USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Malden > Memorial of the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Malden, Massachusetts, May, 1899 > Part 27
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To understand the Puritan it is necessary to understand the times that gave him birth. He was not merely the follower of a religious creed that differed from the one originally accepted in Europe. Indeed, though the first New England settlers were agreed, the English Puri- tans as a body differed widely among themselves, both as to creed and church government. Some were Independents or Congregationalists, some were Presbyterians, and John Milton was what would now be called a Unitarian. The bond that held these men so firmly together, indeed, was union in rebellion against the social and moral conditions of the day. The Hundred Years' War and the Wars of the Roses had utterly demoralized the English people.
France had been merely a field for plunder and murder by Eng- lishmen and their allies. The France that Joan of Arc freed from English rule was quite as wretched as Cuba under Spanish rule. When Shakespeare, even in his day, long after this event, speaks of " infants quartered by the hands of war," he is not using his imagina- tion. This century of English plunder and bloodshed had almost wiped out the memory of the arts of peace. The rise of Parliament and popular government that had gone so far under Richard II. had
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been not only stopped, but reversed. The Tudors were despots almost as truly as the Romanoffs.
Queen Elizabeth was personally a patron of bull-baiting and bear- baiting. So, in her day, were most people. The Maypole, a relic of the most depraved worship of all paganism, was no mere excuse for an innocent dance, but the centre of the vilest debauchery. The Merry Mount and its Maypole at Wollaston was as vile as the Merry Monarch who ruled England under the name of Charles II. ; and the world was the better when both were removed.
The Puritans turned to the Bible, not only because they loved its teachings, but because, under Henry VIII., it was almost the only book a decent man could read. The foulest tales of Italy and France, uni- versally circulated, formed the only popular literature, and aided to debase popular morality. The Lord's Day was not merely invaded by sports, but by the wildest license. The laborer, moreover, could not legally enjoy that day of rest, unless his master chose. Public office went by favor ; an ex-highwayman was made chief justice, and kings and queens fitted out the ships of pirates and shared their booty.
This was the social structure which the Puritan faced, and against which he struck the first shattering blow. He was no mere zealot, devoted to this or that scheme of religion or church government. His was the cause of the plain man against the tyrant; the honest man against the rogue ; the virtuous man against the rake; the patriot against the plunderer. Faults he had in common with poor humanity of all ages, but it may, at least, be said that he was simple in an age of extravagance, austere in the midst of debauchery, honest though ruled by corruption, and sincere though subject to a succession of sovereigns constant in nothing but the pursuit of their own selfish desires.
Such were the makers of New England ; such the men to whom we of New England owe more than our country. The greatest heritage they have left us is not the territory they took from the Indians, as the Indians had taken it from the Skrælings. They left us, as their greatest gifts, the New England town-meeting and the New England conscience, popular government and the control of self that makes it possible.
Not of Plymouth only, but of each New England village can it be written : -
" Here on this rock and on this sterile soil Began the kingdom not of kings but men, Began the making of the world again.
Here struck the seed, the Pilgrims' roofless town,
Where equal rights and equal bonds were set, Where all the people equal franchised met,
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Where doom was writ of privilege and crown,
Where human breath blew all the idols down ;
Where crests were naught, where vultures' flags were furled, And common men began to own the world."
The advent of milder times has softened the sternness and asceti- cism of our Puritan forebears. It has added virtues from other races that the Puritans did not possess ; but it has not yet driven the influ- ence of the Puritan from the United States. There is still left, in part at least, the indomitable courage that wrings victory from defeat, and the habit of self-examination, that, if it does not always force the American to do right, at least makes it uncomfortable to do wrong. Least gifted of any section of our broad land in natural advantages, New England holds her place by the sheer brains and pluck of her citizens. Parted by party lines we may be, but touch the national honor or the national flag, and we are, after all, Americans.
The whole world has been thrilled by the Englishman's prayer in the midst of his military triumph : -
" Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget !"
