USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The New church and Chicago; a history > Part 19
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worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only God of heaven and earth, and for instruction in the heavenly doctrines of the New Jerusalem, with apartments for training and educating children, young persons, and even adults in these heavenly doctrines and principles revealed in the writings, for the purpose of making them wise unto sal- vation. The committee selected a lot on the north side of Van Buren street between Wabash and Michigan avenues, on which the temple, so far as completed, now stands.
The building committee composed of J. Young Scam- mon, Alexander Officer, James M. Hill, Dr. Alvan E. Small, Willet Northup, Henry S. Maynard, and Rollin A. Keyes, was duly appointed with power to act in making necessary contracts for the building of the temple.
What they have already accomplished is partially seen in the completion of the basement so neatly fitted up and furnished with the necessary appointments for public worship and for Sunday-school purposes, as well as for other religious and social entertainments included in the various departments of church work. Two large adjoining rooms have been finished and furnished; the New Church library and depository for the New Church books have been removed from the rooms at the corner of La Salle and Lake streets into these rooms, together with all the furniture and carpets that could be utilized in perfecting the arrangement in them. The old carpet from the New Church hall in Eighteenth street has been utilized in the main room of the basement of the new temple.
From the Union Swedenborgian Church the furnish- ings of the altar, reading-desk, and other adornings were received. And here it is proper to acknowledge the efficient labor of the ladies in putting the rooms in order.
The hope and expectation are entertained that the Society will soon render encouragement to the building committee to proceed with the work of completing the temple, with all the necessary appointments from the tabernacle or depository for the Word, to the pulpit and
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altar, with liberal provisions for pleasant sittings and music.
Public worship was first held in the new temple, in the basement, on the sixth of November last, and the num- ber who have attended Sunday worship since has been nearly sufficient to fill the sittings.
The Sunday-school was organized immediately after worship commenced in the new quarters, and under the efficient management of the superintendent, Brother Rollin A. Keyes, it is a growing and flourishing institu- tion. The example of Brother Keyes in being commend- ably zealous in building up this nursery for the Church, it is hoped will attract the cooperative efforts of other young men to aid him in his labors. His efficiency in classifying the pupils and the judicious appointment of teachers eminently qualified for directing the tenderest juvenile minds in the path of innocence, and in the ap- pointment of others well qualified for instilling into the minds of those of different grades of maturity, while yet susceptible of being impressed, the primary truths of religion and a love for supreme goodness, merits the approbation of the Society, together with all 'the aid he can receive from those interested in the school.
In conclusion it may be said the Society is now appar- ently prosperous and united. A general effort to promote its spiritual prosperity seems to be manifest. The only true method of augmenting the prosperity is for every member to make it the work of his life to shun evils as sins against God, to acknowledge the Lord in His Divine Humanity, and to constantly seek instruction in the heavenly doctrines, and by an ultimate expression of them in the acts of every-day life.
All of which is submitted on behalf of the executive committee. [Signed] A. E. SMALL, Chairman.
It is not deemed necessary to quote from the reports of the Union Park temple and North Clark street congre- gations, as it seems their condition must, from what has been said at different times, be well understood.
THE VAN BUREN STREET TEMPLE.
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The committee on the Central New Church library and book room, consisting of Messrs. Scammon, Black- man, and Keyes, closed its report with these paragraphs :
As important as are the services of the preacher, we must never forget that sound and reliable New Church- men cannot be made without reading, and we should neglect no means to induce in our people the habit of daily reading, however little, of some of the writings of the Church.
Swedenborg did not argue about the doctrines, but invited others to read his books.
DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE.
The temple which occupied the site of Steinway hall, 17 East Van Buren street, had been very recently fin- ished, and was dedicated Sunday, June 4, 1882, by the Revs. Chauncey Giles and Joseph Pettee, in the presence of the General Convention, which was in session at that time, the day being Convention Sunday. It was a bright, beautiful, early summer day ; the church was completely filled with earnest and interested worshipers; not only was the beautiful building given to the Lord for a home on earth, but by the same service there was inaugurated what proved to be twelve years of united and happy church life, the termination of which was made unavoid- able by the consummation of conditions over which those who were enjoying it had not control.
