USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Roxbury > Eliot memorial : sketches historical and biographical of the Eliot Church and Society > Part 8
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5. Revivals.
The history of revivals records the fact that seasons of special spiritual quickening have sometimes followed immediately upon painful cases of discipline. No trying
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duty discharged in reliance upon divine aid ever fails to bring a blessing. Kind fidelity in the several stages of a process suggests vividly the liabilities of temptation, of backsliding, not to speak of utter apostasy. Those engag- ing duly in this function can hardly refrain from humbling themselves before God and adoring the grace which has kept them from falling. The Eliot Church is not without illustrative examples in that line. Every instance of dis- cipline - whether the subject thereof was reclaimed, or was finally excluded from fellowship - served to bind the brotherhood together in closer bonds as well as to heighten a conception of the true design and the sacred obligations of a church.
The theory of uniform spiritual advance on the part of an individual and a covenanted community is seldom borne out by facts. There may be no law of unequal de- velopment, but variations of temperament as well as of temper are matters of universal experience. Piety may be real, though depressed and only latent. Slumber and death are different conditions. We would advocate and labor for steady growth; and yet not be surprised at more or less of the occasional and even the spasmodic. Crises may be looked for in individual and in collective life. An exhibition, too, of infirmities may be expected. One and another will purpose some specialty, such perhaps as they have read of, or have witnessed in another denomination, or in the methods of some evangelist. I recall an indi- vidual, not commanding deep respect, who had pretty
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much ceased to attend upon stated church observances. But in more than one instance, after increased spiritual earnestness had become general and meetings were crowded, he would come in of an evening and take early opportunity to complain of the low state of religion and to propose certain special measures with reference to a revival. If the thing had been less painful it would have been more ludicrous.
The seasons referred to were seasons of marked moral earnestness. They were epochs of special prayer, of wrest- ling importunity in supplication. There was a quietus to bickerings and heart-burnings. Formality gave way. Re- ligious sensibility was manifest, a cord of spiritual sym- pathy linking together an entire assembly in a sacred magnetism. Little if any unhallowed enthusiasm showed itself and still less of fanaticism. Mental balance was pre- served. The solemnity was usually deep, yet radiant; exhaustion did not follow, but a refreshing sense of things heavenly and divine, an elevating and restful apprehension of the great things of the kingdom. There was no need of setting about to prove the personality of the Holy Spirit, the gracious sincerity of Jesus Christ in his invita- tions, or his ability to save to the uttermost. Pungent conviction of sin and a penitent discovery of its just condemnation silenced quarrelling with God on account of his sovereignty in saving men and his righteousness in punishing forever the finally impenitent.
Several of our church members privately acknowl-
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edged to having previously entertained only a false hope and to being now apparently born again. So, too, mem- bers of other churches. One case of that kind is very dis- tinctly remembered, that of a family from the north of Ireland, the husband having been connected with the Episcopal Church and the wife with a Presbyterian Church. Both became convinced about the same time that by experience they had known nothing of vital piety. Both were converted, and in accordance with their own decided wish joined others in a public confession.
