USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Newburyport > Origin and annals of "The Old south," First Presbyterian church and parish, in Newburyport, Mass., 1746-1896 > Part 5
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FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
One hundred and fifty years have now passed since the organization of this church. The old oaken frame- work of the building, one hundred and forty years old-of wood cut upon their own farms-still remains, sound and intact. "Good times" they had even be- fore the completion of the building-when they " sat on the joiners benches and Mr. Whitefield preached." And still the inviting history was not exhausted by Mr. Williams, Dr. Stearns and myself. as your pastor (Dr. Hovey's) admirable sermon has proved. My own part is now the somewhat lighter vein of pas- toral reminiscences, memories, supplementary frag- ments. Nevertheless, it has for me an undertone; since I stand here, except the most recent, a solitary survivor in the line of pastors, and go back to a min- istry which began forty-six and ended thirty-three years ago.
I may say, I suppose. how quaint looking was to me the place, when I first entered it. It had not yet changed much from the past. Too far from the city to be really suburban, it sat beside its beautiful river, close to the sea, a town waiting for a turn of the tide. A quiet, very quiet place, partly because so many still went to sea and did " business in great waters." This congregation itself had in it many who either were or had been sea captains-an unusual number.
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One could not have wished better friends or parish- ioners; except that they came and went and sometimes made long voyages, the younger ones, whilst the wives brought up the families. The town therefore, was one of residences, notably domestic and quiet. And quaint, also, of an old-fashioned type, looked the older ministers-Dr. Withington, Dr. Dana, Dr. Dimmick, Mr. Campbell and others around. Dr. Withington, with his beautiful genuineness, simplicity and kindliness of character and intercourse; whose thinking, on other subjects so keen and observant, did not take in the niceties of dress and fashion and mere appearances! Poet, philosopher, scholar-in learning how various and ready! To meet him on the street under an umbrella, was to gain a thought and be mentally so much richer! But it would never have done to transplant him, he had grown into the very soil of "Ould Newbury." It was good and wise advice he gave his successor, at his instal- lation; "you must not only know human nature but Oldtown nature." That, he himself did, and there for a lifetime, studied, meditated, philosophized, and wrote many beautiful, many characteristic things. His Thanksgiving sermon, entitled " A bundle of myrrh," ( 1850) was like him, and a sensation-where- in he showed, by historic example, why men, philoso-
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phies, political parties, even religious systems, had so often failed; they were not a " bundle of myrrh," only some sprigs of it, tied up with " wormwood, pigweed, garlic and other nauseous herbs!" On the back of it was a " form of prayer. for such Christians as mean to aid in executing the fugitive slave law." But, in another style, what a delightful argument for a special Providence did he draw from a bird's nest in the grass, with feeding cattle all around, yet not destroyed nor disturbed!
This was in my day, as before it, a large con- gregation, with full galleries; of well-to-do people, solid, excellent families, who made the church strong-not wealthy as wealth is now computed. And besides, there were many poor, with among them men and women of faith and prayer and every day usefulness. As one such, what a woman was Miss Mary C. Greenleaf; who, with an aged and blind and deaf mother to care for, and the necessity of work, could always find time to be useful; who, her- self without means, could take the refusal of a par- sonage house, when it was needed, and by her efficient zeal get the money; and who, at the age of fifty-six, rounded out her self-denying labors by be- coming a missionary to the Indians! And that mother-a woman of faith and prayer; who ceased
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not to pray in the temple for others around her dur- ing the sermon; who till her death, "a widow of about four score and four years," efficiently helped to sustain the mission to the Isles of Shoals; who had faith in prayer from many experiences. Once, when in immediate need of forty-five dollars for the Mission, she confidently made it a matter of prayer; and be- fore the day was out, Rev. Dr. Dimmick came in and handed her the money. Forsooth, however, vou might even here and there have found some Christ- ians of a different sort; not so helpful to a pastor nor so pleasant, with more human nature than grace. You have doubtless heard Rev. Mr. Milton's remark about one of his own members: "The crookedest stick that ever grew on Mount Zion!" Zion some- times grows among its slopes strange timber; scrubby oaks and the prickly pear, as well as the straighter and statelier trees. Perhaps their nature has in it more for grace to contend with. But I learned here a useful lesson for a pastor. It is not well to be too easily or quickly offended. Plain people do not var- nish words, and a chestnut burr may contain what is sound and good. It was not pleasant. I suppose, for Rev. Mr. Williams to be told that " if he chose to live in Oldtown he might go there to meeting!" Never- theless. it was kindly meant. They liked to see their
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JOHN PROUDFIT, 1827-1833.
