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MEMORIAL
VOLUME
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 01218 3346
GC
974.402
B65AD
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/memorialvolumeby00adam
..
emorial
Volume.
Nehemiah adams.
m emorinl
ulume
BY THE
ESSEX STREET CHURCH AND SOCIETY
BOSTON
TO COMMEMORATE THE
TWENTY- FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE
INSTALLATION OF THEIR PASTOR
NEHEMIAH ADAMS, D.D.
BOSTON PRINTED FOR THE USE OF THE MEMBERS 1860
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
Preliminaries.
CELEBRATION
OF THE
TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE
PASTOR'S SETTLEMENT.
PRELIMINARIES.
SEVERAL members of the Union (Essex Street) Church and Society were informally invited, De- cember, 1858, by one of their number, to meet at the house of Deacon Charles Scudder, to confer with regard to a celebration of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Pastor's Settlement.
At this meeting, various Committees were appointed to make suitable arrangements for a celebration.
On the fifteenth of February, a printed notice was sent to all the present and past members of the Church and Society, so far as they could be ascertained, by the Com- mittee on Invitations, informing them of the proposed services, and inviting those at a distance to accept the hospitalities of our families, if they should attend. Invi- tations were also sent by the Committee, and through
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MEMORIAL VOLUME.
the Pastor, to numerous clergymen and laymen, and to the classmates of Doctor ADAMS in Harvard College and the Andover Theological Seminary.
PREPARATORY RELIGIOUS EXERCISES.
The Church, by appointment, observed Friday, March twenty-fifth, as a day of special prayer in view of the past, and also with reference to the approaching anniver- sary services, - meeting in the Lecture Room in the afternoon, and a lecture preparatory to the Lord's Sup- per being preached by the Pastor in the evening. The administration of the Lord's Supper took place one Sab- bath earlier than usual, to afford opportunity of com- munion at the table of Christ with former members of the Church who might be in attendance.
Saturday, the twenty-sixth of March, being the Anni- versary of Installation, the Pastor, on Sabbath morning, the twenty-seventh, preached a Sermon commemorative of his settlement, from Genesis xxxi. 13 (a part of the verse) : "I am the God of Bethel, where thou anoint- edst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me." In the afternoon, practical remarks were made by the Pastor from the same words, and the Lord's Supper was administered. Three individuals made a public pro- fession of their faith in Christ.
9
PRELIMINARIES.
In the evening of the Sabbath a meeting for prayer and conference was held, at which were present several early members of the Church. Reminiscences of its history, and accounts of the character and labors of some of its founders and their associates, were related.
rerriges at the
EXERCISES AT THE ANNIVERSARY.
M ONDAY evening, March twenty-eighth, was the time appointed for the public celebration. JOHN TAPPAN, Esquire, presided.
The following Selections from the Scriptures were chanted by the Choir : -
" I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace, day nor night. Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence."
" The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels ; the Lord is among them as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for men ; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them."
" And he gave some, apostles, and some, prophets, and some, evangelists, and some, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the min- istry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."
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MEMORIAL VOLUME.
" Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."
" How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace ; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth sal- vation ; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth."
" His foundation is in the holy mountains.
" The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
" Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God.
" I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me ; behold Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethi- opia ; this man was born there.
" And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her ; and the highest himself shall establish her.
" The Lord shall count, when he writeth up the peo- ple, that this man was born there.
" As well the singers, as the players on instruments, shall be there ; all my springs are in thee."
The Reverend SAMUEL M. WORCESTER, Pastor of the Tabernacle Church in Salem, where our Pastor was bap- tized by the elder Doctor Worcester, led in prayer.
ODE.
ANNIVERSARY OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.
CHANT ADAPTED BY EDWARD HAMILTON, (" THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD.")
THE following ODE, written by Mrs. REBECCA W. DAVIES, of New York, a former Member of this Church, (daughter of John Tappan, Esquire,) was chanted by the Choir : -
SOFTLY, softly, toll the bell, That calls us to the House of Prayer ! What do its chiming accents tell, Ringing on the vernal air ?
