USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Beverly > First Parish Church, Unitarian, Beverly, Mass. a vol. of historical interest pub. in honor of the 275th anniversary of the founding of the church on Sept. 20, 1667 > Part 5
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I have been led further into this subject than at first con- templated, by the important bearing it was found to have on the early history of this parish,-entering largely into the opinions and feelings, the customs, habits, and experiences, of its people, involving the sacrifice of life of one at least, and disturbing the peace and jeopardiz- ing the lives of many, of its members. Its first minister, we have seen, was extensively implicated in the responsibilities, and connected with the scenes of persecution and horror, which arose amid the distractions of the time; and creditable as in some respects was his course in that day of severe trial, in others it required, if not censure, to be explained,
MRS. HALE'S NOBLE SPIRIT HELPED TO STAY THE DELUSION and, as far as might be, vindicated. The position of his wife through- out, and especially in the climax of the fanatical excitement, was most honorable to herself and her sex. May we not rejoice, with something of local and parochial pride, that one of the sorest plagues with which humanity was ever visited, should have been in no small degree stayed and turned back by the delicate hand, the gentle spirit, and recognized virtues of that noble, Christian woman? From examples like hers we
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may learn the great lesson, that there is no power on earth to be com- pared with rectitude and conscious virtue, either in resisting tempta- tion, and, as the strong language of Scripture has it, "in quenching the fiery darts of the wicked;" or in standing calm and firm, undaunted and unharmed, amid the tumults and rage of the people. And there are other lessons, which we of this age and all ages may well draw and apply with close self-application. They spring up and present them- selves at the most impartial review of the ground which we have just traversed. While we view with unqualified admiration the grand and lofty position taken and sustained by some, among them the leading and largest minds, in that war of spiritual elements ; whilst we admire, if possible yet more, the moral courage of those who suffered death, facing a cruel, wretched, and ignominious fate without dismay, meekly submitting themselves to the wrath of man and trusting to the mercy of God, who, they felt, knew and would attest the sincerity of their protested innocence,-not doubting, it might be and we trust was, that their posterity would not withhold from them the meed of simple justice and tender compassion,-while we behold this bright side of the picture,-for, notwithstanding the thick and dark clouds around, it was gloriously bright,-we must not, cannot, shut our eyes to that black one, from which issue ever-sounding voices of solemn warning. They warn us against the sin, the dangers, and evils of deception. No inquirer, though but moderately enlightend and candid, it seems to me, can doubt that gross deceit was the chief, I had almost said the sole, of the witcheries practised in those times that tried souls and witches together. Collusion went hand in hand with delusion. Mr. Parris, the minister of Salem Village, now known as Danvers, in which the proceedings against witches originated, unless awfully belied by con- temporary and subsequent accounts, was no inapt pupil in the school of the arch-deceiver; following, if not with equal steps, at no com- mendable distance,-
"The first
That practised falsehood under saintly show, Deep malice to conceal."
Then there were young girls and women, who, beginning with the practice of magic arts that were regarded innocent, quickly degen- erated into death-dealing ones. Whatever the palliating circumstances which may be arrayed in their favor, it is evident they were to no small extent possessed and actuated by the foul spirit of deception. Against that in its very beginnings, the evil, which, led on by it, they wrought,
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speaks trumpet-tongued to old and young, and to all of every age, say- ing, in the strong utterance of the poet, ---
"What a tangled web we weave, When we first practise to deceive ! Sincerity, thou first of virtues. Let No mortal leave the onward path, Although the earth should gape, And from the gulf of hell destruction cry, To take dissimulation's winding way."
