USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Roxbury > Eliot memorial : sketches historical and biographical of the Eliot Church and Society > Part 5
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Occasions for official association with other denomi- nations were infrequent. I was requested to take part at the funeral of a dear child who had been in our Sunday School, and who belonged to a family some members of which were connected with the Episcopal Church. The rector declined to have any joint participation, and con- ducted the whole service. This occurred more than once. With our Unitarian and Universalist neighbors there were pleasant relations, but not public religious fellowship. In
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private intercourse there was friendliness. Mr. Charles K. Dillaway, for example, an officer in the First Church, a prominent citizen, a former master of the Boston Latin School, was a warm personal friend. His unfailing kind- liness and rare general excellence of character entitled him to that universal esteem which he enjoyed. Not infre- quently he would take a seat with us on the Sabbath. He suggested an exchange of pulpits with the pastor of the Unitarian Church. But that is a matter in which prin- ciple must take precedence of private and neighborhood courtesies. In civic affairs and in philanthropic movements there may be heartiest cooperation; but the strictly reli- gious sphere is another thing. "As certain also of your own poets have said"-for example, Dr. Priestly - " I do not wonder that you Calvinists entertain and express a strongly unfavorable opinion of us Unitarians. The truth is, there neither can be nor ought to be any compromise between us. If you are right, we are not Christians at all; and if we are right, you are gross idola- ters." The Rev. Thomas Belsham spoke decidedly, " Opin- ions such as these can no more harmonize with each other than light and darkness, than Christ and Belial. They who hold doctrines so diametrically opposite cannot be worshipers in the same temple."
Discourtesies were rare. One of our elderly ladies became acquainted with an aged Unitarian neighbor, and at length proposed that they should engage in Scripture readings and prayer. They began with the New Testa-
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ment, and at their third reading in Matthew's Gospel came to the verse, "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thor- oughly purge his floor and gather the wheat into his gar- ner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." The old lady seemed to be startled and asked to have it read again, observing that she had forgotten that there was such a passage in the Bible. The calls and readings continued till, on her own motion, a request came that I would visit her. On presenting myself and my card at the door, a daughter-in-law of the aged woman de- clined to admit me to the house, remarking, "My mother has a pastor," giving his name with a good deal of em- phasis. Raising my hat, I explained calmly and reiterated the explanation that I called only at the request of her aged mother. Admittance was not secured.
Some years later I was sent for in great haste to go to the chamber where a wife and mother was dying. Her Unitarian pastor not being at home could not be found. The family were much agitated. After a few quieting words, I invited all to kneel with me in prayer; but on rising I found the pastor had come and was standing be- hind me. There was embarrassment of course. After interment had taken place, I called to express sympathy. Some little neighborly services on my part were accepted; but by and by the family found it not convenient to recog- nize on the street the one who had been sent for when the wife and mother and whole household were in dis- tress.
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At another time a gentleman in my neighborhood, with whom I had had no acquaintance, asked me to the house to see his wife, who was in the last stages of con- sumption. Learning where he attended worship, I sug- gested that while I should be happy to comply with his request, it might perhaps be considered a breach of comity, and that he and the family might prefer the presence of their own pastor. He replied, " I should as soon think of calling in a dancing-master." My visits were gladly re- ceived though death soon ensued.
The most trying case was that where a capable mother who had no sympathy with evangelical religion, and who would not allow me at repeated calls to see a sick daugh- ter except in her own presence. The daughter had been a member of our Sunday School; she was sinking in a fatal decline, and evidently wanted to have me talk on the vital concerns of her soul and of salvation. But the mother sitting by would parry and thwart everything dis- tinctive that I said, and would pervert, according to my view, every plainly pertinent text quoted by me. It hardly need be added that the foregoing were exceptional cases. From another religious denomination came an imploring request for me to conduct the funeral of a child. The pastor of the family had declined the service because scar- let fever occasioned the death. This, too, occurred a second time.
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3. Deaths and Funerals.
