USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > North Adams > Addresses and papers presented at the Diamond Jubilee, 1827-1902, May 11-14 (First Congregational Church of North Adams) > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14
1846-DEACON ROBERT W. B. MCLELLAN-1852
83
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
donation received was to be in cash, and no squashes. Sixty sat at the first table and we counted the cash-$60. We suppered until two o'clock in the morning, and counted and gave to Mr. Crawford (in His Name) $400. He tried to thank us. We told him to stop-he was in poor condi- tion to make a speech. Sheriff John Holden lived near. Mr. Dawes thought Mr. Holden had better take the money and see Mr. Crawford to his home."
When the time came for Dr. Crawford to cease his labors, it was evident that the problematical period of the church's history had come to an end. Two hundred and fifty had united during his pastorate, among them many of the choicest Scotch and Puritan stock. From across the seas the church had received such members as Mr. and Mrs. Hunter, Deacon Mcclellan and Deacon James E. Marshall, to whose memory a son of the church will at a later time pay a tribute. From the established churches of our order over the mountain and in the east the church had been strengthened by the entrance into its life of the Robinsons, of Mr. and Mrs. Dawes, Mr. and Mrs. Austin Bond, Mr. and Mrs. John Doane, and many others who long continued to give the best of what they had and were to the service of the church.
It was with sorrow that the church received the re- signation of Dr. Crawford. A joy which was felt in later years came as Dr. Crawford and his family revisited from time to time the old home, and as the blessing of his pre- sence was shed abroad at the installation of a number of his successors. On November 12, 1896, a memorial service was held in this church in honor of this large-hearted Christian Scotchman, the impress of whose life must be
84
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
felt even when those who were won to Christ by him shall have passed away.
The successor of Dr. Crawford was the Rev. Albert Payne, who came to the church on the third of December, 1856. Undoubtedly the disturbed condition of the country had its influence in making the task of Mr. Payne a most difficult one. As a whole the church had taken radical grounds upon the side of temperance and of the slave. The mass of its membership sympathized with the stand taken by the Hon. Henry L. Dawes, the son of the church, whose political position was most prominent. Yet one of the deacons of the church, who was also superintendent of the Sunday School, was a strong democrat and doubted whether the abolition of slavery would be wise. Manufacturers in the community were somewhat fearful of the agitation of a question which might unfavorably affect industry. Never- theless the editor of The North Adams Transcript, James T. Robinson, who while not a member of the church was close- ly connected with its past life, continued to avow senti- ments which were most radically "black republican." It is probable that the absorbing interest which these dis- cussions aroused led Mr. Payne to feel that the church was not as deeply interested in spiritual things as it should be. Looking back, however, upon the trying days of the clos- ing fifties and the opening sixties, we can say that the church at no time in its history has been more loyal to the gospel of Jesus Christ than during these years when it wel- comed a public discussion of political issues which involved the rights of humanity. When in the closing months of Mr. Payne's pastorate and during the time of Mr. McGiffert's service our Sunday School boys, like Erwin and Orr and Chase, bade farewell to home and church and marched to
1856-REV. ALBERT PAINE-1862
85
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
the front in defence of their country, while the faithful women bravely remained at home and by their Soldiers' Aid Society did their part to maintain the courage of their dear ones who were in danger, and to lessen some of the hardships of war, the church received the blessing which ever attends the martyr spirit. Mr. Payne's pastorate closed on the 21st of April, 1862, but that he was not for- gotten was made evident, as last year a number of those whom he had received into the church, when word came of his death, gathered in the chapel to pay their tribute to his virtues.
