USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Gloucester > Memorial of the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Gloucester, Mass. August, 1892 > Part 4
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* Sermon of Sept. 13, 1792, " preached at the Desire of the Committee, appointed for Repairing of the Meeting House, in the First Parish of Gloucester, from the Waste of Time and the wanton spoilations of Captain Lynzey in the Falcon Sloop of War, immediately after those Repairs were completed."
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organized before the town, and it seems that Gloucester began its career the 3d of May, when the General Court established its bounds. Then again, Blynman would probably regard it his first duty to see that the church was properly ordered, and he was here before May, as it was by him, or the friends he brought with him, that the plantation was named. There were here "about fifty persons," grown persons, mostly men, " when this godly reverend man " was called to office, wrote Johnson in his "Wonder-Working Providence." A goodly number that to transact the business we are met this day to commemorate. They gathered together in a little thatched meeting-house, already some time built. It was situated, most likely, on the upland which seems to have been that alluded to in a document of 1648, as " Meeting-house Hill." Tradition places it near the spot where in 1644 a half acre was assigned for the "common burial place," that in time outgrew its primitive bounds, has fallen into disuse, and long been known as " the old up-in- town burying ground." That there was a meeting-house at this time we have positive evidence in the report of the commission appointed by the General Court, Oct. 7, 1641, to settle the bounds of Cape Ann. In that report they mention the "Cape Ann meeting-house." It was probably the one which Forbes * says, was " consecrated for public worship," in 1633. The second meeting house was built probably, within two years after Mr. Blynman gathered First Church, in 1642. Good authority favors its erection, about half a mile north of " the old meeting-house place." If so, it was the first of four successive houses of worship that stood there through two centuries, and from which the place became historic as "Meeting-house Plain," - in later days " Meeting-house Green."
Blynman, the first minister, was an aggressively dogmatic Chris- tian, a fair type of the sterner Puritan who, "laboring much against the errors of the times," embroiled himself, first with his flock in Marsh- field and was forced to leave, and then so stirred up the people here that they would not peaceably listen to him. I cannot help wondering if the plain, common-sense fishermen, whose minds had broadened with the breadth of the sea, were not too liberal and human to swal- low whole, as the whale swallowed Jonah, those doctrines of priestly authority and harsh heavenly decrees which were then preached from most of the pulpits. A more liberal spirit was abroad; that I know from the history of the Boston church and my own church of Quincy.
* Sermon of March 5, 1795, " preached at the desire of the Selectmen, and the Committee for inspecting the Town Schools; occasioned by the Dedication of a new and very commodious Grammar School House, lately erected in the First Parish of the Town of Gloucester."
ST. ANNE CATHOLIC CHURCH, erected 1876.
Luigi Acquarone, First Rector, 1855.
Jeremiah J. Healey, Rector, 1892. Charles W. Regan, Assistant, 1892. Parochial House, erected 1880.
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Let us hope it was welcomed by your predecessors in this place. On such an occasion as this we like to think the best we can of our ancestors.
Blynman left Gloucester in 1649. After him the parish resorted to one of the characteristic principles of the Congregational polity : they chose one or more from among themselves to do the preaching. That, I take it, is a proceeding to be commended. Although the people of that day highly esteemed their ministers, calling them " God's prophets," the "annointed of God," and so on in like terms, they did not think he was another sort of creature from themselves, and was to be religious for the whole congregation and do every act of worship for the congregation. Such complete division of labor they did not grasp after. We have succeeded better in thrusting all duties upon the pulpit. Now, if a minister is away from a parish, the people, in most instances, seem helpless. There is not one among them to lead the worship. In the old days, however, there were many "private brethren " who could preach and pray. The whole church was reli- gious and was competent to serve God at any time, whether a minister was in the pulpit or not. It was customary to elect " teaching elders," and these were quite prepared to "handle the Word " or " exhort " when called upon. The Gloucester church, weakened now by the departure of many to New London with Mr. Blynman, felt unable to hire a regular preacher. The Sunday services were dutifully carried on, however, by the "private brethren." A militia captain, one William Perkins, most frequently officiated, and consequently received the title of " teaching elder," and grants of upland and marsh that had been "reserved unto the use of teaching elders unto all posteritie."
