USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Longmeadow > Proceedings at the centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Longmeadow, October 17th, 1883 > Part 7
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44
So I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your cordial wel- come, and pray that the blessing which has been upon the fathers, and on their children, may continue to rest upon their children's . children, to the end of their history !
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In introducing the next speaker after Dr. Storrs,-Professor Edwards A. Park, D.D., of Andover,-the President said :
Exactly two hundred years ago, in 1683, there was graduated at Harvard College a youth of nineteen years of age, afterward Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, Mass.,-the father of Rev. Stephen Wil- liams, first upon the list of the Mother's seven pastors. This John Williams, student, was wholly educated at Harvard by the liberality of his maternal grandfather, William Park of Roxbury, Mass. It appears, therefore, that in the last analysis, the entire culture and influence of the Williams family, so far at least as Mother Longmeadow is concerned in it, rests upon a Park! Will Professor Edwards A. Park of Andover, illuminate this-or any other-subject?
PROFESSOR PARK'S ADDRESS.
Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen:
I cannot avoid a feeling of complacency in the thought that among my English ancestors were Edward Park, a London mer- chant ; and his son Henry Park, also a London merchant. According to the best information which I can obtain, my remote ancestor Edward was a near ancestor of Deacon William Park of Roxbury, Massachusetts. About two hundred and thirty years ago, Theoda Park, a daughter of William, was married to Samuel Williams of Roxbury ; and her son, John Williams, the celebrated minister of Deerfield, was the father of Stephen Wil- liams, the first minister of Longmeadow. He was the ancestor of many persons who have become eminent in the State as well as the Church. Indeed, I do not find that the Williams family ever amounted to much in this country, until Theoda Park became the mother of John Williams, and until her opulent father, William Park, provided at his own expense for the educa- tion of this grandson at Harvard College. I flatter myself with the fancy that Deacon William Park inherited some portion of his property from my ancestor Edward Park, the London mer- chant.
My somewhat remote relationship thus to the Williams family has given me an interest in the career of Stephen Williams, the
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first minister of Longmeadow. I have been interested in read- ing the statement of President Edwards that David Brainerd's friend and interpreter, " whose name was John Wau-waum-pe- quun-naunt " " had lived with the Rev. Mr. Williams of Long- meadow, and had been further instructed by him at the charge of Mr. Hollis of London, and understood both English and Indian, and wrote a good hand." It is pleasant to associate this village with the interpreter whom Jonathan Edwards calls " an ingenious young Indian," and who was supported here by the funds of Thomas Hollis, and honored afterward by the compan- ionship of David Brainerd.
It is also pleasant to think that the first minister of Long- meadow selected for his ministerial successor Richard Salter Storrs, three years before the young man began to preach. Two sons of your second minister were perhaps the two most eminent men ever born in Longmeadow. These two were Richard Salter Storrs of Braintree, and Charles Backus Storrs, the President of Western Reserve College. They were the grandsons of Rev. Eleazer Williams of Mansfield, Connecticut, who was a brother of your first pastor. They were not only descended from Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, but were also connected in a two-fold way with his eminent contemporary and friend Rev. William Williams of Hatfield.
In addition to this, their step-mother was a daughter of Dr. Stephen Williams, the patriarch of Longmeadow. As if this Williamsism were not complete enough, Richard Salter Storrs of Braintree married Anne, a lineal descendant of the same Dr. Stephen Williams ; and her father, Rev. Stephen Williams Steb- bins, was trained in Dr. Stephen Williams' family in the old Longmeadow parsonage.
It may not be easy for us to form a vivid idea of the excel- lences belonging to Richard Salter Storrs, your second pastor. There is one scale, however, by which we may be aided in raising our minds to this idea. We have just been listening to the eloquent remarks of Dr. Richard Salter Storrs of Brooklyn. We have previously heard his sermons and read his published writings. We have thus a distinct idea of the first line on the scale. So much is fixed.
