USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Roxbury > Eliot memorial : sketches historical and biographical of the Eliot Church and Society > Part 12
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sixty-nine of them on first public profession of faith. Now and then tangible tokens evinced Christian regard. In February, 1862, occurred the dedication of a little chapel built by a handful of Hollanders. Three languages were used in the service, two German ministers being present besides the Dutch pastor and half a dozen American Congregationalists. It was a heroic effort by which those few foreigners supplied themselves with a place of worship. We could not deny ourselves the privilege of expressing sympathy and giving some assistance. Men, women and children all told amounted to only a little over a hundred, yet during that cold season, a time of business depres- sion, and though strangers in a strange land, they built
themselves a chapel. None of them received more than a dollar a day. Several had small sums in the savings bank. Some, if not all of them, withdrew their deposits and contributed the whole. After working hard all day they would fish for smelts by night in the Back Bay. A friend of ours supported for a time their excellent pastor, the Rev. Mr. Van der Kreeke.
At the installation of Rev. E. E. Strong over the John Eliot Church of South Natick, I presented to that brotherhood, in behalf of the Eliot Church, Roxbury, a pulpit Bible and Hymn-Book; and on another occasion our ladies presented a silver communion service to the beloved band which formed the Vine Street Church. These and like things confirmed pleasant relations, and called forth gratifying reciprocal expressions.
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FELLOWSHIP.
When Dr. Anderson and myself started (1853) on a deputational visit to missions in India, the Eliot Church handed us a letter of warm Christian greeting to churches in that land, which were under the care of the American Board. At the same time a member of the congregation gave me privately a sum of money to be spent at my dis- cretion on our mission fields. It enabled me to furnish, where there was special need, more than one native church with a plain sacramental service. In twelve in- stances the letter-missive, which had been translated into Marathi and Tamil, was communicated with the very happiest effect. The interval of more than ten thousand miles was no bar to a glow of spiritual fellowship. A reacting stimulus took place when word was sent home, " The churches of Asia salute you."
Among pastors and certain other ministers there was much hearty and hallowed communion. Sometimes upon the suggestion of one in their circle who felt specially moved to that end, it took the form of a Retreat. Such private reunions for prayer, for the contemplation of Scrip- ture truth and the unfolding of personal experience, were peculiarly sacred. Heart touched heart as at no other time. With a little less freedom, yet without publicity, were such gatherings as, for example, that of a pastoral association of Boston and vicinity, in January, 1847. A day was devoted quietly to associated prayer with fasting, in the vestry of Old South Church. Coming together at ten o'clock in the forenoon the brethren remained in ses-
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sion, except a half-hour's recess, till past the middle of the afternoon. It was a day memorable for earnestness, freedom and tenderness of religious intercourse. The savor of holy sympathies that were awakened, and the descent of magnetism from beyond the clouds, were a lasting benediction.
Pulpit interchanges were one obvious form of fellow- ship, a fellowship at once clerical and semi-ecclesiastical. Such exchanges were chiefly with brethren in the neigh- borhood, and for only one of the public Lord's Day ser- vices. When such exchanges were with Drs. N. Adams, Kirk, Plumb, Laurie, J. H. Means, and J. O. Means, special gratification was pretty sure to be expressed by many in the congregation. The prevailing sentiment seemed to be what is embodied in a Tamil proverb, “No matter who pounds it if it is rice." Occasionally an arrangement for both parts of the day occurred and with a brother at some distance. In such cases I always went the Saturday before. On the way to Braintree for an exchange with Dr. R. S. Storrs, Sr., I encountered a specimen of supreme Yankee inquisitiveness. A seat- mate in the car asked : "Stop at Braintree ?" "Yes." " Know Dr. Storrs ? " " O yes ! " " Smart old man. Does he preach at home tomorrow?" "No, I exchange with him." " Well now, I reckoned you was a preacher when I first saw you. Where do you preach when you are at home ?" " Roxbury." " Pshaw, I married in Rox- bury. What name might you have ?" "Thompson."
