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Gc 974.402 C144h 1823740
M. L
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01115 0189
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/firstevangelical00hoyt
THE
FIRST EVANGELICAL
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH,
Cambridgeport, Mass.
1
:
BY
REV. JAMES S. HOYT, D. D.
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.
THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY CHICAGO
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1878.
1823740
M. A. Stearns.
NEWBERRY LIBRARY CHILAÑO
1:
.4 D Hoyt, James S.
284415 The First Evangelical Congregational church, Cambridge- port, Mass., by Rev. James S. Hoyt, D. D. Cambridge, Uni- versity press, 1878.
4 p. 1., 287 p. incl. tables. 2 port. (incl. front.) 22}ca.
. Title and text within red line border. Lettered on cover : Fifty years of church life.
1. Cambridgeport, Mass. First Evangelical Congregational church. L. Title.
Library of Congress
BX7255.C2F6
1-22113
SHELF CAND 63dl;
1171
بوسي .
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'H 'ATA II H.
موز سي
To each member in the family " named of Christ," with the prayer " that every one may be able to know the love of Christ, and be filled with all the fulness of God,"
This volume is dedicated by
THE AUTHOR.
:
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
BOOK I.
THE ANNIVERSARY : HOW IT WAS CONDUCTED.
PRELIMINARY ACTION 15
THE DAY. - THE CHURCH. - THE EXERCISES 18
THE PROGRAMME. 20
SUBSEQUENT AND CONCLUDING ACTION 22
COMMITTEES
24
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION AND SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CON- DITION OF CAMBRIDGE IN 1827 27
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NAME OF THIS CHURCH 31
THE UNITARIAN AND ORTHODOX CONTROVERSY AND ITS CHAM- PIONS 32
DR. LYMAN BEECHER AND DR. J. P. CHAPLIN
35
THE DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES 37
THE SPIRIT OF THE ENTERPRISE 39 THE ORIGINAL CHURCH 42
MEETINGS AT DR. CHAPLIN'S HOUSE. 43
BUILDING THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE 45
THE ORGANIZING AND DEDICATING COUNCIL 47
THE SITE OF THE FIRST MEETING-HOUSE 48
TRADITIONS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE BUILDING 49
.
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CONTENTS.
SUNRISE RAISING AND BRIMSTONE CARPET 50
THE ORIGINAL BUILDING, ITS SUCCESSIVE ENLARGEMENTS AND SUBSEQUENT HISTORY 52
THE VESTRY 53
BRIEF SKETCHES OF THE FORTY-SIX ORIGINAL MEMBERS AND OF DEACON WILLIAM FISK 55
CREED, COVENANT, AND STANDING RULES 67
BAPTISMS 68
PRAYER AND FASTING
69
PRAISE
70
CHANGE IN HOURS OF SERVICE 73
MODERN REFORMS.
Temperance 74
The Position of Woman
75
Antislavery Movement
76
MISSIONARY WORK.
82
STEARNS CHAPEL CHURCH
83 .
CHURCH LIBRARY.
86
CASES OF DISCIPLINE
86
ABSENTEES
91
COUNCILS
91
SUNDAY SCHOOL
93
WOMAN'S WORK.
Female Tract Society 100
Maternal Association 101
Sewing Society 102
Mission among the Indians. 105
CO-OPERATIVE WORK.
Cambridge Dispensary 108
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Avon-Place Home 108
Union Mission Sewing School 108
Aux. to A. B. C. F. M. 108
Woman's Christian Temperance Union
108
MINISTERIAL MEMBERS
110
MINISTERS FROM OUR. MEMBERSHIP
111
FINANCES OF THE CHURCH
113
EXPENDITURES
115
BENEFICENCE 116
COLLECTIONS AT COMMUNIONS 118
PASTORATES
118
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CONTENTS.
OFFICERS.
Pastors 121
Deacons
122
Standing Committees
124
Church Clerks
125
Treasurers
126
Auditors
126
TENURE OF CHURCH PROPERTY 127
PRESENT HOUSE OF WORSHIP
128
OFFICERS OF SOCIETY.
Prudential Committee 131
Treasurers
132
Clerks. 132
Sextons
132
MUSIC 133
A FEW INCIDENTS 133
REVIVAL OF 1876 AND 1877 135
CONCLUSION
138
EXERCISES AT THE HALL.