"Passing away ! Passing away !" To our hearts they seem to say. Days and weeks, with flying tread, Months and years have quickly sped Since we stood, in joyful bands, At our youthful Pastor's side,
Pledging him our hearts and hands,
Choosing him - a heavenward guide.
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MEMORIAL VOLUME.
Childhood's rosy bloom has faded ; Sunny brows with grief been shaded ; Raven locks are tinged with snow ; All is changing fast, below.
Sadly, sadly, toll the bell ! Memory wakes her phantom host, Calls from out her dreamy cell Visions of the loved and lost. Matron fair, and maiden sweet, Brother, son, we seem to meet ; Loved companions, to our side, Swift, with noiseless footsteps, glide. Alas ! we know the green grass waves Calmly o'er their silent graves. The tear will fall, the heart will swell, As we hear that mournful bell. While it sadly seems to say, - " All we love shall pass away !"
Sweetly, sweetly, toll the bell ! Call it not a funeral knell. Hark ! what heavenly cadence floats, Mingling with our earthly notes. Father, mother, sister, friend, From their radiant mansions bend, Whispering, in each drooping ear, - "Weep not that we are not here. By our Saviour's presence blest, On the heavenly hills we rest ;
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ODE.
With celestial manna fed, Near the throne of light above, By the crystal waters led, Loved with more than mortal love ; Still we fondly hover round What to us is hallowed ground ; Watching, in the House of Prayer, All your songs of praise we share."
Saviour ! when our work is o'er, May we hope to reach that shore ? Hope, in peace, at thy right hand, Pastor, people, all to stand ? Never more to say farewell, Nor with sadness hear that bell ; Though it still shall seem to say, " All of earth shall pass away."
2
ADDRESSES.
REMARKS BY THE CHAIRMAN.
THE Chairman, JOHN TAPPAN, Esquire, spoke as follows : -
RESPECTED BRETHREN AND FRIENDS :
It is my pleasant duty, in behalf of the Union Church and Society, to welcome you to this Celebration of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of our Pastor's Settlement. We thank you for joining us in ascriptions of praise to Al- mighty God, for the gift of a Shepherd who has faithfully preached the faith once delivered to the Saints, - the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation, to all who believe and obey. How he has gone in and out before us, these loving hearts will testify ; and, in their behalf, it is my happiness to assure you that the tie which binds Pastor and People is a threefold cord, which death alone can break. We ask you to join us in the prayer, that it will please the great Head of the Church to grant that he may long be upheld in standing up for Jesus in this consecrated Temple, and in all the surrounding Churches.
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MEMORIAL VOLUME.
I have now the pleasure of introducing to you our be- loved and respected associate, whose voice is music to all our ears, - the Honorable RUFUS CHOATE.
ADDRESS
BY HONORABLE RUFUS CHOATE.
I FEEL myself obliged to confess, and I am sure you will allow me to confess, that in feeling willing to take some very humble part in the services of this evening, I have been influenced partly, I have no doubt, by a consideration which is personal ; and that is, that it happens to be about five and twenty years since I became a resident in Boston and connected myself with the Society which now observes this anniversary, very shortly after the inauguration of this clergyman ; which event has been attended with so much at once of instruction and pleasure, to all of us who have had an opportunity to hear his ministrations since. Invited, there- fore, in some sort, to take part in my own ecclesiastical sil- ver wedding, I could hardly decline to do so even if I had loved him less, or had been less attached to the Society itself than I certainly avow myself to be. That principle of our nature which attaches much importance to what interests ourselves, whether others think much of it or not, and which enables us to hold on forever upon what has been once our own - this alone, if there were nothing other and better, I hope would have made me willing and made me happy to have said something, without much preparation, to-night.
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MR. CHOATE'S ADDRESS.