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" D'ye know Anderson? Smart fellow." At that moment the conductor called out Braintree to the relief of at least one passenger. In one instance an unusually unin- teresting minister occupied our Eliot pulpit in the fore- noon, and it was supposed would do so in the afternoon. A lady declared it was unendurable, and she must have something better. Accordingly under a broiling July sun she walked to the Pine Street Church, then the nearest in Boston, in order to hear Dr. Austin Phelps. To her dismay, she had to listen to the same preacher and the same sermon which disgusted her earlier in the day. Petty embarrassments would sometimes occur, owing to a want of uniformity among our churches in the order and number of parts in a service. In one instance there being needlessly two different collections of hymns at hand, I made selection from the wrong book. At one period and in one of the city churches it was customary for a leading man in the musical world to select a hymn to follow the sermon, and place the number in conspicu- ous figures on the front of the organ. The preacher, whatever his own preference, was expected to accept this annoying dictation. On an exchange a note from one of the pastors ran as follows: "Our choir can sing anything you may select, with about equal bad taste, dis- cord and confusion."
Of preachers who at my request kindly occupied the pulpit, making a noteworthy impression, several come to recollection with special distinctness. Some of them were
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foreigners, as Pastor Fisch of Paris; also Rev. Mr. Chal- mers, a nephew of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, a member of the Deputation from the Free Church of Scotland, soon after the disruption. We took up a collection in aid of their sustentation fund. Twice we had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Lord, President of Dartmouth College, one of whose sons was at that time worshiping with us. Rev. William G. T. Shedd, D. D., LL. D., then a professor at Andover, preached for me two or three times. He had but little action ; was perfectly free from everything mere- tricious and apparently from all thought of himself. He furnished a fine illustration of the power of lucid thinking and cogent reasoning, clothed in language devoid of a single superfluous word, to hold the fixed attention of every one in the congregation.
The last time Dr. Lyman Beecher preached for me he exhibited some of the signs of advanced years. Of oratorical graces there were none; but once well on in his discourse, up went the spectacles to the top of his head, and up roused the slumbering giant to something of his earlier force and to the evident gratification of all present. After the service I accompanied him to the porch, where his old friend, Dr. Anderson, gave the greet- ing, "Dr. Beecher, may you live forever!" " I 'spect to," replied the old man.
Most of the returned foreign missionaries, who accom- panied me to the pulpit, were heard with great acceptance. Such, for example, was Dr. Lindley from South Africa.
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Dr. Thomas Laurie was always listened to with marked attention and profit. He had been supplying the pulpit when I came to Roxbury in 1842, and was then under appointment as a missionary to Persia. Although he had not quite attained to majority, he was a man of power. The same characteristics as a preacher showed them- selves then as after his return and in the later years of his ministry - modesty, self-forgetfulness, an ardor glowing in his own soul that kindled responsive warmth and even fire. North Britain has perhaps sent no man to this country who brought more of the Ingenium praefer- vidum Scotorum. Several of the most intelligent mem- bers of the church have told me that they were never so much moved and elevated by the unction of any man's prayers as by his.
Another was the Rev. Dr. William Goodell of Con- stantinople, when at home on a furlough. He made no attempt at oratory. His style was chaste. Seriousness and earnestness characterized every part of the service. At the same time an occasional sub-tincture of quaint- ness or of unpremeditated humor would relax the features of a delighted audience. No listener could forget him or forget the Turks. I said to him, " Father Goodell, what is to be the future of the Turkish Empire ? " " That," said he, "is a question I put to Lord Stratford de Red- cliffe, and his answer was, 'It depends very much upon the divine decrees.'"
Dr. Daniel Poor, after reaching home on his furlough,
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spent the first Sabbath with me. Being introduced to the audience, he rose and without naming chapter or book said, in a clear tone and with much deliberation, " The churches of Asia salute you; " turning to the right, " The churches of Asia salute you;" then again to the left, " The churches of Asia salute you." By that time old and young were ready to rise from their seats and return the salutation. "First Corinthians, sixteenth chap- ter, nineteenth verse," was announced as the text; and the most riveted attention was given him till the close of a narrative discourse. Six years after that, as suffering from sick-headache I reclined on a lounge at Manepy in Ceylon, Mrs. Poor, who had just become a widow, placed a pillow under my head and observed, " You are lying where Dr. Poor died." His last whis- pered words were, " Joy, Joy ! Hallelujah !" and I thought, What a salutation must ransomed natives have given the dear man as he joined them on high !
