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 9
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And so, my brethren and sisters, your lives and mine, I fear, will make this church in the years to come, and every church always, a success or failure. If we wish our friends to see what God is like, we must let them see what he can make us like.
WILSON M. REYNOLDS Member of the Society's Committee
ADDRESS
By REV. SHERROD SOULE, of Hartford
Members of the Church and Congregation of this church of Newtown, and also friends and neighbors present, I bring to you greetings from the State of Connecticut, one hundred miles long and fifty miles wide, with more than a million people in it, and according to the prayer just offered, they are of all sorts and conditions of men. I bring to you the greetings of forty-seven churches who are older than you. There is nothing quite so good after all as a green old age. I also bring to you the envious greetings of two hundred and eighty-four churches, which are not as advanced in this way of living as you are. Of these younger churches I bring the greeting of twenty-two Swedish churches, four Italian churches, two Danish churches, and also German and French churches, and to mention missions we have American, Persian-Assyrian and Bohemian. In the first place I want to congratulate the people on this meeting house, for I will call it a meeting house and think that is the proper term to use in this case. A church is a body of people joined together in the work and worship of God. Here we come to this meeting house, a white church on the hill. I have been in many sanctuaries all over the State and have seen none more beautiful than this sanc- tuary here. I congratulate you upon this beautiful place of wor- ship. The lines are perfect and the colors harmonious. I have promised to say something to you about the changes in Con- necticut in the last two centuries, but already the hour has elapsed and I cannot speak for long. I will not presume upon your patience for already my chariot is at the door, and I have set the hour at half after three. A few years ago I was in California, and one of my friends, boasting of the size of his State and the miles of sea coast, etc., said "We have one county bigger than the whole state of Connecticut. Why Connecticut if put on Cali- fornia would be no bigger than the postage stamp on a letter." I said "Yes, but it's the stamp that makes the letter go." Back
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BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
two centuries ago when this church was founded there were no large cities in this State, in fact there were few counties then. There were no Tolland and Middlesex and Litchfield Counties. This Church went through troublesome times. In those early days men did not have the courage to lift up their voices in pub- lic prayer, and it seemed at times as though through financial weakness, the flickering flame would be blown out by the rude blasts of adversity. There were only six places in the State of Connecticut a century or so ago that had over five thousand inhabitants, and where do you suppose the largest of these cities was located? There was Norwalk in your own county, New Haven, Middletown, Hartford, New London, and the largest was Stonington. Bridgeport was not yet on the map and she couldn't keep bragging that she was bigger than Hartford as she does now, and show up the figures to prove it. There was not then that great settled country to the West of us that we have now, nor were the small towns as many as we have now. Wherever you had country you had country and wherever you had city you had but country towns. It meant a certain uniformity among the people, because there was not then that great con- centrated wealth and power that we have to-day, and while you found to some extent modest riches it was not necessarily in the cities. There was a homogeneity of the people, a uniformity of church sufficiency, and ministerial quality. Just a few words in closing to say that here after all is your opportunity and here is your accepted time at this two hundredth anniversary. It remains for you to continue in this age that which was left for you by the heroes of the faith that have gone before. One of the great- est things for your future is to bring into one grand blend of citi- zenship and Christianity those who have come here from far off to make their abode and to live among you. It is a splendid opportunity. I know we belong to that Brahmin caste stock that sort of holds up its skirts and stands aloof and says "They are foreigners." In the old days our ancestors lived on the farms, tilled the soil, and raised large families, one, two, three, four, five or even ten or a dozen children. We have gone away from those farms because we could not make a living on them, and now they are being taken up by foreigners who are bringing up large families just as our fathers did. Among the old stock in Con-
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NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
necticut, the death rate each year is more than one thousand over the increase, and it is left to those who come from across the sea not only to till the soil but to work in the shops and factories. In the City of New Britain, a great manufacturing city of this State, only one out of six is of American born parentage. And it is not only in the cities but over 26% of the farms in Con- necticut are owned by men from across the sea. If I only had the time to tell you of the splendid developments of some of those who have come over here. They have not only come to the farms and into the factories but they have gone right into the Church of God, and into the pulpit-in city and country pul- pits in Connecticut of the Congregational order, and preaching to native constituencies are ministers classed as German. French, Irish, Swede, Danish, Norwegian, English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Armenian and Bohemian.
