USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Essex > Two centuries of church history : celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the organization of the Congregational church & parish in Essex, Mass., August 19-22, 1883 > Part 15
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Is it not one of our great errors, that we are too often satis- fied with the apparent amount of Bible knowledge, while the unbroken power of sin remains in the heart? We have heard of the blind man, who every day walked around the walls of Stirling Castle, with the door-keys in his hand, polished by the friction of many years. This turnkey would recite to those he met, any passage of Scripture whatever, started by them, without the error of a word. When I read so much of his story as this, I said, Oh that we were all blind like him ! But ah ! the word had no place in his heart. His eve- nings were spent in sin and shame! His heart was as hard as the rock upon which Stirling Castle was built !
We hope we do not forget to urge these dear ones to look to God in prayer, in the day when their troubles come, as come they will. When the poet Cowper was crushed down in school by the fear of a large, bad boy, and whom he knew better by his Shoe Buckles than his face, he used to go to God for help as well as he could, saying, I will not be afraid of what man can do unto me ! "No prayer," said Rev. Mr. Laurie at the Sabbath School convention in Newburyport, "No prayer is inefficacious"
We have endeavored to encourage Christian Benevolence!
It may be said that when. you have taught a child to give bread to the hungry, and water to the thirsty, you have made him Benevolent. But can he not go farther? Cannot the child understand that he should look farther? It costs some- thing to prove to the widow of Scindiah the folly of Suttee ! And can the child not understand what burning one's self to death means? Does any one believe that Sheik Tahar would
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ever have heard of, and embraced the Christian Religion, had not the contribution boxes been carried round in New England ? And shall not the Sabbath School throw its mite into them? Does any one believe that Capt. Augustine Heard of Ipswich, commander of the brig Caravan of Salem in 1812, with all his benevolence, would ever have taken Harriet Newell, her husband, and the early missionaries, on board his vessel on their missionary voyage to India, had not the ladies of the Tabernacle and other Societies in Salem have thrown their gold necklaces into the contribution box. Sabbath Schools must make it up now, for then, they had not begun to be.
The sum of $1015 saved by our Sabbath School and brought together by little hands during the past fifteen years, we trust has wiped away some tears, but the best thing about it, is, that the habit of saving and giving away will be like a river rolling onward to the sea, and sometimes one which may overflow all its banks. Old habits, especially those of the waster and the spendthrift, unless uprooted, will prove, as Horace Mann said, an Engine of forty Satan power, for over- throwing good and establishing evil. They must be counter- acted by antagonistic forces or all is lost. Old habits are the masked batteries of modern warfare, with this peculiarity, that with them we shall destroy not the enemy but ourselves.
We have said, we think our little gifts, administered by ยท Missionary hands, have wiped away some tears. It is in a moral point of view, however, that they must be chiefly viewed. Let the Westminster Review continue to say if it will, that the so called christianity of this day is more troubled about the barbarians of Borie Boda Gha, than it is at the sight of a family pining in want at the next door ; let it say so if it will, nay let the scorner delight in his scorning everywhere, but lay us a telegraphic wire from each of the many hearts that have been the recipients of our tiny gifts, and though we could not read the language of either Palestine or Ceylon, of either Madura or Koordistan, yet the sounds and sights
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of human woe can be understood any where, and we shall not ask the Westminster Review whether we may be satisfied. We may not even know the names of half the Micronesian Islands, but we helped to sail the Morning Star among them, and in an important sense, those islands are our islands. We have sent a hundred volumes to a destitute Sabbath School six miles from Marietta, and another Library to Moss Run, both in Ohio : - a library to Bliven's Mills in Northern Illinois, a set of Pulpit furniture for the meeting-house at Isle au Haute, with a full supply of Catechisms for the Sabbath School at that lone island, a $25 Library to Illinois, an equal one where the books were read on the Mountains of Persia, and around the grave of Henry Martyn, a $20 Library for Seamen, a $20 Library to Illinois, $17 to Madame Feller's Mission in Canada, a Library to Bloomington, where the Mormon Stakes were up. We have made eighteen of our teachers members of the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society by the payment of ten dollars each, the whole amount having been expended by that Society. A Library has been sent to our Sooty cousins on the Coast of Africa. A token of sympathy of $17 to the founder of the Sabbath School then ill with a broken limb.
