USA > Illinois > Kane County > Geneva > Fifty years of Unitarian life : being a record of the proceedings on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the First Unitarian Society of Geneva, Illinois, celebrated June tenth, eleventh and twelth, 1892 > Part 2
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Some Religious Changes
Christ avails for our salvation only as it leads us to a like self-sacrifice. Identification instead of substitution is now the word and we hear of imparted instead of imputed righteousness. And as the ideas of the nature of the way of salvation have altered, there have come glimmerings of the revolutionary thought that the work of the church is the education of the sons of God and not the conver- sion of sons of the Devil.
4th. The thought of God. That the old teaching concerning the method of salvation seems repulsive to us nowadays is mainly, I fancy, because of the thought of God that lay back of it. God, the Father, seemed to be full of wrath, a Shylock bound to have the full measure of his bond, if not from the man who had sinned, then from an innocent and august substitute. Wrath seemed to be embodied in the Father, mercy and tenderness in the Son. Men shuddered as they repeated "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," apparently quite unmind- ful that the Hebrew, living before the revelation of God in the face of Jesus, had prayed "Let me fall into the hands of God and not into the hands of man." But now God is drawing ever nearer to the world in love, and the loving Father, who welcomes every returning prodigal with tell- derness eternal, is becoming the God of Christendom. Nowhere is the change more manifest than in the hymns of the church.
Merely for the sake of illustration, let me read you two hymns found in psalmodies that were in vogue fifty years ago and contrast them with two hymns taken from a modern collection. That the older hymns are revolting to the staunchest Orthodoxy of to-day, I am perfectly well aware as well as that it would be easy to find other hymns of the same period which breathe in lofty strains the no- blest ideas of God. Yet the thought of God presented in
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In Fifty Years.
these hymns was held and taught to the horror of many souls. It is with no design of ridiculing the faith of the past, but with profound pity for those whose lives were overshadowed by such frightful fears, and with deep gratitude that nearly all churches have awakened from such horrible dreams to more trustful thoughts of God, that I read two hymns by Watts with which many of you must be already familiar:
"My thoughts on awful subjects roll, Damnation and the dead; What horrors seize the guilty soul Upon a dying bed!
Then swift and dreadful she descends Down to the fiery coast, Amongst abominable fiends; Herself a frighted ghost.
There endless crowds of sinners lie, And darkness makes their chains; Tortured with keen despair, they cry, Yet wait for fiercer pains."
Compare, or rather contrast, with this Anna War- ing's beautiful hymn-
"Go not far from me, O my God, Whom all my times obey; Take from me anything thou wilt, But go not thou away, -- And let the storm that does thy work Deal with me as it may!
On thy compassion I repose In weakness and distress; I will not ask for greater ease, Lest I should love thee less. Oh, 'tis a blessed thing for me To need thy tenderness!
When I am feeble as a child, And flesh and heart give way, Then on thy everlasting strength With passive trust I stay,- And the rough wind becomes a song, The darkness shines like day.
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Some Religious Changes
Deep unto deep may call, but I With peaceful heart can say, Thy loving kindness hath a charge No waves can take away; Then let the storm that speeds me home " Deal with me. as it may!"
One dreads to turn from this lyric strain of trust and hope to read another hymn by Watts which as I have been credibly informed was actually sung by Evangelical con- gregations fifty years ago.
"Far in the deep, where darkness dwells, The land of horror and despair, Justice has built a dismal hell And laid her stores of vengance there.
Eternal plagues and heavy chains, Tormenting racks and fiery coals, And darts t' inflict immortal pains Dyed in the blood of damned souls.
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There Satan the first sinner lies And roars and bites his iron bands,
In vain the rebel strives to rise Crushed with the weight of both thy hands.
There guilty ghosts of Adam's race Shriek out and howl beneath thy rod;
Once they could scorn a Savior's grace But they incensed a dreadful God.
Tremble my soul and kiss the Son! Sinner, obey thy Savior's call; Else your damnation hastens on And hell gapes wide to wait your fall."
With the thought of God and the future thought in this hymn, what can offer more significant contrast than Chadwick's beautiful song:
"It singeth low in every heart, We hear it each and all,- . A song of those who answer not, However we may call.
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In Fifty Years.
