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 4
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COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES.
I take great pleasure in being now able to say that since that time I have found out by my own study of the Christian scriptures that what I was in the habit of believing was Christianity is nothing more or less than the opinions of men taught as doc- trines. This is the first time that I have ever had the opportunity of making this statement. When I came to study the Scriptures myself, the first thing that struck me forcibly was this, - that in spite of all differences of opinion among men the truth of God is everywhere the same. It is everywhere, in every religion, the same. The same promise of eter- nal salvation is held out to men. Eternal salva- tion, Jesus himself has declared, is to know the true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. This is the great link between finite man and the other pole of his being, the infinite God. I also find that the method proposed in the New Testament for the salvation of men is precisely that which is to be found in our own Scriptures; that is, by lov- ing God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and your neighbor as your- self. Do this, and you shall live.
Then there is a great personal feeling of grati- tude which I feel toward the Christian scriptures. With all my study of our own Scriptures I found that the path of philosophy which our ancestors trod was so difficult for the majority of mankind to enter upon that it was with great fear, and very often with misgiving, that my own hope of eternal
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salvation rested in my breast. But when I studied the Christian scriptures I found that these things which present such great difficulties in the compre- hension of the older Scriptures, the Scriptures of our race, have been made as direct, as unambiguous, as unmistakable, and as simple as it is possible to make them. To me that is the proof of the divine mission of Christianity. In our country serious, elaborate, and complicated study is necessary for the interpretation of our Scriptures readily. What struck me as being peculiar in the Christian reli- gion was that it seems meant for large masses of mankind; and this carries with it the unmistaka- ble proof of its divine origin. The method of the New Testament is so simple that it is as if it were adapted for little children. We should approach it in reverence, as a little child approaches its mother to get information. A man who has pursued the paths of philosophy can have salvation, but there is no man on earth who need be without salvation if he desires it. In reading the New Testament my doubts and difficulties disappeared.
There is another reason why I have a personal pleasure in being here. Fifty-four years ago, four years before Dr. Bartol began his ministry here, an ancestor of mine died in Bristol, England, sur- rounded by Christians who believed in the unity of God. Therefore it is to me a matter of delight that I have this opportunity of addressing you as men, as brothers, and as Christians.
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HYMN FOR THE OCCASION By Miss Mary Bartol Read by REV. LOAMMI G. WARE.
THE VANISHED YEARS.
Down the dim aisles of vanished years Advancing messengers I see.
They bear the past, with vague arrears, And rouse from sleep my memory.
The Patriarch witnessed in his dream Seraphic shapes on heaven's bright stairs ;
Some hiding half in glory's gleam, Some flitting downward to earth's cares.
And angels now are floating by, Each from his own diviner sphere ;
A few are mounting to the sky, A few are waiting with us here.
A century and fifty years Have shed their winter and their May ;
Yet spirit lives, time disappears In light unlimited by day.
ANTHEM, " Gloria " Mozart's 12th Mass.
DR. BARTOL : Before that division in the Congrega- tional body which has been referred to once and again this afternoon, the West Church minister and the minister of the Old South were in the habit of exchanging. Indeed, the line was drawn just at that point. Mr. Wisner, being about to be settled in the Old South, requested Charles Lowell to give him the right hand of fellowship. He was to give it; but in the council a motion was made to set aside that wish of Mr. Wisner. Dr. Osgood of Medford, an
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eccentric but excellent clergyman, and friend of Dr. Lowell, said, "I won't put the motion ;" but it was put, and the exclusion was made, and the exchanges ceased. Brother Gordon and I have exchanged a good many right-hands of fellowship; and certainly on the compass the west is not diametrically opposed to the south. There is only a quad- rant's difference. I don't believe there is any in spirit. Will Mr. Gordon speak to us?
ADDRESS OF REV. GEORGE A. GORDON.
PASTOR OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, BOSTON.