The joy of converts did not become effervescent or boisterous ; deep streams are never noisy. Neighboring pastors kindly rendered assistance at a special week-day evening service; and in a few instances aid was given by them on Lord's Day. This accords with what took place among the earliest fishers of men: " They beckoned to their partners in the other ship that they should come and help them." No professional evangelist was called in; no mention was made of the anxious seat; none were asked to rise for prayer; but ample opportunity was given for quiet and orderly after-meetings; or for other separate gatherings of inquirers as well as for the special instruc- tion of professed converts. A good many new family altars were set up. I heard of three such on one day. Some years the harvests were noteworthy, for example, in 1858 forty-five joined our church on first public confes- sion of faith, and sixty-nine in 1866. The accessions were not always from those who had previously belonged to
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the Eliot congregation. Returning home after an im- pressive evening service I found three young men in my study, one of them from a Unitarian family. He was deeply wrought upon ; I had seen no one so agitated and distressed. He told me that some of the young men in the mercantile house where he was a clerk requested the privilege, the day before, of holding a prayer meeting in the attic of the store. Permission was readily given, and thirteen assembled. A few days later I called on a young lady who had begun to worship with us. I talked very freely and plainly with her for a time, when her mother, a Unitarian lady, coming in from a side room re- marked that she had overheard what was said and was glad that I called, adding that she desired her daughter should become a Christian; that she herself had prayed for it and had no objection to her becoming a Trinitarian. She expressed dissatisfaction with the preaching where she usually worshiped as greatly lacking in spiritual power. During the same season I noticed a young man, a stranger, in one of the galleries listening with peculiarly earnest attention. It appeared that he was a Universalist visiting a friend in the neighborhood. It was not long before he avowed himself not only an evangelical believer but a "new man in Christ." These were not solitary cases of the kind and yet such were not numerous.
Two classes of persons, very limited in number, seemed to be least responsive to revival influences. One was in- veterate novel readers. To single out a specimen - hap-
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pily an extreme instance - mention may be made of a married lady who had been in the congregation only a few months. Her church membership was elsewhere. Her mind had become drenched with romance, and hence enervated. The pathetic would call forth tears, but char- acter will always deteriorate when awakened sensibilities lead to no practical beneficence. She had been living, or rather flitting about in an unreal world where common sense was a stranger. She confessed to having no sense of sin and was so unreflectingly ignorant as to ask if I thought she had done wrong at all, adding that she did not know it was necessary for her to feel her sinfulness, " because it is the heart and not she herself that is de- praved !" I have met with no other case of more obvious heathenism except in India.
Instances of a decidedly morbid condition of mind, developing at length into evident melancholia, if not un- mistakable derangement, were various. Of the following, though not generally understood, I had full cognizance. A man highly respected, a man of blameless life, standing in his lot, taking active and acceptable part in church ser- vices, came to me at length repeatedly, saying that he had no evidence of being a Christian; that what he attempted in the line of social duties was purely from a sense of duty ; that there was no elasticity of soul in him. His own language was such as this in part: "Christ always seems at a distance; there is a dreadful dimness and an awful blank in my mind; it is not the thought of hell
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particularly that moves me; I cannot feel anything; the hardness is awful; I cannot live so, I cannot die so. It would be a fearful thing to send for you and make this disclosure on my death-bed." Though a man of more than usual self-control, he wept profusely. For a good while he was in deep waters, depth calling unto depth in slowly increasing terror of despair. No words, no devices seemed to relieve the gloom. What could the pastor do but with an aching heart commend the case to Him who alone understands all the mysterious maladies of mind !
Among the evidences of religious advance was in- creased fidelity in the Sunday School. Class prayer meet- ings were held; teachers and converted pupils would enter into devotional engagements to remember definitely certain unconverted pupils at some stated hour. Such covenants bore fruit. The ease with which merely social gatherings would take on a religious character was noticeable. So, too, the heartiness of Christian greetings and the readi- ness for outside Christian work.
The year 1858 was one of widespread spiritual bless- ing. A statement was published in the Spring of that year that five vessels came into the port of New York at different times, on board which prayer meetings had been established, of course without any concert between the captains. With that I have since associated a young man, then belonging to our congregation, who sailed the year before for Australia. Returning in 1858, he told me that on approaching the coast he became seriously impressed,
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and so continued till he reached home. He remained here less than two weeks, and before sailing again for Singapore he entertained a Christian hope. He was a child of the covenant, the pious father and mother having both deceased. Early in my pastorate, finding that the congregation was made up chiefly of those who came from Boston or elsewhere, with little or no previous mutual acquaintance ; that there was almost no local intercourse, hence but slight knowledge of one another, as most of the men went daily in town to business, I began to despair regarding the usual media of religious influence. If some one should be converted, who would know it? How could a spark of spiritual influence be reasonably expected to communicate itself to others? Soon after such dispiriting questions had arisen, I found in the course of the same week here and there several individuals decidedly awak- ened. That took place independently of one another, for they were not acquaintances and had had no intercommu- nication. It of course occurred to me more distinctly than ever before that the dews of divine grace come silently from above and require no horizontal channels; that there is a wide difference between a revival gotten up and one that comes down; that while God is ever ready to accept cooperation from many, he never stands in need of human agency.
