USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > Hartford's First Church > Part 9
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Meantime the interest of the women of the Church in foreign missions was developed through their participa- tion, in rather limited numbers, in the activities of the Hart- ford Branch of the Woman's Board of Missions. The meetings of this organization were held regularly in the parlors of the First Church, and were under the gracious and inspiring leadership of Mrs. Charles A. Jewell, a member of the Church and long time the president of the Hartford Branch.
In 1898 these women formed the Women's Foreign Missionary Society as an auxiliary to the Hartford Branch of the Woman's Board of Missions. In the following year a society of younger women known as the "Foreign Mission- ary Club" was organized to carry on more intensive study of the foreign mission field and enterprise, also in relation to the Hartford Branch. These two organizations of the women in the interest of foreign missions, which were united in 1915, continued their study and activity through the years that led up to the formation of "Center Church Women" in 1919. Its department of foreign missions gath- ered up and continued the interest and work which had been served by these earlier organizations.
In 1883 a group of the younger women of the Church under the leadership of Mrs. George Leon Walker were gathered at her home in the parsonage of the Church on Prospect Street and organized as a "Parsonage Circle" to develop their interest in the home missionary enterprise and enlist their service for its prosecution. In 1891 this Parsonage Circle formed itself as the Junior Auxiliary of the First Church to the Women's Home Missionary Union of Connecticut. Again in 1901 this Society chose the name
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"The Young Women's Home Missionary Club." In 1912 it took the name of Mrs. Walker who had been the inspira- tion of its beginnings and became the "Amelia Walker Aux- iliary" of the Home Missionary Union of Connecticut. Meantime the work of the women in the original Sewing Society, which had become the Home Missionary Society of the Church, continued with markedly increasing scope and interest, developing a regular program of study of home missionary projects and an increasingly large volume of gifts both of materials and funds for this work.
Groups of boys and girls were gathered in circles from time to time to promote the interest of the children and youth in the outreach of Christian purpose in both the home and foreign mission fields. As early as 1877 a group of girls from the congregation and Sunday School was organ- ized as a "Girls' Mission Circle" to undertake appropriate study of the foreign missionary field and to engage in the carrying out of simple tasks of missionary service such as in later times came to be called projects. This Circle extended its interest to include groups of boys as well as girls and took the name "The Boys' and Girls' Mission Circle." Its work was naturally supplementary to that of the Sunday School and furnished an appropriate means of releasing the interest developed by the direct study of the Christian Gos- pel and way of life in the school's regular program of reli- gious education. Under the influence of this Circle the hori- zon of the Christian interests of the future members of the Church was very considerably extended. The work of the Circle continued with a good degree of activity until 1911 when the Sunday School itself took over the work by the organization of nineteen of its classes in the senior and intermediate departments as study clubs for carrying on
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the missionary interest and undertaking appropriate mis- sionary projects.
In 1909 a Council of the Women of the Church was formed including representatives of various women's or- ganizations for the purpose of correlating their activities and promoting their common efficiency. During the World War under the guidance of this Council war work in the preparation of surgical supplies and other materials for the relief and help of the men in camp and on the field was carried on at Center Church House in cooperation with many forms of community activity through which the hu- manitarian interests of the women of the city found expres- sion and had share in bearing the burden of the great struggle. Many women of the Church were efficiently active in these community enterprises while others found their opportunity in the group that served at the Church House.
In 1919, as a result of the cooperative planning of the Council of the Women, which had proved its value through a period of ten years and of the cooperative service of the women during the years of the war there was projected and planned a united organization of the women of the Church under the name "Center Church Women." In some measure this organization followed the lines that had been developed by "Center Church Guild." The Guild was organ- ized in 1914 to provide an opportunity for fellowship and service for women whose duties were such that they could not share in the activities of organizations which held their meetings during the afternoons. The Guild has rendered a valuable service through its interest in the field of mis- sions both home and foreign and in that of community welfare, as well as in the development of mutual acquaint-
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ance among its members and earnest Christian friendship within its group.
In its organization in 1919 Center Church Women de- veloped its work by departments: a department of home missions and a department of foreign missions continuing work that had been done by the organizations that had been developed for these purposes; a department of community service and of church work for the inclusion in a recognized way of activities that had hitherto been undertaken by committees occasionally appointed by the Women's Home Missionary Society. From the time of its organization Cen- ter Church Women has abundantly justified the hopes of those who had share in the making of its plans. It has con- served and developed the interest of the women of the Church in all of its departments of activity. Its weekly meetings from October to May through each year have been devoted in turn to these departments. Effective pro- grams have presented the needs of the community, the state, the nation and the world. By reports and discussions the interest of the women in the activity of the Church itself has been developed, especially in the matter of extending its hospitality, the cultivation of friendship among the people of its homes and in making both the Meeting House and the Church House attractive centers of Christian community life.