I WAS going to say that I had a sort of ecclesiasti- cal right to be present at this commemoration. One of the ministers of the Old South was present when this church was founded. After prayers and preach- ing, in the presence of Thomas Prince, pastor of the Old South, the seventeen original members of this church signed the covenant; and then at the ordination of the first pastor of the church both ministers of the Old South were present, Dr. Sewall and Rev. Mr. Prince ; and Mr. Prince gave the right hand of fellowship. Afterward, when the society of the West Church contemplated erecting this build- ing in which we are assembled to-day, the Old South, among other churches in the city, offered the use of its meeting-house to the West Church in a series of resolutions which are delightful reading as an expression of courtesy and deep fraternal feel- ing ; and though the invitation was not accepted, the motive of it was appreciated, and in the me-
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morial discourse of Dr. Lowell these resolutions of the Old South Society are appended as an example of the feeling prevalent among all the churches. And, further, Rev. Dr. Lowell of this church and Rev. Dr. Eckley of the Old South Church were long and fast and earnest friends.
I am very glad to testify to my personal interest in the long pastorate commemorated by us to-day. Fifty years of continuous service in one pulpit by one man is of itself a phenomenon. And when we add to the element of time the elements of insight and brilliancy and pure sympathy and beneficent in- fluence which have characterized this pastorate, I think we shall all agree that it is worthy of honor and honorable commemoration. I would not imply, in dwelling upon the long pastorate, that your pastor is an old man. I think that he ought in- dignantly to repel that insinuation or imputation, judging from the vigor and pungency and timeliness of the utterances which appear from this pulpit in the press from time to time. You remember that when the patriarch Jacob was introduced to the Egyptian king, Pharaoh asked him how old he was, implying that he was a very old man ; and the patri- arch replied, " The days of the years of my pilgrim- age are one hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." That was a very roundabout and courtly way of
10
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saying : " I beg your Majesty's pardon, I am not an old man yet." And I think that Dr. Bartol ought to make the same stout resistance to the imputation. I am sure he would do it in the same gracious and benignant manner.
One of the best introductions that one can have to anybody is obtained to your pastor through the helpful and beautiful relationship which he sus- tained to one of the greatest men that this country has ever produced, - Horace Bushnell. In all that eventful and strenuous and magnificent life, your pastor was a most helpful friend; and no one can read the book and admire the life without a feeling of gratitude to your minister. The text that I have oftenest thought of in connection with your minis- ter is this : " The letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive." I suppose that if he were to formulate his religious philosophy, and put it into a creed, the letter of the creed would kill me; but I am sure that the spirit of it would make me alive, and that across the chasm of dogmatic difference we should be able, as he has so pleasantly said to me in introducing me, to clasp hands in earnest Christian fellowship.
DR. BARTOL: Perhaps one of the pleasantest circum- stances in connection with this anniversary, to my own mind, is the presence here of my old college-mate of almost sixty years ago, who was afterwards president of Roberts College, Constantinople, and who rendered great services there both in giving the bread of life, as he understands it,
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and I know not how many other tons of other bread to the bodily hunger of men in troublous times, in that far, far off region. Will not Dr. Cyrus Hamlin say a word ?
ADDRESS OF CYRUS HAMLIN, D.D.
THESE exercises, Christian friends, would hardly close appropriately without some reference to Dr. Bartol's college life. And such have been the mu- tations of time that I am the only college friend remaining who could appear here to-day and speak of him as he was in Bowdoin College fifty-seven years ago. When I first knew him he was Junior, and I Freshman. He was Unitarian, and I Ortho- dox. He was refined, polished, perfect; I was rough from the silversmith's and jeweller's shop, fighting my way as best I could. And yet through the kindness and gentleness of his heart, and per- haps through some occult affinity, we became friends at once, and have remained so across the track of fifty-seven years. I wish here to say that no student of Bowdoin College ever made Dr. Bar- tol's friendship who has not valued it somewhat as I have through life. I belonged to the same liter- ary society with him; and at the close of his Junior year we elected him president of the society. That was a college honor bestowed by the votes of stu- dents upon character and scholarship, and Bartol had no peer that could for a moment contest that honor with him at that time. I remember well, at
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the close of his presidency, the farewell address that he gave. It was a gem, awakening universal admira- tion ; or rather it was a collection of gems, evincing that wonderful aptitude which he has always had of choice and remarkable expression, and penetrating piercing thought. Dr. Bartol's religious character was known to all men in the college. It was so re- fined, so pure, I might almost say so saintly, that nothing gross or profane was ever associated with him. I don't mean simply that nothing of that kind ever came from him; nothing of that kind ever approached him or could approach him. I must not trespass upon your time; but in addition to all the high testimonies that have here been given of Dr. Bartol's remarkable characteristics and character and work, I wish to say, as his college friend, having known him intimately, that his col- lege life had the potency and promise of all that he has been and is.
