USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Salem > Exercises in commemoration of the three hundredth anniversary of the gathering of the First church in Salem, Massachusetts. May 26-June 3, 1929 > Part 5
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And so I might go on. Francis Cabot the merchant; Samuel Curwen, later the royalist whose delightful diary sheds so much light on the history of his time; Colonel David Mason; John Nutting the collector of the port, and many others, appear in the list of those who left the First Church to form our Society. But I have said enough to show the character of the men. It was no vulgar church row, such as has been the foundation of too many churches. These men were something more than successful merchants. Each one of them took an active part in the life of the community; and a diligent reading of the history of the times, so admirably chronicled in the diaries of Lynde, Pyncheon, Holyoke, and Bentley, will make anyone feel proud of them.
Such was the organization of the church; I must proceed more rapidly with the later his- tory. There have been three outstanding pas- torates, and most of the story of the Society is associated with them, although several of the other ministers were men of strong personality and great ability; but their incumbencies were relatively short, and when one thinks of the North Society, one's mind instinctively turns to Dr. Barnard, Dr. Brazier, and Mr. Willson. Dr. Barnard served forty-three years, Dr. Brazier
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twenty-six, and Mr. Willson thirty-six, so that their pastorates extended for over one hundred and five of the one hundred and fifty years of the existence of the church.
Dr. Barnard's long and useful life ended in 1814, and he was succeeded by Reverend John E. Abbot, a young man of twenty-two, of ability and promise, and by all accounts a man of most delightful character and charm; but unfortunately his health was very poor, and he died in 1819 after only four years of service.
The next year, 1820, the Reverend John Brazier was ordained, and served until his death in 1846. Dr. Brazier was a man of learn- ing and ability. He had been the highest scholar in his class at Harvard in 1813, and afterwards tutor in Greek and professor of Latin before coming to Salem. But he was considerably more than a scholar. He was a man of great force and ability, and his pastorate was one of the most brilliant in the history of the church. When he settled here in 1820, Salem had com- pletely recovered from the depression caused by the War of 1812 and her commerce was very flourishing. The town also was growing rapidly both in population and in wealth. The last of the great houses in Chestnut Street and around the Common were being built, and Salem had a
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wealthy cultivated society. Relatively to other places in Massachusetts and New England, it was much more important than it has ever been since. The panic of 1837, and the migration of many of the principal merchants and their fam- ilies to Boston which took place in the forties and fifties, were still far ahead.
The North Church shared in all this pros- perity during Dr. Brazier's pastorate. Rather more than our share of leading men of the town were active members of the Society. Joseph Peabody and his sons Francis, George, and Joseph Augustus, Benjamin and Edward West, Leverett Saltonstall, the young banker John C. Lee, Ichabod Tucker, George Oliver, Samuel Holman, the ruling elder and deacon for over fifty years, Osgoods, Wheatlands, Cooks, Good- hues, Lakemans, and Webbs; but to mention all the leading families in Dr. Brazier's parish would be to give a list of the principal families in the town. The church gained very distinctly from the decline in interest in Quakerism, and many of the old Quaker families who had clung to their faith through two centuries of persecu- tion began to fall away, and many of them be- came members of our Society during this period. The old Quaker names, Buffum, Nichols, and Shreve, begin to appear on our records.
