USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Goshen > History of the town of Goshen, Connecticut, with genealogies and biographies based upon the records of Deacon Lewis Mills Norton, 1897 > Part 22
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clude the personal pronoun; but its presence does not neces- sarily involve egotism.
The question recurs - What were, what are, the constit- uents of a Christian household ? In its normal and complete condition and intent, it is a simple, well-defined body politic. The social head, husband and wife, is constituted in devout compliance with the Word and providence of God. Not with- out prayer are the journey to Padan-Aram and the negotia- tions concerning Rebekah prosecuted. A union of hearts, begun under recognized divine guidance, and a clasping of hands in holy wedlock, mark the outset. Whatever antece- dents, whatever concurrent agencies there may be, the essential feature is the free suffrage and solemn pledging of two con- genial souls. There are always some diversities of tempera- ment, tastes, and habits, yet each of them, husband and wife, proves a complement to the other. The interaction of those differing elements - other circumstances equal - give to each a development of character more symmetrical than could otherwise be obtained. The primary consideration with suitor and husband is not what he will get with his affianced, but what she is of herself. Never will she be degraded to a mere toy, or a mere drudge. He, too, will stand the home test, that last, severe test, where no public eye exerts its silent yet pow- erful restraint. " A saint abroad, a devil at home," says John Bunyan, and with no more terseness than truth in some cases. The man whose arithmetic never gets beyond one, and that one his own selfish self, is no Christian at all, and deserves to have his house unroofed. In the truly religious home there is an ungrudging reciprocity. To her, who is wife and housekeeper, there are accorded no fewer rights and no less dignity than are claimed by the man of the house. Pining and moping, worrying and fretting, are unknown. If ever a jar occurs, it is but for a moment. No altercations and alienations exist; for the star that is called Wormwood never comes above the
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horizon there. Is not the price of such women above rubies? They are like the golden taches that held together the taber- nacle curtains, thus securing unity and completeness to that sacred structure. Who shall adequately describe their sweet and skillful ministries, and their not infrequent heroism in times of want, sickness, or peril? A Queen of England, at the risk of her life, once sucked the poison from her husband's wound. Substantially, that has often been done beneath the roof-tree here. I am constrained to bear witness to-day that there was a Goshen family, in which I never witnessed, be- tween husband and wife, a harsh or unchristian expression from tongue or countenance. The current of domestic life was almost invariably calm, clear, and delightfully cheerful.
But this domestic organization contemplates growth. Chil- dren bring to it an element of singular interest and responsi- bilities. Reacting from the presence of children are influ- ences which keep parents in a normal school for the rest of life. While in the case of man the period and degree of infantile helplessness far exceed those of any other creature on earth, the inter-relationship is proportionately more enduring and more momentous. Authority has scope. This is not merely a concession in the bill of parental rights; not merely invested by vote; it inheres in the domestic constitution. It is not an optional, but an original, indefeasible element. Obedience is not more the duty of the child than government is the duty of a parent. The very composition and essential re- quirements of the family make this plain. The father and mother are acting under a charter that not only gives them no warrant for allowing disobedience, but requires them to se- cure obedience. If in the community there is any intolerable nuisance is it not a self-willed, headstrong man, who has never been taught courteously to consult the convenience and deferentially to regard the rights of others ? The responsi- bility for such a social pest usually rests with the parent, and
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chiefly in the early period of a child's life. Failure ensures woeful retribution, " A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." That was true before the days of Solomon; it has been verified year by year ever since. To be guilty of negligence, of an easy-going indulgence, is a father's surest way of bringing down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. One Old Testament sentence discloses both the sin and the punishment of Eli, high priest though he was: "I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." It was Adonijah, whom King David, his father, " had not displeased at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so? " who entered into a conspiracy to usurp the throne. To main- tain a wise, effective discipline of a family is often not less difficult than to govern a commonwealth. But it has repeat- edly been accomplished here, and that not because of any peculiar mildness or amiability on the part of children.