DR. BARTOL : I am very grateful to you for sitting and standing so long, and I wish only to say that our friend Robert Collyer has come here all the way from New York, and I want him to say a word.
ADDRESS OF REV. ROBERT COLLYER.
I FELT so good, sir, when I got the invitation from the West Church, and all the way to Boston, and all last night so long as I was awake, and all this forenoon, and all this afternoon, because I felt sure
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that I should not have to say one word. The pro- gramme was filled so completely, everything was so exactly as it ought to be, that I just waited for the benediction, that, after we had that, then we could go home singing " Hallelujah !" Well, so it is; and on the whole I am rather glad that I have to say just one word, after all, because Brother Bartol was one of my earliest friends as he has been one of my dearest friends in Boston. I did not have to hunt him up ; he hunted me up. I did not have to say, " I am glad to see you," or anything of that sort: he said it all. And his home, in those dear old times, when the saint who is now with God was with him, was one of my other homes ; and I can never forget all the kindness of those old times. I don't know whether we can quite understand what these fifty years have been, if we don't understand something about the way No. 17 Chestnut Street, in Boston, has opened its door to every sort of wandering Christian under the sun, and made them welcome, made them feel that very likely they were some- body after all, - made them feel they would like to be somebody, anyhow; made them go far and wide with a glow in their heart caught from that hearth- stone on Chestnut Street. Forevermore, as long as I live, when I think of Chestnut Street there will only be one house in it, and that will be No. 17.
I was thinking of what a grand thing it was to have a man living in a town like Boston fifty years, where such a man is needed you know, who will
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stand stanch by his duty as a good householder as well as a good minister and a good citizen, keep his sidewalk clean, pay his taxes, do everything you look for a man to do through fifty years. Think of that. And I have known him almost twenty-five, and I have never heard this man - I was thinking of that as we sat together - say bad words about the weather or other things that we are forever growl- ing about. I don't think that Brother Bartol knows what bad weather is. I think if he turns out in a morning into a great northeast storm, he will say, " What a splendid northeaster!" and for a man in Boston to say that, you know, is a mark of no slight grace; and if it is a grand big blizzard, blowing out of the north, he will open his eyes, and say, " I never saw such a blizzard!" and so on right through sum- mer and winter. There is another thing I was think- ing, too, - been thinking of lots of things besides what you dear men have said; Brother Briggs and myself have been talking them over. Our friend here is one of those ministers who can buy a piece of land, and go and view it, and never neglect the Lord's table, and say, " I bought a piece of land, and therefore I cannot come." He has taken care of that land : they say he has made money out of it, - one of the very few ministers that ever do that. But if he has, I congratulate him; for no man ever did deserve better in the ministry - there may be some laymen. But what I like is, I never have had the slightest reason to think for an instant that he
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neglected any grand duty, or any little, tiny, ten- der duty, looking after his land, taking care of his church, taking care of his home, taking care of his city, taking care of his Commonwealth, taking care of the governors, some people who wanted to be governors, and so on, right straight through. Dear Brother Bartol, let's shake hands !
