USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Needham > Needham's bicentennial celebration; a record of the exercises and a memorial of the celebration at Needham, Massachusetts, on the two hundredth anniversary of it's incorporation. Pub. by the Celebration committee; > Part 3
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We are now well advanced into the New Century. The Gospel of Peace is slowly federating the nations into a world-wide Brotherhood. Conservative churches are appreciating as never before, the oneness of aim and spirit that characterizes all Christian Churches. However loyal Christians may be to the creeds of the fathers, they are recognizing that even dogma, if it remains vital, must grow, and we are liberal enough -all of us, it may be hoped-to love righteousness wherever it is exhibited and striven for and prayed for. The Truth, when it is fairly understood, is one and the same for all. And today, as never before, the true-
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hearted everywhere are striving to maintain 'the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.'
And may the peace of God, that passeth all under- standing, fill our hearts and minds in the spirit of our common Master."
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FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, NEEDHAM
OUR CHURCHES - FIRST BAPTIST EXERCISES
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
Corner of Great Plain and Highland Avenues Organized 1856
PASTOR . REV. CHARLES E. SAWTELLE
Services September 17, 1911
10.45 a. m. ORGAN PRELUDE- "Holy, holy, holy ! Lord God Almighty "
INVOCATION
RESPONSIVE READING
GLORIA. (All standing)
ANTHEM, Male Quartette, "The Earth is the Lord's"
Gerrish
SCRIPTURE LESSON - Deuteronomy, Chapter 8
HYMN 8
PRAYER
RESPONSE, Male Quartette, "Father in thy mysterious presence kneeling " Gerrish
OFFERING, with verse of dedication sung by all standing
SOLO, Miss Florence B. Cambridge, "Hold Thou my hand " Briggs
SERMON BY THE PASTOR -Text in Acts 21: 39, " A citi- zen of no mean city "
ANTHEM, Male Quartette, "I will lift up mine eyes " Gerrish BENEDICTION
ORGAN POSTLUDE
12.00 m. HOWLAND CLASS FOR MEN PROF. GEORGE B. HAVEN, Teacher
12.10 a. m. BIBLE CLASS. Rally Day. Special exercises
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AT FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, NEEDHAM, MASS.
The first day of the Needham Bicentennial was celebrated at the Baptist Church by an interesting sermon by the pastor upon the significance of 200 years in the age of a town. Text: Acts 21-39. "A Citizen of no Mean City." The address was listened to by a large audience and the occasion was one of great en- thusiasm and interest.
The Howland class contributed its portion to the celebration of the anniversary by special exercises held in a large tent erected upon the church lawn. The regular session of the class took place at noon, at which there were some 75 members present.
In the afternoon at 2.45 the Rev. James A. Francis D. D., of the Clarendon St. Baptist Church conducted a service especially for men, his subject being "The Bible in Our National Life." The speaker gave a forceful and masterly address with regard to the power of the scriptures in directing the life of the nation through the individual. "The nation is made up of units, and each man stands for an integral part of the whole. National life can rise no higher than individual life, and the national life can only be purified by the consecration of the individual life. The power of the Bible makes it possible for a man to break with the weakness of the past and go forward into the strength
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of the future. The Bible stands for the framework and foundation upon which personal as well as national life can only be built."
Mr. and Mrs. F. W. Hemenway had charge of the music and the congregational singing was a very delightful feature of these gatherings.
Upon the two following days of the celebration the Howland class kept open house in the tent, dis- pensing hospitality in the shape of light refreshments and comfortable chairs, to many guests, many of whom came from remote parts of the United States. A corps of members of the class was always in attend- ance, and many pleasant informal reunions with former residents of the town were held in the tent. The exer- cises held in this unusual way formed a fitting contrast to the more dignified services in the church.