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CHAPTER X The Church in the Denomination
IN the years immediately following the Revolution there was, it may well be believed, a decline in the spiritual fervor and ecclesiastical activity of the churches throughout New England and indeed throughout the country. They had passed through two long-continued and highly emotional periods-the period of the Great Awakening and the period of the war for the establishment of the new nation. Under the influence of Jonathan Edwards and the men who were associated with him in the chief centers of population in New England, the years from 1750 to 1770 or thereabouts were characterized by the active expression of a deep and tense religious spirit. Revivals were expected with great earnestness, were welcomed with enthusiasm when they came and were participated in with an excitement of spirit which is difficult for us of a later day to appreciate or understand. The preaching of the period was intensely theo- logical and dwelt upon such doctrines as the sovereignty of God, the Trinity, the atonement, original sin, irresistible grace and the last judgment. Under such preaching the churches, as we might expect, had periods of marked growth alternated with times of less activity and through all those years religion was the main concern of the people of all New England communities.
Hartford's First Church
The coming of the Revolution, with the events that immediately preceded it, marked the second period of which we have spoken, namely from 1770 to about 1795, as a period of intense emotional activity on the part of the people, directed chiefly to political rather than to religious and ecclesiastical matters. We may well believe that in Hart- ford and its two ancient churches there was vigorous dis- cussion and intense feeling, perhaps not altogether on one side of the question, in the years that led up to Lexington and Concord and the Declaration of Independence. We may be sure also that there was intense expression of feeling, and this virtually unanimous, in the years of the war, 1776- 1783, and that there was again discussion and debate, and perhaps marked division of opinion, in the years that fol- lowed the close of the war and led through to the establish- ment of the Union under the Constitution of 1787.
This marked absorption in the speculative and emo- tional sides of the religious life and in the prolonged political and military struggle and development claimed the in- terests of the people and lowered the level of church life and its influence upon character and conduct. It is probable that the last years of the eighteenth century and first years of the nineteenth registered the ebb tide in religion so far as popular participation in it went and so far as the actual de- velopment of Christian communities as churches was con- cerned.
Now once again the time of man's extremity was the time of God's opportunity. It was during this very period that the minds of some of the most devoted Christian leaders of the state were stirred to take action which led to remarkably far-reaching results in the work of organ- ized Christianity in the life of our country and indeed of the world. In 1797 the Hartford North Association, at a meeting held in Farmington, voted to form a missionary
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society. Dr. Strong, Minister of this Church, was a member of this association and was present at this significant meet- ing. In the following year, the General Association of Ministers of the state voted to form a missionary society reflecting the evangelical and missionary interest which in the previous year had been expressed in the Hartford As- sociation and doubtless in other associations throughout the state. The missionary society of the Hartford North Association at once voted to merge with the society for the state. They had already declared in their act of the year before, "We hold ourselves ready to coalesce with a more general society for missions whenever any shall be formed in this state."
The Missionary Society of Connecticut, born out of the longing of a few devoted souls in the last years of the eighteenth century, was the forerunner of great things in the extension of the Kingdom of God. The Society itself has continued to the present time acting for the Congre- gational Churches of the state and rendering an unparalleled service in the length of its ministry and in wise, devoted and constructive policies of efficient Christian work through- out all its long story. In the next decade this effort for home missions, which was to find fruitage in a great host of home missionary enterprises, was paralleled by the found- ing of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. For certain moving spirits in the incorporation of the American Board were men of Con- necticut, notably Gov. Treadwell, Timothy Dwight, Jedi- diah Huntington, and the Rev. Calvin Chapin, and the first meeting of the Board in September 1810 was held at Farmington, where doubtless Dr. Nathan Strong had op- portunity to ally himself with this new venture as he had already committed himself to the home missionary enter- prise twelve years before. Moreover, of the men who were
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led into the missionary service first, the famous group of the Williamstown "Haystack Meeting" and Andover Sem- inary, Samuel J. Mills was the leader and in many ways the inspiration. It was without doubt that dauntless spirit of Mills which promoted the beginning of the American Board, and Mills was a Connecticut man.
