USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Historical sketches of the West Parish church, Andover, Massachusetts, 1906 > Part 5
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The question of success or of failure in any one epoch of a church's life is measured not by man but by the Great Jehovah who binds the generations together. The faith and prayer of Mr. Merrill's long pastorate was a most important element in any success I may have at- tained. And the smiles and tears of Mr. Burr wrought a place for the seed in some hearts which I had the privi- lege of harvesting. While Mr. MacFadden could prob- ably talk more intelligently about my failures than I, myself ; familiar and painful as the subject is to my mind. But we will leave the question of success or fail- ure to where it belongs, with the Head of the Church and proceed to our memories of fellowship along the way.
The first flight of my peculiar memory takes me back to the first impressions made upon me by the parish.
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And to describe them in a word they were the impressions of a home. I had preached in several churches as a sup- posed candidate, but I never knew the peculiar sensation of "Noah's returning dove" till I came to the West Parish. Here I felt at rest, at home, and I think the feeling never left me or was ever wanting when I stood before you in the church. It came to a great many who dropped in to worship with us, and I cannot refrain from saying that some little things added much to this home- like atmosphere, as for example: The kindness and courtesy of such young men as Charles Jameson in car- ing for the teams of the lone ladies and Miss Angie Burtt's wonderful taste in the decoration of the church. Then came that pleasant council and my first introduction to the Andover Association of Ministers, with the genial Mr. Carter for moderator and the energetic Mr. Wolcott to give me the charge. The memory of how kindly Pro- fessor Smyth dealt with my crude Hartford orthodoxy, would still make my heart warm toward Andover Semi- nary even if it had not been supplemented by innumerable courtesies afterward. Then comes that first sermon which you were so good as to approve of, or what was better, the text proved a true description of your attitude toward all my preaching.
It was from I Thess. 11 : 13. - " And for this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that when ye received from us the word of the message, even the word of God, ye accepted it not as the word of man but as it is in truth the word of God which also worketh in you that believe."
Other sermons come more quickly to my memory probably than they do to yours, so that you will permit me "to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance" concerning a certain Fast Day sermon upon the True type of fasting as Isaiah interpreted it, viz. : " By dealing thy bread to the hungry and bringing the poor that are cast out to thy house," and which recommended a more friendly relation between all classes and conditions
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of social life in the parish. It was the most powerful sermon, measured by direct results. that I ever preached, for it brought Mrs. Greene and myself four invitations to tea before Sunday School was over. I learned the true meaning of Fast Day here among you, as I tried to make the Governor's proclamation an intelligent call to you, bnt just as I was thoroughly convinced of its worth my- self, you abandoned it entirely in Massachusetts.
I remember with a good deal of profit the Christmas and Easter tides which we celebrated together. At the end of a series of advent sermons in the first year I shall never forget my joy at the sight of six candidates for church membership who came to the parsonage to meet the committee. It was the first fruit which it was per- mitted me to garner in the Lord's harvest field, and I rejoiced exceedingly tho' I knew it was but entering into other men's labors. I think I first encouraged you in the Episcopalian habit of celebrating Holy week with daily services. Whatever the little company who attended those services may have gained from them, the pastor felt that some of his most deeply spiritual experiences came at those periods and he was convinced that the reflex in- fluence on his after preaching must have helped to repay some of you for your faithtul attendance.
Communion seasons and the Preparatory services pre- ceeding them, come vividly before my mind as I review the deep emotional experiences of those ten happy years. I talked very directly to you at such times and you re- ceived very lovingly and practically my suggestions. We finally dignified the Sacrament by giving up the whole morning service to it, a good habit which I hope you con- tinue to this day.
While we were together God gave us at least one special revival experience. It was under the strong ethical preaching of Mr. Mills, who Professor Park said preached like the younger Edwards. Those few days of Union services and intense spiritual activity did more
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than any other experience of my life to convince me of the power of the Holy Spirit to influence public opinion.
The influence of the movement was not to be measured simply by converts. How easily all the wheels ran for a year or two afterwards. It was about then we began to run the barge with such marked results upon the atten- dance at morning service. It was that year or the next when we averaged by actual count one hundred and sixty-five at our morning service throughout the twelve months. Even the New England weather seemed to have been converted and we had hardly an unpleasant Sunday in that year.
And speaking of revivals, I remember Mr. Merrill said that they always started in the Osgood district. The rule proved true at that time also, and how I learned to prize those Sunday evening meetings in the school-houses of the Osgood and Abbott districts. The drive in the cold sometimes over bad roads, sometimes in the beautiful moonlight nights of spring or autumn, but always ending in a delightful bit of spiritual fellowship with simple, humble-minded men, women and children who came ex- pecting help and therefore seldom, I believe, went away disappointed. Our three services for our three districts was certainly the best solution of the second service question for our community. But they never could have been kept up without such royal Christian workers as Deacons Holt, Abbott and Boutwell. All honor to them and the faithful Christian Endeavor workers who stayed up their hands. God only knows the worth of such ser- vice to the cause of his Kingdom in this community. How faithfully we went through the parables and mira- cles of the Lord. The Commandments in the Old and the Beatitudes in the New Testament. It was here that I contracted the habit of preaching series of sermons, a habit which I fear some of my present parish would like at least to modify. But you seemed very patient and followed me even through the messages of the different books, and into the intricacies of theology.