We are warned also, by the memorable and tragic events alluded to and thus faintly sketched, against the perils and bad consequences of superstition and fanaticism. A great mistake it would be to suppose that these disturbing and dangerous causes had died out, or had ceased to operate. Existing tendencies, even in these modern times, show but too plainly that they need to be assiduously watched and guarded against. In respect to them, no less than to freedom, eternal vigilance is the price of security. If the beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water, which from the small stream soon grows to the torrent mighty to deluge, lay waste, and destroy; so fanatical passion may in the outset be the little fire which shortly kindles into a great conflagration, and becomes a vast, devouring element. "Of all things," says Burke, "wisdom is the most terrified with epidemical fanaticism, because, of all enemies, it is that against which she is least able to furnish any kind of resource." And the rationale of the matter is plain. Reasoning with passion, as such and alone, what is it but un- dertaking to reason with one both deaf and blind, that will not see or hear to reason ? Nothing can be more unsatisfactory and utterly vain. Therefore, while we admit freely the sacred obligation to keep our minds and hearts open to all of light and holy influence that may come from this world or another, and from all worlds, it becomes us to watch, with vigils always awake and active, against the passionate fires lighted and fed by superstition, fanaticism, or error of any sort, and to let our zeal for the truth, and the right even, be tempered by mod- eration, at the same time that it is, as it should be, ever-living and fervent.
But the storms of fanatical excitement, and of war with savages and civilized men, had subsided, when, in May, 1700, the primeval epoch of this parish was closed, and Hale, its first minister, sank peace- fully-honored, beloved, deeply lamented-to his final earthly rest ; yet not without leaving a posterity to bear up his name and nobly transmit his worth, some of whom we gladly welcome here to-day, to
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said in this commemorative service. He was succeeded, the following
THOMAS BLOWERS, THE SECOND PASTOR
year, by Thomas Blowers, who was highly esteemed for his learning and virtues, and particularly for his devotedness to the duties of his profession. When a plan was set on foot by some of the leading ministers of the province to consociate the churches, and thus curtail their individual freedom, Blowers stood up manfully among the fore- most to resist what he viewed, as we certainly do, an attempted usurpa- tion of ecclessiastical authority. That attempt, which then was ef- fectually foiled, was renewed early in the present century in our State, only to be again and alike unsuccessful. He also distinguished himself by sustaining the election of Leverett to the presidency of Harvard against strenuous opposers, who planted themselves mainly on the ground, that the incumbent of that office should be selected from the clergy, and not from the laity. By so doing, he did good and effective service, and likewise manifested a wise and true liberality. His de- parture, in the midst of his usefullness and the twenty-eighth year of his ministry, was felt and mourned as a heavy loss and bitter personal bereavement in this and the neighboring parishes. From the strong hold he had, on not only the respect but affectionate attachment of the generation with whom and for whom he lived and labored, of which the tradition, after the lapse of a century and a half, is still fresh among us, he appears to have been regarded, in a wide circle here and elsewhere, as a model minister of his time, loving and greatly loved. Chief-Justice Blowers, of Nova Scotia, long the oldest surviving grad- uate of Harvard, who died in 1842, at the age of a hundred years, was his grandson. His memory is brought visibly, as it were, before us by his legacy of one of the most ancient silver pieces of the communion service, which, including precious memorials of other worthy donors, you have done well to spread at this time on the Lord's table, guarded on either side by those whose office it is to keep them and distribute their consecrated contents; thus recognizing simple truth, not mere fancy, in the words,-
"The saints below and saints above But one communion make ;"
and linking memories of departed benefactors and friends with the remembrance of him, whom, above all that have lived on earth, we are bound to remember with grateful reverence and love,-The Lord and Master who loved us. with a love stronger than death.
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EARLY BENEFACTORS: JOSHUA FISHER AND ISRAEL THORNDIKE
The parish, too, has from time to time had its benefactions to re- collect and acknowledge. Every one, however limited his means or small his contribution, who contributes of his substance toward up- holding it and enlarging its usefulness, is to be accounted its benefac- tor. Still more is he such, and deserving to be mentioned as such, who, however humble, by worth of character and disinterested exertion, promots, in the ways the most effectual, its prosperity and efficiency. Pecuniarily the largest, and by his example among the best, of its benefactors, is Joshua Fisher, eminent as a physician and civilian, a president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, State senator, founder of the leading charitable institution of this town, which is named after him, and of the professorship of Natural History in Harvard Univer- sity, also bearing his name: withal, through a very long life, taking a large and liberal interest in all subjects,-religious, political, social, or of any kind that related to the good of individuals and society. Connected with him in establishing, during the earlier part of my ministry, a parochial fund, was Israel Thorndike,-who, born here in obscurity, illustrated in his course the equal right of all our people to aspire and strive for the highest positions of affluence or power ; having, from small beginnings, become a merchant-prince, and ac- cumulated at his decease one of the largest fortunes then possessed in New England. His great abilities, manifested in public and private spheres, were extensively known and freely admitted. While his memory will be perpetuated in the University by his rare and valuable gift of the Ebeling Library, it will also be cherished as that of a gen- erous supporter and friend of this his native parish.