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EVANGELICAL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
OUR CHURCHES-EVANGELICAL CONGREGATIONAL EXERCISES
EVANGELICAL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
Corner of Great Plain Avenue and Linden Streets Organized May 6, 1857
PASTOR REV. JOHN D. WALDRON Service September 17, 1911 ORGAN PRELUDE-Maestosa, 2nd Sonata G. Merkel
WILLIAM HAMILTON, Organist
DOXOLOGY
INVOCATION-"Eternal One, Our God who wast with our fathers, be with us today, we beseech Thee. Reveal Thyself unto us and be gracious unto us. And when we rest from our labors, may the work of our hands be established on earth, and we received into the eternal house of many mansions through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen "
LORD'S PRAYER
RESPONSIVE READING-Psalm 97 APOSTLES' CREED
GLORIA
OLD TESTAMENT-Deuteronomy 28:1-14
ANTHEM, BY FULL CHOIR
JAMES ADAMS, Leader
NEW TESTAMENT-Hebrews 11 : 1 and 12 : 2
PRAYER
REV. J. B. SEABURY
OFFERTORY-Organ, Adagio, 2nd Sonata
HYMN - No. 573, "While, with Ceaseless Course, the Sun " SERMON - Text, Isaiah 39:4, " What have they seen in thy house ?" Lessons of the Old Needham Garret
HYMN - No. 576, "Lord while for all mankind we pray " POSTLUDE - Organ, Introduction and Fuge. 2nd Sonata
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LESSONS OF THE OLD NEEDHAM GARRET REV. JOHN D. WALDRON
Text, Isaiah 39 : 4 " What have they seen in thy house?"
" Judged by the Things in the House
All that was in Hezekiah's house the messengers of Merodach Baladin, King of Babylon, had seen. From what they saw they judged Judah.
We who would know of the past of New England two hundred years ago, will read it best from the book of things in the houses of Needham in 1711. Those things still remain, but have risen to the garrets, or are in historical museums which are in character the same as garrets. But we will read them by the dim light which comes filtering thro diamond paned garret win- dows, upon the relics time has gathered there.
It may be you do not know the old Needham Garret. Then I must open it to you. Under great rafters brown with age, low lying, are long forest aisles of darkness. Now and then a cross gable lights the way. Under foot are great wide boards, split from huge logs, smoothed with adze and plane. And to this dark, dry storehouse come worn axes, clumsy shovels, blacksmith formed hammers, the first tools of the wilderness. With these they opened the forest, tilled and shaped the earth, and built their abodes. Here are the candlestick, the old bread-trough, the spinning
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wheel, cradle and Bible. These are the tools which brought culture to the wilderness, home to the family, comfort and beauty to the body, increase to the people, and eternal life in God to many.
To this room on rainy days the children ascended, and while the drops pattered on the roof, and the wind rasped with the branches of the old trees across the shingles, Madeline and Dorothy dressed in the quaint garments of Deborah and Priscilla and laughingly courtesied while John shouldered the flintlock musket of Jonathan and marched to Lexington. Here they felt the Red Tide of 1775, tears fell from childish eyes, youthful hearts again thrilled at the Life of Long Ago.
"There are broken rings, and pieces of things, and the garments she used to wear.'
Needham has been too near movement and new things to keep her ancient mansions unchanged, and her relics intact, and we must look in Fort Shirley's collection, the Old State House at Boston, and the treasures of Old Deerfield, once Pocumtuc (and as the child of Dedham, your sister town, for Natick was given to the Indians in exchange for it) and in fine old homesteads in New England's quiet spots. From these we recreate the Old Needham Garret. Now climb the steep stairs. Beware of the low ceiling! Lean forward for balance. Now, keeping to the mid- dle, we move down between the survivors of life's storm. Here are tools once wielded with energy by hands that now rest. Here, I say again, are a man's tools, the axe for battle, the shovel, instrument of civ- ilization, the hammer for building, the tools of 1711 and their lessons.
Man's Tools-The Axe
When the first settlers came hither, they en- tered the woods with axes in their hands. Crude were
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OUR CHURCHES-EVANGELICAL CONGREGATIONAL EXERCISES
they in shape but true in temper, and they made open- ings in the oak domain. They laid forest monarchs low. They split them for puncheon floors, for doors and shutters, and henches such as Lincoln's boyhood knew a hundred years later. As they laid low and hewed the stubborn wood, they thought of Gideon and the grove by the altar of Baal he hewed down. And in spirit they laid Upas trees in the dust for 'even now was the axe laid at the root of the tree,' the tree of misgovernment and usurpation of power by unworthy hereditary rulers. Those who were denying in prac- tice the rights of man, ' the certain unalienable rights,' 'right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' and to us their children they bequeath the Battle Axe, saying :-
' Strike! for the Green Graves of your Sires, God and your native land!'