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When I found the West Church it was already loyal to the prayer-meeting. No church trained by Mr. Merrill could have failed to be so. Such helpful speakers as Mr. and Mrs. Cutler, the deacons, and others insured a profitable gathering when they took part, and they gen- erally did. I doubt if we always kept the standard of the prayer-meeting up to Mr. Merrill's ideals. I re- member my dismay when I found that some of the deacons had stopped coming to the midweek service. But I have since learned there are worse faults in deacons than neglect of the prayer-meetings. It is
certain that some of our young people did learn to speak helpfully in those services, and from the suggestions which I received from the programme of your last year's prayer-meeting committee, I am sure they must still be enjoyable. The meetings were sometimes small, but they were always a help and inspiration to the pastor. The Christian Endeavor pledge being directed, as we used it, to the church prayer-meeting, certainly proved a harness in which a good many of us learned to work easily and gladly, and the church has great reason to bless the organization as a training school for its young people both in word and work for the Master.
Memory goes back, too, to the little gatherings of the Bible and history clubs that used to meet at the parson- age dining-room. I fear they were rather abortive efforts as far as actual visible results were concerned, but they drew us together, they gave us an outlook on the broad fields of knowledge we could only partially possess, and they helped at least to make us humble by showing us how little we did know, while they may have awakened in some a real desire for deeper investigations.
More successful was the fortnightly or Polygon Club, as it was afterwards called. This originated in the fertile mind of Mrs. Beard, whose thought and energy were always at the command of the church, and the boys and girls of West Parish had no more earnest and intel-
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ligent friend than she. And of outside organizations I think the Grange did a great deal to cultivate the social and intellectual side of our little community. It may have drawn off somewhat from our purely church socia- bles, but it did the work of the Kingdom nevertheless, and after all it is for the Kingdom that the church is working and not for herself alone.
But I have saved until the last that which I esteem to be in many ways the most unique and memorable feature of church life in West Parish, and that is the church socials under the auspices of the Seaman's Friend Society. From the very first night when I was greeted so warmly by you all and began to try to apply the names, which Mrs. Greene and I learned by heart while on our honey- moon, those socials became red letter days in my calen- dar. It seemed to be the side of the work which always went of itself. Of course I knew that behind it was the faithful effort of the directresses of the society, and the earnest cooperation of the host and hostesses, but things always seemed to move so smoothly that I never had any doubts of their success. Whether held in the vestry or in your houses the gatherings always seemed to have a personal element in them, and to be the real thing rather than the imitation. However discouraged I might be the day before the service, the day after when I had looked so many of you in the face and taken you by the hand and we had broken bread together, hope bloomed afresh.
Shall I ever forget the one hundred and fifty gathered at the parsonage, and the six cream pies that were left over after the hungry multitude had been abundantly fed. How freely it was given and how good it all was. Mr. Tuck's coffee specially.
Do you remember one winter's night just after a snow- storm, when we were due at Mrs. Boutwell's for a social, and took out our sleighs and broke the roads and came in large numbers ? How wondrously the road was deco- rated as for a bridal ! and how gracefully everything held its load of white up against the dark blue sky !
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And in recording the artistic effects we must not forget how our barn of a vestry was changed into a pleasant parlor, cheerful and homelike, by a few chairs, a carpet and some paper, supplemented by the gift of our splendid piano.
By the way, how easily that money was raised, because each took the scripture method, and laid by him in store at the first of the week that which he thought he could spare to make his church home beautiful.
The Juvenile Missionary Society, so long an institution of the church, made a yearly impression upon us all, in that most sensitive place, our pocket-books, and, what was better, it trained up our young people to believe in the practicability and delight of trying to obey the Lord's last command with its world-wide outlook.
I have since known something of the discouragement of working in a church which has had no such training, and I appreciate its worth.
One more feature of those years which I should be loath to leave unrecorded, was the pleasure and profit of our Annual Reunions. The plan of having a practical matter of church interest up for debate has always seemed to me to be one of the most satisfactory ways of reaching the real minds of the people, and the West Parish had such good debates. I remember well one such reunion, when Deacon Boutwell and Mr. Edward Burtt were among the debaters, and we took up the question of whether our church would undertake to lay aside something each year for the higher education of her young people. I sincerely hope that the decision reached that night may always be a characteristic of your church policy. I always approached these annual meetings with dread, but I always went away from them joyously impressed with the fact that the conscientious common sense of West Parish and its people could be depended upon every time.
But the church and social fellowship of those ten years
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is closely associated with certain glorified faces, which come before me as I continue to dream.