The statement of Jan. 1, 1883, shows that the cost of the land, building, equipment, and furnishings amounted to $59,770.11; to this more than $600 was added during the year.
Rev. William F. Pendleton continued to conduct the service in the Union Park temple, and in the North Clark
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street chapel, assisted by Rev. E. S. Bostock in the latter, until in the latter part of 1882, when, on the departure of Mr. Bostock for Philadelphia, service in the chapel ceased. On Mr. Pendleton's going to Philadelphia, in 1884, Rev. George Nelson Smith was employed, and con- ducted the service in the two places for a short time.
1883.
In his report to the Society for 1883, Rev. Mr. Mer- cer says: "Courses of six lectures each have been given in Englewood, Hyde Park, and at Thirty-ninth street, and twenty-six missionary lectures have been given by the pastor in Milwaukee, Wheaton, Elgin, Ritchey, Beardstown, and Wilmington."
1884.
A special meeting of the Society held March 27, 1884, accepted an offer of eleven thousand five hundred dollars cash, to be paid for the land at Thirty-third street and Calumet avenue, which sale was consummated.
In his report for 1884 Mr. Mercer says: "I have bap- tized twenty-five, nineteen children and six adults; con- firmed twelve; officiated at seven marriages; at ten funerals; and have administered the Holy Supper five times in Chicago, once at Wilmington, Ill., and once at La Porte, Ind. Sunday last I received ten members into the Society, extending to them the right hand of fellowship in the presence of the Society .*
At meeting of the Society held December 15th it was voted to sell part of the land at Washington street and Ogden avenue for $14,000 to Zion's congregation of
*NOTE .- Several very successful bazaars were conducted by the ladies during the eighties. One in 1884 returned in profit, six hundred dollars, and one in 1885, twelve hundred dollars.
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West Chicago, a Jewish society. The sale was accom- plished, and the obligations of the Society registered against the property were paid, including the Bissell loan with the accretions, amounting to $10,128.26, and all others, leaving a balance of $2,491.65. This transac- tion left the Union Park temple and the land on which it stood in the possession of the Society, unincumbered.
IMMANUEL CHURCH.
A meeting of the church committee was held Aug. 23, 1885, to consider the relation of the West side and North side congregations to the Society, and the duty of the committee in view of the fact of the dismissal of the Rev. G. N. Smith, and the settlement of Rev. Mr. Bos- tock, in those pastorates, under the advice of the Gen- eral Church of Pennsylvania and without consultation with this committee.
At the request of the president, Mr. Scammon met with the committee, and the whole question was deliber- ately discussed and again at adjourned meetings held August 31st and September 1st, when the following com- munication was unanimously adopted and forwarded to the members of the Society on the West and North sides of the city :
The church committee of The Chicago Society of the New Jerusalem, in view of the anomalous relations exist- ing between the several congregations and the authorities of the Society, deems it its duty to state that in its opinion it is important to the harmony and usefulness of the Chicago Society, that its members should advise and cooperate with the pastor and church committee in pro- viding for spiritual instruction and in the use of its houses of worship. For some years we have permitted our churches in the West and North divisions of the city
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to be occupied by congregations composed in part of our own members, and the pulpits to be filled by ministers selected without consultation with the church committee, hoping that in time a desire for unity in church work, and a recognition of the proprieties would assert them- selves. This state of things, however, seems neither orderly in itself nor promotive of the end desired. And while recognizing and respecting the individuality and freedom of all members of the Church, we believe it in- cumbent upon this committee to determine, in connection with our pastor, what use shall be made of our houses of worship and who shall occupy the pulpits therein, hoping thereby to promote harmony and good feeling, and avoid any tendency to disruption or separate action. It is clearly important that they should be occupied in such manner as to promote concert of action in Chicago, and in the Illinois Association, and the church committee feels it to be its duty to provide for such occupancy.