MR. SARGENT'S ADDRESS 144
DR. EDWARD BEECHER'S ADDRESS 148
REV. THOMAS BISCO'S ADDRESS 151
DR. G. W. BLAGDEN'S ADDRESS 154
DR. E. W. GILMAN'S ADDRESS 155
THE EVENING SOCIAL.
156
ORIGINAL HYMNS AND LETTERS 158
BOOK II. PRINCIPLES, RULES, CONSTITUTION.
ECCLESIASTICAL PRINCIPLES 180
STANDING RULES. 181
ARTICLES OF DOCTRINE 185
FORM OF ADMISSION 188
CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS 192
BOOK III.
HISTORICAL TABLE
195
CONTENTS.
BOOK IV.
CHURCH, CONGREGATION, AND SABBATH SCHOOL 245
SABBATH SCHOOL. 271
OFFICERS, MEETINGS, COLLECTIONS, ETC.
OFFICERS IN 1878 281
WOMAN'S CHURCH-WORK 284
CO-OPERATIVE WORK 284
OFFICERS IN 1877
285
TIMES OF HOLDING MEETINGS 286
MEETINGS OF THE WEEK
287
ORDER OF SERVICE
287
STATED COLLECTIONS FOR 1877
287
.
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INTRODUCTION.
To realize the idea of unity is manifestly the ambi- tion of Christ's professed followers in every age. The first experiment in the effort to secure this is yet in prog- ress, and all along the centuries and to-day its results are apparent in the condition of the Romish Church. The second grand experiment in this effort has been made from time to time by what may be termed Protestantism, in the original and true sense of the word. It lies in the opposite direction to the first mentioned. Its inspira- tion comes from a conviction that mental vision, "though through a glass darkly," is alike to all men who believe in Christ. From this experiment have come sects in- numerable and irreconcilable, and hence the predominance first of one sect, and then of another, and then of another, in the same locality, each coming to eminence by in- strumentalities adapted to its purpose. Though this has apparently led to diversity, it is still claimed that by it real unity is attained in a measure not behind that at- tained by the former. The third grand experiment is of more recent origin. Its inspiration is a sort of forlorn hope, over which sentiment presides. While the first emphasizes the one existing organization as the outward
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INTRODUCTION.
symbol to compel the true inward unity, and the second, the one ideal organization in the many organizations through which its adherents in each case expect the real unity will gradually, but certainly, come, so this third em- phasizes the setting aside of both the former, and the set- ting up of something to which, for want of a better term, they attach the name of " Church," defining Church to be exclusively " the bride of Christ," the church of Colossians i. 18, but never the church of Revelations ii. 1, 8, 12, 18, and iii. 1, 7, 14, - namely, a company of believers unorgan- ized and unequipped, as a spirit without a body ; or, better, a company of spirits unconsciously subject to and shaped by other and leading spirits, the latter tabernacling in bodies mortal, and hence transient visitors of the earth.
This aspiration for unity is in strict conformity to the great desire of our Lord, as he contemplated his de- parture from earth. " That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." Christ agonized in that prayer, and this agony of prayer for this unity has been witnessed by the faithful in all ages of the Christian Church.
What now did he do in order to secure this unity ? Can we find any hint at the abiding-place of this wisdom, of the price of which, these last eighteen centuries, like the depths and the seas, have said, "It is not in us" ? He gathered about himself a few disciples, and kept them in close companionship about him, as though his spirit had been the law of crystallization which was bringing them, as so many atoms freely moving in the social atmosphere, into the exact position where each would become most brilliant as arranged about him. And then he made this clustering about him to be the type of the glory that
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INTRODUCTION.
shall be hereafter. " And he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." Around Jesus, and sup- plied by him, in Palestine and in heaven, we find his followers. But neither around incarnate Jesus in Pales- tine, nor around glorified Jesus in heaven, are Christians to pass their lives on earth. He who, while in the flesh, had kept the first disciples by the provisions of his pres- ence, through the agency of the Comforter, by the hands of those men who had been with him, also instituted his social organization. Then local churches sprang up, among which he promised that he would always abide. If any social organization is recognized and emphasized as a posi- tive institution of Jesus Christ, it is the local church. Whatever position in polity any denomination of believers may take, all must see the prominence given to the organi- zation of the believers in a certain locality into a church in the name of Jesus.
