USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > First Church of Christ in Pittsfield, Mass. : proceedings in commemoration of its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, Feb. 7th and 8th, 1914 > Part 3
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(*) Horace White: "Money and Banking," page 286.
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" In Federalism we see nothing but oppugnation to the principles of the Christian religion and to the genius and spirit of the Gospel." In February, 1807, the first step was taken to divide the church. A mu- tual council was asked for on the thirtieth of April, which was refused then, and later in the same sum- mer. In December, a large section of the church ap- plied to the Legislature for the organization of a new parish. In 1808, the Union Parish Church was or- ganized. In February, 1809, those who had left the First Church were laid under censure, "after a scene of altercation, lasting till near night, an exhibition of vehemence and passion which covered the friends of religion with the deepest blush of shame." These are the words of the Rev. William Allen. At this time the membership of the Union Parish consisted of forty persons, thirty-six of whom came from the First Church, seventeen men, later reduced to sixteen “ one having confessed his sin." Some were then under censure, and the rest were yet to be dealt with. The male members remaining were seventeen; females, sixty ; a proportion familiar in later times. Mr. Allen writes, August 1809, "In the First Church at the last communion nine males were present, forty fe- males. One or two males may yet withdraw. The only effect will be to make themselves liable to censure and if that is ineffectual, to excommunication with the others." An ex parte council was called in August, 1809, consisting of Rev. Mr. Collins of Lanesboro, Rev. Mr. Catlin of New Marlboro, Rev. Samuel Shep- ard of Lenox, and Rev. Dr. Alvin Hyde of Lee. An address was sent to them, from which I take two paragraphs. "An ex parte council, of which you were members, met in this town on the first day of August, in consequence of letters missive from the separating
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members of this church, who have for a long time been under its censure and suspended from its com- munion, as disorderly walkers and covenant breakers, with a view to exonerate them from the just censures of this church, and did vote, it was expedient to form another church here, and that the censure passed on such members should be no bar to their being admitted into the church, and they did appoint you, we are told, to come here and incorporate these censured members into another church. You have supported and encouraged these offenders in a clandestine man- ner for years past. You come here as promoters of sedition and rebellion in the church of Christ. Your procedure cannot help the cause of Federalism in this town and County which is its principal object, but will prove its overthrow, and bring it and yourselves into disgrace, and divide the church in this County, a ma- jority of whose members are believed to be Republi- cans, whilst you cast us out of your communion, they will cast you out of theirs." One of the charges brought against Rev. Thomas Allen was that he spent more time in the Sun printing office, writing editorials, than in his study, composing sermons, and was often seen in that office an hour after sunset on Saturday evenings. That was a total disregard of the fourth commandment. The biographer of Dr. Humphrey writes : " The sunset of Saturday was the hither bound of holy time. Then work ceased, and all were enjoined to lay aside worldly cares, and compose themselves for the worship of the following day." She describes the division thus: "The church was rent by a political convulsion. After seven years of division in separate churches, and much bitterness of feeling and recrimination, there was found to be a strong and genuine disposition to re-unite. Both pas-
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tors resigned. The two congregations came together under the old roof, and Dr. Humphrey was invited to take the task of promoting organic union, a difficult work. Neighborhoods and families had been involved in the long-standing and bitter quarrel, but under his judicious management, and by the exercise of patient energy and wise counsels. old wounds were healed and the spirit of harmony took the place of discord."
Church records are spicy reading. When the move was made to return to the First Church, it was not received graciously by them. The vote passed in church meeting, June 30, 1815, reads: "As they pro- fess repentance of their sin in leaving us in an irreg- ular manner, now, therefore, although retaining our persuasion that the foundation of the church of Union Parish was laid in error and irregularity, yet influ- enced by the desire of promoting the interests of the Gospel of peace, we vote that we will hereafter over- look, in our measures of discipline, the offence which has been acknowledged and will treat the church of Union Parish as a Christian church."
The Rev. Thomas Punderson was installed over the Union Parish Church in October, 1809. He came from Goshen, Conn., where he had studied theology with Rev. Asahel Hooker. Among his fellow students were Heman Humphrey and Noah Porter, whose only sister Mr. Humphrey married. Mrs. Humphrey was the first President of the Free Will Society, organized in August, 1819. Some of us remember her, an alert and vigorous old lady, living until 1868 in the house on the northeast corner of East and First streets, now occupied by Dr. Brace W. Paddock.