Deacon Thomas Gaffield read a letter from Rev. Philip S. Moxom, Pastor of the First Baptist Church, introducing it with the following words : "The modesty of our good pastor prevented him from reading this letter, and almost prevented our committee from performing this pleasant service, which is due alike to Dr. Bartol for its loving words, and to Rev. Mr. Moxom for its noble sentiments of Christian fellowship and liberality. As a worshipper for nearly threescore years in this old-fashioned but still very dear West Church, I know that I voice the feeling of all - old, middle-aged, and young - who have enjoyed the wise and loving ministrations of our present pastor, when I say that, while we revere and are proud of the memory of Mayhew, Howard, and Lowell, at whose feet I first sat, no syllable has been uttered on this his and our day of jubilee and laurels, - this golden wedding of pastor and people, - and no letter has been written which can express too strongly our appreciation of the word and work of him who has followed in this illustrious line, and who for fifty years has been so true and faithful to his church, his country, and himself."
Mr. Gaffield then read Mr. Moxom's letter.
3 BERWICK PARK, BOSTON, Feb. 19, 1887.
MY DEAR DR. BARTOL, - When you so courteously invited me to attend the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of your church, and the fiftieth anniversary of your own pastorate, I welcomed the
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invitation gladly, and thought there would be no serious difficulty in accepting it. But I must be in Cleveland that week, and I find that I cannot leave Boston earlier than 7 P. M. on that day if I at- tend your service. As I must return to Boston on Friday, it will be necessary for me, in order to fill my engagements in Cleveland, to leave Boston earlier than 7 P. M. Tuesday. I greatly regret this, for I have been anticipating with great pleasure a share in the glad- ness of your remarkable anniversary. It is a remarkable thing that a man should celebrate the jubilee year of one continuous pastorate.
This fact alone is sufficient to call for warmest congratulations. But what a pastorate yours has been in Boston, the American city of cities, through such a period of our history as a people !
And still more, what favor of a kind Providence has been yours to do such work as you have been permitted to do, to have such co-laborers as you have had, and to preserve so completely as you have done the freshness and vigor and youthfulness of mind !
How lightly the years have touched your intellect and heart !
For you and with you I thank God, while I congratulate you and your people on this doubly significant anniversary. Holding myself, nay, let me say "being held," in warm sympathy with every body of Christians and every type of sincere ethical and spiritual thought, I should have counted it an honor to be permitted to ex- press, in person and by the living voice, something of the hearty good-will which I feel to you, and thus to bear my tribute to your character and years and work.
May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ richly bless you and your flock to-day as you receive words of congratulation and love from your multitudinous friends ! Surely, if all who have received mental and spiritual quickening from your spoken or pub- lished thought were to send in their testimonies of appreciation and gratitude to-day, there would neither be time nor space to receive them. With very great regard, I am yours,
PHILIP S. MOXOM.
To REV. C. A. BARTOL, D.D., BOSTON.
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In asking Dr. Phillips Brooks to pronounce the benedic- tion, Dr. Bartol referred to Rev. William Hooper, the first minister of the West Church, who afterward joined the Episcopal Church, going to England for Episcopal ordina- tion. He returned to this city, and became minister of Trinity Church. " So that," said Dr. Bartol, "Dr. Brooks and myself have a common - I do not know that he ever thought of it - ecclesiastical ancestor. I wanted Dr. Brooks to come here, because I thought he would be will- ing that a poor relation might knock for charity at his door. He shall give us, in his own phrase and fashion, and at more or less length, the benediction."
Dr. Brooks then pronounced the benediction.
II
The Tidings.
A SERMON
BY THE REV. CYRUS A. BARTOL. PREACHED MARCH 6, 1887.
C. a. Bartal
THE TIDINGS.
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I. SAMUEL iv. 19.
A S individuals are not properly singled out in public addresses, and as corporations are said to have no souls, so no remarks concerning a church should be taken as personal, because by birth and death the constituency of a religious society is con- tinually changing, while only its permanent interest and character can any pastor or particular speaker have in view. And so I shall speak of the gospel of Christian tidings to-day, and, as one advises me, plainly and without adjectives.
Tidings, -things brought by time, cast by the ocean of eternity on shore. "Time and tide wait for no man." "There is a tide in the affairs of men."