Therefore, Resolved, that the pastor and chairman of this committee be requested to communicate this action to the members of the Society in the West and North divisions of the city, and invite them to cooperate with the committee in securing this end.
COMMUNICATION FROM THE REV. MR. BOSTOCK.
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Chicago, Nov. 2, 1885.
To the Executive Committee of The Chicago Society of the New Jerusalem.
Dear Brethren in the Church :- It becomes my duty to inform you officially that the congregations worship- ing on the West and North sides have formed themselves into a body of the Church and have connected themselves with the General Church of Pennsylvania; and at the same time to give you our reasons for so doing.
For some time many of our members have felt that we could perform our uses better and in a more orderly way if we had a more full and complete organization. This feeling was brought to a head by a communication from your church committee to those of our number
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who were members of the Chicago Society, and also by an interview which your pastor, Mr. Lewis P. Mercer, had with the Rev. William H. Benade, at which the design of said communication was declared to be to lead us to define our position and thus to remove the anomalous state of things then existing.
Accordingly we have taken the requisite steps and have organized ourselves into a body of the Church under the name of the "Immanuel Church of the New Jeru- salem." In organizing this body of the Church we have endeavored to look to the Lord in His Word as revealed to the New Church, and to organize according to con- victions found from the study of the truths there re- vealed. Being convinced that the Lord has placed the government of the Church in the hands of the priest- hood, and that in order to prevent individual priests, either from self-will or from ignorance, from sanction- ing things contrary to order, there must be order and subordination among priests, and that this order must be trinal, we have placed the charge, supervision, and government of our body of the Church in the hands of the pastor, a priest of the second degree. In order to carry out our convictions of the order and govern- ment of the Church, it became necessary for us to con- nect ourselves with some more general body of the Church, acknowledging the same doctrine, interpreting it in the same way and which, carrying it out, was gov- erned by a priesthood in the three degrees with our order and subordination.
The only body of the New Church holding the same convictions and organized according to them is the Gen- eral Church of Pennsylvania. Believing that every body of the Church, as well as every individual, ought to be free to connect itself with such other body of the Church as it can act and perform its uses with most fully and freely, and seeing that our form of government could be carried out only with the above general body, we have connected ourselves with it.
You probably know something of the nature of the work we have been doing, but perhaps it will be well to
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give some statistics of our present state. In our Society at present we have forty-one adult members, which number will probably be increased to forty-five or fifty, when all have been given an opportunity to join us. Besides the above, there are about ten junior members between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one, and about fifteen children of members, and quite a number of chil- dren in constant attendance at church and Sunday-school who are not the children of members. The average attendance at worship on the West side for the last eight Sundays, beginning September 13th, has been forty-eight, and on the North side, during the same time, eighteen. The attendance at Sunday-school on the West side, including adults and children, has been about forty per Sunday. It is our purpose to hold the following serv- ices : Worship and Sunday-school on Sunday morning on the West side, and on the North side in the afternoon ; a young people's class from five to ten P. M. every Friday evening on the West side, and a doctrinal class on the North side every Thursday evening.
And now, in conclusion, we desire to thank you for the past use of the church property, both on the North and West sides, and to ask you in recognition of the dis- tinctly New Church uses performed in your midst by those who, while they differ from you in their convictions concerning church government and perhaps some other doctrine's of the Church, are nevertheless one with you in the acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ in His second coming ; of the sanctity of the Word; and in the life of charity; to continue to us the use of the above church property, for the above and such other New Church uses as we may in the Divine Providence of the Lord be enabled to perform.
Hoping, that, notwithstanding our differences in con- victions, we may work harmoniously side by side for the good of the Lord's New Church, I am,
Yours fraternally,
[Signed] EDW. C. BOSTOCK, Pastor of the Immanuel Church of the New Jerusalem
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FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE CHICAGO SOCIETY.