He devoted himself to his religious duties during some eight years, but whether he also trained the militia to fight the heathen Indians, and besides, like the apostles John and Peter, went a-fishing, history is silent. Other "teaching elders" - Thomas Millet and William Stevens -- exercised their gifts for the edification of the church, and then it was determined to invite John Emerson to settle over them. He also was a resident of Gloucester, and it would seem, now that several private brethren had successfully conducted services, the inhabitants were so satisfied with themselves that they thought a " Cape Anner" could do everything and preach too. They were going to have no more imported ministers. "The church and the people," wrote Parson Forbes at a later date, " sought for one of their own sons to take them by the hand and lead them in this wilder- ness in the paths of peace and truth, but did not obtain one until 1653, when they engaged Mr. John Emerson, who from that time
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preached among them to good acceptance, and was ordained their pas- tor in 1658 and served them for more than forty years in the gospel of God's dear Son." Mr. Babson, Gloucester's historian, says he was ordained Oct. 6, 1663. However, that is a matter of no consequence. More interesting is it to learn that under him the people were so hun- gry for preaching that they would not give him increase of corn and fish for salary until he promised to give them a good number of weck-day lectures in addition to the two services on Sunday. It was at the beginning of his ministry, that is, about 1664, that the third meeting-house was built for the use of the parish. "It was located
on the Meeting-house Plain," says Babson. At the end of this min- istry, in December, 1700, the fourth house, that had been some time building, was completed. It "stood on the Meeting-house Green," says the historian, "a short distance, probably, from the old one." These earlier houses of worship were small, the last one mentioned being forty feet square, and were soon outgrown by a parish which under Mr. Emerson increased trebly.
For a year or two after Emerson the parish was dependent upon occasional supplies and the services of teaching elders. Nevertheless, the members felt quite competent to consider and accept a new cove- nant. This was done Jan. 6, 1702, and might be regarded as in a way a preparation for a new pastor whom they had called. He will now introduce himself. "After almost two years spent in trouble from the different apprehensions concerning a minister, unworthy me, John White (who am less than the least of all that in a probationary way preached here), was pitched upon and chosen by church and town to be their spiritual pastor and guide, which solemn charge I had given me the 21st of April, 1703." His ministry covers the period in the history of this church in which four new parishes were formed out of it. The mother of churches she may be called. When Mr. White began his ministry there was but one congregation on Cape Ann, and it had connected with it a church of sixty-eight members, twenty-one being males. In 1716, the westerly precinct was set off and called the Sec- ond Parish ; in 1728, the northerly side of the Cape was set off and called the Third Parish ; in 1742, the meeting-house on the Plain, which was deserted by First Church for a new edifice in the Harbor. was given an independent existence under the name of the Fourth Parish ; and in 1753, the Fifth Parish was formed at Sandy Bay. Yet, in spite of the withdrawal of so many, Mr. White could say in 1744, when he had parted with the material for three of these other churches, that there remained in the First Parish eighty males and one hundred and eighty females.
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All this cutting up of the old parish was done without much friction, except in the case of the establishment of the Fourth Church. At that time the old First Parish needed a new meeting-house, and the burning question was where it should be built. Toward the harbor, said the majority, for thither the population and wealth were drifting. As early as 1732, the decision was made, but the people at the north part objected so strenuously that nothing was done till 1738. Then seven men took the matter in hand independently, built a church and invited the parish to occupy it. Minister White immediately entered its pulpit. The dissentients to the number of about eighty remained by the old church on the "green " where, as the Fourth Parish, they worshipped for many years. But the wisdom of the majority in removing is seen in the fact that a church could not be maintained there, even though a new house was built in 1752. At last, in 1840, the situation was abandoned and the Fourth Parish ceased to exist. Scarcely can one discern where the edifice stood on that hill which is now public domain, but which for so many generations was the scene of the united worship of the people of Cape Ann. All that is left there to remind us of its ancient uses is the house built by Parson White, soon after his settlement in 1702, conveniently near the meeting house.