JONATHAN F. STEARNS, 1835-1849.
RICHARD H. RICHARDSON, 1864-1868.
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
minister and have him near-not far away, in another parish. It was a peculiar prayer, no doubt, uttered during a vacancy (in a neighboring church) by a man slow of speech and ideas, but I can see the glimmer of a meaning; that the Lord would send them "a man after his own heart, made without hands, eternal in the heavens!" One who should be divinely qual- ified to remain with them always-that was certainly here, with many, their idea of a proper pastoral union. Yet one "made without hands;" such an one would never have suited, for they loved to shake hands. All among them had not bright homes. There were the "shut ins," the sick, afflicted and poor, the troubled in various ways; and they loved and needed the grasp that indicated nearness, sympathy and help- fulness-a personal relation to the pastor. Alas, also. among other troubles there was the sea, the treacher- ous sea, in some aspects so beautiful and then again such a bringer of sorrow; and the telegram or letter which the pastor must deliver. It is my belief that a preacher cannot preach to real purpose, who has not, also, been a pastor; who has not come near to people, entered their chambers or their minds, in the serious moments of life. He may hold an audience and impress their minds. It is a fine thing to do so. But the great congregation goes home, away from
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his influence. And only as a pastor can he learn, and like a skilful physician learn, how to treat the various individual doubts, difficulties and perturbations, which the homely talk and the more serious moments may reveal to him. I learned here, in some degree, how to handle my doctrine. And I must say that, as a people. they wanted and expected doctrine; that is to say, Bible truth, God's word, the Gospel-something to inform, something for the conscience, something that was really water and food for the soul. Sermons, such as those of one who once preached for me would not have been long endured-who said, he "always thought it well (among other things) to have a little religion in a sermon!" An earlier member expressed it, after a sermon by a young man, as he went grumbling down the aisle: "Peas in a bladder, peas in a bladder, no food for my soul today!" His words wrought better than he could have imagined. The young minister overheard him. They were a sharp rap to his conscience. Years after he returned and inquired for him, saying: "He saved my soul, he was the means of my conversion!" But the good man was dead .*
Good, sturdy old people! The spirit of the earlier members, from whom many among them were de-
*The minister was Rev. Dr. Clark, of Boston, the other Major Goodwin.
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scended, had not died out with the lapse of time. Among the number I may mention Deacon (and Elder) Ezra Lunt, "an Israelite indeed;" whose dying words to me were: " I have been trying to form an ob- jection in my own mind against my acceptance with Christ; but he has been with me forty years and will not leave me now. Some used to think me too rigid; but I could not conscientiously be otherwise. I have endeavored to follow the Puritan fathers so far as they followed Christ." Such was the tone and type of his piety; with none of that self-surgery, that ana- lytical dissection even of motives, which character- ized Dr. Spring and many good people who had been trained under his teachings; but an abiding hope and trust in Jesus Christ, and a thoroughly consistent and godly life. At the close, he was like a fisherman who has been out all day at his calling whether the waters were rough or smooth; who at night returns, calmly and fearlessly shoots the breakers that line his way to the shore, and there at length unships his mast, brings forth his anchor, and with the fruit of his toil in hand goes quietly, peacefully, happily, to his home and his rest. And there were others, men and women, like Deacon Lunt.