To Our Brethren in the Illinois Association :
The Chicago Society of the New Jerusalem is called to make a painful communication. This Society, which owns all the houses of worship of the New Church in this city, has allowed the members of the Society residing in the North and West divisions of the city to occupy the houses of worship there, when not wanted by the Society, as might suit their convenience, without relin- quishing any control over the same.
Owing to the great losses suffered by the members of the Society in the fires of 1871 and 1874, and in com- mercial panics, the Society, being unable to provide for the regular occupation of the pulpits in these divisions, permitted them to be occupied by ministers who came or were sent to Chicago from the Academy of the New Church in Pennsylvania. These ministers at first seemed disposed to cooperate with us in the Illinois Association, and we hoped that any peculiarities of opinion held by them would not be used to produce division or alienate any of the members of this Society from their allegiance and devotion to the Association. In extending this lib- erality to these ministers, we acted in accordance with the action of this body when first organized, in recognizing all of the then existing Conventions as composed of our brethren and possessed of all needful authority, and de- claring our disposition to apply to either for ministerial services as might seem necessary, wise, or expedient.
We have not been unaware for some time that an influence, prejudicial to the unity and integrity of our Society, was being exercised from a foreign body which calls itself the General Church of Pennsylvania, and that its two leading ministers were busying themselves in exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the bounds of our Association and over some of the members of this Society ; but we were entirely unprepared to learn that they have succeeded in seducing some of our brethren from their allegiance to this Association until, after a
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recent visit from the Rev. Mr. Benade, we were informed that he had advised and induced the formation of a sepa- rate Society of some of the worshipers in our places of worship in the North and West divisions of the city, in connection with and as a part of the foreign body called the General Church of Pennsylvania.
When this information reached us, the church com- mittee deemed it a duty to send a communication to our members residing in those divisions of the city, which communication reads as follows: (See the communica- tion of the church committee, page 303.)
This Society deems the action taken to produce division in our Association, which has acted substantially as a unit since its formation in 1839, so anomalous and preju- dicial to the freedom, growth, and unity of the Church in our Association, that we report the same to you for your brotherly and prayerful consideration and action.
We regard the obtrusion of differences of opinion concerning church government as an occasion for divi- sion or separation among a brethren living in the same neighborhood or community, who are in agreement, "in the acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ in His second coming, of the sanctity of the Word, and the life of charity," when our members are hardly sufficient to efficiently sustain one organization or association, as un- charitable and disorganizing in the extreme.
We have had many differences or varieties of opinion among the members of our Society, and sometimes for local or other reasons it has been thought expedient by some of our members to form a separate Society, but by exercising a spirit of forbearance and Christian charity, we have, heretofore, all been able to come together again in one Society; though we were very sorry to find that the reunion of the members of the Union Swedenborgian Church with the old organization was determinedly and persistently opposed by members who have now gone off and formed a connection with the Pennsylvania organi- zation, when this opposition found no sympathy or favor in any other quarter.
We believe that where there is genuine charity and
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brotherly love, there will be substantial unity among New Church brethren living in the same community and seek- ing to spread a knowledge of the heavenly doctrines, and the practice of the life which is charity.
We cannot prudently allow anything that we have or control, to be used by those who seek to separate or divide us.
The Illinois Association referred the subject to its executive committee, giving it full power to act in the case. Following this it received consideration with the general subject of the General Church of Pennsylvania by the General Convention.
A letter by the executive committee of November 22nd, to Mr. Bostock, reviews the case, quite emphatically de- claring that the committee thinks his position and action are in conflict with the essential doctrine of the Church- the doctrine of charity-and more in the same strain, and ending with this paragraph :
Inasmuch as you have withdrawn from our Society, and have become members of a foreign jurisdiction, and by your own acts have assisted your independence of your brethren in this city and state, this committee is of the unanimous opinion that you should not look to us for countenance and support. We must, therefore, request you to relinquish the occupancy of the North side chapel at once, and of the West side temple at your earliest con- venience, not later than the first of January, 1886.
