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 5
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At last, in 1825, the church and parish united in extending a call to the Rev. Hosea Hildreth, and he was ordained the 3d of August. This was a distinct advance toward pure and undogmatic Christianity, for Mr. Hildreth was of the new school which emphasized conduct in
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FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH.
First Edifice, 1833. Present Edifice, erected 1871.
Samuel Adlam, First Pastor, 1831.
Thomas J. Villers, Pastor, 1892.
Second Edifice, 1851.
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OF THE TOWN OF GLOUCESTER, MASS.
religion and contemned the creeds. He called himself a Bible Chris- tian, and gave the strength of mind and heart to the advancement of education, temperance, and righteousness. One of his first acts was to prepare a new and simpler covenant, which the church unanimously accepted. He made no radical changes, however, being a quiet, schol- arly man with no taste for controversy. The entire body of worship- pers seemed united under him, and drifted calmly onward toward more bright and roomy latitudes. And it was a prosperous body, numbering about six hundred members, despite the fact that many Gloucester men would persist in fishing on Sunday, and that some had been drawn away by the Baptists and Methodists, then newly in town and busy proselyt- ing. Evidence of their prosperity is that a new meeting-house, the one we are now occupying, was built for the use of First Church, and was dedicated Dec. 25, 1828.
It was shortly after this, in May of 1829, that the first indication was discovered of the existence of dissatisfaction in the church. The pastor stated to a church meeting that he had learned with surprise that the two deacons had complained to the Salem Association that they were not satisfied with their minister. Whereupon "it was voted unanimously that it is disorderly for a member, or members, of the church to go abroad and make complaints of difficulties in the church or with the pastor, instead of first endeavoring for a reconciliation at home." But the deacons would not be brought to countenance any latitudinarianism in their minister, and six months afterward, with five women of the church, asked to be dismissed. Mr. Hildreth, who was a very sensitive man, was much hurt by this request and in an affec- tionate manner tried to turn them from their purpose. None of them would avow that the minister had changed his sentiments since they called him. The fact seems to be that these seven had been toned up in their orthodoxy, and that they had changed and were siding with those in New England, who, under the lead of men like Dr. Lyman Beecher, were arraying themselves against the liberal thought of the times. The dissentients were finally dismissed, and with Christian courtesy commended by First Church " to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the hope that they will be united with some other church in which they may be edified, happy and useful." But instead of joining some other church they organized a church of their own six days after- ward, on the 17th of November, 1829, and called it the "Evangelical Congregational Church."
This defection did not much trouble First Church, and its pastor, at the end of his fifth year of service, Aug. 8, 1830, could reckon five
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TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETHI ANNIVERSARY
hundred and eighty-two souls belonging to his congregation, of whom sixty-five were resident members of the church.
Mr. Hildreth resigned in 1833. His successor, the Rev. Luther Hamilton, a more aggressive Unitarian, was installed Nov. 12, 1834. The congregation was so sure of its theological position that it gave him a call in parish meeting without first receiving the concurrence of the church members. Indeed, things had come to such a curious pass that five men could prevent concurrence, and it was very likely that the knowledge of this led the parish to ignore the inner circle of the church.
It would be an interesting matter to go into the details of this affair and show how it has been misrepresented to the disadvantage of First Church, but this already has been done so dispassionately, thor- oughly, and scholarly, by your esteemed fellow-parishioner, Mr. Joseph L. Stevens, that nothing further. need be said. I will simply remind you of the absurdity of the position of the five church members who tried to divert the stream of our history into the backward-trending channel which had been newly dug and named the "Evangelical Congregational Church."
That inner circle of covenanted members, called the church, was fast becoming a close and obstructive corporation. It did not repre- sent the strength, wealth, or the religion of the worshippers of First Church. Although more women than men composed the membership of it, it was customary when any important business was to be done for the "males" to meet alone. So it was a meeting of "the male members of First Church " which voted " that it was a departure from immemorial usage " for the parish to call Mr. Hamilton without first asking the concurrence of the church. And it was another meeting of "the male members," five in number, which voted, Nov. 8, 1834, " that all connection between this church and the First Parish in Gloucester be now dissolved."
