USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The history of the First Baptist church of Boston (1665-1899) > Part 22
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Rev. Thomas Armitage, D. D., of New York City, became the permanent supply of the pulpit for some months, and his labors were highly appreciated at that critical time, but in April ill health compelled him to withdraw. June 25, 1894, a unanimous call was extended to Rev. Nathan E. Wood, D. D., of Brook- line, Mass., at a salary of six thousand dollars, and on July 27 it was accepted. His pastorate began Sep- tember I, and still (1899) continues. He was born in Forestville, N. Y., June 6, 1849, graduated from the University of Chicago in 1872, and from the Baptist
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NATHAN E. WOOD, D. D. Minister, 1894.
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Union Theological Seminary of Chicago in 1875. He was ordained in Chicago, Sept. 12, 1875. He or- ganized and became pastor of the Centennial Baptist Church of Chicago immediately upon his graduation. He was principal for several years of Wayland Acad- emy, in Wisconsin. He has been pastor of the Memor- ial Church, Chicago, the Strong Place Church, New York City (Brooklyn Borough), and the Brookline Church, Mass. A most delightful spirit of harmony and of earnest co-operation now possesses the church, and every department has been marked by a happy and vigorous growth. There has been a marked de- velopment of the spirit of hospitality to strangers at the services of the church, and the results are gratify- ing. The benevolent and missionary contributions of the church for 1897 were noteworthy. The total sum was above twenty-seven thousand dollars, of which fifteen thousand dollars was for missions. The great movement for the raising of the debt of four hundred and eighty-six thousand dollars which rested on the Missionary Union, was planned and inaugurated in this church. Our contribution was ten thousand dol- lars. This result was among the most noteworthy achievements in the whole history of American Bap- tists. In these later years a large spirit of wide and discriminating generosity is a marked characteristic of the church. The additions of new members in the present pastorate have been two hundred and fourteen.
This church has exhibited a singular continuity and uniformity in its doctrinal history. It has been situated in a city which has been unusually subject to
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theological change and upheaval. There have been many and startling departures from the orthodox faith, but this church has stood immovable in the midst of them all. In so far as our records and tra- ditions show, there has been no wavering and no wandering from the credal statement put forth in 1665. It is held by this church with as much tenacity to-day as it was then. There have been individuals, from time to time, who have been tinctured with other doctrines, and have withdrawn from us. Some few at the close of the last century followed the preaching of John Murray, the apostle of Universalism. In the great schism of the Puritan churches, when Trin- itarian and Unitarian parted company, it does not appear that this church lost a single member, or was in any wise disturbed by that volcanic controversy. Indeed, it is the distinct testimony of competent observers that the Baptists were the recognized bul- wark of Christianity in Boston, and kept alive the ancient faith during that exciting time. The church has always held a moderately Calvinistic theology, which it believes to be found in the Holy Scriptures. Individual pastors have given personal emphasis in varying degree to these doctrines. Dr. Stillman was a somewhat severe Calvinist; Mr. Condy was not. The former believed in revivals, the latter did not. But the church itself has not varied in its belief in the infallibility of the Holy Scriptures as the inspired revelation of God and the all-sufficient authority for creed and government. It has always believed in the Deity of Jesus Christ, in the atonement through his death upon the cross, and in complete redemption for
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men through faith in him. It has always believed in the Trinity. It has always believed in regeneration by the Holy Spirit through the word, and has always insisted upon a regenerate church-membership. It has always believed in the separation of Church and State. It has always practised the immersion of the believer in water, and restricted communion. It has always believed in the final separation of the right- eous and the wicked, and that heaven and hell were mighty realities of spiritual history. The author of this history has been able to trace practically no vari- ations in the belief of this church through its long career. It has held with utmost tenacity to the plain and clear teaching of the Holy Scriptures. This fact is the explanation of the continuity and uniformity of its beliefs. "Hitherto hath the Lord led us."
CHAPTER XV
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. THE WOMEN'S SOCIETIES.
