evangelistic power. There has been no protracted period of religious apathy such as followed the Edwards revival. The Holy Spirit seems to have had fuller sway and to have made easier and more telling conquests. As contrasted with the eighteenth century the work of the past hundred years has been characterized by larger results in point of numbers, by a more constant and persistent influence, by a steady decline in the egotism of personal experi- ence, by a less violent and convulsive entrance into the
kingdom of Christ. These changes have been due largely to a wider diffusion of intelligence in religious matters, to wiser and more rational methods in evan- gelistic work to a less scholastic and more practical style of preaching, to a gradual change of the center of atten- tion from the sovereignty of God to the person and work of Christ, from the inner experience of the individual
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to the crucified Christ as the completed sacrifice freely offered for the cleansing of sin.
But thus far I have told but half the story. This re- vival period had continued but a few years when it be- gan to show its effects in the formation of every kind of society for the promotion of religion ; first of all, foreign missionary societies, then home missionary societies, tract societies, Bible societies, Sunday-school associa- tions. This century of revivals has been a century of missionary fervors, with grand enthusiasm, self-devo- tions, sacrifices, prayers, gifts, and with magnificent re- sults in two millions of converted heathen now living and a world dotted over with mission stations which are destined to produce mighty effects in the coming years.
Now I wish to say that the Baptist cause is what it is to-day in Hartford, a power and an honor, because this church and the other churches of the city which have sprung from it have been in active sympathy with this revival spirit. During the first forty years, as I have been led to believe from the study of its history, it was a revival church. During the last sixty years we can trace its history more definitely. Dr. Davis was a preacher of superior evangelistic power. The Rev. J. S. Eaton was an earnest and vital preacher, and his pastorship was attended with frequent revivals. Dr. Turnbull was a prince among revival preachers. When I entered on the pastorship of the church it was enjoy- ing revival influences. This last winter a number of con- verts have been added to the membership. The interval between these two dates has been marked by a number of glad and valuable revival occasions. We are here
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to-day to give thanks to Almighty God for the manifes- tation of his power and grace toward his people during these hundred years in the frequent outpouring of his Spirit. Our souls thrill within us as we remember how God has moved the hearts of his people and melted sin- ners into penitence and submission, and filled his church with hosannas year by year. May the same spirit abide and the same blessing be granted so long as the name Baptist shall continue in the city !
It will not be enough, however, on such an occasion as this, merely to have sketched an outline of the history of the century. We can not satisfy ourselves without asking, what has been the meaning of this history? What is its significance for us as a church? For what have this and the other Baptist churches of this city ex- isted?
A very meagre, not to say petty, answer would be that which would come to the lips of multitudes who have given but little attention to our principles, that we have existed to give prominence and emphasis to a mode of baptism. This is merely an incident, and by no means the most important, of our faith and practice. It has been our part to emphasize principles which are funda- mental and vital in the church of Christ.
First among these let me suggest an open Bible. We believe that the world is to be saved by the word of the Lord. Therefore, to believe that word, to practice it and to teach it constitute our highest duty. To regu- late our lives by it, to control and inform our spirit by it, to organize our churches according to it, to observe ordinances as established by it, to teach doctrine as an-
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nounced in it, these are solemn obligations which we can- not disregard without guilt before God.
Hence, to have this word in its purity, to read and study it without restraint, to accept it and teach it with- out restraint, to accept it and teach it without mixture of human philosophy or modification by practice or tra- dition of men, this we regard as our duty, privilege and delight. We do not appeal to usage or commentary or opinion of men except that we may be guided to a better understanding of the word of God. Not what men have said or done, though they be called the church, but what God has said is our sole criterion. Hence we desire that the word of God shall interpret itself. Let Scripture be compared with Scripture. Let the word throw light upon the word. Let the highest scholarship, the widest knowl- edge, the most acute insight be employed to aid in the interpretation. But let us expect that the great princi- ples, the fundamental teachings, the essential ideas of faith and practice shall be discoverable to the untutored mind, guided only by that instinct which the Spirit of God gives to the humblest believer who is endowed with native intelligence.