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Now I was once riding in a rail-car through the town of Brain- tree. Two passengers behind me were talking in loud tones on the merits of the Braintree minister, who was the father of Dr. Storrs who has just addressed us. "How does the son compare with the father ?" was the question ; and the answer was : "The son does not approach to the father. He ought not to be named on the same day." Here we get a distinct idea of the second line on the scale.
We next come to the father of Dr. Storrs of Braintree. I once asked the Braintree doctor whether he and his father resembled each other. "I resemble my father !" he responded. " I am no more fit to be compared with him than a tadpole is fit to be com- pared with a professor of astronomy in Harvard College." Now the difference between a tadpole and a professor of astronomy in Harvard College is certainly very considerable; and we have thus a distinct idea of the third line on the scale-the line which marks the position of Richard Salter Storrs of Longmeadow. If the scale be rightly graduated we may easily account for the intelligence, the taste, the beautiful spirit which we have seen developed at this anniversary, and for which we all feel so deeply grateful.
In the remark of the Braintree minister depreciating himself, he must be suspected of using an hyperbole. He was celebrated as a man of power. I have often heard that when a young man he once preached a political sermon on a Fast Day, in which he was so pungent in his reproofs that seven of his hearers rose from their seats and walked out of the sanctuary with heavy and noisy steps. Mr. Storrs had been recently ordained, and some of his parishioners feared that he would be depressed by this political movement. They attempted to console him ; but he assured them that the occurrence had shown him some resem- blance between his own work and that of his Master ;- for " as the Master cast out seven devils from Mary Magdalene, so I have cast out seven from the Braintree meeting-house." The ejected politicians afterwards bore the sobriquet of "the seven devils," and never repeated their offense.
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For more than sixty years I have been familiar with the name of Richard Salter Storrs of Braintree, but I never saw him until the 13th of December, 1826. On that day I heard him offer a prayer ; and I never heard a more seraphic address to the throne of grace. It was simply wonderful. Since that day I have listened to the eloquence of Theremin and Louis Harms ; of Chalmers, Guthrie, and Gladstone; of John Quincy Adams, Web- ster, Clay, Calhoun ; but I have never heard a more effective appeal to the conscience and to the heart than I once heard from Dr. Storrs on a cold and stormy evening, in a small room, and before an audience of not more than thirty-five men and women.
I know that the family of the Williamses have eminent worth, but it is not safe to say much about them. They know their worth, and they know that they know it, and they also know that other families ought to know it. If they are not treated with due reverence, they know how to signify their displeasure. One member of the family was a brave officer in the French and Indian war. He lived in a village near Longmeadow, and when he walked through the main street of his village he carried an imposing cane. If any young man did not take off his hat when he met this distinguished colonel, the cane was uplifted and the hat came off without the young man's consent. This is Wil- liamsism. There are six lineal descendants of that hero now sit- ting near me on this platform, and if I should not come up to the required standard of praise they would not hesitate to treat me as their ancestor treated the ignoramus who met him in the street. If I should see them approaching I should take care to be on the opposite sidewalk !
The Reverend Eleazer Williams, once a resident of this vil- lage, was thought by many to be the son of Louis the Sixteenth and of Marie Antoinette, and thus the lawful heir to the French throne. He was once met by another clergyman bearing the honored name of Williams, and was addressed in these solemn words : " Eleazer Williams ! Do you pretend to be the son of the French king ? I tell you what ! I will not let the name of Wil- liams be disgraced by any relationship to any French monarch.
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Stycken William FRAN LINAMEADOW ASIDE-PACK 1715 10 1M3.
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You must do one of two things. You must either renounce Williamsism or else renounce Bourbonism !"
This being the spirit of the Williams family, I was relieved by the words of your president, when he called on me to speak in reference to that family, or "any other subject." I flee for refuge, then, to the "other subject." When I came to Long- meadow I intended to be either a silent listener, or else to say a few words on the early New England ministers. This is the " other subject." But here I am met by a difficulty. A very large number of the early New England ministers were Wil- liamses. The Williamses are everywhere. "The other sub- ject," then, seems to be nearly the same with the one I have fled from. Still, I must go on, even at the hazard of losing my hat.