The heroism of many of his young parishioners may have been more conspicuous but it was no more real than that of their pastor, as, in the blindness of old age, he maintained a heart full of cheer and trust in the eternal goodness. The following is a brief epitome of the life of Mr. Payne :
Albert Payne was born in Woodstock, Conn., 1819, July 21 ; was graduated from Yale college 1841 ; studied theology in Andover theological seminary 1841-42; Yale divinity, New Haven, Conn., 1843-44, and Auburn theo- logical seminary 1845; licensed to preach by the Brookfield, Mass., Association, October 2, 1844; supplied the Presby- terian church, Lancaster, Erie County, N. Y., 1846; ordain- ed pastor of the Congregational church, West Amesbury, Mass., September 7, 1848; dismissed in 1854; pastor of the Congregational church in North Adams, Mass., December, 1856, to May, 1862; resident chaplain, Fortress Monroe, Va., 1863; in 1864 went to Wisconsin, became editor of the Beloit Journal; in mercantile life until 1870; resided in Boston and Charlestown, supplying pulpits until 1875; from 1875 to 1878, pastor of the church in North Falmouth,
86
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
Mass. Mrs. Payne died January 30, 1901. He died of heart failure, following pneumonia, at Roxbury, Mass., May 15, 1901, aged 81 years, 9 months, 24 days.
The mantle of charity must be thrown over the brief pastorate of Mr. McGiffert, for subsequent events in his life point to the probability that when in North Adams he was not mentally responsible for all his actions.
At the same time, the spirit of the church is revealed, in its unwillingness to brook pastoral interference with what was believed to belong in the domain of the individual conscience.
The theology of most of the pastors of the church had thus far been severely Calvinistic. God had been pre- sented as a Judge and King, more frequently than as a Father. Every opportunity offered for repentance had been viewed as possibly the last. A strong motive was the fear of punishment after death. Again and again did Dr. Crawford preach upon, "Consider thy latter end !" God was outside the world and his will, however it might con- flict with reason, was supreme.
But while a God was sometimes proclaimed who did for the glory of His Name what would have been wrong in one of His children, the hearts of our old-time ministers were as those of children.
No one who had incurred the righteous displeasure of Dr. Russell ever realized it when in trouble, for the stern lines then faded out of the theologian's face, and he re- vealed all the delicacy and sympathy of a woman.
Dr. Crawford lamented that a son of the church, the Rev. George Jackson, should cleave to what was to him the damnable heresy of future probation. But when the test came, the old man voted to ordain the young heretic be- cause of his loyalty to the Master.
87
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
His insistence upon the doctrine of decrees did not, I find, prevent Mr. Payne from speaking in the Universalist church.
Unconsciously this church imbibed the lessons taught by the hearts and examples of its ministers, rather than those which were the necessary result of their theological systems. It was at last prepared to enter upon a way in which there should be a greater place made for the intuitions of the heart, a way which leads into the world of the pres- ent, immanent God.
It was natural that the differences of opinion, which became so pronounced during the last months of Mr. Mc- Giffert's stay, should have marred the spirit of church unity. A man was needed whom every one knew and respected, a practical teacher of righteousness, one who should be the friend of all the people. This man was found in Rev. Ad- dison Ballard, who had been so long and favorably known by the church as professor in Williams and pastor of the village church.
Dr. Ballard supplied the church for almost a year, from his home in Williamstown.
The church and society now contained a number of strong men who had prospered in business during the war. Under the pastorate of Mr. McGiffert, the corner-stone of our present building had been laid; under Dr. Ballard the church was completed and dedicated. It is one of the privileges of this anniversary week that we have with us the one who led the church so wisely during the period of transition, and who will tell us for himself the story of the dedication of our present house of worship.
The church was so inspired as the result of Mr. Bal- lard's quiet ministry, all the conditions of its life were so
88
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
favorable, that it turned with absolute unanimity to the young pastor of the church in Morrisania, N. Y., Washing- ton Gladden, who had eight years before been a favorite pupil of its tried and tested friend, Dr. Hopkins.
It is the purpose of your historian to touch but briefly upon the later history, beginning with Dr. Gladden, not because it is less important than that which goes before, but because we have with us three of the men of whose record we are so proud, and the privilege is given us of gaining our historical knowledge at first hand.
Dr. Munger has spoken to you of the conditions of church life before his pastorate, and when the master has spoken the pupil may well keep silence.
