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 7
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During my childhood we lived for a time in the house next to Mr. and Mrs. Conant. My brother and I were often invited by the Conant children to attend the wed- dings which occurred frequently in the parsonage. Now and then we all laughed at the dress or embarrassment of the bride and her attendant bridegroom, then quite a time · would elapse before we would be invited again, so we early learned to smile very softly at nuptials.
It was a solemn moment when Mr. Conant called his son John one Sabbath morning, because of whispering and laughing, to occupy the pulpit stairs during the re- mainder of his sermon; the younger portion of the con- gregation was overpowered by fears lest similar honours were hanging heavily over their heads in the near future. Mr. Charles Patten, at the close of the morning's service, in referring to John's blushes ou that occasion, said, "no one can say now that our pastor has not one well 'red' son."
We always enjoyed hearing the Conant boys tell the following story of their mother: One Sunday afternoon Mr. Conant was holding services in a school house a few miles distant from Geneva, where he gave out a familiar hymn beginning with the words "Shine Forth, " and find- ing no one present to commence the singing, turned to his wife who was with him, and asked her to lead the singing. She began "Shine Forth, " but found she had pitched the tune too high to go on, so she paused and began a second time "Shine Forth," but what was her dismay to find this
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Random Reminiscences.
time it was too low to continue, so she desisted and a third time tried to. "Shine Forth, " but the ludicrousness of it all overcame her and she gave up entirely. Mrs. Conant used to say, amid our laughter, she had never tried from that time to "shine."
The one act of Mr. Conant's which impressed me the most as a child, and has influenced me always, was an apology he once made for the manner and tone of a hasty speech on a political subject involving a principle to which he was a devoted adherent all his life. I never heard this referred to without much speculation. I wondered how he could do it, being a grown man, and believing firmly he was in the right. I thought then I should never apologize when I grew to be a woman, but all the while there beat in my heart a belief in that man's religion who could be sorry and say so; I have lived to learn, one ought "from the cradle to the grave" to be often sorry and say so.
We moved away from Geneva for several years, then went back. I was there during Mr. Woodward's pastor- ate, but was at an age when church affairs did not occupy great space in my mind; the one thing which impressed me was, Mr. Woodward allowed the young people of the society to dance, play cards and act charades in his house; this met with some criticism, but I believe the result proved there was less general dissipation among those . who had this privilege than among those who were denied these amusements.
I cannot close this paper without reference to the women who were members of the Unitarian Society of Geneva when I was there a growing girl; they had then, they still have, an enduring influence over me. I am yet trying to order my conversation, my manners, my life after their model. "Strength and honour were their
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Random Reminiscences.
clothing-they opened their mouths witlı wisdom, and in their tongues was the law of kindness-they looked well to the ways of their households and ate not the bread of idleness." I, with many others "arise and call them blessed," having known them a "Trust in all things high" comes easy to me.
I have lived the greater part of the half-century in orthodox communities, but I am still of the liberal faitlı, and have been thankful many times for the larger trust which that has seemed to bring me.
One of the most abiding memories for me of the power of that faith was my mother's face during her last illness when an orthodox relative said to her: "I hope you realize no one can have eternal life except through belief in Jesus Christ." My mother turned and with wide open eyes, said slowly and distinctly, "you know I do not believe that, and I assure you I am not afraid."
Memories of Carly Days
OF THE GENEVA CHURCH, BY MRS. MARIA LE BARON TURNER.
have been requested to write some of my recol- lections of the earliest days of our little church, but when I put on my thinking cap, I am surprised as well as ashamed at the meagerness of my memories and their mundane character. When, however, I thought of the eloquent flights of fancy, the tender memorials and the entertaining historical articles that would be written, I concluded that perhaps a few remem- brances of a superficial nature miglit not be out of place.
Of Mr. Conant's preaching my memory is very faint, as I was only twelve years old when he left us, but I re- member the man himself well, and how we all loved him, and yet one of my most distinct recollections of that noble-hearted minister is one of my worldly little mem- ories, how one Sunday the boys sat down in the back pews and fell to laughing and playing, as boys will do even ministers' sons, and Mr. Conant pansed in the midst of his exhortation to sinners to repent and said, in his clear, decisive way: "John, you may come and sit here on the pulpit stairs." The dead silence that fell upon
Of The Geneva Church. 89
the children of that congregation could be felt. In those days fathers feared not to rebuke their children.
