USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > East Haven > Historical discourse delivered at the centennial celebration of the dedication of the Stone meeting house, 1774-1874 > Part 6
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Numbers and dates.
Dates.
Numbers.
1755.
34 and 35 (double), and 60.
1760.
360.
1763.
456.
1764.
473, 474, 475 (triple).
1766
540.
1770.
617.
1775
703.
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2. But as there are fifty-two Sabbaths in a year, and two sermons required for each, how was the deficiency supplied ? Some briefs and skeletons of sermons which I have, answer this question in part; some notes, which show that sermons were repeated after an average of five or six years, tell a part of the story ; and his exchanges tell the rest. I find one page which shows us something of his range of exchanges. It is on the last leaf of a sermon that was written in 1756, the second year of his settlement. It seems to have served him merely as a page of memoranda. It was evidently begun with a view of setting before his own eye the number of times he had preached in the places mentioned, during the twenty years included between 1772 and 1792. I find five Sabbaths at the chapel in Yale Col- lege, three at Milford, two at West Haven, two at Amity, one at Derby, one at Stratford, two at Brick Haven (or Brick House), one at North Haven, one at Titicut, one at Branford, two at Fair Haven ( ?), and one at New Lebanon .* These could not have been all the exchanges he made
* The memorandum reads as follows :
Milford .April 5th, 1772.
April 25th, 1781.
Derby June 20th, 1772.
Amity. April 11th, 1773.
March 13th, 1785.
West Haven
June 13th, 1773.
Oct. 9th, 1791.
Milford. May 14th, 1775.
Stratford. April 26th, 1781.
Chapel, Yale College. . April 15th, 1781.
March 16th, 1783.
Brick Haven, or Brick House.
1782.
"
March 13th, 1791.
Fair Haven Nov. 10th, 1782.
March 16th, 1785.
White Haven. July 10th, 1785.
Chapel. May 1st, 1785.
June, 1789.
New Lebanon
June 5th, 1785.
North Haven. July 24th, 1785.
Titicut. .1785.
Branford, Mr. Atwater, monthly meeting. May, 1791.
Chapel. .June 3d, 1792.
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during that period, but it is all he gathered in this memo- randum, which was probably begun and not completed, and shows something of the range with which he was familiar. The mention of New Lebanon recalled to my mind an incident mentioned by my father, when once we were speaking of the peculiar tie of affection between col- lege class-mates. My grandfather had a class-mate preach- ing in New Lebanon, and when my father was about twelve years old he took him and went to make this class-mate a visit. He was met at the door with a welcome that rang through the house. "Br. Street has come, let us kill the fatted calf !"
3. But you will naturally ask, what was the quality of his sermons? Just the same question that I was so long in getting at. I give you one specimen of skeleton analy- sis, the subject being one which required three sermons to do justice to his thought. The text is in Hosea ii., 14, 15 : "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope : and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt." This analysis is as follows :
(1.) God's method with sinners is an alluring method.
(2.) Those whom he designs for the objects of his mercy and grace, he brings into a wilderness of inward or out- ward trials.
(3.) It is in this wilderness that God is graciously pleased to speak comfortably to them.
(4.) That when God speaks comfortably to them, he frequently comes with some present, real evidences of his love to them.
(5.) Troubles not only go before mercies, but are doors of hope to let in mercies, as the valley of Achor was to Israel.
(6.) That our deliverance from outward trouble and bondage, but especially from the bondage of sin, is enough to make us sing for joy.
You may infer from these heads of discourse what the
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sermon would be. You will catch something more of his style if I let him lift the curtain and give you some glimpses of things wherein his times differed from our own. You may be interested to hear, in a few words, how one of his thanksgiving sermons sounded in the times before the American revolution. I have a part of one that was written in the year 1762, the second year of the reign of George III. His first reason for thankfulness is thus given :
"The first that I would remark upon is, the happy accession and establishment of our most gracious sovereign, King George the Third, upon the British throne, who so largely possesses the virtues of his royal grandfather ; and it is matter for our joy and rejoicing, at this day, that we have one who has so much of the amiable character of young Josiah upon the throne; who has manifested so much regard for the Protestant interest and religion, and has discovered so much zeal for the suppression of vice, immorality, and profaneness, by his royal proclamation, which forebodes his reign to be auspicious for our nation and land."
