USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Newtown > The story of two centuries, with an account of the celebration of the bicentenary of the Congregational Church of Newtown, Connecticut, October 18, 19 and 20, 1914, 1714-1914 > Part 8
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The Pilgrim church has made a splendid showing on that side of this four-square life. The Great Awakening was ushered in by the mighty evangelistic preaching of Jonathan Edwards. The moral fiber and spiritual passion necessary for the freeing of the slaves by the Civil War were begotten in many of our northern states through the great revivals initiated by President Finney of Oberlin. The whole world knows that the greatest evangelist
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of the nineteenth century, Dwight L. Moody, was a sturdy, con- secrated Congregational layman.
Let these four main interests: Christian education and world wide missions, the great work of social service and the supreme task of Christian evangelism, stand together and work together ! Let each church build its life four-square! Then the winds may blow, the rains descend and the waves beat upon it-it will stand secure, firmly founded upon the rock of obedience to Christ's own word.
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CORNELIUS B. TAYLOR Chairman of the Society's Committee and Member of Bicentennial Executive Committee
ADDRESS
By REV. JAMES H. GEORGE Rector of Trinity Church, Newtown
I thank your pastor for his very cordial introduction and you for your kind welcome and for the invitation which brought me here. It is always an inspiration to me to be present with, and speak to, and worship with, fellow townsmen and fellow Chris- tians. I think that there is nothing that so helps to bring peace in the world, and especially peace in the Church of God; for when we meet each other, and particularly when we meet in our common relation to Our Lord and Master, it brings us nearer together. It is a regret to me that there are no ministers of other Christian bodies as guests with me this afternoon; for whatever their belief may be, I know they ought, and I am sure they would, be deeply interested in this celebration. Two hun- dred years of life for any institution in this country is, of course, remarkable. What has survived two hundred years must have in it much of good and will not soon pass away.
It is with peculiar appropriateness that I should on such an occasion speak not only for myself and my people, but for all others. While not myself a native of this town, my people in their religious history came from this old stock. It was one race, it was one in the same high ideals of liberty and of the sense of personal responsibility. In a sense my parish is an elder daughter of this church; and I speak for Trinity Church and all people in it when I say it is a matter of rejoicing to them that this institution should be celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of its foundation. The fathers of my parish were in a large measure of the same people as yours. They were not an alien race. They were not a foreign immigration. Socially, intellectually, and morally, they are of the same strain. From the beginning to this day we have been one community. We have had the same ideals in regard to what should be best for the people, the same glorious ideals which brought the ances-
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tors of all of us across the water. Our people have lived side by side, have intermarried; the strains have crossed and recrossed. They have worked together in business, in the schools, and in our town affairs; and my people look back to their forefathers in the founders of your church as yours look back to their fore- fathers in the founders of mine. Thus they are one in a larger and nearer sense than it is often possible for men of different religious creeds to be. Down through the history of our town there have been certain great essential ideas of religion and of the best interests of the community common to us all. Our fathers fought out the principle of religious liberty one hundred years ago when the old order was disestablished, and all creeds were put upon a common footing in the State, in the same spirit in which they fled from the establishment in the old country a century or two earlier. So we can look back upon those early days and respect the men who stood for what they thought was right, though they were not always as charitable to one another as they might have been. We can respect them, because they did not sacrifice principle for friendship, and yet did not suffer sweet charity and good will to be blotted out by partisanship.
There have been and I suppose always will be different ideals in religion as in life. And yet they need not be hostile to each other. Nations are at war with one another because they think some alien race has purposes in view which will be detrimental to the ideals of their own race. Men have not yet learned, as they will in time learn, and as we in this country have to some extent learned, that the best interests of the world are not to be gained by the striking out of the ideals of any race, but by a fusing together of the characteristics of each. It is in this way the great race will be formed which will rule the world.
As an illustration of this in our religious life I like to compare the two churches which stand facing each other upon our vil- lage street, your white spire with its gilded weathercock and the square stone tower of Trinity. The weathercock sometimes causes a smile on the face of a stranger who has never before seen that interesting relic, but it has a meaning which all should understand. It is an ancient ecclesiastical symbol and is con- nected with St. Peter's denial, the cock recalling him to loyalty to his Master. So first it means watchfulness, the cock lifted
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high on his perch crowing for the dawn. So I love to think of your church as St. Peter's Church. Secondly, the vane shows which way the wind blows, and that means, not necessarily trim- ming the sails to the popular breeze; it means watching the currents of thought in the world and in the community and being ready to meet them.
