USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > West Newton > Our church, its history, its buildings, its spirit. The Second Church in Newton, West Newton, 1926 > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
convene in the "meeting house." It is doubtful if any school in any church can show such a record of long and always successful labor as that of Miss S. Maria Clarke, who was connected with the primary depart- ment for nearly fifty years.
The progressive spirit of the church has been mani- fested especially since the erection of the new build- ing. This was the first church of our order ever to build this type of building with chancel and stone altar, and the first to inaugurate such types of service as have been used here. The musical services, also, in many of their features were first instituted here in a church of our communion. Our special confirmation and vesper services, with their beauty of form, color, and lights, and our early celebration of the Sacrament first appeared here in a Pilgrim church. New types of young people's society, of prayer meeting and of church school came into being here for the first time. Even the main features of our methods of raising money for benevolences and church support were new. During Dr. Park's pastorate the parish organization was abol- ished, the church incorporated, and the pews made free; the women's organizations were amalgamated; chorus choirs and children's choirs succeeded the old quartette; symbolism was introduced as an aid to worship.
During the sinking of the tracks of the Boston and Albany Railroad, a number of Italian immigrants came to the city as laborers. They settled in West Newton and the colony rapidly increased. The church held classes and socials for them in the church rooms till the public schools and other agencies took up the work.
In the year 1908 a Men's Club was formed. For several years it was conducted by our own members. Its scope and membership were finally extended until now it is a community club, vitally concerned in the welfare of West Newton.
[29 ]
.
A TYPICAL GROUP OF WEST NEWTON RED CROSS WORKERS DURING THE WORLD WAR
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CHURCH
During the terrible years of the World War the church was the scene of incessant activity. The Red Cross meetings occupied all the rooms of the parish house, and services of prayer were largely attended. A memorable scene took place when a score of young men, members of the church, were shortly to leave for active service. Coming into the chancel, they knelt down, quite filling it, and received communion to- gether. The remembrance of the intensity of petition which went up from every heart at that service is vivid in the minds of all who partook in it.
Another most impressive service was the dedica- tion of the Parish House on October 1, 1916. There the children solemnly repeated the following vow.
In time of Great Wars our fathers have built in peace this House of Prayer.
We, their children, pledge to it our honor and respect.
We promise to love it as our parents' gift to us :- its spire lifted up amid the sailing birds and silent air, its songs and music, the light of its windows, and this the Chapel of our Sunday School. As MEN we will protect it from all injury as we would our city. As WOMEN we will keep it fair and beautiful for our children's children.
We promise to enter into its services with gladness, to behave in it with reverence, and to help fill it with the joyful, friendly spirit of Jesus.
We will do our part to make it the best church in all the world. SO HELP US GOD.
The new church building lent itself to the antiph- onal music of answering choirs and to the loveliness of the Children's Day service when the glory of young life flooded up the chancel and the great cross of kneeling children touched the aisle and transepts.
During the first quarter of the twentieth century the church building has been uniformly filled at morning worship and has taken its place as one of the
[3] ]
THE CHILDREN'S CHOIR IN THE NORTH TRANSEPT AND A VIEW OF THE PHILLIPS WINDOW
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CHURCH
leading churches of Greater Boston. Special services, such as that in which the children themselves dedi- cated the new font, or when the Mothers' Window was consecrated in 1926, brought home to people a sense of the inherent loveliness of true worship.
Second Church Day was inaugurated early in the twentieth century as a festival when the material foundations of each new year's work should be laid in democratic manner by all the people.
An interesting feature of the church's life in later days has been the revival of interest in the Wednes- day evening prayer meeting. With something of Quaker simplicity and a genuine desire to practice the healing power of God in man, the prayer meeting has ceased to become an ill-attended minor edition of a preaching service and has attracted a group of those who are interested in making use of the power of God for the health and happiness of themselves and .of others.
The benevolence of the church has gone far and wide throughout the world. The reading of the treasurer's reports for the past years brings out the fact that no great human end has been neglected, whether in the United States or in the uttermost parts of the earth.