From these beginnings of new interest in Christian enterprise on the part of the churches of New England and especially of Connecticut, came the growth of other or- ganizations such as the Connecticut Bible Society, the American form of the Sunday School movement and many other evangelical and humanitarian agencies which stirred the life of the churches during the first decades of the nineteenth century. Now in all these enterprises this Church had its eagerly interested share. Dr. Hawes succeeded to Dr. Strong in an active interest in the Missionary Society of Connecticut, and later in the American Home Missionary Society which was the original name of what we now know as the Congregational Home Missionary Society. He suc- ceeded also to Dr. Strong's interest in the work of the American Board, and indeed developed that interest to a remarkable degree, so that in later life he was happy to give a daughter to the service of the American Board in the Near East. He himself made a trip to the missions in the Near East after he had served for twenty-five years as Minister to this church. Loyal supporters of the Board's work were found during all those years among the lay members of the Church.
This early interest in Christian missionary service under its modern forms was but the continuance of the Church's attitude from the beginning of keen interest in the life of the world and of eager outreach toward other churches in seeking to develop the Kingdom of God. More than most
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churches, has this Church given itself to these larger reaches of fellowship.
In later years at the time of the great Andover con- troversy within the American Board, Dr. George Leon Walker, at an historic meeting in Springfield, made the significant speech which composed the heated differences of the moment and which led, if not immediately yet surely, to a unity of spirit which transcended those differences and lost them in a new zeal for Christian service. Later, upon the retirement of Dr. Richard Salter Storrs from the presidency of the Board, Dr. Charles M. Lamson was called upon to take this responsible office. Still later, in 1925, again the Minister of this Church was called upon to serve as President of the American Board and at the com- pletion of twenty-five years of service as Minister visited some of the missions of the Board, as his predecessor, Dr. Hawes, had done so many years before.
The connection of the Church with the home missionary enterprise has been not less marked and at least one of the ministers of the Church has served as President of the Congregational Home Missionary Society.
Among the laity of the Church somewhat less conspicu- ous but equally valuable service to these great causes has been given by a host of men and women notable for ability and devotion and for efficiency in organized Christian ser- vice. The gifts of the Church for these and other denomina- tional benevolences have been notably large when com- pared with the giving of other similarly situated churches. Such gifts have not been large, probably, when compared with the ideal volume of contributions from a church of the potential giving strength of this congregation, but signifi- cant indeed when compared with contributions for similar purposes from other churches of equal strength and size.
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The Church has always been well represented upon the board of the missionary society of the city of Hartford and in the Hartford Association of Churches. In the per- sons of at least a few of its interested members it has followed the development of denominational organization. It has been interested in the work of the commissions of the National Council and of the committees of the State Conference and has always sought to make a fair and rea- sonable response to requests for service of that sort. Dur- ing the period 1923-25 the Minister of the Church was asked to serve as Moderator of the National Council of Congregational Churches and was grateful to the Church during these two years for the generous interest it showed in the work to which he was called to devote something of his time and strength and for the liberty which was granted him to undertake this form of service.
The Church was active at the founding of the Federa- tion of Churches in Hartford. Its representatives have always had place upon the Council of the Federation and some very considerable part in the activities that have marked the development of inter-church life. The same thing could be said with respect to the organization of the Connecticut Federation of Churches, and while the Church was not engaged in the person of any individual in the organization of the Federal Council of Churches, it was represented at those organization meetings by its Min- ister and early and eagerly contributed to the expenses of that work in token of its interest in the organized expres- sion of unity of spirit among the free churches of our country. In all these tasks the Church has sought to be loyal to its name. It is not corporately a Congregational Church by name. It is as it was in the beginning, The First Church of Christ in Hartford. It has been glad to walk in
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the Congregational way and has found that way a good way, leading through pleasant paths and into needy fields ready for the seed of the sower or for the hands of the reaper. But the Church is devoted above all things to Him whose name it bears and to the wider ranges of His Kingdom which shall be inclusive of all lesser loyalties. It is content to walk in the Congregational way with all loyalty to that way, but it believes in, prays for and confidently expects ever to express in word, in life and in service, its loyalty to the purposes of God, with full recognition that many communions worship Him in sincerity and truth and will share in the final consummation of His kingdom.
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CHAPTER XI The Church and its Growing Faith
IT is doubtless hardly safe to undertake to appraise the faith of another generation in comparison with our own. It is so easy to impute to another generation ideas with which we find ourselves out of sympathy and then to dress those ideas in outlandish garments and hold them up for the scorn of our own time. This has been a favorite method of theological controversy and we are concerned here not with theological controversy but with some adequate con- ception of the changes that have taken place in the devel- opment of Christian thought throughout immediately pre- ceding generations.