The Shovel
Right beside the axe lies a plebeian heavy shovel, fellow brother of the stick which first scratched the earth to cover a seed, or make a plant grow, or drew soil to partly open or close a cave's mouth for entrance or defence. Cousin of the branch that became a plow drawn by woman or oxen, the gang plow and railroad shovel which they never knew. The shovel was a permanent settler's tool and said 'I abide.' It planted the first fruit trees on these plains in the wilderness, and signified agriculture at its beginning. It digged a channel at the falls for falling water to turn grist mills and weave, beginning manufacture and the harnessing of nature. Used in road making, it speaks of travel and the brotherhood of man, also of trade and com- merce. Thro it the steel highway should run from shore to shore, swamps be drained, silver snow water
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directed from snowy Sierra and Rocky peaks into sun kissed California and sun blistered deserts, till the desert blossoms as the rose. By it the oceans are joined in our day at Panama, and by its aid on land and sea is rising a highway, over which some set of sun the Heavenly King comes riding when toil is done. So they
'Worked in the morning hours.'
The Hammer
The village vulcan shaped that on his anvil. It wrought the nails for old Deerfield's Indian door and drove them to their places, then, in the spirit of that age, clinched them there. After building the doors and shutters against wolf and wolfish Indian, it shaped the door sill and the wide hearth stone where backlogs might roar and crackle and heaps of red embers glow, where the crane swings above, bearing the boiling dinner in a great iron pot. At evening time chestnuts popped, apples roasted and sweet cider simmered, while youthful poets dreamed the melodies of Snowbound to the sound of west wind and drifting snows, and hiss- ing flakes tumbling down the mighty throat. The place for this joy, the axe and shovel and hammer had built in the forest. There were but four houses in Needham worth $100 apiece, yet to the brides they were as cosy as the nests to the birds, or the hollow trees to the red squirrel. As before and since some tried to rear without God's plan and left unfinished Babels in the wood. Others reared temples that were filled with glad glory and He abode with them. Some drove their stern Puritan lives 'like nails fastened by the masters of assemblies in a sure place,' while there were unknown Arnolds and Burrs who smote with the hammer of wicked living the cruel nails in the hands of
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OUR CHURCHES -EVANGELICAL CONGREGATIONAL EXERCISES
Him who would have saved them; thoughtlessly living nailing Him who died for them His children. Yet there were many who might have sung as they swung the hammer with steel so true:
'We are building every day A temple the world may not know.'
Do you not see this lesson of the Old Needham Garret? That the forms change, the great facts remain the same. There were men who were brave and women who were fair, and the part the women who were fair performed is not forgotten in the Old Garret. There are ancient bonnets whose encircling ruffles formed the frames for kisses. There were garments that once covered spirits as willing and hearts as loving as time ever saw, and they speak tenderly to us today out of the Old Needham Garret. Here are woman's tools, the candlestick, bread trough, spinning wheel, cradle and Bible.
Woman's Tools-The Candlestick
By sunset birds must find their sheltering bough and rest. But by dipped candle and Betty lamp of 1711 life became capable of more complete control. It prolonged day and by its gleam the sacred book was read, the few poets on the shelf tasted and the learned books mastered. For the Fathers did not choose the superficial or pretty in literature. The candle gleamed for the family reader who told out the tale to the knit- ting of stockings, the mending of shoes, harness or farm tools, or the slicing of apples to dry for winter. It lighted the bedside at birth and death; as the life of the mother lighted the dark hours with song and prayer and love, and went gleaming out along the roads whither her children journeyed. So that far away the
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light-mother, home and heaven shone with the radi- ance of the New Jerusalem. "So shines a little candle in the night."
The Bread Trough
was often filled with "Ingin Meal", sometimes buck- wheat, often rye for ash cakes, griddle cakes or bread, to be eaten with maple syrup or fat pork. The bread whether baked in old Dutch ovens or otherwise, was the center of the feast. It spoke of the harvest of sow- ing and reaping, of death for life, of many grains for one loaf, of dying to serve. It made the family meal a Lord's Supper; was sweet as manna from heaven to children and all. It symbolized family life and fel- lowship. It was leaven. It came from the oven that tries. It was of God who saves. They would sing :-
'Back of the loaf is the snowy flour, And back of the flour the mill, And back of the mill the rain and the air And God the Father's will.'
