USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Fall River > History, annals and sketches of the Central Church of Fall River, Massachusetts : A.D. 1842-A.D. 1905 : with portraits and views > Part 11
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I remember, one evening, Dr. Thayer [Newport, R. I.] came up to help Mr. Thurston. He went into the inquiry room with us. He tried to do a little talking. It seemed to me that he was not at all apt. I said to myself, " He is not so good as Mr. Thurston "; but pres-
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ently I heard him say, that not being acquainted with us, he might in some way hinder our pastor's counsel and interfere with the work of the Spirit, and therefore he would go no further. This explanation was a great relief to me, because I thought all ministers ought to be as good as ours, and I was glad to get hold of a reason that I could under- stand, why Dr. Thayer hesitated so much.
His interest in boys and young people was very noticeable. Six or eight of us went to him one day and told him we would like to have a Saturday afternoon prayer-meeting if we could. He arranged it immediately for us to come to his study for that purpose, on that day regularly. As our meetings went on, I remember some of us asked him what Scripture we could best read, and I can see the manner of the man as he replied, so reverently that we were in no danger of forgetting, that the whole Bible was good; " The fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of John are excellent, and all along there." These words of his have been over those chapters for me from that time to this.
The singing was a very remarkable feature in all Mr. Thurston's administration of the Church in those days. I have heard you who are here now, say very much about this wonderful organ and the equally wonderful artist who presides at its keyboard, and whose services, now so long continued, have so endeared him to us. And I do not doubt that it is all just as you say. But what can you say to such as I, you who were not here when I was! You ought to have heard Mr. Fish when he sat down at that wonderful organ of white and gold in the " old Central," down on the corner of Rock and Bedford streets; what voluntaries those were that began the services! what interludes all through the day! what a choir that was, when Mr. Fish had his singers all around him! Deacon Earl and Mr. Henry Brackett, whom I see here to-night, and Sewall Brackett, and Frank Brackett, and the rest of the basses winging off to the east; and the tenors on the back row, west of the keyboard; and that wonderful row of girls and young ladies in the center. Oh! you should have heard them! Perhaps Mr. Thurston had given out the Twenty-Third Psalm, for instance, in long meter, six lines:
" The Lord my pasture shall prepare, And feed me with a shepherd's care; His presence shall my wants supply, And guard me with a watchful eye; My noonday walks he shall attend, And all my midnight hours defend."
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Down toward the end of each verse there was a duet part, and when the great chorus of the choir was silent, and those two voices took up the story, you should have been there! Yes, you should have been there! Sweet? Sweet is no name for it! I do not wish to make any comparisons. It would not be courteous. But if you could only have heard it, I will tell you what you would have said. You would have said, The Windows! the windows! they have opened! the win- dows! the windows of the skies! and the music is coming down.
Mr. Thurston himself was very fond of his choir. Occasionally the boys, who for certain reasons sometimes hung about the choir meeting on Saturday evenings, would see his figure at the dark end of the audience room, as he, too, came in to enjoy the rehearsal. And sometimes on Sunday, he would sit upon the pulpit sofa during the singing of the anthem, his little pulpit-table drawn up to him, one foot crossed over the other, his earnest face turned toward the south- west angle of the house, but his eye glancing at the choir, and his free foot swinging; he was too much wrapped up in the service, too much impressed with his own great responsibility for it, to relax the ex- pression of his countenance. But that movement of the free foot had a language of its own, telling of the excitement of the sympathetic soul, and saying, " How good that is !"
But the music of the church service, excellent as it was, probably was not all superior in spiritual power, to the music of the evening meetings in revival seasons. The leading singers of the social meet- ings occupied the two back middle benches of the old vestry. Those benches were different from the others, in that they had book-rests in front of them. How often I have wished I could sing, not to get into the choir,- that would be even too much to hope for, - but just enough to get a seat there, where the vestry music started, and from which place it was led, although the singing was general all over the house. After one of those brief, pointed, practical evening sermons of Mr. Thurston's in revival time, when he gave out the invitation to any of us who would be willing, to come with him to the study, perhaps he called for a hymn, - it might be, for instance, " Child of sin and sorrow." The study door had now been opened against the east side wall, and the very light of heaven seemed to be shining out of that bright doorway, and Deacon Earl, who never did anything except deliberately and faithfully, had gotten out his pitch-pipe, and given the key to perfection, and the whole roomful were moved to join in the melody, and the refrain, so to call it, kept coming in at the end of every verse, " Child of sin and sorrow,"-there was no resisting it.
