USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Lowell > Fortieth anniversary, Lowell, Mass., May 9th and 11th, 1879 > Part 5
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At this time the free-church system was gaining in general favor, and this church became the First Free Church of Lowell. " The completion of their large and very convenient vestry occasioned much joy to the church, so long without the use of a building which they could control, and the day of dedication was looked forward to with bright anticipations." Services of dedication soon followed. "For several months the meetings were well attended, members of the church were faithful in the discharge of their duty, and all felt encouraged; but in process of time there was a marked change. The free-church system was less attractive than was expected to the persons for whose benefit it was adopted, but the falling-off in numbers was not mainly because of fault in the system. Mr. Pease had the confidence and love of his church, but with a few exceptions he failed to interest others and did not attract the people. He was a man of extremes." At this time the anti-slavery agitation was at its height. Mr. Pease took advanced ground in favor of this movement. Radical in his opinions, he was equally zealous in advocating his cause. "Earnest and conscientious as he undoubtedly was, he labored here too early in these reforms to be popular. Working under so much excite- ment and opposition, his health failed. He continued to preach a' little, but was finally obliged to resign his pastorate. After his dismissal others were employed to preach for a time, but the evidences of prosperity did not appear. The church continued in name for several months after suspending public worship. One serious cause of failure was the unfavorable choice of their places of worship." The church disbanded May 28, 1837. "Owing to the financial disturbances in 1837-38, which were so severely felt in all branches of business, causing many persons to leave Lowell, the dissolution of the Free Church was not immediately followed by the organization of the John Street Church."
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In the absence of Rev. Mr. Hanks, the address prepared by him for the anniversary was read by George Stevens, Esq. The fol- lowing is that portion of it relating to the subject of abolition and its connection with Johu Street Church.
EXTRACT FROM MR. HANKS' PAPER.
UNDER the Christian dispensation, every true church and every member of a true church form an integral part of the great spiritual building which God, by the ministry of unseen forces, is constantly carrying toward its completion. Its grand consummation will be the new Jerusalem come down from God out of heaven, and God dwelling among men by a spiritual presence in every heart.
Each church has its own history. Its origin is always to be found in some exigency calling for its existence.
In order to understand the history of any church, it is necessary to call to mind the circumstances in which it had its origin and its first training.
At the date of the formation of this church the whole country was in a state of agitation and anxiety upon the subject of slavery. Slavery was the dominant power in politics, and, I might almost say, in social life.
The two great political parties, Whig and Democratic, were vying with each other for the Southern vote, and for ascendancy in the National government.
Cotton was king, and his behests made the Nation tremble. Our Congress, then called the National bear-garden, was in the hands of the lords of the lash, and woe to the man who ventured, in public, to speak disrespectfully of the peculiar institution.
Slaves were sold at auction in sight of the Capitol. John Quincy Adams, "the old man eloquent," had been threatened expulsion for even defending the right of petition, and Joshua Giddings of Ohio had been expelled from Congress for making anti-slavery speeches.
In Boston, William Loyd Garrison was publishing an anti-slavery paper, and denouncing slavery as a compact with hell and a league with the devil, and the church as the bulwark of slavery, and min- isters as cowards for their silence, and so great was the indignation towards him that he was once carried to the famous Leverett Street Jail, to keep the mob from tearing him to pieces.
In Natiek, Henry Wilson, then a young shoemaker, was making fiery speeches against slavery, and declaring that no political party
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was fit to live that did not throw its influence against this "sum of all villanies," for which action he received the title of the " Natick Cobbler," and was advised by his Whig friends to quit politics and return to his lap-stone.
In Boston, Charles Sumner, who had graduated from Harvard College with the highest honors, was taking sides with Mr. Garrison, and denouncing the Whig party for its want of back-bone in the in the matter of slavery. :
In the same city, Wendell Phillips was drawing his new Damascus blade and plunging it to the heart of slavery, declaring at the same time that the church and its ministry were upholding the abomina- tion by their silence and their implied approbation.
In New Bedford, Frederick Douglass, who had escaped from slavery at the risk of his life, was hiding away from the officers of the law, who were in pursuit of him as a fugitive slave; occasionally appearing in some public meeting, to tell in touching pathos of his adventures as a slave, and how for many dreary years he prayed with his lips, and found no answer till he began to pray with his feet, with his eye upon the North Star, when he found deliverance among friends in Massachusetts.
In Plymouth, Daniel Webster had made a great speech against slavery, which the boys in the schools, when permitted, were repeat- ing as exercises in their declamations.