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This was a period of intense interest in religious and church matters, and the North probably represented a conservative, but not reactionary feeling. They were all true con- servatives, who did not wish to stand still, much less to go back, but wanted to proceed very slowly. Quite a distinction here between this sort of conservative and the real reactionary who was trying to restore the Puritan theology and the Puritan church of ante-Revolutionary days. Dr. Brazier himself was probably, in his latter years at least, not quite as advanced as his congregation. I think they all loved and respected him, and took up the new views and what was then the modern theology rather faster than he did. During his pastorate two very important events took place. The old church on North Street, which had served the Society so well through the depression caused by the Revolution and the War of 1812, and which was endeared to the parishioners by so many memories, at last became unsafe. At a great meeting in 1834, to hear a eulogy on Lafayette, when the church was very crowded, there were ominous creakings of timber and settling of floors, and the next day an exami- nation showed that the church had really be- come unsafe. A committee was appointed at
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once, of which Colonel Benjamin Pickman was chairman, which, curiously enough, met at his house in the same room where the members of the church had met with his grandfather in 1772 for the organization of the church. Work was at once begun looking toward the erection of a new meeting-house, and a building committee was appointed, consisting of Gideon Tucker, George Peabody, John W. Rogers, John C. Lee, George Wheatland, Putnam I. Farnham, and Captain Allen Putnam. They purchased the fine lot of land on Essex Street, and pro- ceeded to erect the beautiful church which we now have - an adaptation of early English Gothic, built of rough granite; a very excellent and beautiful example of a type of building very common at the time, but of which most of the other examples have disappeared. The old stone church on Church Green in Boston very closely resembled it. It is interesting to com- pare costs now and then. The land cost $6,758, the building a little over $22,000, and furniture, fencing, trees, organ, and bell brought the to- tal cost up to $32,509.36. Of this, $24,000 was raised by subscription, and fifty-one of the pews were sold on the day of the dedication for enough to defray the entire cost of the church. It was dedicated on June 22, 1836.
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The other great event during the period of Dr. Brazier's settlement was the foundation of the Barton Square Church. This was really a secession from the original First Church of a considerable part of its parish, who were more advanced in their theology than the rest of the old First Church. They desired to settle the Reverend Henry Colman. When the majority of the First Church declined to do so, the more advanced members of the congregation with- drew and formed the Independent Congrega- tional Church of Barton Square. A very con- siderable number from the North Society joined them, greatly to the grief of Dr. Brazier. Still the number of seceders was not sufficiently great really to affect the prosperity of the Society, and it continued to flourish. In 1845 Dr. Brazier's health began to fail, and he went to visit a friend in Charleston, South Carolina, hoping that the change of climate would be a benefit to him; and there he died, February 26, 1846.
Almost immediately the church invited the Reverend Octavius Brooks Frothingham to become its minister. Dr. Frothingham was a brilliant preacher and an intellectual leader in the denomination, rather advanced in his views, and the church took on several new forms of
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activity. It was at his suggestion and wish that the vestry in the rear of the church was built. I have always considered that the death of Dr. Brazier and the coming of Mr. Frothing- ham was the real turning-point in the church history from that of an old established New England parish church to that of a modern religious society. After eight years, on April 9, 1855, Mr. Frothingham resigned, to accept the pastorate of a large church in Jersey City.
The North Society now called Reverend Charles Lowe and he was installed in September, 1855; but in less than two years, owing to the fail- ure of his health, he resigned on July 28, 1857.
June 5, 1859, Reverend Edmund B. Willson was installed as minister, and began a long and useful service which ended only with his death in 1895. Mr. Willson took a deep interest in all public affairs of the community as well as in the church. When the Civil War came, he felt it to be his duty to do his part, and accompanied the 24th Regiment as its chaplain, serving for over a year. It is difficult to speak of matters within the memory of those now living with the same freedom with which one can discuss the earlier history, but I think it is no exaggeration to say that during Mr. Willson's pastorate the church played a useful and proud part in the life
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of the community. In our denomination we have very few organized denominational chari- ties, very little organized missionary work, and perhaps for that very reason the enthusiasm which in other denominations goes to building up the church organizations, in ours is expended for the benefit of the community at large. I do not for a moment belittle the good and useful work that members of other societies in this city have done, but I feel that much of the success of the charitable and educational work done in Salem from 1860 onward has been due to the financial support and, what is more important, the personal work of members of the North Society. Mr. Willson himself set a val- uable example in the educational work in the support of the Essex Institute, then the leading cultural force in the city, in which he was always very active. In the Salem Fraternity, which was developing, nearly half a century ahead of most of its imitators, work among the boys of the street in the hope to make them better citizens, he was most active, and in practically all the charitable work of the city, he took part. You will find the members of his Society serving faithfully on boards and committees and giving generously according to their means. It is a proud record.