The circumstances under which the announcement of a death was made were sometimes noteworthy. Toward the close of a week-day church meeting I suggested that a prominent member, who was known to be in a distant hospital, should be remembered in the next prayer. Some one spoke at once, "She is dead." A telegram to that effect had been received just as the meeting opened. A hurried note was one day written by a lady, saying, "Mr. Dickinson has been taken suddenly ill." Before opportu- nity occurred to send the note this postscript was added, "Mr. Dickinson died at half-past eleven."
Such unlooked-for announcements not unfrequently made the general heart of our community stand still for a moment. The shock would be startling. Mr. John Heath -for many years treasurer of the Eliot Society - who never had occasion to call a physician, fell without a mo- ment's warning and did not become again conscious. March 26, 1897, word passed from neighbor to neighbor, "Mr. Ireson is no more with us." The sickness-it was hardly a sickness-continued only two days. He, too, during seventy-four years had never called a physician. For forty years a member of this church, and thirty-eight years secretary of the Sunday School, he had been a beloved brother in Christ. These two men were noted for the same traits and habits; they were remarkably punctual, faithful, accurate, cheerful. They loved the dis-
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tinctive truths of Christianity; they were blameless in life and prudent in speech. Both were heartily devoted to the Eliot Church. Their modesty was beautiful, and yet extreme; each of them shrank from taking active part, by prayer or remarks, in social religious meetings. Fluency of speech is not the standard of piety.
Mr. Richard Bond, well known as an architect, when finishing his morning toilet, sat down and within five min- utes ceased to breathe. Not long after that the senior brother in our church - he was once a member of Dr. Channing's church - having been about, much as usual, during the day, seated himself at evening in an easy chair, turned his head on one side and neither spoke nor moved again. One morning in July, 1894, the word, wholly un- looked for, came, "Capt. Benjamin C. Tinkham passed away last night." Similar was the message concerning Mr. Charles W. Hill :
" Swift was his flight, and short the road, - He closed his eyes and woke with God."
Mrs. McNee, from Paisley, Scotland, who had been in this country only two months, dropped dead instantly while preparing breakfast. She was but twenty-eight and had the appearance of being perfectly well.
The pathetic sometimes mingled with our surprise and moved us deeply. A church member, aged seventy- seven, after attending divine service on the Lord's Day, seemed as well as usual at the breakfast table the next
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
morning. Shortly after he spoke of feeling ill, and lay down upon a lounge. His wife, daughter, and little grand- daughter were sitting by. This little girl of four summers, who had been to church with him the day before, said, " I'll play meeting now and be minister for grandpa." She made believe read a hymn and then saying, "Now all be still and I'll pray," she kneeled and repeated the Lord's Prayer, adding, "God bless father and mother, grand- father and grandmother." At that moment the old gen- tleman drew a heavy breath which was his last.
A lady who had for many years been a most exem- plary Dorcas among us, finished a bedquilt one Saturday for a poor family; the next day was in her place at church, but Monday morning the sun shone on her benevolent face lying sweetly motionless, pillow and coverlet not the least ruffled.
Peculiarly trying conditions sometimes accompanied suddenness. A member of our congregation was riding out with her only child, eight months old, in her arms. The horse shied a little, though without occasioning real danger. Gathering the infant more closely to her, the mother leaned against a lady friend who was driving, and died instantly. The friend had to drive half a mile before finding a house, to the door of which she could come near enough to call for help without relinquishing hold upon the deceased mother and the living child.
Funerals not a few of persons whom I had never seen in life were attended. The very fact of having had no
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acquaintance with the deceased always furnished occasion to speak freely to assembled relatives and neighbors. Re- quests for these extra-parochial services would sometimes come in a peculiar form, as "Can you perform the cere- mony ?" "My father can't work for you today; he died last night. The funeral, tomorrow afternoon." Meeting a quartette singer, I inquired if Mr. So-and-So was still liv- ing. "No," was the reply, "I sang to his corpse yester- day." The remains of an aged widow were brought to our chapel before interment. Her only son from New York was present. After the reading of Scripture and prayer, I stepped from the platform to speak to him, but he did not raise his head from the back of a settee on which it was resting. I spoke his name in a low tone, and then noticed that he was breathing heavily. As he did not rouse I put my hand upon his shoulder, which also pro- duced no effect. It then flashed upon my mind that being a man of known bad habits he must be in the stupor of intoxication.
