USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Haverhill > The story of a New England town; a record of the commemoration, July second and third, 1890 on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Haverhill, Massachusetts > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | 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
In the warrant for the parish meeting to be held on the 20th day of November, 1711, an article was inserted " to see what the parish will do in answer to a petition of twenty-six signers that the parish would free them from paying any parish rates so long as they shall hold preaching among themselves or agree with any other parish." In the meeting so called it was recorded that " a petition being read and put to vote, is passed in the negative." But the next entry is as follows : " After some debate it was put to vote, and voted to free those whos names are hereafter recorded from paying any mates raised in the parish, for one year." Twenty-one nanas are then mentioned. The-
TRINITY CHURCH (EPISCOPAL).
75
was undoubtedly the beginning of the movement that resulted in the establishment of the Baptist Church in 1765.
But other heresies erept in apace. In 1753 the church records have this entry : "September 29, 1753, Johu Kezar, of full age, testified that lately he heard Nathaniel Balch say that Adam's first sin was not imputed to his posterity ; that we have no benefit by Christ since His ascension ; and that Christ was not really God ; that part of the Scriptures was not to be regarded ; that God never decreed a certain number to eternal life, and that the punishment of the damned is not eternal, and that there is no time determined by God when men must die, but accident or chance. Signed, dont Kezik.
The above written testification I can witness to. DANIEL APPLETON."
" September 29, 1753, Samuel Ayer, of full age, testifieth and saith that he has of late heard Nathaniel Beach say several times that there is no original sin imputed to mah. taal where the Scripture speaks of a natural man is meant a good man, and that there is no need of a man's being born again, and that there is no pred of saving faith, as he supposed, and that the doctrine of action was not to be regarded. SyMert. AYER."
Hore was heresy in good carnest. The result of the investigation was, that on the first change, a denial of original sin, it was voted that it was not sufficient to deny him church communion. In the second charge, that we have no benefit by Christ since His ascension, A. Balch explained his statement, and this was set aside as unimportant. On the third charge, that Christ was not really Good, an extended debate arose, and it was voted to deter that point to another hearing. " that the church may ripen their thoughts upon it. and receive assistance by Divines who wrote on the mysterious points." On the fourth charge, that part of the Scriptures was not to be regarded, it. Sa. voted unimportant and dropped. Mr. Batch then said that there were parts of the Scriptures he did not understand, and they could not therefore be a rule for his eotelnet. This was considered good logic, and the church voted that da fellowship still remain unimpaired. On the fifth charge Bat thed mitt
76
HAVERHILL., MASSACHUSETTS.
derved a certain number to derne life, they voted that this denial was " not sufficient to deny him church communion." This meeting then adjourned.
On the 29th of the same month the subject was again con- sidered. Now the witnesses were armed with arguments to provee the heresy of the third connt, the Jenial of the Trinity. Pas- sages were read from Bishop Pierson's Discourses, and from the writings of Dr. Watts, and after mich discussion action was again deferred, and they proceeded to the sixth charge, that the punishment of the damned was out of road ; on this the vote was that it was " sufficient to deny him church commmion."
Thus ended the only trial for heresy that appears in the rec- ords of the church. Efforts were subsequently made to reverse this decision, but as Mr. Balch could not be nelneed to say that he was willing to believe that the damned could be punished ebenally, he remained a hen tie and unbeliever The records say that he was greatty grieved, and much eseassed over the action of the church, but I more than half suspect that his hope for humanity was a blessing to him rather than a curse.
The cases for discipline seem to have been quite numerous. It was hard to keep the flock down to the strict rules of ortho- dosy. People would absent themselves from church worship, and if they did not heed the private exhortations that were given to them by committees chosen for that purpose, they were sunnnoned before the church and commanded to give a reason for their delinqueney. On one occasion, in 1726, one Jolm Davis was arraigned "for drinking and stealing and absenting himself from the church for three or four months " His excuse For absence was that he had no shoes, but it was voted that " we do not consider this sufficient excuse," and ke was condemned to be publicly reprimanded.
