USA > Connecticut > New London County > New London > The First Church of Christ in New London : Three hundredth anniversary, May 10, 17, 31 and October 11, 1942 ; 1642-1942 > Part 4
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(H.W.F.)
SITE OF ROBERT PARKE'S BARN ON SOUTHWEST CORNER OF HEMPSTEAD AND GRANITE STREETS.
(H. W. F.) SITE OF THE FIRST MEETING HOUSE (1655) IN BULKELEY SQUARE.
The First Church of Christ in New London
Philip's War, the church building was fortified. But indeed it was always regarded as a fortress against the onslaughts of a foe far more terrible than King Philip. It was a citadel built to afford at least some shelter in the midst of eternal conflict between the Lord God of Hosts and the myrmidons of hell.
The first meeting-house, that is the one erected for Richard Blin- man, was occupied from 1655 to 1682. It was then moved to Poquon- nock Plain and was added to the James Avery homestead, where it was burned to the ground in 1894. The second meeting-house, built in the pastorate of Simon Bradstreet, was destroyed by fire, and the third, known as the Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall's, was completed in 1698. In this house a bell, the gift of Governor Fitz John Winthrop, took the place of the drum in calling the folk to prayer.
A modern student of those days takes a humorous interest, often changing over into the pathetic, in considering the ministerial salaries that were paid in the churches of two centuries ago. In such consid- erations one is constantly reminded that the people of that time were very poor, and also that they were Yankees. The Reverend Gershom Bulkeley, who came to the Church in 1661, was the son of a wealthy man-the Reverend Peter Bulkeley of Concord, Massachusetts. Per- haps it was for that reason that the town thought he ought to be con- tent with a salary of eighty pounds a year for the first three years, and, after that, with as much more as the town was able, or inclined to give. He remained four years, and found that the town was not inclined to give him more. However, it is to be remembered that a good part of a parson's income was paid in produce of various kinds, that all his firewood was cut and hauled by the town, and that he had usually a considerable grant of land upon which he worked as a farmer. There is a record in the diary of a New Londoner, dated 1654, which says: "I paid Mr. Blinman one firkin of butter and twelve pence in wampum. which made his whole year's pay."
Yet in spite of these difficulties, in spite of dissensions between the Old Lights and the New Lights, even in spite of the Rogerenes who did their clever and persistent utmost during many years to make life miserable for the ministers of New London's First Church of Christ, the terms of service of the ministers were usually long. Twelve ministers served this pulpit for two hundred and fifty-five years, and
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this number includes the Reverend Bulkeley, who was drawn aside after five years by his Royalist leanings and the Reverend Woodbridge who died in his youth of consumption. The longest term is that of the Reverend Eliphalet Adams, 1708-1753, a period of forty-five years. By any ordinary standard this is a remarkable record, though it shrinks considerably in comparison with the term served by the greatly beloved and widely famous Dr. Benjamin Lord of Norwich, who preached and prayed and labored for one church for no less than sixty-seven years.
We have almost forgotten the dignity and the authority of those parsons of two hundred years since. Always and unquestionably they were the most important persons of their several towns-and indeed they were called "parsons" precisely for that reason. It was felt that no honor and no submission was too great to be shown to these men who served as spokesmen to the Divine Throne, as chief antagonists in the lifelong strife against Satan. Colleges were founded expressly for the training of ministers. It was expected and required of them that they should be scholars, logicians, men of weight and wisdom. They were carefully searched out, when vacancies occurred, by committees named by the towns. They were required to preach for several months on trial before they were finally chosen and "settled." The ceremony of ordination, even in the obscurest New England village, was an affair almost as dignified, formal, and expensive, as the funeral of a deacon. Thus the earlier history of many a Connecticut town is most conven- iently divided into the several reigns of its ministers-so deeply did these men impress their habits of mind and their traits of character upon the communities of which they were the chief figures. They were closely associated with the legislature of the Colony and of the State. They often determined who the Governor of the Colony or State was to be. They always preached the election sermons, which told those Governors in clear terms that it was their duty to subordinate them- selves to the leadership of the church and its ministers. It was to them more than to any other group that we owe the conservatism of Con- necticut during its first two hundred years, and the fact that this was once called "the land of steady habits."