He had not preached in this Stone Meeting-house long before he began to talk very differently about this same King George the Third. He was as ready as any of the people to call him "a prince whose character was marked by every act that may define a tyrant."
But let me follow the manuscript a few sentences further. "It should be matter for our thanksgiving, that our king has taken for his royal consort a Protestant princess of such amiable virtues and endowments, from whom we may expect a glorious succession, and for the safe and happy delivery of our gracious queen, and the auspicious birth of a prince, which joyful event is made the matter of our public thanksgiving on this day, by the proclamation that has been issued forth ; which, accordingly, we should celebrate by our thankful acknowledgments to Almighty God, who preserveth the Protestant succession, and causeth the royal branch to shoot forth and to flourish, whereby we may hope to have the British scepter swayed by his royal descent to after generations and ages."
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It was not foreseen then that this same house of Hano- ver would be pronounced by the historian "a millstone upon the neck of the British empire." This same thanks- giving sermon narrates the capture of Havanna by an army of 14,000 men, and a fleet of 200 vessels, against 27,000 Spaniards-a quickly surrendered conquest as it proved, though he could not foresee it, as the island of Cuba was given up to the Spaniards in the treaty of the next year.
When this sermon was written, my grandfather was thirty-two years old and had been settled seven years. His oldest daughter, Eunecia, who married Mr. Stebbins, of West Haven, and was the mother of the late Mrs. Dr. Storrs, of Braintree, Mass., was about three years old. He needed the best period of his eyesight to read a manuscript so finely and closely written.
You will naturally inquire what he was in the trying times of the war of the revolution ? He entered into the patriotic sentiment of the war with all his soul. I have a sermon of his, continued through two numbers, which con- sists of a running commentary on the events of the war, down to November, 1778. It reads very much like some of the patriotic effusions that were called forth in the North by the late war of the rebellion. Hear in what jubilant strains he celebrates the evacuation of Boston by the British troops :
" A year of jubilee !" he exclaims. "Angels announced the joyous tidings. Prisoners leaped to loose their chains. Joy sparkled in every eye, pleasure sat on every counten- ance, and the tender gushing tear bedewed many a cheek. Such emotions, such raptures, were never known before ! O, Boston, how great thy salvation ? Let not extortion mark thy character ! Henceforth live grateful in the rare but glorious exercise of righteousness and love."
I do not know what acts of extortion by the people of Boston had been reported to him, to call forth this form of admonition. Doubtless it was timely.
Let me give a short paragraph on temperance .- Fast Day sermon, February, 1775. He is speaking of perverting and abusing the gifts of the divine bounty. He says :
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"This is practiced in a shameful manner at this day. Vast numbers of young and old, male and female, are given to intemperance, so that it is no uncommon thing to see drunken women, as well as drunken men; and I fear that many of our youths are training up for rank drunkards. The custom that prevails among young people, when they assemble together, to procure such large quantities of strong drink, and drink as long as they can swill it down. [If this was a homely word, it should be remembered he was dealing with a worse than homely fact. Lorenzo Dow re- fined upon this expression when he said, the drunkard is the devil's swill tub. ] This custom," says the sermon, "is the direct road to drunkenness, and I greatly fear will end in it." [I should think it would. ] He goes on to say that "when youths are elevated with liquor, they are ready for any iniquity. They are emboldened to curse and swear, or to commit lewdness, or whatever the devil is pleased to incite them to do. So that this growing abuse of the good creatures of God is an ill requital of His goodness in giving us such a plenty of spirituous liquors for the refreshment of the weary, and to restore the decays of Nature ; but not to inflame the lusts and corruptions of the youthful, the healthful, and the gay. This large and plentiful drinking of spirits among youths, has a very destructive tendency both as to soul and body."