They throng the silence of the breast; We see them as of yore,-
The kind, the true, the brave, the sweet, Who walk with us no more.
'Tis hard to take the burden up, When these have laid it down:
They brightened all the joy of life, They softened every frown. But, oh! 'tis good to think of them When we are troubled sore;
Thanks be to God that such have been, Although they are no more!
More homelike seems the vast unknown, Since they have entered there;
To follow them were not so hard, Wherever they may fare. They cannot be where God is not, On any sea or shore;
Whate'er betides, thy love abides, Our God for evermore!"
Thanks be to God that out of the flame shot shadows of Hell the world has emerged upon the gentle slope that leads to the light that crowns with ineffable radiance the home-land of the soul. Thank God that the "awful rose of dawn" now touches with celestial beauty the limit which all our feet must over-pass, where hung once cur- taining storm clouds of wrath eternal. Henceforth let none step into the unknown with fear, since we have learned to trust there as well as here the love from which not even our sins can permanently separate us. "Help for the living and hope for the dead" is the word of the modern church because we have learned of God, who worketh unceasingly and forever that he may bring love to perfect manifestation.
From our consideration of the doctrines formerly held and those which now prevail in Orthodox circles con- cerning the Bible, man, salvation and God, it appears un- mistakably that the superficial changes which we notice
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Some Religious Changes
at the outset are not accidental but symptomatic. They are outcrops and not boulders. That aloofness of relig- ion from the rest of life which we saw expressed in church architecture and in the ideal of church and minister, found its inner correspondence in doctrines which vanished the instant that a demand for unity penetrated religious thinking. The doctrines to which we have referred were tenable only because they were deemed so sacred as to be beyond the scope of criticism. The feeling for unity would brook no contradictions in the nature of God; his wrath and his love must be one; his revelation in the world could not contradict his revelation in the Bible; if man was able to discern the truth of God as revealed in Na- ture, he was able also to discern God in the more immedi- ate workings of the Spirit. All the changes that have come in Theology are traceable to the growing conviction that God is one, that the world is one because the expression and revelation of God, that man is one because he is of the world and only a more perfect manifestation of the Divine unity. If this interpretation of religious changes is correct, we shall expect to find two things: first, that the world has been growing more religious, for the de- mand for unity is only another name for the conscious- ness of God; and, secondly, that the changes in other de- partments of life are traceable to the same source, for re- ligion is only one phase of man's mentality and shares his intellectual fortunes. As regards the first, it is note- worthy that the changes which have been mentioned have come from within the church and not from without it. The new thought of the Bible, for instance, has been reached by men intent only upon the truth, men, for the most part, whose fine religious feeling is apparent on every page of their writings. No one can doubt that the new ideas are more purely and deeply religious than the
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In Fifty Years. '
old. Never was there more devotion to high ideals than now, never was there truer, more searching or self-sacri- ficing love of man than now, never was the trust in the eternal goodness more wide and firm, never, in a word, was the world more religious than it is to-day. Indubit- ably the movement has been not a human drifting into evil, but a divine steering towards goodness. And the religious movement is but one embodiment of that mag- nificent inflow of the consciousness and craving for unity, which will make our generation memorable forever. In the arts, all our inventions and discoveries liave tended to bring men together. The railroad, the steam-boat, the
telegraph annihilate separating space. That Joshua made the sun stand still upon Gibeon seems trifling compared . with modern achievements: we make the sun stand still, yes even go back on the dial, over our thought entrusted to electricity, and perhaps it may stand still sometime, in like manner, over our bodies as we travel from East to West. This has become a very small world within fifty years and all men are next door neighbors. Aided possi- bly by the mechanical unifying, the idea of unity prevails in industry and in the theories of government. As co- operation is the rule in manufacturing, so that no man worketh for himself and no man idleth to himself, making the factory the unit with the sev- eral workmen as constituent cells, so in government the nation and not the individual is gaining recognition as the ultimate unit. In this country two theories of government have prevailed, one conceiving the nation, the other the individual state as unit, and it was no accident, but an in- evitable incident in a great world process that the two theories joined battle in our civil war and that the nation- al idea was victorious. We shall learn sometime to ex- tend our national idea until it becomes international, ac-
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Some Religious Changes
knowledging in practice as in theory the brotherhood of man. Towards that, the Spirit of God manifested in the craving for unity, is now tending; ethical systems are bas- ed upon it, socialism asserts it. In sociology the unitary idea is supreme. Of course, it would be needless to prove that it lords it in science likewise. The unity of force is a fundamental tenet of modern science. And if force is one, it acts according to like laws in all spheres of its operation. Hence the unity of law is a necessary cor- ollary to the unity of force. "The hot vapors of hydro- gen aud calcium on the surface of the sun" obey the same laws as the cyclone that sweeps over our Western prairies. Man is no longer, as of old, separated from the rest of · nature by an unbridged gulf. We are living in a universe. Thus everywhere, the last fifty years have been signalized by an increasing demand for unity which has appeared in the church also. This, then, is the way of the Lord, this has been the course of the spirit, and every church, to the degree that it has been the herald and prophet of that unity, has been in the way of the Lord, wherein lies its strength.