I remember also a little social incident, connected with Mr. Conant. He was spending the evening at an informal gathering at the home of one of his parishioners. As the hostess passed cake to her guests, she arranged an extra large piece next her good minister as she passed the basket to him, but he reached over and took a smaller piece beyond. "Mr. Conant," said the good lady, "when I was a little girl I was taught to take the piece nearest me." "But," he responded with his bright, shrewd smile, "when I was a little boy I was taught never to take the largest piece."
I have another little memory of Mr. Conant, of a purely personal character. We children were in the back garden one evening, riding about on our horses, which horses were wooden sticks, possessed of greater or less degrees of life and spirit. We heard that some one was calling on our parents and, full of childish curiosity, at once put our steeds to full speed to ride to the front on a tour of discovery, exclaiming in full chorus; "Who i's here ? Who is here?" To our consternation instead of the elders being in the parlor they were sitting in front of the house enjoying the suminer evening. My fractious steed had carried me within reach of a gentleman, who at once caught me and, as my pony fell lifeless at my feet, he drew me into his arms, saying laughingly; "I am here, · and I have caught you," and he kissed me most tenderly. It was Mr. Conant, and I well remember how, in spite of my shame and embarrassment at our unintentional rude- ness, I felt a rapture of deliglit at the affectionate caresses of my beloved minister, and when, after holding me some time, lie released me I crept back to the other children feeling quite sanctified.
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Memories of Early Days
No one can recollect more distinctly the noble men and women who attended church in those bygone days. There was that lovely gentleman, Mr. Samuel Clark and his wife who was called by those who knew her best, "St. Polly;" conscientious Dr. LeBaron and precious, sympathetic Mrs. LeBaron, whose wise counsels and ex- ample served, in after years, as guides to so many of the young friends who gathered at her home, and her sister, Miss Carr, the dear "Auntie Carr" who is with us yet. Then there were the three Clark sisters, Harriet, Caroline and Ellen, whom we all remember better by their married names, Mrs. Patten, Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Davis. Mrs. Davis did not live in Geneva after her marriage, but I never can forget when she was at church how she used to sing. She would open her mouth and the music would pour forth as free and clear as the song of a bird. They were all musical and when visitors would ask Mrs. Patten to play on the piano for them she would demurely reply: "Thank you, I don't play, Caroline. plays." Then, after listening to some of Mrs. Wilson's delightful music, they would urge her to sing and she would respond with equal modesty: "I do not sing, Harriet sings," and so they would get even with each other. We hope they are all three singing together now in their home beyond the skies.
Then there was our lovely Mrs. Larrabee, with her great mother heart, and dear Mrs. Dodson who always sat in the same pew and never looked a' day older as the years rolled by in tens and twenties. She never forgot the little child she lost and, I think, never heard a refer- ence to death or little children from the pulpit . without the tears of tender memories filling her loving eyes.
Of Mr. Woodward's pastorate, my memories are very pleasant. His was the reign of sociability, as was most natural, since his own family contained every ele-
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Of The Geneva Church.