To be sure there were sixteen women, to say nothing of one or two men, who were members of the church, and who were clothed with equal rights by law, and who would not have upheld the actions of the five dissentients. No matter, these five, who said imperiously, "We are the church," considered they had done all that religious controversy required, when they merely ordered their transactions to be com- municated to the sisters. Furthermore, by their vote severing them- selves from this church, they had cut'themselves off like a branch from the tree which gave them life, and were in the eye of the law dead as to church relationship, yet they went on in their absurd course, pre-
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OF THE TOWN OF GLOUCESTER, MASS.
senting the interest of the church fund to the Evangelical Congrega- tional Church, distributing the fund itself, and borrowing the church records with no thought of returning them. And this exercise of sectarian prerogative is put forth as ground why the Evangelical church " has some claim to the history and the records of the mother church ! " The records have been returned, and it is to be hoped, that in further acknowledgment that a false position was taken, nothing more will ever be said about a just claim to the history of the First Church.
From this controversy your church would have emerged uninjured but for still another and deeper cutting conflict. Your unity in the liberal faith was enough to carry you triumphantly over differences in theology ; but what can suffice to bear any organization successfully through a political wrangle? You could, without serious hurt, part with such as felt they would be better pleased with the ministry of Mr. Nickels, who "commended himself to his people from the beginning by his evangelical preaching, for his first sermon was on total deprav- ity." But it was hard to lose those of the same faith with you who felt compelled to leave on account of the political partisanship of this same Mr. Hamilton, in calling whom you had stirred up the five zealous church members. This minister stayed with you only a year, but the church was shaken to its foundations. A lower point it had never reached. Still you did not lose heart. And though for two years without a set- tled minister, you carried on the appointed work of a religious organi- zation, and the sixteen women and one man maintained the existence of the inner church which the five male members who withdrew declared had died by their fiat. The records had not yet been returned, and you were under the necessity of framing a new covenant.
In 1836 you took a new start under Rev. Josiah K. Waite, who was installed July 19, 1837, none but Unitarians taking part in the ser- vices. He reanimated you. His earnestness, faithfulness, and public spirit exerted an influence for good which was felt beyond First Church. He it was who in 1836 framed the organization of the Female Charitable Association, whose membership was almost wholly within this church, and whose first secretary was Mrs. Lucy D. Rogers. You began to prosper once more. Steadily you made progress, instructed at a later day by that rare student, the Rev. William Mountford, and were carried still further on by the wise ministry of the Rev. R. P. Rogers, the quiet cheer and inspiration of the Rev. Minot G. Gage, the eloquence of the Rev. J. S. Thomson, and the practical leading and sound common sense of my good friend, the Rev. J. B. Green.
So comes this church to the end of its quarter millennial, its his-
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tory during this period that of earnest, sensible people, honestly striv- ing to live with God and to fashion their lives according to his laws. We gratefully remember them ; we think of those of them we ourselves knew, gone now forevermore. How sturdily they labored in the times of their poverty and peril ! How faithful to the light in hours of theo- logical perplexity ! Their influence for good in this community is not to be measured. All things pure and noble, patriotic and charitable,- the cause of education, of temperance, of good citizenship, of spiritual religion, have been supported by the people of this dear old First Church of Christ in Gloucester. The mother of six other churches, she is yet the youngest in spirit of them all. She is full of hope, her soul is open to new truths, she trusts the freedom of thought, her face is turned to where the daylight springs. As a Puritan she welcomed what was newest and grandest in that age ; as a rational Christian she now wel- comes the latest revelations of spiritual love and far-reaching science.