In conclusion a word may be said of the growth of West Newton itself and of its relation to wider affairs.
Early in the nineteenth century West Newton first came into prominence among the adjacent villages. It became a regular stopping place for stage-coaches, as many as thirty a day making a halt at the inn on Washington Street. The academy of Master Seth Davis did much to bring the village into prominence.
In the year 1834 West Newton was made the terminus of the railroad. Mrs. Caroline J. Barker, who lived in West Newton until the year 1925, re-
[ 33 ]
}
DEDICATION OF CORNER STONE, JUNE 13, 1915.
DR. PRUDDEN AND DR. PARK ON THE PLATFORM
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CHURCH
membered the first train on that railroad, an object of great curiosity to all the inhabitants.
The first preaching services were held in 1760. The minister was hired to keep the public school during the winter months and to preach on the Sabbath. The history of the church thus begins somewhere about 1760. We know that in the year 1660 there were probably only three settlers in the part of the country known now as West Newton. They were Thomas Park, John Fuller, and Isaac Williams. Isaac Williams's house was near the brook. He was a weaver by trade and was a selectman representing the town in the General Court for six years.
For many years all that we know of West Newton is contained in the history of the church. It sent of its young men to the ranks of the Revolutionary Army, and many of them lost their lives in the battles of that war.
A scene that remained in the minds of many was the funeral of three soldiers of the Civil War who were killed in the Battle of Gettysburg. The three caskets ranged in front of the pulpit with the mournful drap- ings of the house and the sad service recall a day of darkness when the hearts of all were oppressed with anxiety. The church granted leave of absence to the minister in 1865 for a term of two months' service in the Christian Commission at City Point, Virginia. (In the World War a similar grant of absence was made to the minister of the church in connection with the Y. M. C. A. at the army camps. A large number of young men of the church served at the front during that war, and one of them, a young colored bugler, Clifford K. Meekins, made the supreme sacrifice.)
And what has the church accomplished during these one hundred and sixty-six years? God only knows it all. But it certainly nurtured and molded the moral and religious character of this part of
[35]
THE SECOND CHURCH BOOK
Newton during this long formative period. It not only led men to fear God and keep His commandments, but educated them to listen to closely argued sermons Sunday after Sunday. It brought this village here; for the meeting house was not placed where it is be- cause the village was here, but the village grew where the church was. During all these years it has main- tained a sanctuary amid the temptations and sorrows of life, and the services which have tended to make duty more clear and imperative, life more beautiful, trials more endurable, courage more strong, and mercy, patience, hope, and faith more abundant. To the doubting and the despondent it has given visions of God. The atmosphere it has created has made better citizens, fathers, mothers, homes, children. Without what it has done, you would not wish to live here. It has ministered materially to the poor, the distressed, the weak, and the needy, and reminded the sick, the aged, and the mourning of the eternal love within and about them. But the best part of its history cannot be written, because it has not yet been made.
[ 36 ]
DATES OF INTEREST
DATES OF INTEREST
Church gathered in schoolhouse 1760
First church building 1764
Parish organized . 1778
Church organized
178I
Rev. William Greenough installed pastor
Nov. 8, 1781
Stove to heat meeting house presented
1799
Church enlarged and re-dedicated
1812
Sunday school started
1819
.
Church bell presented
1828
.
Rev. Lyman Gilbert, D.D., installed pastor . July 2, 1828
Old square pews removed, vestry made under church . .
1831
West Newton made terminus of new railroad 1834
Church sold to town for town hall
1848
.
New church built with new organ
1848
Rev. Joseph Drummond installed pastor
Jan. 2, 1856
Rev. George B. Little installed pastor
March 12, 1857
Rev. Henry J. Patrick, D.D., installed pastor Sept. 26, 1860
Parsonage dedicated .
1867
New organ installed .
1880
Parish house built in front of church
1885
.
