USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > History of the Old South church (Third church) Boston, 1669-1884, Vol. II > Part 36
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332
HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
The new church was most fortunate in its choice of a minis- ter. Mr. Codman was a man of good social position, fine pres- ence, clear intellect, and thorough education. He graduated at Harvard College in 1802, in the same class with William Allen, Samuel Hoar, and Levi Lincoln, and began to read law, but by the earnest desire of his father, expressed when on his deathbed, he turned his thoughts to divinity. He studied for a time with Dr. Ware, then of Hingham, but preferring a more positive theology, he went to Edinburgh. He was licensed in England, and preached there for a year or more with much acceptance. On his return to his native land his services were in great re- quest, and it was not long before he received and accepted the call from Dorchester. It was an exciting time, theologically as well as politically. A great crisis in the Congregational body was imminent. Parties had been forming, but rather within the denomination, than in any expectation of actual schism. Dr. Ware had gone to Cambridge, to succeed Dr. Tappan in the Hollis Professorship of Theology ; and Andover Seminary had just been founded, to counteract what was becoming the pre- dominant influence in the old " school of the prophets." Mr. Codman left no reason for doubt, in the minds of those to whom he addressed his letter of acceptance, as to his position in the rising controversy. After referring to the sermons which he had preached in their hearing he wrote : "Lest, however, there should be any doubt in the mind of any one upon this subject, I think it my duty in the presence of a heart-searching God, and of this church, to declare my firm, unshaken faith in those doctrines, that are sometimes called the doctrines of the Refor- mation, the doctrines of the Cross, the peculiar doctrines of the gospel. These doctrines, through the help of God, I intend to preach ; in the faith of these doctrines I hope to live; and in the faith of these doctrines I hope to die."
At the ordination, December 7, Mr. Channing preached the sermon, Dr. Eckley offered the ordaining prayer, the charge was given by Dr. Osgood, of Medford, and the right hand of fellow- ship by Mr. Harris, of Dorchester. Mr. Channing's sermon was from the text " Be instant in season, out of season," and was a powerful presentation of the solemn responsibilities of the min- isterial office.1 We quote one of its most memorable pas- sages : -
1 Just before his own ordination, Mr. Henry Channing : "I feel awed in con- sidering the magnitude of the duties
Channing wrote to his uncle, the Revd.
333
THE EMBARGO ACT.
The salvation of man is the leading object of the providence of God. This his merciful voice promised to our guilty parents immedi- ately after the fall. For this, the cumbrous fabric of the Mosaic dis- pensation was reared. For this, prophets were inspired, and were enabled successively to cast a clearer light on futurity. For this, the son of God himself left the abodes of glory, and expired a victim on the cross ! For this, the harmony of creation was disturbed, and stu- pendous miracles were wrought to attest the gracious promises of God. For this end, a church has been erected, and its interests guarded amidst the convulsions of a sinful world. For this end, na- tions have been, and still are shaken. Yea, in this end, all heaven is interested. Heaven is gladdened by the tidings that a sinner has repented.
Sabbath Evening [? November 27], the Church and Congregation being requested by the Rev. Doctor Eckley to tarry, to express their mind if they would have a Collection for the poor of the Church and Congregation on Thanksgiving Day,
Voted Unanimously, they would.
Mr. Jefferson's administration was near its close, and Mr. Madison, secretary of state, was about to succeed to the pres- idency. The country was slowly drifting into another war with Great Britain. Bonaparte in the progress of his great struggle for continental dominion had decreed that all merchandise, the product of England or her colonies, was liable to seizure, even on board neutral vessels. The British government had retaliated by orders in council prohibiting any neutral trade with France or her allies. The United States, which was the only neutral power, was thus placed between two fires. Mr. John Bromfield wrote from London, where he was settled in business, April 18, 1808: "The decrees of France and England are ruinous to American commerce, which is a whip-top, scourged by both par- ties. Though a neutral, it is attacked by all the belligerents." For the protection of American property, the administration had imposed an embargo and other restrictive measures, which the merchants regarded as more harassing than all the imped- iments placed in their way by the belligerent powers. More than one third of the tonnage employed in the foreign trade of the United States was owned in Massachusetts, and of this trade the British was of much more importance than the French.
soon to devolve upon me. The church of God, purchased with the blood of his Son; the eternal interests of mankind ;
- what objects are here presented ! I ask your prayers, that I may have grace to be faithful." - Memoir, vol. i. p. 171.
