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 6
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VII
Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations.
At the first, the mission field was at the very door of the church, and the Massachusetts Colony records of 1652 (ten years before Con-
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necticut was granted a charter) report that Mr. Blinman "is still en- gaged in his labors to evangelize the Indians of his neighborhood," i.e. Pequot. His success in this work caused the Society for Propagating the Gospel in New England to propose that he become a missionary to the Pequots and the Mohegans, offering to pay for an interpreter. He chose however to retain his parish. There is no reason to doubt that this work was carried on by his successors, and seventy-five years later, we find Mr. Adams taking an especially active interest in this work for over twenty years; like Mr. Blinman, learning their language. He became a friend of the Uncas family, and took young Ben Uncas, third of the name and sixth sachem, into his family, boarding and tutoring him under the ward of the Society for Propagating the Gospel. One of the most significant conversions made in this parish during the Great Awakening was that of Samson Occum, born at Mohegan just north of the town, who became a native preacher to the Mohegans, working for a time at Montauk, L. I. and in his later years as a Presby- terian near Albany, N. Y. In 1766, Mr. Wheelock, principal of the Indian school at Lebanon, which Occum had attended, sent him to England as an agent for an Indian charity school. Being the first Indian preacher who had visited that country, he attracted large audi- ences and obtained donations exceeding 10,000 pounds, with which he established a school at Hanover, N. H., which was later merged with Dartmouth College. He wrote an account of the Montauk Indians, printed in the Mass. Hist. Soc. collections (1st series, vol. X), and published at New London in 1774 a compilation of hymns entitled Choice Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs. He himself also appears to have been a writer of hymns, although none of his own are included in his collection.
One of his hymns in particular, "The New Birth," attained great popularity, and this not only among the Indian tribes. It is found with alterations in a number of American collections. Not long since, I ran upon it in a hymnal compiled in 1825 by the Rev. Asahel Nettleton and known as Village Hymns, where it appears in Nettleton's "stream- lined" but commendable version. In the early 19th century it became widely known in England and in 1814 was translated into Welsh. It was a favorite in the Welsh revivals of the period, and Dr. Joseph Belcher, writing in 1859, said that "no doubt can be entertained of its
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SAMSON OCCOM
(H.W.F.)
(With permission, from The Story of the American Hymn, by Edward S. Ninde) .
Three Hundredth Anniversary
having led many hundred sinners to the cross of Christ." Thus did bread cast upon the waters find its way back to the homeland after many days. Since Occum was a native of this region and a minister produced by this parish, I think it fitting to reproduce this hymn entire. Incidentally it will give us some idea of the stern theology upon which our fathers were nurtured and the extent to which Occum had absorbed it. It may be regarded as a sort of Mohegan version of St. Paul's profound experience as set forth in Romans 7-8.
THE NEW BIRTH
Wak'd by the gospel's joyful sound, My soul in guilt and thrall I found, Exposed to endless woe; Eternal truth aloud proclaim'd: "The sinner must be born again," Or else to ruin go.
Surpris'd I was, but could not tell Which way to shun the gates of hell, For they were drawing near; I strove indeed, but all in vain- "The sinner must be born again," Still sounded in my ear.
Then to the law I flew for help, But still the weight of guilt I felt, And no relief I found; While death eternal gave me pain: "The sinner must be born again," Did loud as thunder sound.
God's justice now I did behold, And guilt lay heavy on my soul- It was a heavy load! I read my Bible; it was plain "The sinner must be born again," Or feel the wrath of God.
I heard some tell how Christ did give His life, to let the sinner live; But him I could not see: This solemn truth did still remain: "The sinner must be born again," Or dwell in misery.
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The First Church of Christ in New London
But as my soul, with dying breath, Was gasping in eternal death, Christ Jesus I did spy; Free grace and pardon he proclaim'd, The sinner then was born again, With raptures I did cry.
The Angels in the world above, And saints can witness to the love Which then my soul enjoy'd. My soul did mount on faith, its wing, And glory, glory, did I sing To Jesus Christ my Lord.
