USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > History of the Second Church, or Old North, in Boston : to which is added a History of the New Brick Church > Part 11
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common sense, with the authoritative arguments of truth and love, the reason assented, the conscience trembled, the heart submitted. He was not a profound theologian ; but his mind was well furnished with the most valuable trea- sures of sacred lore, and held at his command a magazine of illustrations, expositions, and proofs of all the great doc- trines which he had examined and believed, and therefore preached. He was not a graceful rhetorician, if judged by artificial rules ; but in that plain, serious, earnest eloquence, which is most appropriate to the pulpit, whether we estimate him by the interest his preaching always attracted or by the effects it often produced, he has left behind him no superior, and not many equals. He was not a scholar, in the ordinary acceptation of that word, nor a man of bril- liant talents; but in amount and variety of general and useful knowledge, in quickness of intellectual perception, in correctness of taste, in the finer qualities of a poetic imagination, and in fervor and fertility of genius, he has given abundant evidences of high natural endowments and excellent culture. But, better than all, he was a good, a sound, a faithful man. His superiority is not seen in any conspicuous feature of greatness, but in the fulness, proportion, and solidity of his moral manliness. He was a hero of the Christian stamp; brave in the cause of virtue, without the flourish of arms; invincible in integrity, without boasting or arrogance; prompt in enterprises of benevolence, without impetuosity ; patient in hardships, without the thirst of glory; overcoming evil with good, and achieving the victory over the world with the sword of the Spirit, under the breastplate of faith
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and love. " The same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Mr. Ware died at Framingham, Mass., Sept. 22, 1843. His funeral was solemnized by appropriate religious ser- vices in the chapel of Harvard University. His body was followed to Mount Auburn by a long train of friends, and deposited, amid profound silence and with a hopeful sor- row, in the tomb of a friend, until arrangements could be made for its final and honorable interment on Harvard Hill.
Of the ministry of the living I may not speak with- out reserve. Ralph Waldo Emerson was ordained as colleague with Mr. Ware, March 11, 1829. The latter resigned his office, Sept. 26, 1830; and Mr. Emerson re- mained sole pastor for two years, when he was dismissed at his own request by reason of differences of sentiment between himself and the church and society in relation to the Lord's Supper, - differences, however, which were entertained on both sides without alienation of personal affection and esteem, and expressed on both sides with perfect .moderation and candor, - differences which were the more regretted as necessary interruptions of a con- nection which was with many of the parish a strong and pleasant tie.
In June, 1832, Mr. Emerson invited the brethren of the church to meet at his house, " to receive a communi- cation from him in relation to the views at which he had arrived respecting the ordinance of the Lord's Supper." After a statement of them, he proposed " so far to change ยท the manner of administering the rite as to disuse the
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elements, and relinquish the claim of authority ; and sug- gested a mode of commemoration which might secure the undoubted advantages of the Lord's Supper, without its objectionable features." After hearing this communica- tion, the church appointed a committee to consider and report on the subject. * They reported the following re- solutions : 1. " That in the opinion of this church, after a a careful consideration of the subject, it is expedient to maintain the celebration of the Lord's Supper in the pre- sent form." 2. " That the brethren of this church retain an undiminished regard for the pastor, and entertain the hope that he will find it consistent with his sense of duty to continue the customary administration of the Supper." These resolutions were unanimously adopted.
The pastor afterwards, in a public discourse, explained to the society his views of the Lord's Supper, and informed them of the decision of the church. In conclusion he stated his conviction, that, as it was no longer in his power, with a single mind, to administer the communion, it became his duty to resign his charge. He therefore requested of the proprietors a dismission, which was granted.
After the dismission of Mr. Emerson, the pastoral office remained vacant till the ordination of the present incum- bent, Dec. 3, 1833.
No Christian church ever received a young and inex- perienced minister with more cordial and considerate kind-
* This committee consisted of Deacons Mackintosh and Patterson, Dr. John Ware, George B. Emerson, George A. Sampson, Gedney King, and Samuel Beal.
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ness ; and no young preacher ever threw himself upon the affections and forbearance of a people altogether unknown to him, with a more entire and delightful confidence. Such was the commencement of our connection ; a connection which, in spite of the sore troubles and severe shocks that, during the course of it have come upon the parish, has never yet, from the first hour to the last, been otherwise than affectionate, confidential, and happy. Not to say as much as this would be as untruthful to my own cherished recollections and deepest feelings as it would be unjust and ungrateful to the uninterrupted current of your kind- ness, to the occasional extraordinary and distinguished tokens of your attachment, and to that precious and tried friendship which has been as honorable to you as a parish, as it has been sustaining and dear to your minister.