In the two hundred and fifty years or more of her history what changes in thought, in population, in social circumstances, have taken place. You have been affected by these changes. Some five different covenants have been considered and accepted. This does not prove that you have been unstable, but that you have been afloat as every good ship should be. It is evidence that you have met storms, that you have sailed into new latitudes, and with the intelligence of those accustomed to the great deep have adapted yourself to your place and the high purpose of your voyage. Beneath you now there is a strange and wide unrest. It is the movement of a vaster ocean of human life with its profounder mysteries, its wilder perils, its unaccountable sorrows. Fear not. Sail on as bravely as your captains have sailed the salt sea, the sound of whose breakers we may hear in the pauses of our worship. You cannot miss God. He holds also this troubled deep of human life in the hollow of his hands. Shape your course sympathetic to every aspiration of humanity. Employ new models and methods. Take your bearings by the central and eternal lights. Work hard ; work together ; love much ; live in God ; be obedient to the " captain of your salvation." So shall you prosper in your voyage, and having come thus far with safety and rejoicing, you shall go on and the desired haven in God's good time be reached.
[NOTE. In writing this historical discourse I received valuable assistance from Mr. Joseph L. Stevens, and in preparing it for the press I have been aided by his careful revision of it. This acknowledgment I make with pleasure to one who was long a member of First Church, and a citizen of Gloucester, and who affectionately cherishes the noble traditions of both. - DANIEL M. WILSON.]
GLOUCESTER
MCCLURE CHAPEL, FISHERMEN'S BETHEL.
Emmanuel C. Chariton, Chaplain, 1892.
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OF THE TOWN OF GLOUCESTER, MASS.
At six o'clock in the afternoon, a vesper service was conducted, with the following program : -
VOLUNTARY. ANTHEM. "Father in Heaven."- Dorr.
(Tenor Solo and Quartette.) Mr. Noble.
SERVICE.
DUET. " It is of the Lord's great mercies." - Noligne. Mr. Williams and Mr. Bruce.
PRAYER. RESPONSE. SCRIPTURE READING.
MOTET. "I cannot always trace the way." - Dorr.
PRAYER.
HYMN. "Nearer, my God, to Thee." - Johnson.
HYMN No. 149. BENEDICTION.
The musical part of these programs was given by Mrs. Preston Friend, organist ; Mr. Robert Bruce, director ; and the Apollo Quar- tette of Boston, Messrs. B. E. Noble, first tenor ; T. H. Williams, second tenor ; Robert Bruce, baritone ; G. A. Bunton, bass.
INDEPENDENT CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
At the Independent Christian Church (Universalist), elaborate preparations had also been made. The pulpit platform was a mass of green and cut flowers. The musical program was of a high order, and the beautiful church was crowded with attentive listeners.
The program was as follows : -
PRELUDE. Will A. Robinson.
HYMN. "Come, thou Almighty King." Congregation.
ANTHEM.
Quartette - Miss Hussey, Miss Pew, Mr. Cowen, Mr. Pugh. INVOCATION. SOLO. Miss Hussey. SCRIPTURE READING. Pastor. ANTHEM.
PRAYER. SOLO. Mr. Pugh. HYMN. "In pleasant lands have fallen the lines."
SERMON.
.
DUET. Messrs. Pugh and Cowen. HYMN. "Long be our Father's temple ours." DOXOLOGY. BENEDICTION.
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TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
The pastor, Rev. William H. Rider, preached the following historical sermon : -
"The Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers : let Him not leave us nor forsake us." - I KINGS viii. 57.
With becoming gratitude Gloucester begins at the altars of God the celebration of her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary.
Anniversaries of early New England events are almost always closely related to religious movements ; indeed, religion was the very mother, nursing the civil polity and rearing the institutions which dis- tinguished this section of our grand republic; her enterprises would neither have been undertaken, nor persisted in, nor led on to success, had not religion furnished the mainspring, the guiding motive, and the end aimed at.
Well then may the Lord's day usher in the gladness of the week set apart for the honoring of Gloucester's portion in our New England heritage, - a portion as honorable at home and abroad, on land and sea, as truly American as that of any section, and eminently as Christian, in one regard pre-eminently so.
If other towns and cities justly celebrate their contributions in the formative periods of national life, Gloucester, with exceptional pride, may point to her historic struggle for the right of the individual to exercise the dictates of conscience, - her championship for all the religious denominations of the Commonwealth.
In this grand battle her sons and daughters gave a love as gen- erous as their wide Atlantic, a loyalty as steadfast as their granite headlands, supplementing their devotion to America by rearing this altar to the "One God and Father of all," bequeathing unto us a princely heritage charged with profound obligation to carry on in the spirit of love to God and man whatever is helpful and Christlike.