Now that we know the actors in the drama, I enter upon what Professor Harnack calls "unrestrained suppositions." We have seen that tradition has con-
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fused two revivals. Little is known of Mr. Punder- son, but I am inclined to think that tradition has con- fused the Litchfield County towns, and that if the prayer meeting idea came from Connecticut at all, it came with him from Goshen. Dr. Hyde of Lee was, of course, his friend, being a member of that ex parte council which ordained, installed, and later dismissed him. The prayer meeting was begun in Pittsfield in 1816 during Mr. Punderson's pastorate. One like it was begun by his friend Dr. Hyde in Lee nearly at the same time. In a letter dated January 4, 1819, Dr. Hyde writes : "On the morning of New Year's day we had a meeting for prayer and praise at the meeting house just as the sun rose, attended by nearly five hundred people. It was truly a solemn hour. The same has been our practice for several years."* His- torians have an axiom that "One fact is gossip and two are history." Here are two facts in Pittsfield and Lee. A son of this church, Rev. William W. Rockwell, Professor of Church History in Union Seminary, after much research says: "I am inclined to think it originated here." The idea may have orig- inated in Mr. Punderson's brain and heart. While history has forgotten him, tradition ascribes it to his native state. Certainly these men originated and fos- tered it in the two Berkshire towns. We may be very sure that, finding such an instrument ready to his hand, instituted to promote harmony, Mr. Punderson's fellow student, Dr. Humphrey, pastor of the re-united
(*) The late Marshall Foote of Lee used to say that he was taken as a child about twelve years old to the first meet- ing in 1818. Dr. Rowland, for many years pastor of the church in Lee, questioned the accuracy of the statement as it does not agree with Dr. Hyde's record of " several years."
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church, strengthened it in critical years, and that the Nettleton revival assisted his efforts.
The Rev. Dr. Edward Taylor of Binghamton, New York, born in Lee in 1821, wrote to that church in 1901: "One of the most spiritually fruitful instru- mentalities of my ministry has been the meeting on the morning of the New Year. I have attended eighty such, being taken to the first in my mother's arıns. Wherever I have been pastor, this service has been permanently established, and its three stout stitches of Praise, Prayer and Purpose have turned a good hem on many a year that would otherwise have raveled out." Dr. Taylor lived until 1902, not missing one of eighty-one meetings on New Year's Day in Lee and in thirteen churches which he served .* I know of only one of these which is not now held, Hinsdale. So far has the little candle lighted in Pittsfield thrown its beams. Dr. Llewellyn Pratt started a New Year's prayer meeting in North Adams, and afterwards in Norwich, Conn. The latter has been given up. The only other one of which I ever heard is in the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Albany, founded by New Eng- land people in 1829. This is held at six o'clock in the morning. I went once.
Our forefathers, like the Athenians, were very religious. New Year's Day was to them a season of searching self-examination, of stern resolution and re- newed consecration. Probably for these reasons they
(*) These churches were Hinsdale, Mass .; John Street Pres- byterian Church, Lansingburg, N. Y .; Kalamazoo, Mich .; South Congregational Church, Brooklyn, N. Y .; First Congregational Church, Binghamton, N. Y .; Norwich, N. Y .; Plymouth Church, Utica, N. Y .; Newark Valley, N. Y .; Greene, N. Y .; Cortlandt, N. Y .; Oswego, N. Y .; Whitney's Parish, N. Y .; and Susquehanna, Penn. I owe this information to Dr. Taylor's son, Mr. L. W. Taylor of Binghamton.
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selected that day for their town prayer meeting. Noth- ing with a political taint could have been chosen. But there were ardent souls in Pittsfield who were not satisfied with one sunrise prayer meeting. We owe to Mr. Robert C. Rockwell the discovery in the files of the Pittsfield Sun that a prayer meeting was holden in the Pittsfield Meeting House with fervour and holy zeal, at the rising of the sun-4.30 a. m .- July 4, 1825, and for three years thereafter. The contagion of example spread. The Berkshire Association, at their meeting in New Marlborough, November 9, 1827, recommended to the churches a religious observance of July Fourth-a good thought in itself-but accom- panied by the recommendation that the day be com- menced with meetings for prayer at sunrise. Since 1828, Pittsfield seems to have left the rising with the sun on the Fourth of July to a less religious rising generation.