And yet, even so, the predominant impression in my own mind, and in every one's mind under the circumstances, probably is, the difficulty of making it real to one's self that so vast a portion of human life has sped away, as it might seem, like a dream in the night, like a dream when a man awakes. If we were permitted to look beyond these en- deared old walls to the great, busy, and crowded world with- out, in order to take an estimate of the lapse of time; if we could be permitted here, for example, to remember in regard to our own country, that within that comparatively brief period nine Presidents of the United States have acted their part upon that high stage, - that so many administrations of . government have followed one another in that high place, - that we have endured, I know not how many, half a dozen, eight or nine, national or party conflicts - that we have in that short time enlarged our territory by an area equal to that of France and Germany and Austria together - that we have flown up from four and twenty to, I think, two and thirty, or three and thirty, States ; if we could be permitted to cross the ocean, and remember that one nation, the great- est but one in the world, has in that time changed its government twice, fundamentally, passing from the apparent love of liberty and the apparent forms of a Republic to a despotism, gloomy, peculiar, established, although it hangs but upon one man's life ; that in another country, the first or the second in the Old World, six English minis- ters have risen and fallen upon the ebb and flow of English conservative freedom; that an infusion of fresh revolutionary or democratic elements has swept away Church and State, as it were, almost altogether, and that
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MEMORIAL VOLUME.
the Old England of our fathers has become the New Eng- land of to-day; if we could be permitted to call to mind, also, with what winged progress science and art have sped upward in that time, what new stars have been added by the telescope to our sky, new processes to our invention, new fields opened to our benevolence and our philanthropy, and the general progress so brilliant and so rich, which has marked the flight of years - it might, perhaps, enable us to appreciate it better. Personal reasons, if it were proper to allude to them, would enable us to make that impression still more deep. But then looking about on these walls, so familiar to us alone, remarking these familiar and dear faces, listening as we usually do, to these Sabbath tones of prayer and music, perhaps we can better express the im- pression which all of it makes upon us in the simple phrase of Cowper :
" Dear school-mate, five and twenty years ago!
Alas ! how time escapes us - even so !"
And yet this period is a large section of the life of man ; and perhaps one inquiry, - a leading inquiry for a thought- ful person under the 'circumstances in which we meet, - is, what account can we give of ourselves ? If we were inter- rogated as to the manner in which we have spent it, what account can we give of ourselves, for having spent it here under the ministrations to which we have been admitted ? Custom, decorum, self-respect, general seriousness, and gen- eral appreciation of the personal and domestic uses of public worship, a general appreciation that this life is introduc- tory only, and these days of ours are only periods of prepa- ration, as well as consciousness and work, would have carried
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MR. CHOATE'S ADDRESS.
us, of course, to some congregation. But what shall we say, for ourselves, has brought us here ? I have no doubt that it may have happened in many cases that accident has done it. I dare say the reasons, in some other instances, have been peculiar, or incommunicable in public. But then there are some which we may here avow and justify thus publicly, and to these I beg to call your attention for a moment.
I think, then, that every one of you would unite with me in expressing the opinion, that we have been influenced to such a course as this, in large measure, by our love and respect for our Minister. In his presence, it may not be entirely delicate that we should say about this all that we think ; and I hope that we are too just, also, in the pres- ence, and with our opinions, of the clergy of Boston, to compare or contrast one member of the learned, dignified, and most useful profession with another, publicly or pri- vately. But, then, I may be permitted to say, for you and with you, we love and respect him. We have done so from the moment that we knew him first to this hour. We have marked the daily beauty of his life ; his consistency, his steadiness, his affectionateness, his sincerity, - transpa- rent to every eye ; his abilities, his moderation, his taste, his courage. We have despised the occasional criticisms upon his daring to think upon anything, in theology or out of it, for himself. Differing, as I dare say many of us do, from him in very many things, we have yet admired, and we love to proclaim, here and now, our admiration of him who would dare philosophically to see with his own eyes, and to record under his own hand, what he personally be-
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MEMORIAL VOLUME.