334
HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
Said Mr. George Cabot, a prominent merchant and public man : " Our trade with France was comparatively small, and restric- tions as to that nation were not so injurious. With reference to England the case was different. Of all the surplus products of the United States, that country bought annually one half, and of all our foreign purchases she supplied two thirds."1 The merchants of Boston and the adjacent ports were disposed, therefore, to side with England, and to be lenient in their judg- ment of her policy upon the ocean, overbearing as it had been for many years. But the leanings of the administration were towards France, and the encounter between the Leopard and the Chesapeake, near the Capes of Virginia, confirmed it in its sympathies, while it greatly intensified the popular feeling against England. "The country had never been in such a state," says the historian Bradford, "since the battle of Lexington." When the Thanksgiving Day of 1808 came this was the condition of the public mind.
Mrs. Quincy wrote to her husband, the Hon. Josiah Quincy, then in Congress, December 1, 1808: -
Dr. Kirkland disappointed many of his audience this morning by the moderation of his sermon. It was less political than on any former occasion ; when it was expected to be the reverse, from the excited state of the public mind. I went to the Old South in the afternoon. Dr Eckley gave a most violent philippic against the present rulers and measures. He spoke of Jefferson, French influ- ence, prejudice against Britain &c. ; made out the title of Bonaparte to the character of the second beast in Revelation - Antichrist. En- deavouring to rouse the spirit of the country, he exclaimed, " Where is the warning voice of Washington? where, the spirit of our fore- fathers ? Where is the zeal of New England ?" He commanded the deepest attention. I almost expected to hear the people huzza at the close. The musicians in the gallery actually struck up " Washington's March," to the music of which we all marched home to comment on the sermon.
And again, December 7 : -
The greatest gloom and consternation prevail at the news, brought by express last evening, of the passage of the Non-intercourse Bill. Every one hoped, to the last moment, that the ruling party would stop short of this full measure of folly and oppression.2
In 1809 there was a temporary relaxation of hostilities, and a 1 Mem. Hist. of Boston, vol. iv. pp. 2 [Memoir of the Life of Eliza S. M. Quincy, pp. 110, III.]
212, 216.
335
AN OPEN WINTER.
thousand vessels were cleared for foreign ports. The Embargo Act was modified, so far as related to provisions and the exclu- sion of foreign armed vessels ; but the restrictions upon impor- tations were continued, with a proviso empowering the presi- dent to legalize trade with Great Britain by proclamation.1
1 Mem. Hist. of Boston, vol. iv. pp. 216, 217.
"The navigation of Boston, and of the New England ports generally, has never been less obstructed than this sea- son, by a Winter Embargo - and never
before so much impeded as by the pres- ent Political one. Heaven has thrown every facility into the lap of Commerce; and Ingratitude and Misrule have thrown them away." - Col. Centinel, Jan. II, 1809.
SAMUELINDAMDG
SMEMBER OF THIS CHURCH BORN SEPTEMBER WITTE
DIED OCTOBER : 1605 TO GIVE HNIE HISTORYIT FULL LENGTH
WOULD BE TO GIVE A HISTORY
OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION,
NNANMINA 0072TAWA
CHAPTER VII.
1809-1815.
A WIDENING BREACH AMONG THE CHURCHES. - ANOTHER WAR.
O N the first Sabbath morning - New Year's Day - of 1809, the Rev. Mr. Huntington preached a sermon appropriate to the occasion. Among his auditors was the senior deacon, the Hon. Thomas Dawes, who, within twenty-four hours from that time, "resigned his spirit unto God who gave it." On the next Lord's day Dr. Eckley preached a funeral sermon from Job xix. 25. "For I know that my Redeemer liveth," and thus spoke of his departed parishioner : --
As a native of Boston, he discovered a very earnest attachment to its interest, and at an early season of life, bent his mind, among other things, to the desire of its exterior improvement. From the calling which he pursued, and in which he acted as a principal, he greatly amended the style of architecture ; and there is now a considerable number of private, as well as some public edifices in this town and in
337
DEATH OF DEACON DAWES.
the vicinity, indebted for their convenience and beauty to his skill : 1 The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was well justified in making him one of its members.