Rev. Theodore P. Prudden, D.D., installed pastor, April 17, 1894
Transepts added to church and new pews purchased . . 1894 Rev. J. Edgar Park, D.D., installed pastor Dec. 12, 1907
Congregation votes to rebuild church
Dec. 13, 1908
Church incorporated
1914
.
Corner stone of new church laid .
June 13, 1915
Mr. William L. Bates becomes choirmaster April 1, 1916
New church dedicated
Oct. 1, 1916
Font dedicated
June 13, 1920
Mother's window dedicated
May 9, 1926
[ 37 ]
THE SECOND CHURCH BOOK
OUR PASTORS
REV. WILLIAM GREENOUGH
Ordained, Nov. 8, 1781
Deceased, Nov. 10, 1831 REV. LYMAN GILBERT, D.D.
Ordained, July 2, 1828 Resigned, Jan. 2, 1856
REV. JOSEPH P. DRUMMOND Ordained, Jan. 2, 1856 Resigned, Nov. 12, 1857
REV. GEORGE B. LITTLE
Installed, Nov. 12, 1857 Deceased, July 20, 1860
REV. HENRY J. PATRICK, D.D.
Installed, Sept. 26, 1860 Resigned, Sept. 29, 1893
REV. THEODORE P. PRUDDEN, D.D.
Installed, April 17, 1894 Resigned, Dec. 30, 1906
REV. J. EDGAR PARK, D.D.
Installed, Dec. 12, 1907 Resigned, Oct. 4, 1926
[ 38 ]
CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD
CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD
OF THE OFFICERS OF THE CHURCH DEACONS
JOSEPH WARD .
1781-1784
JOSEPH JACKSON
1781-1803
ENOCH WARD
1789-1789
JOSEPH FULLER
1793-18II
THOMAS EUSTIS, JR.
1800-1806
JOSEPH ADAMS
1806-1813
BENJAMIN FULLER
1817-1828
JOEL FULLER
1817-1848
JOSEPH STONE .
1845-1852
SAMUEL WARREN .
1845-1852
ORIN F. WOODFORD
1852-1856
JOSEPH W. STONE
1853-1886
SAMUEL F. DIX
1856-1876
LEMUEL E. CASWELL
1868-1871
J. B. WHITMORE ·
1871-1887
JULIUS L. CLARKE
1868-1900
HARLAN P. BARBER
1876-1900
RUFUS W. KENDALL
1885-1892
GRANVILLE B. PUTNAM .
1887-1897
N. EMMONS PAINE
1897-1902, 1903-1905, 1907-19II
S. EDWARD HOWARD
1900-1904, 1906-1910
CHARLES E. BRAMAN
1900-1905
ARTHUR F. HOLDEN .
1900-190I
WM. G. BELL .
1902-1906
WALTER B. DAVIS
1909-1912
EDWARD M. HALL
1910-1914, 1921-1923
CHARLES E. GIBSON .
1910-1917, 1918-1923
HENRY B. DAY
1897-1900, 1904-1908, 1911-1918, 1919-1925
ROBERT H. GROSS
1912-1919
WILLIAM KELLAR
. 1913-1920, 1922-
EDWARD A. MARSH 1892-1897, 1905-1907, 1914-1915
ARTHUR S. KIMBALL
1914-1916 ·
[39]
WM. G. FOLSOM
1901-1904
M. FRANK LUCAS .
1905-1909
THE SECOND CHURCH BOOK
GEORGE P. HATCH
1915-1921
JAMES W. HAMMOND
1916-1922
EDWARD G. PERRY
1917-1920
DANA LIBBEY .
1920-1926
BENJAMIN J. BOWEN
1921-
JOSEPH A. SYMONDS .
1923-1923
HERBERT M. COLE .
1924-
FREDERICK J. FESSENDEN
1924-
CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS
1925-
FREDERICK S. HARDY
1926-
CLERKS
REV. WILLIAM GREENOUGH
1781-1831
REV. LYMAN GILBERT
1831-1853
HENRY L. WHITING
1856-1863
SAMUEL F. DIX
1853-1856
JULIUS L. CLARKE
1863-1900
CHARLES A. WYMAN
1900-1902 .