Come, needy sinners, hear me tell What boundless love in Jesus dwell, How mercy doth abound; Let none of mercy doubting stand, Since I the chief of sinners am, Yet I have mercy found.
But by Mr. Adams' time, say about the middle of the eighteenth century, it appears that all too many of the colonists stood in just about as much need of being Christianized as did the Indians. The genera- tion of the original Puritan founding fathers was fast disappearing by 1660, and the second generation was not characterized by quite the same intense Christian consecration and piety. Then too, the stock that was coming over from England was not quite as good as it had been. There were many redemptioners, just indifferently good and on the whole illiterate, there were pure adventurers, not a few exported crimi- nals and released debtors. Add to this the constant threat of wars and rumors of wars, the necessary concern with mere physical, material subsistence often amounting to complete preoccupation therewith (the diaries of Thomas Minor and Joshua Hempstead, valuable source books for early colonial history, inadvertently reveal how large the grim struggle for existence bulked in the estimation of even these worthy members of First Church), internal dissensions between the colonies and endless boundary disputes, disintegrating arguments over minor, irrelevant questions of forms, ceremonies and church polity as other denominations came in to challenge the original monopoly of Congre- gationalism; then there were certain abuses inseparable from govern- mental control of the churches, and lastly there was the ever-growing tendency to lower the standards of admission to church membership.
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All of which provided precisely the right setting for that religious revival of the 1740's known as The Great Awakening.
As early as 1721-22, the churches of Massachusetts had united with those of Connecticut in what may well have been the first home mis- sionary movement in America, if we except that to the Indians. Of this movement, Mr. Adams was treasurer. Its object was to build a meeting house and to provide for the preaching of the gospel by (Presbyterian !) ministers to the benighted people of-Providence, R. I. Likewise, during Mr. Channing's ministry this church helped to send preachers and financial aid to colonists from Connecticut who had mi- grated to Vermont and New York, before the organization of the official Missionary Society of Connecticut in 1798, a society to whose treasury it became a regular contributor. Dr. McEwen in 1816 initiated a home missionary movement for the help of destitute and pastorless churches in this state. Also during his pastorate, about 1820, Harriet Lathrop, a young woman whom he had influenced to go out to India, established in Ceylon the Oodooville Female Seminary. She went out as the wife of the first missionary to Ceylon, Mr. Winslow. A year later, the women of this church organized the Female Foreign Missionary Society, a secondary aim of which was also "to administer to the necessities of the deserving poor around them." The Women's Foreign Missionary Society of this church has ever been one of its most active and helpful organizations.
Mr. Bacon's ministry from the missionary point of view was sig- nalized by Deacon Asa Otis' magnificent gift to the A.B.C.F.M. in 1879 of funds which came to amount to almost a million and a half dollars, and which enabled the Board enormously both to expand its evangelistic and educational program and to promote the educational interests of new missions in their beginnings. That through this legacy First Church has been privileged to exert a world-wide Christian influ- ence, which must include its accompanying social, political and educa- tional by-products, goes without saying .- And the tableau of this vital and distinctive feature of Christianity-missions-would be incomplete without the presentation of (a) Miss Louise Allyn, who has left behind her a legacy of thirty-one years of significant Christian service as prin- cipal of Trinity School (Negro) at Athens, Ala., a legacy which like- wise bestows great honor upon this church, (b) Isabel Mather Blake
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The First Church of Christ in New London
and (c) Alice Bewer Daghlian each of whom served for seven years under the A.B.C.F.M. in Turkey.
VIII
Ye are the light of the world.
