USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Medway > Fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the Village Congregational Church, Medway, Mass., Friday, Sept. 7, 1888 > Part 5
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Rufus A. Harlow
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VILLAGE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, MEDWAY, MASS.
HISTORICAL DISCOURSE,
BY THE PASTOR,
REV. RUFUS KENDRICK HARLOW.
AND THE LORD SAID UNTO MOSES, " WRITE THIS, FOR A MEMORIAL IN A BOOK."- Exodus xvii : 14, f. c.
T WO facts were to be perpetuated by this record, viz. : an achievement in the past, a promise for the future. Among the numerous texts that would be appropriate for this occasion I have selected this, partly because no one else, so far as I know, has ever used it for a similar service ; chiefly because it seemed to me well suited to the occasion. Every church anniversary rehearses achievements in the past - re- peats promises that secure the future; and while the hour is chiefly occupied with the recital of what is past, we are all the while conscious, as the story goes on, that it is but a grand and signal fulfillment of the promise on which the church's hope and life rest.
In grateful recognition of the loving providence of God that has blessed us as a people, we meet today to commemo- rate the fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the Village Church in Medway. It is a time of reminiscence. Most that we have to say refers to what is past. Yet as we look back- ward, as we look around, as we look forward, the same light makes each region alike luminous ; the light that shines from the gracious promise of the church's Lord and Master : " Lo ! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."
By request of the Committee of Arrangements it has devolved on me to gather up and arrange such facts in the
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history of this church for fifty years, as will be of interest to us and of value to those who come after us, serving alike as a memorial of God's loving kindness to His people, and a guaranty of successes yet to be achieved through His alliance. There is no obscurity enveloping the origin of this church. It has no records written in the old colonial style, with the quaint abbreviations and lawless use of capitals, that add a fascination to ancient documents. Men and women are liv- ing who joined hearts and hands in its formation, and whose memories retain the leading events in its history. Thus our task is simplified, and is one of selection rather than creation - the statement of facts instead of the announcement of con- jectures. In this work, in addition to the use made of the records of the church, we have drawn upon the published history of our town when it has served our purpose. We have also availed ourselves of those unpublished traditions, respecting men and things, that are written in the memories of contemporaries- records that are fading out each year, and that will ere long have vanished.
It is fitting at the outset to notice briefly the condition of things in this village prior to the movement which resulted in the formation of a church. As early as 1826-7 Dr. Ide (to whose parish this territory belonged) frequently held re- ligious services Sabbath afternoons at 5 o'clock in the village school-house. As his home was a sort of theological semi- nary, at that time, for the training of candidates for the minis- try, these young men were frequently permitted to exercise their gifts in practice upon this people - services which, it is charitable to believe, were somewhat better than nothing. About the same time a Sunday-school was started for the children who could not easily attend the Second Parish school. The session opened at 9 o'clock Sabbath mornings, and closed in season for the teachers to reach public worship at the West Parish. The good doctor made himself felt in the school by frequently meeting the teachers on Thursday even- ings and expounding the lesson for the next Sabbath. Among those who were superintendents, Mr. Charles Wheeler
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and George W. Hunt, afterward Deacon, are remembered with interest. Mr. Orion Mason, the elder, Sanford Horton, Mrs. James B. Wilson, Mrs. Dr. Brown, and Misses Eliza B. Fisher, Polly Fisher, Susan Thompson, Polly Wood, Eliza Fisher, and Eleanor Metcalf, served as teachers. At this time the religious status was not very encouraging. I am told by one who came here to reside in 1831 that out of a population of 200 there were only three men and ten women, so far as he knew, who were professing Christians - five per cent only of the population.
In 1831 Mr. Abijah Baker, a native of Franklin, who had recently graduated from Amherst College, opened a classical school in this village for advanced scholars. Although the school had a brief existence it exerted a lasting influence. Mr. Baker was an earnest Christian, as were many of his pupils from adjacent towns, and a new religious interest began to be felt in the community. Social meetings were held in the homes of the people with good results. Who knows but this Christian teacher was the remote originator of this church?