Dr. Gladden's pastorate had been but a short one when he yielded to the allurements of an editorial throne; nevertheless he so built himself into the life of this church and community that we have never lost him. He had no system of theology to defend, as had most of the men of his day. Horace Bushnell had saved him for the ministry when he was in revolt against the unhuman character of much of the current theology. He was then beginning to be what he has since become in such abounding meas- ure, a citizen of the world.
The valley of the Hoosac was not a " vale of tears " to him, but a veritable " happy valley." He found a gospel in the woods as he went off with friends upon a fishing trip, and returned to tell of what he saw and of the bap- tism of one of his companions in the midst of the wilder- ness. It was said with wonder that he preached sermons that did not contain the name of Christ, but his doing so freed men from slavery to the Christ of the letter and in- troduced them to the Christ of the spirit, who is many
89
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
times too great for any human formula, but is found often in the wrong conditions of life about us which press for redress.
As a business man Dr. Gladden would have been a chief among his fellows, and as the administrator of a parish no man could surpass him. Through his efforts the parish was divided into districts. Sub-pastors were appointed in these districts, district meetings were held, the country about reached, a canvass brought up the mis sionary offerings from practically nothing to a generous figure. All this was accomplished easily by the church when it was paying twice as much for its home expenses as it ever had before.
During his pastorate the Young People's Association was organized-the second service was changed from the afternoon to the evening, and this church, together with the Baptist and Methodist, assumed the care of the Union church of Blackinton, which has so taxed the strength of your pastors, but has at the same time refreshed them as they have felt with Dr. Munger that their afternoon work was conducted upon a union basis, which placed the com- munity at least fifty years ahead of the times.
We may sum up Dr. Gladden's pastorate by saying that the members of the church learned under his tutelage the great lesson of living together in inanlier, happier, more helpful fashion. His letter of resignation deserves to be repeated on this anniversary.
"There never was a more generous and considerate people than you have been, and no pastor ever loved his people more than I have loved you. Nothing has occurred during the five years of my pastorate to weaken my affection for you, or my confidence in your loyalty to me. If there
90
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
is any person in this church who is not my warm friend I do not know his name-do not want to know it. I write these words for a testimony to you and to all who shall come after you, as long as the records of this church shall be read, that the friendship which has bound us together as pastor and people has been unbroken to the end. I go away sad- ly, leaving behind the best friends and the happiest home I ever had."
In the same spirit of harmony in which Dr. Gladden had been called, the church invited Dr. Pratt to become its leader, and well did he fulfill the spirit of expectation in which he was received. For twenty-five years he had been a teacher, and in his pastorate he continued to carry out the habits of his professorial life. The parsonage became a centre for university extension among his people. Every organization in the church became a means of Christian nurture. Each new year has taught us a more impressive lesson since the first New Year's sunrise prayer meeting was inaugurated by him in 1874.
Dr. Pratt did not say much about the new psychology, but he understood its practical bearings as few men who are now preaching it do. I question whether any young people's organization ever trained so many young people for the church as did our association during his pastorate. As the result of his faithful tuition, 164 came into the church in the year 1874.
Dr. Pratt taught this church that when the spirit of loyalty to the church and personal consecration to the Christ is put into our organization, that organization, whether perfect in form or not, is endued with Divine power. As the church in later years has recurred to this lesson, pastor and people have alike been blessed.
1
91
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
And what, in this presence, after the words of the morning, can I say of Dr. Munger's pastorate ?
Will you not agree with me that under the influence of his leadership you entered into the meaning of Paul's words, "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest-are just-are pure-are lovely-are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things."
You men and women who listened to Dr. Munger learned to love the thought without which it is impossible to live a well rounded and growing life.
You reached the point not yet attained by many con- gregations, of ceasing to ask your minister to tell you what you knew already.
You learned to listen in church as the student listens in the lecture room when an examination is imminent.
Dr. Munger built himself into the higher faculties of your soul, and through his influence the Christ life appeals to you with a force which can never rise and ebb with the flow of emotion, as involving your reasonable service.
