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Foundation Stones
C
STORIA
TESTIS
TEMPORUM
APRIL 18G34
LONG ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY BEQUEST OF THE REV. RICHARD SALTER STORRS, D.D.,LL.D. FOR THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01785 6029
GENEALOGY 977.202 EV17BY
1
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FOUNDATION STONES,
OF THE
CHURCH OF THE UNITY,
EVANSVILLE, INDIANA.
And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones .- REV. 21 : 19.
For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight ; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right ; In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity ; All must be false that thwarts this one great end ; And all of God, that bless mankind, or mend .- POPE.
EVANSVILLE, IND :
FOR SALE AT GEORGE C. SMITH & CO'S, BOOKSELLERS. Sent postage prepaid to any address, on receipt of One Dollar. 1878.
53915
THE COURIER COMPANY, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, STATIONERS & BINDERS EVANSVILLE, INDIANA.
VITHIDRAEN
THIS VOLUME Is respectfully and affectionately dedicated to REV. ROBERT COLLYER : Through whose generous sympathy and helping hand THE WRITER found the Rest and Fellowship of the LIBERAL. FAITH.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Dedication.
3
Preface
5
Introduction-Rev. J. H Heywood
6
Historical
8
The Preacher and His Work-George Chainey
9
Dedication Sermon-Zoar-Rev. Robert Collyer.
23
The Mother Church
.37
In Memoriam of Philip IIornbrook-George Chainey.
42
66
" Mrs. Ann Maidlow-
66
.52
Our Work as Liberals-
66
63
A Greeting to Spring-
66
6.
.72
Autumn Leaves-
66
66
80
Realists and Idealists-
66
88
PREFACE.
My design in publishing this book is three-fold : First, a stranger myself to the Church at large, in which I have found a home, and Pastor of one of its newest and most isolated churches, I desire, through it, to introduce myself and fold to those of like Faith ; Second, I feel that the contents thercof cannot but be of interest and benefit to all who may read it; Third, Our surroundings here are such that our growth must be slow, and any profit derived from the sale of it will be strictly devoted to help maintain our Church at Evansville, Indiana.
GEORGE CHAINEY.
INTRODUCTORY.
MY DEAR BROTHER CHAINEY :
Permit me to give you and the earnest friends associated with you my hearty congratulations, that our Liberal Christian Church in Evansville, after years of patient, persevering effort and struggle, is established on a firm foundation. We all rejoice in the cheering prospects of its life and far-reaching influence. Your church has for its home and its centre of beneficent action a neat, attractive building, with no burden of debt. Thanks to God for that great blessing ! It has a large and interesting Sunday School. It is a flourish- ing and attractive city, with wide-awake, hospitable citizens, who appreciate the good Public Schools and other instrumentalities of culture, with which they are favored, and by whose intelligence, enterprising spirit and great commercial and manufacturing industry, the city is made a great power, and a power for good, to large portions of Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois. The church is to be con- gratulated, too, that the men and women, who from the beginning have longed for it and worked for it, have been persons respected for the genuineness and excellence of their characters-characters marked by straightforwardness, integ- rity, sterling honesty-all the substantial qualities that command esteem and insure confidence.
Some of those dear friends have passed upward and onward to the world of clearer light to which they were warmly welcomed by the true-hearted who had preceded them on the star-lighted way, but their memories remain precious and inspiriting, and their influence will never cease to be felt.
On my earliest visit to Evansville, in December, 1851, nearly twenty seven years ago, I was greeted very cordially by that true man, Mr. Philip Hornbrook, as upright in spirit as he was erect in form, and I found him then, as ever after- wards, the frank, outspoken, firm friend of Unitarian Christianity. Nearly ten years later, in the eventful Spring of 1861, I was summoned to Evansville to conduct the funeral services of his eldest daughter, whose lovely expressive face was the revelation of a clear, bright mind, an earnest, religious spirit, "a warm, loving heart, a well-balanced and strong character.
