USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The West Church, Boston; commemorative services on the fiftieth anniversary of its present ministry, and the one hundred and fiftieth of its foundation, on Tuesday, March 1, 1887, with three sermons by its pastor > Part 3
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A grand illustration of the historic interest attach- ing to an old church from the personality and public service of one of its pastors is furnished in Jonathan Mayhew, the second pastor of this West Church. He was of a sturdy and godly stock, transplanted from the Old England to the New in our first age. The founder of the family here was the first Eng- lish settler at Martha's Vineyard, living there to an advanced old age as its magistrate. He preceded Eliot as a missionary to the Indians, then counted as five thousand on the island. Six members of the family, including the father of Jonathan, gave their lives to that dismal service. Jonathan, en- dowed with mental powers and high ambition, toiled for his own education, and graduated from Harvard in 1744, at the age of twenty-four. His ministry here, beginning in 1747, was of less than a score of years, as he died in comparative youth at the age of forty-six, in 1767. But that period of service was crowded, full and fruitful, with eminent and
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varied work of heart and intellect. His parish, graded in the town as third in rank in qualities which are thus estimated, was second to no other in the characters and social distinctions of its members. They were men who could well appre- ciate the talents and nobleness of their minister, and were proud in rallying to his support amid the buffetings to which his independence of spirit and thought subjected him. They bore such names as these in the old Boston of that day, not yet lost out of honored use among us, - Chief Justice Sewall, Judge Robert Treat Paine, Edmund Quincy, Harri- son Gray, Harrison Gray Otis, with Clarks, Eliots, Walleys, Bradfords, Mackays, Watts, Fletcher, Til- den, Avery, Wells, Gay, etc. His closest intimates, indicating his place on the rôle of our grandest patriotism, were Sam Adams, James Otis, James Bowdoin, Judge Paine, Professor Winthrop of Harvard, etc.
There are three great subjects of far more than local, extending even to general and national, inter- est on which a curious and searching inquirer in the springs of historical development will need to engage his thought with this West Church, and with the potent agency of its pastor, Jonathan Mayhew. Only those well read in the social and religious history of this community, and skilled in tracing the slow enlargement and liberalizing of opinions and beliefs, know how firm was the grip of the old Orthodoxy here, and how reluctantly
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and stingily it yielded its sway. The metaphysical triplicity of the Godhead and the Calvinistic inter- pretation of the scheme of revealed religion had a supreme hold on belief and religious ministrations. Only, I will not say inch by inch, but by hair's breadths, has it yielded to free, clear, strong, inde- pendent exercises of individual minds in protest and rejection. Each step of advance has been a crisis and a struggle. In our day we see the hill of Andover exercised by it, and the sands of Prince- ton will inevitably yield to it. There has never been a backward return or recovery in that course. And Jonathan Mayhew was the noble pioneer here. He stood for the rights of reason, that men might have solemn and august sanctities for their rever- ence, and not be ashamed of the God whom they worshipped. He stood for the duty of looking heavenward, with a view cleared of all the murki- ness and sombreness of the benighted creeds of human superstition.
Again, during his ministry here the first tokens of the coming revolt and rupture of these colonies for independence of the mother-country were obvi- ous to men of forecast and sagacity. The baptism of patriotism was to become a sacred office for church and home. Mayhew died before the storm broke, but he knew it was near. His warnings came in two distinct forms of high service. A scheme had been earnestly pressed, both here and in England, for the introduction into the colonies
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of English bishops as co-workers with English gov- ernors, just at the crisis when Throne and Par- liament were threatening our civil liberties. Those English bishops were not then of the harmless sort known among us. They were lords temporal as well as spiritual. It is noteworthy that Episco- palians in the middle and southern colonies were as much opposed to the introduction of English bishops as were the Congregationalists of New England. Not a single one of those prelates ever had jurisdiction or pressed his foot on our national domain. That this was so was due more to the protest, the warnings, the strong, able, and patriotic pen of Mayhew, than to all other agencies. He had the full learning, scholarship, statesmanship, zeal, and skill for successful championship, though Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, tried fencings with him. If, as some thought, Mayhew was too intense and severe against Episcopacy, the wrong was adjusted by his grandson, Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, rector of Trinity in this city, and after- wards Bishop of New York.