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
CHAPTER XV.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
THE history of any church or society without pen photographs of prominent members will be incomplete. Such members never fail to give tone to an organization, and especially in its earlier days. Modification of the type first taken on is seldom effected soon. In the primitive years of the Eliot Church and Society leading men were characterized by superior intelligence and sound
judgment. The lists of individuals which follow are by no means exhaustive of names entitled to commemora- tive record. They are arranged with regard to corre- spondence in position, profession, and the like, or with regard to the order of time. Material at hand has had influence in determining the selection of names. It will be particularly noticed that these friends were in the church or congregation prior to the autumn of 1871, at which time Dr. B. F. Hamilton became the associate pas- tor. Some of them remained here for a longer or shorter time after that date.
THE DIACONATE.
The Congregational churches of New England have from the first owed much to those holding this office. No set of men, save ministers of the Word, have as a
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whole been more efficiently useful to the community in affairs both sacred and secular, or better entitled to con- fidence and respect. The earliest of all in colonial days was Samuel Fuller. He had held the office in John Rob- inson's church at Leyden, and became a prominent man in the church of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. His medical services were called for in the two colonies on our coast, and by conferences with Governor Endicott he did more than any other layman to give a Congregational form to the First Church of Salem. William Gager, the first dea- con of the First Church in Boston, the principal physician and surgeon in the town at that time, was a man of firm faith and irreproachable life, for whom the proper authori- ties provided a house and salary at public charge. Mat- thew Gilbert, the first man chosen to this office by the First Church in the New Haven colony, was afterwards Deputy Governor. The late Governor Buckingham of Connecticut held this office for many years ; so did Gov- ernor John Treadwell, the first President of the American Board, as well as Thomas S. Williams, Vice-President of the same institution, President of the American Tract Society, and also Chief Justice of the State. Associated with him in the Center Church, Hartford, was Governor William W. Ellsworth.
One reason why no more men held this position dur- ing early New England times, is that for several genera- tions there was supposed to be an incongruity between such a position and a civil or military office, so that no
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one could hold office in town or state and at the same time hold this office in a church. But later came a change of sentiment and hence such men in the neigh- boring state as have been mentioned were church offi- cers. In other sections the same has occurred, as for instance in the case of Governors Fairbanks and Page of Vermont; Hon. T. W. Thompson, United States Sen- ator, and Hon. Samuel Morrill of New Hampshire; Gen- eral Henry Sewall of Maine, one of Washington's body- guard, and Governor Dunlop. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has had similar representative men, as Hon. Ichabod Washburn, Hon. William B. Bannis- ter, Hon. W. J. Hubbard, Judge Hooker, and Lieut .- Governor William Phillips. But whether enjoying wide reputation or not, such officers have, as a body, been public spirited men, right-minded and invaluable. The wealth of nations as of churches is their truly able and saintly men. The diaconate, if not essential to the very being of a church, is essential to its well-being. Like the original goodly group of seven at Jerusalem, the office- bearers here have been men worthy of commemoration in local annals.
I. ALVAH KITTREDGE.
No man was more efficient in the preliminaries which led to the formation of the Eliot Church than Mr. Kit- tredge. A plan for the gathering of an evangelical Con- gregational brotherhood in Roxbury was discussed in 1833; and when Mr. Kittredge removed to the place in
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the summer of the year following, his house became the rendezvous for those who were interested in the proposed enterprise. His house remained always most hospitable.
The first meeting of the Eliot Society was called to order by him, and as chairman of a committee he pre- sented a code of by-laws for the government of the same. From that time onward during many years he held office of some kind in the Society. He was chosen one of the first two deacons of the church, November 6, 1834, and for over two score years faithfully discharged the duties of that office.
He was chosen superintendent of the Eliot Sunday School at the time of its organization, a position which he had held for seven years in connection with one of the largest similar schools in Boston. In this office he continued for a quarter of a century, and on retiring from that post (1859) he took charge of a Bible class of young ladies, which was retained by him till the day of his death, at the age of seventy-seven. Mount Vernon, N. H., was his birthplace.