The connection between the government of New England and the ecclesiastical system is illustrated again and again in the history of this First Church of Christ in New London. Three governors of the Colony
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of Connecticut came directly from it-John Winthrop, Jr., FitzJohn Winthrop, and Gurdon Saltonstall, who was for many years your min- ister. Besides that, Simon Bradstreet, who served the church from 1666 to 1683, was a son of the Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and also, what is more important, of Anne Bradstreet, the first American poetess. Down to the so-called "Connecticut Revolution" of 1818 this relationship continued. The Reverend Lyman Beecher says in his Diary that in the good old days, before that Revolution, the clergy of Connecticut used to gather in one of the taverns of Hartford or New Haven to decide who the next governor and lieutenant-governor should be, and that it was usually found, later, that they had named the successful candidates.
And the connection between the minister and the town was equally close. For many years all the main business of the Church-calling a minister, contracting with him, deciding upon and collecting his salary, building the meeting-house-was carried on in the town-meeting by votes of the greemen. Even the seats in the meeting-house were as- signed by votes of the townsfolk. Thus you will find in New London's town book that "Mary Jingles shall be seated in the third seat on the woman's side, where she is ordered by the town to sit." And again you may read there that "Mrs. Green, the Deacon's wife, shall be seated in the foreseat on the woman's side."
All this interlocking and confusion of Church and State has hap- pily passed away. Yet we ought not to ignore the fact that New Lon- don owes more than she ever paid, at the rate of eighty pounds a year, plus a few loads of firewood and certain hogsheads of rum, to Richard Blinman, Gershom Bulkeley, Simon Bradstreet, Gurdon Saltonstall, Eliphalet Adams, Ephraim Woodbridge, Henry Channing, Abel Mc- Ewen, Thomas P. Field, and Leroy Blake. It is to these men that the Town owes it, in no small degree, that New London has lived trium- phantly through its infant years, the French and Indian Wars, the Revolution, the burning of the town by the traitor Benedict Arnold, the massacre of Groton Heights, and the long months of suspense during which a hostile fleet stood off the river-mouth with intent to destroy and burn and ravish. During all those trials of the past, we may be sure, the First Church of Christ has been a very present help in time of trouble.
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And yet it has never been a fervid or evangelical church. Perhaps because it has lived in a sea-port town, with a shifting population, it has not made itself strongly felt in the spiritual life of Connecticut at any time. Even in the years of the second pastorate it began to practise the "half-way covenant," according to which persons who did not claim any deep religious experience were accepted into membership. In the time of Adams and Byles it shared only slightly in the "Great Awak- ening" which swept through New England as a devouring flame of religious enthusiasm. It has been sober, steady, regular, instant in duty, orthodox, and respectable, rather than a source of spiritual rebirth. It has seldom if ever realized and put to passionate execution those burn- ing words of the Master "Ye must be born again."
This was the reason, and indeed the justification, for the excesses practised by the Rogerene Quakers in their dealings with the Church two centuries ago. These Rogerenes were as orthodox as any members of the Church itself. They were different from the ordinary church- goers of their time in that they verily and utterly believed in their Christian profession. They made themselves obnoxious to the conven- tional persons of their time because they felt that it was better for them to go to jail and to be whipped and spat upon than that their brothers and sisters should live in hell flames forever. The heroism and humor and tragedy and satire of that Rogerene movement has never been faithfully told. Certainly Miss Frances Manwaring Caulkins, in her otherwise admirable history of New London, has not shown that she understood it. The Reverend Leroy Blake, in his fascinating two- volume history of the church, is almost completely unaware of the issues involved. For an approach to the truth of the Rogerene move- ment one must go to the book by J. R. Bolles and Anna B. Williams, called "The Rogerenes."
The question, however, is not so much what this Church has been as what it is to be. Of what present use, after all, is the history of the First Church of Christ, except as it may now be delivered with concen- trated force in the making of a better future? Our backward look over three hundred years can be justified only if it helps us to see what we have now to do and to be. We Americans, we people of Connecticut and New London, are now to realize that we have a charge to keep from that old time. We must see that this moment in which we live
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The First Church of Christ in New London
and breathe is packed with history. It is an explosive kernel, a time- bomb with a very long fuse. The past is powder behind the ball. It is the strengthened wrist behind the swinging, lunging blade. - Or, if not, then it is merely antiquarianism, the retreat of weaklings and dreamers who will soon be blasted out of their shelter.