JOSEPH CHAMPNEY, THE THIRD PASTOR
Following the second pastor were three in succession bearing the christened name Joseph, on whom the mantle-of wisdom, prudence, purity, and fidelity to all relations-of the son of Jacob seems to have fallen. The first was Joseph Champney, whose ministry is the longest as yet in this parish, having been protracted to its forty-fourth year. Mild and retiring in his disposition, he did not attain marked promi- nence of reputation and influence. But being affectionate, earnest, devoted to the welfare of his people, a warm, mutual regard and at- tachment from the first sprang up between him and them, which lasted and strengthened through their long connection, and followed him to
COL. ROBERT HALE
his grave. If deficient to a degree in energy of character, he had in
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Robert Hale, the grandson of the first minister, and his own college classmate and friend, a strong right arm, a veritable tower of strength, on which to lean amid all his parochial duties and responsibilities, who was at his side, a powerful lay colleague, from the beginning to almost the close of his long ministry. Rarely, here or anywhere, has arisen the man, who, more than Hale, has left a deep, broad mark of versatile ability on the community in which, from birth to death, he lived. His precocity is sufficiently evinced by the fact, that, in his sixteenth year, he was appointed master of the grammar school of the town. "Facile princeps," meaning natural and ready leader, would seem to have been written on his forehead at his very birth. It is positively bewildering to run through the list of the various and multiplied offices-profes- sional (for he was bred a physician), civil, military, ecclesiastical- which he discharged; yet with an unfailing, never-faltering method, sagacity, and efficiency. Whether engaged in municipal offices, or in superintending the schools and watching over the interests of educa- tion, or in the concerns of the church and parish, or in those of the county of which for some time he was high sheriff, or in military af- fairs (having had command of a regiment, and taken a leading part under Pepperell in the siege and reduction of Louisbourg), or in financial matters, or in business of the province (having served many years as a member of the legislature and of the governor's council, or in important negotiations intrusted to him between this and other provinces),-in all he was alike eminent and influential. So that when he drew up the rules for seating the congregation, already quoted, and the otherwise delicate duty devolved on him of providing the upper- most seat for himself, such was the general deference to his character and position as to free him from embarrassment in so doing. There were none to question or dispute his full right and title to the first place, either under that or any previous code framed for the same purpose.
