USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Roxbury > Eliot memorial : sketches historical and biographical of the Eliot Church and Society > Part 10
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
holiness and heaven, we should need to count the emo- tions of gladness awakened, the multitude of sins covered and prevented. Happier homes, better citizens, more con- sistent Christians not a few would be included.
CHAPTER XII.
SPECIAL OCCASIONS AND OCCURRENCES.
I. Social Gatherings.
SOCIABILITY has characterized the Eliot Church. More than one stranger has confessed to never having witnessed this in equal measure elsewhere. It has been due partly to the circumstance of wide diversities of birth- place and condition, which suggest a special need of culti- vating acquaintance. Now and then there would be an individual who complained of neglect, and however many might call, had no idea of any reciprocal duty, but con- tinued to sulk in unamiable seclusion. I have never known a people who, in general, showed an equal readi- ness for fraternizing. I remarked this early. Promptness in cordial greetings and social gatherings was noticeable. The open hand for salutation was also a generous hand. At the present day surprise parties, for instance, are not so much in vogue as formerly. They began here when I began housekeeping, and there was occasion all along for me to notice an emphatically practical element that en- tered into such gatherings. A thoughtful kindness and tact were shown by ladies in making such preparations as would secure carpets against injury, and secure the family against expense. A delicate considerateness was shown in regard to domestic needs, the needs of my
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
library, and not less in the way these wants were sup- plied. The gentlemen showed their preference for hard money, in that a purse - never small nor light - would usually be left on the study table. One example will show the way things were managed. I was invited by my former hostess to take tea with her, and accordingly did so, excusing myself at eight o'clock on account of an en- gagement to meet Dr. Anderson, who was to be at my study with Deputation documents. I hurried home, and on opening the street door a flood of gaslight was dis- charged from all the burners in the house, revealing a party of not less than two hundred friends, all with beam- ing faces, who instantly began to sing one of my favorite hymns. Of course I was surprised and a little confused, for the remotest suspicion of what was going on had not crossed my mind. Mr. Henry Hill then stated in a very pleasant way that the ladies and others wished to wel- come me home. At nine o'clock I was shown to the dining-room where was a table spread most amply and beautifully.
Birthdays brought a sort of surprise, partly distributed into calls of small groups or of individuals. The postman brought notes of congratulation, and messengers brought flowers. The Thirtieth of April was invariably brightened and perfumed - as it still is- by choice tokens selected at the greenhouse. Cards accompanying remembrancers, beautiful or useful, came pretty punctually from different parts of the country and sometimes from beyond sea. It
15I
ANNIVERSARIES.
was not easy -and to this day is not easy - to keep back tears of grateful gladness.
2. Anniversaries.
Anniversaries of installation were observed. Propo- sals for that purpose came from the people, who issued printed invitations.
On Lord's Day, evening of July 21, 1867, came the twenty-fifth anniversary of my settlement. Eight or more clergymen were present, each taking some part in the ser- vices of the occasion. The next evening, Monday the 22d, there was a gathering for social greetings at six o'clock in the chapel. Mr. Laban S. Beecher called to order, wel- comed old friends and all to the anniversary, made state- ments regarding the pastor, and proposed that they sing a part of the hymn, " Blest be the tie that binds." Mr. Eben- ezer Wheelwright of Newburyport, a former member of the church, spoke at some length. Before adjournment to the church for more public exercises, being called upon for a response, I closed by remarking that if, at the Grand Paris Exposition then in progress, a prize had been offered for the best church, the most united, kind and considerate people in any land, I knew who would win the prize. And further, pastors and others, some from the neighbor- hood, some from a distance, were declared to belong to the Legion of Honor, for
" Kind hearts are more than coronets."
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
At the public evening exercises about thirty ministers were present, several of whom took part, among them Dr. N. Adams, who gave the right hand of fellowship twenty- five years before.'