The other high, patriotic service of Mayhew, which the historian must note is that he, if not the first to propose, was independent of all others in suggesting, a combination of the colonies, - an- swering, as he said, to "the communion of the churches," -for mutual sympathy, help, and activity. While the British Army held mastery of this town, and Washington was besieging it from the hills
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around, the soldiers occupied as a barrack the wooden edifice which preceded this. For fear that some sly patriot might use the spire for sig- nalling to friends outside, after the example of Paul Revere's lantern in the North Church, the British tore down the spire. But the mischief had been already done inside the church. The lantern had been hanging in the pulpit for many years; and patriots like Sam Adams, James Otis, and Paine had interpreted and answered the signal.
The advocacy of the great principles of civil and religious liberty, with the duties of patriotism and virtue which they impose, found able successors to Mayhew, in this pulpit, in the gentle but earnest Howard and in the saintly Lowell. For never did a more saintly form pass through the streets of this city than the revered Charles Lowell. It happened to me that on an exchange of pulpits with your old minister, on a communion Sunday, as I entered the pulpit a note was handed to me communicating information of the death, between services, of Dr. Lowell, at his home in Cambridge. He was re- duced by infirmities, and the translation to the other life must have been welcome to him. I esteemed it a precious privilege to perform the duty asked of me, in announcing his death to his own flock.
As for more than fifty years I have had a pleas- ant friendship with your much-loved minister, and enjoyed in his utterances and writings the rich ex- uberance of his genius, the novelty, vigor, piquancy,
THE WEST CHURCH, 1775.
FROM A SKETCH TAKEN DURING THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. BY AN OFFICER OF THE BRITISH STAFF.
The wooden church built in 1736, in 1775 used as a barrack and the steeple razed, was replaced by the present structure in 1806.
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and glow of his outpourings, I have long been con- vinced that he has in him what we call " a crack," and a large one too; - not, however, a crack for letting out anything that belongs to a healthful, complete, and well-furnished brain, but for letting in floods of the wealth of fine imaginings, fancies, and enriching thoughts, radiant and sparkling gleams of a clear and oracular wisdom. I feel, sometimes, as if there was a little trouble about the syntax and grammar; but it all comes out right, and admits of being parsed. What in the top surface of most of us is hard skull seems in him to be crystal win- dows, through which must have first entered the beams that flash out upon us. I will venture to say to you, his parishioners, that the observances of this day will not be complete till you have taken measures to provide for posterity a fine painting of Dr. Bartol, as he stands preaching in the pulpit, with his white locks as a substitute for scholarly or priestly robes.
DR. BARTOL: The double parentage of his own dear home and of this dear church has given to letters, to society, to his country, to his kind, a man, who honored throughout the world, some of us are allowed the privi- lege still to call James, - James Russell Lowell. Where his father's voice was heard so often, it is meet that the son's voice should be heard.
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THE WEST CHURCH, BOSTON.
ADDRESS OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, D.C.L., LL.D.
I AM sorry, Mr. President, for your last allusion to the voice of my father. It should certainly pro- duce an impression of disappointment on all those who hear mine and who heard that. I remember that Ralph Waldo Emerson once said to me, speak- ing of that scene in the Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers which was referred to by Dr. Hedge, that my father was the most eloquent extemporaneous speaker he had ever heard; and when I remember my father's vividness of tempera- ment, I can well believe it. I wish I had inherited something of that quality, something of that pleasure which he certainly took in speaking, and which showed therefore that it was a natural gift. Not having had that good fortune, I can at least emulate one charm of his speaking, which was his brevity.