From the very beginning and till 1887, one hundred and thirty-one years, the Harrod family had a pew in
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this church. The last to go was Miss Phoebe Harrod, in her one hundred and second year. But when I came there were (I think) ten brothers and sisters, already beyond the prime of years. Yet what a household group! How staunch, helpful, and widely useful-especially in all out of door activities, Mrs. Harriet Sanborn, the widowed sister! In their piety how genuine, how consistent-a walk with God! In
her ninetieth year, it was the habit of one sister to pass sleepless nights in repeating to herself the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm. She had it all in memory. And as she reached the successive divis- ions of the Psalm, there she would pause a little. That or that, perhaps, might prove the looked for end, with no farther to go! These divisions she called her "stepping-stones over Jordan." In its repose of mind and assurance of salvation through Christ, what a beautiful awaiting! So have I seen ships, after their voyage quietly awaiting outside the make of the tide which should pass them over the bar into their desired haven. Nor was the Harrod family alone in the things mentioned. That of Elder Moses Pettingell had, also, come down in steady succession from the beginning-himself a useful and prominent man. And among them how many lived to be old! I well remember one who, at eighty-five, was having
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her thirteenth fever, and-"weakly to begin with!" On one page of the list (a single year) there were twenty-seven deaths recorded: of which number one- half were over seventy, four of them over eighty, two of them over ninety! Mr. George Donnell lived to be ninety-nine and three months. But I return- and it saddens my return-to find them gone; Cap- tain Simpson, Mr. Caldwell, Elder Plummer, Mr. Pettingell, Mr. Pritchard, the Brays, Caleb Cushing, Captain Graves, Mr. Boardman, and many more whom I could name; gone, a congregation of the dead. Till I left, the average death rate was ( I think ) about seventeen; but the next year and the next ( of Dr. Richardson's ministry ) the number went up to thirty-one or thirty-two.
I would like now briefly to advert to the times preceding my own day. Of course there had been changes. The interior of the building itself, as you know, had been altered in 1829. It made that re- markable "whispering gallery;" so perfect. that when everything was still I have heard a watch tick in a corner one hundred and fifty feet away. It was. also. a sort of private detective; as the sexton would sometimes inform misbehaving boys in the opposite gallery, by putting his hand behind his ear and point- ing to the pulpit. But let me speak a little of the pas-
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tors. Mr. Parsons! Dr. Hovey, however, has included him in his sketch, as have the other histories. Poor man, what troubles he went through, a real persecu- tion, on the church's account! And in addition, there was his weakness for fine clothes, with gold and silver lace and ruffled shirt fronts-to the great dis- tress of some people! We can imagine what they said. Ministers, in that day, were expected to ap- pear in clerical hat, wig, regulation clothes, and with professional dignity, prim and sombre. I do not wonder that his naturally quick temper sometimes gave way. Yet, good man that he was, he was just as quick to confess and amend his fault. So once, after a not pleasant scene with a man, he returned and said: "Have you seen Mr. Parsons this morning?" "Why, yes," (he replied) "you were here an hour ago." "No," (answered Mr. P.) "that was not Mr. Parsons, it was the Devil! " Murray! The popular
orator, the most so of all. Like Parsons, a patriot who did good service; one, however, of wider note, for whose capture, when at Boothbay, the British Commodore offered £500 reward-an unusual sum. And I may here speak of it, their patriotism, to the credit of nearly all the clergy here and elsewhere. Enough has not been made of it. Behind the states- men, in every parish, were the clergy moulding the
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sentiments of the people, long before the war. Of Murray's oratorical power I have elsewhere noted not a few instances. But one of his greatest triumphs, I should say, was when he preached an hour and a half or two hours, and held the people, on so abstruse a subject as "The origin of evil!" Moreover, they insisted on having it published! New England in his day, it should be remembered, was a theological and controversial battle ground. On every hand you would hear the shots of opposing batteries. In this town was especially Dr. Spring, a zealous Hopkinsian, who gave and took. And the people liked it. New England wits were ground fine and keen on such problems; and it was a pleasure, all around, to take one another in hand for a clean shave. My own copy of that sermon is annotated throughout by some one, cleric or layman I know not, who set himself to riddle the argument. I suppose he did it, I have only been able to make out the word "nonentity."