It became very noticeable that for a series of years there should be a service awaiting me on my return from the four-weeks' outing. Coming home after the August vacation of 1860 I found a gentleman waiting at the depot to take me to a funeral before going to my own house. There were times when frequency characterized these occasions. I recall a week in 1861 which was peculiarly a week of funerals - two of them occurring on the Sab- bath, two more on Saturday, and one or two on interven-
!
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ing days. Connected with nearly every one of them were circumstances of peculiar trial to relatives. In the course of that same year three funerals took place on a Sabbath, one result of which was an intense nervous headache which required the attendance of a physician for days after. At another time the head being uncovered in an open-air service, the sun shone out suddenly, causing a slight sunstroke which left unpleasant consequences for a considerable period.
There were some cases - very few, however - that seemed to preclude an expression of sympathy. Last ser- vices were attended in a house where were the remains of a man who could hold no property on account of a Gov- ernment claim on him. His widow - already for a year deranged, owing to excessive devotion to him in his sick- ness- was left destitute. The property held by her in her own right had been employed in aiding the children of a former wife.
Usually, however, the tenderest and deepest emotions were moved. It is not easy, even at this remote day, to speak of those hours in darkened apartments, hours of irrepressible sobbing and sometimes of vehement outcries on the part of mourners. The heart beats quicker at every remembrance of such scenes. Tears still start freely. The first funeral that I attended as a pastor was that of a mother who left ten living children. A few years later came the funeral of another who left twelve living children. Now and then there would be an agonizing wrench of the
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sensibilities, as when a homeward-bound East Indiaman was wrecked on Minot's Ledge, and besides twenty of the men one of her young officers, an only son, perished almost within sight of his father's house, where he ex- pected to be in a few hours amidst Thanksgiving-Day joys. So, too, when a maniac killed an only child of one of our families and then took his own life. It would not have been surprising if the pastor's brain had yielded to apoplexy, or if complete heart-failure had ensued. The organ last named gave functional alarms for several years. One of the most eminent pastors in the Commonwealth said to me that he found he must not sympathize too deeply with his people; it would otherwise cost him his life. Well would it have been for me to have given more heed to that suggestion! Few of the more than seven hundred funeral services were devoid of noticeably trying accompaniments. Such was the draft upon feeling, that almost any occasion of this kind would be followed by greater exhaustion than a service with preaching on the Sabbath. Unhappily the call for such extra duties occurred more frequently on the Lord's Day than any other. The resulting strain had much to do with a repeated break- down of my nervous system. Sometimes, as already inti- mated, day after day, and even week after week, there came a constant succession of scenes and duties that try a pastor's heart. One such in the time of our Civil War will illustrate what is meant. Three deaths occurred in one day; the next day another. Then followed two
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funerals in an afternoon, from one of which a brother-in- law of the deceased was called out just as the service be- gan, to go to his father in Boston who died before this son reached the house. Soon after the interment came a similar service in Boston, a young mother having died, and during the service her infant son expired. Dust to dust had hardly been committed when I was called upon to marry a couple, the bride being low with a heart complaint, and three days later came her funeral. At the same time young men, single and married, were enlisting in the army, to each of whom and their friends some special token of pastoral interest seemed to be required. At another period I attended in close succession four funerals in the same house - one mother burying an only child ; another, one of two children; and a third, both of her sons.
The range of ages embraced all periods from a few hours to over a century. The variety of conditions, occu- pations and nationalities was great. Specially suggestive to myself has it been that I should be called upon to conduct or take part in the obsequies of eleven brother ministers, their ages varying from thirty-eight to eighty- four.