CHAPTER IX.
ELIOT SUNDAY SCHOOL.
THE Sunday School as a method of religious educa- tion is not so peculiarly a modern institution as has been supposed. More than a century before Robert Raikes employed women (1781) to teach the waifs of Gloucester streets, England, a Sunday School had been instituted by the First Church in Roxbury. Eliot himself maintained that " The care of the lambs is one-third part of the charge over the Church of God." It has been affirmed that " The Sunday School of the West Boston Society " was the earliest established in this city. It was the off- spring of the " West Boston Charity School," later known as the "West Parish Sewing School." 1 It appears to have been a school for girls only. A similar school for boys was established in 1827, and the two were united in 1832.
But Mrs. Susan E. Parker, sister of the late Dr. S. F. Smith - now aged ninety-five - stated before her memory failed in the least, if it has yet failed, that on June 14, 1815, a Sabbath School was gathered at Christ Church, the historical Old North Church. The Rev. Dr. Asa Eaton was then rector. A house-to-house visitation had been made, and three hundred and sixty-five scholars were
I The West Church and its Ministers. Boston, 1856, pp. 217, 218.
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enrolled. A list still remains hanging in the room where the school was organized in 1817. It was a strictly mis- sion school, the children of Christian households not being admitted. For that reason Mrs. Parker herself could not become a member. The first superintendent, Mr. Joseph W. Ingraham, continued in that office for twenty-five years.1
When schools, especially those of a missionary char- acter, came to be established in Boston during the first half of the nineteenth century they did not enlist general favor at first. It was in the midst of the Unitarian discussion and the running of denominational lines. That in School Street was one. It was first opened in an old public schoolhouse at the lower end of Bedford Street. William Thurston, Esq., a prominent lawyer, made statements to a few friends who had come together, re- garding the success of Sabbath Schools in England. Fami- lies in the neighborhood were visited with a view to finding whether scholars could be obtained. A goodly number were at once secured. Other public schoolhouses were opened for the same purpose. The Mayor sent to Mr. John Gulliver - an active man in the Orthodox ranks - and frankly admitted that there was a desire to exclude the schools from city buildings. Not long after, Mr. Gul- liver found the front door of the schoolhouse one Sunday morning could not be opened. Entrance was effected
' The Sunday School Times, July 4, 1896. Memories of Boston's First Sunday School. By Harriette Knight Smith.
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through a window, and half a cord of wood was found piled against the door. That being removed, the Sunday School went on as usual. A public meeting was called, that by a vote the schools might be excluded. Mr. Thurs- ton and other gentlemen made addresses so effectively in favor of the religious movement that a large majority favored granting the use of as many of the schoolhouses as were needed. Our Eliot Sunday School was organized on the third Sunday of July, 1834, nearly two months be- fore the formation of the church. Forty-one persons met in the stone building near our present place of worship, twenty-five of whom were enrolled as scholars, fifteen as teachers, Mr. Alvah Kittredge being chosen superintend-
ent.
There was a twin-birth that Sunday morning.
Mr.
Kittredge saw for the first time his youngest son - now Rev. Dr. Abbot Eliot Kittredge of New York - and then hastened to join the company where this school was organized. After something more than a year, the meet- ing-house being finished, the school removed to the lecture room underneath, the average attendance of pupils having been about forty. After twenty-five years it was found that the attendance had come to be not far from two hundred. Mr. Kittredge continued most faithfully and acceptably in office as head of the school for a quarter of a century, when he resigned and took the place of a teacher. Upon a review at the time of his resigning, it was found that seven teachers and forty-three pupils had been re- moved by death.
