USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > History of the church in Brattle street, Boston > Part 13
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This attendance every man owes to himself. At church, he will be in the way of duty, improve- ment, and holy influences. He cannot fail to get
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some good, if present from a Christian purpose, with a Christian spirit and temper. He owes it to the community ; for a serious observance of the Lord's day is one of the high towers of defence to the community's peace and virtue. A Chris- tian citizen should not permit his example to tend to undermine and destroy that defence, but rather to deepen its foundations and extend its power. He owes it to God, whose wisdom and provi- dence have set apart and sanctified a day of pub- lic praise and worship, and whose blessing makes it effectual to the prosperity and glory of a nation, to the happiness and salvation of the individual. Let us not fail in this duty. Let us seek to dis- charge it with more and more fidelity, even at the cost of some effort and sacrifice. Let whatever is good in our habits in this particular be pre- served, improved, carried forward to perfection. Great changes have occurred since first this spot was consecrated to religious purposes, and an altar to God's worship and the spread of Christ's Gospel here erected, - changes redounding to the growth, progress, and prosperity of the city, but in some respects unfavorable to us, placing our church, pleasantly and quietly situated in it- self, at an inconvenient distance from the resi- dences of many of the citizens, requiring both of the pastor and the people an earnest and zealous spirit to preserve its prosperity. Let us not fail to manifest this spirit.
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In this connection, another circumstance may be alluded to as not unworthy of consideration. Among the various changes produced of late years by the rapid growth of our city is one which, in its present and prospective influence upon our religious societies, already forces itself upon our attention. I refer to the extent to which the whole social system in Boston is broken up during the summer months, and to the large emi- gration into the country, as a permanent place of residence, constantly occurring. Formerly, it was a rare thing for any man in business to live in the country, and come every day to the city to attend to that business. The number of those who did this could be easily counted. A large majority of the business men lived in the city with their families. The most intimate and important social relations of nearly all were here, and only a few of the more wealthy went into the country for a few months in summer. Now all this is changed. Multitudes of business people of all occupations, of the highest and the humblest fortunes, live in the country, in the neighboring towns and villages, all the year. Their domestic, their social, their religious relations are there, and only their busi- ness relations here ; and of those who may be said to be residents of the city, great numbers find it pleasant, convenient, and as economical as it is pleasant and convenient, to pass weeks and months of the summer in the country.
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This is not to be complained of, or regretted ; nor do I allude to it for that purpose. I rejoice in it, so far as it is an evidence of our prosperity, and I thank the Divine wisdom and goodness which appoint " the bounds of our habitation," that this little peninsula-destined at an early day to be covered with warehouses, given up to the purposes of trade, - the centre of a vast popula- tion and an extensive inland and foreign com- merce - is bordered by a country of such va- ried and picturesque beauty, - a magnificent panorama of hill and dale, valley and plain, - to which we have multiplied means of cheap and easy access, and where humble industry can rear its quiet habitation, and wealth unite the beauties of nature with the comforts and refinements of art.
I would fain believe, also, that moral as well as physical good comes from these summer emi- grations ; that while health is promoted and pleas- ure enjoyed, the heart is refreshed and invigo- rated, the silent appeal of nature in its loveliness and grandeur acknowledged, and the conscience permitted to speak with new power amid the occasional stillness of the passions. I would fain hope that many return wiser and better, with a larger conception of God's goodness and man's duty.
But though the thing is not to be regretted and cannot be changed, though good flows from it in
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various ways, its effects upon our religious socie- ties, upon the relations of the clergy to the people and of the people to each other, and upon that influence which it is the aim and object of the clerical office to exert, are obviously not of the most desirable or beneficial kind. Ultimately, if the city continues to grow and change as it has of late years, the result must be the extinction of some of our religious societies, or their re- moval in their corporate capacity into the neigh- boring country. But " sufficient for the day is the evil thereof," and, without looking anxiously into the distant future, we may observe, as one of the evils already experienced, that the circum- stance we are considering brings much of the work of the clergyman, and nearly all the good he can hope to do, the influence he can hope to exert, into eight or nine months of the year. In summer, he is preaching to a large number of empty pews, looking round upon a feeble remnant of the flock scattered here and there about the church. This has a depressing and chilling in- fluence upon preacher and hearer. We keep up the forms of religious service during the summer, and we must keep them up ; but it is very diffi- cult to give interest and efficiency to them. It seems to be admitted that a minister cannot now do much in his parish in the summer ; that com- paratively little spiritual growth is to be expected
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and little spiritual progress witnessed then. When autumn returns, the church begins to fill up, and the clergyman looks around on a multitude of faces, some familiar and some new. He feels that now an opportunity for zeal and effort is offered, that a great work is before him, and he sets himself resolutely to perform it. He visits, preaches, has Bible-classes or lectures ; strives in all ways and by various instrumentalities to understand and meet the spiritual wants of his hearers, and do what good he can among them, during the few months they are to be gathered together in the city. He makes some progress in this work ; he does some good undoubtedly ; but just as he is looking for the fruit of his labors, just as he has reestablished those intimate and affectionate relations between himself and his hearers which are necessary to his best influence upon their hearts and consciences, spring returns, summer comes, a large portion of the flock are again scattered, and the work must be com- menced anew the next season, to be broken off again in the same manner.