lieved to be true. Thank God, thought is free, speech is free, the press is free. 'To that extent, even that popularity which is worth having, - the popularity which follows, not that which is run after, - that, I believe, in some days that shall come, as my Lord Bacon so beautifully and pathet- ically expresses it in his will, "If not now, even that popularity shall reward and honor the search after truth, and the open and manly publication of it." Some of you have seen him, on some occasions, in some situations of life, most interesting to the feelings, and which dwell the longest in the memory and the affections. You have seen him at the bedside of the sick and dying, and at the burial of those you loved most on earth ; he has baptized your children, and has handed to you, perhaps, the clasped hands of your brides. Some of you preserve yet " the little key" which clasped, in his presence, the coffin-lid of the loved young child ; and thus there has been woven between you and him a tie which can never be sundered, even when the sil- ver cord of love itself is loosened and the bowl is broken at its fountain. I unite with what our venerable Chairman has already said to you. I unite with him in saying, that while we love and admire him, very far distant be that day when his monument shall record, by the side of his grave, - " Here lies a faithful minister of Jesus Christ; " and a thousand hearts, and the tears of a thousand eyes, shall exclaim, -" Servant of God, well done!"
There is a second reason, however, it seems to me, which we may, with very great propriety, give for the selection which we have made and to which we have so long ad- hered ; and it is, my friends, that we have attended this
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MR. CHOATE'S ADDRESS.
Worship and attached ourselves to this Society, because we have believed that we found here a union of a true and old religion, with a possibility and the duty of a theory of culture, and of love for that in which the mental and moral nature of man may be developed and may be completely accomplished.
That we hold a specific religious creed is quite certain ; obtruding it on nobody, and not for a moment, of course, dreaming of defending ourselves against anybody ; in the way of our Fathers, we worship God in this Assembly. We believe that the sources and proof and authority of re- ligion rest upon a Written Revelation, communicated by the Supreme Will to a race standing in certain specific abnormal conditions. What that Will, honestly gathered, teaches, composes the whole religious duty of man. To find out that meaning, by all the aids of which a thorough and an honest scholarship may possibly avail itself, - by the study of orig- inal tongues, by the study of the history and government and manners and customs and geography of the nations in which it was first published ; by a collation, honestly and intelligently, of one version with another version ; by the history of creeds; by attending especially to the faith of those Churches who thought they saw the light at first, and saw it when it was clearest and brightest, - by all this, we say, it is the first duty of the minister to learn the truth, and the second duty is to impress it by persuasive speech and holy life upon the consciences and hearts of men. These things, truly and honestly interrogated, reveal a certain state of truths, and these compose our creed and the creed of every other denomination possessing and preaching and
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MEMORIAL VOLUME.
maintaining a kindred theology. Diversities of expression there are, undoubtedly ; diversities of the metaphysical the- ories of those who hold them ; more or less saliency, more or less illustration in the mode in which they are presented. But substantially we have thought they were one. We regard the unity, and we forget the diversity, in concen- tration of kindred substances. I think our Church began with the name and in the principle of Union ; and in that name, and according to that principle, we maintain it to- day.
And now is there anything, my friends, in all this, which is incompatible, in any degree, with the warmest and most generous and large and liberal and general culture; with the warmest heart, with the most expansive and hopeful philanthropy, with the most tolerant, most cheerful, most charitable love of man? Do we not all of us hold that, outside of this special, authoritative Written Revelation, thus promulgated, collateral with it, consistent with it, the creation of the same nature, there is another system still, a mental and moral nature, which we may with great pro- priety explore, and which we may very wisely and fitly study and enjoy ? Into that system are we forbidden to pry, lest we become, or be in danger of becoming, Atheists, Deists, Pantheists, or Dilletanti, or Epicurean? What is there to hinder us from walking consistently with our faith and the preaching to which every Sunday we are so priv- ileged to listen, - what is there to hinder us from walking on the shore of the great ocean of general truth, and gather- ing up here and there one of its pebbles, and listening here and there to the music of one of its shells ? What is there
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MR. CHOATE'S ADDRESS.