In general the circumstances of departure were very various. To some it was on the battle-field or in a mili- tary hospital; for most it was in the sick-room at home, and yet scarcely one without some surprise being awak- ened, either on account of the manner or the time. At
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the Almshouse I attended (1849) the funeral of a mother who died of cholera, as her husband and eldest daughter had died the same week. Orphaned children remained. The extremes of surprise relate to unexpected delay or unexpected suddenness. Rev. William C. Woodbridge was on the invalid list for many years, yet so removed from the public eye that many supposed for quite a while that he had not been among the living when his decease occurred in 1845. Mrs. Sophia Wildes, a rare woman, after six years of confinement to the house, almost on the eightieth anniversary of her birth, heard with gladness the summons, "Come up higher." 1 On the other hand, instantaneous death was appointed to Rev. David Greene and Mr. Laban S. Beecher, owing in each case to what is called an accident. More painful circumstances seldom occur. It was impressed upon all that the way to prepare for sudden death is never to be unprepared. Remarks or a sermon at funeral services are much less often expected now than formerly, and much less often in cities than in the country. Still frequently a request comes that some- thing may be said, and an expectation of that is well-nigh invariable in case of a public service. Of these remarks thirty-four were sought for publication.
Of late years it has been painful at times to witness the performances of professional quartettes. While no one questions the fitness of appropriate singing on such occa-
I A sister of Mrs. Wildes, the widow of Rev. Mr. Bent, was for forty- nine or fifty years an invalid, and debarred from attending public worship.
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
sions, every person of good taste must take exception to certain pieces sung and especially to the style of music. But a much severer criticism is due to the manners of quartettes, as may occasionally be seen in the house of mourning. They are sometimes, to appearance, utterly oblivious concerning the proprieties of the hour. Whis- pering, conning of notes, nonchalant gazing about go on as if they were hired to exhibit indecorum. Such conduct while the officiating clergyman is reading Scripture or offering remarks, is decidedly discourteous to all; but carried on while he is offering prayer, it is unpardonably irreverent.
4. Marriages.
Thanks forever for the family -no human device or discovery ! Home is a divine arrangement, designed by God as an abode of comfort with a sense of repose pecu- liar to itself; where the domestic altar is duly maintained, a sanctuary, a little paradise before the upper Paradise Re- gained. So long as the ark of the covenant was under his roof the house of Obed-Edom prospered. There has been no small sacrifice involved in seeing our jewels borne off one after another; but then, other communities and even other lands have been enriched thereby. And be- sides, we made some reprisals.
In this line of service every clergyman who remains many years in the ministry has a variety of experiences, and especially if he lives in a city. The silent joining of
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two deaf-mutes in sacred wedlock, for instance, presents a noteworthy contrast to the lively cheer of an ordinary wedding. One evening while I was engaged in conversa- tion with a man morbidly distressed, thinking that he had sinned away his day of grace, in came a couple to be married. I had to ask him into the parlor as a witness, and the occasion seemed to do him more good than my previous conversation. In two instances I left ecclesias- tical councils to attend a marriage, and then returned to proceedings which issued the one in a pastoral settlement, the other in an ecclesiastical divorce.
Whenever wine was furnished on marriage occasions I declined the courtesy. In later years that beverage has ceased to be offered. I declined to re-marry persons divorced for other reasons than what the Scripture sanc- tions.
The matter of fees is sometimes one of interest, espe- cially if income from that source is devoted to charity. The first bridegroom - not a Roxbury gentleman - who desired my official aid was a man of property. Some of his friends, thinking the fee must be very handsome, tried, but without success, to get from me the exact sum. After a while the remark was made, "You do not want to tell because it was so large." That taunt brought out the
secret of a very meager payment. Among these outsiders was a benedict who put a half dollar on the tip of his fingers and a dollar bill near his wrist, giving me my choice. More than one had come without a pocket-book,
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and waiting a while in apparent expectation of an enter- tainment, marched out of the house without so much as a Thank you. The largest sum ever received for such ser- vices, two hundred dollars, came from a warm personal friend, and under unusual circumstances.