Here in Connecticut, here in New London, we have not under- stood our past. We have not understood, during these last hundred years, what sort of place we belong to, or how it was builded. We pride ourselves largely these days upon our mechanical skills. They are pride-worthy, and certainly at this hour we are glad to have them. Only a fool would think of crying them down. But during our first hundred years we were more concerned with the things of the spirit than with any worldly wealth or power or skill. This church was founded in 1642. The first bank in New London was founded in 1792. That is to say, for exactly half of the lifetime of this church the main treasure of New London people has been laid up in heaven. Connecti- cut, taken as a whole and through all her history, has been true to the world that now is but also to the world that is to come. She has been masterful in her handling of metals, but also she has been strong in things of the spirit. And if now she declines, in the terror of this hour, into a manufacturing, peddling, mercantile people, then the Connecticut we have known and love and honor will cease to be.
For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard, For frantic boast and foolish word,
All valiant dust that builds on dust
And, guarding, calls not thee to guard-
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!
This is a town of men who go down to the sea in ships-a town of whalers and sea-traders in whose streets there has always been news of ships come in and rumor of ships gone down. Therefore you will understand the lines by William Vaughn Moody in which our country is likened to a ship in storm bearing all our hopes:
But thou, vast out-bound ship of souls, What harbor-bar for thee? What shapes, when thy arriving tolls, Will crowd the decks to see? Shall all the happy shipmates then Stand singing brotherly? Or will a haggard ruthless few Warp her over and bring her to,
With all the helpless souls of men Festering down in the slaver's pen, And nothing to say, or do?
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THE TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION (1642-1942) SUNDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 17, 1942 AT 3 P. M.
As its part in the Tercentenary celebration, the church school staff in cooperation with the Connecticut Council of Churches and Religious Education sponsored a church workers' clinic. Three other New Lon- don church schools: the First Baptist, the Methodist and St. James' Episcopal joined in the visitation of the various church schools by clinic leaders in the morning. At 3 p. m. there was an assembly of workers from the four participating churches, with departmental con- ferences led by representatives from the Council. After tea at 5 p. m. and an interesting exhibit of teaching aids and resources, the confer- ence groups continued. The clinic was attended by officers and teach- ers from the various church schools.
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The First Church of Christ in New London
THE TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION (1642-1942) SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 31, 1942 AT 10:45
ORDER OF SERVICE
PRELUDE: Andante from "Grande Piece Symphonique" Franck
CHORAL INVOCATION: "Surely, the Lord is in This Place" Burnell
DOXOLOGY (Standing)
INVOCATION AND LORD'S PRAYER (Seated) ANTHEM: "Behold, Praise Ye the Lord Prutting
Behold, praise ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord; praise ye the Lord that made heav'n and earth, praise ye the Lord. Ye that are in the house of the Lord, praise the Lord. Sing praises unto His name; praise ye the Lord. The Lord is nigh unto them that call upon Him: He preserveth them that love His name. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised: give thanks unto His holy name for ever and ever. Behold, praise ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord. Alleluia! Amen.
RESPONSIVE READING: No. 23, page 30
HYMN 406: America Triumphant!
SCRIPTURE LESSON: Psalm 46
(Basis of Martin Luther's "Ein feste' Burg.") From Henry Ainsworth's Metrical Psalter, 1612. Made by a Brownist (Pilgrim) minister (H. A.) for the Pilgrims and first printed for the Pilgrim exiles in Amsterdam in 1612, and brought to America by the Pilgrim Fathers.
1. An hopeful-shelter and a strength, unto us God will be:
2. a succour in distresses, find vehemently shall we.
3. Therefore we will not be afrayd, although the earth change place: and though the mountayns moved be, into hart of the seas.
4. Though waters therof make a noyse, though muddy be shall they: though for the haughtynes therof, the mountayns quake Selah.
5. There is a floud, the streams therof, shall glad the citie of God: the holy-place, the place of the Highest-one's abode.
6. God is in the middest of the same, ' it shall not moved be: at looking-forth of th' early-morn, God help the same will he.
7. The nations did make a noyse,
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the kingdoms moved were: give-forth did he his thondring voice, the earth did melt with fear.
8. The God of armies is with us, the everbeing-Iah: the God of Iakob is for us a refuge-hye, Selah.
9. Iahovah's operations, o come-on ye & see: that wondrous desolations put in the earth doth hee.
10. Vnto the utmost end of th' earth, he maketh cease the warrs: he breaks the bow, & cutts the spear, in fyre he burns the carrs.