When my honored predecessor meets with such atten- tion, then, as he always does when he returns to you, he is but coming to his own.
During the months following Dr. Munger's departure for New Haven the church had great difficulty in securing his successor. , November 10, 1885, a call was given to Rev. Henry Hopkins of Kansas City, Mo., who by birth and association was so closely connected with the best life of North Berkshire. But Dr. Hopkins, while acknowledging the attractiveness of the call, in loyalty to his position of trust in the shaping of the great south-west, was compelled to decline.
92
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
At the sunrise meeting, 1886, the church was gladdened by the presence and leadership of the founder of these meetings, Dr. Pratt, who also officiated at the first com- inencement of the year. On the Ist of February, 1886, a call was extended to Rev. H. P. DeForest of Taunton, and the call was accepted, but on the following month Dr. De Forest wrote that his people objected so decidedly to his departure that he was compelled to withdraw his accept- ance. When he had given in conversation as one reason for his change of mind, his fear for the future of the church so overshadowed by the large neighboring Baptist church, Colonel Bracewell of the committee, in his direct, outspoken way said, "If he is that kind of a man we don't want him." But at last in the Providence of God, as we believe, a man was found whom the church did want, and who had no fear of any lions who might be either in or across the way.
On the 25th of April, 1886, the call was extended to John Patterson Coyle, pastor of the church in Morrisania, N. Y., which had before given us a pastor in the person of Wash- ington Gladden. Mr. Coyle was attracted by the call to such a field, and in his manly honest fashion did not hesi- tate to say so. As we read his letter we feel that here speaks a man who, while he may not pay the utmost attention to the demands of ecclesiastical propriety, will assuredly be himself. "It is difficult" he says in his letter of acceptance, "when duty and inclination seem to point in the same direction, to be sure of our motives." How char- acteristic the words! They remind us of a later time in his life when, as President Gates tells us, he was chosen by his friends at the retreat in Grinnell, Iowa, to preside at the Lord's table. He only consented upon the condition that he be permitted to explain his own unworthiness for
,
1886-REV. JOHN P. COYLE-1894
93
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
the office. He said that he had been realizing during the retreat days how sinfully proud he was, and it had humili- ated him to such an extent that he shrunk from even the little appearance of prominence which the choice of those present had thrust upon him. "Why," said he, "I shall even be proud of this confession before I am done with it."
In securing Dr. Coyle as its pastor, this church gained a leader of unusual intellectual power, whose mind was magnificently trained by his love for mathematics and philosophy-a man of marked original genius, a born leader of his fellows, but above all a man filled with a passion for Christ, and by his Christ love led to cherish a love for humanity. The transparency of his character, the single-hearted devotion to his work, the absorbing interest in everything pertaining to life, were among the tokens by which those who knew him best recognized in him a Messianic man.
Mr. Coyle's life before coming to North Adams had been such as is given to few men, and peculiarly fitted him for strong leadership, not only in this church and community but in the larger world outside. Of sturdy Scotch parentage, brought up on a farm, nurtured in the faith of John Calvin-his heredity and early environment gave him that rooting in the past without which coherent thinking is impossible. Rejoicing in life, entering with zest into the most advanced thought of the greatest thinkers, quick to apprehend the spirit of the time, recognizing the authoritativeness of science and the binding force of reason, for a time after his graduation in Princeton he felt that he must break with the faith of his fathers, and in unhappiness was compelled to assume the position of an agnostic. At last his overwhelming sense of the worth of Jesus Christ
94
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
brought him into a position where he was conscious that his only happiness could be found in exalting the Christ, the revelation of the unknown God of the agnostic, and in applying His spirit to the problems of the day. He believed in the divine claims of the Zeit Geist, and he accepted this spirit as expressing for our day the authority of the Christ. Vigorous in body and mind, Mr. Coyle thrust himself with- out reserve into the service of this church and community. He had published a paper in Morrisania called " The Optimist." Soon after coming to North Adams he enlisted the Young People's Association in the publication of a paper devoted to the work of the church, entitled " The Way." The paper deserved a longer life. It was devoted to the essential things of the Kingdom ; optimistic and help- ful in spirit, it pointed the church to the present signs of promise. As we read it we find everywhere the stamp of Dr. Coyle's personality. But we are also impressed with the way in which he enlists men in the service of the church through this paper and through the Young People's Association, who ordinarily would have been repelled by the standard type both of ministers and of churches.