Another case demanding attention was that of John Brad- ley, who was charged with producing a public vandal, striking his neighbor, and using railing linguage. It was suspended until he should make public confession. He came before the meeting, and made confession, saying that his avighbus per
77
voked him, and that in a rush of passion he did the things charged against him. The church did not pass censure on him, but advised him " to quietly withdraw from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper until he had brought forth fruits meet for repentance." At a subsequent meeting, it was voted that the church would receive his confession in writing and release him from making any public statement.
Absence from church was always deemed a sufficient caus. for discipline, but when we consider what sunday's service really was, you will hardly wonder that now and then one would brave the displeasure of the elders and play the truant. The congregation usually assembled at nine o'clock, or earlier. After a prayer which was usually about a quarter of an hour long, a chapter from the Bible was read and expounded at length ; a psalm was then sung, being dictated line by line by one of the den ms: then the long projet, which goverdly occupied an hour or an hour and a half in delivery ; and many of the ser- mous of that period make from one hundred to one hundred and fifty pages. A contribution was taken every Sunday, pre- coded by an appeal from one of the deacons. After a brief interni sion, the afternoon service began, and followed nearly the same order, except that baptism and cases of church disci- pline were added to the afternoon exercises. Often these services were continued until after sunset. After the benedic- tion. the minister and his family passed out of the church, bowing to the people on both sides of the aisle, who sat in silence until they had disapeared. I wonder how many of us could endure the infliction to-day ? To them this church servire was a very serious and a very important matter.
The theology of that day held its advocates and believers with an iron grasp. The church was a power that demanded constant reverence and obedience, and on the whole, I am ready to believe that the outgrowth was favorable. There did come up out of that carly time a race of sturdy and hervie men and women, whose indhence ha, Leen stamped on the New England character in thoughts of bonety and honor that have brought forth good fruit. We may smile
at some of their crude notions, and amuse ourselves over the questions that interested or vesed them, but we cannot fail to honor their integrity, and bend in reverence before their sterling sense of right and duty.
Could we be as devoted to our sene of right as they were to theis, could we keep this idea of the worth of a human soul as prominent in our thought as they did in theirs, it would be well; for, with the larger conceptions of life that are in our minds to-day, with the nobler ideals of hu- maliny that are now accepted as true, we should find that in earnest loyalty to that truth, and a firm determination to hoout our sense of human dignity at all times and at all hazuds, would move the world with giant stride towards its hope. We would not care to retain the doctrines that the fathers loved, nor follow the customs that they approved, but thecut, it has imperative and as inpartant today as ever it was, and zeal for the right and the true brings its Messing in the larger light of the present no less than it did when the Sunday service was the only intellectual as well as sinitual exercise that came into the common life.
But with our larger liberty we are sometimes inclined to assume that a privilege which costs money without giving wiemy in return is too intangible to be of any practical value in the affairs of daily life. We have our daily and weekly papers: we learn what is going on in the world, independent of anything associated with religion, and we conclude that the loss of a sermon is but the loss of a sentiment that has no vital relation to the business we have in hand. There is no compulsion about it any more. We are free to come or not as we choose.
Now, could we vitalize this liberty by an honest devotion to the truth; could we inspire our freedom with a hearty love for righteousness ; could we make this voluntary atten- dance upon religious worship a reflection of our faith in the progress of humanity, and so come to the conviction that the spiritual side of life is over the noblest ade that of all the things a man has to do. this education of the livin'
WEST PARISH CHURCH (CONGREGATIONAL).
79
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES AT WADEVE OF MUSIC.
nature is the highest and the best, I fancy that good and not evil would come to us all.
I would not care to see a blind devotion to form and ceremony ; but a zeal for truth, because truth is the source of all advancement, a reverenee for God, because God is the highest ideal of Good, is always comrendable. And then, after all is said that can be said about the larger opportuni- ties and wider thought of the present, it is the carnestness and integrity of the individual life that tells the story of our times.