My thoughts revert now, and they love often to go back, to the condition of our society ten years ago. I re-enter our venerable church, crowned, like virtuous age, with a hoary glory ; consecrated by the prayers of many genera- tions ; within whose massive walls came back to us that impressive voice which had so often, in former years, waked their solemn echoes, in unison with responsive tones from the deepest hearts of the people, to which its call of tremulous earnestness seldom failed to penetrate. Images of the dead and the living, in long and fair processions, thread its aisles, and line its pews with reverential ranks. Again I look down from its pulpit into the open faces of the friendly and peaceful throng, which, from sabbath to sabbath, with lively sympathy quickened a pastor's love, and, shoulder to shoulder, helped his feeble hands to bear
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up the ark of the Lord. A happier church, a happier minister, a more united and devoted congregation, it would have been difficult to find.
But all this prosperity, which seemed to us so secure, soon vanished like a delightful dream, and left us, home- less and broken, to the sad and almost hopeless task of re- collecting a dismembered society, constructing a new parish out of the wrecks of the old, and finding, if possible, some humble place, with nothing of the dignity or sacredness of a church, to shelter us in the season of our devotions.
The history of this momentous change, though known to some of you, it is my duty carefully and truthfully to narrate. I will uncover the past so far as is absolutely ne- cessary, and no further. With a feeling of sacredness and delicacy, I would deal with old transactions ; with a hand of kindness touch painful recollections, - more glad, if it were possible, to leave them undisturbed in obscurity and silence. But, as this may not be, let us pause ere we look backward, and first invoke love to come into our hearts, hand in hand with truth, and forgiveness consorting with justice to lead and attend us in our retrospect.
The causes of that train of events which issued in the loss of the new church-edifice in Hanover-street are not of recent origin. The popularity and usefulness of Mr. Ware attracted several families to his society, whose homes were at a distance from the meeting-house; whilst, at the same time, not a few of his parishioners who had been living near their place of worship, obeying a tendency which has ever since been increasing, removed to a more southerly part of the city, but still retained their connection
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with the Second Church. In the year 1832, during the ministry of Mr. Emerson, the worshippers were about equally divided into two parties: those who lived at the North End, and those who lived at the South; so that when it was found necessary to repair the old house, at the expense of about three thousand dollars, it became a ques- tion whether it would not be advisable to sell it, and erect a new, in a more central situation. The matter was the occasion of considerable talk and some feeling in the parish ; and, the fact of such a discussion becoming gene- rally known, an offer was made by the Roman Catholics to purchase the house and land in Hanover-street for the sum of nineteen thousand dollars. Those whose birth- place and dwellings and early associations strongly at- tached them to the locality of the old church, opposed the removal of the ancient landmark so strenuously, that they whose convenience led them to desire a change ceased to press their wishes, and allowed all action on the subject to subside. But, though not brought up in any parish meeting for several years, it formed the topic of frequent conversation, and was never out of the minds of the people.
At the commencement of his ministry, your present pastor saw and felt the existence of this sectional division of the society. It was the only circumstance which then or afterwards gave him any apprehension, or was the source of any trial. It was his endeavor, of course, to avoid alluding to it, or involving himself with it, in any way whatever, and to prevent its being brought forward in connection with any parish affairs.
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In 1840, when it was found that the old house needed extensive repairs, the question of rebuilding necessarily, and very properly, came up again for discussion. The South End party had now become a majority, besides being more wealthy, and felt that they had a right at length to urge their claims, more especially as the interests of worship seemed to require a more accessible location. They agreed upon a site for the new church in Somerset- street, and went so far as to obtain subscriptions to a very large amount towards its erection. The North End por- tion of the society still objected, and with great firmness held out against removal. An offer was made to the pastor by the former, in case he would go with them, to push the matter to an immediate issue, obtain the largest possible vote, and proceed at once to build on the proposed location. This offer was refused by him without hesita- tion, because its acceptance, though it might be favorable, in some respects, to himself, and might result in the estab- lishment of a flourishing society, would involve a division of the Second Church, to which his duty was pledged, and his affections were bound.