For several of the later years of Mr. Champney's pastorate, the subject was much agitated of replacing the second meeting-house with a third. At length the work was commenced and pursued in good earnest. The temple-which had stood on this spot and spread its sheltering wings over three generations of worshippers, and been to many, we trust, the house of God and gate of heaven-was taken down, and this in which we are now gathered was erected in its stead ; public worship, meanwhile, being conducted under a large tree near the pastor's residence, at the easterly end of the common. This house, at the beginning, was decidedly in advance of its predecessor, in appear-
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ance and accommodations. Still it was not without its drawbacks; among which may be mentioned. deficiency in arrangements for warm- ing : and the seats being on hinges, from which, at the rising and sitting of the assembly, proceeded a sound which has been fitly compared to the rattling produced by a running fire of musketry. Owing to the growth of the parish, it was materially enlarged in a quarter of a cen- tury from its erection, and so continued till, forty years later, it was thoroughly repaired, remodelled, furnished with a new organ, and beautifully frescoed; so that the text I chose for the re-opening was scarcely extravagant for its description,-"The workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them; and they set the house of God in its state, and strengthened it." But thirty years and more have since glided away,-glided past not a few of us. New, and in some respects undoubtedly better, tastes have arisen and been nurtured. In accordance with them, the house that was builded many years ago has been builded again. The place of the sanctuary has been at once beautified and rendered more commodious. The walls from which echoed the tones of the solemn, earnest, devout voices of four of your deceased and revered pastors, stand in pristine strength, in renovated freshness, and added beauty; ready, we hope, to receive and welcome all who shall be gathered within them to better impulses, more favor- ing and benign auspices, a more improved moral and spiritual condi- tion, than have before been here known and enjoyed. When I learned, that, in the recent alterations, the old oaken frame was found unde- cayed, rather hardened and made firm by age, I was reminded of an eccentric minister, who, on being consulted by a committee of his so- ciety as to the expediency of repairing or building anew their church, instantly replied, "By all means repairs, for I can vouch for the sound- ness of the sleepers." I beg you, my friends, not to suppose for a moment that the covert but thinly-veiled satire thus conveyed is in- tended in the least for you. If so, I should fear being met by the query, "Who was it that put us to sleep?" Be assured, I have ex- perienced too much and long your patience and wakeful attention, in listening to my humble utterances, to apprehend in the slightest degree any occasion for reviving among you an early New-England practice, the description of which I give in the words of the annalist,-
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"In some places it was customary, during the public service, for a person to go about the meeting-house to wake the sleepers. He bore a long wand, on one end of which was a ball, and on the other a fox- tail. When he observed the men asleep, he rapped them on the head
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with the knob; and roused the slumbering sensibilities of the ladies by drawing the brush slightly across their faces."
JOSEPH WILLARD, COLLEAGUE PASTOR AND FOURTH PASTOR
A few months before Mr. Champney's death, in 1773, Joseph Willard was settled as colleague-pastor. Coming as he did from the college at Cambridge, where he had passed ten previous years as pupil and tutor, with a high reputation as a scholar, theologian, and man, he was welcomed cordially by the majority of the parish. Some there were who were troubled with doubts about the soundness of his faith; the Arminian controversy being then rife, and he being suspected, not without reason, of having proclivities in that direc- tion. All opposition, however, was soon disarmed by his prudence, his weight of character, his devotedness to the ministerial office and pastoral duty, and, I may add, by his good-humored treatment of the easily-disturbed and alarmed. To one not conversant with theo- logical terms, who said to him, "They do say that you are a musk- melon,"-that being the questioner's nearest approach to. the name Arminian,-he smilingly answered, "Don't you believe it; for, if I had been, I should long ere this have been eaten up." However, he soon was firmly and universally fixed in the confidence and affec- tions of his people, and ever afterward so continued. His ministry here was cast in troublous and trying times. The seeds of the Revolution, that was to separate this from the mother country, had been sown and were fast germinating. A true patriot himself, he contributed much to kindle and keep alive the general flame of patriotism. And not in word only, but in deeds, was his patriotic devotion shown. On the ever-memorable 19th of April, 1775, when alarm-bells and guns were sounded, and messengers were riding with hot haste in every direction to announce that the war had begun, and rouse the populations to arms, he was among the first to repair to the scene of bloody conflict; and it is a fact worthy of note, to be ascribed in no small part to his exertions and influence, that two companies from this town bore a part in the fight, having one of their men killed and several wounded, and having marched a greater dis- tance than had any others engaged in the contest.