FRANK R. BARKER
1902-1903
CHARLES A. WYMAN
1903-1910 .
HENRY B. PATRICK .
1910-1914
CHARLES A. WYMAN
1914-1916 .
GEORGE F. LARCOM
. 1916-1920
JOSEPH D. WOOD .
· 1920-
TREASURERS
JOSEPH JACKSON
1782-1799
JOSEPH FULLER
1799-18II
NATHAN FULLER
18II-1822
JOEL FULLER ·
1822-1845 .
SAMUEL WARREN
1845-1853
ORIN F. WOODFORD
1853-1856
JOSEPH W. STONE
1856-1864
SAMUEL F. DIX
1864-1875
JULIUS L. CLARKE
1875-1890
JOHN J. EDDY .
1890-1901
CLINTON L. EDDY
1901-1908
CHARLES R. FISHER
1908-1912
WALTER B. DAVIS
1912-1914
WILLIAM F. CHASE
1914-
.
.
[40 ]
Our Tribute to Dr. Park
REV. J. EDGAR PARK, D.D.
Installed, December 12, 1907 Resigned, October 4, 1926
A PIONEERING SOUL
A Pioneering Soul
Why laud alone the distant pioneer And stress the havoc of our ancient wood? The hewing of those olden pathways should Indeed command the tribute of the seer - Should bid us in a reverent spirit rear The shaft which honors a grim hardihood That kept its faith in time's unhalcyon mood And wrested harvests from a prospect drear. But pioneering moments are not dead; A soul among us blazes forth new ways; The vigor of his stroke is echoing now. As workers venture whither he has led, The wide wastes quicken under prophet rays; A newer challenge prompts a loftier vow.
[43]
OUR TRIBUTE TO DR. PARK
OUR TRIBUTE TO DR. PARK
A S the more recent years, under our present pastor, are to many of us of most significance, it is worth our while to pay to him here the tribute which his ser- vice has made so abundantly deserving.
For nineteen years, Dr. J. Edgar Park has been the minister of the Congregational Church of West Newton, where he has not only gathered together a great congregation and built one of the most beautiful churches in New England, but has gained and held the love and respect of all with whom he has come in con- tact. Himself an accomplished scholar, Dr. Park comes of distinguished ancestry. For fifty years his father was minister of the leading Presbyterian church in Ireland, while his grandfather and great-grandfather were professors of theology. Educated in private schools, Dr. Park graduated from Queen's College, Belfast, and the Royal University, Dublin, where he won honors in mathematics and modern and Oriental literature. He did post-graduate work in Leipsic, Edin- burgh, Princeton, and Oxford, and studied theology in the Assembly's College, Belfast, and in New College, Edinburgh. At Belfast he received the gold medal for distinction, and at Tufts College he was granted the honorary D.D. He married Grace Burtt of Andover, formerly a teacher of mathematics and Greek. His four children have all been educated in our Newton schools.
Intensely human and finely sympathetic with the next generation, Dr. Park has been welcomed as preacher and lecturer in many colleges and other edu- cational centers. At intervals he has published a dozen or more books and has contributed to the Atlantic
[45]
THE SECOND CHURCH BOOK
Monthly and other leading magazines. Small wonder, then, that Wheaton College, deprived of leadership by the death of its president, the late Dr. Samuel V. Cole, should turn for aid to the pastor of our church.
We measure the worth of a man by the influence he exerts on us in both collective and personal ways. Judged by either of these standards, the influence of Dr. Park has been most significant.
For nearly two decades we have listened to him as he preached his Sunday sermons, as he conducted the ritual services, as he led the worship in his more in- formal talks at the mid-week meetings, and on other occasions when he has spoken in public or addressed us through the medium of Second Thoughts. Always he has spoken or written the appropriate, the perti- nent, the inspiring word. The congregated listeners have become a welded unit as they have responded to his thought and his emotion.