The next occasion of the same kind falls into the period subsequent to 1871, and yet it, as well as one or two other gatherings of that time, should have a word. Printed invitations were issued by a Committee of Arrange- ments. The title-page of a book, which gives an account of the proceeding, and which that committee prepared for publication, announces " A Jubilee, the Fiftieth Anniver- sary of the Settlement," etc. "Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year." Lev. 25 : 10. The committee state that " the pro- ceedings were carried out with entire success and with much satisfaction to all concerned. On Lord's Day morn- ing, the 25th of September, Dr. Thompson delivered the discourse, the devotional exercises being conducted by the Associate Pastor, Dr. B. F. Hamilton, by Dr. Daniel L. Furber of Newton Centre, and the Rev. Isaac C. White, of Scotland, Mass. On the platform and in front of the pulpit was an ample supply of palms, ferns and flowers tastefully arranged, while above the pulpit hung the motto, ' Hallow the Fiftieth Year,' flanked by the dates 1842- 1892, the letters being done in flowers. Exercises on the evening of the same day, and also on the evening of Wednesday the 28th took place.
1 A Memorial of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Settlement of Rev. A. C. Thompson, D. D., Pastor of the Eliot Church. Riverside Press. 1868.
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RECEPTIONS.
" The volume entitled 'Our Birthdays,' referred to by Dr. Laurie in his address Sunday evening, came from the press the day before, and is dedicated 'To the members of the Eliot Congregation, who have reached or may yet reach seventy years of age and upwards, as a remem- brancer of the eightieth anniversary of birth and fiftieth anniversary of ordination, by their friend, the Senior Pas- tor.' These birthday greetings range from seventy-one to one hundred. The Committee have the gratification of handing a copy of Dr. Thompson's book to those mem- bers of the church now living whose age falls within the limits thus specified."
3. Receptions.
In 1850 two Hawaiian princes came to this country on an official visit. They were accompanied by Dr. Ger- ritt P. Judd, who had been a missionary physician at the Sandwich Islands, but was then a confidential minister of the king. Mr. Alvah Kittredge, our senior deacon, had a sister who was the wife of Rev. Ephraim W. Clark, a mis- sionary at the Islands; Mr. Kittredge also had the most commodious dwelling of any one in our congregation, and a heart not less hospitably capacious than his house. He gave a reception to the foreigners, and Roxbury never before witnessed such a crowd on such an occasion, nor had ever before had a visit of such representatives of roy- alty. No two sons of a European monarch would have
4
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
shown a finer physique or have demeaned themselves with more propriety and perhaps not with more of grace than these young men from the Pacific islands, which were then recently reclaimed from barbarism. Their perfectly courteous bearing was a monumental witness to the civil- izing power of Christianity and to the fidelity of the mis- sionaries of the American Board. The princes extended their visit to Europe. One of them afterwards came to the throne as Kamehameha IV, and dying in 1863, was succeeded by his younger brother, Kamehameha V.
On a comparatively reduced scale receptions took place when twenty-fifth anniversaries of marriage came round. The same, too, in naturally fewer cases when golden weddings occurred. In December, 1857, came that of Mr. and Mrs. Abel Baker, then living in Brookline. Their youngest son made the arrangements and bore the ex- penses. The grounds were lighted in all directions with Syrian lanterns, having various colored lights. The deco- rations of evergreens and flowers were abundant and taste- ful. It was a fairy evening scene. About a hundred guests assembled to greet the venerable and worthy couple. The bride when married in 1807 was sixteen, and even at this time (1857) had more color and fresh- ness of expression than most young women of that age.
Another of these occasions was the jubilee anniver- sary of the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Austin Richards, 19th of December, 1877. Two of his brothers, then deceased, had been missionaries, one in the Sandwich Islands, the other
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RECEPTIONS.
in the Island of Ceylon, from whose grave I was able to hand a memorial flower along with Dr. N. Adams' " At Eventide."
It was in the year just named that Dr. Rufus Ander- son, senior secretary of the American Board, made an official visit to the Hawaiian Islands. The distance by way of the Isthmus of Darien is about four thousand miles. Upon his return in September we had a public meeting of welcome. This was the fourth similar visit of his in different parts of the world. Mrs. Anderson and a daughter accompanied him. On the return voyage in the Pacific their steamer encountered a terrific storm, and it seemed for a time as if all on board must be lost. Dr. Anderson said little about perils of the sea, but occupied an hour in giving the results of Christian labor at the Islands. Our church was filled, and the congregation rose and sung, -
" How are thy servants blest, O Lord."
All " were glad of the coming of Fortunatus."