One of the most imperative occasions for gratitude on my own part, is the remembered exercise of home rule. It was no noisy Celtic assertion. Very little talk about it did any one hear. It was quiet, gentle, firm, on the line of a golden mean between excessive leniency and undue severity. Thanks that the curse of weak indulgence never came. No point was ever carried by a child through crying. While a threat was never heard under that roof, the standard of authority was maintained with undeviating certainty. It was blessedly inflexible. As a result there ensued obedience, prompt and tolerably cheerful. No child needed to be told twice that bedtime had come, nor to be called twice from the bed. Sel- dom comparatively did parental utterance take the form of command, instead of suggestion and advice; but the latter, it was well understood, did not come from mere equals. Chil- dren were not slow to learn that prudence is the better part of filial valor, and that it would be more than comfortable for
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option to side always with the elder, wiser, stronger party. Punishment was rare, very rare, but as thorough as rare. Par- ental deliberateness, sorrow and prayer accompanied it. Filial gratitude, for three-quarters of a century, has followed.
Who need be told that in the household parental example is an element of power ? Great susceptibility to influences, with readiness of imitation on the part of the young is one of the tritest of truisms. Childhood is the period of absorbing perception. Everything that addresses the eye and the ear is an object-lesson. Hence the special importance that father and mother be themselves the lesson they would teach. If industry and sobriety, if neatness and orderliness, kindness and rever- ence are effectively to be cultivated, a uniform exhibition of such habits and qualities must be made. Whatever the parent would have pass into the character and life of a child, and thence into the life of the church and of society, must be the steady aim of self-culture. An unconscious tuition in the home circle is going on inevitably and all the while. A suc- cessful home hypocrite is the greatest of rarities. The young- est and the most illiterate can read character. Deeds will al- ways go farther than doctrine. I knew a man - not in this town - who overheard one of his sons using profane language, for which he chastised him severely, adding a threat of yet severer punishment if he ever heard such words again, the whole being enforced by an oath. The later history of that family need not be told. The father or mother who attempts to govern by passion, by deceptive promises, or by threaten- ings never executed, is guilty of a monstrous caricature of do- mestic government, guilty of a capital offense against Him who has given a momentous stewardship of influence; is train- ing up a probable scourge to the neighborhood, and to a yet wider community. Would that other men's shipwrecks were oftener effective landmarks for observers. Would that the benign might of worthy example were more widely appre-
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ciated. It was a relative, even less intimate than the father, whose godly life made a most profound impression on Duncan Matheson. That young man used to kneel beside the grave of his deceased mentor, in the silence and solitude of night, and cry mightily to God that the mantle of the venerated man might fall upon him - a prayer that was abundantly an- swered. Mere command does not ensure duty; sometimes fails to commend it. Under my father's roof exhortations to maintain the habit of prayer had little effect compared with finding him in the hay-loft pouring out his heart to God. It has since fallen to me to see and to hear a good many eminent men; to look upon a good many stately monuments; but no one of them left an impression at all so deep as the figure of that revered parent kneeling in such a retired place, his head uncovered, on a cold winter's day. Obedience to the command, honor thy father and thy mother too, requires me to speak of her example. Suffice it to say in one word, that she lived to be four-score years old; that she was a woman of deep feeling and decided character; that she has now been, as I have reason to believe, for nearly forty years in heaven; yet I never heard from her lips one word that I think she would now wish to recall.
Where there are children there are usually and happily brothers and sisters. In the relations and attachments thence arising, there is scope for a yet more varied and richer home development. Not easily can the value of sisterly and frater- nal affection be estimated. What inspiring, what softening influences are felt ! How the circles of acquaintance, the ob- jects of interest, and the stimulants of aspiration multiply and widen, as one member and then another launch out upon the sea of life ! From the boarding-school or college; from the long tour or distant visit, there come reports which stir the little domestic community as the exploits of Columbus and Da Gama stirred all Europe. Who can tell how much the
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sturdy, and sometimes rough, nature of a lad is indebted to the milder ways, the gentler tones of a considerate, affectionate sister ! How often is he thus saved from semi-barbarism and from wreck ! What salutary restraints, what ennobling im- pulses frequently emanate from these most intimate com- panions ! From the days when, fifteen hundred years ago, Basil the Great owed much to his sister Macrina, to the period of Blaise Paschal and his heroic sister Jaquiline, and thence onward to our own century, Christian Biography bears fre- quent witness to the commanding and benign sway of this element in the household.