This violent sundering of worshippers who were really of the same neighborhood and who should have sat side by side in the same house as did their ancestors for a hundred years, took place, curiously enough, at the very height of a religious revival. The wave of the " Great Awakening," which had been set in motion by Jonathan Edwards, and which, in 1740, was tumultuously agitated by the eloquence of Whitfield, was now tossing and swaying the souls of the people in New England. Here in Gloucester, worshippers " were impressed with deep terrors," and children of fire " prayed to admiration." In the uttermost stress of this religious commotion, when "the chief recreation was the sing- ing of Dr. Watts's hymns," and many were tearful and many shouted for joy, there was still displayed a good deal of unsanctified human nature. This is very likely why Minister White wrote the following words : "We find that strong, but short terrors, succeeded with ravishing joys, are no certain evidence of saving conversion "
This great revival had a far-reaching and rather unexpected result throughout the churches : it stimulated the growth of liberal sentiments as later manifested in the outbreak of Universalists and Unitarians. When people saw the dogmas of Calvinism, bald and terrible as preached by the logical Edwards, fantastic and lurid as presented by the revival- ists, they did not want to think of them, and turned away from them to
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dwell upon more rational and loving aspects of religion. From this time onward can be noted the softening of doctrines and the gradual ascendency of heart and mind in things theological. The evolution of spiritual Christianity had begun in most of the old churches of the Pilgrim and the Puritan, an evolution which attained self-conscious- ness in the preaching of Murray and Channing and became aggres- sive in the withdrawal from the main body of Congregationalists of the churches of Bradford and Winthrop, Endicott and Dudley, of the Apostle Eliot, of the Mathers, of this church here, the First Church in Gloucester.
Minister White did not live to see the change in any marked degree of it. He died Jan. 16, 1760, widely beloved. His monu- ment in the old burying-ground was lately repaired by members of the Evangelical or Trinity Congregational Society, - an act of graceful Christian courtesy on the part of the youngest offspring of this old church.
It was left to the colleague of Minister White to see and sorrow over the first distinct outbreak against Calvinism. This colleague, Samuel Chandler, settled Nov. 13, 175 1, is a marked type of the minister of the old time. He can do something besides preach. Indeed, your Cape Ann parsons have shown themselves to be unusually competent in handling worldly affairs as well as the Word. It was Blynman who first cut the beach through and made a passage from bay to bay behind the Cape ; Parson Emerson ran the mill for the town, and now we see Parson Chandler building his own house. He saws and hammers like a born carpenter, makes window frames and shutters, and " sets eighty square of glass in a day." That sounds quite secular to our nice modern people who cannot bear to think of a minister out of a solemn black coat, or touching things material other than books and pens. But Chandler went even beyond this, and did things which are decid- edly reprehensible to most Christians of the present. "My house raised," is an entry in his journal; " about sixty or seventy people treated with toddy and flip." Here is another entry : "I bought a Jersey girl for five years ; gave £50 for her." Some time later he sold her for forty pounds. He seems also to have dealt cruelly with the king's English, for he not only speaks of a certain convulsion of nature being very truly a "shocking earthquake," but in another place describes it as " an ingeminated concussion." It is not to be wondered at that a revival followed, and that " after meeting came in Peter Severy, aged eight years, under conviction," and that " Alice Messerve was brought into light last night as she was seeking Christ in the cellar."
+
REE
Francis U. De Bem, Rector, 1892.
PORTUGUESE CATHOLIC CHURCH,
1892.
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OF THE TOWN OF GLOUCESTER, MASS.
But really our smile at the quaint doings of those days is almost exchanged for tears when we think of their hard lot. How often the minister is called upon to break the news of a husband lost at sea, or to condole with a family for the shipwreck of its stalwart sons. And then, oh, the sorrow of it, was the dying of little children in great num- bers, and continually, from hideous diseases which touch us of these days only occasionally. Do not speak of the " good old days." They were days of hardship, want, cold, sickness, untimely death. Religion was the one source of comfort. Out of the dreary present they looked into the brightness and peace and home-gathering of God's heaven.