We can all share that prayer, whatever our nation or race or creed. We of the United States, perhaps, need it mnost of all. Yet in our day of triumph in Cuba, not one man, but ten thousand, sang a different hymn.
On the hills above Havana, from the American camp, as the mid- night call of the sentinel ushered in Christmas Day, there arose the sound of singing, the spontaneous singing of an army. The new song of the English poet is one of appeal ; the old song raised by the American soldier is one of the Puritan "hymns of lofty cheer " a song, not of appeal, but of trust : -
" Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed, For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid; I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, Upheld by My mighty, omnipotent hand."
The dawn of the first Christian era of American control in Cuba, just before one of the most triumphal parades accorded to any army, was welcomed in by Protestant, Catholic, and Jew, North and South, Regular and Volunteer, not with disorder and dissipation, but with a serious realization of the new responsibilities that await us, and witlı hymns of praise and trust.
Surely the Puritan founders of New England could ask no better evidence than this, that the American people will soberly face their days of trial as the colonists faced theirs, not perhaps as conquerors, but never, please God, as cowards.
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1645-1999
CENTRAL SQUARE-AFTER THE REVIEW
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THE TOASTMASTER. - In behalf of the banquet committee, I shall invite the Rev. Edwin H. Hughes as the last speaker to address ns and pronounce the benediction. Mr. Hughes will speak upon the topic : "The city without a church ; " and I assure you, upon the most excellent authority, that the subject is not as solemn as it sounds.
ADDRESS BY THE REV. EDWIN H. HUGHES.
PASTOR OF THE CENTRE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen : - A child once wrote an essay about the cow. The essay was short and simple, and read thus : " The cow is the greatest animal on earth." The mother wished to encourage the infant writer. So when the pastor called, the little girl was asked to read her essay. Feeling that something was due to the presence of the reverend visitor, she bronght out the second and improved edition as follows : " The cow is the greatest animal on earth, - except religion." It is not everybody that in such a dilemma would be able to hold on to both horns and still manage to capture the preacher. I have not been fully able to rid myself of the suspicion that the tip-end of these anniversary exercises has been arranged out of consideration for the clergy. In that case the com- mittee may be said to have cut the garment of their program to fit the cloth.
The other speakers have talked of their specialties ; why should not the preacher? The park is the most beautiful thing in a city, - except religion. Industry is the most useful thing in a city, - except religion. Political leadership is the most influential thing in a city, - except religion. Legislation is the most protecting thing in a city, - except religion. My predecessors upon the program seem to have realized all this ; for, try as they would, they have not been able to avoid the religious element. I could not resist the impression that the last speaker, Colonel Gnild, missed his calling and that he should have been a preacher rather than a politician.
An evil genius appeared to me recently, saying : The history of Malden has been falsified. Men have said that this has been a city with a church. But it has ever been a city withont a church. You must therefore inform the celebrants of their mistake. Take out of the history whatever claims to have grown out of the church life. Give the people the truth. For once I obeyed an evil genius and set about my task. The result was strange and haggard. It touched the very mystery of the city's being. Malden could be represented as saying to the church what Oliver Wendell Holmes said to the picture of Dorothy Q. : -
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"O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q. ! Strange is the gift that I owe to you ; Such a gift as never a king Save to a daughter or son might bring, - All my tenure of heart and hand, All my title to house and land ;
Mother and sister and child and wife, And joy and sorrow and death and life !
" What if a hundred years ago Those close-shut lips had answered No, . . Should I be I, or would it be One tenth another, to nine tenths mne ?"
Malden without a church would not have been Malden at all. To speak of it so would be like speaking of a man without a maternal ancestor. I must not push this mysterious possibility further ; I do not care to annihilate my audience. To be able to speak on this theme at all, I am driven to make Malden deny her mother ; that would be an ungrateful thing for her to do on her birthday anniver- sary. But allowing her the breaking of the fifth commandment, her history without a church becomes mutilated and tattered.