Not the chance we breve, but the manner in which we use it, is il .. measure of worthiness ; not the things we know, but the application we make of them, is the test of character. The fathers had few advantages; but if we are to judge by the inheritance they have given us, they made the most of whit they did have. The means of improvement were limited, and the sources of knowledge were exceedingly small ; but they learned their lesson well, and had no reason to be ashamed of the life they lived. 1 am not saying that they had no faults, or that life to them was a constant search for the right and the true. These records that I have been howing to you prove quite the contrary. But one thing stands out clear and plain : they were honest with them- selves, and had the courage of their convictions. That is the supreme thing in all the ages, and we may well take heed of the lessons that it brings us.
And so, in celebrating our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, it would be well to consider the quality of spirit that animated the fathers, and kam, if we can, what it was that held them so true to their sense of duty, and left on that page of history an ideal so exalted and a promise so broad. What was it, but their sturdy independence, their downright sincerity, their unwavering loyalty to the things and the doctrines that they believed to be true?
There is something absolutely herois ir the life of an earnest mah. As he goes about his busine . you under- stund that methods and circumstances and institutions wen
80
HAVERHILL, MASSACHE SLUTS.
made for him, and not he for them. In hhv, the man rises above the environment, and reveals a power that is not born to die.
Methods change, and the tools with which we work improve, as the years go by; but still the forvor of an honest purpose is the thing that wins. I find no very remarkable results issuing from the life of a people, except where the people are imbued with a sense of manliness and duty, that will not let them neglect any instruction or betray any trust. In these things the stardy oll Puritans who begin the history of Haverhill have set as a worthy example. If we are wise, we will keep that memory green forever. Forget what you will of the theology they contended for; ignore, if you please, the orthodoxy of that particular age ; but remember that the integrity of one period leaves its impresion on the character of the next, and ever out of post luthfulness present ideals grow.
We are not living to ourselves in any penod of the world's history. The ties that bind us reach backward and Forward; and never, so long as men and women are truc. will virtue fail upon the earth, or moral purpose grow dim.
With integrity at the heart of things, the foundations of the future are sure. Morality and righteousness, justice and truth are assured, when the people are mindful of what the right demands. Our faith in creeds is not so strong as that the fathers had, but it was not faith in creeds that gave them honor; it was their faith in God and man, and thus, I believe, is a reality among their descendants to-day, and will continue to be, so long as intelligence is allowed to have her perfeet work, and the world is willing to discuss the claims of truth. Keeping questions of right before the people, and allowing the largest liberty of individual jadgment and conviction, virtue and morality and religion must grow. There can be no other result.
All that truth demands is an open field and ith chance. Give us these, and we are content. The right will win, a.
81
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES AT ACADEMY OF MUSIC.
it ever has: for always, as history has been written, this one fact appears. With liberty of thought. life becomes a blessing and a joy. The path is onward, and the end thereof is peace and righteousness forevermore.
" OUR PURITAN FATHERS."
[A Sermon preached in the Summer Street (Universalist) Church, Sunday, June 20, 1890, by Rev. f. C. SNOW, D. D . Ptor. | Fre ... .. The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted i prople when they dwell as strangers in the bed of Lappt, and with a high am brought he them out of it." - x 15, Mai. 17.
The founding of our city, to which we are carried back in thought by the impending celebration, leads us almost to the very beginnings of New England. It was only twenty years after the landing of the Mayflower, and but twelve after the founding of Salem, that the first settlers located here.
It we should reconstruct, through the information afforded us, the exact features of that time, and of the generations Following, -the buildings, dress, customs, beliefs and notions of the people, - we would probably be most impressed, in the int place, with their grotesqueness. And while we may not flatter ourselves that we shall not be subjected to a like inspection by the people who may be dwelling here two indred and fifty years hence, we still need not be deterred from turning our attention for a little thine to the ways of our Puritan ancestors.