I have told you of these just to show how these people have come here and entered into everything in our life.
I have a daughter, about whom I am just as foolish and just as sensible as other men over their daughters. She is eighteen years old and a Sophomore in Smith College, so she is not imbecile. When she was in high school she stood very well in her Greek, but one day she came home in a little bit of a temper. She had been beaten in her favorite study, and she said, "I wouldn't care if he beat me if his name didn't end with 'sky.'" A Russian Jew, and his name ended in "sky," has bested a scion of Mayflower stock. The time is far spent and I hope I have not trangressed upon your patience, but let me ask you to just get out and meet these people hand to hand and heart to heart. Help them to feel that they are welcomed to everything here that rep- resents best life and living. The only way after all is to show ourselves kindly towards them. It is of course harder for the women than it is for the men, because men are naturally more democratic ; they meet them on the street, and give salutations and see them at work and meet them in politics. The women say, "they cannot talk English and it would be very embarrassing for me to go there, and they might return my call." Just try it and you will receive as much as you give in comradeship. Here you have your old church with successive generations of two centuries. You are here to keep the faith, and the greetings I have brought
7
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BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
to you are the tidings of splendid opportunities and of earnest work, and as the years go on and as the centuries shall pass and others take your places, perhaps we will find rich suggestions of the races from which they were born. And as set forth by my brother here who spoke before me, we will blend ourselves into the one right brotherhood, realizing that righteousness alone exalteth a nation, and under such conditions of peace and pros- perity that every instrument of warfare will be turned into imple- ments of production, and the nation will enjoy universal and enduring happiness, because its God is the Lord.
LEVI C. MORRIS Treasurer of the Society
LETTERS OF REGRET.
Read at the Bicentennial Celebration.
LETTER FROM GOVERNOR SIMEON E. BALDWIN.
QUI
SUSTINE
TRANSTULIT
STATE OF CONNECTICUT EXECUTIVE CHAMBERS
HARTFORD, October 13, 1914.
My dear Sir:
Your card of invitation to the Bi-Centennial of the Newtown Congre- gational church is received, but absence from the State on the dates named will prevent my attendance.
The intimate connection between the ancient church and the ancient town in Connecticut constituted one of the strong influences which have made the State what it is. The rounding out of two centuries by any church of any denomination is an event of real importance in the history of the political community in which it was founded, and I am glad that New- town is to celebrate this event in so worthy a manner, and has secured the aid of men of such distinction as those named upon the program.
Yours very truly,
SIMEON E. BALDWIN.
To Cornelius B. Taylor, chairman, Committee on Invitations,
Newtown, Conn.
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BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
LETTER FROM R. H. SMITH.
229 West College St., OBERLIN, OHIO, October 13, 1914.
To the Committee on Invitation, Congregational Church, Newtown:
I thank you for remembering me in your invitations to the 200th anni- versary of the Newtown Congregational church. I came to Newtown, a beardless lad in my 'teens, to teach the school in Taunton district. The schoolhouse still had the old-fashioned desks around three sides of the room, with a backless seat in front of it, and I taught for $1 a day and board, boarding around among the families whose children I taught. My father, Rev. H. B. Smith, was pastor of the Congregational church and men and women then bearing the burden and heat of the day in church life have entered into rest. Some of them I can never forget and, though lost to sight, they are yet to memory dear. The Fairchild brothers, Dea. Henry and William, Mrs. Sanford of Sandy Hook, the Wheeler family, Charles Northrop and his brothers of Sugar Street, Samuel Scudder of Dodgingtown, George Ruffles of the Rackets, Mrs. Zalmon Peck of Mile Hill and so many more-not to forget dear Uncle John Griggs, the faithful, though illiterate sexton. The friendships that one makes in regular attendance on the Lord's Day worship are not the least of the blessings of a baptism into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Now, they are but a memory to some of the younger pillars in the sanctuary of our God, but their influence, as various as the hues that make the rainbow arch so beautiful, will never fail with the scattered remainder whose own hands are already whitening with the snow that never melts. This is a day of memories, as all anni- versaries are, and let us remember that we built on the "foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner- stone." Those founding this household of God had no doubt of the Trinity, of the Word of God, of the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, nor of the sinfulness of the human heart, and the necessity of a new birth into spiritual realities, built "for an habitation of God through the Spirit" by private and family prayer, regular use of the means of grace, that they might receive the unsearchable riches of Christ. Let not present glory despise the faith once delivered to the saints : "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen."