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THE first Sunday-school organized in the vicinity of Boston, for the religious instruction of the young, seems to have been the one in Beverly, in 1810, in the First Parish Church. The first one in Boston was begun in June, 1816, in the Third Baptist Church (afterward known as the Charles Street), and was in two divisions, a "Female Sabbath School " and a "Sabbath School for Indigent Boys." In the next nonth a "Female Sabbath School " was begun in the Second Baptist Church (Baldwin Place). It was soon after the settlement of Mr. Winchell that the question of organizing a Sunday-school in the First Church was agitated, but no decision was reached until August, 1816, when a "Female Sabbath School" was commenced in the vestry. It enrolled eighty- seven members, seventy-five of whom were in attend- ance in October, 1818. The records of this school cannot be found, but it was conducted by women ex- clusively. In the next month, September, 1816, "the Sabbath School for Indigent Boys " was begun, and more than one hundred boys were enrolled, seventy of whom remained in October, 1818.1 In November, 1816, the First African Baptist Church began a school with about fifty pupils. Thus from June to Novem- ber in 1816 all of the four Baptist churches in Boston equipped themselves with Sabbath-schools. It seems
1 Vide "The Sunday-school Repository," Oct. 1818.
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like concerted action, and doubtless there was mutual consultation. The earliest record which we possess is as follows :
Sept 4. 1816, A number of persons desirous of forming a Society, for the support of a Sabbath School, assembled at the house of Mr Charles H. Jones, the object of the meeting having been stated by the Revd James M. Winchell, Deac James Loring was chosen chairman, and John K. Simpson, Secretary. After an appropriate prayer by the Revd James M. Winchell it was unan- imously, Voted that the persons present will make an effort to establish a Sabbath School for the instruction of Indigent Boys in reading & spelling in the First Baptist Society in Boston.1
A constitution was adopted and officers were chosen as follows: Horace Winchell, instructor ; Isaac Bemis, secretary ; Charles H. Jones, treasurer ; Rev. James M. Winchell, Deacon James Loring, Mr. Edmund Par- sons, Mr. John K. Simpson, managers. The object is thus stated :
Having a very high opinion of the utility of Sunday Schools in affording the means of instruction to many who would otherwise remain destitute : in correcting their morals, in giving them an opportunity to attend publick worship : and in producing religious impressions on their minds, which may be blessed of God for their conversion. 1
The first instructors were E. Parsons, J. Bemis, H. Fox, R. Smith, J. G. Loring, D. Badger, Jr., A. Win- chell, H. Winchell. The Sunday-school had no super- intendent for the first ten years. It was a group of independent classes which had no special connection with each other, other than that they all met at the same hour and place. At first the pupils were taught
1 "Sunday-school Record."
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the rudiments of an English education, such as read- ing, spelling, and arithmetic, intermixed with some re- ligious instruction. It was wholly a work of charity. They inet at eight o'clock on Sunday morning and remained in session until time for the public worship, when the boys and girls were led in solemn procession to the galleries of the meeting-house, where they sat with their teachers. After service there was a short in- termission for dinner, and at one o'clock they gathered again and remained until the afternoon service of the church, to which they went in procession as in the morning, after which they were dismissed. Com- plaints were often made about the disturbances which the boys made in the galleries during church time. Young men only were employed as teachers, and they evidently had no easy task in keeping the restless boys in order. Sunday was a laborious day to these volunteer teachers, and it is not strange that they pro- posed to keep the school in session until noon, and so be absent from the morning worship. This had a double advantage. It saved them from the reproaches of the sober and orderly people in their pews because they did not keep their boys quiet, and it gave them a little leisure on Sunday afternoon for themselves. But this custom was soon frowned upon by the church, and all were compelled as before to attend the two services on the Lord's Day.
The boys were given shoes, caps, mittens, and suits of clothes, once or twice a year, so that they might present a decent appearance in the school on Sunday. These were intended for Sunday clothes and for use on no other days, but the boys having an eye to good
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clothes contrived to wear them on week days, and soon presented anything but a Sunday appearance in dress when they came to the school. This abuse soon grew so flagrant and open that the teachers exerted all their powers of persuasion and threatening for its removal. "The indigent boys," however, were un- conquerable until the instructors hit upon the device of keeping the clothes at the meeting-house, and loan- ing them out on Saturday afternoon to be promptly returned on Monday morning. Among our archives are many receipts for hats, caps, mittens, garments, cloth, etc., for Sunday-school uses. These seem very odd to us now, but possibly no more so than will the modern receipts for Christmas presents, candies, sup- pers, and picnics seem to those who shall come long after us. In the first annual report Mr. Winchell says:
Nearly one half of the children are now able to read in the Bible, many scholars from six to fifteen years of age have been taught the letters of the alphabet. Besides acquiring the rudi- ments of spelling and reading most of the children have been taught the catechism. The largest half of them have been in the habit of reciting portions of the Scriptures and nearly all can repeat the Lord's Prayer correctly. A large number of them secure but little or no instruction, except what is imparted in these schools, and not one half of them would regularly attend public worship were they not conducted to the house of God by their teachers. 1
The girls' school met in the vestry, and the boys met for a while in the North public schoolhouse. In 1818 thirty-two dollars per year was paid for the rent of the school building, which stood on Back Street (now Salem). Various efforts were made to raise
1 "Sunday-school Record."