What is this organization for, and how shall this end be best secured ? We get our answer from Jesus in Pal- estine and from Jesus in heaven, - the same Jesus at both places, in " the yesterday and the forever." We con- clude the same on earth and " to-day." It is to bring the ruling force in man's soul, the social nature in its full exercise, under the control of his purpose, to unite his followers in love to one another and to himself. His kingdom is a kingdom of love. Love is its scep- tre, and love is its crown, even its everlasting crown. But love is not an independent isolated idea, to be seen in the distance and worshipped. Love never exists with-
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INTRODUCTION.
out some one loving and some one loved. God loved, but even he must love something. He loved the world, and he loved Jesus. Jesus loved. " As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you." He will now have the love of the Father and his love exhibited by his disciples. But who shall be the object of their love ? Shall it be God ? We read, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind "; and we also read, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." So liable, however, is man to self-deception, that John writes : " If a man say, I. love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar ; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen ?" Do we not see here that the visible object rather than the invisible is the one from which to gain a true vision of the deceitful heart ? Is not here the real test, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren "? The church spirit is not mainly companionship with Christ, but com- panionship in Christ. Love as taught by Christ and the Apostles, both by word and deed, is not consistent with the existence of the gulf of non-acquaintance between any two brethren in any one church. When this idea of oneness in Christ becomes a living fact, just as the one- ness in the family is a living fact, then the church exhib- its not less the individualities of each brother, but more the spirit which dwells in and exalts each personality. Any eminence in attainment and any self-aggrandizement purchased by any follower of Christ at the sacrifice, either in part or altogether, of thorough acquaintance with and consequent affection for each of the members of the church to which he belongs, may make other brethren
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INTRODUCTION.
as envious as was the author of the Seventy-third Psalm. But they may be restored to comfort by coming out of the schools of the world into the sanctuary of Christ. " Though he covet earnestly the best gifts," yet our Lord shows unto him his more excellent way. To bring back the fragments from Babel, every one showing something of the entire, as it was before explosion, the local church, cherishing the spirit and following the example and obey- ing the command of the Master, seems to have been instituted and instructed by its great Head.
Our Lord agonized. in an anxiety to secure brotherly love in His organization, His Church. This is exhibited in His life and explicit teachings. Before He gave the precept in words He exhibited it in His life. INTIMATE ACQUAINTANCE AND CONSTANT COMPANIONSHIP prevailed among those whom He called, and whom He took under His training. While in the flesh with them, He kept them thoroughly acquainted with each other and loving each other in their attachment to Him. When He contem- plates leaving them, all conscious that He Himself is to be their constant companion, He gives one command- ment. Note how He speaks of this commandment, -" A NEW commandment I give unto you," - as if to say under the new dispensation one new commandment is necessary, by compliance with which the highest welfare of the sub- jects and the glory of the King in the kingdom of heaven will be secured, -" that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." Again, "Continue ye in my love." " If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love." "This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved
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INTRODUCTION.
you." " These things I command you, that ye love one another." This is the only commandment which the Master calls " his." And of this commandment speak all the Apostles. John, the beloved disciple, writes, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren "; and he also writes, as if he knew what miserable pretexts would be called " love " in order to satisfy the judgments of some, " Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." " If we love one another, God dwelleth in us." This is Gospel transcen- dentalism. So great emphasis is given to this require- ment, that we are compelled to regard this affection as unnatural in the circumstances. For what we do naturally is enjoined by our instincts and our wisdom, but not by the words of Jesus. The relations existing among church- members, and the make-up of churches, demand that we absolutely ignore all the distinctions to which the various positions and conditions, vocations and associations, in the world give rise. It is not a society of merchants, nor of mechanics, nor of laborers, nor of authors, nor of scholars ; no more is it a literary club or an art circle ; neither a society of mistresses nor of servants, nor of high, in any sense, nor of low ; but "rich and poor meet together in the Lord." There will be, there can be, no such love among the brethren as Christ had for the brethren, unless and until the great interest and mission and work of the Christian Church make everything else subordinate to its demands. As in the late war the master and his servant walked side by side in the ranks, and the mistress and her maid mingled their thoughts and affections and energies to relieve them, because all distinctions were lost in the mission of the hour, so this new commandment of our
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INTRODUCTION.