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Of the last twenty-five years of the Society, with which I have been personally acquainted, and which many of you remember probably even better than I do, I do not propose to speak except for purposes of record. As Mr. Willson grew older, he felt that he was unable to do the detail work which the parish properly needed, and the Reverend George D. Latimer was in- vited to assist him, and at Mr. Willson's death became the pastor of the church. Mr. Latimer resigned in May, 1907, and in the following autumn the Society chose Reverend Theodore D. Bacon as pastor. When the great war broke out, Mr. Bacon, emulating Mr. Willson, asked for leave of absence that he might go to the front. It was, of course, granted, and once again the pastor of the North Church was with the soldiers of his country.
During the last ten years of the Society's history it became increasingly evident that new problems were facing us. The population of Salem was changing rapidly. The Protestant population was distinctly declining, and inter- est in the church, if it was to be kept up, must be fostered along more modern lines. At the same time that the North Church was begin- ning to feel this, the First Church was faced by difficulties of another sort. Its house, on
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the historical site where the church had first been founded, had become practically unfit for preaching because of the noise from the adja- cent streets. Its building was entirely unfitted for any necessary expansion, and it was appar- ent to all that if the society was to survive, it must move. It was ridiculous to contemplate building a new church in Salem, and it was recognized by the thinking people in both societies that the fine, beautiful, and well- situated building of the North Society could be made a useful working church by combining with the parish of the First, which had many active enthusiastic members; and with the large amount of money to be obtained by the sale of their property, much more could be accom- plished. On the part of the congregation of the North, there was never any doubt that it was the proper thing to do. There was naturally some discussion as to just how the result could be best brought about; but, the historical as- sociations clustering around the first hundred years of the First Church being so great, there was never any doubt, proud as the North was of its own name and history, of the wisdom of adopting the name of the older branch of the Society.
The union has now been accomplished, and
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the North is equally proud of the history of the First Church down to the time of the separation in 1771. Of its own history as an independent organization from 1771 to 1923, it is deservedly proud, and on this occasion of the close of the third century since the original gathering of the Church, it looks forward, with its fellow mem- bers of the old First Church, to centuries of future usefulness.
THE BACKGROUND OF THE PURITAN MOVEMENT AN ADDRESS BY REVEREND HENRY WILDER FOOTE SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS, JUNE 2, 1929
THE BACKGROUND OF THE PURITAN MOVEMENT
Y YOU have asked me to sketch the back- ground against which to place the Puritan settlers who three hundred years ago organized this First Church in Salem. That I gladly do, though I am only too conscious that adequate performance of the task calls for a far more thorough knowledge of the seventeenth-century England than I possess, and for more time than you would be prepared to listen. But let me at least suggest certain considerations which may lead to a better understanding of the men who came hither, and of the motives which brought them. We cannot fairly judge any men of an- other epoch than our own without some know- ledge of the age and land in which they lived, of the modes of thought then dominant, of the political and economic conditions which affected them. In such knowledge alone is the key that explains those things in their character, their actions, or their utterances which puzzle us, or which we are inclined to condemn.