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It was one of the mightiest possible agencies to follow up the preach- ing and move the already moved listener off his seat, to the decisive step to the inquiry room. I have seen the time when the very dust on the floor of that east and west vestry aisle seemed to sparkle with supernatural light, as if we walked over diamonds, and the aisle seemed really a shining way to the celestial gate itself. When the spirit of God was in the preacher and in the sermon and when the spirit of God was in the hymn and in the singing, and when the spirit of God was also in the hearer, the whole was a perfect illustration of the old doctrine of the "irresistible grace." There was no standing against it.
But I must not pursue these details. We, the boys, the young people of that day, forty years ago, praise the Lord for what he did for us here in the old Central Church. We are scattered now, far and wide, over the land, - and perhaps over the world,- but I speak to you in their behalf, to thank you on this Anniversary Night, and this dear people, for what the Central Church was to us in those bright, though far-off days.
I met recently one of the boys [Leander P. Lovell], not, indeed, one of this particular company, but one of the same lineage in a distant city. Forty years, in youth and maturity, he has now been a business man in the mighty metropolis. But the blood of Congrega- tional deacons is in his veins, and he must be a preacher. As I sat with him a moment in his office, I said to him, " What did you do last Sunday?" I cannot venture to give exactly what he replied, but it was like this. " In the morning I heard a capital sermon from our good pastor. At noon time, I went out with some other members to the sick-room of one of our elders [he is a Presbyterian now], to aid in the administration of the Lord's Supper at his dying bed. In the afternoon, I went down to my mission. In the evening, I preached in my way, for a pastor out somewhere who needed help." I looked at his face, on which the strong lines had been brought out by the years, and upon his iron gray hair, still heavy over his head, until I saw with the utmost distinction, the face and form of the boy behind it all. I rejoice in spirit, for the noble boys that have gone out into the world from the old Congregational lineage of this city.
And now, I have one more class to speak for, namely, those who went out from this congregation into the pulpit ministry of the church. I know that other forms of ministry have their place just as well as the pulpit ministry, and some of our number of forty years ago have, no doubt, done as noble service here in the ministry of the mills, as any have done elsewhere.
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Of those who went into the pulpit from this Church, there are a few only. I shall mention but one name, and that is the name of the first one of us all, I think, to finish his ministry here in this life and enter into a better. He was not always with us. We are under the greatest obligation to another church in this city, one of the Methodist churches, for bringing up and giving him to us. But as a young man he came here. He loved us - he loved Dr. Thurston tenderly. Dr. Thurston loved him. His surviving family now reside in a neighboring state, rich in the inheritance of his noble life,- NATHANIEL GREENE BONNEY. Out of the unseen, it seems to me, he would be glad to reach down to us, at this moment, his hand of greeting and of glad benediction.
Mr. Bonney, it may be interesting for his old friends to know, showed his great affection for Mr. Thurston, by naming his first-born son after his honored pastor, Thurston I. Bonney, now of the School for Christian Workers, in Springfield, Mass.
Now, brothers and friends, one word more. You have rewritten your creed and covenant since those days, rewritten it perhaps more than once. Very well, rewrite it as often as you wish. We who have gone out from you, if we could have remained here, would have voted to adopt your new creed and more new creeds yet to come, if you desired. I have nothing to say against them, or against the changes in them. A live creed is better than a dead one. It is good to have a creed written by the living, as well as by the dead. Any creed will serve the purpose, which keeps the Lord Jesus Christ in the center. But we have one favor to ask of you in this matter, namely, that you will never speak of us, who used the old one, as if we were benighted and needed pity. In one sense, we could not have ex- plained the creed, we, who as boys, were received upon it at your altar; but in another sense we could. It was just as simple and just as plain, as any of your new ones have been or ever will be. We knew the meaning of that old creed and covenant perfectly. It meant entire consecration to God. It meant utter and deathless loyalty to Jesus Christ. It meant the subordination of this world, and of the prince of this world, to the heavenly kingdom. It meant that it is the mightiest of all mysteries, that a poor lost sinner should be called of God unto everlasting life. If any of us have failed in our chris- tian life, as I feel some of us have, and very sadly, yet we cannot throw off anything on to the faults of the old creed. Certainly, I cannot.