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Freely opened as this subject has been in the preceding correspondence, and by the action of the executive com- mittee of the Chicago Society, it seems well to define what "The General Church of Pennsylvania" meant, the pres- ent successor of which is known by its members and the few familiar with the subject, as, "The General Church of the New Jerusalem," and as the "Academy of the New Church."
Brevity being one of the paramount necessities in the case, it is concluded to make up this historical sketch from the article written by the Rev. C. Th. Odhner, and published in New Church Life, the official publication of the General Church as above, August-September num- ber, 1904.
"Of the Central Convention," says Mr. Odhner, "the parent seed of our present General Church, it is unnec- essary to say much on this occasion, as it has been pretty thoroughly described in the 'Life of the Rev. Richard De Charms,' published in New Church Life for 1903."
Speaking of the organization of the Central Conven- tion, "as a body independent of the General Convention," on account of the arbitrary demands of the latter, he says :
"This arbitrary spirit was resented, not only by the most conservative elements of the Church, but also by some of the most radical, and thus it came about that the Central Convention was, from the beginning, a very heterogeneous body, though at first the influence of
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Mr. De Charms and his theological friends pre- vailed." * * *
Mr. Odhner says: "We find in the constitution of the Central Convention (adopted in 1840) not only the ac- knowledgment of the authority of the writings and of the trine in the priesthood, but also the declaration that the new body was to be regarded as a General Church, existing at all times. * * The administration of all internal or spiritual things was left in the hands of the clergy, at the head of which there was to be a council of ordaining ministers, in which one was to act as primus inter pares (first among them). The Central Convention, after a few years of active usefulness, be- came a prey to internal dissensions ; the unsound elements gradually gained the upper hand; the General Conven- tion apparently became inspired by a more liberal and conciliatory spirit; the Central Convention became in- active, and the remnant, in 1852, declared the body dissolved.
"But though the organization died out, the original spirit survived. A generation of young minis- ters of the Church had been indoctrinated by Mr. De Charms; men such as David Powell, N. C. Burnham, J. R. Hibbard, J. P. Stuart, Thomas Wilks, and chief of them all, William H. Benade."
Following the article we find: "If we may regard the Central Convention and its principles as the parent seed of our present General Church, we may well describe the Pennsylvania Association of the New Jerusalem as its Mother Church.
"This body (the Pennsylvania Association) was organ- ized in Philadelphia, Aug. 4, 1845, the Rev. James Sed- den, an Ordaining minister of the General Convention, being elected president, which office he filled until 1858."
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Mr. Odhner says : "The meetings of this body for a 1 number of years present but little of historical interest. The ministers connected with the Association, though earnest and faithful, were not among the leading lights of the New Church, nor were the lay members especially distinguished for intellectual activity.
"In the Philadelphia First Society a disruption oc- curred in 1854, when those who sympathized with the teachings of the Rev. W. H. Benade organized 'The Philadelphia Society,' * and established a New Church day-school, to be conducted entirely according to what are known as 'Academy principles.'"
Mr. Odhner says: "In the year 1861 a great forward step was taken when the Association placed on record its full acceptance of the Divine authority of the writings, as the inspired and infallible Word of God. A committee had been appointed the preceding year to report on the nature of Swedenborg's illumination. This report, which was signed by Mr. Benade and Mr. Wilks, is a most important document, dealing at length with the whole subject, and closing with the declaration that, as the Lord has made His second advent through the instru- mentality of Swedenborg, the truths which he has been the means of revealing to us are Divine; that they are the Lord's Spiritual Word, being the spiritual sense con- tained in the natural sense of the Sacred Scriptures, wherein the Divinity of the Word resides; that these truths have all Divine authority, as the Lord's Word to His New Church as Himself in His spiritual coming for the establishment of His last and crowning dispen- sation to the world; and that, therefore, because this is the crown of all former dispensations, it is also, and must be, received and acknowledged as a finality.
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