Kindred in soul to Mr. Hornbrook, was his sister, Mrs. Maidlow, of whose thoughtful generosity in land and money as well as of unfaltering religious
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INTRODUCTORY.
loyalty, your church will always be a fragrant memorial-" an alabaster box of precious ointment." A striking type and illustration was she of the genuine English woman and of the English Unitarian. Rational in thought, reverent in spirit, with opinions clearly defined and cleanly cut ; with convic- tions of truth and duty on which she rested as firm as a mountain on its granite base; unshrinkingly faithful to Christian morality-the ethics of the sermon on the mount-she was a fine and rare representative of strong, noble womanhood, of the characteristic womanhood of old England transplanted to our rich West- ern soil.
It was very interesting to me-and as gratifying as interesting-to find on one of my early visits to Evansville that the three Trustees of the Public Schools were our two devoted Unitarian friends-Mr. Philip Hornbrook and Mr. H. Q. Wheeler, and a Roman Catholic, Mr. Wm. Hughes-and that the three were working with great heartiness and entire harmony in promoting the all-important cause of popular, universal education
To all of us who have watched with interest and hope the progress of Uni- tarian Christianity in Evansville, the remembrance is very precious of the ines. timable service rendered to it in 1857 and 1858, by Rev. James K. Hosmer, now a professor in Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. Mr. Hosmer, then fresh from his studies at Cambridge, threw his whole soul into the work, and by his untiring exertions for the church and for every good and humane cause, endeared himself to Mr. Hornbrook and the other early and staunch friends of our cause and won the love and admiration of a host of friends connected with other communions. Not in vain were the labors of Mr. Hosmer and of the other true men, who from time to time have been connected with the Evansville church, though there were seasons, sometimes long-continued and depressing, of suspension of active exertions. Now the bright day has dawned and may its light grow brighter and brighter, evermore.
Sincerely, your friend and brother,
Louisville, Ky.
JOHN H. HEYWOOD.
HISTORICAL.
From the time of Mr. Heywood's first visit to Evansville and its present organization, under the name of the Church of the Unity, the Liberal Christians of the place were constant in their endeavors to organize and maintain a church. Among the laymen worthy of the highest honor in this connection, I find, be- sides those elsewhere mentioned, are Geo. W. Rathbone, (now residing in New York, and still a contributor to the church); H. Q. Wheeler, (now of Portland, Maine); J. W. Knight, Jonas Smith, E. Q. Smith, A J. Colburn, Wm. Emery, and L. M. Baird. The ministers, who, during this time, kept the sacred fire alive, either by occasional visits or by short engagements, as the Society felt itself able to maintain preaching, I find were Revs. J. H. Heywood, J. G. Fore- man, James K. Hosmer and David Henry Clark.
In the month of October, 1875, the Ohio Valley Conference met here, at the close of which the Society was re-organized under the name of the CHURCH OF THE UNITY, EVANSVILLE, IND., with the following Preamble and Article of Membership :
WE, whose names are here recorded, believing that a true Christian fellow- ship can only be realized by active co-operation in works of fraternal good will, and that such fellowship should lead us to recognize and fulfill more completely our great human relationship, do hereby form ourselves into a Christian Church, for purposes of Mutual Helpfulness and General Beneficence. Recognizing the right of private judgment, we require no doctrinal test of membership, but welcome all to fellowship who desire to work with us for the advancement of the Kingdom of God ; and we hereby pledge ourselves, as far as lies in our power, to fulfill the obligation which this membership imposes - to advocate Freedom of Thought, Beauty of Life, and Love to God and Man.
Any person mav become a member of this church who really desires to get good from it, or do good in it, by recording their names upon its list of member- ship, pledging thereby to be faithful to its demands upon them.
Since this the Society has enjoyed, through occasional preaching, the ser- vices of Revs. S. P. Putnam, Carson Parker, J. O. M. Hewitt, W. T. Lewis, A. F. Bailey, J. T. Sunderland and Jenk. Ll. Jones.
Among the laymen who, at the time of the new organization, gave fresh strength and life to the cause, was f. J. Kleiner, (present Mayor of the city); Soren Sorenson and R. S. Hornbrook.
The corner stone of the new church was laid Oct. 30, 1876. The building was completed and ready for occupation by April 1, 1878, at which time the Society extended a call to the writer to visit them in view of settling among them as Pastor.
THE PREACHER AND HIS WORK .*
GEORGE CHAINEY.