That covenant I committed to memory. It was food to the soul. Call it what you have a mind to, iron-bound, cast-steel, heresy-proof, dynamite-proof, bomb-proof,- call it what you have a mind to,
RICHARD B. BORDEN Church Treasurer, A.D. 1867-
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the Bible was in it; the Old Testament and the New Testament Christ was in it. Many a time in college [Brown University] I have gone to my couch up under the roof of old University Hall, repeating over those covenant words which Mr. Thurston had pronounced for me, on the first Sunday in January, 1853. How impressive it was to come upon those words,-" Now, beloved, you have opened your mouth unto the Lord, and are sacredly pledged to endure to the end. Wher- ever you go, these vows will be upon you. You have unalterably committed yourselves, and henceforth, you must be the servants of the Lord. May the Lord guide and preserve you till death, and at last receive both you and us to that blessed world, where our love and joy shall be perfect forever. According as you demean yourselves so religion will be honored or disgraced. But, brethren, we are persuaded better things of you and things that accompany salvation, although we thus speak. May the Lord preserve both you and us until that day when our love and joy shall be forever perfect. Amen."
And sometimes, whether I finished the covenant before I got to sleep, or whether I got to sleep before I finished the covenant, in the happy morning I could not tell.
Dear friends, make all the creeds and covenants you want to, if only you keep Christ in the center of them. The better test of creeds is not the men that make the creeds, but the men that the creeds make. And one thing I may ask of you on behalf of the Church of forty years ago,- never undertake to make any apology for the " Old Creed."
" All they of the olden time salute you; and may the Lord bless you!"
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Benevolent Contributions
At the annual meeting in April, 1904, Mr. Richard B. Borden, treasurer, presented the following summary of the benevolent contributions of the Church for thirty-seven years, - the period of his official service to that date.
A compilation from the Church records is added (in totals), as ascertained from the annual reports of Henry H. Fish, treasurer from 1843 to 1867.
Central Church does not boast of its liberality and charities; but these annals would be incomplete without some mention of them. It has ever been mindful of its duty in this respect, as the appointment of collectors in the very early years of its organization sufficiently testify.
It has been true to the teachings of Dr. Thurston and his successors in the pastoral office, who have ever stimulated the spirit of giving, even to the point of sacrifice if necessary. The streams of missionary interest and support have been kept flowing, that the rich harvests, opening on every hand, might be gathered into the storehouse of our Lord.
Report of R. B. Borden Church Treasurer, April 1, 1904
The Central Congregational Church has given through its treasurer, R. B. Borden, during thirty-seven years from April 1, 1867, to April 1, 1904, as follows:
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions . $33,433.27 The American Missionary Association 8,506.02
The Congregational Home Missionary Society 17,180.76
Bible Cause 1,428.75
Boston Seaman's Friend Society 999.64
American Congregational Union 1,657.02
Congregational Education Society
2,433.35
.
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Board of Ministerial Aid and the National Council Minis- terial Relief Fund $997.40
Ladies' Beneficent Society of Central Church 720.43
Children's Home of Fall River 7,682.56
The Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society, 1,171.64
Fall River Hospital, now Union Hospital in Fall River 1,784.57
New West Commission 54.25
The Congregational Church Building Society 1,334.77
Rev. Mr. Buck's work 774.99
Seaside Home in Fall River 328.25
Sunday-school work in Massachusetts 242.00
Care of sick of Central Church 334.45
Sundries to balance
2,292.27
$83,356.39
Collections for years 1904-05
2,876.08
$86,232.47
The Benevolent Gifts passing through the hands of Henry H. Fish, treasurer from 1843 to 1867,
as given in his annual reports, amount to 41,714.24
Making a grand total of . $127,946.71
By way of comparison, I note that the average annual gifts for the first eleven years, 1867-78, were $3,133.50; and for the last eleven years, 1893-1904, were $2,858.62.