The early ministers of New England were noted for their indefatigable diligence in study. Some of them devoted twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day to their books or manuscripts. Dr. Solomon Williams of Lebanon, Connecticut, was regularly in his study, engaged in reading the Hebrew or Greek Testament, before sunrise through the winter season. Many other min- isters were like him. Two of them, who were connected by mar- riage with the Williams family, pursued through a period of fif- teen years the following habit of life : Each of them entered his study at about eight o'clock in the morning, and did not leave it until about twelve. At about one o'clock in the afternoon he re-entered it and did not leave it until about six. He entered it again about seven and did not leave it until about nine in the evening. Some of the old-time ministers were wont to meet each other for theological discussions, and to spend whole nights in their work. One of these ministers,-who was not connected with the Williams family in any other way than that of being decidedly opposed to and decidedly opposed by some members of it,-was accustomed to visit a scientific physician in a neigh- boring town and spend a day and a night in theological debate.
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On one evening the clergyman mounted his horse to return home ; the physician stood by the horse after the clergyman had mounted it. " A new topic was started ; the horse walked on a few steps, and then stopped ; then a few steps more, the friends being still earnestly engaged in discussion. At last they were alarmed at the appearance of a fire in the east, which, after a short time, they found was the break of day !"
Many early ministers of New England were noted for their influence in educating their parishioners Their example was a means of popular instruction. Their sermons were a means of intellectual and moral discipline. Some of these ministers preached in a method so logical and on themes so inspiriting as to awaken many a young man to a habit of thinking for himself. In the forenoon of the Sabbath they explained and proved a great doctrine ; in the afternoon they drew inferences from it and thus revealed the connection between one great truth and another.
One of them, whose admirable wife was the daughter of Rev. Chester Williams of Hadley, was in the habit of preaching dis- courses like these in one parish for more than half a century. While riding, in his extreme old age, through a neighboring parish he was stopped by an utter stranger who proposed the question : " Why do not ministers now [in 1835] preach as min- isters did when you were in active service?" The aged pastor asked: "Do not the modern ministers preach as their fathers did ? In what respect do they differ ?" The stranger replied : " The old ministers divided their afternoon sermons into different heads, each one beginning with the words, ' If what has been said in this discourse be true. then it follows, first ;' ' If what has been said in this discourse be true, then it follows, second ;' and so onward through several heads, each one depending on the fore- going ; but I hear no such discourses from ministers now." The venerable pastor replied : " There are two reasons for this change ; one is, that the ministers of these days have not said anything ; the other is, that if they had said anything, nothing would follow from it." .
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Many of the New England ministers have exerted an educat- ing influence, not only over their own parishioners, but also over men in other and distant parts of the land. There was one pastor, an intimate friend of several eminent men in the Wil- liams family, and himself connected with that family by marriage, who retained a rural pastorate more than fifty years, and one of his parishioners writes concerning him : "When I was a very young man, I used to attend a meeting for debate in which were from ten to twenty persons liberally educated and residing in the parish. Some of them were law students, and some theological students. Our pastor interested the students of law as well as the students of divinity." This logical pastor in a remote country town was regularly listened to by six judges of Massa- chusetts courts. Young jurists learned principles of law from his discourses, and they diffused through a large community the knowledge which they had derived from him. Lawyers and politicians have received no small degree of honor which was really due to comparatively unknown pastors.
There is one trivial incident which illustrates this fact. A min- ister in this immediate neighborhood was once asked in an inso- lent, if not insulting, way, " Do you think that you have got any religion ? " He answered, "None to speak of." This apt reply was mentioned to John Randolph, who was pleased with it, and soon afterwards said on the floor of our National House of Representatives, " I have no religion to speak of." The felici- tous remark has been ascribed to him as an original one. It was borrowed from a minister who has often preached in Long- meadow. The honor awarded to Nathan Dane for his celebrated ordinance regarding the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio River, is to be shared in part by Dr. Manasseh Cutler, a pastor of a small town in Massachusetts, an astronomer, a botanist, a physician, a statesman, a patriot. He was highly esteemed by George Washington ; and was appointed by him the first judge of a United States Court in the Northwestern Territory. Scores of humble pastors might be named who have extended their influence through all the learned professions, and through all parts of our land.