Had I declined the invitation to speak here to- day, which I willingly would have done under other circumstances, I should feel that I had neglected an imperative duty. I come here to discharge both a personal and filial debt. I should have been guilty of a twofold breach of the obligation of gratitude re- called to my mind by this occasion, - first, to the parish with which my honored father was united for fifty-five years by ties of mutual respect and affection that only grew closer and stronger, and whose delicate generosity to him his children can
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never forget ; secondly, a debt to his associate pas- tor, whom my father loved from the first, and who returned that love with a truly filial loyalty and tenderness. It was a relation, as you will all under- stand, of almost tremulous difficulty and delicacy, with pitfalls in every direction ; and yet never did a doubt, never did a suspicion, never did a jealousy or mistrust disturb it. I think that a relation like this argues a certain benign nobleness of character on both sides ; and in this world of change, this world of imperfect sympathies, which cause so much need- less pain, it is surely refreshing to look back upon a partnership so perfect as this was.
I well remember the day, fifty years ago, when Dr. Bartol was ordained here. I was then a Junior in college. I remember the impression made upon me especially upon that day, though I had perceived it also before, by Dr. Bartol's face, - the glow of en- thusiasm tempered by sweetness that illumined it; a glow which I am glad to say I still see there; a glow which argues that the enthusiasm of early life has not faded. And this persistence, this truth, this fidelity to the dreams of one's youth, if it be not the better part of genius, is certainly of the same indefinable and precious essence. This church has been very fortunate in its ministers, - men vener- able for their piety, or full of that sweet attractive kind of grace that springs from beauty of personal character. I think that you have never been more fortunate than in your present clergyman.
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About the time that Dr. Bartol was settled, I think it must have been, the edition of McCulloch's Gazetteer, which was then recent, in speaking of Boston, described it as " Boston, the capital of all New England, and, until lately, of all the United
States, is situated " so and so.
There have been
marvellous changes since that time, - changes, per- haps, which strike me as much as they can anybody. For by my good fortune in being a clergyman's son, and in being the youngest son, I used to be taken by my father on his exchanges, which extended, I remember, as far as Portsmouth on the east and Northampton on the west. He always drove in his own chaise. I can conceive of nothing more de- lightful than those slow summer journeys through leafy lanes and over the stony hills, where we always got out and walked ; for he quoted to me, " The mer- ciful man is merciful to his beast." In that way I think I gained a more intimate relation with what we may call pristine New England than has fallen to the fortune of most men of my age. I have always been grateful for it, and consider it one of my most fortunate possessions. Certainly, one born as long ago as I, who looks about him, sees a very different world. The world then was less complex ; it was less hurried. It was more constantly guided by the pieties of household tradition, and the family hearthstone was less migratory. ] Life was perhaps more austere; but that austereness was founded upon strength of character and strength of convic-
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tion, and imposed also a wholesome discipline of self- restraint. Perhaps the world that one sees now is not so picturesque in many ways as that was; cer- tainly in many ways it is not so poetic. But yet as I look back I cannot help feeling that I am living in a better world now, - better in many respects, at least, - where, though the contrasts of wealth and poverty are vastly more sharp, yet the general well- being and the number of people who are happy and comfortable is far greater relatively than then.
But when I look round here upon everything so unchanged, - when I see that pulpit, which I re- member I once thought to be the highest effort of human skill in the way of architecture, - I cannot help feeling how many are the changes which have taken place. As I look about the church I recall so vividly the faces and heads that I used to see here, when, standing on a cricket, I was able to peer over the edge of the opposite pew and take a survey of the church during the singing of the hymn. I re- member on this side of the aisle (and as my imme- diate connection with the church as an attendant here ceased more than sixty years ago, when I was sent to a boarding-school, the picture is no less in- teresting to me than it is vivid) that I saw Mr. T. K. Jones, who still wore powder (and there were a great many queues, I remember, in the church), Mr. Andrew Cunningham, Mr. Denny (these were all in my immediate neighborhood, for I could not see those in the farther corners of the church), Mr. Caleb
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Loring, and his son - surely one of the best men I have ever known - Mr. Charles G. Loring; and opposite was the erect and stalwart figure of Capt. Ozias Goodwin, who had commanded an American ship when an American ship might have need to de- fend herself, and when we had American ships. And then there was Mr. Bailey. I remember looking at him with some wonder as a Democrat, for a Demo- crat then to me was rather a terrible personage. He always joined his bass with the singing. All these recollections come very freshly back to me as I stand here. But I find one thing, at any rate, which has not changed ; and that is the character of the church in which I am speaking. It is still a church, so far as I can understand, after my father's own heart, who would never allow himself to be called anything but a Christian. It is a church in which no confession of faith is required, but a certain unity in good works and in good thoughts and in charity, which I hope will always endure here.