In this state of things, he ventured to address a letter to the parish, urging both parties to be studious of concord, and to make concessions for the common good; and ex- pressing the belief that it would be possible, with the exer- cise of a. little forbearance, to agree upon an arrangement that should satisfy and accommodate all the proprietors, and tend to the security and increase of the society. This arrangement, he suggested, must have respect to two points : first, the location of the new church, which ought to
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be not further south than Court-street, nor further north than Union-street; and, secondly, the cost of the building. With regard to the latter point, the language of the letter was as follows: -
" A very expensive and splendid church, I am sure, it is not the general wish of the congregation to have. I am still more certain that such is not my desire. I can never look with approbation upon the too common practice of religious societies, of vying with one another in building showy and extravagant places of worship. The spirit which is thus manifested is not the spirit of Christ. The example is bad; the tendency, pernicious, - more especially, when, to accomplish this end, the society must run in debt. Such buildings exclude the poor, with those who are in moderate circumstances, and draw in those whose motives in select- ing their place of worship are any thing but religious. They hold out a lure to ambitious men of small means to buy pews which they cannot honestly afford to own. They make the taxes burdensome, and lead to the indul- gence of feelings of pride and vain show, which turn away attention from the spiritual worship of God, to the 'marble dome and gilded spire, and costly pomp of sacrifice.' We ought, if we build, to erect a capacious, commodious, sub- stantial, and neat edifice; one, of which we shall neither be ashamed nor proud; one in which a good pew can be procured without extravagance; one which may go down to our children's children by reason of its solidity, and burdened with no encumbrances by reason of the pride of their ancestors; one which, from the corner-stone to the pinnacle, shall be built up justly and honestly."
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This letter stopped, for a time, all further proceedings. An attempt was then made to find a suitable site some- where in the part of the city recommended by the pastor. After the failure of this attempt, the South End members of the society gradually lost their interest in the project of removal, which seemed destined to continual disappoint- ment; whilst the zeal of the other party increased, and their hopes strengthened. At length, having a small ma- jority, the latter obtained a decisive vote to demolish the old church, and rebuild on the same spot, with the under- standing that the whole cost of the new building should not exceed thirty-four thousand dollars. This proceeding produced much discontent, and caused the withdrawal of several of the most substantial parishioners.
The building committee, in their desire to procure a durable and beautiful house, that should not only be worthy of the society, but an ornament also to the north part of the city, caused to be erected the spacious and costly edifice, which, contrary to their expectations, has been the cause of unmeasured distress to the parish they hoped to honor.
When the building was completed, it was deemed necessary, in order to effect a sale of the pews, to appraise them for a sum very much less than the cost of construc- tion. If all had been sold, there would still have remained a large debt. More than one hundred were purchased, and many for very large sums, and yet the debt was found to be not far from forty thousand dollars. For a large part of this amount, the building was mortgaged; the mortgage to run till 1851 or 1852. Notwithstanding this heavy and
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dangerous burden, the society seemed steadily to increase. But the managers of its affairs were ever solicitous about the debt, and often deliberated concerning the mode of lightening or discharging it. The standing committee, with exceptions, were of opinion that the true course was to assess the pews for the whole amount, and pay it at once.
A parish meeting was called, and a vote demanded on this proposition. The meeting was very numerously at- tended, and the proposition negatived by an immense majority. A short time after, the committee called another meeting on parish affairs, at which very few of the proprietors were present; when it was voted, in substance, that the whole subject of the debt be left in the hands of the standing committee. The committee then proceeded to assess the whole debt on the pews. The assessment amounted to eighty per cent of their original cost. This act of the committee gave great offence. Nearly a hundred proprietors gave up their deeds on account of it. About twenty paid the assessment. In this emergency, your minister volunteered to endeavor, by personal application to the offended individuals, to induce them to repurchase. The twenty proprietors agreed, that, in case he would obtain the sale of seventy-five pews (the whole being reappraised so as to cover the debt), they would consent to admit the purchasers to their corporation. Those to whom he applied understood that they were only to be held bound to an engagement to repurchase, on con- dition that the whole number specified should be obtained. This was in the spring of 1849. Your pastor procured the
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desired promise from nearly sixty individuals, when, being compelled by imperative calls of a domestic nature to take a short journey to the South, a committee appointed by the congregation agreed to take the business in charge, and try to complete the requisite list. When he returned, he found, to his surprise, that the project had been aban- doned.
A few months after this, in June, 1849, your pastor addressed a letter to the proprietors, then reduced to about twenty, tendering his resignation. According to estab- lished usage, this letter would have been publicly read from the pulpit. But, from feelings of delicacy towards the small body of proprietors, it was sent to them through their clerk, and left at their disposal. It was never read to the congregation.
To this act of resignation, long deferred and most re- luctantly performed, two powerful and deep convictions moved me. The first related to the utter hopelessness of saving the church-edifice ; the other, to the possibility of saving the living body, the church and congregation, es- sentially the same, through a separation from the building.