Another principle which our history has illustrated is that of the supremacy of conscience in association with liberty. Dr. Shaw, of Rochester, N. Y., who for nearly fifty years was the honored pastor of one of the largest Presbyterian churches in America, once said to me, "I have a high respect for a consistent Baptist. It is all conscience with him from first to last." That is to say, not that it is to be assumed that a Baptist is, by virtue of his denominational affinities, more conscientious than a
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SERMON OF THE
member of another church, nor that Baptist principles are grounded upon taste or precedent or tradition or convenience or judgment of men, but on strict reference to conscience and duty. An incident which occurred between two of the most prominent men in our denomi- nation may illustrate this. Said one to the other, " Aren't you glad that you are in the Baptist denomination?" "Why?" "Because you are with so many who are there because they have to be." The answer is full of significance. Baptist churches have many members who are such by accident of birth or association, but it has also multitudes of noble, sturdy souls who stay where they are from sheer loyalty to the voice of God as it comes to them, when social affinities, intellectual tastes and natural inclinations would lead them elsewhere. Woe be to a church which is filled with people who have sought it for its social advantages, its intellectual privi- leges, its elegancies of taste ! Our Lord and his disciples were plain people, they moved among plain people, and their test of action was not what is agreeable but what is right.
Another incident will illustrate what I have to say about liberty. A gentleman who occupies one of the most prominet pulpits in our denomination had expressed himself somewhat freely as to some of our denominational ideas and practices, in the presence of many members of other denominations. For this he had been sharply cen- sured by one of our papers. It was feared by many that he would leave the denomination. "But," he said to me, " I considered the subject carefully, and said to my- self, the Baptist church is ideally the most liberal church
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'on earth, and I shall stay in it." "Ideally the most liberal." The expression seems to me peculiarly felici- tous and emphatically true. "Ideally." In practice we are not always true to our principles. I sometimes think that we do not yet understand our own principles. But a man cannot be a thorough Baptist, in spirit and not merely in the letter, without having a free and liberal soul. Nobler men, broader men, grander men than such as I have met and intimately known within our Baptist limits I am certain I shall never meet on earth. They are not to be found. If God has made them he has not shown them to me. They stand in sharpest contrast with the snarling, petulant, clamorous, uneasy adver- tisers of their own liberality with whom Providence has seen fit to afflict some churches beyond our limits. The noblest man on earth is he who is strictly loyal to duty, while yet possessing a large and genial spirit toward all members of God's church universal.
The Baptist denomination has made a noble fight in this country for liberty of conscience, and has seen at last its principles adopted into every political constitution in the land. For nearly thirty years after the founding of this church they waited and struggled in this state, until the new constitution gave them all that they sought. In the love of liberty this church has shared, and in the practice of a truly Christian liberality it has been behind no other in the denomination.
Another principle for which we have stood, is the im- perative necessity of conscious regeneration to the Christ- ian life and to church membership. We do not urge that the soul must be conscious of regeneration in the
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act, while it is taking place, for undoubtedly many have met with a change of heart without knowing it. But we do insist that every one who wears the name of Christian ought to have credible evidence that he is in a regenerate condition. We reject the idea that any one is entitled to the name of Christian merely because he is a church member, however faithful, or that he can properly be a church member unless by vital experience he is a Christian. Against that pernicious error, more fatal to genuine Christianity than any other, that it is enough for a man to unite with a church of Christ, partake of its ordinances, accept its discipline, attend to its instructions, participate in its services, preserve the demeanor and reputation of a moral man, that thereby he satisfies the claims of his Creator, and is in the way to heaven, against this deadly error so widely accepted and incul- cated, we protest with all our might. The nature which is ours by birth is not fit for heaven. By power from on high it must be born again. By the heavenly gift it must become a child of God. And that new birth, that heavenly gift, is not inspired by man; it cannot be be- stowed by any church. It is the product of a direct re- lation of the soul to its God. It is the fruit of God's work in Christ through the blood of redemption, person- ally apprehended and appropriated. To hold this doc- trine forth, to emblazon it on the banners of the church, and unfurl it before the world, has been the aim and effort of Baptist churches. This truth speaks in our mode of baptism, the cleansing of the soul from sin in the bath of regeneration, the rising of the soul to a new life by the power of Christ's resurrection, in the likeness
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of his rising to the new life, the heavenly and glorified condition. This doctrine of the new birth is the vital point, the test of genuine Christianity, for it is the practical outcome of the great method of redemption through Christ, without which the cross is of none effect.
To state all in one, we stand for the spirituality of the church of Christ. The essential idea of the church is that of a spiritual body. The church of Christ is that great multitude of true believers, the wide world over, of whatever name or of no name, the mighty host which no man can number, for no man knows who they are, they who shall come from the East and the West, the North and the South, of every kindred and tongue and people and nation under the sun, to sit down together in the kingdom of heaven. These are they of whom Charles Wesley wrote :-
"One army of the living God, One church above, below ; Part of the host have crossed the flood, And part are crossing now."