Education has always constituted an essential part of the Christian missionary enterprise, and the mention of the educational aspects of the missionary work of Harriet Lathrop Winslow and Miss Allyn, and of Deacon Otis' gift leads naturally to the next tableau: First Church and Education. We may begin by recalling the exposition of the bibli- cal chapter by the "teacher" in the old Puritan order of service, a practice which had its roots in the Jewish synagogue service. Remember Jesus expounding Isa. 61 in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4). This educational part of the Puritan service was a sort of forerunner of the later Sunday School, the first of which to be organized in New London was in connection with this church in 1816, not however until 1872 recognized as an integral part of the church. We recall too the Indian schools in this vicinity which Mr. Adams was instrumental in estab- lishing. That Yale College was finally settled in New Haven rather than in Saybrook was due in large measure to the influence of our Gov. Saltonstall, who at its first commencement held in New Haven, in 1718, crowned the occasion with an elegant oration, given in Latin. Mr. Adams was offered the presidency of Yale College in 1724, but declined the honor, preferring to give himself to his ministerial call- ing. But he and Mr. McEwen were both socii (members of the Board of Trustees) of Yale College. Throughout its history, the relations between this church and Yale and Harvard have been very close, both ministerial and laical. The missionary munificence of Deacon Asa Otis has its educational counterpart in that of Mr. Edward S. Harkness, for many years a contributing member of this church, whose educational philanthropies have of course not been confined to these two institu- tions, nor to this country alone. To which we must add the gifts of Mrs. Harkness in support of the higher education of women both in England and at Connecticut College.
From the beginning this church has stood for an educated minis- try. It may well have been the lack of appreciation of Mr. Blinman's superior intellectual attainments on the part of the Marshfield congre-
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gation that prompted him to move with his Welsh friends to Glouces- ter. The Massachusetts colonial records indicate as much. We read, "Being invited to Green's Harbor (Marshfield) near Plymouth, he and his friends meant there to settle, but the influence of a few gifted ( !) brethren made learning or prudence of little avail. They compared him to 'a piece of new cloth in an old garment,' and thought that they could do better without patching." And Mr. Blake adds, "It is clear, too, that he left the pulpit in Marshfield, because the pews wanted to get into it." Similarly, the Rogerene disturbances which disrupted the peace of the church for some seventy-five years revolved in no small de- gree around their aversion to a well-trained, regularly settled ministry. That in the matter of a well-educated ministry, First Church ranks high should appear from all the foregoing. The sermons of a number of its ministers were deemed of sufficient value to be published, and refer- ence has already been made to the volumes written by Gershom Bulk- eley and S. Leroy Blake.
IX -they have a zeal for God-according to knowledge.
I referred awhile back to the Great Awakening and to the causes which produced it. That the times called for a deepening of the spiritual life and a new religious loyalty is without question. And there is no doubt that the work of such men as Gilbert Tennent, Jona- than Edwards and George Whitefield provided the sort of stimulus that was needed, and that on the whole its results in the founding of some one hundred and fifty new churches and conversions to the num- ber of at least twenty thousand did justify the movement, even apart from its tonic effect upon the churches generally. But that it also ran to excesses, stirred up superficial and short-lived religious emotional- ism, mob-hysteria, dissension and secession, the history of our own church alone during Mr. Adams' ministry is witness. The middle position which he took at that time between the too-often-injudicious enthusiasm of the "New Lights" and a too meticulous, "legalistic," or intellectual type of religion is typical of this church throughout its history, not only in matters of theology, but also as regards ritual and church polity. It has avoided extremes, and while evidencing firm religious conviction, it has usually pursued a middle path marked by
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The First Church of Christ in New London
a sweet reasonableness, well-balanced judgment, consideration and discretion. At the time of the Great Awakening, while it welcomed the revivalistic preaching of Gilbert Tennent in 1741, which bore good fruits for the church, it gave no encouragement to the fanatical rantings and ministrations of James Davenport, which actually harmed the church; and it had no part as a church in the dramatic but disgraceful "burning of the books," which took place on March 6, 1743 at the head of what is now Hallam St .- an "ebullition of misguided zeal," according to Miss Caulkins' history of the town. Mr. Adams' middle way received its justification in the eventual return to the fold of most of the erstwhile seceders and in Davenport's own later retraction of his errors.
Again, as between conformity to a too rigid orthodoxy and a too rationalistic interpretation of religion which may have contravened "sound doctrine," this church also appears to have followed the middle path. Thus it was that while the church appreciated Mr. Channing's intellectual gifts and acknowledged his liberty to speak his convictions, it never seemed quite to "warm up" to him or his type of religious thinking and preaching, which must have been something too much on the coldly rational side, and not sufficiently on the evangelical. Hence no voice was raised against his resignation.