While the whole church has responded to the new voice of the Spirit and has moved forward in the way of its directing, we may well be proud that the part of the church universal to which we belong has been in the van of the . movement. Fifty years ago, Channing died. Guided by the spirit, he had seen and taught the unity of God and the dignity of man as a child of God, and hence able to discover and know the truth of God. All our early Unitarian thought rested upon those fundamental beliefs. But our perception of unity was, as yet, incom- plete. Somewhat over fifty years ago, in a sermon before the graduating class of Harvard Divinity school, Dr. A. P. Peabody explicitely refused the title Christian Minis-
In Fifty Years. 19
ter to anyone who denied the trustworthiness of the Gospel account of the miracles of Jesus, and Charles Lowe, while student in the Divinity school, testified in his private diary to his horror and apprehension when his Professor, Dr. Noyes, threw doubt upon the reality of the Deluge. The Bible was still regarded as final and supreme authority. But even before Channing died, signs of the new day ap- peared. Two of the rosy fingers of dawn were Emerson's Divinity school address in 1838 and Theodore Parker's South Boston sermon in 1841. These men, although disowned by the Unitarians of their time, were prophets of a more perfect realization of unity in religion, and in their inspiration and along the paths which they indicated, our church has followed the lead of the spirit still in the van of advancing Christendom, proclaiming with growing clearness and strength -
"That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves."
"The way of the Lord is strength." As a denomi- nation, we are few in numbers and weak in influence, but our strength lies in the fact that we are in the way of the Lord, heralds of the unity of the world in the love eternal. If we ever fear for our denominational future, that fear is only the obverse of our absolute trust in our principles and our perfect faith in the inspiration of the church uni- versal as the leader of humanity. Would to God that our mission as a separate body of the Church of God might speedily terminate. Would that our sister churches dared put more trust in God and cominit themselves fully to the guidance of the Spirit. Meanwhile we stand, nay we move, still in the way of the Lord, strong in the con- sciousness that we are walking with God, and pledged
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Some Religious Changes
only to that purity of heart and openness of mind which alone make us worthy of the name we love best to bear- The Church of the Holy Spirit.
Order of Proceedings.
On the second day of the celebration, Saturday, June 11, the friends and members of the Society assembled in the church at 10:30 a. m. Mr. J. D. Harvey presided and the following order of exercises were followed:
Address of Welcome, Rev. Geo. B. Penney
Paper :- Historical Sketch, Rev. T. H. Eddowes
Singing :- Anniversary Hymn, written by Jas. H. West
Paper :- Character Sketch of First Pastor, Miss Frances LeBaron Singing :- Dedication Hymn, written by Eben Conant.
Owing to lack of time the following papers which are included in the published proceedings were not read. Incidents and Reminiscences, Rev. L. C. Kelsey Random Reminiscences, Mrs. Julia Dodson Sheppard
Memories of Early Days, -
- Mrs. Maria Le Baron Turner
At the close of the morning session an adjournment was taken to the home of Mr. Harvey where a collation was served by the ladies, after which all gathered on the lawn in the shade of the trees and with Mr. Penney in the chair responses were made and letters read as follows: A Cambrian Prophet, Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones Mrs. J. D. Harvey Rev. T. B. Forbush A Man without Guile, Other Pioneers,
Letter, Robert Collyer Early Women, Mrs. Mary P. Jarvis The Original Geneva, Mr. B. W. Dodson Poem :- Fifty Years, Mrs. Julia Dodson Sheppard Letter, Rev. Jno. R. Effinger Letter, Prof. Samuel Clark Cui Bono? Rev. T. G. Milsted A Living Saint, Response, Mrs. J. D. Harvey Rev. T. H. Eddowes Letter, Rev. Chester Covell Rev. L. J. Duncan The Illinois Conference, Letter, Freedom of Thought and Speech, Rev. Jas. H. West Rev. Thos. P. Byrnes Mrs. Celia P. Woolley Mr. Forrest Crissey Rev. Jas. Vila Blake
Woman's Relation to Religious Freedom, The Literary Value of the Liberal Faith, The Centennial Celebration,
Address Of Welcome.