And then, brother to brother - I dare not trust myself in so public a place and manner to speak of this relation and its golden friendship, golden joys, and hallowed influences more than golden. "Three brothers, three castles," says an Italian proverb. Such was the strong defense, the high privilege, of the one now picturing the Christian home of Goshen. They stood shoulder to shoulder till all three lay down in the narrow house - one of them not long since passed four-score years, a man to whom my indebtedness is greater than to any other! Krummacher anticipated me when he wrote: "Oh, how dear, how dear my brother Emil is to me ! All the friends I ever lose I find in him again, and I might almost say in a nobler form than ever."
It would be an omission not to refer to another class of inmates in Goshen families - those not to the manner born, yet more or less permanently connected and performing serv- ice. While children are still in the formative period, it is of no small importance that such members be of a trustworthy char- acter. Not very unfrequently there were cases in which they remained a long while in the position, heartily identified with all the main interests of the household. One of that character and that position, more than three-score and ten years ago, comes to mind with respectful and grateful remembrance .*
* Delia Howe.
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For many years her good sense, efficiency, and fidelity were appreciated by all; during a sickness of seven years she, in turn, was nursed with no less tenderness than any other mem- ber of the family; and upon her decease there was mourning no less sincere that when, between three thousand and four thousand years ago, "Deborah, Rebekah's nurse died, and was buried under an oak, and the name of that oak was Allon- bachuth," the Oak of Weeping.
Yet another class comes to mind, a class no longer known, thank God, in this town or in our land, domestic slaves. True, slavery never received formal sanction by statute in Connec- ticut, yet it had indirect recognition by various enactments, and in courts of law. Few negro servants were ever imported into the state; and in 1771, such importation was prohibited. Seventeen hundred and eighty-four was the date of action by the legislature which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery, it being then enacted that no negro or mulatto chil- dren born after the first day of March, that year, should be held in servitude longer than till they arrived at the age of twenty-five years. To how many households there were at- tached servants of this description, I know not. Upon the earnest solicitation of one such family, my grandfather pur- chased them, on account of their desiring to have a Christian master; liberated them and others before the law required; gave to each family a farm; and provided otherwise also for their aid and comfort. My very earliest recollection is of such a group taking leave of the old homestead, with sincere good wishes, and the expressed hope of a reunion in heaven. The parents, as well as their former master and mistress, so called, were members of this church .*
* Essex Freeman was received to the church in 1793; and after- wards his wife at the same time with Augustus Thompson, the only son of her master, 1799. He served in the office of Deacon from 1817 to 1831. -
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The town has sustained a good reputation for hospitality. Its local situation and its industries are not such as would be likely to attract strangers in large numbers; but the latch- string has been out, and extra chairs at the table no unusual thing. The occasional presence of guests, superior in point of culture and character, is an educational factor of no trifling value. Such are college classmates and the better informed class of business acquaintances. In the Christian homes here, sixty and more years ago, neighboring pastors found a hearty welcome. Venerated forms that used to present themselves come now to mind with great distinctness - the faithful Luther Hart of Plymouth, a native of this place; the saintly Jeremiah Hallock of Canton; the devout Frederick Marsh of Winchester; the dignified Ralph Emerson of Norfolk; the scholarly Alexander Gillett of Torrington; the eloquent Lyman Beecher; and that original, portly man, full of faith, humor, and eccentricity, Samuel J. Mills of Torringford. Their conversation and the neighborhood prayer meetings sometimes conducted by them when guests for a day and night, were instructive, stimulating, and edifying. They seemed, at least to younger members of the family, like angels enter- tained not unawares. As the house of Obed-Edom was blessed by the presence of the Ark of God, so was the household, to which my thoughts revert, blessed by the presence of these men .of God.
