USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Milton > Two sermons preached in the First Congregational church in Milton, on the 15th and 22d of June, 1862, and suggested by the centennial celebration, on the 11th of June, 1862 > Part 2
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gence of the child visions more sacred and inspiring than the earth can give. In those visions of heavenly glory, those thoughts of near access and solemn ac- countability to God. the child's whole nature was bathed and made alive. They touched the inmost springs and motives of conduct. and moulded his views and habits of life. While the characters thus fash- ioned were to some extent marked by the severity which grew out of the theology of the age and the hardships to which the men were exposed. they were also filled with the tender sympathies and affections which are always cherished by a heartfelt intercourse with God, and which cannot be separated from the re- ligious nurture of a Christian home.
In each of these homes, the presiding genius and divinity of the place was the Christian mother. She was the centre of kindly influences and attractions. Out of door cares and toils tasked to the utmost the time and strength of the father. But she, not less heavily burdened with bodily labor,- even in her sor- rows perhaps finding no leisure for grief, but work- ing, and weeping while she worked,- was always there, the dignity of her outward demeanor subdued by the solicitudes and yearnings which drew her to- wards her children. Amid the hardness which might have been caused by the severity of their creed, or the stern necessities which pressed upon them and hem- med them in. here was a never failing fountain, open- ing within their homes. and supplying them with the soft, sweet waters of domestic peace. The birth of a child was a new evangel. calling into exercise all the tenderness and strength of a mother's heart. Her self-
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denying virtues, her conjugal affections, her intelligence, her faith, in itself the evidence of things not seen, and the deeper religion of the heart, were all employed in her domestic relations. "When my mother comes from her chamber where she has been praying," said a young man of rare intellectual and moral gifts, " her face is like the face of an angel." So has many a mother been glorified in the eyes of her children.
And such were the mothers whom we love to look back upon as the pride and glory of the days that are gone. They, under God, formed the great men, who by their far seeing wisdom, their strong wills, and sub- lime faith, were always equal to the emergencies of their time, who elevated the tone of public morals, en- larged the intelligence and strengthened the virtues of the age in which they lived, and thus laid here, on this North American continent, the foundations of a mighty empire, so deep and firm that neither the passions of wicked men nor the gates of hell shall prevail against it.
It is the merciful infusion of domestic love and kindness that saves men from becoming a race of infidels and savages. Man gladly accepts the aid of a nature more delicate than his own, more open to re- ligious impressions, and to the finer influences that are around us. While he seems to be the controlling mind. he willingly subjects himself to her finer instincts. In recognizing the original differences of organization between the sexes, he joyfully acknowledges her su- periority in some things, as he practically asserts his own superiorityin others. Byadjustingitself to constitu- tional diversities, and seeking harmony in variety, gain-
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ing mutual support by mutual submission and respect, society here in New England has done much, though much remains to be done, to make the position of woman honorable, and her influence what it should be. Relations thus mutually helpful, affections kept alive by acts of kindness every day reciprocated, can- not be otherwise than blessed. The longer they con- tinue, the more alive they are. And when, after a long union, the connection seems to be dissolved by death, then all the more touching is the pathos of the separation, and the stronger the assurance which the heart finds of a re-union. An aged woman whom I knew, gazing tearfully on the face of her husband who had just ceased to breathe at the age of eighty-five or eighty-seven years, exclaimed, " O Billy, Billy, shall I never hear your voice again ? We have lived togeth- er more than fifty years, and I never heard from you an unkind word." I was with a man eighty-four years old who supposed himself to be, as he was, almost on the borders of eternity. "I would gladly die," he said, " if I could only be sure of meeting my wife."- who had died some years before - " and knowing her again." These are the feelings fostered by long lives of mutual fidelity and kindness in the dearest domestic relations. They give the assurance of peace and hap- piness on earth. and reach on in hope and love to that world where ties apparently broken here shall be united again.
It would be easy to carry out this theme, with varia- tions, by examples drawn from those who have been trained and nurtured here. But I must allow myself a widerrange. The happyinfluence of our homes, especial-
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ly in the character of the women who have presided over them, or whom they have produced, are best illustrated by the examples which we have found in the seclusion of domestic life.