1838 was a year of events in Medway Village. During the latter part of 1836 a cellar had been dug and the granite foundations for the new meeting house laid. Then winter took possession, snow-drifts filled the open basement, and the men, who are well along in life today, remember that as boys they leaped from the topmost stones and buried themselves in the deep whiteness below. It was the first and last time that a veritable snow-drift got into the vestry. There may have been times, later on, when the spiritual atmosphere therein possibly suggested snow. The meeting house was commenced the next season, but was not completed till the early summer of 1838. The dedication occurred on the 15th day of June. The history of the preacher of the dedication sermon added especial interest to the occasion. He was a Medway-born boy, but by his own confession was not the sort of boy that the average Sunday-school book selects for a prospective minister. "I was a wild, heady, reckless youth," he says of himself, " delighting in hunting, fishing, trapping,
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and in rough athletic sports which tended to invigorate my constitution but added nothing to my mental or moral improvement." It is remembered that his father some- times uttered the prophesy that his son would be a minister, but as the prophesy was evidently inspired by an overdose of old Jamaica gin or some other kindred spirit, it was only noticed and remembered because of the incongruity it sug- gested. Joel Hawes a preacher ! We can imagine that the saints of Medway considered it a profanation to connect the name of such a reckless youth with the sacred office.
But Joel Hawes did become a preacher, whose record any man might covet, and whom any town might be proud to claim as a son. So far as numerals can give results of ministerial service, this we have as the record of his 44 years' ministry : He added to his church in Hartford, Conn., 1,681 persons. Among these were 37 candidates for the ministry, of whom 7 became missionaries. In his fiftieth year he delivered the first sermon that was ever preached in this house, from Psalm xciii : 5 : " Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, forever." 1
It is a noticeable fact that the movement for the estab- lishment of religious ordinances here originated among the business men of the place, who, although they had made no profession of personal piety, yet so greatly respected religion and appreciated the value of its institutions to a community that in 1836 they set about collecting funds for the erection of a meeting house. Some of them contributed very gener- ously for this purpose. The name that they adopted at their organization - viz., " The Evangelical Congregational Society in Medway Village" - shows that the truth to which they had listened under the ministry of Rev. David Sanford, Sen.,
' For the only record of the date of the dedication, as well as for the text of the sermon, I am indebted to a little memorandum book, which contains the names of the preachers and their texts, for eleven years after the opening of the meeting house. It was kept by "Aunt Polly Wood," who was a study in character, ubiquitous and useful, a walking encyclopædia of facts and dates of village history, and who, true to her mission, comes back from the dead, so to speak, to tell us these facts not otherwise obtainable.
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and afterward of Dr. Ide, had gained their respect and intel- lectual allegiance. As I was reviewing the initial steps in this movement with Mr. Milton Sanford, not long before his death - who, although the youngest of this company of men, was one of the most deeply interested in the movement (an interest which he continued to manifest by tangible tokens to the end of his life)- I asked him why the origi- nators of the enterprise were so strenuous that the preaching here should be of the evangelical type. He replied, " Because that is the only kind that succeeds." "And why does it succeed?" I inquired. With a characteristic shrug of the shoulders and twinkle of the eye he replied, " We will discuss that at some other time." This testimony of a shrewd busi- ness man to the conspicuous success of evangelical doctrine, I think, is worthy of mention and remembrance.
As the feasibility of the project became more and more apparent, Mr. Sanford was selected to inform Dr. Ide of the intention of the village people to colonize from his parish and start a new enterprise. Rev. Alexis Ide, then a boy, tells of his surprise at seeing young Sanford drive up to his father's door one day and enter, and his greater surprise at the length of the interview. When Mr. Sanford left after a two-hours' conference, Alexis hurried in to inquire the object of the visit. His father told him that the village people were think- ing of forming a new church in their part of the town. "Will they do it?" he asked. "I think they will," the doctor replied ; "Milton Sanford is full of it."
With his characteristic wisdom and unselfishness the good doctor indorsed the movement, although foreseeing that it would take from him a company of firm and faithful supporters, whose loss would be keenly felt. On the Sabbath succeeding the organization of this church it is remembered that Dr. Ide preached from the text, "Hitherto the Lord hath helped us," thus encouraging himself and his people in their conscious loss with the memory of God's goodness in the past. Dr. Ide was always most cordial in his interest in this new church and its pastor - an interest that was heart-
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ily reciprocated. I am told that at every communion season during his entire pastorate Rev. Mr. Sanford prayed for the mother church and its revered pastor.