Rejoicing then with all of our city's history, her advance in com- mercial interests, her growth and prosperity; glad with the First Church in all its eventful history; with the several denominations in their relations to this community, we, as children of this society, cele- brate to-day the one hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of this, the First Universalist Society in America, a fact which makes our city the Mecca of our faith, and which made her the battleground of the grandest struggle in the religious life of our country, her sons winning fullest freedom for every really devout spirit.
The impartial student of the events which led to the settlement of our colonies by our English ancestors can only wonder at the temper which occasioned the act over which we thus so proudly rejoice.
INDEPENDENT CHRISTIAN CHURCH (Universalist).
First Church, erected 1780. William H. Rider, Pastor, 1892.
John Murray, First Pastor, 1774. Present church, erected 1805.
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OF THE TOWN OF GLOUCESTER, MASS.
The very womb of the free institutions, the life and history of New England, was evidently in the religious dissensions following the earlier stages of the Protestant reformation in the mother country. The asser- tion there in England of dissent from ecclesiastical authority was the mighty lever which has done such effective work on this Continent. "The northern half of America, as to government, owes its origin and development to those agencies in which the English colonists had leading part." (ELLIS.)
It would thus seem that from the time when Bonner, in the reign of Queen Mary, burned alive John Rough, the minister, and Cuthbert Symson, the deacon of the first Separatist or Independent Church, of all religious people the outlawed and exiled Puritans would be the most tolerant and sympathetic of seekers after Christian life.
When, too, we review the intense earnestness which stimulated the founders of the colonies at Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, we are led to expect from such souls a catholic reception to any sincere view of God, especially when one reads in John Robinson's farewell at Leyden that the Lord has more truths yet to break forth out of his Holy Word.
Surely among the descendants of such a class any theological con- ception, honoring to the Father and hopeful for man, would be hailed as the fulfilment of that early expectation of Robinson.
Alas, that the record reads otherwise ; that the very bigotry which drove them across the then hardly-known ocean to plant on these shores freedom and the right to worship God, found room to poison their minds and bar their hearts against any who in that freedom dif- fered from them. A jealous, selfish regard for their own belief made them as intolerant and bitter toward other Separatists or Independents as their English relatives of centuries before had been to their forefathers.
When, in 1774, some few residents of Gloucester, who had read the writings of Rev. John Relly, of England, heard that one John Murray was preaching in Boston the doctrines they had come to love, they selected Winthrop Sargent, a representative citizen, to induce Mr. Murray to visit them and instruct them in the promise of God's love unto all men. Accordingly, on the third of November of that year, he came to this neighborhood, preaching, on account of the illness of the pastor, to the then recognized First Parish, and occasionally expound- ing the Word at meetings held in the residence of Mr. Sargent, standing in the rear of where now may be seen the First National Bank, corner of Main and Duncan streets.
Soon partisan temper, which from the very first has sapped the
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otherwise fair growth of the church, awoke unchristian strife. The First Parish, more anxious for converts to their cause than for truth, to tag men with some ecclesiastical mark than to enthuse them with filial love for the All Father, to enroll them as members than to fire them with the glow of noble living, regardless of what name or system, began a bitter social, civil, and religious persecution.
But why dwell on what is so familiar to you, as descendants of those outraged families, and what has quite passed away from the disposition of to-day?
Enough that the patriotic and moral character of the founders of Universalism in our country and the revered names of the original compacters of this society have come down, all the more illustrious because of the struggle in which they proved themselves to be of ster- ling stuff. Enough that after serving as chaplain in the Continental Army by direct commission from General Washington ; after bringing substantial aid to Gloucester from the leading spirits of the Revolution, thus manifesting a fraternal regard for the whole community; after, indeed, a vote of the town in 1776, expressing its thanks to the donors and Mr. Murray, public sentiment, forgetful of past favors, became so warped by partisan ambition that, in February of the following year, it demanded their benefactor to quit the town, and publicly suspended from the church his followers, annoying in every possible way the adherents to the doctrine of Divine paternity and human brotherhood.