The fiftieth anniversary, January 8, 1877, of Dr. and Mrs. Anderson's marriage was a specially gratifying occa- sion. But for the limitation of their strength the obser- vance would have taken place in the church, which would no doubt have been filled. Only the chapel, however, was opened and invitations were accordingly restricted in num- ber. The children of the family and grandchildren were present, besides about one hundred and fifty friends, among whom were eighteen ministers. These had chiefly
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
been Dr. Anderson's official and professional associates. A beautiful arbor had been erected at the head of the chapel, its framework covered with evergreen, and over the front a floral crown with a basket of flowers sus- pended beneath. At either end of the arch was a date, 1827-1877, whilst in the centre was a monogram, " A., H." - H being the initial of her family name when Eliza Hill was a bride, and when the marriage service was solemnized by Rev. Aaron Hovey at Saybrook, Connec- ticut. In the rear were two floral crosses with a wreath between them.
No couple more revered and beloved ever sat beneath an arbor of livelier green, behind each of whom was a symbol of that to which, in trust, hope and service they had long been jointly loyal. For forty years they had been connected with the Eliot Church, and Dr. Anderson had for full half a century been officially connected with the American Board of Foreign Missions. He was now in his eighty-first year, of noble presence, tall, and as erect as any young man then present. After an hour spent in congratulations a collation was served. It was understood that no speeches were to be made, but being urged to say something, I could hardly do less than convey a hearty welcome to all the guests, stating that among them, be- sides two whose similar anniversaries had already occurred, there was one who would celebrate a golden wedding in the Spring following, and another who would do the same in the Autumn of that year. Attention was directed
157
CIVIL WAR TIME.
to a friend in the crowd, whose bridal veil of more than fifty years before was the head-dress of that afternoon. Letters of greeting, some from missionaries abroad and from other friends were in hand, but time to hear them then failed. A short time before that I had occasion to write on business to the venerable Dr. Charles Hodge of Princeton, in his eightieth year, who had been longer engaged in theological education than any other man in the country, and who was a personal friend of Dr. Ander- son. In a postscript I referred to the approaching fiftieth anniversary. At the close of his letter in reply, Dr. Hodge said, "Our dear friend, Dr. Rufus Anderson, has had a golden life. It is meet he should have a golden wedding before he gets his golden crown. Give him my best love with congratulations, and beg him to help by his prayers his tottering brethren." The Junior Pastor, Rev. Mr. Hamilton, read selections of Scripture, a prayer followed, and Dr. Anderson pronounced the benediction.
4. Civil War Time.
The first rebel shot fired at Fort Sumpter struck thousands of hearts north of Mason and Dixon's line. The shock was tremendous; the waking up of the general mind was wonderful. A common sentiment thrilled all loyal citizens. Hundreds upon hundreds of national flags might soon be seen floating, look which way you might.
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
Conversation, reading, preaching turned largely upon this theme. There was not a copper-head in our congrega- tion. Ladies were busy and school girls, too, in sewing for the army. Women in the eighties and one who was ninety knit faster than ever before. An immediate social effect was striking. Citizens who had never before spoken to one another at once grew companionable. A deep interest in volunteers was manifested. Capt. Ebenezer Stone, now Colonel Stone, brought his company to church of a Sunday morning in May, 1861. The Stars and Stripes fell gracefully though not ostentatiously from the Bible-stand over the table in front. A sermon on The Soldier and the Bible, from the text " And take the helmet of salvation," was preached. After the sermon I pre- sented each of the officers and men of the company, at the hands of our deacons, a copy of the Psalms and New Testament bound together and appropriately for the knap- sack. The congregation then sang America, and they sang with a will.
On the evening of September 22 there was a union prayer meeting at the First Baptist Church. The day had been rainy, the walking was bad, and approach to the church difficult owing to street repairs, yet the house including the galleries was thronged. When the national Fast Day came the attendance upon morning worship in our church was larger than on any previous similar occa- sion, and at the social meeting in the afternoon the lec- ture room was well filled.
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CIVIL WAR TIME.