The amount received by the treasurer does not fully or fairly repre- sent the gifts of our membership. Many gifts were given direct, amounting to some thousands of dollars. The American Board shared largely in such gifts.
In addition, the ladies of the Church have, together with those of the First Church, paid the salary of Miss Seymour, their missionary at Harpoot, since 1869; and have frequently sent to her valuable boxes and sums of money. In recent years the amount given by our ladies has been, on account of salary, one hundred and eighty dollars per annum.
In 1899, it was voted to assume the salary of a missionary to be appointed by the American Board, the missionary to be adopted by us. Rev. and Mrs. George W. Hinman were assigned to us, they having just entered upon their work and to be located in China. They
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represented us for four years, and our payments toward their salaries were from eight hundred to eleven hundred dollars per annum. Then the United Society of Christian Endeavor applied to them to take the entire charge of their work in China,- they being especially fitted for it. It seemed best by the American Board to sanction the change, and the result was the severing of a most happy association with our Church.
In 1878, owing to the financial distress which befell our city, and the debt of the Church being over one hundred thousand dollars with interest on it running six thousand to seven thousand dollars annually, the Weekly Offering system was adopted, the receipts to apply to the caring for the church finances, unless otherwise designated by the donor. For eight years, all contributions were made through the weekly offerings only, with the single exception of annual collections for the Children's Home of Fall River, which have been taken every year for twenty-nine years.
Sunday, February 1, 1880, was spent, from 10.30 A.M. to 11.30 P.M., in continuous service, in an attempt to lift the debt on the Church, which was about one hundred and twelve thousand dollars, and against which it held property estimated at thirty-two thousand dollars in value, leaving a net of eighty thousand dollars wanted. At 11.30 P.M. seventy-six thousand dollars (a few thousand had been pledged by friends of the Church) was announced as raised, and the balance it was assured would be provided for by absent members. Three years' time was given in which to make payments, and interest was to be paid on subscriptions after the first year. Few churches were ever blessed with such a day.
Vested Funds, Legacies, Etc.
THE Central Church has been made a recipient of legacies to an inconsiderable amount, - perhaps not over ten thousand dollars in all. The income from these vested funds is expended under the direction of the board of Deacons (by specific vote of the Church) and is used for the support of a free bed in the " Union Hospital in Fall River," and in the care and relief of the sick and destitute in our membership.
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Legacies have been received under the wills of John M. Bryans, Laban E. Borden, John Wilkinson, Mrs. Mary H. Sumner, and Mrs. Ellen Ball.
The Beneficent Society has been remembered by John Wilkinson, Mrs. Caroline S. Borden (Philip D.), George W. Smith, and Mrs. Ellen Ball.
The Central Congregational Society was the beneficiary under the will of Miss Mary Craig.
The Sunday school was a beneficiary under the will of Miss Sarah R. Stillwell.
[NOTE. No part of the income from these legacies has ever been used for the payment of the current expenses of the Society.]
Central Congregational Society
THE annual payments of the Central Congregational So- ciety for salaries, music, fuel, insurance, sextons, etc., require an appropriation of about ten thousand dollars.
This amount is raised annually by the rental of pews, sup- plemented by private gifts and subscriptions, mostly paid through the system of weekly offerings.
All pews are owned by the Society, there having been no private ownership since the construction and dedication of the New Church edifice (1875).
There has been no debt on the Society property (except such as was provided for), since the year 1883, when the final payments were made under the " Pledges to Pay the Debt," secured February 1, 1880.