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money for the erection of a suitable building on the church lot, but the church did not see fit to allow such a building, until finally the two schools found an abiding-place in the two vestries of the meeting- house. The boys and girls were not allowed to meet in the same room, nor were women permitted to teach the boys. The sexes were carefully kept separated. Men taught the boys and women taught the girls. I find a receipt "for 200 Good Behavior Tickets, 200 Punctual Tickets, and 200 Merit Tickets," for use in 1817, but the small quantity required shows that there was not an excessive demand for them through the good conduct of the boys. In October, 1817, the schools reported seventy-five boys and seventy girls. In 1824 one hundred and twenty-five boys were re- ported as members of the school. Such a Sunday- school must have been a somewhat severe tax upon the patience of the boys and girls as well as upon the teachers, and one cannot judge them very harshly if they were not always found at the church service, or if being there, they were sometimes a little restless. The usual order of exercises in the school was the singing of a few verses of a hymn at the opening, and this was followed with a short prayer. Then lessons were learned and recited until ten minutes before the time for public worship, when a few verses of another hymn were sung, and the pupils were marshaled by the teachers and led into the gallery of the meeting- house. The afternoon was usually given to a more exclusive religious instruction. Hymns, psalmns, and passages of Scripture, which had been committed to memory, were listened to by the teachers, and the
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catechism was studied. The teachers were often not professors of religion, and one of the special advan- tages of the Sabbath-school was that inany of these teachers became converted. The sense of responsi- bility and the effort to teach the children the truths of the Scriptures led the teachers to religious thought- fulness and to a Christian life. The teachers of the schools are among those reported year by year as being converted and uniting with the church. Indeed, so marked is this fact that it might almost seein as if the chief good of the Sabbath-school was not to the pupils but to the teachers. To teach in these schools seems to have been a special means of grace in lead- ing the instructors to Christ. The gains to the church were not in those early years so noticeable from among the pupils as from among the teachers.
The Sunday-school became very popular, so that the families of the church began to send their own children to it, and gradually its character became changed. It was no longer for indigent boys and girls. These were after some years formed into mis- sion schools. The church had such a school, in 1827, in Prince Street, under the care of Mr. Moses Pond, and another, in 1829, in Henchman's Lane. The character of the teaching also changed after the first year or two, so that distinctly religious teaching be- came more and more prominent. The catechism was taught, and portions of the Bible were committed to memory. Spelling and reading were however taught for many years to those who came into the school and were unable to read the Bible. The first infant Sunday-school, so far as known, in this or any other
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country, was established in 1829 in our meeting-house, then at the corner of Hanover and Union Streets. The following extracts from a letter written by Mr. Henry J. Howland, in 1896, give an account of it :
My sister, who was a teacher in Brookfield, saw a notice of a meeting of an Infant School Society in Boston, which supported a school for the care of young children of parents who were obliged
THE FIRST INFANT SUNDAY-SCHOOL-ESTABLISHED IN 1829.
to be away from home at their work ; she was quite interested in the account and requested me to find out about it. I was an appren- tice, sixteen or seventeen years old. I obtained leave of absence for half a day and visited the school on Bedford Street, taught by a Miss Blood, and saw and heard enough to satisfy me that the religious part of the exercises there-Scripture and other lessons, illustrated by pictures, marching, singing hymns, etc .- could be usefully adapted for a number of small children who frequented the Sab- bath-school of the First Baptist Church, but who had no place in any of the classes. So I borrowed some of the pictures from Miss
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Blood and showed them, with an explanation of their use, at a meeting of our teachers, proposing that an infant class should be formed for the small children not otherwise provided for in our school, using such part of Miss Blood's exercises as might be adapted to our purposes. I also suggested that one of our lady teachers should take charge of the school.
It was at once voted that such a class should be formed, and that I should be the teacher, with the addition-when I suggested that a lady would be better suited for the position-that I might select such an assistant as I thought best.