The next event in order was the organization of a church. On the 7th of September, 1838, a council was convened for this purpose, consisting of the following representatives of the neighboring churches : Second Church in Medway, Rev. Jacob Ide, D.D .; Deacon Daniel Nourse, delegate. First Church in Medway, Rev. Sewall Harding, pastor ; Bro. Paul Daniels, delegate. Church in Franklin, Bro. Caleb Fisher, delegate. Village Church, Dorchester, Rev. David Sanford, pastor ; Bro. James Burt, delegate. Dr. Ide was chosen moderator, and the council proceeded to examine the creden- tials of the persons desiring to be organized into a church. Thirty-one brought letters of dismission from the Second Church, West Medway ; two presented certificates of mem- bership from the Presbyterian church in Tobes Keigh, Ire- land; and one, Mrs. Zebial Leonard, presented herself for admission on profession of faith. The council voted to or- ganize these thirty-four persons into a Church of Christ. Their names are as follows :
Orion Mason.
Abigail H. Partridge.
Clark Partridge.
Clarissa W. Fay.
Stephen J. Metcalf.
Edena Sanford.
John Chesmut.
Julitta Allen.
Jane Chesmut.
Meletiah White.
Charles Wheeler.
Mary H. Fuller.
Mary W. Wheeler.
Sally C. Wilson.
Zebial Leonard.
Louis Fisher.
Susan Thompson.
Judith Mason.
Esther Ruggles.
Nancy R. Bullard.
Tamar W. Mason.
Lydia Fuller. Hannah Metcalf.
Elmira A. Bullard (Cutler).
Sarah B. Metcalf.
Persis A. Hixon.
Mary H. Walker.
Hannah Partridge.
Louis R. Partridge.
Sarah A. Harding. Adeliza Harding (Clark).
Eliza Bullard (Garman).
Sebrina B. Bullard.
Nancy Wheelock.
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The service of public recognition was in the following order : Introductory Prayer and Sermon, by Dr. Ide; Prayer and Organization of the Church, by Rev. David Sanford ; Right Hand of Fellowship, by Rev. Sewall Harding, followed by the administration of the Lord's Supper.
Of these thirty-four persons uniting to form the church, nine are still living, viz. :
Stephen J. Metcalf. Mrs. Eliza (Bullard) Garman. Mrs. Tamar W. Mason. Mrs. Elmira (Bullard) Cutler.
Mrs. Sarah B. Metcalf.
Charles Wheeler.
Mrs. Adeliza Clark.
Mrs. Mary Wheeler.
Mrs. Sabrina B. Bullard.
The five first mentioned are still members, and, with the exception of Mrs. Mason, participate in the exercises of this day. We are glad to welcome Mr. Wheeler also, who has journeyed from New Mexico, N. Y., to enjoy the fiftieth birth- day of the church he helped to organize.
A meeting house having been built, and the church or- ganized, the next event in order was the procurement of a minister. This business, which in our day is attended often- times with much experimenting and vexatious delay, seems to have been a very simple matter for this new church. Presi- dent Hitchcock, of Amherst College, used to say to his students that he did not think it best for any of them to take a wife during their course of study, but it would do no harm for them to " mark a tree " here and there, with reference to future possibilities. Some such prudent course seems to have been adopted by the people of Medway, for before the church was organized, all had agreed in their own minds who would make them a desirable pastor; and when the meeting house had been dedicated and a religious society formed, they voted to call Rev. David Sanford, then pastor of the Vil- lage Church, Dorchester, to be their minister. Mr. Sanford was a native of Medway, son of Philo and Lydia (Whiting) Sanford, and grandson of Rev. David Sanford, predecessor of Dr. Ide in the pastorate of the Second Church, West Med-
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way - an office which he administered with signal ability for thirty-seven years. David Sanford, 2d, was born in Medway, August 28, 1801. He graduated from Brown University in 1825, and subsequently studied theology with Dr. Ide and in Andover Seminary.