We have put $90 into the hands of the Sabbath School Union thus constituting three members of the school, mem- bers of that Society, the whole amount being expended by that Society in carrying on their operations.
And while allusion has been made to some things done or attempted by the school abroad, it may not be improper to refer to some of its operations at home. It was in 1842, that we contemplated procuring a Bible for the then new Pulpit. It was our custom in those years to decide in advance upon the number of Sabbaths we would contribute to a given object, and not to exceed that time in any case. But we had set the time too short for the Bible and it was laid here by other hands.
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The Church Clock, however, in the same year was the gift of the Sabbath School, at the cost of $40-as well as $50 worth of Organ pipes in 1854.
These two sums are included in the $1015 contributed during the last fifteen years, but the avails of the two dona- tion visits to a house of sickness ( where the fig tree did not blossom) amounting in all to somewhat more than $100, was not so included, neither was the gift next to be mentioned.
Three little girls once taken up in a remote part of the town to ride a little way, though not then members of the Sabbath School yet because they said they were going to be, did more to give us courage than their little hearts could well conceive. This was incidental; but in what suitable words shall I, or can I, acknowledge the intended expression of gushing good will, with which the School surprised me on the second Sabbath of June 1857, when they put in my un- worthy hands a rich collection of books, accompanied by a beautiful donation speech uttered by Susan E. Andrews, but written as I had afterwards reason to believe by the lamented wife of our kind Pastor !
If ever, during the labors of the last seven years, I have felt a moments weariness in this glorious work I have only to look at those Books. One of them alone contains the Biography of 2300 distinguished men and women of our own country, and there are few of them all whose example is not enough "to hang sorrow, and drive away care !" Then open Kitto's Cyclopedia of the Bible, of near 2000 pages more, written by forty independent minds, all men of great Bible Knowledge, and all Baptized with the Holy Ghost. And again, if for variety, I wish to take a voyage among the eter- nal snows of an Arctic Winter, I have but to look into Doctor Kane's great Books of Travels, all which books, dear friends, your love has made my own.
TOPICS.
As we have made so sparing a use of the Question book,
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having had but one for thirty-two years excepting the Cate- chism monthly, I feel that it may be proper to refer more particularly to the topics studied than would be othewise nec- essary. Without giving at this time more than a brief spec- imen, it may be mentioned, that we endeavor, both in the classes and at the General Exercise to enforce and explain the lesson, both by precept, and by anecdote. The Com- mandments have received a large share of attention.
Perhaps violations of the 8th Comnandment are in the country, as common as any, especially in the long fruit season. It seems a harsh doctrine, but we feel compelled to say that the seeds of dishonesty are sown in all our hearts. We first covet. Here we teachers must begin to fight ourselves, and arm the children to fight in this dreadful, though unbloody field. The Rev. Mr. Hildreth once told us, when illustrating the inveteracy of this sin, that when a confirmed thief was executed in England, he was by some mistake taken from the gallows before life was quite extinct, and removed to the dissecting room of the anatomist. When the surgeons after- wards entered, they found the thief alive and actively search- ing the room for something to steal ! thus showing the ruling passion not only strong in death, but after death. No change had been effected in his character by what was supposed to be a change of worlds.
The Sixth Commandment opens the question relating to Capital punishment. How important to meet the terrible fallacies of our day on this subject! How much is yet to be done to get up a correct public sentiment. William Goode the vagrant or drunkard may be sent to the house of Correc- tion and nobody complains, but William Goode the murderer had thousands of sympathizing friends.
A father gives his son a severe whipping for dulling his axe or plane-iron, and nobody cares, but Daniel A. Reardon may murder his wife and twin babes, and after a few months of imprisonment, the flickering, uncertain and impulsive public
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will run over the whole Commonwealth with petitions for his pardon.