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Many of our early ministers were noted for the authority which they maintained in their parishes. We may not justify the methods in which they sometimes used their power ;- these very methods, however, indicate their superiority to the men around them. I have read of a very aged pastor who was thought, by some of his parishioners, to need the help of Ruling Elders. The two deacons proposed to him that he should receive this aid. He suggested that the two deacons themselves should be appointed to the new office. They consented. He asked them what they supposed to be the duties of the Ruling Elders. They replied that he knew better than they, and that they would do what he said. "Well, then," he answered : "I should like to have one of them come up to my house before meeting on Sunday, and get my horse out of the barn, and then saddle him, and bring him up to the door, and hold the stirrup while I get on. The other may wait at the church door and hold him while I get off ; then, after meeting, he may bring him up to the steps. This is all of my work I can ever consent to let the Ruling Elders do for me." The story adds that the office of Ruling Elders in that church has remained vacant until the pre- sent day.
History proves, however, that, in the main, the ministers of New England have used their authority in a kind spirit and with benign results. Whoever will study their writings on the sciences, and especially on theology, the most inspiring of the sciences-whoever will examine their intellectual, and especially their moral, greatness-whoever will consider their personal history, and the personal history of their descendants-will be convinced that the character of New England has been moulded by them in large measure, and that New Englanders at the north, south, east, and west, owe to these ministers a debt of profound gratitude.
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Music by the band, at the close of Professor Park's Address, was followed by the Address of Rev. Hubbard Beebe, pastor of the First Church in Longmeadow from 1837 to 1843 ;- now of New York City. The President said :
Three pastorates of one hundred and thirty-four years in the aggre- gate for four generations of her children,-and four pastorates of thirty years aggregate for one generation,-this is the somewhat striking record of the Mother's seven pastorates. Will the Rev. Hubbard Beebe recall, for this fraternal hour, any reminiscences of a generation so exceptional in its spiritual requirements ?
REV. MR. BEEBE'S ADDRESS.
Mr. President and - Friends :
Some mothers do things which the children cannot satisfac- torily explain ; and this seems to be the case with our good Mother Longmeadow in the matter mentioned by the President. Whether the two pastors who ministered to her welfare during the first one hundred years of her history were of such excep- tional excellence that it cost her thirty years of patient toil to find a son worthy to succeed them ; or whether she grew fastidi- ous with advancing years ; or became subject to the law of con- trasts; or perhaps had a quickened taste for the spice which variety is said to give,-I will not here attempt to decide. One thing, however, must be obvious to all who are familiar which her history,-that the story of those later pastorates is so intimately connected with those of their predecessors, that it cannot well be told separately from them.
My ordination here occurred forty-six years ago to-morrow, October 18, 1837. Dr. Williams died fifty-five years, and Mr. Storrs eighteen years previously ; the two pastorates covering a period of one hundred years. A stranger among strangers, I found it convenient to inquire about these two remarkable men. Very soon one of the oldest members of the church, their dele- gate, took me to an ecclesiastical council; and I asked him if he remembered Dr. Williams, and what were his impressions of him. He replied that he had some recollections of him; that he wore a large wig, and that his appearance was very venerable and
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imposing ; and then added, that in his boyhood it used to be said that the people of Longmeadow regarded Dr. Williams as their Maker; with the exception of one rather skeptical fellow . ho alone questioned it. There were no other persons about whom all were so ready to converse, and of whom they had so much to say, as of their two earliest pastors. Instead of having died so many years before,-those grand old men,-they rather seemed to me to be still living in the memories and thoughts and daily lives of the people ; as if they were still engaged in their active, living ministries. It appeared that Dr. Williams had molded and made them in their home life and Christian character, and that Mr. Storrs had both broadened and deepened their intellectual and moral culture. It was also apparent that Dr. Dickinson had impressed on them the stamp of his decided and emphatic char- acter, and especially that he had added the, then new, temperance element ; so that, as Deacon Ely told me, he had no longer to carry the large tankard of wine after the communion to his pastor, as the custom here had always been. And then Dr. Condit came, and spent the brilliant years of his pastorate here, and threw over these households the peculiar charm of his own native grace and gentleness.