So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the Gospel .- Rom 1, 10.
It is not for me, a stranger, to enter into and fully sympathize with your feelings as you come for the first time into a church of your own for divine worship. I congratulate you, however, in the completion of so pleasant and tasteful a church edifice. But next to your satisfaction in the possession of this home, I presume is your desire to secure some one, to whom you will gladly listen as a teacher of religion. Thinking of this I thought that it would not be altogether inappropriate for me to invite you at this time to a short study of the Preacher and his Work. Perhaps you say why not do the work and let it speak for both itself and the doer ? But the same objection would hold good in regard to all the great works of man-yea, touching even the important question of life itself. Why not take life as we find it-drifting be- fore the swell of every wave of influence that touches us ? Because we are satisfied that all who have crowned life with a brighter crown, have breasted this tide, and the still small voice of every earnest soul tells him that by wrestling with its problems, and being true to its solemn and imperative duties, that there is yet a fairer crown and more boundless inheritance to be won. And so they ques- tion and question, and ponder and ponder ; until, in response to their wistful and earnest beseeching, the heavens open above them and the glory of a new truth transfigures them, while the light of ancient Moses and Elias pales before these rising suns, and the voice of duty says to all beholders-"hear them !"
But to put this objection in a new light : Why not accept every man's word and work as final ? When a great mechanical, scientific, literary, artistic or religious genius appears, would it not be best for all who come afterwards to say, like Peter, of Je-
* Sermon preached in the Church of the Unity, April 8th, 1877.
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THE PREACHER AND HIS WORK.
sus : "There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." Nay; for the voice of Jesus and of all other true and noble sons of God and man, proclaim, above all, this unbelief : "Greater works than this shall ye do." Suppose, for one instance, that when Watts first discovered the power of steam, men had rested satisfied with his application of · it. The mind shrinks with horror from the thought and leaps with mighty exultation at the remembrance, that such men of faith as Stephens and Fulton came piercing the invisible. Of whom, like the heroes of old, "The world was not worthy;" standing, as they did, so faithfully by this clumsy, hated, new-born child-bearing the scoffs, scorn and enmity of almost all about them, until they had nursed him to be the giant he is, and ever shall be; surpassing, in his daily work, a million times the fabled ex- ploits of Hebrew Samson and Grecian Hercules. Yet, for all this, there are thousands of men standing in as many different pulpits, who simply repeat the old words of the old Preachers; who, good as they were, never for one moment dreamed that the cast- off garments with which they clothed the living spirit, burn- ing and glowing within them, would ever be presented to any one as the true bread and life of the soul. As I think of this, I wonder not that so many truly religious souls absent themselves from places of public worship, preferring to wander in the fields and listen to the preaching of bird and flower and brook, rather than be regaled with such dry husks.
Let us now with this brief opening turn to our subject.
The first affirmation I want to make, touching the preacher is, that there can be no gospel preached that is not projected from a human consciousness. The true power of the pulpit is not in its appendages ; there may be intellectual power, graceful rhetoric, and the stirring pathos of eloquence ; but while the preacher should despise none of these gifts, if there be nothing else, his preaching may be fitly compared to the barren fig-tree, present- ing nothing but leaves, that vexed even the soul of Jesus; when, through the abundance of its verdure, he came expecting fruit and found nothing but leaves. From the genuine Christian pulpit there must be the ripe fruit of life dropping naturally from the full-laden boughs of the soul. Earnest words must be backed
II
THE PREACHER AND HIS WORK.
by a manly life. New truth must come naturally from a grow- ing soul. He who would preach faith must live "As seeing Him that is invisible." It must be to him the evidence of things not seen. When the crown of thorns is pressed on, he must feel in spite of the burning, tingling pain the crown of Truth above. When the sky above him is dark with the thick cloud of jeers, taunts, sneers and scornful names: Impudent blasphemer, infidel, athiest and destroyer, from his fellow men, whose true in- terests he is seeking, he must see emblazoned above in letters of light that never grow dim, the approval of his Heavenly Father : "Well done, good and faithful servant."
He who would preach the Christian hope must keep the win- dows of his soul open towards the East, expecting through every long night of darkness a new day. While he inspects the word that now is, he must never cease expecting a better one.