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Rev. and Mrs. GEORGE W. HINMAN, Missionaries to China Miss LOIS W. HALL, Missionary to Indian Territory Rev. and Mrs. EDWARD S. COBB, Missionaries to Japan
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Sketches of Foreign Missionaries
Miss Lois W. Hall Missionary to the Indian Territory
MISS LOIS W. HALL was the first missionary representative of our church sent out under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. She was a woman of great strength of character, firm, steadfast and faithful in all positions of trust to which she was called. She was a teacher in our public schools, - in the old " Green Schoolhouse," on Franklin Street; there were no private schools in Fall River in those days, now long gone by (1846- 47). The old town records speak of her as a successful teacher.
In the first years of our church life, collectors were chosen from our members to go from house to house to solicit and collect funds for our different benevolences. Miss Hall filled this position with the assistance of Miss Ellen Seabury (now Mrs. Ball) for the cause of foreign missions. In the early part of the year 1851, Miss Hall was given an appointment from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions as teacher at Park Hill, Indian Territory, among the Choctaw Indians. After much prayer and deliberation, she accepted the appointment.
Miss Hall left Fall River the same year of her appointment. The Sabbath evening prior to her departure, she received her letter of dismission from our Church, and at the close of that service, the members were requested to remain after the bene- diction. A season of prayer was held, after which, com- mending her to the grace of God, we bade her an affectionate farewell.
While with us, she had a Bible class of young ladies, a few of whom are still living. They parted from her with regret,
:
--
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but the interchange of letters kept alive their appreciation, affection, and sympathy. Some of the letters of Miss Hall are preserved to this day. The young ladies each sent their daguerreotype to Miss Hall, and in return she sent one of her own, which has been reproduced on an accompanying page, together with those of our later foreign missionaries. This picture was passed around the class, each one keeping it two weeks and then passing it on to another of the group.
Miss Hall remained with the Choctaws a number of years in teaching and missionary labors, and then, having already passed middle age, she returned to the East to her friends, where she spent her declining days in peace and comfort.
Miss Harriet Seymour Missionary to Turkey
MISS HARRIET SEYMOUR was born in Rochester, N. Y., January 5, 1831, and resided there until she was sixteen years of age, when she removed to Michigan. For nineteen years, Michigan was her home, - five years being devoted to teach- ing. She did not unite with the church until she was twenty- nine years old, having had a long religious experience previous to this time. When she first became a christian, she had a strong desire to be wholly consecrated to God's service, and this desire never left her. She hoped that all her powers, with all their might, would be joyfully employed in doing just the work God might set before her.
She applied to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions for appointment as a missionary, and having been accepted, she sailed for Harpoot, Turkey, early in the spring of 1867. She was older than most young missionary ladies, when she began the study of a new language; but her prayer that God would enlarge her mind, and quicken her intellect, seems to have been answered liberally.
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She was associated with Miss Warfield as a teacher in the Girls' Seminary at Harpoot, until the death of Miss Warfield, February 12, 1873. The pupils numbered between fifty and sixty, of whom four were Arabic speaking, and the others were Armenian.
After the death of Miss Warfield, Miss Seymour was joined by Miss Caroline Emily Bush, who arrived in Harpoot from America, in 1870. They had been close friends in church life in Rochester, N. Y., and were of one mind in the missionary work.
Miss Seymour greatly enjoyed her work and association with Miss Bush. In one of her letters, during their seminary life, she writes: " The longer Miss Bush and myself live and work here, the more we are assured that the good Father brought us together. We both feel that never had teachers better scholars, more uniformly conscientious, loving, obe- dient and studious, than are these Armenian women and girls."
In 1883, they relinquished teaching and devoted themselves to evangelistic work, touring in the villages about the country, after the fashion of the early disciples of Christ, and carrying with them everywhere the Gospel of the Kingdom.
The devout spirit and reliance upon God, developed in Miss Seymour by her work in these far-off lands, is manifest by this expression of feeling, contained in one of her letters to us: " Sometimes, when I am greatly helped in my work, when I am conscious of receiving strength from above, so that my duties are easily and joyfully performed, then I rejoice to believe that some dear sister among you, who has power with God, is pleading for your missionary. How delightful to be in the hands of such a Father, who can in one and the same moment, hear our prayer for each other, and send an instan- taneous blessing down."
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