BY REV. GEO. B. PENNEY, PASTOR OF THE SOCIETY SINCE JANUARY, 1892.
N address of welcome always seems to me a useless formality and especially does it seem so on this occasion. It is as though a family of children had left the home circle and gone out into the world and in after years, ripe with the experiences of life, they should come back to the home of their youth to talk over old times and to plan for the future; and it is as though as they approach the thresh- old made sacred by associations and with hearts touched by memories of those who will not return, they should be met with an "address of welcome" at their own fireside by someone who has less right to be there than they have.
But welcome is a gracious word when spoken from the heart, and I assure you that in the time of prepara- tion for this celebration our hearts have been full of wel- come to all who should be with us; and in behalf of the members and friends of the First Unitarian Society of Geneva, I welcome you, first to Geneva, to our pure air and bright sunlight. I welcome you to our homes, assur- ing you that in accepting our hospitality you leave us the debtors; and I welcome you most of all to your share in this celebration, which, shall be, with us, to recall the memory of those who have gone before, whose lives, nobly lived, have made this society what it is to-day. Ir a word I welcome you to this celebration which is a bond between the past and the present, and still more binds the past and present to the future, the future, not of two or four score years and ten, but the future that reaching be- yond this life turns our thought to that other glad reunion in the realm of love and peace.
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Historical Sketch.
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BY REV. T. H. EDDOWES, PASTOR OF THE SOCIETY 1865 TO '70.
Organization.
HE first meeting to consider the matter of or- ganizing a church was held May 8, 1842. Mr. Conant, in his journal, notes that "con- siderable hesitation and doubt whether the proper time had come was manifested by some. A declaration, of princi- ples for the formation of a society on the ground of a com- mon Christian faith without regard to the opinions which distinguished the different denominations . of Christians, had been drawn up and circulated, and about twenty names obtained, but the proposed society was something different from the old religious associations, and the sub- ject was reserved for consideration until another meeting." May 29, he notes the first communion service in Geneva, thirteen persons uniting in it. Then June 12,-"formed a society with the name of the First Christian Congrega- ton of Geneva. There were very few present at the for- mation of the society, and the prospect of maintaining our existence as a society was rather dubious."
The first entry in the society is under date of June 5,
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Historical Sketch.
of a meeting of those friendly to the formation of a soci- ety in which all Christians may unite for religious purpos- es,' which was held at the Court House. This entry notes the first communion as taking place on this date, instead of May 29, as Mr. Conant's journal has it.
The record for June 12 is very short and only notes that, "the declaration was read by the chairman, Mr. Co- nant, and the purposes and principles of the society ex- plained, " probably by Mr. Conant. "On motion of Chas. Patten, seconded by S. N. Clark, the declaration was unanimously adopted." The meeting adjourned to June 26, when the declaration was again commented on and the constitution generally discussed, at the close of which each of the twelve articles were separately adopted. On motion of Scotto Clark, seconded by Samuel Sterling, both were adopted. The names attached to this constitution under date of July 2, are those of Scotto Clark, Mrs. S. A. Clark, (Mrs. Scotto) Augustus H. Conant, Mrs. B. M. Conant, (Mrs. A. H.) Samuel K. Whiting, Mary J. G. Whiting, Charles Patten, Mrs. Harriet F. Patten, Samuel N. Clark, Miss P. H. Patten, (afterwards Mrs. S. N. Clark) T. L. Cleveland, Mrs. Olivia Cleveland, Samuel Sterling, Mrs Cornelia Sterling, James Carr, Peter Sears, Chas. S. Clark, Mrs. Betsey Stelle Carr, Miss Susan S. Carr, Miss Fayette R. Churchill, Mrs. Harriet N. Dodson. These entries are not signatures but are probably copies of those attached to the declaration of principles mention- ed as "circulated" in Mr. Conant's journal.