As I sat opposite the portrait of Dr. Mayhew I was tempted to say a word of him; but it has all been so excellently said by Dr. Ellis that I shall only allude to a single point, which he overlooked, and which has particularly interested me ; and that is, that if I were to select a person who represented what culture could be obtained in New England at the middle of the last century, I should have chosen Jonathan Mayhew. Anybody who reads Mayhew's sermons, as I formerly did, will find in him a man
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quite the match of persons standing in the same position on the other side of the Atlantic. I mean quite their match in general attainment and in style ; but he will find more than their match, sometimes, in the wit and the wisdom of Mayhew. He is also full of striking sayings. I remember one or two, - one in which he almost forestalled those famous lines of our poet Bryant about " Truth crushed to earth shall rise again." He says that we can never say (I am not quoting his exact words, but as near- ly as I remember them) that a truth ever dies and revives like the fabled Phoenix, but that it flourishes rather in a perpetual youth ; and he adds that no falsehood, though it be a thousand years old and embalmed in a creed, ceases to be a lie for that. His explanation, also, of why Solomon's Song is admitted among the canonical books and why the Wisdom of Solomon was excluded therefrom al- ways struck me as having a certain humor in it. He said, when asked what reason he could give for it, that he did not know, unless it was that people generally preferred songs to wisdom. I could not help thinking that it was very appropriate that the Governor should honor us with his presence here to-day, with Mayhew's portrait hanging where it does ; for, as Dr. Ellis has told you and as it has often struck me, this church has a link, and a close link, not only with the history of Boston and the history of Massachusetts, but with the whole coun- try through him.
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It has been a great pleasure to me to stand here for a few minutes to-day ; and I now am glad, also, to make way for others who are better entitled than I am to occupy your time.
DR. GEORGE E. ELLIS : Will you please allow me to rec- tify a little error in Dr. Hedge's address ? He inadver- tently stated that Dr. Charles Lowell's noble stand for independence was made in the Massachusetts Congre- gational Charitable Society, which is not correct. That was a very small body of thirty members. The large ma- jority of that body had always been on the liberal side, and no contest of that kind ever came there. It was in the Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers, which embraces the whole State.
DUET. "O Lovely Peace ! " - " Judas Maccabaus" . Handel
DR. BARTOL : There is one present with us to-day whose doctrine, well known, of universal salvation certainly does not include any license to sinners. Let me introduce Dr. Miner.
ADDRESS OF REV. A. A. MINER, D.D.
SENECA says there is a wide difference between a common and a particular obligation. He who con- tributes money to our country lays us under general obligation. So far did Plato carry this doctrine that he refused to acknowledge himself indebted to a ferryman who had rowed him over the river and refused his money, because he found the ferryman treated everybody in the same way.
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I have come here, Christian friends, gratefully to acknowledge with you the common debt of grati- tude and reverence to this church and its present venerable pastor; and if my friend will excuse me, I will ask leave to add, - my personal, particular obligation.
Coming to Boston and entering upon a pastorate nearly forty years ago, I was permitted to spend the first twenty-two of those years almost under the droppings of this sanctuary. How much I am in- debted to that fact I do not know. I enjoyed for the first four years sweet and cordial communion, the counsel and kind fatherly care and undoubted learning of the venerable Hosea Ballou, an inti- mate friend of the then senior pastor of this church, Dr. Lowell. And when my venerable senior had passed on, I felt that I was still blessed with the ex- ample of Dr. Lowell and his associate, Dr. Bartol, who for thirteen years from my coming to the neighborhood had been associated with Dr. Lowell, as I was with Mr. Ballou. It was whispered in my ear by a Boston pastor, now gone to his rest, who had tried the experiment of a colleague without suc- cess, that somehow it seemed that a curse always rested upon such relationships. There have cer- tainly been two exceptions to this in the city of Boston. And for this I tender personal thanks in some measure for one of those examples to your venerable pastor.