A like liberal indulgence seems to have been exercised toward Mr. Byles some thirty years before in the matter of his High Church tendencies in worship. Mr. Byles did go over to the Anglicanism of his noted father, as Mr. Channing with his rationalism may be regarded as the grand-uncle of American Unitarianism. But if First Church did not take to Mr. Byles' formalism in worship, neither did it favor the formlessness of the Quaker worship or the liturgical anarchy of the Rogerenes-another point involved in this controversy.
Or again, take the matter so dear to the heart of the Puritan-Con- gregationalist-independence-particularly in the case of church polity. Blinman's whole career, the church's evident disapproval of a certain ecclesiastical Toryism of Mr. Bulkeley and Mr. Byles, its rejection of the Saybrook Platform, which pointed too suspiciously toward the reproduction of an established church here in America, both in 1708 when even the influence of Gov. Saltonstall who supported it was not sufficient to induce it to adopt it, and then again in 1757, by which
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time state pressure urging compliance by the churches was still stronger - such repudiations of any suggestion of ecclesiastical regimentation or totalitarianism as these reveal a true Puritan-Congregationalism which has ever been characteristic of this church.
Its independence within its own household also stands revealed. This is evidenced in the latitude the church allowed its ministers in the matter of adopting or rejecting the "half-way covenant," a measure which meant different things in different churches as to the basis of admission to the church and degree of participating membership, but which in general let down the bars for admission, not requiring a rela- tion of experience as a prerequisite from "those who have great scruple and difficulty." It proved to be a divisive issue within the Puritan churches for nearly one hundred and fifty years. Its practice brought numbers into the churches, but not always of the best quality. This church on the whole respected the positions which its early ministers took in the matter, but Mr. Woodbridge, pastor at the outbreak of the Revolution, by his vigorous opposition to it seems to have determined the policy of the church thereafter in its rejection, until the adoption in 1810 of the new form of profession of faith and covenant compiled by Mr. McEwen.
But this typical Puritan-Congregational independence, in whatever fields exercised, was again not carried to an extreme. It was not an abso- lute independence amounting to isolation, nor was it an expression of superiority or arrogance. That the church followed a middle way between absolute independence and regimentation by the state is also seen in the friendly relations which it has always enjoyed with churches not only of its own denomination (we recall Mr. McEwen's lead in organizing the consociation of New London County in 1815), but also with those of others. As early as 1708 we find Mr. Saltonstall inviting two travelling ministers of the Church of England to preach in his pulpit. One of these preachers, the Rev. George Keith, later wrote in his diary, "The auditory was large and well affected." He deemed that worthy of note on the part of one church toward representatives of its not-so-long-since persecutor and expatriator. That it even offered the hospitality of the church to a visiting French Roman Catholic priest in 1825 or 26 for Catholic worship has already been commented upon. I have referred to its willingness to surrender its position of prestige
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The First Church of Christ in New London
in the town as the church, so that those of other denominations might be established, first of all the Episcopal church in 1725. But to Baptist, Methodist and churches of other denominations it has always extended the right hand of good fellowship and cooperation in the spirit of true democracy.
X
What! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive ill?
Lastly, the church has had its share of hard times. Some of these it suffered in common with the colony, others concerned the church in particular. It is characteristic of the God-orientation of the early colo- nists that they saw the hand of God in both blessing and calamity, and statements to this effect stand in the colonial records. He was praised on the public records and on days set aside for thanksgiving for a bountiful harvest and for good health, and was besought in penitence for relief from sore sickness, blasting and dread scourge on days also officially appointed to be observed with fasting and prayer. This is especially noticeable in The Diary of Thomas Minor, kept from 1653 to 1684. The years 1689 and 1798 were marked by unusually severe epidemics. Small-pox, yellow fever and consumption carried many away. The year 1681 saw the appearance of a portentous comet and was the occasion for sermons and widespread searching of heart. In his letters at this time to Increase Mather who wrote a sermon upon it, Mr. Bradstreet remarks, "It is plain wee need no enemyes to conspire our rvine. Our sins and follies will doe it too fast. - If wee can keep God our freind, no matter who are our enemies. But I fear this is our great wound; wee are making God our enemy, & that upon many accounts too long to write." We are reminded of the burden of the prophets Haggai and Malachi in the request of the legislature of Con- necticut to Gov. Saltonstall in 1714 "to recommend to the ministers to inquire strictly into the state of religion in every parish asking, 'what are the sins and evils that provoke the just majesty of heaven to walk contrary to us in the ways of His providence: that thereby all possible means may be used for our healing and recovery from our degen- eracy.' " Can one imagine a State legislature in 1942 similarly going on record?