What now is the chief design of the Christian family ? What was the leading object in such households during the first quarter of the present century ? The supreme, professed, and real aim cannot fail to be inferred from what has already been said. It can hardly be necessary to embody it in so many words, that in the truly Christian home the honor of God by Christian nurture was the governing thought. With scarcely more regularity did day dawn than morning worship was held; and with equal regularity the same at evening. Before each
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meal a blessing was asked; and at its close thanks were re- turned. In earlier years children might very imperfectly ap- preciate the value of domestic worship, but the fact that twice a day the whole family were upon their knees before God, making mention of " His loving kindness in the morning, and His faithfulness every night," made an indelible impression. While the family priest thus offered spiritual sacrifices, in the same service God spoke as often to the listening group. The words of our Heavenly Father in our earthly mother tongue came with supreme authority and with benign power. It was inevitable that the thought should be deeply fixed in young minds that religion is the chief concern; that the Bible is the book for the family, the book for time, the book for eternity; and that no treasure comparable in value to its contents could be stored in the memory. It became the office of sons succes- sively to carry the Holy Volume at the hour of worship from its resting-place to the head of the household; and with what reverence did he receive it; with what deliberation did he turn its leaves; with what devout veneration did he read its inspired words ! The well-worn quarto volume, which I had carried so many times to the domestic patriarch; which lay on the little table by the bedside of my grandfather when he died, with his spectacles upon it; which lay on the same table close by the pillow of my father when he died, his spectacles upon it, is now a personal treasure beyond price.
"The old-fashioned Bible, the dear, blessed Bible, The family Bible that lay on the stand."
The first day of the week witnessed the culmination of re- ligious observances -" It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings," we learned from the lively oracles. Saturday was a day of expectation and preparation. "From evening to evening," so we read; and by sunset all secular labor was sus- pended, save works of mercy and necessity. Early hours of retiring were observed that there might be full vigor for the
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Holy Sabbath. Public worship twice or thrice was the chief business of that day. Never, except in sickness, was there an absence from the sanctuary, nor a want of punctuality. In re- gard to the stated weekly prayer-meeting, the same may be said of those members of the family who were members of the church. No pressure in harvest-time, and no severity of weather in winter time was suffered to interrupt the established custom. One who has never spent an old-fashioned January either here or in Labrador, cannot well understand what it means to break roads through snow five feet deep; and to arch a passage outward from the street door through a drift reach- ing to the second story !
The special charm of the Lord's Day, was in the two or three hours at home after the second public service. Chief outside duties had received attention. The period of com- plete repose had come. It was the weekly era of specially hal- lowed feeling, kind feeling, sweetly subdued feeling, of con- centrated family affection. Scripture was read, sacred hymns were repeated, and then a domestic concert of song. "I love thy kingdom, Lord," in the sweet strains of Silver Street, and " Guide me, O thou Great Jehovah," in old Tamworth; " The voice of free grace," to the tune Scotland; " From Greenland's icy Mountains," in the animating strains of the Missionary Hymn; " All Hail the power of Jesus' Name," in the trans- porting strains of Coronation, lifted the soul into a region above the clouds. Another special favorite was Amsterdam, to which were set the words "Rise my soul and stretch thy wings." In a season of severe sickness, my father once asked to have that sung; saying at the same time to the daughters, " If you are at my death-bed I wish that hymn to be sung."
What if the highest type of artistic music was not realized, the mother and sisters sang as no Patti, Parepa, or Jenny Lind ever sang, and because it was mother and sisters. Elsewhere on earth no breeze from Araby the blest can bring such fra-
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grance to the atmosphere. That season of delightful harmony, of unmarred family joy, was just a vestibule of heaven.