After Mr. Murray came Dr. Dana-a placid stream compared with the former; clear, Addisonian in style and statement, he attained no such flights of oratory. Yet was he a faithful, affectionate, helpful pastor and preacher, with that courteous and graceful, almost appealing, motion of the head and wave of the right hand which some may still remember; and
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with which-so habitual was it with him-he once at night, in later years, showed a burglar to the front door. Suave as he was, however, Dr. Dana stood firmly enough for the olden truth amid the clashings and defections of his day. He had occasion to do so even in this town, where of six ministers no two held exactly the same theology. Dr. Spring, es- pecially, was an aggressive theologian. Dr. Hawes (of Hartford) preached his first sermon for Dr. Dana. He took exceptions in a kindly way, to its doctrinal statements. When Dr. Spring heard about it, he was delighted. "Now (he said ) you make two of that sermon. Next Sunday I have the Union lec- ture in the evening "-at which, of course, Dr. Dana would be present. "You shall preach half in the morning and the other in the evening!" But in 1815 there came a happy occasion when such differences were forgotten. It was the ordination of the second band of missionaries in this church. Then for the first time in New England and probably in the country. the Lord's supper was celebrated together by nearly seven hundred communicants, from various and distant churches. It was the proper church for it; here, the burial place of Whitefield, who had himself crossed the ocean thirteen times on a Gospel
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CHARLES S. DURFEE, 1869-1872.
WILLIAM W. NEWELL, JR., 1874-1880.
CHARLES C. WALLACE,
1881-1888
BREVARD D. SINCLAIR, 1889-1892.
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
missionary errand. And its kindly, Christian spirit was in full accord with that of Dr. Dana.
After a season of steady productiveness, churches may need the plough; and a plough was Mr. Williams. Different from Dr. Dana, a more striking man, with peculiarities; a fine orator, but less tender and sympathetic; a blunt, straight out, independent man in word and deed-genuine to the core. A brief but impressive ministry, only five years, and useful to the church; and then he died, his sun went down too carly. It brings me to Dr. Proudfit; and again to a five years pastorate interrupted at a most important time, in 1831, by ill health and an absence of seven months. Nevertheless, his was an honored and long an affectionately remembered name in this place. Tallest of the whole clerical line, Saul among the people, with a fine, grave and thoughtful face, he bore a presence in itself noticeable; whilst in preaching, the intellect and culture and eminent spirituality which enriched his sermons, commanded attention. though his throat and voice were weak for so large a building. Yet even more was his great success as a spiritual worker due to his tact and affectionate faithfulness in the house and by the way. It was a ministry, however, during which, that is, during and owing to his enforced absence in 1831, some strange
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scenes occurred. During that time this pulpit was supplied chiefly by Rev. George B. Cheever, an Andover graduate. It was the beginning of his ministry, and not a happy beginning. There was, at the time an extensive revival in town. For the year 1831, one hundred united with this church alone, as professed converts. Of these some (with others outside.) gathered about Mr. Cheever-in his youth, enthusiastic, and with those qualities which afterwards distinguished him; the author, at Salem, a little later, of the tract "Deacon Giles' Distillery," for which he was tried and imprisoned. By these disturbers the pastor was undermined, and an effort made to dis- place him. It failed, however; since the Session and the main body of the people stood firmly and strongly with and for the pastor. Mr. Cheever would not consent to preach in a hall, and so his ministry in Newburyport ended. I knew him, after the turmoils of his active life, as a neighbor-sweet and gentle, former conflicts apparently forgotten, the fire of the war horse subdued within him, the Bible and its precious truths his chief study and delight. It was at this time, I think, that he received a letter from the son of the actual "Deacon Giles." in which he re- ferred to that tract as the means of his own conver- sion !
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Dr. Stearns was my own predecessor. How sweet and mellow his voice, how youthful always, almost feminine the face, as for fourteen years he stood in this place, a scholarly, clear and effective preacher! A man of tact and sound discretion, as well as sweet- ness of spirit, how easily he made himself beloved! Yet withal, when necessary, no one could be more firm and outspoken. And by his side, also, to his great advantage, was one whom the parish equally loved-a brilliant, gifted and attractive woman, the sister of the great Western orator, Sargent S. Prentice. His was a peaceful ministry, during which would-be troublers (and there were such) remained prudently quiet.