The Spinning Wheel, Baby's Cradle and the Bible
We must not become entangled in the woolen yarn of the first, nor be caught in the tide that set toward the cradle and the Bible. This day will not permit save to say that furs were good for the hunter in the woods, but the baby in the cradle must be dressed in garments softer, that could be dyed in the blood of berries and stained with woodland roots, to each fond mother's fancy, and then taught the words of the Bible, that her sons might go out (not stay as we are in the Old Needham Garret) to the larger community life upon whose significance we now enter. Out to Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, Saratoga, to York- town they went. Out of the individual, the family, to
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OUR CHURCHES -EVANGELICAL CONGREGATIONAL EXERCISES
the community. Each man wielded the axe of smiting, the shovel of labor, the hammer of building. Each woman lighted a candle, filled the bread trough with fellowship, and turned the spinning wheel, rocked the cradle, and believed the Bible. And men and women together built the town, the school, and the church as community tools.
The Town
At once we see men were the same. Some would neglect town meeting in those days. Dedham imposed a fine of one shilling on those one half hour late, and three shillings for those absent from the meeting. But by this fine they showed their faith that every man might be brought there. The first meeting of Need- ham was December the 4th, 1711, when they chose a place to bury the dead. Three weeks later they voted to build a house of public worship. They apportioned lands equally if they followed Dedham's example which was equal lots of 12 acres for the home field and 4 of swamp for married men, and 8 of home and 3 of swamp for unmarried men, which shows a desire to keep equality. No water rights were to be appropriated by any man. Would that this wisdom had been per- sisted in. Ladders were to stand by every house. No reckless men in fire laws. They found the Grace of God in their hearts, and a definite plan accepted, nec- essary for peace and prosperity. And at town meet- ing they fought jealously for every right and furthered the day of 'government of the people.' In Dedham they think they planted the roots of the government which came. There they examined the accounts of selectmen, decided where to build bridges, where erect public buildings, when protest taxes, petition or defy governors. Every man had one vote, no man had
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two and attempts at pressure watched. In these de- bates continental orators were trained, minute men organized, taxes levied, troops raised, traitors de- nounced and preparation for freedom made. All this was well done because the first public building in many communities was the school house.
The School House
The first school house built in Needham was three stories high, the top being a watch tower up beside the great chimney. Here the dominie of the day taught the youth with a birch rod as Gideon taught the men of Succoth with briars and thorns. Into this school house they gathered without respect to color, race or social standing and almost to age. Mind and genius were crowned as in Lincoln's and Garfield's day. They had a tower on their school no doubt to detect fire or signals of danger, Indian or other. The days with us demand the watch tower on the school, lest in our foolish optimism we be beaten educationally by others ere we are aware; lest materialism take the place of character as an end, or pleasure that of profit; lest History's lesson that 'sin is a disgrace to any people' be missed; lest foes of the public school demand the withdrawal of religion from the schools and then de- mand relief from its support because of its non-religious character. Parents, citizens, Needhamites, ought the watch tower to come down from the school house or be builded higher and have a sentinel day and night? Can children get a better training mentally in private schools, then parents will send them there. Can chil- dren be strengthened in all good ways in religious schools, then will sacrifices be made that daughters may be protected in chastity and their sons not forget the God of their fathers. Are we doing as much for
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our children as those needy people did for theirs? I doubt it. Are we teaching as much respect for law and the community? Would not the old log school and its master with his collection of good tough rods be a good thing for the majority of school children? Then hail! thrice hail to the school built in the forest with watch tower, great aid to the town house on the common and the church beside it.
The Church
As you have seen, the town had to do with men's bodies-roads, laws, taxes, military service. The schools had for their purpose the teaching of reading, writing and arithmetic, to train and inform the mind with morality as an object also. But the church was supreme with them, even if they neglected it, even if they rejected it, even if they hated it, supreme. For it had a Book that was divine. It received its author- ity from God, and the preachers were the interpreters. To obey this book the better part had crossed the wintry Atlantic. Plymouth, Salem, Boston, by their graves kept fresh the cost of the church. So as far as their united means permitted, they reared the meeting house, strong, substantial and stately. On the coast like beacons ; on the hills they lifted their steeples a higher hand toward heaven. In their pulpits stood men of authority, to whom the learned listened gladly, the Indian and slave reverently, the common people humbly, and the boys indifferently. We stand in the gallery and the tything man rises to discipline those youngsters and lo! a few years fly, and standing under the stars I see that stern old preacher praying for hastily gathered troops, who in their hearts answer 'Amen' to the plea, 'Endue them with courage to put to flight the armies of the alien.' I see their faces as they march away to Lexington and Concord, the frolic-
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METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH NEEDHAM HEIGHTS
CHRIST CHURCH (Episcopal) NEEDHAM HEIGHTS
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
CORNER OF HIGHLAND AVENUE AND HUNNEWELL STREET ORGANIZED APRIL, 1887
"Render therefore to all their dues."-Rom. 13: 7.