When the political concerns of our country, no less than fifty years ago, required a martial spirit and knowledge of tactics, Colonel Dawes was one of the most useful officers of the militia of this then province.
To the fiscal state of this capital he paid a very particular and assiduous attention. With its pecuniary concerns, there was no per- son more intimately acquainted. I have understood that the Town of Boston had often considered itself as having been overcharged in the general tax throughout the Commonwealth. From the knowledge which he was judged to possess on this subject, he was elected by a full vote of the inhabitants of this place, as a member of the House of Representatives in the General Court, in the year 1777, among which body, his information on many points connected with the rela- tive situation of the towns in the whole State, especially on the sub- ject of taxation, gave him, for a number of years, so decided an influ- ence, as to enable him to repel many improper claims, and effectually to serve the interest of this his native place.
Although by these particular exertions, he voluntarily consented to an abridgment of his popularity among the members of the General Court, yet such was the sense which the citizens of Boston enter- tained of his services, that by their united suffrages he was advanced to a seat in the Senate, in which station he served several years. Soon afterward he was elected to the Council ; and it was no small gratifi- cation to him that in each of these offices he acted for a while as col- league with the Hon. Messrs. Phillips and Mason, his brethren both as members and deacons of this church.
The Honorable Mr. Dawes continued in the Council until the age of seventy years, when by the death of Lieutenant Governor Gill, then the Chief Magistrate of the State, he became President of the Council, and for a time, was the first acting Magistrate in the Com- monwealth. He had been an Elector at the three first elections of President of the United States. .
In his connexion with this religious Society, I find by the records, that Mr. Dawes was baptized by the Rev. Dr. Sewall in this church in the month of August, in the year 1731. He was admitted as a mem- ber in full communion, in A. D. 1749, being in his nineteenth year. Since my own relation to this Society, I have always known him among those, who have taken the most active part in its concerns.2
1 [The commissioners for the erection of the State House on Beacon Hill were the Hon. Thomas Dawes, the Hon. Edward H. Robbins, and Mr. Charles Bulfinch.]
2 [Among the sacramental silver of the Old South, there is a beautiful flagon which commemorates Mr. Dawes's love for the church and his faithful service in it.]
338
HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH
After the revolutionary war with Great Britain, during which the internal part of the house in which we are now assembled was de- stroyed, he drew the plan, in which, with a few alterations, it now ap- pears ; and was a principal agent in the erection of the adjoining build- ings, belonging to the general estate. In the year 1787, [? 1786] he was chosen a deacon, in which office he continued until he was removed by death, being upwards of twenty-one years. He was remarkable for being a constant worshipper in the house of the Lord. During the last year of his life, disorder and sickness impaired, in some degree, the vigor of his mind, which was naturally strong, and being improved not indeed by an academic, yet by a good education, endued him with uncommon ability to serve both the public at large, and his particular friends. ... In the frequent visits I paid him, and which he always appeared to receive with gratification, he fully expressed his sense of the great depravity and sinfulness attached to human nature, - the necessity of the divine influences in the renewal and sanctification of the heart - the insufficiency of man's righteousness for the end of justification, the glorious nature of pardon in virtue of the mediation ; - with animated hopes that through the faith he had long professed and still continued to declare in the blessed Redeemer, he might be freely accepted, and made completely happy in the en- joyment of a holy God. With these sentiments, he mixed many others respecting the instability of all earthly things - the importance of contemplating time in relation to eternity, and continually seeking a state of preparation, by grace, for the change which will soon be made on us all by the stroke of death.
He lived to the beginning of the new year ; and though weak and faultering, he said to his family he would begin it in the House of the Lord. He heard my worthy colleague in the morning on a subject adapted to the season. He was not able to attend the service of the afternoon, but, as I learn, conversed with his particular connexions in the evening in a manner the most appropriate to the occasion, and with a great degree of seriousness, solemnity, and affection. At four o'clock the following morning, by a sudden fit of the paralytic kind, he was bereaved of his reason ; and in six hours afterward resigned his spirit unto God who gave it.