Allow me to express a still further personal obli-
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gation to your pastor, and to this church throughout its whole history. It has been from the beginning an independent church. I grant you there is truth in the old proverb, " In union is strength ; " but there sometimes arise parties dividing the whole commu- nity both in politics and religion from both of which it is a Christian duty to separate one's self. I be- lieve that condition of affairs existed when this church became an independent church. Nor can I forget that the venerable Dr. Mayhew - whose praises have been so properly sung this afternoon as far beyond his fellows, surpassing them not only in brilliancy, in eloquence, but shall I say in patriot- ism, also in theological discernment, in the recogni- tion of the glory of the divine character - saw not only the unity of God clearly, but the all-embracing, effective love of God in a common destiny for the race. He had not been gone from this place four years when John Murray landed upon these shores, and when organic Universalism in the United States of America began to be known. And if the brightest star in Dr. Mayhew's crown of glory be- came obscured for a time, - about which I do not know, - I am thankful that it has shone forth again in these latter days in the ministry of the present pastor, and I doubt not of his immediate predecessor. I am thankful, although it might be assumed in a general way that the point of time must have long since elapsed when independence was necessary, and union with somebody might possibly be useful,
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- I am thankful, I say, and still take the liberty to rejoice that no such union took place; that the West Church has continued its independence up to the present time.
This parish has ever maintained in its pulpit a free lance. Many a duty has been emphasized, many an error exposed, many a folly shamed, by the quaint, piercing, searching, eloquent, fearless assaults of the venerable pastor of this church. As I stand in his presence and remember that five decades measure his personal ministry here, while I cannot claim even four, and think that he is pastor over a church whose history covers seven score years and ten, I can but come with something of filial as well as fraternal reverence to this occasion ; and I take great pleasure in congratulating this pastor and this church on what they have in their labors already achieved. Allow me to add that I think that this church has ever main- tained what seems to me valuable truth, -that the divine word is so adapted to the free human under- standing, that in the long run, assuming immortality for truth on the one hand, and immortality for man on the other hand, they must go together; and that both for this world and for all worlds is salvation.
DR. BARTOL: The next name on the programme is that of Rev. Robert T. S. Lowell, D.D., a minister in New York State, and son of Dr. Charles Lowell. I am sorry that he is not here. I may be pardoned if I tell one anec- dote about Robert after he became an Episcopal clergyman. I recall one occasion in the old mansion when I went to see my dear friend and colleague Dr. Lowell, that I found
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him and Robert together. I think the young man had just received orders. I said to Dr. Lowell, " Robert won't put us out ?" The Dr., with a wit and humor which have de- scended, said, "We'll put him out !" Presently Robert very modestly left the room, and the father said, "That is a lovely young man."
We have here a friend from the East. I believe the voice of the sunrise has a word for the Occident. Let me introduce the Brahmin, Babu Mohini M. Chatterji.
ADDRESS OF BABU MOHINI.
IT affords me very great pleasure to have this opportunity of saluting a body of men, brothers and Christians, in the name of the God who is the one God, no matter under how many different names and different forms he may be worshipped ; the God who is the Father of all men, in whom we live and move and have our being.
This occasion affords me a very peculiar plea- sure. In the home of my childhood there was a book called "The Precepts of Jesus: Guide to Peace and Happiness." This book was written by an ancestor of mine. The great misunderstanding and misconception of the Christian faith that pre- vails in our country had given me such a false opinion of Christianity that I thought it would be a perfectly profitless thing to read this book. I thought it might have something to do with ques- tions of morality, about which there is little differ- ence, but nothing of what we look upon as religion.
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