During Dr. Todd's life the ministers of the town always sat in front on the deacons' seat. This was changed because it was thought that the laymen were overpowered by the galaxy of ministers, and would speak better if the clergy were scattered through the house. This custom has varied in recent years. No. tradition has come down to us of any special New Year's day. Mr. Gilbert West has attended these meetings since 1842, having missed but one in seventy- two years, on account of a funeral out of town. On his authority we know that the meetings in 1852 and 1853 were held in the hall of Burbank's old block over Cooley's store, which the old church was occupy- ing after the fire of January 9, 1851. In January, 1854, what did a New England Puritan community think of this Gothic roof which might be in the Eng-
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lish Berkshire? The rill has now grown into a river. The current moves so calm and deep that it leaves little history behind it.
Many people say that the special characteristic of this meeting is its atmosphere. A letter from a mem- ber of the Lee church describes this well. " The New Year's prayer meeting is one of our institutions, and has been held from time immemorial. It was origin- ally a sunrise meeting, but in these degenerate times it is held at the rational hour of eight. In former times families ate by lamp light, and the chapel was lighted in the same primitive way. Breakfasts were in vogue then, but a second cup of coffee was ready on the return from the meeting, and there were drop- pers-in of people who had driven from a distance to the service. It is a meeting always full, and men are always seen there who may not enter the chapel again for another year. Veterans come and reminisce, and young people are expected to be in attendance, no matter what the gaieties and late hours of the night before. The traditions of the meeting are cherished by generation after generation, and we hope it will never be discontinued."
Those of us who have been here long will always associate
" While with ceaseless course the sun"
and
"Great God, we sing that mighty hand"
with the greetings of neighbors and friends in the aisles and on the steps of this church. Deacon Dun- ham said in 1880: "Strangers and visitors in town express great delight in these meetings. I well recollect General Briggs' expression in regard to the first one he attended. He knew nothing of it until he came into the street and asked why the bell was
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ringing-there was but one-and was told it was for the New Year's prayer meeting of the town. He re- solved to attend, and doing so, was delighted. To him the idea of the whole town assembling at such a time and for such a purpose, was so good and so appropriate that he attended the meeting as long as he lived, and he was a man the people delighted to hear."
Of what significance has the meeting been all these years? No earthly commission can answer that ques- tion or estimate the value of the product. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Mrs. Stowe says in " Old Town Folks ": "The briefness of these periods and the inevitable gravitation of everybody back to earth has sometimes been mentioned with a sneer." Churches have died and towns degenerated in Massa- chusetts. Dr. Jenkins in his pastoral prayer used often to return thanks for the restraining grace which pre- vented us, so that we never had behaved as badly as we might. As a community, if we have not behaved as badly as we might, we have by no means lived up to high civic ideals or to our own best leadership. Individually, if once, before New Year's Day is over, the quick word has been checked and a more gracious one spoken; if once the Golden Rule has conquered David Harum's version, " Do to the other fellow what he would do to you, and do it first," the blessed law of habit has taken a new hold, and it is easier to do the generous and true thing later in the year.
" One of Pittsfield's cherished institutions." Why ? Because we believe-no, we go farther. In Jean In- gelow's words
"We know past all doubting truly,
A knowledge deeper than faith can dim,"
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that on the moral and religious qualities, represented however imperfectly, by such institutions as this, rests our only hope of the permanence of city, state and na- tion. Lord Haldane, speaking to the American Bar Association in Montreal last summer, said he had cross- ed the Atlantic to advocate for the three nations in their international relations, the moral rules enjoined by private conscience and the spirit of the community for which English has no word, but which the Germans call sittlichkeit; the system of habitual or customary conduct, ethical rather than legal, embracing all those obligations of citizenship which it is bad form or not the thing to disregard, the social penalty for which is being cut or looked at askance. Such a community spirit might rule here that a new citizen of Pittsfield should feel the surrounding pressure of this sittlichkeit so that an intuitive sense of moral obligation would lead him to present himself and his family before God and the assembly at the New Year's prayer meeting, and if he did not, he should realize the intangible but by no means unfelt sense of the community that such attendance is expected of him.