He who would proclaim charity-the greatest of these three sis- ter graces of Heaven-must be so large in his life and sympathy that he can not only carry in his heart his own interests and those of his own immediate household, but like Jesus, must be able to say, when looking about him upon the multitude : "Behold my mother and brethren." And so whoever would preach right- eousness, the out-blossoming and fruit-bearing of these divine plants, must abide in its strength and joy. The true preacher must, like Jesus, give for the people to eat and drink his own flesh and blood, with this explanation: "It is the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life."
If this is true, how foolish the custom of those parents who, out of a family of boys take one at hap-hazard-thinking, that by education, they can make a preacher of the gospel of life out of him. There is no doubt an abundance of cant in the church about the necessity of a call to preach. But underlying all this talk is the truth I have been seeking to make plain: that he who feeds the souls of his hearers must do it out of consciousness of a divine life-power throbbing at his heart-beating against theirs and awakening in them the moral and spiritual sense. The second fact about the preacher is, that this power-to be at its best-must have an individuality about it. It cannot be secured
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THE PREACHER AND HIS WORK.
by mere routine work. If it exists at all, it must be the pro- duct of independent thought-the soul's personal perception of the truth-the unfolding of a character that rests upon the founda- tion of the liberty of the sons of God. That there is a certain kind of good accomplished by simple, honest men, who can alone repeat the creed they have been taught, and that without being able to give a reason for the hope that is within them, I do not doubt; but, glancing over the lives of all the great effectual preach- ers, I find abundant evidence to maintain, at all odds, that the teaching of the men whose work underlies the thought and life of the church in the past and who are enlarging its borders to-day, owes its vitality and power to independence of thought and character. Knowing the character of the men, we find that the good they accomplished was through the reflective and inspiring influence of this upon others. Take as an illustration of this the life and work of Jesus. For whatever may be our respective thought about his relation to us and God, we are all no doubt agreed that he was the starting-point of the new river of spiritual grace that has given to Christendom its superior growth of virtue. We may or we may not believe in the miracles associated with his name, but the existence of the Christian spirit and ideal of life is independent of all possible change or variety of view touching the outward facts and relations of his life.
But what is the central thought of this system of truth-the thought that gives to it superiority over all other systems ? Is it not that man is divine-that he is in such sense a moral and spiritual being, as to be one with God? Hitherto the highest truth attained had been the Unity of God; but Jesus felt and proclaimed the Unity of God and man. Of course, no such great truth as this could spring at once into life and beauty. Nothing that springs up, like Jonah's gourd, is of any permanent value. Prophets and Patriarchs had seen it in the light of promise from afar-so much of its face had been turned towards them, as to make them long, ardently, for a fuller vision. David had risen so far as to say: "Like as a Father." Isaiah had been wistful touching it, saying : "Doubtless thou art our Father." Grecian Cleanthes and Aratus in the exaltation of poetry had sung of man as the Off-spring of Deity. But Jesus said, in every day,
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THE PREACHER AND HIS WORK.
earnestness and yet soberness of feeling and conviction : "My Father-Our Father-Your Father." He felt himself to be one with the spirit and source of all life-life to him was a part of a divine plan. He did not feel this alone for himself, as the church has so long mistakenly taught, but for all; to him the chief end and good of man was, to reach this sense of Unity. His prayer for mankind was : "That they all may be one; as thou Father art in me and I in thee." This was to him the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, which he commended them to seek before all things-"the way, the truth and the life," by which any soul could come into the presence of the Father. Though he recognized the value of each soul in the possession of this spiritual capacity and relationship, it was only by earnest knocking, ask- ing, seeking and striving in the interests of this side of their nature, that they could live in this consciousness of being one with the heart and source of all life; saved from all fear of death through eternal life.
I care not what your theory of interpreting the Gospels may be; but I am sure that if you accept them as of any value, that you will find their worth to lie in this direction.
But what is the painter of this picture that shall hang for ever in the art-galleries of the soul ? Is he a mere copyist or a great Heaven-sent original genius.
Let the character of his life make answer:
Did he set any great store upon wealth?
"The foxes have their holes, the birds have their nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head."