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A great snow in Feb. 1716-17 which drifted in places to a height of ten and twelve feet led Mr. Adams to preach a sermon upon it, which was later printed; and this was the case with an occurrence which must have caused a tremendous sensation at the time, namely "that awful thunder-clap which struck the Saltonstall {4th] meeting house in New London on Aug. 31, 1735." The sermon was delivered on the following Sunday, Sept. 7, upon the text: "I answered Thee in the secret place of thunder." Ps. 81:7. Sermons such as these were concluded with an "Improvement" especially designed to drive home the lesson to be derived from the occurrence. Mr. Blake prints in full the Improvement of this sermon. It alone fills nearly seven pages.
Joshua Hempstead was present when the thunder-clap occurred. He writes in his diary, "Sund. 31, fair in foren. Mr. Adams pr. at noon. It clouded over Thick and Raind smartly and when Mr. Adams stood up and began prayer a Tereble Clap of Thunder and Lightning came Struck meeting house in Divers places, and struck Divers persons it pleased God to Spare al our Lives. But Edwn Burch a young man newly for himself, and he was struck more fattaly and Died .- Divers others Mazed and Litely hurt, it is supposed about 40 Struck Down."
Mr. Adams' "Improvement" urged the "need of something very Awakening to Rouze us out of that deep Security, into which many of us were fallen. But this alone will not do; It may startle and make us tremble, but we shall soon get over it and return again to folly, unless the Lord please to send down his Effectual grace, to pour out the Spirit of grace and Supplication to Accompany it." Mr. Adams relates that the Lord had a while since sent earthquakes among them, and a violent wind only that year, "And now we in this place have been encom- passed with this Terrible Fire;" so the Lord can speak on occasion as well as in the still, small voice-he is in both, for the amendment of our hearts and lives.
And I must close this record of hardships with the American Revolution. Indeed it caused all the communions in America to suffer severely. Mr. Woodbridge died in 1776 and for eleven years there- after the church was without a regular pastor, at a time when it most stood in need of a strong guiding hand. The blunt fact seems to be that the precarious times and the low state of the church's treasury war- ranted it in engaging preachers by the year, month or Sabbath only.
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The First Church of Christ in New London
At this distance, and after the successful outcome of the Revolution, we are inclined to idealize those days. In reality they were dark, ter- rible years. They were times of poverty, famine, disease, of confusion and continual alarms, especially here in New London, when a ship bearing British troops might be sighted off the coast any day. They were days of lawlessness, disorder and misrule, with most of the men in the army or navy-and the church without a pastor. Considering the circumstances, it is little short of a miracle that the church survived at all. Many did not. At the death of Mr. Woodbridge in 1776 there were something like ten male and forty-five female members. One small comfort we may derive: Benedict Arnold, for some reason, at least did not burn the church in 1781, although St. James' Church, then located down upon the Parade, together with its burial ground, did fall a victim to his avenging fury. It is a tribute to the position which the church had come to occupy in the community and to the feeling of its indispensability that the town did not let it die; that the congrega- tion, with the return of the men from the war, even set about building a new church, poor as its members were. "But," says Mr. Blake, "the spiritual life of this church, which had receded from the high mark reached in the Great Awakening of nearly half a century before, into the darkness almost of spiritual death, did not fully recover its tone till the nineteenth century was well under way."
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