to hinder us from looking at that Natural Revelation that shall be true hereafter? What is there in all this to pre- vent us in trying to open, if we can open, that clasped vol- ume of that elder, if it may be that obscurer, Scripture ? What is there to hinder us from studying the science of the stars, from going back with the geologist to the birthday of a real creation, and thus tracing the line through the ves- tiges of a real and a true creation down to that later and great period of time, when the morning stars sang together, exult- ing over this rising ball? What is there to hinder us, if we dare to do it, from going down with chemists and physiolo- gists to the very chambers of existence, and trying thence to trace, if we may, the faint lines by which matter rose to vitality, and vitality welled up first to animals, and then to man ? What is there to prevent us from trying to trace the footsteps of God in history ; from reading His law in the policies of States, in the principles of morals, and in the science of governments ; His love in the happiness of all the families of the human race, in animals, and in man ; His retributions in the judgments that are "abroad in all the earth ?" Is there anything to hinder us, in the faith we hold, from indulging the implanted sense of beauty in trac- ing the last tracks of summer eve, or the first faint flush that precedes or follows the glorious rising of the morning ? Because we happen to believe that a Written Revelation is authoritative upon every man, and that there is contained in it, distinctly and expressly, the expression of the need of reconciliation, is there anything in all this, let me ask you, my friends, which should hinder us from trying to explore the spirit of Plato; from admiring the supremacy of mind,
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MEMORIAL VOLUME.
which is at last the inspiration of the Almighty that gives you understanding, in such an intellect as that of Newton ; from looking at the camp-fires, as they glitter on the plains of Troy ; from standing on the battlements of Heaven with Milton ; from standing by the side of Macbeth, sympathiz- ing with, or at least appreciating something of the compunc- tion and horror that followed the murder of his friend and host and king ; from going out with old Lear, gray hair streaming, and throat choking, and heart bursting with a sense of filial ingratitude ; from standing by the side of Othello, when he takes the life of all that he loves best in this world, " not for hate, but all for honor ; " from admiring and saddening to see how the fond and deep and delicate spirit of Hamlet becomes oppressed and maddened by the terrible discovery, by the sense of duty not entirely clear, by the conflict of emotions, and by the shrinking dread of that life to come, as if he saw a hand we could not see, and heard a voice we could not hear ? Certainly there can be no man- ner of doubt that our faith, such as you profess it and such as you hold it, will give direction, in one sense, to all our studies. There can be no doubt, in one sense and to a cer- tain extent, that it baptizes and holds control over those studies ; certainly, also, it may be admitted that it creates tendencies and tastes that may, a little less reluctantly, lead away a man from the contemplation of these subjects ; but is it incompatible with them ? Do you think that Agassiz, that Everett, - each transcendent in his own department of genius, - has become so because he held, or did not hold, a specific faith ? Because you believe the Old Testament as well as the New, cannot you read a Classic in the last and
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MR. CHOATE'S ADDRESS.
best edition, if you know how to read it ? That is the great question at last ; and I apprehend that the incompatibility, of which we sometimes hear, has no foundation in the things that are to be compared. Did poor, rich Cowper think them incompatible one with another, when for so many years he soothed that burning brow, and stayed that fainting reason, and turned back those dark billows that threatened to overwhelm him, by his translation of the Iliad and Odys- sey ? What did he say of this incompatibility himself ? " Learning has borne such fruit on all her branches ; piety has found true friends in the friends of science ; even prayer has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews."
I hold, therefore - and I shall be excused by the friends of other denominations, now and here present, if I deliber- ately repeat and publicly record - that we have attended this Church, attached ourselves to this Congregation, and adhere to this form of Faith, because we believe it to be the old religion, the true religion, and the safest ; and because, also, we have thought that there was no incompat- ibility between it and the largest and most generous mental culture and the widest philanthropy, that are necessary in order to complete the moral and mental development and accomplishment of man.
But there is another reason which I, - committing no- body, running the risk of differing from many of you, lay- men and clergy, but assuming to act for nobody but myself, - with your permission, will proceed to give, as a reason why a sober, conscientious, and thoughtful layman might well have attended the Worship of this Church. And that is, permit me to say, that we have every one of us assuredly
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