REUBEN HAZEN SMITH.
ARTHUR J. SMITH Treasurer of the Church
NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
LETTER FROM REV. JAMES P. HOYT.
ST. PETERSBURG, FLA., Oct. 22, 1914.
It now seems probable that I shall not be with you at the 200th anni- versary. It is a great disappointment to me, but the necessity of return- ing to our Florida home at an earlier date compels me to miss the opportunity of seeing and speaking to many friends of the memories of my sixteen years as pastor and of incidents and events in church, town and academy which might be of interest. So please say for me that in addition to my historical sermons (to which you refer in your letters and which were published in The Bee and in the History of Fairfield County) there is an unwritten history of joy, sorrow and memorable experiences of the sermons, calls, pastoral work, funerals, weddings and church services and of kindness received from the people of sixteen years, which, if written or told, would show that I love Newtown, its churches and people and am closely bound to you all forever. Newtown was long my home and is the place where my loved ones are buried. No other place, people or church can so claim my affection and interest.
From your old pastor,
J. P. HOYT.
THE MEMORIAL TABLETS
At the time the work of renovating the interior of the church was in progress two memorial tablets were placed on the walls of the auditorium for Rev. Thomas Tousey, the first minister of the church, and Samuel Curtis Blackman, a layman of the church in its early days, memory of whose devout Christian character is a rich heritage to the church. The committee hav- ing this work in charge gave much time to the carrying out of the commission and are deserving the thanks of all interested in this historic church. The committee consisted of Arthur Treat Nettleton, Mrs. Levi C. Morris, Miss Susan J. Scudder and Rev. Timothy J. Lee. A copy of the inscriptions on the tablets follow :
In Memory of Rev. Thomas Tousey. 1688-1761. Yale 1707. First Minister of this Church. 1714-1724. Newtown's First Physician, Magistrate, Delegate to the General Court.
In Memory of Samuel Curtis Blackman. 1768-1858. Yale 1793. Newtown's First Judge of Probate, Exemplary Christian and Patron of Education, Faithful Official and Devoted Friend of this Church.
MINISTERS OF THE CHURCH 1714 - 1914
THOMAS TOUSEY 1714-1724 Yale
JOHN BEACH 1724-1732 Yale
ELISHA KENT
1732-1742 Yale
DAVID JUDSON
1743-1776 Yale
ZEPHENIAH H. SMITH
1786-1790 Vale
JEHU CLARK
1799-1816 Yale
WILLIAM MITCHEL 1825-1831
Andover
NATHANIEL M. URMSTON 1832-1838
ALEXANDER LEADBETTER 1840-1842
JASON ATWATER 1845-1856
WILLIAM H. MOORE
1856-1862
Yale
WILLIAM F. ARMS 1863-1864
DANIEL W. Fox
1865-1867
HENRY B. SMITH 1867-1873
JAMES P. HOYT 1874-1890 Yale
SAMUEL W. DELZELL
1890-1893
Yale
OTIS W. BARKER
1893-1905
Amherst
RALPH E. DANFORTH
1905-1907
ALEXANDER W. STEELE
1908-1912
Yale
TIMOTHY J. LEE
1913-
Vale
Yale
Amherst
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