To be sure, the terrors of the Almighty were too often preached, but this was less frequently done as the years passed. Minister Chand- ler seems to have been guided by a kindly common sense. He began his ministry here with the avowal that he " adheres to the church plat- form for substance," and "so far as agreeable to Scripture." This is the way those affected with liberal tendencies express themselves in all ages. You will hear it to-day from " progressive orthodoxy " as it was heard over a hundred years ago from those equally weary of Calvinism. First Church has had no minister with so much of pathos in his life as Mr. Chandler. He had domestic trials such as fall to the lot of few. His long ministry, though for the most part peaceful and successful, was laborious and ended in tribulation. There came into it a sad dis- turbance while his life was ebbing away in mortal illness. At the urgent invitation of a member of First Church, visiting Boston, the Rev. John Murray went to Gloucester, Nov. 3, 1774. He was received, he writes, by a few very warm-hearted Christians. The deacons and elders of the church, he adds, called upon him, and by them he was conducted to the house of the sick minister. Readily, we may believe, he accepted Mr. Murray's offer to preach in his pulpit. On a longer stay, some weeks later, he preached there again, but after a few Sundays the pulpit was denied him. The heresy hunters were alert, and had dis- covered grievous errors in his discourses. Then, in " much soreness of heart," harassed Mr. Chandler wrote an address for delivery from the pulpit to his people, after which, at the desire of many of them, he sent it to the Essex Gazette, at Salem, for publication. "As one draw- ing near the eternal world," he warned his flock against the pernicious teachings of "one who calls himself John Murray, who has declared the following things to be his settled opinion : That the whole human race, every one of Adam's posterity, have an interest in Christ, and are God's beloved ones; that the whole human race, every individual of mankind, shall finally be saved."
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The majority of this church at that time considered it a calamity that ideas like these should be proclaimed. They thought it almost as dreadful a visitation as the Revolutionary War, then beginning. Indeed, while this controversy was being waged, it is a little hard to tell whether the references in the records to " the enemy " mcan the Universalists or the British. But to-day the members of First Church consider it an honor that principles so sublime, so honorable to thoughts of God, should have been first promulgated in its meeting-house and by a reformer so gentle, unselfish, and high-minded.
The followers of Murray, although they assiduously attended his services, continued to be members of First Church until 1878, when they were suspended. Then, on the first day of January, 1779, they organized the First Universalist Church in America, under what their opponents called " the unheard of name of Christian Independents, a solecism in nature."
The Rev. Mr. Chandler's struggle against the earliest doctrinal disruption in his ancient church was short. The end came March 16, 1779. Full of years was he, and infirm, when suddenly was brought about the first dislocation incident to that deep cleavage in religious thought which now for more than a hundred years has divided the old New England churches. Neither time nor strength was allotted him to effect readjustment, and, weary with controversy, he fell asleep. Of him, as of many another servant of God, whose faithfullest efforts proved futile, it may be said, " he entered into his rest."
The successor of Mr. Chandler, the Rev. Eli Forbes, who entered upon his work here June 5, 1776, had a great deal to contend with. In addition to the division in his church were the troubles brought upon the community by the war for Independence. Few places in New England suffered as much as Gloucester. Fishing was almost entirely cut off and there was nothing left for the inhabitants to engage in nor sufficient land among their rocks to maintain them. Many of the men enlisted, many went privateering, and the women and the children were left at home to suffer from want and disease. So bad was the state of things that it was feared the parish would be broken up.