11. Surcease and know that I am God: exalted be will I among the heathens, through the earth Ile be exalted-hye.
12. The God of armies is with us, the everbeing-Iah: the God of Iakob is for us a refuge-hye, Selah.
HYMN-ANTHEM: #Psalm 46-Sung to the Tune "York"
(The choir will sing the first two and the last two stanzas of this psalm to the tune York [also called The Stilt], as harmonized in the psalter of Rav- enscroft, 1621. The tune was one of the most widely used, and is found in the old Scotch Psalter of 1615, the Bay Psalm Book, and many others.)
PRAYER
ANTHEM: "How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place . Brahms
How lovely is Thy dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts!
For my soul, it longeth, yea, fainteth, for the courts of the Lord; my soul and body crieth out, yea, for the living God. O blest are they that dwell within Thy house; they praise Thy name ever more!
ANNOUNCEMENTS
OFFERTORY: Fugue on Hymn-tune "York" Paul F. Laubenstein
HYMN 368: Father, Who On Man Doth Shower
SERMON: "The Sense of Beauty in Religious Life." Philippians 4:8 The Rev. George Avery Neeld
PRAYER
HYMN 481: Jerusalem the Golden
BENEDICTION (Standing)
CHORAL RESPONSE
POSTLUDE: "Finale" Wolstenholme
*Note: Music in the 17th and 18th century Pilgrim and Puritan churches in New England was restricted to the unaccompanied singing of metrical versions of the Psalms. The metrical psalters in most common use were those of Day 1562, Sternhold and Hopkins 1562, Este 1592, Ainsworth
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The First Church of Christ in New London
1612, Ravenscroft 1621, the Bay Psalm Book 1640 (one of the first three books to be printed in America) (1st Edition with tunes, 13, 1696), Play- ford 1677, and Tate and Brady 1696. Probably the four most commonly used tunes were: St. Mary's, York, Windsor and Martyrs. The psalms were "lined-out" by a clerk or precentor whose duty it was to pitch or set the psalms. In 1724 the church records state that "for the benefit of setting the psalms, Mr. Fosdick is seated in the third seat at the end next the altar." A "Bass viol" and presumably several other instruments were used in the service in First Church about 1820, and the first organ was not installed until 1825.
THE TERCENTENARY CELEBRATION (1642-1942) SUNDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 11, 1942 AT 10:45
ORDER OF SERVICE
PRELUDE: Fugue on the Hymn Tune "York" From Scottish
Psalter 1615 and Bay Psalm Book 1698 Paul F. Laubenstein DOXOLOGY (Standing)
INVOCATION AND LORD'S PRAYER (Seated) ANTHEM: "Except the Lord Build the House" Gilchrist
Except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it. How amiable are Thy dwellings, O Lord of Hosts. My soul longeth for God. Yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea the sparrow hath found her an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, even Thine Altars, O Lord of Hosts, even Thine Altars, my King and my God. Blessed are they who dwell in Thy House. They shall ever be praising Thee. Except the Lord build the House they labor in vain that build it.
RESPONSIVE READING: Selection 12, page 20
HYMN 419: O God Beneath Thy Guiding Hand
SCRIPTURE LESSON: Psalm 143 (The Bay Psalm Book, 1640)
1. Lord, heare my prayr, give eare when I doe supplicate to thee: in thy truth, in thy righteousnes, make answer unto mee.
2. And into judgement enter not with him that serveth thee; for in thy sight no man that lives can justified bee.
3. For th' enemie hath pursude my soule, my life to'th ground hath throwne: & made mee dwell i'th dark like them that dead are long agone.
4. Therefore my spirit is overwhelmd perplexedly in mee: my heart also within mee is made desolate to bee
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5. I call to minde the dayes of old, I meditation use on all thy words: upon the work of thy hands I doe muse.
6. I even I doe unto thee reach mine out-stretched hands: so after thee my soule doth thirst as doe the thristy lands. Selah.
7. Hast, Lord, heare mee, my spirit doth faile, hide not thy face mee fro; lest I become like one of them that downe to pit doe go.
8. Let mee thy mercy heare i'th morne, for I doe on thee stay, wherein that I should walk cause mee to understand the way: For unto thee I lift my soule.
9. O Lord deliver mee
from all mine enemies; I doe flye
to hide my selfe with thee.