Lord's Day, August 31, 1862, was a memorable day with us. Just before the hour of morning service a mes- senger from the Mayor came in great haste, announcing the second defeat of our Union army at Bull Run, and the urgent need of hospital supplies for the wounded. This word was at once communicated to the congrega- tion. Dr. William Adams of New York, who was spend- ing the day with me, merely offered prayer and the assembly was dismissed. People hastened to their homes for articles which had been named from the pulpit. Boxes in large number were required, and soon filled the lecture room as well as the sidewalk in front. The sound of hammers resounded for awhile, but prayers went up amidst the confusion. Before many hours had passed a freight-train with various supplies was on its way to the scene of suffering.
Early and late during the war pastoral sympathies were constantly and strenuously wrought upon. Calls and interviews now come to mind with painful distinct- ness. I remember a young mother - with her first-born child only three weeks old - weeping profusely at the thought of her husband's joining his regiment. As a gen- eral thing the women showed no less patriotism and read- iness for sacrifice than the men. In one home was a family of three widows; also a young man of promise only eighteen, who enlisted. His mother, then absent, wrote me, "Why should my whole head grow sick and my whole heart faint in view of this new trial, when I have
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
so often felt the loving presence of my Heavenly Father's sustaining arm and have heard the whisper, 'As thy days, so shall thy strength be?' Our country is in peril and calls loudly to her sons to come forward and hold up the standard of Liberty. I will not shrink though it take my own, my precious first-born son. I can make no dearer offering and I would make it cheerfully." I went with the letter and read it to the writer's aged mother, the young man's grandmother. "Well," she remarked, " I am glad Lucy can give him up, and I am glad this is the sixth grandson that I have given up for the army." As one volunteer after another was making ready to leave home, or had reached that trying hour, there were fre- quent interviews with families and individuals, little keep- sakes to be passed, cheering words to be said, perhaps prayer to be offered. Mothers, wives and sisters found it hard to suppress tears as month after month of anxiety went by. The prevailing expression of countenance throughout the community underwent a change; so, too, the rate of movement and general demeanor. There were only a few in our congregation who had not per- sonal occasion, more or less immediate, for solicitude about some regiment in the service. It required no effort on my part to enter into the feelings of others. When the Massachusetts Forty-fifth was mustered on Boston Common for the presentation of colors, thousands, literally thousands of friends were there for leave-taking. As the order was given to fall into line, I assisted my
16I
CIVIL WAR TIME.
daughter in buckling the knapsack on to my only son. We kissed him good-by, a robust and cheerful young man. The next time we saw him he was haggard and prostrate with malarial fever brought from North Caro- lina. The whole number from our congregation in the army and navy was about fifty, of whom nine were only sons. Forty-two individuals of the congregation had brothers in the army; two ladies had each a grandson ; another had five grandsons, and yet another had six. Eleven persons had sons belonging elsewhere than in Roxbury who enlisted. Fifteen of our friends lost rela- tives - two losing husbands, five losing sons, and seven losing brothers. But we heard of no desertion, nor any- thing dishonorable on the part of any of them; we did hear of fidelity and bravery. One young man in his nine- teenth year wrote expressing a new-found Christian hope. He became hospital steward at Roanoke Island, and asked for religious books and tracts to distribute among the sick and wounded. Another young man, a member of our church, on board the Minnesota, in one of his let- ters said, " I have been engaged in battle on two occa- sions at Hatteras Inlet, and in an encounter with the Merrimac. I am expecting soon to be amidst scenes of conflict and death. I take this opportunity to inform you that I enjoy a blessed hope, which gives me great com- fort and peace of mind in the hour of danger. Yes, Jesus is precious to me. I believe that his precious blood has cleansed me from my sins and reconciled my sinful soul
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
to God. I long to feel more fully the weight of those words of the Apostle Paul, "For me to live is Christ; to die is gain."