And when we recollect the names of the two distinguished men, who have recently knocked at the Council Chamber door, demanding a murderer's pardon, and especially when the Chief Magistrate in 1862, publicly deplored the presence of the Death penalty on the Statute Book, is it not a wonder that Edward Green is not walking in the streets of Malden to-day; or perhaps doing up his unfinished business at the bank !
How glorious an institution is the Sabbath School inasmuch". . as it affords the lay element an opportunity to step forth for the defence of the institutions of our holy religion. I find a record of the fact that on one bright clear Sabbath day in July, in our own town, a wagon load of hay was unloaded in sight of the children, and all others on their way to or from the House of God. How important to hold up the fourth Commandment before the child's mind. And how I love to contemplate a Statesman or Politician planting his foot for the defence of the Sabbath! I have just now in mind the memorable fact that in the year 1844, when many religious institutions were in danger, and some for a time seemed laid waste, and when our own Legislature was gravely petitioned to pass a Law withdrawing all protection from public worship on the Sabbath, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee (Mr. Saltonstall) told the petitioners to take their miserable paper away !
In selecting topics according to taste or inclination it would be almost natural to study the case of Annanias and Sapphira struck dead with a lie upon their tongue. Of Nadab and Abihu who died for offering strange fire, and the men of Bethshemesh who died on the spot for looking into the ark. But all this while we find it important to guard all minds against the idea that this world is the place of retribution, that all men here receive the due reward of their deeds.
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Not every blasphemer is a Merton Smith, after whose oaths his tongue becomes paralyzed, and his mind becomes idiotic.
The book of God's providence is to be studied as well as His Word, and the Sabbath School teacher should not fail to draw lessons from passing events and also learn to draw con- clusions cautiously.
A bold infidel in Ohio built a house in 1847, and all the glass of that house was set on the Sabbath by his own impious hand. He wanted, he said, to live long enough to dedicate it with a ball, and so he did. "And there was a sound of revelry by night, and music arose with its voluptuous swell." But hardly had that music died away, when the Lord blasted the life and the house of that Atheist man, and the next morning's sun revealed the fact that every pane of that Sun- day set glass was a broken pane, as well as the more terrible fact that the owner had danced his last dance.
But as if to keep us humble learners in the Saviour's school and to prevent our drawing hasty conclusions, God's Provi- dence also teaches us that He sometimes waits and allows the potsherds of the earth to contend with their Maker.
Soon after reading of the scene in Ohio in the Home Mis- sionary, while riding in Boston, I noticed a Bookstore with the gilded lettering, "Infidel Books at wholesale and retail." More triflers go down to death from that place, than danced upon the floors of the infidel's house on its first and last night, I apprehend, yet it pleased the Lord to destroy the less, and . let the greater live !
Here is a field for the Sabbath School teacher showing that as a Great Sovereign, God may choose his own time and way for punishing the wicked as well as rewarding the good.
In 1863, we spent considerable time upon the subject of the Sabbath to which reference has already been made, and following that, a subject never before given out in the Sab- bath School. MARRIAGE, we considered as the state to which with few exceptions, the human family have glanced an eye
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forward with more or less intensity, from a comparatively early age, indeed ever since the time when "Eve stood blush- ing in her fig-leaf suit." It is an institution older than the Sabbath itself. The leading idea however, enforced in the school related to the example of the parties at Cana in Gallilee, in inviting Jesus and his disciples to the marriage. There are those in the world who are rarely found among the people of God and more seldom still, among his ministers, and it is sometimes more agreeable to them, to have the civil Magistrate solemnise the marriage. (I have been called more than once to perform the ceremony). These are usually those who have no seat in God's house, and no Sabbath day to keep holy. I can almost understand how a man of iron, can come to prefer that no minister shall be present at either the bridal festivity or the funeral solemnity ; but how the tender heart of a blushing bride could give her consent I cannot under- stand, and without that consent, you know, the door to mar- ried life is closed. Can any one doubt the propriety of giving this topic a place in the instructions of the Sabbath School? Can any one doubt that this is the place in which to plead that on the bridal day of life, whenever that day shall come, both Jesus may be called and his ministers to the marriage? Upon this topic the pulpit does not often speak, but the Sab- bath School Teacher may. I have as yet seen no cause to regret that for once the mind of the School was turned dis- tinctly, and not incidentally to this topic.