There were some of the successors of these youths, that I remember in my childhood, who had become men of strength to mingle strong drink-men who lasted longer than drunkards do now; I used almost to think that the liquor preserved them, as it does the specimens in natural history which we are accustomed to put up in bottles of alcohol to keep. When my father used to teach me from an appendix to the catechism, that the wicked do not live out half their days, it seemed to me that these men must have had an original lease of life, comparable to that of Methuselah.
The same sermon has a chapter on the slave-trade, in which he expresses the "fear, that while we abhor oppres- sion, as it comes upon us from the mother country, we may
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be harboring it in our own bosoms," and exhorts to "a careful search and examination of all that has been written on the subject, in an impartial and disinterested way." This calls up the fact that he himself owned a negro, Tom, of whom my father has told me several anecdotes. He was evidently a favorite with the boys. He was contemporary with Newport Freeman, the emancipated slave of Pres. Stiles. He used sometimes to come and say, "Master, I wish I could be free !" and the reply always was, "You may be free any day, Tom, if you will let me draw up a writing that shall clear me from the obligation to take care of you when you are old and can earn nothing." Tom went away in great good nature, but never accepted the offer. I have heard my father tell how this negro Tom used to illustrate to him the way the boys would get him to explore the dangerous places, on the way to the pasture, when the signals from Beacon Hill warned the people of East Haven that foraging parties from the British ships were about landing, to carry off their cattle. More than once, the cattle belonging to the minister were driven by this negro Tom to Northford, to be out of the reach of the enemy.
One word to meet the question : Did not this pastor of a century ago belong to a long-faced, puritanical age, when it was a crime to smile, and men went to heaven as if they were going to prison ? I think you will find a satisfactory answer to this, in a few words which I give you from his thanksgiving sermon for 1769. He says :
"Let our lives tell abroad what we feel within, that things holy and heavenly do not make us sad and heavy ; that we can be pleasant and pious, both together, and heartily merry without forgetting God, and turning all re- ligion out of doors."
But he obviously felt that there was a possible error in the other direction, and so he manages to say on the same page, "But let not our times of thanksgiving be times of self-pleasing only, nor sacred seasons our ungodliest opportunities, nor holy days the profanest of all the year." Very good advice to be given a century later !
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Two more points, very briefly touched, and I will close. He had the gift of continuance. I do not mean that his sermons were long, for, on the contrary, I find them to be quite as short as the average of sermons now. With the exception of the historical sermons, I do not think that any of them that I have read would exceed thirty minutes in the delivery. I mean the gift of continuance in his place and in the service. Fifty-one years is a good record of ministerial labor. There is nothing for the good people of East Haven to be ashamed of, in the fact that their first two pastors filled out a history of 101 years, and that the graves of all their ministers in the past are with them.
Of his work accomplished, we need say no more than bid you look at the whole field as it is to day. The church has not gone the way of the seven churches of Asia yet. It is true that the century has brought other laborers, his successors, into the field ; but they did not tear up his foundations, nor undo his work. They continued it on, with work the same in kind, just as good as his, perhaps better-very probably better, for they have had better facili- ties. But not any of them, nor all of them, need have been ashamed at such an outgrowth of their ministry as this solid and comely edifice of stone : a building over whose walls time has as yet had no power; walls that, with reasonable care, nothing short of an earthquake will fissure for centuries to come.
During the past year the present pastor and people have paid their tribute to the excellence of this work, by building their chapel of the same material and in the same way-a worthy testimony to the wisdom of the past, and a graceful and enduring proof of their own. May God give them their reward in glorious seasons of refreshing from on high, and may generations to come rise up and call them blessed.
Addresses were then delivered by Prof. George E. Day, D.D., and Rev. Leonard Bacon, D.D., of New Haven.