But amid all these changes and unfavorable circumstances to which I have alluded, the great condition of our prosperity, temporal and spirit- ual, remains the same, unchanged and unchange- able. God will never leave nor forsake us, unless we first leave and forsake him. He will be with
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us as he was with our fathers, if we seek his pres- ence, if we love the habitation of his house, if we reverence his word, prize his ordinances, wait regularly and habitually upon his worship, search with a lively interest for his will, and do it with a holy zeal. Let those who come up hither come with a devout purpose ; let them be men and women loving God with heart and mind and soul and strength, leading lives of faith and prayer, earnest in duty, patient in trial, abounding in good works ; let the families that meet here be families in which God is worshipped and Christ obeyed and imitated, -- families in whose bosom and over whose intercourse devotion and peace and love hold sway ; - then shall God be with us as he was with our fathers. He will not leave nor for- sake us. He shall strengthen the walls of our Zion ; his spirit shall dwell in our hearts, and prepare for our spirits a dwelling near his own excellent glory, in a better world. As members of this ancient church and society, let us all seek to be faithful in our day and generation, patient and persevering amid obstacles that are always in the path of duty. Let the retrospect of the past which we have now taken have its effect in quick- ening our sense of responsibleness, awakening fresh interest and zeal in all our hearts. Short is the time given to any of us in which to be faithful. Let these venerable walls admonish us ; let the
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shadows of the past speak to us. Let the succes- sive generations of our fathers, as they here pass before us, exhort us. Let the memory of the departed, once fellow-worshippers here, whom we have known and loved, incite and arouse us. Ah, what changes do even a few brief years make in a congregation ! How many venerable forms, - how many dear, familiar faces, no more to be seen, how many sweet and pleasant voices, no more to be heard on earth, - faces and voices of youth in its prime, of manhood in its vigor, of age in its moral beauty and excellence, - how many of these now rise up before me and before you ! Of those who witnessed the beginning of my ministry among you, which cannot yet be called long, how many have "passed on " ! These speak to us ; all the past history of this church and society appeals to us, and bids us, by our honor and peace, by the mercies of Heaven and the necessities of men, to be steadfast, zeal- ous, faithful, persevering. Let each determine for himself to obey that appeal. So shall the Lord God be with us and with our children, as he was with our fathers.
Brattle Street, December 7th, 1850.
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NOTE.
IN the account given, on pages 72-74, of the Rev. William Cooper's connection with the ordination of the Rev. Robert Breck, in 1736, and the controversy it engendered, I omitted to mention, what Mr. Cooper would wish to have appear in any account of his conduct on that occasion, that, before proceed- ing to the meeting of the council at Springfield, he had fully satisfied himself of the orthodoxy of Mr. Breck. This ap- pears from the pamphlet, " An Examination," &c., of which Cooper was supposed to be the author. On the 87th page of that pamphlet, after allusion to the refusal of the ministers of the Hampshire Association to examine Mr. Breck, is the following statement : -
" Whereas Robert Breck, M. A., of Harvard College in Cambridge, hath applied himself to us the subscribers, a num- ber of the associated pastors in Boston, earnestly requesting us to inquire into his principles in religion, These may certify, that on the 8th day of May, 1735, we discoursed with him to our good satisfaction concerning his orthodoxy in the great doctrines of Christianity, as believed and professed in the churches of Christ in New England, agreeable to the West- minster Confession of Faith, and so recommend him to the Grace of God and his brethren in Christ.
" BENJAMIN COLMAN, THOMAS FOXCROFT,
JOSEPH SEWALL, SAMUEL CHECKLEY,
JOHN WEBB, JOSHUA GEE,
WILLIAM COOPER, MATHIER BYLES."
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