With them the meeting-house was the central point of every community. It was the one publie building to which all turned more constantly than to any other, and in which centered the moral, social and religious interests and activities of the neighborhood. Town and parish were identical for several generations, and the meeting-house was a town hall a, well as a place of worship. The first meeting-houses were also forts, and not infrequently were surmounted by a can- non, and the pulpit closets were made to contain powder, - possibly, a: some wit has suggested, because the pulpit was the driest place in town. In some cases it was the coatom
82
HAVERHILL, MASSAUNE-IPI
to fasten upon the outer walls of the meeting-house the heads of all the wolves killed during the seasen.
The first meeting-house built in Haverhill was of logs, twenty-six by twenty feet in dimensions and one story in height. Later came the representative old meeting-house of which some specimens still remain, -- notably. in this vicinity, in Sandown, Danville, and Salisbury. These need not be described in much detail. They were great square, or rather cubical, blocks, two stories in height, with square family pews, a lofty pulpit, over which hung a lige sounddling-board, and in front of which were the deacons' seats. The pew seats wote provided with hinges, so that they could be turned up against the back of the pew when the people stood up, as they then did, in prayer. There was no means of heating these buildings, so that some, especially women, would bring lool stores in the severest weather.
But we must not inter from the simplicity and even rudeness of the meeting-house, - its entire lach of ornament or decoration, - that there was a lack of appreciation of the religions service held there. On the contrary our Puritan father probably regarded the absence of all ornamentation in the place of worship as complimentary to the worship itself. For them it did not need any meretricious supports. It was not by any beauty or means of bodily comfort in the meet- ing-house, not by any outward attraction of ritual or music that the people were gathered together.
" The preacher and the sermon," it has been said, " already detested in England, were happily inaugurated on New Eng- land soil, the chiefest feature of her future policy and his- tory, her very life." Mr. Elwell states that among the earliest records of Massachusetts there is a memorandum of articles needed there, to be procured from England, and among them are beans, peas, vine hunters potatoes, hop- roots, pewter bottles, brass ladles, spoons and ministers; the article of ministers, however, he adds, came not last but first.
Sermons and prayers were the great features of the
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH ..
83
RELIGIOU'S EXERCISES AT ACADEMY OF MUSIC.
religious service. Indeed, sermons were in order on all occa- sions, - at weddings as well as at funerals And the sormon then was no trifling matter of twenty or thirty minutes, but was from one and a half to three hours in length. In the capliest times in New England the Scriptmes were not read in the public service, this practice being regarded as belong- ing to prelatie usages.
The sermon was prefaced by a prayer that in itself might be an hour or more in length. Buckle. in his History of Civilization, speaking of the Scotch in the Fifth century, says that if the preacher " discoursed for two hours without inter- mission he was valued as a zealous pastor who had the good of his people at heart." This was about as much as an ordinary clergyman could stand, bat a Rev. Mr. Forbes is mentioned, who, being especially vigorous, thought nothing of preaching five or six hours.
It is mil that a Bes Mr. Torrey prayed two hours in the presence of Harvard students, when failing strength oblige.l him to close, much to the regret, it is added. . . h students, who would gladly have heard him an hour longer. Which end of this story is the more credible I leave you to judge for yourselves; but if both are true, -and the story seems fairly authentic, - it shows a state of things almost inconceiv- able by the present generation.
In his History of Haverhill, Mr. Chase says that " the congregation assembled at an early hour, never later than nine o'clock, and that oftentimes the public services were continued till after sunset. The long prayer," he also says, "occupied from an hour to an hour and a half." it thus seems that our immediate ancestors were not behind then Scotch brethren in the zeal and prolixity of their devotions, and the story that Harvard students listened for a couple of hours to one of these prayers becomes credible, even if we falter in our belief that they asked for more.
I have said that the meeting-house was then the cen- tral point of interest in the town. But that all the people gathered there on Sunday was not wholly a matter of choice.