Thursday, the 16th of February, was observed by the legis- lature as a day of humiliation and prayer. The two houses walked in procession from the State House to the Meeting- House in Brattle Street, where the two chaplains, Mr. Buckmin- ster and Mr. Lowell, officiated, the former preaching from I Peter v. 6. "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God." An order had been received a few days before that no vessel should be permitted to pass the Castle ; the flags
339
THE REV. HENRY KOLLOCK.
of the shipping were at half mast, and the days of the Boston Port Bill seemed to have come back again. In response to the popular demand, the extreme severity of the restrictions upon the movements of commerce was soon after relaxed.
Sabbath Day Feby. 24. 1809.1
A letter was read from the Church in Hollis Street, lately under the Pastoral care of the Rev'd Samuel West ; requesting the assist- ance of the Old South Church by its Pastors and other Delegates, at the Installation of the Rev'd Horace Holley, on the 8th day of March following.
Voted to comply with the request. The Pastors, Deacons, and some others, were chosen to attend on the Occasion.
JOSHUA HUNTINGTON.
Mr. Holley graduated at Yale College in 1803, in the same class with Sereno Edwards Dwight, afterward minister of Park Street Church. In 1805 he was settled over the church in Greenfield, Connecticut, of which President Dwight had been pastor previously. He remained in Boston until 1818, when he was called to the presidency of Transylvania University.
Dr. Eckley preached the installation sermon, from Hebrews xiii. 17: "They watch for your souls as they that must give account." Dr. Porter, of Roxbury, offered the ordaining prayer, Dr. Lathrop gave the charge, and Dr. Kirkland expressed the fellowship of the churches. Dr. Morse closed the services with prayer.
At a Meeting of the Old South Church Sabbath afternoon, 26 Feb- ruary 1809,
A letter was read, signed by Messrs Caleb Bingham, John E. Tyler and William Thurston, a committee appointed by a company of be- lievers united for the purpose of establishing a new Congregational Church under the care of the Rev'd Dr. Henry Kollock, requesting the assistance of this Church by its Pastors and one Delegate in union with several other churches in forming them into a Christian Church and giving them the right hand of fellowship at the house of William Thurston Esqr. on Monday the 27 Inst.
The subject was taken into serious consideration, after which it was voted That the Pastors of this Church signify to the above named committee the desire of the Brethren to be excused from the service proposed - At the same time expressing in respectful manner their sincere wishes that grace, mercy and peace, from God the Father and
1 [This date is wrong. It should be Friday, Feb. 24, or Sabbath, Feb. 19.]
340
HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
our Lord Jesus Christ may abound to them and their fellow Christians whom they represent on this Occasion.
By order of the Church,
JOSEPH ECKLEY, JOSHUA HUNTINGTON.
In the summer of 1808 the religious life of the town received a fresh impulse from the visit and labors of the Rev. Dr. Kol- lock, of Savannah, Georgia. He came, we are told, in the full- ness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. "He spoke with irresistible energy and power. Unaccustomed as we were," says one who listened to his preaching, " to hear anything mov- ing, his appeals came upon us like thunder. Crowds hung upon his lips, and confessed the power of earnest truth, earnestly preached."
Dr. Kollock was a graduate of Princeton College. His first settlement was at Elizabethtown, but in 1803 he was called back to Princeton as professor of theology and pastor. In 1806 he received the Doctor's degree from both Harvard and Union. In the same year he accepted an invitation to settle in Savan- nah. During the early part of his ministry there his friends would not allow him to remain during the hot weather, and he spent his summers in the North. In 1808 he travelled through New England, "and wherever he preached," says Dr. Sprague, he "awakened the highest admiration. In Boston, particularly, the multitudes thronged after him, almost as their fathers had done after Whitefield." It was determined to organize a new church, and to call him to become its pastor, and he seems to have given assurances that he would accept. But when he conferred with his friends in Savannah, he found the opposition to his removal too strong to be overcome. A remonstrance, signed by three thousand persons, was sent to the Presbytery of which he was a member, and that body refused to dismiss him. A letter from him was received in Boston in September, 1809, explaining why he could not come, and declining the call, " after he had given it the most serious attention, and disposed of many doubts in respect to his duty."1 "This was a terrible shock to the high hopes of the little church."