Speaking as one who knows Dr. Coyle not directly but through his fruitage, which I have found in the larger, more Christ-like life of his closest friends, I must say of him as was said of his imperial Head : "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." He loved to serve others. Again and again does he act as a volunteer nurse. Many the time in which he returned to his home with an empty purse after relieving the needs of the poor which he carried in Christ-like fashion as a weight of agony upon his own soul. He refused gifts because of his desire to meet every
95
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
one upon the plane of a common manhood, where nothing is given which cannot be readily returned. He labored zealously for a purer town life, for better schools, for a higher type of music, because he believed in establishing the Kingdom of God on earth. Through him a drinking fountain was set up on Main street, that passers-by might have some other place than a saloon in which to satisfy their thirst. Through his influence men became ashamed of dock-tailed horses, and liverymen removed the cruel overhead check. He was not afraid of failures, this brave knight of the Cross. At his suggestion the church tried many experiments, which were not always successful. He preached sermons which many did not understand. He co-operated in the work of evangelists whose labors he did not approve, but his purpose never wavered. He would have his church, his town, his nation imbued with the Messianic spirit. Men differed from him and criticised some of his utterances and his methods, but they respected his Christian manhood and they loved him. Remarkable was his affection for the children and the children's confidence in him. He tried from Sunday to Sunday to put his best thought into a simple form which they could apprehend. He brought life and zest to their organizations, whether they were missionary or social. A ten-year old boy in Blackinton who said to him when he was thinking of leaving, "We cannot afford to lose such a man as you, Dr. Coyle," voiced the general feeling of the children which was but a direct reflection of the sentiment of their fathers and mothers in the community. Little did the church think when they bade farewell to their beloved pastor in the fall of 1894, as he left them for what seemed a wider field of influence,
96
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
that they were never to hear his voice again, for Dr. Coyle loved his church and loved the community to whose more Christ-like life he had given eight of the best years of his own life, and counted upon spending his future vacations in the Berkshires. Looked at from a human standpoint, we can never understand why it was that a life which seemed to have before it its greatest opportunity of usefulness should have been taken from the world. His people were not permitted to hear the voice which had roused them from lethargic dreams and incited them to nobler living so many times, but to them the sad joy was granted of receiving from the western home, where he had hardly commenced his labors, all that was mortal of the leader they had so reluctantly given up, and following his body to the ceme- tery, once the lot of the first minister of Adams, where his dust waits the resurrection of the just, amid the glorious mountains which had so thrilled him by their changing beauties, and the people who had become a part of his life. If God in His loving Providence permits the successors of John P. Coyle to accomplish a work for Him, they must feel as does his first successor, that the way has been pre- pared for their service through the still living influence of him whose grave should be to us and to our children a revered and sacred shrine.
A statistical summary of the History of the North Adams church :
Entire membership from beginning, 1861
Members from across the sea, 355
Members from New England, 449
United on profession of faith, 1106
Members omitted from church roll by mistake ·
8
SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
97
Members on the roll at present who united during the different pastorates :
Dr. Yeomans, out of 133
I
Mr Tracy, out of 75
I
·
Mr. Day, out of 33
O
Dr. Russell, out of 39
·
I
Dr. Crawford, out of 250
I3
Mr. Payne, out of 72
I6
Mr. McGiffert, out of 40
8
Dr. Ballard, out of 7
O
Dr. Gladden, out of 163
34
Dr. Pratt, out of 304
92
Interregnum
8
Dr. Munger, out of 160
88
Dr. Coyle, out of 350
245
Mr. Tenney, out of 222
170
Dr. Pratt supplying out of 14
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.