84
HAVERHILL, MASSACHE ALECA
It was the duty of the civil magistrates to see that every- body went to meeting, and those who stayed away were hunted up, much as truant children are to-day. For one needless absence a fine was imposed, and for four such absences the penalty was the stocks. Nor did the magis- trate have to go far to find these implements of discipline. The stocks, whipping-post, and other useful adjunets of civil authority and religious devotion, were usually placed on the meeting-house common.
And once within the meeting-house, the vigilance and needful discipline were not relaxed Officers were appointed to preserve order among the children and keep the older people awake during the prayer and sermon. A long rod or pole, the emblem of their authority and the instrument of discipline, was brought down, with a smart rap on the head of an offender.
Fri, engregation had also its seating committee, whose very delicate duty it was to assign persons was in the meeting-house according to their accepted position in society. Any one who took a seat assigned to another was hiable to a fine.
Ih tween the Forenoon and afternoon service there was a lecess of an hour or more, during which the people ate the lancheon they were careful to bring with them. This time was passed in social intercourse, with an occasional discussion, perhaps, of the metaphysics of the sermon. But it was emi- nently the social occasion of the week, and it is hardly to be doubted that more or less neighborhood gossip found its way into the conversation.
"There was still another alleviating feature of these long and severe Sunday services. No such facility was afforded then, as now, for reaching the public through the daily press, and so notices of almost every kind were published to the congregation in the meeting-house. It was held a sufficient legal notice of a town meeting to have it announced from the pulpit on Sunday. It was a provision of las that all proposed marriages should be published openty in the
85
RELIGIOUS EXERCISES AF ACADEMY OF MUSIC.
meeting. It is said, also, that such notices as those of estray pigs, or of cattle, which had been taken ap and impounded, were published from the desk. We can easily imagine with what eagerness some of these notices, especially the matri- monial ones, would be awaited by the young people; and the publication of one or more bans would partially repay the tedium of the long sermon. Such an the compensa- tions which a merciful Providence always, in some way, pro- vides for the hardships of life.
But besides the prayer and sormon there was singing of some sort in the Sunday meeting. Instrumental music in religions service was regarded by the Paritans as an abom- ination, and until sometime after Watts began to write his hyumis nothing but a very erude rendering of the psalms of David was allowed to be sung in the dissenting Handles In the year 1610. the very year of the founding of Haverhall, there was issued the New England Paulin Book, arranged by New England clergymen, h is not at all unlikely that this very book may have been used by Rev. John Ward, the first minister here. What it was that the congregation had to struggle with is apparent from the Following sample, which is a metrical rendering of the 137th psoim : --
" Our harp we did it hang amidd upon the willow tree ; Because there they that us away led in captivitee, Required of us a song and thus asked mirth us waste who laid,
Sing us among a Sion's song unto us then they said : The Lord's song sing can we? boing in stranger's land. Then let Loose her skill my right hand, if I Jerusalem forget."
It was not only that the psalms were rendered in this fashion, but they were " deaconed " off, one or two lines at a time, for the congregation to sing, under the lead, perhaps, of a precentor.
Some of these psahus were que handied and twenty
.
lines in length and consumed half an hour in the singing, during which the congregation stood. Miss Earle, in the Christian Union of March 6th, says that in some meetings a pause was made in the middle of the palm for feeble and aged persons to sit down if they felt it necessary. It is related of one minister, that, having announced the psalm, he went to his house, a quarter of a mile distant, to see how his sick wife was getting along. and got back before the psalm was finished. Furthermore, it was not always easy even for a strong-voiced leader to keep the congre- gation together on the same key, or even on the same tune. Judge Sesall, a famous chorister, who had filled the posi- tion for twenty-four years, wrote sorrowfully : " I set . York ' tune and the congregation went out of it into ' St. David's' in the very second going over. They did the same three verlo, bofore. This is the second sign. It scente as if God m his Providence were calling me off and I regard this as an intimation for me to resign the precenter's place to a better voice." This singing, it is to be remem- bered, land not only to be accepted, but respected. Any one who yrke deridingly or disparagingly of the church music was fiable to be fined twenty shillings and to be labelled " A Wanton Gospeller."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.