More than one death of our soldiers was due not to fatality on the field but to sickness in the hospital. Re- mains were brought home for interment, and a public funeral service took place. That of Sergeant J. D. Loker occurred early in January, 1863. The captain of the com- pany wrote : " He was an honorable, high-souled man ; one whom I regret of all others to see laid low; " and the colonel also, " His death is a loss to the regiment that cannot be replaced." Later in the same month came the funeral of Robert M. Carson in the Mission Chapel. He was a man of truly excellent Christian character. The address on that occasion having been printed, a copy was sent to the Rev. Mr. Gage, chaplain at the hospital in Alexandria where our friend died. He read it as an afternoon sermon to the soldiers, who expressed so much interest that he sent for a hundred copies. After the first five hundred had been printed a friend in the Eliot Church ordered seventeen hundred more. " Them that honor me, I will honor." It was a noteworthy circum- stance that, up to this time, the three funeral discourses of mine which had been requested for publication were occasioned by the decease of perhaps the three obscurest members of the Eliot Church. But the most impressive mortuary service during this war came after the battle of Antietam. The remains of fourteen soldiers belonging
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SICKNESS AND ABSENCES.
to a Roxbury company were brought to one of our churches. It was an unusual sight to look down an aisle and see none but mourners in the crowded pews. A brilliant young nephew of mine, an officer in a Connec- ticut regiment, fell in that terrible engagement. I hardly need add that my constant personal intercourse with friends who had great interests at stake in the war, cor- respondence with many who were in the service, the news of disasters, sickness and deaths, occasioned insomnia and a disabling disturbance of the nervous system.
5. Sickness and Absences.
If any man needs robust health it is the minister. He needs it in his study; he needs it for the pulpit ; he needs it as a preventive to manifold morbid liabilities, both mental and spiritual. Insufficient muscular exercise and unwise brain work cost many a one his comfort and continued usefulness. The man who shall prepare an adequately effective book on clerical hygiene will be a benefactor of the profession and of the church. True, the pastor's ill-health may prove a helpful experience in promoting sympathy with the feeble and suffering mem- bers of his flock. If it fails of that, it fails of one most appropriate result, and to lose personally sanctified bene- fits of sickness is indeed a great loss. John Wesley could speak of a "friendly fever," and he learned how to be grateful for such a visitation; " God does chasten me
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
with pain," said he, "yea, all my bones with strong pain, but I thank him for all, I bless him for all!" In bodily presence Paul was weak; and he speaks of his son Timothy's often infirmities. All along these eighteen hundred years the divine hand has laid many a minister on his back; but has it not been that he might the more devoutly look upward? The sick room teaches some things that cannot be learned in the library, and one is to bear as well as to do.
I make no profession of resemblance to Richard Bax- ter in more than a single respect. Referring to the man in the Gospel, who had an infirmity thirty and eight years, Baxter speaks of " The like discipline of fifty-eight years " in his own case. It is now fifty-eight years since my ordi- nation, and during that period there has been scarcely an entire week of entire health. During the time of my more active and more responsible pastorate (1842-1871) I lost upon an average one day each week from sick-head- aches. Toward the close of his life, Rev. Sela B. Treat, a secretary of the American Board, told me that he had never had a headache. It seemed incredible. So, too, what Dr. John Pierce of Brookline, in his last sickness said to a friend, that for nearly forty years he had not known what it was to have a physical infirmity worth men- tioning; and not less in the life of Theodore Beza the statement that "He yielded up his spirit to God, A. D., 1605, Ae. 86. He used to say that he never knew what it was to have a headache." Occasionally the illness of
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SICKNESS AND ABSENCES.
which I speak was temporary, yet for twenty-four hours completely disabling. Sometimes it continued two and even three days. This, of course, reduced not a little the time and strength for active effort. It did not materially relieve the matter to be told that Basil suffered in the same way, and that Chrysostom, too, in his later years was subject to an inveterate headache.
The chief resulting trial from this and other ailments was the interference with public duties. Interruption to pulpit and parochial labor, brief or lengthened, occurred repeatedly. The longest absence, that of fifteen months on a deputational visit to missions in India, was not, to be sure, owing to sickness, though encouraged by physi- cians as probably beneficial to health. It is to be ob- served that our Great Physician never consults us con- cerning the time or form of physical disabilities. One may groan without grumbling; but it must be confessed that I never attained to the experience of Thomas Adam (1701-1784), in whose " Private Thoughts " is this record : " Blessed be God for all his favors, and particularly for the special mercy of bodily pain."
The chronic ailment above referred to in no wise interfered with various other special attacks. Soon after I commenced housekeeping there came a fever that kept me out of the pulpit for three months. Nervous prostra- tion and prolonged insomnia sent me to the West Indies for a five months' rest in 1851-1852. The same nervous disturbance occasioned a medical order the next year for
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