ment of social charm, a cheerful, hospitable host, a de- lightful hostess and charming young people. Cannot all those who were young people in the old church days re- member that it was during Mr. Woodward's stay here that we enjoyed the most delightful social gatherings of all kinds? There were celebrations and entertainments of tableaux and music, amateur theatricals that have never been excelled, church sociables that were really sociable and one entertainment, that stands forthi most distinctly, was the pretty cantata, "The Flower Queen," though to Mr. Harvey the success of that was due, as he was the manager and inspirer and singing master. I think it was sung for the benefit of the church, and so can be appro- priately mentioned here, but you who remember it will not object to dwelling on the memory. How sweet was our lovely rose, Nellie Larrabee; how stately Julia Dod- son, the sunflower; how charming was Louise Towner, the hollyhock, and how sweetly modest, her younger sister, as the crocus; while Alice Woodward, as dahlia, filled the old court room with her fresh young voice. Then there were Theresa Clark Mollie Larrabee and Mary Yates, singing their duets and trios together, and the pretty groups of heather bells and bright faced chorus singers, while Emory Abbott sang the part of the recluse in his sweet, sympathetic voice. I can see them all as if it were yesterday. 1
Thinking of singing reminds me of another of Mr. Woodward's specialties, his choirs. When he came among us we had a good choir, led, I think, by Mr. Harvey and composed of Julia Plato, Carrie Larrabee, Mary Wells, Charlie Stevens and, unless my memory fails me, Henry Pierce; but when the Harveys went to Aurora and the Stevens soon after to Batavia, we were in danger of being left "to die with all our music in us." This
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Memories of Early Days
emergency was Mr. Woodward's opportunity and he came to the rescue, organized and trained the older young peo- ple and, from that time on during his stay, the music .was one of the most attractive features of our service. First was the older set of girls, Nellie Larrabee, Alice Woodward, Mary and Lizzie Long, Kate and Mary Curtis, Lucy Moore, Julia Dodson and others, while the basso profundos were, Alfred Woodward, Russell Jarvis, young George Patten, Emory Abbott and others, especially A. W. Adams who came among us at this time and whose fine voice was heard in our choir for nearly a quarter of a century. Next came the younger set, Lizzie Woodward, Theresa Clark, Libbie Towner, Maria LeBaron, Ella Plato and Minnie Wright, with Jessie Nelson to play the me- lodeon, and in those good, old days the choir sang in a gallery that went across the back of the church and, dur- ing the singing of the hymns, we all turned round and looked up at the fresh young faces and enjoyed that as much as the music, that was often poured forth with more vim than skill. Mr. Woodward had in his own family an entire quartette of fine voices, and often did Mrs. Woodward's grand alto give finish and culture to the younger voices that formed the choir.
Another thing that was carried to perfection during Mr. Woodward's stay was church decoration, especially at Christmas time. We were not hampered by artistic criticism, nor fear of repeating ourselves, nor was the church too good or new to drive nails into, wherever they seemed desirable. The sole and only idea was to make the church a bower of beauty, and so we nailed long fes- toons of evergreens everywhere and hung up crosses and anchors and wreaths and put texts of green letters over windows and pulpit and gallery, and that homely old gallery became, for the time being, a thing of beauty, a
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Of The Geneva Church.
living platform, a green frame for the sweet singers who chanted the Christmas hymns. And that dear old pulpit! I would love to see that pulpit once more. Ithink I have heard it called ugly, but I cannot remember it so. It was beautiful to my youthful eyes, and such a fine thing to trim. We could wind green all around the pillars and nail it about the top and bottom, and make such a mass of greenery of it, that we thought it perfect.
I could continue these memories to more recent times, but have already used more space than I expected, and have written more for my own amusement than with any idea that this will be used during the semi-centennial exercises.
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Collation.
AT THE HOME OF MR. J. D. HARVEY, SATURDAY JUNE 11 AT 1 P. M., REV. GEO. B. PENNEY PRESIDING.
FTER partaking of the refreshments served by the ladies, Mr. Penney called the guests to order, under the shade of the trees where they had assembled, by saying:
I purpose now turning this gathering into an Anarch- ist meeting. You need not be alarmed as I do not in- tend to set you to killing policemen or blowing up public buildings. I simply wish to put this session on the basis of the Anarchist's ideal state where each shall have due regard for the other.
By a glance at the cards which are in your hands you will see that our program is unlimited as to quality, un- limited as to possible quantity, and that we are limited only as to time. As American citizens we resent any- thing in the nature of a gag law, and if we conform to the true ideal of the Anarchist, the speakers will have due regard for the audience and the audience for the speak-
NOTE :- The responses were stenographically reported.
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A Cambrian Prophet.
ers and each speaker for those who are to follow, and we shall find repressive measures unnecessary.
A Cambrian Prophet. 1 REV. JENKIN LLOYD JONES.
It takes a revealing soul to understand God's revelation.