So I bought a few of the pictures such as Miss Blood used, and wrote out the questions and answers for two or three of them, selected some hymns such as I thought would answer, and the next Sabbath noon I marched, with some six or eight small boys and girls, who had not been in any class, to the gallery over the choir gallery of the First Baptist Meeting-house (which then stood at the corner of Union and Hanover Streets), where we commenced the first infant Sabbath School in 1829.
The instruction was wholly oral, the scholars repeating the an- swers and hymns after the teacher until they learned them, and they soon learned to sing the verses. After a short time the class was moved to a committee room on the lower floor, and before long I succeeded in securing the assistance of Miss Isabelle Ayres, who soon proved my statement at the commencement, that a lady, if competent, is much the best adapted to manage and instruct young children.
Mr. Howland died in 1897, in Worcester, Mass., and during his long life had kept close connection with Sunday-schools, and especially with primary work. He did not suspect that he was doing a work which was to have so far-reaching consequences, and to be productive of so vast an amount of good. To this church belongs the honor of having the first primary Sunday-school, so far as is known, in the world.
In 1836 Miss Sarah Mossman was in charge of it,
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and the report says: "The infant school under the care of Miss Sarah Mossman is in a flourishing state : whole number sixty: average attendance thirty: it is very pleasing to hear infant lips, lisping prayer and praise to their king."
I cannot learn when women were allowed to teach
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HENRY J .. HOWLAND.
boys. Miss Ayres, who took the infant class in place of Mr. Howland, about 1831, may have been the first. The two schools seem to have been merged into one early in, the pastorate of Dr. Neale, but the date is unknown. The first list of male and female teachers recorded together as if they might have been in one school is in 1842. The total enrollment in 1834 was one hundred and thirty-three. In 1839 it was two
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hundred and twenty. The Sunday-school of this church has never been large, but why this is so is not easy to discover .. It has liad a most faithful company of officers and teachers, and its work has been exceed- ingly useful.
In 1876, Deacon Thomas P. Foster died. He had been connected with the Sunday-school about fifty years, thirteen of them as superintendent and the re- mainder as teacher. This is an unequaled record in our annals. In 1877 the school had grown very small and shared with the church its sad decline. It re- moved to Shawmut Avenue upon the union of the two churches, and reported that " fifteen teachers and seventy-one scholars" went with it to the new loca- tion. The union of the two schools made a large enrollment of teachers and scholars, but this was much reduced by the removal to the present meeting- house on Commonwealth Avenue. The school re- ported January 1, 1899, twenty-eight officers and teachers, and three hundred and four scholars. For many years all secular studies have been abolished from the Sunday-school and the Bible has been the only text-book studied. The session is an hour and a quarter in length and is held before the morning worship. The exercises consist of singing, prayer, the lesson, remarks by the pastor or superintendent, and reports, singing, and closing with the Lord's Prayer. There were no superintendents until 1826.
LIST OF SUPERINTENDENTS.
William Manning, Jr., 1826-1828. George S. Goddard, 1828-1831.
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Deacon James Loring, 1831-1833. John N. Barbour, 1833-1834. Thomas P. Foster, 1834-1845. Edward J. Long, 1845-1846. Thomas P. Foster, 1846-1848. Cyrus Carpenter, 1848-1856. Humphrey Jameson, 1856-1858. Cyrus Carpenter, 1858-1868. S. M. Tourtellot, 1868-1870. George E. Learnard, 1871-1877. Wm. G. Harris, 1877-1879. E. M. White, 1879-1881. John K. Simpson, 1881-1883. A. S. Woodworth, 1883-1884. Irving O. Whiting, 1884-1885. H. G. Woodworth, 1885-1887. Irving O. Whiting, 1887-1892. Frank D. Allen, 1892-1894. Arthur C. Badger, 1894-1898. George F. D. Paine, 1898.