During the years of his pastorate, the practical affairs of the church have been largely shaped by his fine executive spirit. Here, too, we have felt the in- fluence of collectivism. We have been willing to fol- low a leadership that we have recognized as highly intelligent and highly spiritual. We have felt the pride and the exaltation that rest with the consciousness of harmonious and unified movement - the satisfaction that comes when toil is cooperant toward a previsioned end. And this we have all felt in a collective way.
Deeply as we appreciate this congregational in- fluence, it is, after all, in personal and individual ways that Dr. Park's influence has been most keenly and most delicately felt. As a guest in our homes and at our social gatherings, he has entertained us with his rare, original humor; he has shared with us the results of his intellectual adventures; he has come to us in the hour of our perplexity and has made us see truth in a finer and more restricted focus; he has spoken to our
[ 46 ]
OUR TRIBUTE TO DR. PARK
children in tones that won their willing attention and secured the quickened individual response.
And when the greatest of all griefs has come to us, he has always understood. His silence, or the pressure of his hand, or the words and tone of his utterance have revealed his great sympathy and yielded us a very tender and a very personal consolation.
All these qualities in our pastor we, in quiescent ways, have all the while known and valued. But when word came that he was leaving us, the very sense of oncoming loneliness and withdrawal somehow brought his worth into clearer outline and to a higher level. We had to summon all our philosophy to reconcile us to his going. We knew that he had thought his prob- lem through. The high motives that had directed his decision should, we determined, dictate our acquies- cence. Our own deep regret has made all the clearer those intellectual and spiritual qualifications which promise so much for the future of Wheaton College. On that high altar we lay our personal sacrifices.
[47]
THE SPIRE THAT SYMBOLIZES OUR SPIRITUAL YEARNING
THE BUILDING
THE BUILDING
T r HE early builders planned their churches to be seen by oncoming bands of pilgrims from afar, and so they erected the spire, like a great finger reach- ing to heaven, above the nave. A church such as this might be first caught sight of by such a band of pil- grims winding in and out among the Waltham hills, the spire seen at every rise and turn in the road and then lost again as the pilgrims descended into the valley. As an observer approaches the church and makes his way up towards the door two strange objects greet him at either side. A dragon-like figure is perched as though in the act of springing out at either side of the main entrance. A quaint old legend clings to these two gargoyles. The story is that once, while an exceedingly eloquent monk was preaching to his congregation, his gospel proved so persuasive that the devils who made their familiar abode in the hearts of his congregation, one by one were frightened off, and leaving the listening people, escaped out of the church in terror. But there were two gospel-hardened listeners, a man and his wife, so impervious to the preaching of the good father that their devils refused to be exorcised. They remained crouched within the two hearers' souls, peering wickedly out of their eyes. The good monk increased his eloquent appeal and at last dislodged these two recalcitrant spirits. They left the hearts of the two sinners, but had not time before the benediction to get through the walls of the church. At the words of the blessing they were caught three-quarters through the walls; and were there ever- lastingly turned to stone. A cynical male observer has differentiated between our two gargoyles by noticing that the mouth of one is open and that of the
[49]
OUR CHURCH SPIRE AS VIEWED FROM HIGHLAND STREET
THE BUILDING
other is closed. He holds that the one with the open mouth is the female gargoyle, but this is not in the tradition as it is told in the Fathers.
Christianity is an open-air religion. Our church is set in a yard kept as neat and fair as is possible: it is one with the grass and the trees and the sky. Only from a world made as lovely as one can make it does one dare to point to heaven.
In the church tower hangs the bell directing, like the spire itself, the distant pilgrims to the goal of their pilgrimage. It is interesting to note that, so far as we know, a church bell was never thought of until after the coming of the Savior. Other religions used clang- ing cymbals, mysterious gongs, or harsh strips of metal to summon their people to the rites of religion. Christianity wanted something loud enough to sound far and clear and yet be full of sweet music like the gospelitself, to remind the countryside, before clocks and watches were invented, that it was the hour of prayer.