Lord requires of us that we exhibit our discipleship. Native tastes must be brought into subjection, though not by a theory nor by a test. Acquired tastes must be con- trolled, not by church creeds and rules, but by some means by which church loyalty must be made so thorough that, in its honest exercise, the members of each church shall love one another.
Here we are met by the recurring question, " By what means ?" We know that while in the flesh the number of Christ's disciples was very small. In the brief record of Christ's life we are constantly impressed with this fact. Does it not intimate that while incarnate the Master chose intimacy among a few to a mere acquaintance or an entire non-acquaintance among the many ? In the better things to follow the advent of the Comforter, is not this even the principal one ? Is not this spiritual brotherhood, this taking of the hearts away from the world or sepa- rating force, and bringing them under the love or uniting force of his religion, the greater good in contemplation ? Because the kingdom was to extend beyond the direct personal bodily contact of Incarnate Christ, was not the personal Spirit sent to become the centre and law of crys- tallization even until this great jewel of God should be- come the one glory of all space and of all ages ? Beginning at Jerusalem, the church there was a complete family of children, loving each other, whom they saw, and so lov- ing God, whom they had not seen. This is Christ's les- son.
Now let us learn of Paul. We are constantly told that in little towns and small churches this close com- panionship is possible and all well enough, but in cities and large churches it is neither possible nor desirable.
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INTRODUCTION.
Numbers make it impossible, and other social claims make it undesirable, and companionship among church- members conflicts with an expansive and compre- hensive style of life. But the love of Christ is more abundant, and, like the love in the family, the stronger it is in the lesser, the stronger it is in the greater sphere. Paul was born in no mean city. He lived in the metrop- olis. He had culture, he had talent. He was a thinker, a writer, a speaker, an author. He had travelled at home, and he had been abroad. He was an orator. He was a logician, but he was pre-eminently a loving brother. He was more Christlike than many in that, having traversed this large sphere, and grasped with his mind these masses and multitudes, his heart was warm towards each of those whom he knew personally and held constantly in memory in Christ Jesus. It made no difference in what rank or of what sex ; he knew them, and he loved them. Paul exhibits the spirit of Christ when he writes "to all that be in Rome," (something of a town,) " Beloved of God, called to be saints. Salute Phebe, Priscilla, Aquila, Epenetus, Mary, Andronicus and Junia, Amplias, Urbane, and Stachys, Apelles, the friends of Aristobulus, and Nar- cissus, Herodion, Tryphena, Tryphosa, Persis, Rufus and his mother, Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, Her- mes, Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the friends and brethren associated with them. Salute one another with a holy kiss." Well, when they had all saluted these twenty-nine named and the others unnamed with a holy kiss, there must have been some personal acquaintance beyond that expressed by the ap- pearance of a name on the roll or by the assembly at com- munion seasons. I wonder who presented one to the other.
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INTRODUCTION.
From a recent canvass of a New England city it ap- pears that twenty per cent of its Protestant population do not attend any church, and that proportionately more of the well-to-do class than of the extremely poor " care for none of these things."
Not many years since a prominent church of our order in this vicinity, finding itself perplexed with its list of absentees, proceeded to drop the names from its roll of all from whom they had not heard within ten years. The evening came for these names to be publicly read. After the meeting had closed a sister came forward weeping, and asked what she had done that her name should be dropped. The reply was, " Because we have not heard from you for ten years." " Well," the timid sister replied, " I have been here regularly to church and prayer-meetings all the time." The story is all here. Obscurity was her crime, and who knows how many times this little one had been passed by ? Again in the same church " dead " was read as put opposite a brother's name, and after the meeting he came forward and asked why he was marked dead; and upon inquiry it appeared that he had been not merely a regular attendant at Sabbath and week-day services, but a constant member of its Bible-class taught by one of the deacons of the church. In seven instances have I ascertained that members of the church either reported or published as dead are now living. There are now more than one hundred members of this church absent, and more than twenty whose whereabouts continued inquiry and corre- spondence have not succeeded in ascertaining. Our eyes have just met in the " Congregationalist " this paragraph : " There are from twelve to fifteen thousand members of our Massachusetts churches who are put down as 'absent,'
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INTRODUCTION.
an army whom nobody is able to find, and whose power, religiously, seems running almost wholly to waste."