It was set down in the call given to Mr. Forbes that if this event should occur " by reason of any inroads that may be made upon us by our unnatural enemies, then said salary to cease." Exposed as they were by their situation on the shore they already had had an intimation of what might befall them. The affair of the sloop-of-war "Falcon," Capt. Lindsay, commander, is so well known to the residents of Gloucester that it is almost needless to mention it. How often they have gloried
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in the defeat wrought upon him ! How carefully this church preserves the cannon ball as evidence of the peril of those days, and of the rage of the British captain against the meeting house whose bell would not cease its clangor of alarm arousing the neighborhood to be up and doing ! What Minister Forbes says about it, however, is so full of the spirit of the time that it should be quoted. " Has not God wonderfully preserved this house," he wrote, " when in imminent danger by a sacri- legious attack made upon it by the ' Falcon ' sloop-of-war, commanded by Capt. John Lynzey, who, without orders, just provocation, or previous notice, cannonaded this defenceless place from I o'clock till 5 in the afternoon, directing the weight of his fire at this house of God, Aug. 8, 1775."
Forbes was just the man for those days. Kind and wise, he did not go with his parishioners in their ingenious persecutions of Murray and his followers, and in the confusion and sorrow of the times he proved a true counsellor and comforter. His parish did not break up. He held it together and strengthened it. Pews now gradually took the place of the benches upon which the men and women sat separate, and families worshipped together. The singing was improved by trained singers leading the psalmody, and it was voted to read the Scriptures in meeting. It is important also to note that in Mr. Forbes' day it was decided to do away with the relation of religious experiences in public. At the same time, a new, probably the third, church covenant was adopted, also " the Covenant, called the Baptismal," and so First Church, recovering from the effects of the war, floated into the wider waters and increasing light of the nineteenth century.
Great, however, has been its vicissitudes in this century. The waters were not smooth waters upon which it sailed, but troubled waters, heaving in swells from greater deeps of thought, and lashed to foam by winds of theological disputation. Throughout New England, at the beginning of the century, there was a remarkable quickening of intelligence and spiritual aspiration. Modern ideas were beginning to shape themselves. In their studies the ministers were talking about new interpretations of the Scriptures and new thoughts of the fatherhood of God and of the salvation of all men. And the pews, conscious that something was in the air, listened eagerly for every fresh utterance. An indication that Gloucester First Church had its face to the future and its soul awake is afforded in the choice of minister it made upon the death of Mr. Forbes. Perez Lincoln, of Hingham, was called to that office, Aug. 7, 1805. Bred in the church of Dr. Gay, of Hing- ham, the earliest of the Unitarians, he was one of the young and
.
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growing minds of the time. At his ordination, the Rev. Peter Whit- ney, of my own church in Quincy, preached the sermon. I count Mr. Whitney among the liberals, and his being chosen to take the most prominent part in the ordination is additional indication of the modern tendencies of Mr. Lincoln. But in the minister who followed him the liberals received a distinct setback. Mr. Levi Hartshorn, ordained Oct. 18, 1815, is described as one who dwelt much upon the awful degeneracy and ruin of man. He did not succeed, however, in bring- ing the congregation back to the old standards. Indeed, the effect of his preaching was just the opposite of this. The old doctrines were presented in such a terrible light that most of the people were con- firmed in their dislike of them. One of the older ladies of the parish says she remembers when Mr. Hartshorn chose a hymn with this verse in it : -
"Down in the deep, where darkness dwells, A land of horror and despair, Justice has fixed a dreadful hell, And thousands walk together there."
The choir refused to sing it, and so persisted in its refusal that the minister was forced to select another hymn. Mr. Hartshorn, on account of illness, did not remain here long enough to witness the utter futility of his preaching. His last sermon was delivered Sept. 5, 1819, the year of Channing's famous Baltimore sermon, which sum- moned so many of the old parishes to range themselves as Unitarians on the side of rational Christianity.
With the departure of Hartshorn went forever, as we trust, the preaching of Calvinism in the pulpit of this ancient church. The people were determined they would have no more of it. As a conse- quence there ensued the clashing of opinions, and for about six years the church and congregation failed to call a minister. That the liberals were in the ascendency seems likely from the character of the ministers who most frequently supplied the pulpit. The Rev. Orville Dewey, the famous Unitarian divine, preached here some twenty months, and it was only by a small adverse majority that a parish call to the pas- torate failed. There is no evidence of any action by "the church.". Dewey's first ministerial experience was here, and it is said, that while here he became conscious his views were the same as Channing's.
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