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Of those who had been scholars thirty-one became college graduates, and at the date now in mind (1859) seven had become pastors of churches, four others were preachers, and one was an accepted missionary of the American Board. Twelve ministers of the gospel came out of the school before its silver anniversary, and an equal number of female pupils became the wives of clergy- men. During the period now spoken of two thousand one hundred and twenty scholars had been registered, a large proportion of whom (1700) had left and were scat- tered widely through the country, besides quite a number in foreign lands. Of that dispersion more than half were professing Christians. The family and the sanctuary usu- ally furnish concurrent influences that issue at length in conversion, but it should be stated with devout gratitude that during our first twenty-five years the church wel- comed to its communion more than one hundred and fifty from this school, while many who dated the commence- ment of their spiritual life here made public profession after removing elsewhere.
I was in the habit of visiting this as well as our Mission School often - upon an average, three times a month - and of sitting down with classes successively, asking questions or remarking on the lesson of the day. Acquaintance with names, faces and habits was thus secured. I feared at first this would prove an undesirable interruption and possibly an annoyance, but teachers soon began to request such visits. There was opportunity also
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for observing aptitude, or a want of it, on the part of teachers. As a general thing, they were devoted and suc- cessful. I learned highly to value those unpaid colleagues in the sphere of religious training. One or two sad ex- ceptions came under my eye - for instance, a man in charge of a class of young men, who was soon through with what appeared to be a perfunctory exercise. New members were brought in but presently left. They found nothing to interest them. Another teacher by tardiness ran out a class. From time to time I gave small blank books to teachers, returnable to me with private memo- randa regarding individual pupils.
A visitor will light upon oddities. During an exer- cise on the transfiguration a class of girls were asked, How Moses and Elijah could have been recognized ? A bright Miss replied that she supposed the disciples had seen their photographs. An ignorant young man who had never before attended a Sunday School, or been in the habit of reading the Bible, joined our Bible Class and professed to become at once interested in the subject of personal religion. Within a fortnight after that he came to me, saying that he had examined the matter of baptism and found that immersion was the only proper method.
Familiarity with the Sunday School reveals acquaint- ance with families represented there, and is specially help- ful in pastoral visits. Innumerable interesting incidents came to light. One must suffice here. A mother died, leaving three children, the eldest a lad of ten years. The
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father soon began family worship, but was often absent from home, being the traveling member of a Boston firm. During the father's absence this little boy, a member of the school, asked if he might keep up family worship. He read a chapter from the Bible regularly, then kneeled down, a younger sister each side of him, and offered ex- temporaneous prayer, closing with the Lord's Prayer, in which the sisters joined. Both grandmothers, each about sixty years of age, were present morning and evening.
Now and then I preached to the two schools gath- ered with others into our place of worship, which was crowded. I usually attended the teachers' meetings. When absent from the country I sometimes wrote let- ters to the school, and on returning from a visit to Pales- tine, brought pressed flowers from Jerusalem and the neigh- borhood, mounted on cardboard, one for each of the scholars in our two schools; a larger one for the teachers, and one yet larger for each superintendent.
There was gradually disclosed a tendency to adminis- ter the school with reference to the Monthly Concert, rehearsals and other preparations occupying a dispropor- tionate amount of time that was needed for more im- portant purposes. There was an excessive demand for entertainment, and the concert was liable to become a mere exhibition. After intimate acquaintance with the working and spirit of our school had been established, it seemed to me to be regarded too much as an independent and outside affair, instead of an integral element of the church
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and one form of church education. Hence I proposed certain regulations which have since been observed, two of which are as follows: -
" The appointment of the Superintendent shall be by nomination on the part of the teachers, and ratification on the part of the church by yea and nay ballot; the remain- ing officers being elected by the teachers."