The Word of God and the present condition of our churches unite their voices in answering our inquiry, " By what means ?" INTIMATE ACQUAINTANCE AND CON- STANT COMPANIONSHIP in the daily life of Christ's dis- ciples. How far we have drifted from Him whose grati- tude to the Father drowned his agony as it said, "Of those thou hast given me, have I lost none." Not official action by pastor or deacons or committees will answer. As a substitute for this new commandment some have placed orthodoxy in creed. In numerous instances have I met brethren, eminent in orthodoxy, who have been living in churches for years, and frequently express themselves, with unblushing boasting, as not knowing a score of people in their church. Better have a head as thick as Philip's, to whom Jesus said, "Have I been so long time with thee, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip ?" better be the two en route to Emmaus to whom Jesus said, "O fools and slow of heart to believe !" better be James and John, with their spasmodic ambition ; better be Peter, in his misdirected protest, and under the rebuke of Jesus, and with his denial and distress, than to be living in this chronic isolation and permanent stranger- hood, and to be exhibiting a conscience all at ease, while despising the means chosen of Christ to accomplish the great and explicit desire of his soul. Others have substi- tuted careful attention to the precise requirements of ethics; others, un bridled exercise of social affections ; others, high attainment in mental culture ; others, novelties that would have satiated the Athenians in Paul's time; and others, absurdities that would shock common-sense worse
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INTRODUCTION.
than the lad of the pasture shocked the Philistine champion. And so far below the grand ideal do the products of these substitutes fall, that, appearing, like the wind and the earth- quake and the fire, mighty and noisy and bright, they have spent themselves in failure. The Lord is not in them. This still small voice is the voice of God. He, who made the cumbrous sacrifices of the typical dispensation as the radiant shadows of the coming Son of God, has made all the loves engendered and sustained by the various relations of life the radiant shadows of the all-resplendent love of Jesus for his brethren. He has made the local Church the social organization in which there shall be no schism, but in which there must be in full exercise, and con- stantly and for every member in it, this one grace which will alone be glorified in heaven.
As a help towards strengthening and cultivating this affection, and securing compliance with the only new com- mandment of our Saviour, who, by way of emphasis, calls this new commandment His, this volume is published.
Gathering, from records in every shape and from tradi- tion; not great principles and plumped generalities, but the minutiæe of Christian effort and devotion in its inces- sant longings to help men by winning them to Christ, I have sought to present them in such a way as at once to instruct and entertain and inspire the reader with this genius of the Christian religion, as it is manifested in its own Christ-appointed sphere, where man in contact with man most efficiently exerts his highest powers. Though the obscure acts of the obscure Christian seem, in the passing moment, almost unworthy of record, yet they become very important in their results, more so in the Church than in the world, for they are the distinct and
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INTRODUCTION.
avowed acts of God. This is the offensive characteristic of the gospel. It arrays the most ordinary occurrences in the light of love, and here they command the attention of all ages. It passes unnoticed the events which secular history makes much of. The local church deals with the small facts of real life, and by its dealing with them sets them in its ever-brightening crown of glory. And as these gathered items of the past in the history of this church shall be read, I trust they will help to nourish a common interest in the local church, wherever it may be, and of whatever denomination. On our anniversary day there- was as eminent joy among the members of this Christian organization, and as high and full and sweet social life, as is often witnessed on earth. All had been of one ac- cord in one place, as, starting from 1827, they quietly marched under Memory's command to 1877. Social life had been invigorated by attention to the minute and every- day work of the church.
There is a vast difference between the sectarianism and the bigotry and the clannishness of the churchly spirit and the brotherly love which church loyalty begets. The charge of the world to the contrary notwithstanding, no attainment in Christian life is more antagonistic to " nar- row-mindedness," called also " bigotry," than this charity, " which seeketh not her own, doth not behave itself un- seemly, envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, and thinketh no evil." The church was made for man, and not man for the church. It is not because the body is in danger of being neglected by the individual members of the body that the Holy Spirit institutes the analogy in 1 Corinthians xii. It is not because the eye is in danger of saying to the body, or the head is in danger of saying
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INTRODUCTION.
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