The people of Medway, knowing the stock from whence the younger David sprung, and knowing him in his boyhood and youth (a knowledge which in some cases would not help the chances of a candidate for the ministry), and having learned of his success already achieved in pastoral service elsewhere, spent no time in candidating, for on the very day on which the church was organized a vote was passed to join with the parish in extending a call to Mr. Sanford. There was some hesitation on his part in accepting the invitation, owing to his delicate health, and he proposed to the committee that his installation be deferred for a time. The committec replied, " We wish you to be installed in order to give sta- bility to this new enterprise, even if your stay is necessarily interrupted."
The call was accepted, and on the 3d of October, 1838, the installation took place. The council consisted of the representatives of the following churches: Church in Wrentham, Rev. Elisha Fisk; Bro. P. Sanford, delegate. Church in Milford, Rev. David Long; P. P. Parkhurst, dele- gate. Church in West Medway, Rev. Jacob Ide ; Bro. A. Fuller, delegate. Church in East Medway, Rev. Sewall
Harding ; Bro. Oliver Philipps, delegate. Church in Sher- born, Rev. D. J. Smith ; Bro. J. Leland, delegate. Church in Holliston, Rev. J. Storrs ; Esquire Rockwood, delegate. Church in Medfield, Deacon S. Turner, delegate. Church in Upton, Deacon D. Fisk, delegate. Church in North Wren- tham, Bro. D. Cooke, delegate. First Church in Dorchester, Deacon S. Robinson, delegate. Church in Franklin, Bro. A. Hunting, delegate.
The council having indorsed the action of the church and parish, and approving the candidate, proceeded to install him. Dr. Codman preached the sermon and Rev. E. Fisk
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offered the installation prayer. The council met at the house of Luther Metcalf, Esq., which has many ecclesiastical asso- ciations in addition to its extended and interesting household history. The salesroom of Major Metcalf's cabinet shop, close by, served as a dining-hall, where one hundred guests were provided for. Mrs. Luther Metcalf, then in the prime of life, presided with courtly grace at this banquet, inaugurating that day a ministry in behalf of this church, which has been as various and excellent as it has been willing and tireless. Her · inseparable ally, "Aunt Eliza Fisher," served as chief executive - happy then, as always since, to serve the church that she loves, and of which, but for the delay of others, she would have been an original member - and who today, in her eighty- seventh year, has brewed coffee for you that I am sure you will declare was fit for the children of a king.
The cabinet shop of Major Metcalf deserves honorable mention today for its connection with the work of the Chris- tian church. I have not been able to ascertain the connection between this particular shop and the Christian ministry, but the fact remains that two of its apprentices became ministers, who have done valuable service in the cause of Christ. One of these, Cyrus Kingsbury, became a missionary to the Choc- taw Indians, and at the time of his death was senior member of that mission. Much as he accomplished in this work, it is quite likely that his most important service was done when, as an apprentice, God made use of him as the instrument for the conversion of a comrade, Joel Hawes. The event that contributed to this result is thus related :
Young Kingsbury was mowing in the field, and started up a rabbit. In his eagerness to catch it he came in contact with his scythe, and cut the main artery in one of his legs. The loss of blood brought him very near to death. Hawes watched with him, and seeing his Christian fortitude in the prospect of death, and hearing his words of counsel to him, was led to appreciate the value of a hope in Christ and to secure it.
Another apprentice, Sanford Horton, who is with us
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today, laid aside the saw and plane and chisel for the imple- ments of the student, and after graduation from Trinity College entered the ministry of the Episcopal Church, serving as rector of St. Andrew's Church in Providence, R. I., Grace Church in New Bedford, and St. Paul's Church in Windham, Conn. Since 1862 he has held the office of principal of the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire, Conn. In token of his worth his Alma Mater in 1869 conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity.
Perhaps they made pulpits in that cabinet shop, which served as object lessons to the boys. It is said that the first communion table used in this church, which is still extant, was a product of this shop.
The dinner in Major Metcalf's cabinet shop being finished, the council repaired to the new meeting house, where the installation services took place in the following order : Introductory Prayer, Rev. D. J. Smith, of Sherborn ; Sermon, Rev. J. Codman, D.D., of Dorchester ; Installing Prayer, Rev. Elisha Fisk, of Wrentham; Charge to the Pastor, Rev. Jacob Ide, D.D., West Medway; Fellowship of the Churches, Rev. Sewell Harding, East Medway; Concluding Prayer, Rev. David Long, of Milford.