The stone tower of Trinity Church set four-square to all parts of the horizon represents defense of the ancient truth and testi- mony to it, "to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered unto the saints." It means history, as the vane means progress. Both are needed in religion and in the world. This celebration witnesses to the value of an historic past. Truth proved and lived by is the only soil in which new truth can grow. There are permanent elements in religion, in the Christian faith, as in human nature. However much we may learn or invent that is new it must all be consistent with the old truth. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
But men grow, and new circumstances arise which make it necessary to adapt old ideas to modern needs. So the Church of Christ must be alive to all that is going on in the world, be "up to date," as well as solid in its past. Old truth also needs new interpretation as time goes by, a widening of our under- standing of its meaning. We do not leave the old behind; we learn more about it. So these two ideals, the one of steadfast- ness to the old truth, the other of meeting the needs of the present day, are not contrary to each other. They mutually supplement and complete each other. The effect of these two ideals upon the community is most wholesome. The Episcopal Church, by its standing fast by the old truth and the historic faith, has saved Congregationalism in Connecticut to orthodoxy, and rescued it from the Unitarianism which swept so much of it away in Massachusetts. And Congregationalism has made the Episcopal Church in Connecticut more truly democratic than it generally is elsewhere.
And so it is that Christian people are drawn year by year nearer together, not by the suppression of any true ideal of the truth, but by a happy blending and union of each. The day of a complete union of Christian men may be, and probably is, still far ahead of us; but this is the straight road to it.
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So I thank God for all the good that is done by this congre- gation, that you are holding up a high standard of the work of God, that you are doing your best to train your children aright, that you are generous of your means to spread the knowledge of the Word of God here and in foreign lands. Your good works and Christian character help my work. It lifts up the Christian standard in the community. It kindles a fire which not only warms your own home, but sends its genial life-giving influence into the hearts of my own people, and blesses the whole community.
ARTHUR TREAT NETTLETON
Member of Society's Committee and of the Bicentennial Executive Committee
ADDRESS
By REV. L. F. BERRY of Stamford
This is the last of the series of services in which this asso- ciation of Congregational churches was invited to participate in recognition of the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of this church. And they were very glad indeed to come as sister churches and pastors of those churches, and friends, and join with you. We extend to you our congratulations that two hundred years of efficient service has been completed, and I think it is fitting that we should have read the formal motion that was adopted here this morning by the council
I have had this read because it seems to me it expresses in a more formal and much better way than I could do the spirit of congratulation in which the churches met with you here to-day join. I have been wondering if this church celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of its founding. I ask for this reason :- if there was such a celebration one hundred years ago my great- grandfather must have been here at that celebration: for he was at that time the pastor of one of the Litchfield churches and in all probability a church as near as this one was to his a hundred years ago would have been represented at that time. Why is that of interest to me and why is it of passing interest to you? Because these celebrations prevent us from separating ourselves from what has gone before. We owe it not only to the past but to ourselves to keep alive the memory of that work in which they by their devotion gave their strength to this church. It wasn't that the church should keep alive just in their genera- tion but that it should keep alive for future generations. We know that the work we are doing now will not die. We know that the spirit of God which has led them in the age that is past is leading us to-day, in a slightly different way, it is true, but the same God and the same spirit commands the workers. The same gospel is taught with slightly different emphases. It is the same spirit that the people feel to-day that was felt one hundred years ago or two hundred years ago, when the people
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in this vicinity got together to form this church to reach the needs of the people of this community. That is why this church was formed, to meet the needs of the people. As I read that tablet on the wall erected to that man who was not only the first minister of Newtown but the first physician and judge and magis- trate as well, I think what a man he must have been to teach this knowledge in so many different ways. Now the work of the magistrate and the work of the physician is performed by separate individuals in the community. Our ministers are no longer the magistrates of the communities. Seldom if ever is a minister sent as a delegate to the General Court, but the church has been instrumental in bringing up those men who are fitted to do this work, and the church still is teaching the community on all those points; for the business of the church is to have an oversight of the health of the community. With the pastor and the people the church must be one of those forces which looks to the physical as well as the moral health of the community in which it resides, for above all temporal duties is that fundamental duty of the moral law which the church pro- claims, for it is responsible for the moral work in it. In all work we have all of us in the church, pastor and people alike, con- ceived the responsibility of all that has to do with our community life, and the church must still inculcate health and justice in the community, although the minister is no longer a representative of those things. As the centuries pass our work is still the same, and until there is no more work needed in Newtown to make lives cleaner in this community, to make justice more complete, until the last citizen, man or woman (for the next hundred years may see a marked change in that direction), has fulfilled com- pletely his several duties, there will still be need of the work of this church here on the hill. That which lies behind you, these two long centuries, is only a fraction of time which the church of Newtown is going to live and going to work, and always to perpetuate all that is good in the past, and we hope our children will perpetuate in the centuries to come, as they try to minister to the people in this community those things which we are trying to minister to them now. Perfection is a long ways off and we sometimes get discouraged; there have been times when it seemed as though this church were lagging in its work, but it is not so, for this church is only beginning to