The first women's society of which I have found any record was organized March 12, 1841, with twenty-nine members. It was called the Ladies' Sew- ing Circle. Two years later its name was changed to the Ladies' Mission Circle. In 1857 it had grown to a membership of one hundred and fifty. Its object was to provide garments for the poor, to disburse money to various worthy enterprises at home and abroad, and to promote social acquaintance among the women of the church. They assisted students at Newton, gave aid to missionaries, both home and
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foreign, contributed to the Bethel and to many char- ities of the city. During the Civil War they contrib- uted largely in aid of the sick and wounded soldiers, and were the steadfast helpers of the United States Sanitary Commission. In January, 1865, they report a most enthusiastic meeting, when Captain Edward J. Jones, an officer in the army of the Union and a member of the church, was welcomed home with every demonstration of affection and delight. They met in private houses until they outgrew such ac- commodations, when they met in the vestry of the meeting-house. Their gatherings were warmly so- cial, and filled the place of the present church so- cial. In May, 1877, upon the union of the Shawmut Avenue Church with this church, the society dis- banded, and the women of the united church organ- ized a Ladies' Benevolent Circle, but on Nov. 10, 1877, the Woman's Foreign Mission Circle was or- ganized to do a distinct work. Separate societies were maintained until Nov. 10, 1887, when all the work was consolidated under one organization, the Woman's Benevolent and Missionary Society. This organization contributes for home and foreign mis- sions, provides garments for the poor, and takes charge of the social gatherings of the church. This church has been greatly blessed in the fine company of its intelligent. active, and noble Christian women.
CHAPTER XVI
PASTORS. DEACONS. BEQUESTS. RECORDS. SEXTONS. MUSIC. MEETINGS.
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PASTORS OF THE CHURCH
Thomas Goold, June, 1665, died Oct., 1675.
John Russell, July, 1679, died Dec., 1680.
Isaac Hull, 1681, died 1699.
John Emblem, July, 1684, resigned 1699.
Ellis Callender, 1708, died 1726.
Elisha Callender, May, 1718, died Jan., 1738.
Jeremiah Condy, Dec., 1738, resigned July, 1764.
Samuel Stillman, D. D., Sept., 1764, died Mar., 1807. Joseph Clay, June, 1807, resigned Oct., 1809. James M. Winchell, March, 1814, died Feb., 1820. Francis Wayland, Jr., June, 1821, resigned Aug., 1826.
Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Jan., 1827, resigned Sept., 1830. William Hague, Feb., 1831, resigned June, 1837.
Rollin H. Neale, D. D., Sept., 1837, resigned June, 1877.
Cephas B. Crane, D. D., April, 1878, resigned Oct., 1884.
Philip S. Moxom, D. D., Aug., 1885, resigned Dec., 1893.
Nathan E. Wood, D. D., Sept., 1894.
There have been sixteen pastors of the church prior to the present pastor, and the average length of their pastorates has been about fifteen years.
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LIST OF DEACONS.
Thomas Skinner, 1670-1690. Edward Drinker, 1670-1685. Benjamin Sweetser, 1688-1691. Richard Proctor, 1718-1719. Benjamin Hiller, 1718-1728. Josiah Byles, 1720-1753. Shem Drowne, 1721-1774. Skinner Russell, 1751-1753. Joseph Hiller, Jr., 1753-1758. John Bulfinch, 1759-1772. Nathan Hancock, 1759-1782. Philip Freeman, 1779-1789. Richard Gridley, 1779-1798. Daniel Wild, 1787-1805. William Capen, 1790-1818. John Waite, 1801-18II. Prince Snow, Jr., 1807-1827. James Loring, 1807-1827. John Sullivan, 1825-1846. Joseph Urann, 1828-1864. Moses Pond, 1831-1840. John Spence, 1835-1840. Simon G. Shipley, 1838-1852. Thomas Richardson, 1840-1869. Thomas P. Foster, 1845-1876. Abijah Patch, 1852-1866. J. Q. A. Litchfield, 1861-1887. Charles A. Turner, 1861-1875. Samuel L. Tourtellot, 1867-1878. Alfred Haskell, 1867-1878.
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Cyrus Carpenter, 1872-1893. Addison Boyden, 1872-1874. Elisha James, 1877- Dwight Wheelock, 1877-1879.
Samuel S. Cudworth, 1877-1882.
James W. Converse, 1879-1894.
Daniel C. Linscott, 1885-
John A. Bowman, 1886-1892.
Rest F. Curtis, 1889-
George F. D. Paine, 1889-
Edward M. Hoyt, 1892-1894.
Henry L. Millis, 1892-1894. Frank H. Dean, 1893-
Alfred D. Flinn, 1896-
Henry S. Parsons, 1897-
There have been forty-five deacons, of whom twelve are still living. Four deacons have served in this office more than thirty years each, viz, Shem Drowne, fifty-three years; Josiah Byles, thirty-three years ; Joseph Urann, thirty-six years ; and Thomas P. Fos- ter, thirty-one years. The membership of the church in 1899 is about six hundred and thirty.
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