Of course there was religious instruction, catechetical and in other forms. When the Sunday-school came into vogue, so far from superceding, it enlarged the range and amount in the home curriculum. If there had been even less instruction, there would still have been more of education in the fireside seminary than in the Sunday-school and the public school. Students at the hearthstone were under an influence more plastic, more enduring, than from any other source.
It should not fail to be stated that in those comparatively remote times, there was a warm interest in foreign as well as in domestic missions. Next to the Sacred Scriptures the first reading to which I listened in earliest childhood was that of Buchanan's Christian Researches in the East. Missionary maps, though meager, compared with present ample equip- ment, were placed conspicuously before the eye. The presence of the first Hawaiian convert, Henry Obookiah, in the care of our pastor, the Rev. Dr. Harvey, together with conversation regarding him; the establishment of a Foreign Mission School in a neighboring town; and then the ordination here of the first missionaries to the Sandwich Islands served to turn thought strongly toward heathen lands. Nor was it an event without importance, when James Morris, the well-known ed- ucator, a trustee of that Mission School, on his way thence to Litchfield (1820), being seized with mortal sickness, stopped at the door saying, " Deacon Thompson, I have come to die under your roof." This town, and the county as well, owed much to the indefatigable faithfulness of an officer of the Go- shen church, who, during many years, was a model collector for foreign missions, and was deeply interested in the Corn- wall School.
Deacon Henry Hart, also of this church, had charge of the boarding department of that school. A granddaughter of
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his is a member of one of the missions of the American Board in Turkey; and it was through her mother's deep interest in the foreign work that she has been led to devote herself to the same. A letter has just come to my hands from her, giving one of those incidents which affected many minds in Litchfield County. Deacon Hart was requested by a gentleman in a neighboring village, to bring with him for a visit Thomas Hopu, a Sandwich Islander, then in school at Cornwall. Dur- ing the visit a church sociable occurred at the house of the gentleman referred to, and the young Hawaiian guest was presented to the company. Among them was a lawyer, highly respected, though not a Christian. He asked Thomas many questions about his native islands, and his impressions of America, which were answered in such broken English as to make the company laugh again and again. The sweet-tem- pered youth endured it all patiently; and at length made one inquiry of his interlocutor, prefaced thus: "I am a poor ig- norant boy. You have asked me a great many questions, and I have answered foolishly, so that these ladies and gentlemen laughed. But one day there will be a larger company than this. All will stand before the great white throne. God will ask each person one question: 'Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? ' I think I can say Yes. What will you say ?" The lawyer, without answering, turned away, as if struck dumb. A check, from which there was no recovery, had been given to the evening's gaiety. The lawyer, at length turned to the minister, and asked that the heathen boy be requested to offer the prayer with which such gatherings were usually closed. In simple, earnest words that impressed every one, Thomas complied, and prayed for the lawyer who hastened home, spent a wakeful night in bitter self-reproaches, thinking how that boy would rise up in judgment against him. The next day he went to his pastor to ask his prayers, and soon after made confession of faith in Jesus Christ, and the hope of par-
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don through him. Others were awakened, and a revival of re- ligion followed; the community was moved, and not a few' were " added to the Lord."
But independently of such incidental occurrences, it was a well-defined element in the religious training of the young that they should be prepared to take part, personally or other- wise, in the work of universal evangelization. An education, a Christian profession, or a Christian life, into which that form of loyalty to Jesus Christ does not enter is sadly defective. In religious families, of the period now referred to, younger mem- bers were encouraged to undertake different forms of industry with a view to aid the missionary treasury. It was not strange, then, that the Litchfield County Society, Auxiliary to the American Board of Missions, should have been one of the first and most efficient of the kind, nor that, in proportion to popula- tion and valuation, Goshen should have been the banner town. As the annual remittance to Boston was made, Dr. Worcester, the first secretary, exclaimed, " I bless God for making Litch- field County."
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