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fulfill its mission, and it will not be completed until the ideals of religion between man and man in the community are com- pletely fulfilled, and that is going to be a long time to come. It takes a long time to fulfill our ideals, but God is patient and we are thankful that he is patient. The ideals in this life have been a long time in their fulfillment, but we have at least the promise of their fulfillment. When in Cologne many years ago, I was surprised to find that the great cathedral there had been almost eight hundred years in building. It is a marvel of the stone maker's art and there it stands completed to-day; but on the walls of one of the chapels in this cathedral is an old time- worn picture, a drawing by the hand of the architect who con- ceived that wonderful structure that was to stand for nearly seven hundred years with flat unfinished towers instead of spires. But the picture drawn by the hand of the original architect has the spires on it, all completed, pointing to the God and the Home of God; the God of that people. It was almost eight hundred years before the hope and ideal of the architect of that great cathedral began to be completed. Seven centuries passed with the flat towers instead of spires, but in the eighth century, after man's eyes had grown dull with waiting, after generation after generation had said "It will never be completed," there came a day, and it was in our own day, that the spires were done, and they stand to-day not only a monument to the man who com- pleted them but to the man who first conceived the beauty of that cathedral. And so with the work of the church of Christ. It is full of discouragements and it seems at times as though we were not getting anywhere near our ideals. But we must be patient and some day the ideals which God has for his people and the ideals of Jesus Christ will be fulfilled. So we bring you our good cheer and congratulations and our hope that you will accomplish those ideals for which the church and the Kingdom of God have been marked for two hundred years in this community and throughout the world.
ADDRESS
By JUDGE JOHN H. PERRY, of Southport
The whole state, especially your own county, rejoices with the Newtown Church to-day, for it is a glorious thing to have kept a lamp continuously lighted upon a hill top for ten score years. Some of us have come as admiring friends to tell you simply that. Others have come with words of eloquence and cheer and counsel. I have come to be that absolutely essential part of every work of art, the background, against which the real picture stands forth in plain relief. When I was requested to come and talk to you to-day, my instant reply was that of the oft- quoted colored brother who was asked to change a five dollar bill, and answered "I can't possibly do it, Sir, but I certainly thank you for the compliment." Here I am, however, and even a background should not be unmindful of its humble office. I asked for a text, but none was given me. So I will talk to you about one of my pet hobbies, which is that the laymen of a church have other uses than simply, in their connection with the collection plate, to make the dollar famous.
On anniversary days we are wont to stop and turn about and look back at the past. If it tends upward all the way we are satisfied and sometimes proud, but whether it tends up or down we must soon face about again and begin our march, for the road continues and our past beckons and time will not wait. So as I stand at that place now, I want to talk to my fellow laymen here before we separate and they go on. I have taken the liberty of committing what I have to say to writing because I have found that the end of the writing in my own case best indicates the end of the address.
Observations in widely separated regions of the earth have led me to realize how inexorably environment and atmosphere determine character, influence conscience, and direct the entire life. Where houses are unnecessary, home life is unknown. Where provision does not wait upon effort, effort is forever post- poned. Where the need of protection is not imminent, neither is
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a protector believed to be. And so I am satisfied that Christian laymen ought to reflect more seriously upon the fact that after all they constitute the atmosphere of the Church, determine its character, and are responsible for its results.
Holding the key to its success fast in our hands, we sparingly dole out in our daily lives the medium through which the labors of its officers can alone bear fruit. Without the help of the pews the pastor's efforts must needs be as barren as are those of a fisherman with a broken net or with no net at all. Preaching is looked upon as the preacher's support, and upright living and white neckties as his specialties, and accordingly, neither of them to the unreligious are especially attractive. But when the ordinary citizen-possibly the life-long neighbor-leads an unvarying life of integrity and helpfulness it is a very dif- ferent matter-sufficiently unusual to be worth seeking the reason for, and always influential. When a number of such persons are continually in sight to whom goodness is not an apparent source of revenue, the onlooker begins to be conscious of an inspiring atmosphere and, like Paul, cannot be disobedient to the Heavenly vision.
A Church may be fed from the pulpit, but it is warmed from the pews and decorated by the lives of its members, and the warmth diffused by friendly interest and the beauty that shines in consecrated living create an environment congenial to the work of the Holy Spirit and incite an appetite for that spiritual food upon which they are fed. I am not heralding a new discovery. This is merely the confession of one layman that in promoting the mission of the Church he has work to do which is not always done.