This crowning event of the year 1838 completed the equip- ment of this enterprise for service. The newly-installed pastor had just observed his thirty-seventh birthday, and consequently took this young church upon his heart and hands in the prime of manhood. He came to this field of labor equipped by the training of the schools, and in addition by a sort of special course- not in the subtleties of German philosophy, but in active personal work. During his college course he had interested himself in Sabbath-school work in the suburbs of Providence, teaching each Sabbath in mission schools. He developed so much aptitude for this sort of service that he was selected, during one vacation in his seminary course, to act as agent for the Union Sunday-school Society in forming new Sunday-schools and introducing
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library and question books. With his characteristic energy he visited fifty-two schools in one vacation.
But a more desirable equipment was the experience he obtained in revival work during his seminary course. At one period it was his custom to walk out to Lowell, ten miles, Saturday afternoon, in company with a fellow student, Wm. G. Schauffler (afterwards missionary of the American Board to Turkey), to hold meetings Saturday evening, which were followed the next day by preaching in a hall by one of the professors of the seminary. These meetings were attended with marked results, and were continued for two or three years. Mr. Sanford was accustomed to visit the operatives in their boarding houses for personal conversation, some- times spending his vacation in this work. The converts dur- ing this period were reckoned by hundreds, and a new church was formed in consequence.
He subsequently labored in revival work in Bozrah, Conn., and adjacent churches, and as a result seventy joined the church at one communion, of whom several became ministers of the gospel. What an equipment such a service provided, for him who was to make the gospel ministry his life work! The title that was given him in connection with these services - viz., "the universal missionary "- does not seem inappropriate.
In 1828 Mr. Sanford was called to the pastorate of a newly-formed church in New Market, N. H., from which place, two years later, he was invited to the Village Church in Dorchester. Here he spent eight successful years, when he resigned to accept the call to Medway.
With a previous experience so varied and complete we are not surprised that, from the first, his labors among this people were so signally successful. During the first year a very extensive work of grace was enjoyed, embracing persons of all ages and social conditions, resulting in an addition of 69 persons to the church, carrying up the percentage of Christians to the whole population from 5 per cent in 1831
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to about 25 per cent in 1839. In 1842 a revival season added 30 to the church; in 1845, 22 ; in 1857, 20; in 1858, 22.
In 1868 a religious movement began in this conference, which was largely promoted by a series of Christian conven- tions held in the different churches, and conducted by repre- sentatives of the Y. M. C. A. of Boston. Henry F. Durant, . an able lawyer of Boston, founder of Wellesley College, was a most efficient ally in this work. In that year the con- versions in this community were estimated at 70; 49 persons united with this church, among whom were some of our prominent business men, who added strength and vigor to our Zion. Of these we mention Edward Eaton, George W. Ray, Orion A. Mason, and Wm. R. Parsons, all of whom have finished their service and gone to their reward.
October 5, 1863, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the installation of Mr. Sanford, was observed by public exercises in the afternoon and evening, in which the pastors of the neighboring churches participated. The members of the church and parish presented the pastor something over $200 as a token of their affectionate regard. On the 7th of March, 1871, as the infirmities of old age were becoming more oppressive, Mr. Sanford requested that he might be relieved from any further pastoral service. The church by vote granted this request, but expressed the desire that he should hold the relation of pastor emeritus, and the parish pledged him an annuity of $500 through life.
On the 18th of October, 1871, a unanimous call to this pastorate was extended to Rev. Rufus K. Harlow, a native of Middleboro, Mass., a graduate from Amherst College in 1865, and from Bangor Theological Seminary in 1868, who was at the time supplying the Congregational church in Belfast, Me. The call was accepted, and on February 13, 1872, Mr. Harlow was installed. Thus the second pastorate was grafted into the first, rather than coupled on to it.
After Mr. Sanford's release from active service he lived quietly among the people whom he loved, occasionally preach- ing for neighboring ministers in need of assistance, and now
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and then aiding his colleague at the communion service, until increasing feebleness confined him more and more to his home. In December, 1875, a more serious illness attacked him, and after a few days of suffering, which he bore with Christian patience, the release of death came, and at early daybreak on the 17th
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