From observation of similar occasions I conceive it to be the duty of a Toastmaster to make pleasantly ap- parent the fitness of the various speakers to respond to the subjects assigned them; but no words of mine are necessary to make it fully apparent why Mr. Jones, kins- man of R. L. Herbert the fourth pastor of the society should respond to the first toast on our list.
MR. JONES' RESPONSE.
The task assigned to me carries me far beyond the connection of Mr. Herbert with the Geneva Society. I remember when a soldier boy in the tented field, my father, ever quick to discover any note of progress, got into the habit of sending me frequently a copy of the Drych, a Welsh paper published in Utica, N. Y., which gave frequent correspondence from Vermont, signed by the letters, "R. L. H." and my father used to send word along that there was a "man that would soon grow too large for his orthodox fetters." "There was the man to be looked for." The world went. on and the visits of the Drych became less frequent to camp. I had lost sight of the initials. My father had not. When in the first ycar of my work in Janesville I began publishing those little les- son leaves that were used in the Sunday Schools in our primitive times, I received one day an order, briefly expressed, but written in the most exquisite penmanship, from Fair Haven, Vt., enclosing subscription for copies of my Sunday School lesson, signed "R. L. Herbert." Instantly the "R. L. H." of my war experience came to me, and I wrote to my father at once that I had struck "R. L. H." again.
Soon after that I learned that a Methodist church in Iowa was in theological trouble; and that they had sont East for a Methodist minister, who was also in theological trouble, to preach the dedication sermon of the church at Marion, Iowa. It turned out that it was my mystic correspondent "R. L. H." From that sprung a correspondence which a few months afterwards brought him to Janesville, Wis., to one of our Wisconsin conference meet- ings In the press of delegates visiting the town on the first even-
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A Man without Guile.
ing, there crowded to the front a little man with long hair; without waiting for introduction or any preliminary courtesy, he said, "Is this Jones ?" I said, "Yes." And then I found myself clasped in the iron embrace of this man, more hearty and as explosive as that with which school girls greet each other after a long absence. From that time to the day of his death, our spirits clasped as ardently as his arms had enveloped me. I found him indeed a "Cambrian Prophet." The sauce he gave to life was none of your sickly sweet preserve, but a sauce flavored with a sense of the im- perfection and the weakness of the world. His earnest words were seasoned with a painful sense of the bad there is about us, and so of course his life burned itself out on those high prophetic plains which measures life not "by figures on a dial, but by heart beats." His oft quoted line, which he adapted for himself, was taken from the lines of one of the old Druid Bards, which says, "Let me love and thrill or let me die." When the summons came to attend his funeral away off under the shadows of the Rocky Mountains, I was unable to reach there in time to discharge that tender office, but five days after the earth closed over his coffin I stood under that cloudless sky, over the grave that held all that was perishable of R. L. Herbert. The next Sunday I stood with his weeping people in the little church at Denver and shared with them, and all others who ever came within the reach of his elec- trical spirit, a sense that something had gone out of the world when his voice was stilled. So I am glad to stand here this mo- ment with you in this glad anniversary of this Society, to claim a part with you in these blessed memories, and to feel, as I said to one of your members a moment ago, that however doubtful my case may be when I present myself at the gate over which St. Peter presides, if the balance should be made out against me in any and every other respect, I think if, as a last resort, I say, "But dear St. Peter, please remember this, I had something to do in giving to Geneva, that Saint's Rest on earth, as pastor to that Church of blessed usefulness, R. L. Herbert, James West, and Thomas Byrnes," I think he will swing the gates open and say, "Come in!"
A Man without Guile. MRS. J. D. HARVEY.
Amid all life's quests
There seems but worthy one-to do men good.
The Geneva Society might justly claim that its chosen leaders have been men of marked individuality. You heard this morning about the "Man in Earnest" and Mr. Jones has told you of the "Cambrian Prophet" and
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A Man without Guile.
you will now hear from Mrs. Harvey, who speaks from per- sonal reminiscence of "A Man without Guile," George Wheelock Woodward, pastor from 1858 to 1863.
MRS. HARVEY'S RESPONSE.