(The following are the notes on the sermon preached in the Methodist Episcopal Church of Needham Heights on Sunday morning, Sept. 17, 1911, by Rev. Edward Marsh, Pastor)
" We have come to celebrate the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the founding of Needham. Many are thinking of the wonderful improvements that have been made during that time. You may speak of the wilderness and only a very few houses, and of the many inconveniences, but now look at what we are : our churches, library building, town hall, shops, stores, mills, parks, beautiful streets. Instead of wallowing in the mud we have good roads. We laugh at the "Old One Horse Shay," for now we have the powerful automobile.
And so we go on calling attention to the great improvements that we have made over our forefathers, but let us ask 'How were these improvements possible?' We are not to tell so much of what we have done, as what our forefathers made it possible for us to do ; and they made it possible by not only what they wrought with their hands but by the sacrifices they made-the life which they lived.
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NEEDHAM'S BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
Our celebration will be most incomplete unless we take into consideration the men and women who first came to New England. Who were these men and women who sought a home in these Western wilds? Because we dress in the latest fashion we need not be ashamed of them. If history will only count us worthy sons and daughters of those who faced for us the forest and the frost, the Indian and the wolf, the gaunt famine and the desolating plague! Oh they were plain people, hard working, Bible reading, much in earnest, with a deep sense of God in them and a thorough detestation of the devil and his works.
We can not know, we cannot understand Amer- ican history without first becoming familiar with the Puritan spirit. In some ways there has been a grow- ing opposition to this spirit, and it has been because of vaticanism on the one hand or agnosticism on the other.
Let me strongly recommend a thorough study of the whole subject-know the truth of the matter. Yes, if you please, be able to distinguish between the Pil- grim and the Puritan. Some time go to Delft Haven and go into that little church where the Pilgrim fathers had their last meeting before sailing for this country.
But underneath it all find out the Puritan spirit. Who were the Puritans? Taking the word in its broad sense, the institutions of America are largely Puritan. The Puritans were greatly influenced by the Nether- lands, and we might say that for hundreds of years the Netherlands stood as the guide and the instructor of England in almost everything which made her materi- ally great. Hallam says that Holland at the end of the sixteenth century and for many years afterwards was pre-eminently the literary country of Europe. In Holland the men who sustained painters and musicians, who fostered science and broad learning, were the plain
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burghers in the cities-merchants and manufacturers, men whom Queen Elizabeth called 'base mechanicals' -who all worked themselves, and by example or by precept taught that labor is honorable.
In 1617 a young French soldier serving in the Dutch army was passing through the streets of Breda. A crowd was gathered on a corner, all intent, studying a paper pasted on the wall. The young French soldier asked a bystander to translate for him the contents of that poster, and what do you think it contained? Why it was a problem in mathematics. The soldier took that problem to his rooms and in a few days sent in the answer, signed Descartes. That was the intro- duction to the world of Rene Descartes-great French philosopher. But think of that crowd interested over a mathematical problem.
What the country needs is a larger measure of the Puritan spirit in energetic development and in wide distribution. Fundamentally, the effect of the past one hundred years has been to plant churches, schools, colleges. All the early settlers of New England paid great attention to the instructing of their children. By 1665 every town in Massachusetts had a common school, and when the Puritan spirit declined there was a falling off in the schools and an increase of illiteracy.
Do you not say then that there is something in this Puritan spirit that is worthy of honor? The ele- ments that made up the Puritan spirit are essentially moral and earnestly practical, not theoretical. Dr. R. L. Storrs in a careful and critical paper declared that there were four elements in the spirit of the Puritan. 'The first thing that we might name in this spirit are intense conviction of apprehended truth, a desire to maintain and extend it and to bring others to affirm it. Moral or religious propositions rather than those which are political or philosophical.
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