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Edward L. Hart, Esq., of Farmington, spoke as fol- lows :
MR. CHAIRMAN : I cannot refrain myself from express- ing the great joy I feel to be once again, especially on this memorable occasion, in this home of my fathers; for, surely, the place where the families of a people meet, from generation to generation, to worship God, is the truest home of any place on earth. I look around on these walls and see the names of the builders of this old Stone Meeting- house, among them the name of Amos Morris, my grand- father, with whom I lived in my early boyhood. Concern- ing him, I remember particularly his morning devotions, from their connection with Dr. Thomas Scott's long "Notes and Practical Observations," which, I fear, failed of any salutary effect upon me. But there was one petition in his prayers, daily used, so beautiful in thought and expres- sion-being the very words of David-namely, "Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces, O Jerusalem," that I delight to recall him to remembrance on this occasion with the mention of them. Surely, this daily petition of his has been answered, in the peace and prosperity of the church that has met for a hundred years in this old Stone Meeting-house.
I remember Dr. Bela Farnham, the beloved physician, and who, that ever saw him, will be likely to forget his dignified presence, and the pleasant face he always wore, so beautified by the kindly spirit within. I remember, also, Mr. Nicholas Street and Mr. Elnathan Street, being often in their families in my early youth, wise, good men, who, with many others of like spirit I did not know, pa- tiently labored to strengthen and adorn the church of their deepest love. In view of the beautiful lives, and the noble Christian work of these, our ancestors, we, their descend- ants, may thankfully boast, in the words of the poet, Cowper,
"Not, that we deduce our birth
From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth, But higher, far, our proud pretensions rise, Children of parents passed into the skies."
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I look with pride and great delight upon the evidence of progress and growth, which this ancient town has made since I left it, some fifty years ago. Long may its pros- perity continue.
He was followed by John G. North, Esq., of New Haven.
MR. CHAIRMAN : I well remember, when I first came to New Haven, attending church in this (then) old Stone Meeting-house, and I was impressed with the solid appear- ance of the building, and the substantial look of the homes in East Haven, and no longer wondered that my employers said they liked to select their clerks from the boys of East Haven. Later than this, I attended an anniversary of the Sunday-school in the meeting-house, and then was told by an old citizen some incidents of by-gone days. The pulpit, he said, was perched very high, on the north side of the house, with a sounding-board of immense proportions sus- pended over the minister's head, in such a manner that it was a mystery how it was held up; the boys often watched with eagerness to see it fall. On the sides were galleries- occupied by boys on one side, and girls on the other, with men to oversee and keep them from unusual noise and dis- turbance. The walls of the meeting-house were not plas- tered, and the uneven stones furnished shelves and hanging places for clothing, umbrellas, and fennel. Large square boxes, with seats around them, called pews, were placed under the galleries, on the wall sides, leaving the center of the church unoccupied -almost like a promenade or dancing-room-which was occasionally occupied by slap- seats. The children of the best regulated families were not allowed to go into the gallery, but sat with their parents ; always with backs to the minister, or crowded in between older persons who would keep order. Sometimes the little ones, having nothing to see and little to understand, not even touching their feet to the floors, became uneasy, and felt, if they did not express it, "the minister peeches too long !" This church is to-day frescoed most beautifully,
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and warmed with the most approved steam apparatus ; but then, no church or meeting-house must be warmed. "Little Sabbath-day houses" were built outside, where people who came great distances could eat their lunch and warm their feet. It was considered much out of place, and quite irreligious, when stoves were first introduced into churches. For many years, only very aged women and feeble persons were allowed to carry foot-stoves (say about one foot square, filled with coals of walnut wood, or, later, with charcoal) with which to warm their feet during ser- vice ; all the rest of the people would shiver and suffer with the cold of the winter. Instead of gentlemanly ushers to meet and welcome you to a seat, there stood often men with long guns on their shoulders, to guard and protect those who eagerly pushed their way from their homes to the old stone church. The churches in those days were real forts of defense against any intrusion of the enemy. Well should they be built of stone; and we honor these names which we read as they were placed amid the decorations of the church. Although I do not remember these men, I do recognize their spirit of power in the present generation, for some of our best men, bearing the same names, possess the same energy, and public and religious enterprise, which. so marked their ancestors ; so that to-day we can see the wisdom of those who planted this firm church edifice, amid so much difficulty, and gave so liberally for the support of the Gospel preached here. And shall we not be wise in our day, and with the same determined spirit build strong the temples of God in our own hearts, and see to it that our children, "brought up in the admonition of the Lord," are "rooted and grounded in love," having an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, of which Christ is the Chief Corner Stone.