It has been instructive to note how the speakers of our celebration have depended upon Mr. Corey's history. Our preachers, our poet, our orator have all conferred liberally with our historian. Mr. Corey has been Malden's recording angel. If ever we get into the better city, and Mr. Albion believes that we shall both do so, - it will be no mistake to nominate D. P. Corey for assistant recording angel. Under the direction of the evil genius, I began to take the church out of Mr. Corey's history. I tore away page after page. All that remained at last was a title front, a few patches of disjointed reading, and a dark and gloomy " Finis." It was as if one had been called upon to unravel a seamless garment; when the church thread had been pulled out, there was nothing left but a naked and shivering settlement. A city without a church ! The best you could say of it would be what the Hibernian said when he tried to pay tribute to purgatory, - that a man " might go farther and fare worse." In so comparing we would have in mind the same worse place that the Hibernian did.
We would have to drop out of our city's history our most renowned personages. There are intimately connected with Malden three names whose frequent mention is as wide as civilization. Happily for the reputation of your speaker for impartiality, they represent three different denominations. Long before I knew that there was such a city as Malden, I had heard of Wigglesworth, Judson, and
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Haven. They were all directly the children of the church. No one has been more frequently mentioned in our anniversary than Michael Wigglesworth. This has arisen, perhaps, not so much from the beauty of his theology as from the rare euphony of his name. Considering the impression that he has made upon our city, one cannot help query- ing why some of our Malden mothers have not named their children after him. This man lives in our memory in spite of his bitter creed. If he were still living and we were to effect church union and Michael Wigglesworth were to be a candidate for bishop of Malden, I fear his theology would prevent me from pledging him the unanimous vote of the Methodist caucus. He lives in our memory in spite of the fact that when he proposed to his third wife he wrote her a letter in which he put down in precise logical order, 1stly, 2ndly, etc., until he had given thirteen reasons why the widow should marry him. In that case, it was not an unlucky number. The widow evidently took a week to consider each reason ; for in just thirteen weeks they were married. Yet what an impression this man has made upon our civic and religious life ! His name is spoken with pride in our anniversary, notwithstanding his harrowing faith, his ragged verse, and his matri- monial logic. Our city without a church would have been a city with- out Wigglesworth.
And what shall be said of Adoniram Judson? Had he remained on land he would probably have lived and died a Congregationalist. But crossing to India, he heard constantly the argument of an over- whelming ocean of waters and in mid-sea he became a Baptist. He was great enough for the sake of his conscience to change his mind. He cast himself against the wall of heathen blackness, labored six years without a convert, languished in prison under the weight of five fetters, and for thirty-one years knew only the passion of his matchless work. Because he was too great to be claimed by any one city, or even by any one continent, God gave liim his grave in the ocean, where he sleeps until the sea shall give up its dead. Our city without a church would have been a city without Judson.
Bishop Gilbert Haven is undoubtedly the most widely known man that our city has had in the last fifty years. He used to thunder in our town meetings, where he began his stormy career of debate. Fifty years ago he was the poet of Malden's anniversary. He became a radical of the radicals, without being a pharisee of the pharisees. He touched all of our reforms with vital power. He was the first commissioned chaplain in the great war. He preached freedom every- where, turned all the force of his wit and eloquence to the saving of the Union, and after the war became the dauntless champion of the black man. Some one suggested to a dictionary maker this definition : " Saint : a man who has been dead one hundred years, canonized
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now, cannonaded then." But Gilbert Haven was canonized by public sentiment when, within the voice distance of the place we now sit, he ended his splendid career, and, finding that the cold stream of death was a myth, simply said : "There is no river here." Our city without a church would have been a city without Haven.