Now it is interesting to know that for nearly two hun- dred years of its history this Church lived without any definitely accepted or even recognized creed. Indeed Joel Hawes, when he came to the Church in 1818, deplored the fact that the Church not only had no creed, but that the covenant that it was using as a confession of faith for those entering into its fellowship seemed to him to be "Arminian" in its character. It contained the following statement, after asking for a belief in God as manifest in three persons and an acceptance of the scriptures as the word of God and the promise to make them the rule of life and conduct: "You
The Church and its Growing Faith
own yourself to be by nature a child of wrath and declare that your only hope of mercy is through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, whom you now publicly profess to take for your Lord and Savior, your prophet, priest, and king, and you now give up yourself to Him to be ruled, governed and eternally saved. You promise by divine grace regularly to attend all the ordinances of the gospel as God may give you light and opportunity and to submit to the rule and government of Christ in this Church." This cove- nant had at some time during nearly two hundred years presumably taken the place of the somewhat longer cove- nant which was probably the one framed by the founders of the Church, with the help of the first Minister and its first Teacher, and used, it is quite certain, during the first thirty years of the life of the Church in Hartford. We shall return to the consideration of this covenant later.
Dr. Hawes had come from Andover to Hartford and at this time the beginnings of the Unitarian division had made a deep mark upon the church life of eastern Massa- chusetts. He felt that the declaration quoted above was quite inadequate for the Church which he pro- posed to serve and for those he might hope to wel- come into the fellowship. Dr. Hawes therefore persuaded the Church to adopt a series of articles of faith. These articles of faith declare a belief in the Trinity; they posit the scriptures as the infallible rule of doctrine and duty; they affirm the divine providence, original sin, the deprav- ity of man; they declare the incarnation and atonement without specifying their method; they affirm the inability of man to accept salvation and the dependence of man upon the mercy of God for his salvation. An interesting article is the ninth because of its strong ethical note : "We believe that a conscientious discharge of the various duties
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which we owe to God, to our fellowmen, and to ourselves, is not only constantly binding on every Christian, but affords to himself and to the world the only decisive evidence of his interest in the Redeemer." The articles further affirm the independent theory of church government and also in- clude a conviction as to a future judgment with its issue in everlasting punishment or life eternal. Dr. Hawes re- quired each member entering the Church on confession of faith to give assent to these doctrines. He expanded some- what the covenant which he found, adding out of the in- stinct of a pastor, words of real tenderness and grace and including a statement of the Church with regard to its new members as follows : "We then as a Church prom- ise to treat you with Christian affection; to watch over you with tenderness; to offer our prayers to the great Head of the Church that you may be enabled to fulfill the solemn covenant which you have now made."
The preaching of Dr. Hawes as preserved for us in a few of his published sermons and as reflected in his ad- dresses to young men, shows that deep in his heart were these convictions which he had written into the articles of faith. He believed in a high doctrine of the Trinity involv- ing metaphysical distinctions within the Godhead. He be- lieved in original sin, in the total depravity of man, in the necessity of enabling grace and it could fairly be said that he believed in divine grace as irresistible, though it is to be recognized that when he preached, he preached as though the will of man had significant power to act in the process of salvation. He certainly believed in judgment and ever- lasting punishment for those who should not accept the offers of salvation.
It is to be presumed that for the most part in these matters he reflected the judgment of his own time,
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opinions that were held by most of the leaders among the churches of his period and that most of the thoughtful people of the Church and the community believed in doctrines of this sort following upon the preaching of Edwards and his successors in the Great Awakening. In the theology of Dr. Hawes there was an emphasis upon practical religion, an emphasis which has been characteristic of the Church from its beginning. Certainly this has been true of those ministers concerning whose preaching we know most, namely Hooker, Stone, Hawes, and Walker.
One cannot doubt that there was a sternness about the form in which the faith was proclaimed in the pulpit of this Church throughout that whole period. It was a robust faith. It could never be accused of spinelessness or weak- ness, but one wonders if it did not repel more than was necessary the instincts of the heart on the part of great numbers of those who must have listened to it with fear and trembling.
If we could enter into the perspective of history, we should see faith changing, if not from decade to decade, certainly from generation to generation, down through all these years. To us, lacking in perspective, it seems that the faith of the fathers remained about the same from the beginning until almost our own time, and that it was only then that changes were made in the characteristic way of setting forth the Christian truth.
Now it is certainly true that the expression of the faith has markedly changed. Not for forty years has anyone been asked to affirm his belief publicly as in the articles of Dr. Hawes of 1818. Dr. Walker in his ministry used to ask prospective candidates for church membership whether they believed in the articles of faith as they had been interpre- ted, referring thereby to his own interpretation of those
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