" The Superintendent shall make a report annually to the church at the annual meeting of the same, on the condition and statistics of the school, embracing a list of its teachers."
Another practical misapprehension was that it is merely a school for children instead of being a Bible Seminary designed for all ages, including adults as well. These were urged to join the school, and two classes of such were formed with twelve or fourteen members in each. Cases occurred in which whole families were in attendance. Much thought was given to the library. Pains- taking is also needed to keep distinctly before the minds, especially of the young, that our sacred volume is the sub- ject of study. One incident will illustrate. Being absent from home on an exchange of pulpits, I asked a little girl, "Do you attend the Sunday School?" " Oh, yes," she replied. " And what are you studying ? " " The Question-Book." "But it is a question-book on the Bible, I suppose." " No," said she. "What then is it?" " The Union Question-Book." "And does it not ask questions about some part of the Bible?" "No; the lessons are all
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in the book; we don't study the Bible." I had met with substantially the same thing elsewhere. Constant famili- arity with the collective contents and with the order of the several books should be cultivated.
A very deep and very just reverence for the sacred scriptures was entertained by teachers and scholars. The natural results were manifest in character and life. Tes- timonials given, for instance, in 1859 by those who had entered the ministry, appeared to express the prevailing sentiment. One wrote from the state of Maine, "I can only say, I bless God that I ever became a member of your Sabbath School and congregation." One from west- ern Massachusetts, " That vestry will always be hallowed ground to me." Another, " I know of no place about which so many delightful and sacred associations cluster as at that vestry, underground though it is." "The gold and the silver of Ophir, and the cattle upon a thousand hills," wrote still another, "cannot pay the debt we owe."
It was a specially gratifying circumstance that of those who had been connected with the school for a longer or shorter time, one, a true daughter of John Eliot, Miss Harriet J. Clark, now Mrs. Caswell, labored among the Seneca Indians in southwestern New York; Mr. and Mrs. Hurter spent several years in Syria under the shadow of Mt. Lebanon ; while two daughters of missionaries, Mary Ballantine of Ahmednagar, India, and Maria Chamberlain from the Hawaiian Islands, returned to their native lands, the one as Mrs. Fairbank, the other as Mrs. Forbes, and
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did excellent service. With the latter name should also be coupled that of Mary Carpenter Paris. These, as well as the memorable name of Rev. David Coit Scudder, will be found among the sketches of missionaries.
Amidst all the changes of superintendents and teach- ers, the school has maintained a good degree of harmony and a fair amount of enthusiasm. This appeared to be noticeably true when our congregation was so depleted in 1870 by the withdrawment of a large body to form a new church and Sunday School. Unusual vitality and enter- prise remained. Even the first Sabbath after that exodus the attendance showed a higher figure than for some time before. After four weeks I found there had been an accession of sixty members. The Young Men's Bible Class of twenty-five, whose former teacher had gone with- out the slightest hint to them of his purpose to leave, continued undiminished, though for a time no one was found to lead them. There seemed to be on their part a measure of sanctified spunk.
Many funerals of pupils have been attended. A few of them were oppressively sad. Such, for example, were those of the four lads who lost their life by drowning ; and that of another, Benjamin Bronner (1857), suddenly crushed by inexorable machinery. The funeral solemni- ties of one who had been a scholar followed soon after the festivities of marriage. In another case I had occa- sion to go directly from the funeral of a beloved pupil ' to
I Harriet M. Holman, 1857.
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the marriage of her Sunday School teacher. On most of these services cheering light from above shone benignly and expelled sadness. One of them, a specimen, rises dis- tinctly to recollection, the funeral of a young woman,' beautifully patient in sickness, gentle and cheerful. The epistle to the Romans, which had been studied in the Bible Class, was peculiarly precious to her. Regarding recovery or removal she could say, "I have no choice; " and amidst final paroxysms of pain she cried, " Oh, Mother! Oh, Saviour !"
Two of the superintendents died while in office.2
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