Such knowledge is peculiarly important in the
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case of the Puritans, who, though they were of our own blood, are now separated from us by immense changes in thought and in ways of living. The New England of one hundred years ago was far nearer to them than we are, both in sympathy and in mode of life. Perhaps in that fact, and in the lack of acquaintance with some of the details of their history brought to light by modern historians, quite as much as in the natural desire of men to exalt their own an- cestors, lies the explanation of the somewhat undiscriminating laudation of the Pilgrims and the Puritans which characterized the oratory and the historical writing of that period. To-day the pendulum has swung far in the other direc- tion. It is the present fad in certain circles to heap upon the Puritans quite as undiscriminat- ing abuse, to parade such unsavory episodes as have been disinterred, to speak of Puritanism as synonymous with whatever is narrow and bigoted, with little regard to the conditions of thought and life which the early settlers brought hither or which were forced upon them in the new land. It is high time that the reputation of the Puritans was rehabilitated, and I am quite convinced that any fair-minded study of them, when set against the background of their age, will reveal them as sturdy, independent, intel-
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ligent, and high-minded men, who represented a cross-section of much that was best in the England of the early seventeenth century, and who have made by far the most important con- tribution to American civilization made by any single group of people who have ever come to this country.
It is the fashion to speak of Puritanism as a peculiar phenomenon which arose in England in the sixteenth century, which was engaged in a struggle for dominance for a hundred years, causing the Civil Wars of the Cromwellian period, and falling into a decline after the Restoration, though perpetuated in New Eng- land throughout the eighteenth century. But English Puritanism is in reality only an example of an attitude toward life which comes re- currently to the surface all through Christian history. The early Christian Church, for ex- ample, exhibited to the pagan world many of the characteristics of what we call Puritan- ism. The early Christians discouraged luxury as enervating, and extravagance as misuse of money. They regulated their conduct by a higher standard of morality than that which prevailed in the society about them. They were opposed to many of the popular pastimes of the Roman world as wasteful or degrading.
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Their worship was very simple and unadorned, both because they could not afford the splendor of the pagan temples and because it was iden- tified in their minds with superstitions which they rejected. And they were regarded with sus- picion or hostility because many of their ideas seemed dangerous to the established order of society. And in the Middle Ages the same spirit recurs. It is exhibited by the early Franciscans. The great monastic order of the Cistercians, at least in its earlier years, refused to build towers for its churches, or to adorn them with stained glass, or to build more elaborately than was necessary, because the Cistercians held that such extravagance tended toward corruption. And much of the spirit of Puritanism was manifested in England by Wycliffe and his followers in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The Puritans of the seventeenth century, in Eng- land and this country, were but a particular and local expression of a way of life which has thus been a constantly recurring phenomenon, and which has commonly represented what was best and finest in contemporary Christianity.
Again, it is necessary to remember that English Puritanism was not simply a religious phenomenon. It inevitably had political and economic roots as well. The Reformation in
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England had a political coloring in far greater degree than the reform movements on the Con- tinent. Henry VIII had no religious sympathy with Luther, but for personal and political ends desired to be rid of Papal control and to set himself up as head of the Church of England. Throughout his reign, except for the substitution of his supremacy for that of the Pope, the church remained, to all intents and purposes, much as it had been, both in faith and in worship. The first English Book of Common Prayer was not produced until Edward VI came to the throne, only to be suppressed during the unhappy but brief reign of Mary Tudor. Even under Eliza- beth, though the Protestant religion was defi- nitely established, the church retained many characteristics of the old faith, and Elizabeth used it as a potent instrument of political control.
Throughout the sixteenth century, while Eng- land was being transformed by the cultural in- fluences of the Renaissance which then be- latedly impinged upon her life, there was also a steadily growing influx of thought from the re- formed countries on the Continent, giving new life to the long-suppressed but not extinct ideas which Wycliffe and his Lollard preachers had set going more than a century earlier. Under
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Edward VI, the earlier Protestants had worked in vain to prevent Mary Tudor's succession to the throne; and when, after Elizabeth's succes- sion, they were joined by the English refugees from the Marian persecutions, who flocked back from the Continent, they sought with increasing urgency to press the ideas of John Calvin upon the attention of England. These would-be re- formers, still within the English Church, became known as Puritans in the fifteen-sixties, because their demand was for a "religio purissima," a religion purified from the lingering abuses of earlier days which still tainted English church life. Their fear of the Catholic Church and dis- like of Catholic usages received fresh stimulus from the influx of Huguenot refugees from France after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and of Dutch refugees from the Spanish cruel- ties in Holland.