There was never occasion to record against Mr. Kit- tredge needless absence or tardiness at any engagement, secular or religious. During the first eight years of the Roxbury City Government he was a member of the Com- mon Council or the Board of Aldermen. He was one of the chief originators of our beautiful Forest Hills Ceme- tery, earnestly advocating the purchase of a tract of land for that purpose. He was for fifteen years Chairman of
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the Commissioners, and then President of the Board of Trustees till his death. From the first his time was largely devoted, and at length almost exclusively devoted to the cemetery. For many years he was superintendent of that attractive place of sepulture, and all his services were entirely gratuitous. His own interment there did not occur till more than fifteen thousand interments had taken place in the same sacred inclosure. The total number of interments up to the present time exceeds thirty-one thousand.
Mr. Kittredge was an unaffectedly modest man - never forward, yet never shrinking from duty. Decided without being opinionated he was acknowledged to be a wise counsellor, and one of the very pleasantest of men to work with. His smile, frequent and genial, lighted up a countenance always pleasing; but he never laughed boisterously. Before his decease he had seen over twelve hundred welcomed to membership in the Eliot Church, and an aggregate of nearly a thousand gathered into the three young church families, which went out from this central home.
Mr. Kittredge was a humble, devout, consistent Chris- tian. The great spiritual crisis took place when he was twelve years of age. He himself, his family, the Eliot Church, and the world at large owe not a little to a believing New Hampshire mother.
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2. WILLIAM G. LAMBERT.
Another of the two officers first elected was Mr. Lambert. He came from Rowley at sixteen years of age, having prepared for college, but weak eyes obliged him to give up study. He first connected himself with the Park Street Church. His services and influence in the Eliot Church were highly valued, and when he removed to New York (1839) no little regret was felt.
Deacon Lambert was one of the original members of the Broadway Tabernacle Church in 1840. Connected with his removal from the Eliot Church there was a pecu- liarity. The letter of recommendation bore date August 7, 1840, but Deacon Lambert's formal resignation of the office which he had held did not take place till the fol- lowing year, 1841. By the transfer of membership the official position lapsed necessarily. No one can properly hold that office in a church of which he is not a member. The mistake on the part of Deacon Lambert was that in requesting dismission he did not at the same time com- municate his resignation of office.
In New York, Deacon Lambert held many respon- sible positions in financial and commercial enterprises. He was one of the founders of the Equitable Life In- surance Company. Not long after removing to that city he joined the First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, but subsequently renewed his connection with the Tabernacle Church, and there held the office of deacon for many
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years, indeed till his death, December 24, 1882. Among the resolutions adopted by the church in New York at that time are the two following :
" Be it Resolved, That while we mourn our loss, we give hearty thanks to our Heavenly Father that he has so long spared to us a beloved and revered office-bearer, and favored us for so many years with his presence and counsel, preserving him to a good old age with all his faculties in vigorous exercise, so that, in spite of his more than four-score years, we can almost say of him as of the Hebrew lawgiver, ' His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.'
" Resolved, That we cherish Deacon Lambert's memory as a wise counsellor, a faithful friend, an earnest worker in the church, and an humble, consistent follower of the Saviour." 1
3. HENRY HILL.
Three years after the church was organized Mr. Henry Hill became a member. He came from the Park Street Church, where his position was one of prominence, and not long after removing to Roxbury he was elected deacon in this new connection. He was then in the prime of life, having been born in Newburgh, N. Y., Jan- uary 10, 1795. Owing to a change in his father's business, he relinquished preparation for college, on which he had been engaged for more than a year, and removing to New York City, became at fifteen clerk in a large mer- cantile house. Instead of attending the theater and other places of amusement, he devoted himself to acquiring
1 Year-Book of the Broadway Tabernacle Church for 1882, p. 7.
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the French and Spanish languages, in both of which he became proficient. His capacity for business and his sound judgment were early developed; hence at twenty years of age he went to France as supercargo to pur- chase silks and other goods in Paris, and two years later was sent as agent of his firm to Buenos Ayres and Chili.