In the darkest days of Holland's struggle the Prince of Orange took for his motto: "Je maintien- drai"- I will maintain. We do not know the mean- ing of the word struggle. It may lie ahead. Some- times we seem to
"lightly hold
The prize which brave men died to gain."
But granite underlies New England yet, though loose gravel and shifting sand may be uppermost. The courage and endurance of Leyden and Plymouth can be relied upon when needed. "We will maintain " the faith of our fathers, living still, as represented by
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such institutions as Pittsfield's New Year's sunrise prayer meeting against attacks indifferent, scornful, insidious or stormy. When the thousand years of Canterbury and Winchester shall have been equalled and passed, and the sun rises on New Year's morning over the jewelled whiteness of our New England hills-ours just as much then as now-some one will be heard singing
"And here Thy name, O God of love, Their children's children shall adore,
Till these eternal hills remove,
And spring adorns the earth no more."
William V.W. Davis 9. 9.
AN APPRECIATION OF THE MINISTRY OF WILLIAM VAIL WILSON DAVIS
By CHARLES L. HIBBARD
The occasion and subject make it fitting I choose a text for this address. In the thirtieth chapter of Ezekiel, the thirty-third verse, we read: "And when this cometh to pass (lo, it will come) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them."
Some recent author, whose name and book escape me, has spoken of his principal character in this man- ner and I quote it as an appropriate foreword: " You had but to see him to know that he was not quite the ordinary man. There was something lofty and detached about his face. He was of those who are just one step ahead of their own generation. If he lived to be an old man, humanity would have caught up with him and he would die abreast of his times. All his life he had cherished the ineradicable conviction that Something was coming, Something Big and Beautiful and that Something Christ."
The twelfth minister of this church was the Rev. William Vail Wilson Davis. He succeeded the Rev. Jonathan L. Jenkins who had been here for fifteen years and whose resignation was, on July 25th, 1892, formally acted upon by an ecclesiastical council held pursuant to letters missive sent out from this church. The call to Dr. Davis was accepted by him in a letter
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received by the joint parish and church committee on Monday, September 4, 1893. The pastorate was thus vacant a little more than a year.
Dr. Davis was born on February 17, 1851, in Wilson, New York. He fitted for college at Willis- ton Academy in Easthampton and entered Amherst from which he graduated in the class of 1873. Im- mediately afterward, he went to Constantinople where he had received an appointment as professor in Robert College. After a year's work, he resigned and travelled extensively through the Oriental countries. This experience, though short in duration, had a profound effect upon his life, mental outlook and interests. Re- turning to America, he taught for a time in Amherst but, yielding to the deep spiritual suggestions and de- mands of his nature, he soon forsook the teacher's chair and began to study in Andover Theological Sem- inary from which he graduated in 1877. In Septem- ber of that year he was ordained to the ministry and immediately became pastor of the Franklin Street Con- gregational Church in Manchester, New Hampshire, succeeding Rev. Dr. W. J. Tucker, who was later Pres- ident of Dartmouth College. From this position he resigned in 1882 to accept the pastorate of the Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church in Cleveland, Ohio, then one of the largest and most influential churches in that state. Because of Mrs. Davis's health, he resigned this position after five years of most successful work in the midst of congenial surroundings and among cordial friends. The Union Congregational Church of Worcester next sought and received his services. His growing reputation as a scholar and preacher had preceded him and there he labored faithfully and suc- cessfully until this church sought and invited him to be its pastor and preacher. He was thus a little over
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forty-two years of age when he came to Pittsfield with his wife and their young family. He had just entered upon the period of middle life when his natural powers were at their best. Here for seventeen years he labored and gave of his best and, on the twenty-fifth day of August, 1910, left us in the full strength of his body and mind and seemingly with many long years of service before him.
This is a sketch in brief of the life of the man of whom I speak to-day, but it is the least and most unimportant side.
It now becomes my privilege to speak of him as preacher, as pastor, as citizen and as man. But how shall I analyse his personality and present the influ- ences which he gave forth in this church and commun- ity with justice and wisdom, his was so singularly an elusive personality and at times difficult to understand. Perhaps I shall do best and be most just if I briefly and fairly state the conditions under which he came into this church and the manner in which he met them.