The declaration begins as follows: "The undersign . ed, being desirous of promoting practical Godliness in the world, and of aiding each other in their moral and relig- ious improvement, have associated themselves together, not as agreeing in opinion, not as having attained univer- sal truth in belief, or perfection in character: but as seek-
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Organization.
ers after truth and goodness, relying on God as their sup- port and aid, Jesus Christ as their teacher and Saviour, and the sacred scriptures as their guide, and adopting the New Testament as their rule of faith and practice. Be- lieving in God as a Father and acknowledging their obli- gations of love and obedience to him and to Jesus Christ as his Ambassador, and recognizing as brethren, the whole human family, and as Christians, all who manifest the spirit of Christ."
Then follow the further declarations, that they "regard a conscientious observance of the ordinance of baptism as enjoined by Jesus Christ to be the duty of all who be- lieve the gospel and would yield obedience to its require- ments." Then follows the declaration that "they esteem it a high privilege to observe the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, and that they would joyfully extend the same privilege to all who feel a sincere desire to commemorate the Saviour's love." Finally: "and believing further that meetings for religious instruction and sacred worship are not only enjoined in the sacred scriptures, but are highly conducive to religious improvement; they deter- mine to use all just and reasonable endeavors to sustain such meetings on the first day of the week and other suit- able occasions, and to accomplish the object and maintain the principles set forth in this declaration, they have under the motto of Liberty, Holiness, Love, adopted the following constitution." We who are familiar with the terms of our declaration, do not realize just what it was to some of those who signed it. There were people of as widely differing creeds as the Presbyterians and the Uni- tarians whose names are attached. To us the declaration that they have associated themselves together, 'not as agreeing in opinion, seems the most natural thing possi- ble. To them it was the saving clause that allowed them
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Historical Sketch.
to join forces with all the other moral and religious ele- ments of the community, for the common good, without in the least comprising their peculiar beliefs in matters of doctrine. So literally was their position understood among themselves that, when removed from Geneva, or nearer to the churches of their peculiar faiths, or even when they found other churches willing to admit them to membership without saying much about their individual opinions, they felt that there was no inconsistency in uniting with such. So it happens that members of this society were or are also members of the Methodist, Bap- tist, Orthodox Congregational, and I suppose, still other communions. I am told that there was a feeling among them that in signing this paper they were not uniting with a church but only joining a society; a feeling which was afterwards confirmed by the custom which was then fol- lowed of administering the form of baptism, and that of a public profession, to some whose names were upon this roll, but not to all.
As late as 1855 Mr. Conant began keeping a parish record in which he noted the names and occupations of each of those whom he considered as being in his parish and among the other data, he notes their denominational connections, and puts down Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Romanists, Lutherans, Universalists, Scotch Seceders and one as "Quakerish." The church record contains the names in various offices and on committees of persons who were afterward connected with the other churches of the town. In the days when the pews were rented the name of each tenant on a printed slip was attached and it struck me as very strange when I came in 1865 to see such names as Mayburn, . Wells, Hollis- ter and others among them, as those persons were then connected with the other churches of the place.
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Organization.
The first article of the constitution announces the ti- tle of the society, as that of "First Christian Congregation of Geneva." The second says, "All persons who are sin- cerely desirous of promoting the objects of the society may become members." As originally adopted, no con- dition of observance of any form, or signature was called for. In 1870 this article was amended to read, "may become members by signing this constitution.""' Decem- ber 14, 1845, Article XIII was adopted which might be construed as in some measure modifying the declaration. It reads: "The land and the house of religious worship of which the First Christian Congregation have come in pos- session in the use of funds received through the treasurer of the American Unitarian Association from the Unitarian Society in Roxbury, Mass., of which Rev. George Put- nam is pastor, and others aiding them, and of funds con- tributed by members of the First Christian Congregation, and others, for the purposes to which they have been ap- plied, and appropriated to the purpose and object of ad- vancing and diffusing the truths and doctriues of Unitari- an Christianity and of the declaration of the First Christ- ian Congregation, according to the laws of the state of Illinois concerning religious societies."
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