Practically, without exception, the men who filled our past with deathless glory were the sons of the church. The meeting-house was the centre of our civilization. For fifteen years, the earliest men, women, and children of Malden trudged over to Charlestown to attend church. In what contrast is this with the lazy prophecy of Edward Bellamy in Looking Backward, that men would some day hear the gospel by telephone? How under such an arrangement would we take up the collection? What a time it will be, -that era of tele- phonic gospel ! Instead of hearing the church bells we shall hear the telephone bells. In that day the preachers will preach along " many different lines." A new meaning will be given to the phrase, "a good telephone service." The greatest pulpiteer will not be he who can reach the most souls, but rather he who can manage the most "wires." In that case all the politicians will be flocking into the ministry. But the heroic reality of the Puritan attitude toward the church is more divine than the easy picture of Bellamy. Let us go back to the time when a man went to church to pay his public tribute to God ! Back to the time when men waded marshes, ploughed snow, forded rivers, and climbed mountains in order that they might have a place with the worshippers of the Almighty ! The glory that covers our past is a glory that shines from the altar of the church of the liv- ing God.
A city without a church ! It would be eyes without sight, lungs without air, a heart without blood, a star without light, a river with- out water, a picture without shape or color, a rose without beauty or perfume, a part of the earth without form and void ! The past be- comes chaos and darkness, and there is no divine voice saying, " Let there be light !"
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, suffer me to reach the climax of this celebration, not in the eloquence of my speaking, but rather in the grandeur of my theme. May these celebrants divine the cause of the past's greatness and the ground of coming power. May we never have a city without a church ! Looking down the distant years, let us call new spires to the heights and command the future thus : -
" Ring bells in unreared steeples, The joy of unborn peoples ; Sound trumpets, far-off blown, Your triumph is our own."
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We will long and strive for but one city without a church. That shall be the one whose gates are pearl and whose streets gold, of which the Patmos seer did say: "And I saw no temple therein ; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it."
This, then, is the benediction for our future : "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."
It was not until after eleven o'clock that the last guests left the building and the lights were turned out. The bustle in the streets as the crowds returned from the exhibition of fireworks had long sub- sided, although many remained abroad until after midnight. Between the prayer which opened the exercises on Saturday and the benedic- tion which closed them on Tuesday evening, fit recognition of the Prov- idence which has guided and sustained us through the long series of years, a celebration had been consummated, which all may remem- ber, many with pleasure, and none with regret.
IN GENERAL.
HISTORIC LOAN EXHIBITION.
HISTORIC SPOTS. GRAVES OF REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS AND OTHERS. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. AFTERMATH.
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ROOM F
ROOME
0
ROOM D
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MAIN HALL
TOILET
ENTRANCE HALL
ROOM C
ROOM B
ROOM A
MALDEN
HISTORIC LOAN EXHIBIT AT THE YMCA BLOC PLEASANT ST.
SECOND FLOOR
Room A. - Portraits and Memorials of the early Ministers of Malden.
Room B. - Photographs of Old Buildings, Residences, and Historic Sites.
Room C. - Colonial Parlor.
Room D. - Colonial Dining Room.
Room E. - Colonial Kitchen.
Room F. - Maps and Views of Malden. Autographs, Documents, Com- missions, Old China, Silver, Bric-à-Brac, etc.
HISTORIC LOAN EXHIBITION.
T HE committee having this exhibition in charge is to be con- gratulated upon having arranged one of the finest exhibitions of the kind which has ever been held in this vicinity. The committee was organized, September 12, 1898, and held frequent meetings there- after. As no similar exhibition had ever been held in Malden, there was some uncertainty as to the character and extent of the material which would become available. A circular was issued and appeals were made through the press for information and contributions. The city was divided into districts, and committees were appointed for each section. These committees, by personal application and working in harmony, produced the most satisfactory results ; and it was soon found that a collection of much value and historic interest could readily be brought together. Honorary members were appointed from Melrose and Everett, in order that those communities might feel a personal interest in the exhibition ; and they rendered most efficient aid in the collection and arrangement of material. Some of them are worthy of special notice for the energy which they displayed in the interest of the exhibition.