Forced to organization, the stalwart defenders of the gospel of God's love bound themselves, on Jan. 1, 1779, "as an Independent Church of Christ, resolved by God's grace whether blest with the public preach- ing of the Word or not, to meet together to supplicate the divine favor, to praise our redeeming God, to hear his most Holy Word."
This society of sixty-one persons was destined to an exceptionally brave and Christian conflict, - the real separation of State and Church, a recognition of the individual right to worship. Such was the grand struggle which in this Commonwealth was to settle the question of centuries, and the men and women who under God were set apart for so noble a battle were your fathers and mothers.
Under the Bill of Rights of Massachusetts, that First Independent Church of Gloucester contended for freedom from parish rule and eccle- siastical control. The defenders of the arbitrary and dogmatic position of the territorial or recognized church assumed authority to decide by their little standard what was and was not a religious body, who was and was not a religious teacher. In this pharisaical conceit Uni- versalists were held as irreligious, and Murray, their teacher, equally beyond Christian standing.
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OF THE TOWN OF GLOUCESTER, MASS.
In this very modest temper the established First Parish levied a tax upon the leading Independents.
This might have been avoided by applying to the Legislature, but such recourse seemed both contrary to the inalienable rights of man and to the catholic spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The society appealed rather to an impartial public in an address as dignified, rea- sonable, and full of gallant argument as of Christian purpose, as any found in the religious history of America.
"We should feel ourselves highly criminal," they wrote, “in making the application. Providence has so ordered it that we should in the first instance be called upon to contend for those religious liber- ties preserved by our excellent Constitution, and should we fly to the law maker instead of that great law made by the people to govern Legislature itself, we should in our apprehension betray our country's freedom and act a cowardly part. We should feel very unhappy if there was no other security in these matters than acts of legislation, which might be repealed at any time when a particular party should prevail.".
An open field and a fair fight those valiant soldiers of the cross asked for, but this manly appeal only pricked on to cunning effort their adversaries, who hired counsellors and by force would cause the great work to cease. The parish with all the violence of the law seized and sold at auction in 1782, the goods of three members of the Independent or Universalist Church ; from Winthrop Sargent, some English goods ; from Epes Sargent, silver plate ; from David Pearce, the anchor of his vessel about to sail, while William Pearce was lodged in Salem jail because of his refusal to pay the tax.
At length in 1786, the courts were compelled to side with justice, and Judge Dana ruled that the Constitution was meant for a liberal purpose applied to all religious societies, and under it Mr. Murray was a teacher of piety, religion, and morality.
Thus seemingly the battle ended in triumphant vindication of the champions for religious freedom, the First Universalist Church of America. This Gloucester Society of Independents gained the victory for every sect in our Commonwealth. It overthrew parish persecution and made room for light and life.
Galled by the decision, the defeated parish sought some new legality to defeat the evident spirit of American toleration, and again, in 1790, brought action because the society was not incorporated.
Akin with every mean, selfish, and criminal intent, it sought, under cover of what might be legal, to draw the knife and plunge it to the very hilt into the bleeding heart of the unprotected. Oh, lovers of the law, how in all time your class has ranked the cruel and the
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TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
murderous ! Well did the great dramatist outline in Shylock the most inhuman and crafty temper, which by reason of its legal bond would kill if only it could feed fat its grudge.
This action compelled petition, and on June 28, 1792, the Legis- lature granted the act of incorporation to this society, under the name of the Independent Christian Church in Gloucester.
Since then a century has passed, and to-day in the quiet posses- sion of church and of religious freedom, we come to do honor to that brave, persistent love, and to that continued loyalty which has enabled the descendants of these founders to uphold the faith transmitted by such Christian valor and such American regard for the eternal right.
From being an ostracised body seeking to practise piety, morality, and to live in the blessed promise of triumphant love, the hope of " That one far off divine event toward which the whole creation tends," "One family in heaven and earth named in the Lord Jesus," we have seven distinct societies on the territory originally embraced by Glouces- ter, having five ministering pastors and a following unequalled by that of any Protestant denomination on the Cape.
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