Rev. S. S. Joscelyn, of Brooklyn, N. Y., spoke as fol- lows :
MR. CHAIRMAN : When, at the invitation of your com- mittee to be present at this centennial celebration and
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reunion, I left Brooklyn, N. Y. (my home), I anticipated "a good time," but my anticipations have been greatly surpassed.
I have delightfully realized its full design, not only as a celebration of the dedication of this venerable "Stone Meeting-house," for the worship of God, a hundred years ago, but also one ancestral-a memorial of the noble men who, under difficulties which few bear in our day, erected it ; the fruit of whose faith, toil, and perseverance has, for three generations, been enjoyed by the people of this town and vicinity, and, feeling with them that I stand on ances- tral ground-for among the early ones my ancestors were here, and through years of the building of this edifice-I have the more rejoiced to be present and share with this peculiar and large assembly the inspiration of this occasion.
The historic discourse by the pastor, so full. compre- hensive, and rich in facts, biographical, churchwise, and of venerable founders and pastors, in combination with times which "tried men's souls," as in the revolution and at the birth of our nation ; and, coming down to our times, with the increase of knowledge, the spread of the Gospel in the earth, the late fearful struggle with rebellion and slavery- its satanic cause-and both crushed out, all which acknowl- edged to the mighty hand of the God of the oppressed and to His glory ; all this and more, with their instructive lessons and reflections, together with the accompanying addresses of like point, variety, and interest, in combina- tion with prayer, choice original hymns with music in fine keeping, and the congregation entire in praise, all the ser- vices and accompanyments have been too impressive, and yet cheering, ever to be forgotten.
As we have been invited in the programme and by the chairman, to speak of any personal experience in this place, or facts bearing upon events in the past, I may state that, with two of the later deceased venerable pastors, whose portraits are in view to us behind the pulpit-Rev. Saul Clark and Rev. Stephen Dodd-I was well acquainted, and at times with events on this spot to the glory of God and the riches of His grace. Here it was my privilege-
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then a resident of New Haven, my native place-during the great revival there in 1820, 1821, and part of 1822, and in eighty towns in this State, to visit, with other brethren, this church in its revival, to speak and rejoice with the pastor and church in the work of salvation. Also, in the other section, at Fair Haven, where the revival was attended with unusual power and results. The Rev. Horatio Brins- made, now at Newark, N. J., then of Yale, and preparing for the ministry, with others of us, labored there and re- joiced in the work so glorious. These were days indeed memorable. The Rev. Asahel Nettleton, so richly blessed as an evangelist, wrought in New Haven at the time, and lay brethren, sixty in number, met weekly on Saturday evening at the house of that noble Christian and merchant, Timothy Dwight, deceased, and ministers and professors of the college, by their presence and good words occasion- ally, encouraged their work. Deputations of the meeting weekly visited the churches, far and near, to herald the work and share in revival meetings with pastors and churches in this county and over the State. Others there are in this assembly who could, with me, witness to those wonderful days of the outpouring of the spirit, and to others since, most precious, and it may have been to the salvation of some present. May these days soon return ! Loud is the call, and great the work to be done in this land ; fearful was the baptism of blood ere the slaves, and I may say we, were free. The millions of the freedmen, now citizens, are to be taught and led to Christ. Africa, from the cruel slave-trade, and some other parts must be delivered, and they, with the nations who make them vic- tims, must have the Gospel to be saved, and all the world, or perish.
What but the outpouring of the spirit, and the full con- secration of God's people, can avail for the work and time?
We are stimulated to-day by the virtues and efforts of pious ancestors, but our responsibilities, with our privileges and means, are far greater than theirs were. Let us then resolve, by the grace of Christ, to rise higher and truly to JIim in spirit, and meet our responsibility for the salvation
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of the world and the honor of His name, remembering that "the time is short." If the church militant is true, may not the dawn of the millennium light upon entire, sancti- fied, thronging congregations in this old and honored "Stone Meeting-house," and with all people unite in songs of praise to God and shouts of earth's redemption.
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