But their agitation for further reforms in the Church of England seemed to the Queen to have a strongly political tinge. And in truth the Puritans were also the political progressives of the day. For this reason, as well as on religious grounds, they were subject to constant persecu- tion by methods which a modern historian has called "as relentless and as unscrupulous as those of the Inquisition." The Puritans endured
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Elizabeth, for they knew that she could not live forever, and, after all, she did represent Protes- tantism; but they hoped for better things after her death. That hope was speedily disappointed by James I, who promptly threw away his great opportunity of keeping a united Church of England, which a sagacious statesman would have seized by granting the very moderate requests of the Puritan party for reforms. Instead, the new monarch threatened to harry the Puritans out of his kingdom if they would not conform, and he soon gave evidence of in- tending to govern by autocratic power. Thence- forth, during his reign and that of Charles I, the political and the religious elements of Puritanism were inextricably intermingled. The Puritan party became that of the people, sternly resolved to maintain and to advance the liberties slowly won from the crown through previous centuries, in opposition to the Stuart tyranny which con- stantly used the ecclesiastical establishment as an engine for concentrating all power in the monarch. The Puritans, in a word, represented the party of political liberty and progress as against that of autocracy and reaction; and many Puritans came to this country in the dec- ade between 1630 and 1640 because they saw no hope of political reform in England, but be-
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lieved that here they could establish a common- wealth more to their liking.
It is highly significant that the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Company committed them- selves to migrating only after the solemn agree- ment entered into at Cambridge, England, on August 26, 1629, that the whole government of the new colony should be first, "by an order of court, legally transferred and established to remain with us and others which shall inhabit upon the said Plantation." They held their charter under the crown, of course, but they took good care that it should cross the ocean with them and that they should have the affairs of the colony in their own hands so far as that could be contrived. That policy was but plain common sense, and it was also part and parcel of their political theory which they fain would have put into effect in England.
It is, of course, a mistake to suppose that they came intending to establish a democracy. That conception was still beyond the horizon of sober-minded, practical men of that day. Those who migrated, like those who stayed at home, held to the social distinctions to which they were accustomed. They expected the govern- ment to be centred in the ruling group provided for by their charter - in an oligarchy of the
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experienced and capable. But the actual condi- tions which developed in the colony soon com- pelled a yielding of the franchise to an increasing number of settlers.
Few things in the Puritan Commonwealth have been more criticized than the limitation of the franchise to church members, and the con- trol of church membership so that, as late as 1660, only one man in six or seven in the colony could vote. But it should be remembered that that was a far larger proportion of adult males than could vote in England for many decades to come, and that in the old country Catholics and Dissenters were long disfranchised. And if church membership seems to us an absurd basis for the political franchise, it must also be remem- bered that the only obvious alternatives were qualifications of rank, as determined by birth, or of property holding. The qualification of church membership was, in intent, an attempt to base the franchise on character, by admitting to the vote only men of tried intellectual and moral standards. As a method it broke down, but in theory it was not wholly unreasonable.
The economic factors also necessarily entered, in no small degree, into the calculations of the Puritans. For many people, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, England was a difficult
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place in which to earn a living. The great in- crease of wealth and luxury in the preceding century had brought hardships to multitudes. The rich, the nobility, the court, were extrava- gant in dress, in housing, in luxury beyond any- thing ever known in England before, often aping the prodigality and corruption of continental courts of the Renaissance. But the rapid decline in the purchasing power of money had brought hardship to people of moderate means with fixed incomes; the poor were very numerous; un- employment was widespread, either because England was overpopulated for its economic resources as then developed, or because drastic economic changes had displaced large numbers of workers; and land, the chief investment for capital and the object most desired by the dis- possessed, was scarcely to be obtained. Condi- tions bore very hardly upon the people of small or no property. Among the "Reasons for New England," drafted by John Winthrop, in which the arguments for the venture are carefully set down, he writes:
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