Neither have I ever yet regretted reading the story of Bertha and her Baptism by Dr. Nehemiah Adams, and remarking upon it with perfect freedom not because young ladies, while residing in our community are particularly liable to the dan- gers which Bertha encountered, when contemplating the mar- riage state. But many of our school have gone abroad and many more may go.
A teacher suggested a few weeks since that this occasion would afford a convenient opportunity for examining the
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question which still continues to agitate the public mind, whether the Sabbath School has not innocently and uncon- ciously but effectually lessened family religious training. There is time for hardly a remark upon this point. The attention which I have been able to bestow upon it, however is grad- ually leading me to the conclusion that with many brilliant exceptions, family instruction was never so universally prac- ticed even in New England as to leave no room for the Sab- bath School. That the live oak timbers of multiudes of our youth were salted on the stocks and "seasoned with the in- corruptible word that liveth and abideth forever," the whole New England character abundantly proves. But that even family religion might not fall into decay can hardly be doubted, since even in the household of holy. Eli you find a neglect- ed Hophni and Phinehas. In the absence of direct proof, something may be inferred from other sources. Our church records show, that in 1782, one year only, by an interesting coincidence, after Robert Raikes began his glorious Sabbath School career in England, the Rev. John Cleaveland, then our Pastor, and his church, saw the necessity of a similar measure here. The Church requested the Pastor, and Elders, "to consult and report a plan for districting the Families of the Parish for Catechising &c." It originated with Mr. Cleaveland of course. It was brought forward, on 17 June, in that year. The plan was to be reported August 28, but "the day was rainy, and but few present." On the first of September, same year however, the plan for districting the parish for Catechising &c., was read and discussed and unan- imously adopted. I now stop to ask, why was all this nec- essary, if family religion was in that healthy condition that the modern objection to Sabbath Schools implies? Why was it necessary that pastor Cleaveland should come down from his study to catechise the children of the parish on a week day, walking through old Chebacco with the Bible in one hand, and Catechism in the other, leaving him time to
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write his sermons upon two little leaves only, of the size of a man's hand? Why I say was all this necessary, if the FAMILY was doing all it should have done, and this so soon after that Great Revival which brought one hundred into the church within six months.
That Deacons Seth Story, Senior and Junior, and Deacon Zachery Story, brother of the latter, used to catechise their children, there can be no doubt for their descendants like their sepulchres are with us unto this day. But that "Ginny John," catechised his, the very nick-name that has come down to us, seems to make doubtful unless the question was, why they drank so much of the liquor and left so little for him. And whether even Tinker I -- should have been much given to it among his, may be questionable, though we are pleasantly told, he used to see dreams and hear visions.
The importance of family training was felt and practised in very unequal degrees by different families, some over-doing as Cecil says was a common puritanic fault, and others under-doing, probably still more common. May it not have been a part of the true mission of the Sabbath School to equalize that family training. "William," said a father in this neighborhood, and who was led about the time the Sab- bath School was started, to think he might have been a little remiss in duty, "William, who made all things?" If William had ever been told, he just then forgot, and instead of saying God, named the best man he knew of one of our Deacons ! !
A mother, on the other hand, determined that the sin of remissness, should not be laid to her charge, and as usual began on Sabbath evening, "Mary, who was the first man?" Mary, who was perfectly tired of her repeated embassies to the garden of Eden, replied once for all by saying, "Adam and Evc." Here there are examples of excessive family training in one house, and the utter destitution of it in another, both within a very short distance, and in one case the father,
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grand-father, and great grand-father of little William, were all Mr. Cleaveland's constant hearers, and two of them mem- bers of his church.