The committee was fortunate in obtaining for two weeks the use of the entire second floor of the Young Men's Christian Association Building, which proved to be an ideal location ; and the arrangement of the rooms allowed a most satisfactory and advantageous classi- fication of the articles exhibited.
Much labor was given to the collection and arrangement of the articles ; and when the exhibition was opened it was found to realize in scope and interest the anticipations of the committee and the ex- pectations of the public. An examination of the catalogue, which is a valuable record of historic interest, will give a clear understanding of the character and range of the exhibit ; but only they who visited the rooms can adequately appreciate its value. Regret was often expressed that a collection of such local worth and interest could not be kept together. It is likely that such an exhibition will not be seen here for many years.
A collection of views of old houses and landmarks, many of which have passed away, attracted much attention. It was early determined
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to make this department a special feature of the exhibition; and pic- tures of dwellings, schoolhouses, churches, and street scenes were eagerly sought. By the aid of E. C. Swain, formerly of Malden, a photographer who made many of the original views, more than thirty years ago, these pictures were enlarged to a uniform size and printed and mounted in the best manner. There were seventy-five of the views, and when displayed they occupied the walls of one room. It required the labor of six months to get this collection together ; and with the desire to preserve it intact for future generations, the com- mittee voted to present it to the Malden Historical Society, with the understanding that it shall be kept together and protected from injury.
The collection of portraits was another interesting feature. There were seventy-five portraits catalogued of men and women who were prominent in the life of the old town, of every variety from the finest oil painting to the delicate miniature and the rude daguerreotype of former years. Many more could have been obtained had it been generally understood that a portrait exhibition was to be held. Not- withstanding the efforts of the committee, it was difficult to impress upon the public mind the fact that Malden had within itself the material to make a creditable historical exhibition. It needed an object lesson to enforce it. This was true in all departments of the exhibition.
The exhibition of antique china and colonial ware was remarkably full and varied, and many interesting objects were shown. Com- petent judges pronounced it to be one of the most complete exhibi- tions of the kind they had seen outside of the large museums. The special collections in room D attracted deserved notice.
The colonial kitchen in room E received especial attention from a large portion of the visitors. Here were represented the household implements of the old time in actual use. A gentleman from Melrose renewed one of the duties of his youth and daily illustrated the incon- venience of the tinder-box. At the spinning-wheel, Mrs. Jane Allan Russell spun during the greater part of the exhibition ; and some of the yarn then made is now preserved with the wheel in the public library, and may be shown on the occasion of the anniversary in 1949. The great jack, used for roasting before an open fire, could be put in motion whenever a visitor chose to wind it up.
The costume and embroidery department and the miscellaneous collections in room F were in keeping with the rest of the exhibition and contained many valuable historical relics.
There were upwards of two thousand articles exhibited. These were collected by the committee, properly arranged and catalogued, and finally returned to their respective owners, without the loss or
CATALOGUE HISTORIC LOAN EXHIBITION 250th ANNIVERSARY 1649 MALDEN. 1899.
Amy Florence Dalrymple
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breakage of a single article. They were insured against fire while in the custody of the committee ; and articles of a fragile nature and small objects which were likely to be handled were exhibited in cases which were securely locked.
The committee is under obligations to the New England Historic Genealogical Society and the Old Newbury Historical Society for the loan of valuable papers, and to the city of Cambridge for the portrait of the Hon. James D. Green.
The cover of the catalogue, which is here reproduced, was de- signed by Miss Amy Florence Dalrymple of Malden.
In the following list, some articles, which were noticeable in the exhibition but possessed little or no connection with the local history of Malden, have been omitted. Among these, the Faulkner School collection of over one hundred articles, gathered by the pupils of the school, was well worthy of the close examination which it received from many visitors. It was an interesting collection of relics, many curious and valuable ; and it would have been well if it could have been kept together as a permanent object of interest and instruction.
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