10. Because thou art my God, thy will oh teach thou mee to doe, thv spirit is good: of uprightnes lead me the land into.
11. Jehovah, mee o quicken thou ev'n for thine owne Names sake;
And for thy righteousness my soule from out of trouble take.
12. Doe thou also mine enemies cut off in thy mercy, destroy them that afflict my soule: for thy servant am I.
ANTHEM: "Blow Ye the Trumpet in Zion" Woodman Blow ye the trumpet in Zion; sing aloud unto God our strength. Take a psalm, and blow ye the trumpet in the time appointed, on our solemn feast-day. Blow ye the trumpet in Zion. O remember the days of old, and consider the years of many generations. Ask thy father, and he will show thee; ask thy elders, and they will tell thee what works were done in their days. We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us what works Thou didst in their days, in the times of old. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness! Oh, that men would praise the Lord for all His goodness! Walk about Zion, and go round about her; tell the towns thereof, mark ye well her bulwarks, that ye may tell it to the generations following.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him, all creatures here below, Praise Him above, ye heav'nly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
PRAYER
ANNOUNCEMENTS
OFFERTORY: "Meditation" Opus 61, No. 6 MacDowell-Palmer
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The First Church of Christ in New London
ANTHEM-HYMN: (From Psalm 143-Bay Psalm Book, Tune Gloucester 1621)
ADDRESS: "The First Church of Christ in New London" Ten Topical Tableaux Professor Paul F. Laubenstein
PRAYER
HYMN 61: Our God, Our Help in Ages Past
BENEDICTION (Standing)
CHORAL RESPONSE
POSTLUDE: On Tune Gloucester (1621)
Beatrice Hatton Fisk
THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST IN NEW LONDON TEN TOPICAL TABLEAUX by PAUL F. LAUBENSTEIN
Presented at the Morning Service, October 11, 1942.
The unabridged plans of your Tercentenary Committee called for some sort of dramatic representation of the history of the church in the way of a pageant or series of tableaux. Along with many other features, originally planned, this too had to be abandoned in view of the war situation, which made feasible only a token celebration. But if we cannot have a pageant or tableaux to present to the physical eye, we can have resort to a series of topical tableaux in words to set before the eye of the mind some of the significant items in the history of the church. And there is a certain appropriateness in doing this in October of our Tercentenary year. For, so far as we are able to ascertain, it was on October 1, 1651 that public worship began in the first meeting house of this church in New London. Also, it is from October 5, 1670 that the first records of this church date.
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I By faith - he went out, not knowing. whither he went. They sought a faith's pure shrine.
The first tableau properly centers about the founder and first of the fourteen pastors of this church, one of those twenty thousand men and women of religious conviction who between 1620 and 1640 chose to hazard the perilous voyage across the Atlantic and to undertake the difficult penetration of an unknown, uncultivated and hostile land rather than submit to the attempt of a sovereign state or monarch to prescribe exactly what the manner of worship and the organization of the church should be, together with the beliefs upon which these were predicated. Here were men to whom the worship of God, the Church of Christ and religious belief were quite literally matters of life and death.
Among these protestant Puritans who were either forcibly ejected from their churches in England or who left voluntarily were such able ministerial leaders as William Brewster of Plymouth, John Cotton of Boston, Richard Mather of Dorchester, John Davenport of New Haven and Thomas Hooker of Hartford, who drafted the influential first constitution of Connecticut and is sometimes called "the father of American democracy." Under Charles I, Archbishop William Laud became especially zealous in the effort to enforce conformity and uni- formity in the church in matters of ceremony, dress and worship. One of those to prefer voluntary exile to conformity to these still-too- Catholic procedures was Richard Blinman, a young curate of Chep- stowe, Monmouthsire, England, a little town on the Welsh border. Records of the time indicate that he was a man of learning and pru- dence, "a godly man, whose gifts and abilities to handle the word is not inferior to many others-and of a sweet, humble, heavenly car- riage." At the close of his New London pastorate in 1658, he went to New Haven where for a time he was assistant to the Rev. John Davenport, thence for a time to Newfoundland, was urged to settle there, but refused and returned to England in 1660, after an absence of about twenty years. His intransigeant Puritanism is revealed by the fact that he was indicted at Monmouth Assizes, August 5, 1661, as of Chepstowe, for unlawful assembly in the church of Llanmartin, and was bound over in 40 pounds for good behaviour. He died at Bristol
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