I am driven, therefore, to the conclusion, that the Sabbath School was a NECESSITY, both in England and America. In England, to stay the open desecration of the Sabbath, and in our country to hold up fainting parental hands where they were already up, and to help raise them where they were not. (Having referred to the founding of Sabbath Schools in England, I deem it but an act of justice to say that Rev. Mr. Stock acted with Raikes conjointly in the Sabbath School enterprise. )
The world seems full of facts, going to show the importance of bending the twig just as the tree ought to be inclined. O what an opportunity Sabbath School teachers have to take up and finish the parents unfinished or neglected work. It would be a monster of a mother who should fail to teach her lisping babe to say, "Now I lay me down to sleep," &c., and to the credit of all who intrust their children here, I may say, that of about two hundred present some years ago, there were not more than three, and I think but two, who did not know those four lines. But I equally well remember that not one of all that two hundred, could tell when they learned to say them. This beautiful prayer had been breathed into their ears by maternal lips, during the unconscious days of infancy. The great parental error was to stop too soon.
Whatever we may think of it, the minds of children are often made up even on the doctrines of the Bible, before we know it. When speaking of the Catechism, the infidel Parker said he trod the abominable thing under foot before he had seen his seventh birth day, and long before that time says this redoubtable, though baby theologian, "the doctrine of the Trinity, and that of a wrathful God, had gone the same road. Since then," says he, "I have had no desire for the nar- row heaven, nor fears of the roomy hell of which men talk."
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Not every mind, I admit, is capable of a course so awful ; but it is always dangerous to neglect a child, while it is emi- nently hopeful to lead him in the way in which he should go.
But I must pass over much in order to refer to two or three years more, as briefly however as their importance will admit.
1849. The events, distinguishing this year, and which made it somewhat memorable, were that of committing and reciting the Assembly's Catechism at four or fewer lessons without the variation of a word or the least help from the teacher, together with the outpouring of God's Spirit, that so immediately and remarkably followed. Let it however here be distinctly said, and once for all, that it is to the preach- ing of the gospel by the ministers of Christ, that we must ever look as God's great instrumentality for the conversion of souls; and any reliance on Sabbath School agency, or any other agency to the exclusion of preaching, God will never own, but He will in some way frown upon it, as he thundered upon the Egyptians with a very great thunder. But He condescends to allow other means, as family instruction, and we may add, the Sab- bath School. We began to entertain a strong desire to have the school thoroughly acquainted with that glorious formula of the doctrines of the gospel, the Catechism, and on appeal- ing to the church for pecuniary aid, the church responded and authorised us to draw upon their treasury for such sums as should be needful for putting an English clasp Bible into the hands of all who should be entitled to it. On the third Sabbath in September a specimen Bible was held up before the School, and the conditions of receiving it were stated. Some said the church never need fear that they should have many Bibles to pay for on such conditions; but the soul of the school was fired ; and on the second Sabbath in October, it was ascertained that sixty-five had commenced repeating the Catechism for the grand reward of the grandest effort ever put forth in the town. The conditions were indeed strin- gent. It was accomplished with many tears on the part of
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the learners. It also cost the teachers tears, to say, at the end of twenty-seven answers, "there was an error or two, but I must not tell you where. Go over the whole again." But with some exceptions, all who began, succeeded. The minister and the church were gratified. Parents smiled. The children smiled. But our crowning joy was, we thought the Lord from heaven smiled.
On the second Sabbath in December, the record of the Sabbath School states that twenty had finished the Catechism and were entitled to the Bible. That Bible, with the receiv- er's name engraved upon the clasp, was delivered publicly, with much thanksgiving to Almighty God, and many prayers for His blessing to follow. Those thanksgivings, we think, were accepted, and those prayers heard, and that blessing followed. On the first Sabbath in December, a memorandum on our records says, much interest in religion has appeared in the Sabbath School within a week. Four in one class, are entertaining hope. Between twenty and thirty met last even- ing in two different places for prayers, seeking the Lord. Indeed, the appearance of the school was so changed, so solemn, that we could not help exclaiming, "this is the Lord, we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation." One extract more from the same memorandum says, "It was mentioned two or three Sabbaths ago, that a member of the school had hopefully passed from death unto life. Last Sabbath another, whose sins were many, hopes they are now forgiven, and next day another tongue broke out in unknown strains and sung surprising grace. Since that time many hearts have yielded the controversy with God. Some families have kept such a thanksgiving as they had never kept before. The kingdom of heaven seemed to suffer violence, and the violent seemed to take it by force.
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