At Alton, in Illinois, an anti-slavery editor had been murdered, and his press and types thrown into the Mississippi River, by a mob.
At Andover, the famous George Thompson, an English abolitionist who had come to this country to rouse the sleepy nation to action on the subject of slavery, had kindled a fire which Professor Stuart, afterward the author of the famous defence of Daniel Webster's more famous seventh of March speech, entitled " Conscience and the Constitution," could not put out even by the help of his co- adjutor, Dr. Wood.
Most of these men had been to this city with their wildfire, and some of them in our City Hall had been confronted not only with the arguments of certain leading men not in favor of abolition, but with that kind of arms not uncommon in those days, insults and threats, and eggs too old for the market.
The question of admitting Texas as a free State was up as one of the great questions of the day, and was agitating the whole country.
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Slavery was regarded by the majority as a dangerous cancer in the body politic, which must be cured by gentle medication and the general invigoration of the whole system by a higher National morality, and many ministers of the Gospel united with the political leaders of both parties in administering the proper medicine.
Surgery was not thought of till the cannon of Fort Sumter woke up the whole nation, and 500,000 broadswords in the hands of as many free men were cutting out the cancer, and the abolitionists, now increased to ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, were miting their voices in an anthem made National by the occasion.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, He hath loosed the fateful lightnings of his terrible swift sword.
His truth is marching on.
We have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps, They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps, We can recall his righteous sentence by the dim and daring lamps. His day is marching on.
While the aforesaid abolition fanatics were spreading their wild- fire through the country, a flame started in this city among the dry wood which was accumulated here from every part of New Eng- gland. In the First Church there was a kinsman of an anti-slavery editor, who was just starting the New York Independent, a most decided anti-slavery paper of large circulation. That young man, Mr. E. D. Leavitt, who with many others took fire in this incendiary movement, led off in the organization of an anti-slavery society which held meetings in the City Hall.
The First Church was then full to overflowing, and the population of the city rapidly increasing. In this condition of things it was deemed expedient to organize a new Congregational church, and when this was done it was found that the great majority of those that came out to constitute the new church were badly tainted with the abolition sentiments just then beginning to spread rapidly in the country. That new church, thus constituted and afterward reinforced by a considerable number from the Appleton Street Church, became the John Street Church, and was organized May 9, 1839.
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Simultaneously with the anti-slavery movement of which I have spoken, the temperance movement was agitating the community as never before. Dr. Beecher's six sermons were crashing like thunderbolts upon the storehouses of the liquor-trade through the land ; Dr. Edwards was stirring up the churches with his facts and figures and logic set on fire; Dr. Hewitt, in Connecticut, was raining the fire and brimstone of his terrific eloquence upon the liquor-dealers of that state; Jolin Pierpont, the poet-preacher, was distilling the pious distillers of his Hollis Street congregation in Boston, saying to them in the tones of one greater than himself, " Ye hypocrites, how can you escape the damnation of hell?" Mr. Delevan of Albany was brewing the brewers, and showing to the country that the fashionable drink known as Albany Ale was made from the water of a foul pond, into which the offal of the city was thrown, and that all manner of dead things - canine, bovine, feline and equine - made up the body of that very popular drink. Nathan Crosby, then in the prime of life, was marching and countermarching the battalions of his great cold-water army, get- ting ready for a battle near at hand. Dr. Jewett, a young physician of great promise, had left his profession and gone into the mann- facture of blisters and bitter pills for liquor-dealers. John Hawkins, who had come up out of the gutters of Baltimore, under the Wash- ingtonian movement, was melting whole congregations by the story of his heroic daughter, who stood by him and loved him in his greatest degradation. Epes Sargent had sent his " Mother's Gold Ring," a little tract that opened the fountain of tears wherever it was read, into most of the families of the land. The famous " ox sermon," showing that the liquor business, being the ox that was wont to push with his horns, must be killed, was by the agency of the temperance people sent tearing through the land, to the great annoyance of all dealers in intoxicating drinks.
The John Street Church, born in the midst of this spreading public agitation, imbibed the spirit of those times. She at once assumed the attitude of a defender of the rights of men, a friend of the suffering and the fallen. She was unequivocal in her senti- ments. Her position was perfectly intelligible to the world. The temperance awakening always found a warm supporter within her sphere. Her trumpet never gave an uncertain sound ; many prepared themselves for the battle, and have fought the fight valiantly. Some have fallen by the way, some are still in the service.
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