Did he live for the praise of men ? No one in the face of his lowly and self-forgetful life has ever dared to lay any such charge against him. Did he seek to cultivate his intellect at the expense of his heart-life? "Whence hath this man letters having never learned them?" was the language of wandering and admiring neighbors. The language of his childhood : "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business ?" The truth that lies back of that wilderness struggle at the beginning of his career, the whole tenor of his life, going about doing good, corroborates the thought that the power of his life lay in his individual character. He felt the grandeur and freedom of the soul's oneness with the
.
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THE PREACHER AND HIS WORK.
Eternal and divine, and wanted all men to be glad and rejoice in the same.
Pass a moment from Jesus to Paul: What was the central thought of Paul's preaching ?- beyond question, Faith! Men were not saved by the formal works of the law, but by faith in God and Jesus Christ, His son, who, in his whole life had re- vealed the true God, and who lead all who should reverently trust and obey him into peace with God. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," was his answer to the jailor, who, seeing Paul and his companion rejoicing in tribulation and un- moved by fear before the awe-striking power of an earthquake, coveted this same confidence and salvation. "The just shall live by faith." All the men "Of whom the world was not worthy," had won the shining qualities that lifted them above their fellows- through faith. Is not this the key-note of all his letters to the churches ? Now what was the character of this man, did he walk by sight or faith ? As he went from place to place in his mission- ary tours, was there anything to encourage him that met the eye? Nay! What was it then that sustained him through all his tribulations and arduous toils ? Was it not the fact that faith to him was indeed the evidence of things not seen, enabling him to see as though it already was-the success of the cause he advo- cated? No man ever encountered more opposition than Paul, or had less of what the human heart finds solace in; and yet it will be hard to find anyone who had such an abundance of good cheer.
As with Paul so with James. He was surnamed the just. So when he writes he turns the scale down on the opposite side and talks about showing us his faith by works, and declares that faith without works is dead; that it is useless for a man to pray and seem to be very religious, if at the same time he cannot keep his tongue from slander ; that "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this : To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
As with James, so with John. All know that he was em- phatically the most affectionate disciple Jesus had; also, that the burden of all he wrote was love. The same fact is equally true of Luther and Calvin, Knox and Bunyan, Wesley and Whitfield.
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THE PREACHER AND HIS WORK.
But notice for a moment one of a more recent date, whom all Unitarians love and revere-Channing. £ Now it is beginning to be universally acknowledged, both by Orthodox and Heterodox, that the American pulpit has never produced a loftier, spiritual, or more Christ-like character. One of the most talented and earnest orthodox ministers with whom I am acquainted-pointing to his face in a steel engraving of the American authors, said to me : "There is my hero and ideal man." And now I ask, where among all the religous teachers of the church since the days of Jesus can you point to one, who, breaking out of the old ruts of dogma, has cast a brighter halo. of glory about the moral and spiritual nature of all men? To this day it is almost impos- sible for anyone to speak on this subject without quot- ing his words. His life marks a new era in the religous thought and sentiment of this nation. He turned the water of life out of its old muddy channel into a new one, cut out of the solid rock of the soul's liberty, along which its waters flow pure and limpid, carrying refreshing from the eternal fountains to all fainting souls. So reflecting, in their crystal clearness, the bright blue sky above, and flowers that bloom on the banks as to blend into one har- monious picture, the life that now is with that which is to come, uniting again the divine with the human; and so, through the power of a more Christ-like life, redeeming Christianity from the bondage to dogma, to which enslaved souls had ignorantly con- demned it. Out of these two facts, touching the preacher, springs two touching his work. First, if the value of the pulpit is in its life-power, he must seek always to penetrate into the spirit that lies beneath the letter of religous thought. He must never permit himself to be frightened from the living soul through any deformity of the body. Beneath every conception of uni- versal humanity there lies some vital truth. Because, so many are preaching the fact of faith in such a way that whoever accepts it must first throw away his reason ; Yea, his manhood and talk, and act like one just escaped from an insane asylum, does not make that there is not in this a vital principle of the soul's life. Because so many are teaching prayer by precept and example in a way that represents God as fickle and uncertain about his own mind, given to after-thoughts and make-weights,
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