If you make such a pilgrimage to our house of God, long before you come within sight of the gargoyles caught in their fruitless attempt at escape, you will join other pilgrims bent upon the same mission. One of the tenderest memories of the human heart has been associated with the common approach to the house of worship on the Sabbath Day when the sound of the church bells fills the air. In the Book of Psalms one reads the first description of that experience given by one who, unable to go to church, remained in his sick room and longed for the companionship which otherwise might have been his. "For I had gone with the multitude; I went with them to the House of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with the multitude that kept holyday," and one remembers the beautiful words of Coleridge,
Oh, sweeter than the marriage feast, It is sweeter far to me, To walk together to the kirk, With a goodly company. [ 5] ]
A PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF MAIN AISLE AND THE NAVE
THE BUILDING
These things remind us that Christianity started in the walks made by the Master with his Disciples in the open air of Galilee. And when one enters the church one is again reminded of this origin of our re- ligion. The interior of the Gothic church is evidently modeled upon the place in which the Christians of northern climes met to worship. The colder climate made it impossible for them to gather in the open, by the sea or in the fields, as they did in Galilee, so they met in the shelter of a glade in the woods. The design of the nave of a Gothic church is reminiscent of that ancient sanctuary. The pillars are the trunks of the sacred trees. At either side in the groined roof one sees remembrances of the branches meeting over- head, and in the windows of stained glass the glint of blue recalls the sky at either end, while sometimes in the glorious windows of the thirteenth century one sees all the golden colors of sunrise and sunset.
The church centers upon the altar, on which is placed the cross, symbolic of the faith. The audito- rium is not a lecture hall with a platform for the speaker; it is not a concert hall built around an organ or a choir of singers. It is a house of prayer centering upon the altar behind which shine the words, "An Everlasting Covenant." For it is the purpose of this building that in it human beings may meet and com- mune with an invisible presence. The minister and choir are so placed that they do not face the congrega- tion during prayer and singing. The minister does not pray to you; the choir does not sing to you; they pray and sing for you, to help and inspire you to express your own devotion and aspiration. Therefore they do not face towards the seated people, but sit sideways, themselves part of the worshipping congre- gation. The central altar, the psalms, and the prayers suggest that you come in here not to hear something, but to do something yourself - to pray.
[ 53 ]
4
THE PULPIT, CHANCEL ORGAN, AND A SEGMENT VIEW OF THE PHILLIPS WINDOW
THE BUILDING
On the floor of the church are to be found the pews. A pew is an ancient method of symbolizing that the unit of true religion is not the individual, but the family, so our fathers had family pews where father, mother, and children could sit together. There were elements of exclusiveness and constraint in this method, but still the pew remains as a sign that in the family the spirit of religion has its roots; it divides the crowd into smaller groups in the interest of friendli- ness.
There are eight steps up the chancel to the altar. These represent the six days of creation, ending in the long rest on the Sabbath, when the old world was fin- ished. The eighth step leads behind the chancel rail into the New World - the Kingdom of God.
Carved upon the choir stalls and the deacons' seats, you find Christ's friends around Him, the Twelve Apostles. The congregation in the Middle Ages could not read; and so the church itself was made, by carv- ings and paintings and stained glass, to be for them a kind of pictorial Bible.
Let us go around the carved stalls beginning at the right as you approach the chancel. Each of the Apostles bears a symbol, often representing the in- strument with which he suffered martyrdom for the love of Christ. First is St. Andrew with St. Andrew's cross on which he was crucified. Then comes St. Matthew with a hatchet by which he was beheaded. He also bears a book, because he wrote one of the books in the Bible. Similarly, St. James, the next in order, bears his book and the fuller's club with which his brains were dashed out by the heathen. St. Philip and St. James, next in order, bear the staff of the pil- grim. St. James also bears a shell. This was the early sign of the missionary - just why it is hard to dis- cover. Some think it was because the early mission- aries used shells from which to drink at the brooks as
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.