And so I come back to my own ministry. At its close, Rev. Mr. Campbell said to me: " When I first saw you on the street, I thought to myself, young man you have made a mistake this time. You had some ugly opponents to deal with. But your ministry has been to me an instance of a special Providence." So I considered it, and gratefully. Some of them had waited their opportunity since Mr. Cheever's day. It was a special Providence when. after my coming, they left the church and made room for others. Nor had I ever reason to re- gret my coming; they were my people, my friends, to the last. I left the church undiminished in num-
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bers, at peace, and prosperous. My only regret was at the parting, to take a more inland charge at Utica, New York.
This address has been simply (as I proposed) reminiscent and fragmentary. I could have written more, much more, about many things; they have come into view from out the past, as birds appear out of the sky or the fog and drop upon the meadows. But this is the closing evening, and your pastor's history has, by right, the chief historical place. To my successors I have not referred, because my knowledge of them has been slight. Of Dr. Rich- ardson, who came after me, I know that he was a scholar and admired as a man and a preacher of strik- ing gifts. The names of the rest are upon yonder tablet. All but two of them have made up their record on earth and gone to their reward. Bye and bye, some one will resume the story where we now leave it, and they will be remembered and the later history written. I have but one thing to add, since it connects itself with that new and elegant tablet, and connects the past with the present. During my first sermon in this pulpit, there sat in the side aisle, facing Whitefield's monument, a young man some few years younger than myself.' The ser- mon impressed him, and not long after he united
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with the church. That was in our youth, forty-six years ago. Today again I am in the pulpit, he in the pew. He is the donor of that me- morial tablet. It is a long interval. I have known him through it all-in trials that have tested his man- hood and his piety; as I also knew the one who was with him through all, so active and beloved in this church, his latest and greatest loss, the ever present memory of whom, really suggested the tablet. But in looking forward-the young preacher and hearer, then for the first time brought into touch-how little could we have surmised the future up till today; what it would be to us or for us-what it would enable us to be or to do? How little they that start out in the morning for a day's sail, know what may come down upon them before it is ended-the chill of the wind, the enveloping fog, or even worse! In 1851 (I think ) I was out sailing with a merry party, when a dense fog settled down upon us. We lost our way entirely, till one went aloft and looked over the fog. Speaking of such things in life, my Elder Pritchard-a man of excellent mind and thought- once said in our prayer meeting: "We must go aloft and look over the fog;" a simile out of his own pro- fession as a rigger of ships-and it all came vividly back. I had seen it done; and have used it since as
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a thought of comfort to troubled and perplexed souls. It was a lesson learned here, from one now gone but still remembered, in one of our many precious vestry meetings. Time is sometimes a mast which enables us to do it, so is God's word with its clearer view of the above and beyond. Even so must my friend and I do-go aloft and look over and down upon life, from the tops. For my part, friends-when I came here, I was in no little of a fog; doubtful what might be the issue, though it seemed my duty to come. There were a few, as I knew, who, for reasons of their own, were disposed to be troublesome. But all that passed, as temporary fog; and I can look back upon a peaceful and prosperous ministry.
Looking back from the top of these years and this stretch of time, the retrospect seems as if I were out sailing with friends each of whom, young and old, I know and can call by name. A gentle moonlight lies upon the scene and tips the waves as they rise and go astern. Tinged with such a moonlight and more or less vivid now come back to me in memory the events and varied incidents of my ministry. But, returning to the present, it is later at night; the moon has set, the friends with whom I started-a few of them still walk the deck-but the most have gone below, gone
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to sleep. Only John T. Brown and I and a few more wait and walk and talk "until the day break and the shadows flee away."
So shall it be in the Master's good pleasure. Mean- time there is here another generation. with whom 1 join in heartfelt felicitations over this day, so far along beyond my own-this one hundred and fiftieth anni- versary of the church. It is 1896. Above our heads who are in the pulpit, hangs a chain wrought labori- ously during many weeks by the skilful hands of your committee. It extends in gilded links, one hundred and fifty in number. from 1746 on the one side. to 1896 on the other. We are links together in that chain-separate, yet united. To that chain is attached an anchor, and by the chain and the anchor this church like a fine old ship has swung safely during many storms. Now pay out the chain and the anchor again, fifty years ahead; and with a long pull and a strong pull and a pull all together, let pas- tor and people in their generations warp the sacred ship up to another, the two hundredth anniversary- " which hope we have, as an anchor, sure and stead- fast."
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