Mr. Hill's religious life and his kindliness were also early developed. On the voyage to South America, he gave lessons to the sailors in reading and writing; dis- tributed Bibles and tracts among them; conducted a religious service on deck every Sunday when the weather allowed, and at times visited the forecastle to read and talk with the men. At Valparaiso he established a mer- cantile house - his accounts being kept in Spanish - and was soon appointed United States Consul for that city and Santiago. During the three and a half years' residence at the former place, he traveled extensively, and must have been one of the first men, if not the very first from our country, to make a trip on horseback across the Andes.
On returning to the United States, Mr. Hill had tempting offers of business arrangements in Peru and New York; but he was desirous of finding some position more directly connected with the cause of Christ. Divine Providence opened the way for his appointment as treas- urer of the American Board, and accordingly he removed to Boston (1822) one year after its incorporation as a city.
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For that office his business tact and wide business acquaint- ance qualified him eminently, and during the thirty-two years that he held it more than six millions of dollars passed through his hands. On retiring from the post at sixty years of age, he made a thank-offering to the Board, that he had had the privilege of serving so long as its treas- urer. The amount was two thousand dollars, a sum not saved from his salary, but accruing from another source.
As a member and officer of the Eliot Church, Mr. Hill was one who neither gave nor took offense. Always in his place he was neither officious nor backward. He maintained a happy medium between coldness and exces- sive emotion. In council calm, clear, judicious, he mani- fested no conceit and no irritability. As one of the orig- inal members of the Vine Street, now Immanuel Church, he took a leading part in its formation and its early growth. One of his memoranda relative to leaving our connection reads as follows: - " I was perhaps too happy there. . To leave that home of my choice, my pastor, my brother deacons, the Eliot Church and Society, friends such as I never expected to find again this side of heaven. Oh! if I ever made a sacrifice it was when I consented to join the little band of twenty-six to form the Vine Street Church."
Socially, Mr. Hill was never frivolous, but always genial and a most agreeable companion. The Eliot Church has, perhaps, never had a member who more happily combined gentleness and decision, or who was
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more truly a Christian gentleman. He was a man of great regularity in habits of industry, temperance and general self-control. Ardent spirits, tobacco, highly sea- soned and very rich diet he eschewed. Such regimen contributed largely no doubt to his serene and beautiful old age. He lived ninety-seven years.
4. REV. WILLIAM WARD DAVENPORT.
" They that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree." That was em- phatically true in the case of Mr. Davenport. He was for five years a deacon in the Eliot Church, and by universal consent filled the office with unusual wisdom and accept- ance. That a "good degree " followed will appear in the course of this sketch.
His parents were valued members of the Old South Church, Boston, his mother being a daughter of the Rev. Ephraim Ward of West Brookfield, Massachu- setts. Upon graduating from the Franklin Grammar School and the English High School, Mr. Davenport re- ceived in each instance a medal for excellence in scholar- ship and deportment. A voyage to China and another to Batavia gave him some personal acquaintance with busi- ness in foreign countries. As civil engineer he was en- gaged in the primary survey for introducing the Cochit- uate water into Boston, after which he entered a whole- sale dry-goods house, where he remained as clerk and then as partner for about twenty years.
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His religious character took its coloring in part from deep conviction of sin and a clear apprehension of free forgiveness through the merits of Jesus Christ. The great truths of our holy religion, including righteous con- demnation for sin, the need of regenerating grace, of holy living, and a love that leads to Christian activities, held a controlling and ever-growing influence over Mr. Davenport. No pressure of business cares interrupted his religious endeavors in neglected sections of the city. He also con- ducted prayer meetings and other religious services in the Mariner's Church, the State Prison, Chelsea Hospital and elsewhere. For a series of years he was Secretary of the Boston Sabbath School Union and wrote its annual reports. For yet a longer period he was Secretary and Director of the Penitent Female Refuge, where he con- ducted on the Lord's Day a service, and where a week- day service begun by him still continues. The prayer meeting which led to the formation of Shawmut Church was one in which he took an active part.
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