After calm and thorough examination of the state of the parish, in connection with the causes that produced it, I was fully persuaded that there was no possibility either of discharging the debt of the society, or of keeping the society together with the pressure of that debt upon it. I had seen the failure of plan after plan suggested by others. I had been again and again disappointed at the want of success of my own efforts. I had noted the falling-off, one after another, of the oldest and most valuable members
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of the parish, and was aware that the removal of a still greater number was impending. I saw division that I could not heal, and alienation to which I could apply no remedy, - division, not so much of will as of necessity; and alienation, not of intentional, but of circumstantial origin ; whose cause was neither sudden nor particular, but manifold, and of many years' growth. I felt that under such circumstances my preaching was abortive. And a terrible vision, both of the loss of the house, and the ruin of the flock, - a vision which no man offered one valid reason to dispel, - haunted and affrighted me. Not has- tily, not lightly, not willingly, did I take the initiatory step towards a separation from the proprietors. But after many prayers, after long reflection, after deliberate inves- tigation, with unfeigned grief, with shrinking reluctance, and under the most solemn sense of responsibility, did I ask them to release me from a bond whose sacredness had previously impressed as much as its pleasantness had attracted me.
To save the edifice, therefore, and the society in con- nection with it, was, as I believed, utterly beyond hope. To remain longer attached to the house would be, as I felt confident, to see the ruin of the church and society. The only hope that remained was, that, separated from the building which was crushing them, the church and congregation, essentially the same, might still be kept alive. The house was but of yesterday; a pile of wood and stone, which wealth and handicraft could at any time destroy and replace. But the church was venerable with age; rich in sacred recollections; renowned in the eccle-
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siastical annals of New England; honored in the esteem of all for the ancient worthies, famed in church and state, whose names were enrolled amongst its members; and very dear to many of us as the nurse of our early faith, - overgrown with sweet and hallowed recollections of reli- gious services and joys, of Christian friends and Christian instructors, many of them long since passed from its bosom to the communion of the blest, who had bequeathed to it the rich inheritance of their virtues, and the precious legacy of their dying benedictions.
Concern for the salvation of this, together with the flock long bound to one another and to my heart by closest ties, absorbed all other concern. For these I felt that no sacrifice would be too costly. If only these might survive, the loss of the building, however painful and mortifying, would be comparatively small.
But could the flock be saved ? Would its members ever reunite ? After so many trials and disappointments ; after heavy pecuniary losses; after the shame and shock of losing their house of worship; after having been once actually scattered, with no local centre and no external bond, - was it probable, was it possible, that they would ever again come together, and take upon themselves anew the labor and expense of supporting public worship ?
These questions were continually asked. And they who did not know this people invariably gave to them but one answer, " It could not be." I often asked these ques- tions of myself; sometimes with deep solicitude. The prospect was most discouraging; the difficulties seemed almost countless and insuperable. Again and again, my
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heart was on the point of failing me. But I could not despair. I could not give up all hope. I could not be brought to look aside to any other pastoral connection. I could not contemplate any provision for myself in the contingency of failure.
At the bottom of my heart there was a feeling of trust that could not be rooted out, - trust in you, dear friends, and trust in God. I knew the flock too well to believe that they would suffer their old associations to be for ever dissolved, their sacred and pleasant ties to be for ever broken, without an effort. I knew the flock too well to believe that their hearts would not cling together, after all external bonds should be broken. I had confidence in them, that nothing short of impossibility would discourage them from attempting a re-organization. I felt all the while, even in the darkest days of absence, a secret attrac- tion holding me back from all new connections ; an attraction which I was sure was but responsive to that which acted upon your own hearts; a strong and sweet constraint that I have often interpreted to myself in the beautiful words in which friendship, of old time, expressed the warmth and fidelity of its cohesive instinct : " Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee ; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge : thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die ; and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me."
I had confidence also in God, who heareth the prayers of his children, and is faithful to remember the labors of
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his servants; that God to whom our fathers, and the shepherds of our ancient fold, have cried for a blessing upon the church of their love; that God who saw their toils for its prosperity, and knows that in heaven they could have no greater joy than to see it flourishing and at peace, rising up in renewed vigor from its low estate, putting on again its beautiful garments, sending out the kind invita- tions of the Spirit, and gathering, as in former days, many sons and daughters to glory.
How well-founded this confidence, how faithful and how merciful the God of our fathers, and our own God, let the remembrance of the past tell us, let this day's spectacle attest.
The proprietors, soon after the resignation of their minister was offered, voted to accept it, and to close their house. It was never afterwards opened for worship by the Second Church. Meanwhile, before the intervention of a single sabbath after the close of the meeting-house, the communicants of the church, called together by the dea- cons, voted unanimously to request their pastor to continue his ministrations, and appointed a committee to procure a suitable place of worship. Such a place was obtained ; a large majority of the congregation assembled ; and all the ordinances of religion have been regularly administered till the present time .*
In the spring of 1850, the proprietors of the church in Freeman Place, discouraged on account of the long illness of their minister, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, offered to
* The society worshipped a great part of the time in the Masonic Temple.
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sell their building to this society, on terms quite reasona- ble and advantageous to us. The offer was gladly accepted ; and, through the munificence of several indivi- duals amongst yourselves, the sum necessary for the purchase was raised, without a heavy burden upon the remainder of the parish.
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