We believe in the church invisible. I heard Mr. Spurgeon say from his own pulpit last summer that there is no visible church. Every visible body calling itself the church is so intermixed of evil and good, church and world, that it is only by accommodation that it can be called the church. This is an extreme statement of a great and vital truth. The Baptist denomination has sought to make the visible body as nearly conformable to the spiritual ideal as possible. For this, with varying success, this church has contended. What it has accom- plished may be dimly seen on earth; it will be seen in its
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fulness hereafter in heaven. For this universal, spirit- ual church, as well as for the local church, our hearts sing :-
" For her my tears shall fall, For her my prayers ascend ; To her my cares and toils be given, Till toils and cares shall end."
Looking back over the century, so much of it as we can bring within our vision, we feel that we have not existed in vain. We have striven for an open Bible, for con- science and liberty, for a gospel that regenerates the soul of man, and for a spiritual church. Much better it might have been done. That it has been done with so great a degree of success we have reason to be devoutly thankful to God. Let us profit by a sense of the imper- fections of our work, let us consecrate ourselves anew to God, who is a spirit, and let us pray that the second cen- tury of our existence may make the Baptist churches of Hartford, more than ever before, a power for good and a glory to God.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON.
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ADDRESS
OF THE
REV. GEO. M. STONE, D. D.,
Pastor of the Asylum Avenue Baptist Church, Hartford.
CHILD-LIFE.
I suppose we are all, to-day especially, trying to meas- ure how long a time a hundred years is. I have no doubt that some of these children are wrestling with that sim- ple, though very difficult problem. Now, I want to tell you something about fifty years, which will help us to measure more adequately to our own minds the lapse of a century, or one hundred years.
I went out of an old home in Ohio a few years ago, following an old man to his last resting-place, and what was very interesting about this man was that he had lived for fifty years in the same house from which he was carried forth. Now, on the farm where my father lived, there was not a horse or an animal of any kind in existence at the time of his death that was there when he came there. There was not a wagon, there was not a plow, nor scarcely a farming utensil, that was there at the time he began his career. Man outlives the ani- mals, and outwears iron and wood. All these things have gone, while his life swept on. And so to-day, how
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much has vanished, gone forever from the earth, that was here one hundred years ago. And then, by the mighty law of spiritual compensation, how much remains that was here one hundred years ago! The material vanishes, the spiritual has the stamp of eternal perma- nency! That is the first great lesson, it seems to me, the Sunday-school teacher and Sunday-school scholar would need to learn here this afternoon. Mat- ter is below spirit. Spirit is over matter. You cannot bury it. You cannot eliminate it. You cannot extinguish it. It abides.
I want to say a few words ; they shall be few. For elo- quent and interesting gentlemen whom you desire to hear, are coming after me. And I am but to open the door to this banquet this afternoon. I want to tell very briefly about some changes in the idea of child-life which have occurred during the past century.
In the first place, men have made the lives of child- hood a study, a loving, patient, persevering, penetrating study, as never before in the history of the world. If I had time I would like to tell you a great deal about Fræbel the German, born about a century ago. Every child ought to know that name. Every child ought to embalm the name of that noble German, who has done more, perhaps, for child-life in the past century than any other single man. And by Fræbel's side, as I speak of children, there also comes to me, with a thrill in my heart, the name of Charles Dickens. All honor to that man, who never forgot the feelings of a boy. Four of his conspicuous works were written in the interest of boys. I refer to "Dombey & Son," " Nicho-
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las Nickleby," "Oliver Twist, " and "David Copper- field. " You know that wonderful book, "Nicholas Nickleby," was written because Dickens once saw a boy who had come down from Yorkshire bearing the marks of the brutality of a Yorkshire schoolmaster. And that wonderful plea for boys, "Nicholas Nickleby," was written in consequence. I think no boy or girl could be sullied for a moment in reading it. But it was Fræbel, who went into the arcanum of child-life, with the penetrating insight of German scholarship. He opened the sealed doors of child-life. For he was the author of the "Kindergarten." The word you know, means "the garden of children." And he built on the slopes of many a hill in Germany, and in many a valley in America, a "garden for children." The gen- erations of children to come will rise up and call this great man blessed ! Now, what did Fræbel do for chil-
dren? What did he do for child-life? He said, you must study the child, if you would teach it. He studied, day by day, and year by year, the play of a child in its mother's arms ; studied it, as I have said, with the pene- trating insight of German scholarship. Then he studied the tendencies of childhood, and developed another great principle, the rights of children. I wish all public schools could come to recognize these rights.
One of Frœbel's principles was that the child should be recognized according to his individuality. You put several boys or girls in a class. They have different apti- tudes, they have different mental capacities. The teacher comes along, if she is not a wise teacher, and re- proves Alice or Mary because she does not study or suc-
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