An infelicity attended one public marriage in our church. When the parties presented themselves I asked for the certificate of marriage. It was excusable in the bridegroom that, having been a foreign missionary far from our country and among the heathen for many years, he had failed to procure the required document. There was a congregation of friends present, and I preferred to run the risk of a heavy fine rather than not proceed at once with an illegal ceremony. The good man hastened from church to the city clerk's office for an ex post facto permit. Of the more than two hundred and fifty marriages, attend- ant peculiarities were, however, almost wholly confined to entire strangers. One couple, coming from out of town, had forgotten, if they ever knew, about the marriage license, and it took the dilatory man nearly all day to procure one. Another couple came to the house of a relative here bringing their pastor, a grave Doctor of Divinity. The elect lady had declared with great em- phasis that no one else should ever marry her. Just as he was about to proceed they discovered that it was con- trary to law, neither party being resident here, and I was sent for in great haste. One rainy evening a carriage drove to my door at nine o'clock. The son of a former
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member of our congregation presented himself with a bride; but in changing his coat, had left the needed cer- tificate at home. So, at least, he said; and it would be sent to me the next day. A certificate came bearing date of that next day! Governor Gaston kindly accompanied me to the city clerk's office; and relatives of the bride came afterwards from a neighboring state to make in- quiries.
While the grotesque, the comical, or the fraudulent sometimes pertained to such outsiders, the startling or the sad was occasionally associated with our own friends. In one instance the air of a drawing-room being loaded with the fragrance of flowers, the bride fainted and fell amidst the service. In another, two sisters were married simul- taneously, and not long after came the funeral of one of them. Nor was that a solitary case in which the mar- riage wreath might almost have served also for the casket. In 1868 occurred the funeral of a young woman whose marriage I solemnized six months previously. She was
evidently not well at the time. The happy couple started for St. Paul, Minnesota, but stopped at Winona where the bride died. Her marriage dress was her funeral robe. Late in September of another year two were united in sacred bonds till death should part them, and before the end of October the bride was a widow.
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3
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ELIOT MEMORIAL.
5. Contrasts and Coincidences.
In all departments of life there are conjunctions that impress one. Every minister probably has occasion to notice such in the course of professional experience. In my own case these have been so frequent and attended by such conflicting emotions of joy and sadness as to imprint themselves indelibly amidst pastoral reminiscences. They were largely connected with sickness and departure, and occurred so often that I seemed to be uniformly vibrating between smiles and tears. An instance here and there, out of many in successive years, will make this plain.
Within the first twelve months after ordination I offi- ciated at the marriage of a beautiful and interesting young woman. There was a throng of gaily-attired and joyous guests. Of flowers there was a profusion and the entertainment was sumptuous. The grounds as well as the mansion were illuminated, and the music was inspirit- ing. Hundreds of hearts beat happily that June evening. Less than six months later came a funeral at twilight, the ground covered with snow, a handful of the same friends present, all dressed in black, perfect silence reigning. In the same drawing-room and on the same spot where the bride had stood were now placed her lifeless remains.
In 1846 young Atkinson, in exuberant health and full of hilarity, went with the Sunday School of another denomination on a picnic one bright morning and was
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drowned. His remains were brought home at midnight. At break of day I was sent for to offer prayer at the darkened house. Interment was to take place at a dis- tance.
September 25, 1847, I went to the funeral of John A. Parker, aged 21. On entering the house I found two caskets instead of one, the grandmother having died the day before. The house recently so cheerful was now utterly desolate; all the three occupants belonging to as many generations were deposited in the same tomb the same month.
A man whom I had never seen, and who had him- self never seen the inside of our church, called to say that his brother was very low with typhoid fever, his brain being affected. It was stated that he had given no evi- dence of being a Christian. The brother begged me to speak to the delirious man in a "consoling " way. I has- tened to the house, which had shortly before been vacated by another family. A sad close of life came soon; but I found it was in the same room where a little while pre- vious I had witnessed the departure of a woman whose end was perfect trust and perfect peace. In the Spring of 1856 I called on an aged and very sick woman, sup- posed to be dying, and whose chief fear was lest she should recover. She had long been an eminent Christian and a sufferer. There was occasion to labor with her to be resigned to live, if that were the will of the Lord. From her room I went to a house of sickness in Boston,
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