When the pastorate became vacant, there was a division of sentiment which expressed itself forcibly in certain directions but never affected that sense of loyalty and devotion to the church as a whole which has been such a distinguishing characteristic of this people. Because of this condition of affairs a rather impersonal feeling of cordiality and responsiveness awaited any man called to fill the vacancy.
Dr. Davis had first to meet the test in the pulpit. This church had for fifteen years listened to Dr. Jenkins. His was a wondrous gift of graceful speech. Words flowed golden from his lips. There was a charm of diction rarely found, a perfect choice of word and phrase, a richness and mellowness of tone which delighted the ear. And all clothed the thought
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of an educated, cultivated, original thinker. To come into this pulpit, with the still lingering aroma of all this charm and inspiration about it, was no mean task or test. Yet Dr. Davis was equal to the task and testing. Perhaps he had not quite the charm of lan- guage of which I have spoken but his speech came strong, vigorous, fresh, impressive and distinguished by rugged eloquence and convincing earnestness. It, too, clothed no mean thought. The early training of the scholar and the teacher, perhaps better, the strong, natural, mental attitude showed vigorously in his pulpit and public utterances. To many at first his speech was difficult and hard to follow but not so to one who became accustomed to his enunciation or was attentive to the spiritual elements so markedly found in his addresses. He at once took front rank among our preachers and maintained that position to the end. He was no servile follower adopting the path hewn out by another. He did his own thinking. It is no easy task to stand in this pulpit Sabbath after Sabbath for seventeen long years and preach sermon after ser- mon without repetition or without loss of power. To be always in front of your congregation in spiritual and mental leadership is the true position of the suc- cessful minister, and this Dr. Davis always was. Many of his sermons were built about a skeleton of philos- ophy and full of philosophic phrases and ideas difficult for the lay mind to grasp, but no sermon ever here fell from his lips, which, understood, failed to uplift, encourage, lead on to God and the coming of His Kingdom here on earth. Viewed in the large aspect he was a mental giant and filled this pulpit with dig- nity, with honor and with power, a fit successor to the strong men who had preceded him. So great was this intellectual power that his field of activity might have
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been country-wide, but with inborn loyalty he saved for and gave to this church alone his best thought.
He had next to meet the test of social relationship. Here too he was judged by a standard exceptionally high, for his predecessor had a social charm, a personal magnetism and a quality of good fellowship rarely equalled. Naturally Dr. Davis could not be like an- other-he must be himself. His nature was not one which fell readily into close personal relationship. He came into our midst, established himself as a part of our community life, entertaining and being enter- tained, and forming immediate, close friendship with those who understood him and his longings but he was not very successful with those who made com- parisons. He was easily the foremost in all gather- ings and a master in the art of conversation-this through sheer force of intellect rather than charm of manner or thought.
The weakest element in the church at the time of his coming was its young people. Of this I speak with especial knowledge. Dr. Davis at once saw this weakness and rallied about him all of the boys and girls, the young men and young women. They came into the church in large numbers with fresh and vig- orous enthusiasm, with inherited loyalty to the insti- tution and with no prejudices. Dr. Davis's influence was immediate, strong and effective. The vigorous condition of this church to-day is largely due to that quick grasping of his opportunity and the steady, strong, uplifting leadership which he maintained to the end. It is probably true that we have not and cannot grasp the true measure of this influence. But I am not far wrong in saying that this was Dr. Davis's greatest
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achievement in this church, and one for which this people should not only honor him but be profoundly and eternally grateful.
And now I speak of him as a part of and a force in this community. He had a peculiarly sensitive and responsive nature. From the first, he was at home in these hills. Through the long summer days and the cold crisp months of winter, he walked abroad and drew in with every breath inspiration and enthusiasm. He was responsive to all of nature's moods. The jubilant notes of the birds, the slow, steady march up our mountain sides of life in the spring, the dying glories of our autumn foliage, the whispering winds in the pines, the waving grain fields, the sun-kissed waves of our mountain lakes, the deep blue of our June sky, the lazy drift of summer cloud, the ma- jesty and glory of the stars in their ordered courses, the hush of noon, the soft breath of night, even the fierce and rending crash of summer rain and fury of winter storm, all found in him a responsive lover. Each and every one of them was but evidence of the love, the gracious tenderness, the bounty, the majesty, the glory and the power of the great Creator with whom he came through these manifestations into close communion.
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