The doctrine of evolution applies to churches as certainly as to animate nature and from the thunderclad pulpit and two weekly sermons of an hour each has developed the institutional church, the Y. M. C. A., the Christian Endeavor Society, Uni- versity settlements, Church brotherhoods and other lay works in endless variety. The demand of the irreligious world for the outstretched hand of the layman has educated their hands and caused them to be stretched forth in ever increasing numbers and thus has immeasurably blessed both helper and helped. So I come again to the thought with which I started-that more and more does it devolve upon the layman to help make religion
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attractive and by his life interpret the sermon to the world, thus alone fulfilling what seems to me his present time peculiar mission.
A better verse with which to begin each day cannot be found than "None of us liveth to himself and none dieth to himself." What we can do in connection with the edifice and the organiza- tion it is not difficult to state. We can be found in the vestibule with a smile and an outstretched hand both before and after serv- ice. That our pew is without a stranger should not be our fault. In Sunday School we can teach a class discovered by our- selves. We can attend and take some part in the weekly meeting. We can cheerfully bear the offices of the church and help admin- ister its temporalities, giving to them as faithful and intelligent attention as we bestow upon our own. We can represent it in ecclesiastical gatherings and there contribute of our best to the common task. But all of this is the smallest part. It is not in these ways, important as they are, that we can reach those whose need is greatest.
The Good Samaritan appears to have been a simple layman doing the kindness which has rendered a nameless one immortal outside of any religious observance, far from any place of wor- ship and to the hindrance of his usual business. Who believes that the man who fell among thieves could ever again be indif- ferent to that which interested his benefactor or a disbeliever in the worth of that which was the ruling motive in his life? To have touched a Christlike spirit is closely akin to touching the garment of Him who said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
When busy church members, with the publicly avowed motive that it is Christian so to do, find time to enter into others' labors and lighten them, to seek out the distressed and help them, to visit the fatherless and afflicted and comfort them, to brighten the rayless lives of the submerged, to give purpose to the pur- poseless and hope to the despairing, yes, to attend caucuses, to rebuke graft and to enforce law, then is religion made tangible, then are churches filled, then sermons bear fruit and the pews and pulpit become unitedly irresistible.
Having expressed my belief that the membership of the church and not the minister regulates its influence and determines the attitude of the world toward it, and produced before you one
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professing Christian layman who confesses that he habitually fails to contribute his share of ozone to the religious atmosphere about him and to be what he should be in the environment, I have brought the merest commonplaces with me and ill repaid your hospitality unless I can suggest something which will make the situation better.
My first suggestion is that the laymen must somehow be set in motion. The Samaritans must be persuaded to get upon their beasts and start. An extraneous push of some kind is generally needed and it can best come from a minister who marshals his pews and without the foolishness of much speaking sets them at work.
The average layman pretends not to like this. His inertia is great and his belief in the all-sufficiency of simple faith quite touching, but, believe me, if fairly well done, in his heart he likes it, and if he will only start you need not particularly mind what he says. Sermons are still expected, I suppose, and probably a valid excuse for one can frequently be found, but unless they put Christians in motion they seem to me to fall short of their highest misison. The pastor's door-bell battery will be infre- quently exhausted by the visits of the laity in search of tasks to perform, but I honestly believe that they like him best when he works them on worth-while things the hardest, provided he works himself. So I commend the minister who organizes the work, gathers in workers and belongs to the union himself. But it cannot be done with a club and it cannot be done from the rear.
We are certainly approaching if we are not already in the age when the pews-viewing society from the standpoint of the church-and lay agencies with their as yet hardly suspected potencies need cultivation and direction of the kindest and wisest sort. Man with man is being found to be the most effective way of working. Andrew found Peter and Philip found Nathaniel and the apostolic College and the Church were thereby immeas- urably blessed.
As I read the writings of the unconverted and listen to their apologists and watch their ways, it appears to me that the pulpit as such, through no fault whatever of its own, has less and less influence over them. They seem to be almost immune to preach- ing except as it is filtered through the pews. The very altruism of the gospel seems to excite suspicion in this selfishly material
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age, and when its claims are advocated by those whose business so to do it is believed to be, their advocacy, for that reason alone, loses its fully deserved weight.
In fact, mere advocacy by any one seems to bear little fruit, and foolishness is at times attributable to all preaching except those silent sermons which proceed from cheerful, helpful, self- denying, upright, daily living, and so the surrounding cloud of witnesses, skeptical of everything and demanding that their lot be somehow turned into the bread of greater happiness, impose upon the laymen of the churches a responsibility which is all too inadequately realized. To make us realize it and to prompt and teach us how to bear it I believe to be the choicest mission of the minister and the hope of the church to-day.
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