The church was formed at the house of Mr. William Thurs- ton, Beacon Hill,2 on the 27th of February, 1809. The churches
1 Dr. Kollock died, after a brilliant and useful ministry, in 1819, at the age of forty-one.
2 " Not a few of the older inhabitants
of the city," wrote Dr. Shurtleff in 1859, "remember well the lofty mansion of this gentleman, as it presented itself to the sight of all, in the days of its magnifi-
341
PARK STREET CHURCH.
invited were the Old South and Federal Street in Boston ; 1 the church in Cambridge, the Rev. Abiel Holmes, pastor; the church in Charlestown, the Rev. Jedidiah Morse, pastor ; and the Second Church in Dorchester, the Rev. John Codman, pas- tor. Dr. Morse preached a sermon from Psalm cviii. 25 : "Save now, I beseech thee O Lord ! O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity." The number of those who entered into cov- enant with each other was twenty-six, twenty-one of whom pre- sented letters from other churches, and five made a profession of religion for the first time. Among them were William Thurston and wife Elizabeth, John Eugene Tyler and wife Han- nah, and Josiah Bumstead and wife Mary Greenough, from the Old South ; Joseph W. Jenkins, from the First Church ; William Ladd, from Brattle Street ; and Andrew Calhoun, from the West Church. Mr. Tyler and Mr. Bumstead were chosen deacons. Deacon Elisha Ticknor,2 who, with his wife Elizabeth, joined the Old South July 31, 1808, served as treasurer of the new society for several months, but he did not become a member of the church, and he was one of those who withdrew from the enter- prise after Dr. Kolloch's declination had been received.
Until this time, the terms of admission to membership in the churches of Boston had been plain and simple - repent- ance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Candi- dates had been required, not to give definite and particular assent to a system of divinity embodied in a dogmatic creed, but to enter into a covenant in the exercise of a living faith; and in a spirit of holy consecration, in solemn and beautiful language adopted by the fathers when the broad foundations of New England Congregationalism were laid. It has been well said, that creeds are for testimony, not for tests ; 3 but the new church was established on the principle that they are for tests, as well as testimony. It not only declared its adherence to the doctrines of religion, as they are "in general clearly and hap- pily expressed " in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and in
cence, from its towering eminence upon the summit of the once high hill of Bow- doin Street." Mr. Thurston died at Na- ples, August 25, 1822.
1 Federal Street Church declined to be represented on the occasion, as well as the Old South ; so that the churches which participated in the proceedings were those of Charlestown and Cam- bridge, and the Second of Dorchester.
2 Deacon Ticknor had been a school- master, but at this time was doing busi- ness as a retail grocer at the sign of the Beehive in Marlborough Street. He was a deacon in Hollis Street Church, and the title clung to him after he changed his membership.
3 See the Rev. E. N. Packard's Ad- dress, Church Creeds and Church Mem- bership, p. 4.
342
HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
the Confession of Faith of 1680, but it formulated these doc- trines in a symbol of its own, emphasizing especially the tri- personality of the Godhead, election (with its necessary corol- lary - reprobation), and imputed righteousness. And it went further : it required subscription both to the general statements and to its own particular confession, as a condition precedent to membership. It thus erected a barrier which would inevita- bly separate its minister, whoever he might be, from most of the ministers of the long-established churches, who were either negatively Calvinistic or positively Arminian.1
This peculiarity in its constitution may have had something to do with the decision of the pastors and members of the Old South, not to give their public approbation to the new church by taking part in the services of the 27th of February. Dr. Eckley, and his more conservative parishioners, must have fore- seen that the gathering of a church with such a positive creed and in such an aggressive spirit, would add to the intensity of the doctrinal discussions then agitating the churches, and tend to promote a schism, which they would wish, if possible, to avert. On the other hand, Mr. Huntington who, as we suppose, had been called to the colleague pastorship in order especially to meet the preferences of the progressive men in the church, must have felt hurt that some of these men -who had assisted in the proceedings which led to his settlement only a few months before 2- should now be leading a movement for the formation of a church whose minister would stand doctrinally where he stood, and would preach as he had been expected to preach, and as he was preaching.
It should be remembered also, that Mr. Tyler, Mr. Bumstead, and Mr. Thurston had not been in accord with the majority of their brethren, in the management of the affairs of the society, and were among the signers of the remonstrance or protest of November 26, 1806, when the building of the new parsonages in Milk Street was first proposed ; 3 and although that difference of opinion was amicably adjusted, it is evident, as we have
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