It has fallen to my lot to do a difficult thing, to try to do justice to the memory of our second pastor, "The Man without Guile" as he has been called. My difficulty is, to satisfy myself at this distance from the meagre memories of thirty years ago.
To talk now from the impressions of a girl of twenty about such a man would be inexcusable, if it were not my only opportunity to do justice to a man, whom I fear I did not sufficiently appreciate when he was with us. Young people are very critical and their judgment seems to them equal to any test, and it makes me blush now as I recall the superior smiles we indulged in when we thought we detected an old sermon. How could girls of twenty know that such sermons as his, from the text, "Speak every man the truth of his neighbor" could not be preached too many times? I doubt if even now we realize after thirty years' experience, that we actually need such a sermon about once a month. I think ministers must get very much discouraged over the curiosity that their peo- ple show to see how finely and strongly they can say things, and how many new things they can say, but never want to hear them the second time, nor by any chance try any of their plans, set forth so eloquently, and see how they might work.
George Wheelock Woodward was born at Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1810. He inherited culture, intellect and refine- ment from a long line of ancestors, who were all either Professors or Presidents of Dartmouth College. One English ancestor sleeps in Westminster Abbey, and among his American progen- itors he numbered Miles Standish, also John Woodward and Ebe- nezer Wheelock who founded the Moore Charity School for Indian children in northern New Hampshire about a century ago. His father was judge of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, and died when George was only eight years old, leaving him to the care of a most judicious mother, who supervised his education with the aid and advice of her brother, the late George Ticknor of Boston.
He entered Dartmouth at an early age, graduating with honor, and afterwards entered the Divinity School at Harvard where he was a close student, entering with earnestness and enthusiasm in- to the study of his profession.
After graduating he preached some years in New England, and then removed to Galena in this State. There he began a sort of itineracy, preaching alternately at Galena, Dubuque and Savan- na, but he was in advance of the time, and after some years of
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A Man without Guile.
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faithful endeavor, the Unitarian work was abandoned. with such heartache and disappointment as you ministers may understand. In the meantime Mr. Woodward had made for himself a home in Galena and identified himself with the interests of the city. He inaugurated the system of public schools in that city and was elected County Superintendent of schools and afterwards City Clerk and Collector of taxes, filling all the positions most acceptably.
Aware of Mr. Woodward's efficiency in any position which he had filled, in 1857 his long time friend, Gen. J. D. Webster, induced him to come to Geneva, in his interest to take charge of the office of the Danford Reaper Company, and soon after, upon Mr. Conant's departure for Rockford, this society invited him to minister to them, and he found himself again at work in his chosen profession. The old time fire flamed up again clear and bright as he bore testimony to the faith that was within.
I find in reading over his sermons, as I have been privileged to do recently, that most of them were written in the early years of his ministry, before he came to Geneva, but they were remodeled and retouched for our benefit as I well remember. As I re-read these as they were written during the second quarter of the cen- tury, I am impressed with the vigor and freshness of the thoughts.
I have heard it said that Mr. Woodward was in advance of his time. I see now how it was true. He does not seem to have been much interested in what we might call radical reforms. Probably he never heard in those days of charity organization yet, when he preached the scrmon from the text, "Purc religion and undefiled before God the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world:" when he preached this sermon, he put all the spirit of the motto of the Charity Organization Society, "Not alms but a friend," into the word visit, he made it appear that true charity was not in that casiest way of all, giving money, but giving one's self, and that self must be kept pure and unspotted from the world. The emphasis which he laid upon the fact that the two must go together, was a sermon in itself. How much of such charity is there in the world to-day ? And yet this young man pleaded for it over fifty years ago, as his Master had done nearly twenty centuries before.
He saw beyond many of the plans for reforming the world, and saw what Kindergartners, individualists, and all the most advanced people of our time see now, that it is the individual that must be pure and good, that reforms must come from within, not without; and he preached that we must analyze and judge ourselves, and we shall see ourselves rightly. He drew a strong picture of the man stripped of all seeming, standing at the bar of his own conscience, "He sees that his innocence was inaction, that he had been unre-, proached, because unknown. He thought himself just, but was only legal, temperate while he was a cowardly venturer to the
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