And what was the result of all this? And what was the legacy which the early ministry of such men had bequeathed to this community ?
First of all-the Town, whose centennial you celebrate to-day, was born of this Church, which had already had a history of sixty- six years. This is true of other towns up and down the Connec- ticut Valley, and is a marked peculiarity of many early towns of New England.
Again-this one united and never divided parish is not of your making, but the creation of the fathers and the fruit of their hundred years of wisely directed labor. A sickly and sen- timental religion disintegrates and divides many parishes, and inflicts upon them the miseries of two or three small and starve- ling churches, begetting jealousies and feuds which drag more angels down than they lift mortals up. To all this your one unique and beloved parish is a rare and beautiful exception.
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But perhaps the richest inheritance that came to you and to us of later times, is this community of homogeneous and inter- woven families, dwelling permanently together in their own homes. Forty-five years ago they were all natives here, and to the manor born.
The Family is the most original and perfect institution in the world. We do not need the Bible to tell us of its origin. It stands out clearly by itself, like the great mountains; a master- piece from the Creator's hands. It is also the strongest insti- tution in the world. Like the Sabbath, it survived the wreck and ruin of the fall; and centuries later, it emerged singly and alone from the desolation of the flood, and for the second time God planted the world with a single family. It has a strength and a unity-yes, an organic unity-which no human power, no changes of time, or race, or country, can break up or dissolve. Nothing but the awards and separations of the final judgment can effectively destroy the unity of the family.
But best of all the Christian Family is the most perfectly self- governed and self-governing institution in the world; and this was the distinguishing peculiarity of the families of our New England ancestors. A community of such families made our self-governing churches, and parishes, and towns; and these, in turn, made our self-governing States; and a Union of such States at length made our grand and growing self-governed and self-governing empire,-strong to vindicate itself against all foes from abroad, and to crush out all rebellions at home; and by its own vital forces, like the vital forces of a tree, to throw off the most firmly rooted and appalling system of human slavery the world ever saw. And self-poised and self-governed still, it is passing right on to fill the land and the world with righteous- ness and with blessing.
Do you ask, then, whence came the Christian and church-going households that were the helpers and the strength of the later pastors here fifty years ago ? Again I reply, we did not make them. We inherited them from the generation that preceded ; and we tried to perpetuate them to the generation that should follow. True, they were the fruits of Christianity ; but of Chris-
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tianity as preached in the sanctuary, and exemplified in the prac- tice, and made lovely and winning in the homes of the elder pastors.
In the precious revivals which gladdened us with exceeding joy, they too were the sowers and we the reapers.
In the missionary work, both at home and abroad, they were the pioneers, and we only the followers. And of the daughters of this church there went out a goodly number, to carry the light of your homes to the dark places of the earth, which are full of the habitations of cruelty. Yes, and one of them, a con- vert here in 1840, is still toiling in her loved work on the side of Mount Lebanon, having just returned from the grave of her only and noble son-and she a widow.
And now, what is to be the future of this church, and of the generations that are to come? Shall your grand inheritance from the past become smaller or greater,-richer or poorer? Your Christian homes are still here, your one united church and one parish, with the same evangelical ministry. It is doubtless physiologically intelligible that the present generation should, by a kind of moral atavism, after an intervening generation of shorter pastorates, return to the ways of their grandfathers; and that so the present pastor should have already equalled the term of one of those earlier pastorates. And if he shall have the gift and the grace of continuance to labor on thirty-four years more, and thus leave his earliest predecessor no longer peerless, I am very sure that none of us, his later brethren, will demur.
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