First of all there is Mr. Merrill, whose smile of greet- ing was always a benediction, and whose loving sympathy and advice made many of the heavy burdens of an un- trained minister lighter for his successor. I have not time to say what his prayers afforded me of inspiration, or his sincere word of approval meant by way of reward. And of course his grave, christlike face is always asso- ciated with the broad, genial one which gladdened his ministry, and which God has still left to brighten our life.
Then there is the serious, earnest face of Deacon Moore. I fear he did not always approve of my theology or methods of work, but he kindly and honestly stated his opinion and helped us to make wise choices in many ways, and gave us all his sympathy and prayers. And beside him there seems to stand Mrs. Moore, the Dorcas for so many households, who, while caring for her own, did not forget the scripture injunction "to mind also the things of others". Beside them in my thought are always to be found the plump, round figure of Mrs. Trow, with its beautiful and refined face beaming comfort and sympathy upon us all, making her home so happy while she lived, for her husband and children. And that husband, our most faithful sexton, who, as he so often said earnestly, and backed up with his actions, was " always willing to oblige ", and never found any service too arduous or too taxing upon his slight strength to be willingly given to God in the service of the West Church.
Then there was dear Mrs. Abbott, whose love for the church and prayer-meeting burned so bright that it seemed to melt the snow and light the path before her as she trudged through the dark, in rain and snow and wind, to take her place with the two or three who kept their appointment with God in the house of prayer.
Now, two stately figures come before my mind just as they first came to call upon the new minister. One of
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them, Isaac Carruth, the courtly, Christian gentleman with his intense interest in the world as it was and his strong conviction that it was growing better all the time, who passed from you during the last decade of his cen- tury. It was my privilege to be present and follow with you as you laid his stately form at rest. The other, his fit companion, still lingers with you in frailty and weak- ness, but I was thankful to learn in greater comfort just now. They belonged to the old school of " quality ", and were good examples of its dignity and merit.
But among these older faces, for most of you live to be old in the West Parish, there is one younger one, whose short but earnest, intelligent, spiritual life was one not without its influence upon us all. Frank Holt lived and won the crown of victor in a span of life shorter than that which some of us take to begin the christian race. These are only a few of the cloud of witnesses which hover about me as I review that decade of service, and the savor of whose christian lives added zest to its accomplishment and sanctity to its memory. Of the living I may not speak, but not because many of you were not also an inspiration and perpetual joy.
The sorrows and joys of my own life were first exper- ienced in your fellowship. Here I brought my bride to our first home, and the thoughtfulness of one of you who always remembered the wedding day with a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley is a part of the parish history that is worthy of record.
When the angel of death made his first visit to our home, he claimed not only one, but my father and first little daughter almost together. The loving words that some of you spoke then, your kind thought and presence even at the last services in New Hampshire, are treas- ured up forever in a memory that lets many other things slip. And your gift of a lot among your own beloved dead seemed fitly to fill to the full the cup of sympathy.
The changes that come with years are felt most in our
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homes and the church home is no exception. When I took up the work of the parish, Mr. and Mrs. Merrill said the parish could never be home to them with Deacon Smith and Deacon Holt gone. But the new deacon, Peter Smith, and Deacon Francis Holt seemed to satisfy my heart and awaken my enthusiasm as completely as their fathers had satisfied Mr. Merrill. Indeed, such an honest interest as all the deacons felt in the work, and their willingness to speak plainly their minds and then cooperate to carry out the will of the majority, is, I am led to believe, rather exceptional in churches.
But the West Parish has changed since I was here. Only two of the seven houses on which the parsonage windows look out still shelter the same families or stand in the same names. I know now something of what Mr. Merrill meant. But, brethren, it is neither names nor places that bind the generations together. " The eternal God is our dwelling place and underneath are the ever- lasting arms." The faith which we have in the Living God and the great name of Father by which Jesus has taught us to think of him, this gives the unity to our church's life.
While with you I tried earnestly to carry out and sup- plement the ideals which I had received from Mr. Merrill, the only one of your former pastors whom I knew. I cannot do better perhaps in closing this rambling remin- iscence than to define them clearly, for they came to be so defined in my own mind as I feebly wrought with God to bring out the pattern in the life of this church.
First then : The church as the Family of God into which is to be wrought more of the family spirit of son- ship and brotherhood through the cultivation of hospi- tality, sympathy, and sacrifice one for another. But it is brotherhood through sonship, for the shortest way to our brother's heart is not always direct but along the bond of love which binds us both back to the Father's heart and life.
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Second : The church as the teaching mother who trains the souls of her children in the threefold functions of their spirit's life, thinking, loving, and doing.
In the third place, my ideal was to make this home of the Divine family a true mission center, from which it should be not our sorrow but our joy to send forth not money only, which is the poorest crop our farms produce, but men and women, trained in body and mind and con- science, and shod with a divine readiness and purpose to work with God at home or abroad, wherever the work and the Master workman shall have need of them.
In my own struggle toward these ideals there were many things which I would gladly forget if I could. The mistakes and failures have always bulked large in my thought of those years. And I can only say that in spite of them all there always burned in my heart during those ten years an honest love to you and to God and a desire to serve you both.
And, brethren, the fire has not gone out yet.
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