He also took an intelligent and active interest in civil affairs. His fellow-townsmen often availed themselves of the aid of his sound judgment, his practical wisdom, and energy. For instance, I find his name on a committee to report on a constitution for the State, which was rejected ; and again, two years later, in 1780, on the one then framed and adopted. He was constantly in consultation with
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leading citizens, and frequently joined with them on committees for public business. Upon both of those just named, he was connected with his confidential friend and parishioner, George Cabot,-who was then developing the character for business capacity and action, for surpassing conversational talent and address, for political sagacity, -as a civilian, a man, and a Christian,-which carried with it a charmed spell and power over men's minds in the wide circle within which he moved, enabled him to attain marked distinction in the State and national councils, and gave him a prominent rank among the distinguished and able men of the country. There were other objects, outside of his professional avocations, that claimed and shared Mr. Willard's attention and exertions. Deeply interested and ever watchful for the right and thorough training of the young, he was indifferent to none of the means by which those of an older growth might have their minds enlarged and cultivated. At the same time, he was not unmindful of, but looked well to, the discipline and expan- sion of his own intellect. Indeed, considering the engrossing nature of his profession, which was so sustained by him as-instead of his being subject to the imputation of neglecting its duties-to make him regarded, in and out of the parish, a pattern of devotedness to their fulfilment, it is amazing that he should have accomplished what he did in other departments. Amid the pressure of parochial cares and professional engagements, and notwithstanding the excitements, priva- tions, and struggles of the Revolutionary war, that raged through the larger part of his ministry, and in which he acted and endured a no inconsiderable part, he never remitted his habits of application to literature and science. In the classics, particularly the Greek, he was an eminent scholar; which is the more remarkable, from the cir- cumstance of his not having commenced the study of the ancient languages till after he was of age. Mathematics, astronomy, and natural philosophy were also favorite studies with him; in the pursuit of the last two, having procured and been aided by a set of valuable instruments. On the dark day of May, 1780,-supposed to have been caused by dense clouds of smoke from a distance, which in a peculiar state of the atmosphere hovered over this region,-when the light of mid-day was suddenly changed to the darkness of night, and fear and trepidation seized upon the animal creation, scarcely less than man, Mr. Willard, like the true philosopher he was, took a station on the green in front of his house, with the requisite ap- paratus, to examine and interpret, if possible, the solemnly impressive phenomena. Soon numbers of persons gathered around him in a
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state of intense alarm and terror, whom his calmness and self- possession, and wise and kind words, did much to tranquillize and re-assure. As he was proceeding with his observations, a man nearly out of breath rushed up to him with the announcement, "The tide has done flowing ;" when, quietly looking at his watch, he deliberately replied, "So it has, for it is just high-water." In 1781, one of the numerous privateers from this quarter-that did so much, by their depredations on British commerce, to reconcile Britain to the loss of "the brightest jewel of her crown," and bring the war of the Revolu- tion to a close-arrived at this port, under command of the noted Hugh Hill, with a prize captured on the English coast. It was owned by Andrew Cabot and John his brother,-two intelligent, enterprising, and public-spirited citizens of the town, opulent mer- chants,-whose expensive, spacious, and imposing mansions, striking in appearance as they now stand, must have been much more so in the comparative simplicity of the period in which they were reared ; and from whose families that peerless trio of brothers, Charles, James, and Patrick T. Jackson, so eminent and worthy in their respective walks of life (the legal, medical, and mercantile), obtained their excellent wives. Among the treasures contained in the prize, and, as it proved, far the most valuable of them all, was the celebrated Kirwan library, consisting of more than a hundred scientific works, ancient and modern, which, when taken, was in transit from Eng- lad to its proprietor in Ireland. At the suggestion of Mr. Willard, the owners generously relinquished their title to it; allowing it to be sold, in compliance with law, to an association of gentlemen resi- dent here and in Salem, for a mere nominal price,-the sum of thirty-eight shillings actually paid for it being out of all proportion and ludicrously small, compared with its intrinsic value and beneficial results. To the honor of Richard Kirwan, it should be mentioned, that he declined an offer of compensation for his property in it, preferring to have it pass for an outright gift to the infant cause and scanty means of scientific progress, in a country not yet emerged from the clouds of desperate strife with his own for separate national existence; and this is the more honorable to him, for the magnani- mous superiority he thus showed to the jealousies and enmities inevit- ably growing out of war. The books, so fortunately secured, were first committed to Willard's keeping, in the assurance, no doubt, that in his hands they would be well cared for and faithfully used and improved,-under certain rules, nevertheless, for the free use of them by any members of the association to which they belonged. Upon
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