When the sea leaves the beach the boat must be pushed along the sand or over flats ; and if it be ebb- tide, it is hard to row against the stream. A popular picture shows a married pair first gliding down the stream, and then laboring up. The negro pilot in the harbor of Charleston being asked, " How far to the city?" answered, " Wind and tide contrary, it is
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ten miles; but with flood and fair wind, you are there now !" Brethren and sisters, it was once flood-tide of population in this part of Boston; but in what a long unreturning under-tow the old residents by hundreds have gone, so that their houses of worship, like so many floating bethels, have followed them, this one alone of the old Protestant churches caught and kept aground ! Last Tuesday we had indeed a coast-tide, lasting for two hours, -then the reflux from these doors. The vast audience was welcome, the enthusiasm delightful ; but one such attendance is small suste- nance for a church. There is always something cheap in a crowd, - even dangerous in a high wave, as the vessel sinks into its hollow, and may even come near striking (as in a dory I have done) on a hidden rock. But for the strangers that seek this tabernacle, it were already a ship abandoned on the strand. We are as a corporation reduced to a handful of proprietors. Twenty years ago I foresaw and warned you of the position to which, remaining in this place, by the drift of things we
should be left. I have in the premises no more advice to give. Not that I underrate the old stand. Who more than I is qualified to appreciate the venerable associations, in spite of which, however, even the sacred ark of the Jews was moved from place to place? The force of habit, fear of change, doubt of strength, lack of courage, and want of funds, or rather dread of a subscription, or indis-
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position to generous enterprise, - as many cords as the Lilliputians bound Gulliver with, - hold us where we are. Like Lot's wife we count the cost of going, not that of staying! Our good Governor on the anniversary day spoke of thin assemblies in these courts, referring to numbers, -the idol we worship in this country. If the congregation were weighed instead of counted, it might bear compari- son with any other in the city. Nevertheless in a large building a small company is unmagnetic, like a wet atmosphere on the electric jar; and only in the sunshine of many faces does the spark of zeal pass from soul to soul. I wonder if my friends here have ever considered the draught on their minister's vitality, the sucking of the pump in the well of their own few and scattered ranks, the disheartening to him of inconstant, infrequent atten- dance, and the example of such as, like Irish land- lords, are complete absentees; the effect of a high pulpit, with wide spaces beneath of empty pews, and vacant galleries above, the enclosure of the sanctuary representing no ample growth, but re- sembling a big withered pod, in which the grains or kernels rustle or rattle round, and the heavy expense on the nerves of any clergyman who should regularly officiate in such a partial void for many years; the effort needful, at the short end of the lever, to raise a band dispersed through a radius of many miles, and fetch them over a long hill into a deserted quarter of the town. I am not complain-
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ing, but stating the case. I have never tried to drum you to church. But this semi-centennial date is a crisis to move us to sober reflection, which the late rejoicings cannot enliven, and the compliments that could neither be deprecated nor accepted, but only surprise and confound us, are quite insufficient to drown.
Any public functionary may well hesitate to probe the causes of failure or ill success in the firm he is part of, so ready is the answer that the unfortunate situation is his own fault. There is no rejoinder or rebuttal to such a plea. My short- comings I freely confess. I but claim good in- tentions, with only average ability. I have never sought to be popular. I am not one of those generals who are said to organize victory, like Bonaparte or Grant, or the financiers like Hamil- ton, who, as Webster said, raised to life the corpse of the public credit at a touch. But in the wish to be faithful at my post I may be equal to any ser- vant ; and let me say, for your instruction, in justice to any future pastor, that inevitable and ever-grow- ing difficulties here will so exhaust and discourage as to leave him but half his strength, as the muscles of a horse are wasted by the obstacles in a road. By halts and friction you arrive slowly and late, and it may be after dark. We have but a little day of life. Let us in spiritual matters copy the skill of engineers, who take off nine tenths of the traction by the smoothness of the steel wheels and rails.
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I remember Christ's word and promised presence with "two or three." I have had rare delight in little gatherings. I have no itching for a throng. But it is reasonable for a public speaker to think to relinquish his calling if his hearers fall away, and wise for a society to move or rear a smaller edifice if it desire its own perpetuation, when the chasms open and yawn along its aisles.
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