Near the Railway village, under the shadow of an ancient elm, is a pleasant one story house with a gam- brel roof, where sixty years ago were seven sisters, who were all in due time educated in the usual branch- es of learning, all taught, as every young woman should be, to support themselves by the work of their own hands. The only one now living among us is the old- est person belonging to this church, and, I think, the oldest person in Milton. All of them have been wives and mothers, and all but two have gone from their earthly labors, after having fulfilled with singu- lar fidelity the duties of a Christian wife and mother. One of them, the wife of an accomplished teacher, ex- ercised a happy and extended influence over the young, and of another the following words were written by Dr. Channing in a private letter soon after her death :
" It was not necessary to see her often to know and love her. The simplicity, sweetness, delicacy, and purity of her spirit shone out in her countenance too brightly to be overlooked, even by a stranger. I re- member when I was in three or four years
ago I rode with - to visit her at her residence. It was after her husband's failure, and to this misfor- tune had been added the sickness of her family, - I think intermittent fever, taken in an unhealthy spot, to which they had retreated after his losses. Here was an accumulation of calamity, and her frame bore the mark of exhausting labor. But a more lovely
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manifestation of a resigned spirit I never witnessed. The tear trembled in her eye, as she told me of their trials ; but a sweet smile said in the most unequivocal language. - ' His will be done.' I had that morning visited some choice paintings brought by a very opu- lent friend from Europe, which had given me much pleasure ; but on returning to the carriage after my interview with your sister, I said .- I have seen and admired a great deal of beauty this morning, but in all those works of genius I have seen nothing so beau- tiful as the friend we have just left. That expression of- 's countenance remains with me, and it cheers and consoles me at this moment. There was something heavenly in that spirit, and that cannot die."
I wish to speak of another Milton woman whose ex- ample is worthy of all commendation. A little way from the spot where we are assembled, in a lane now closed, just this side of the Amory place, in a house of which no remnants remain, was born, one of five sisters, Miss Ann Bent, who died a few years ago at the age of eighty-nine. She began to support her father's fami- ly by teaching a school of little children on Milton Hill. Afterward she opened a shop in Boston where she supported herself many years, teaching other young women to do the same, and, in addition to the many kind and charitable acts in which she greatly delighted, she laid up an abundant competency for her old age. She numbered among her personal friends many of the most cultivated and excellent per- sons in Boston. Her house was the unostentatious and attractive centre of a pleasant society of refined, re- ligious minded people. She always found occupation
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for her benevolent sympathies. She lived a happy, useful, honored life amid the affections of others, and died lamented and beloved. Few persons among us have done more to enlarge the field of reputable in- dustry for woman, to show that she can be respected and happy without being married, that by her own ex- ertions she can create and support a home where. without the assistance of one bound by law to honor and provide for her, she may, down to the latest pe- riod of a long life, protect herself from injuries or neg- lect by her own virtues and graces, and, without the hereditary homage of children and children's children, find herself looked up to with increasing respect, and cared for by increasing affections which turn fondly towards her, and gladly pay back, in acts of loving gratitude, the debt they owe.
The fourth minister of this parish was Joseph McKean. He was born in Boston and ordained here at the early age of twenty-one. He was a man of unusual intellectual gifts, ardent, faithful and unwearicd. He sought the highest good of the town and church. But his activities were too large for his place and flow- ed over into other departments. He entered with all the zeal of his energetic nature into the political con- tests of the day, and sometimes used his keen powers of ridicule and sarcasm in speaking of parishioners who opposed him on political grounds. We owe to his laborious care the fact that we have left any rec- ord of the early doings of our church. After an efficient and succesful, though somewhat troubled, ministry of seven years, he resigned his charge on account of im- paired health. He took a voyage to the South. IIc
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preached a year or two very acceptably in Boston, Milton being still for the most part his home. He succeeded John Quincy Adams as Professor of Rhet- oric and Oratory at Harvard College in 1809, and dis- charged the duties of his post there with signal ability and success till his death in 1818, at the age of forty- two. He was a man of marked influence and charac- ter, to be remembered by those who knew him. I had some little acquaintance with his widow who survived him many years. She was a woman of sin- gular sweetness of nature, refined and gentle, thorough- ly feminine in all her qualities, devout, confiding, af- fectionate, and yet. if I mistake not, very firm in her convictions, and with a quiet resolution which was not easily turned aside from what she might think it her duty to undertake. She lived amid the devoted affections of her children and friends.
I might speak of other women, in widely different spheres of life, who were her contemporaries and friends here, and who illustrated in different ways some of the best characteristics of our New England culture. There have been those among us whose freedom show- ed itself in painful excentricities. But there were a few living when I came here, whom I was glad to re- cognize as the honored survivers and representatives of a former generation. It was a privilege to be with them, and to look on them as mediators and ambassa- dors to us from a former century. As beloved and venerated monuments of the past. they carried our thoughts back to a time of greater simplicity in the habits of living, of a more courteous, and, I must add, a more attractive dignity of manners, as well as to a
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time of severe duties and harder struggles than are common now. Through them we were permitted to recall the image of former days, to catch something of the delicate hue and perfume of those carlier times, to converse of persons whose characters were formed be- fore our country had yet an independent place or name among the nations, to dwell with them amid the vir- tues which made those days illustrious, and to admire in them the calm dignity which comes from a truc elevation of mind and heart, and a courtesy which in its own Christian self respect never forgot what was due to the feelings and the self respect of others. But I must not single them out one by one, and dwell up- on their memory as I should be glad to do for our sake more than for theirs.
Yes, these homes have been inhabited, these fields have been frequented, these roads have been travelled by those whom it is a joy and a privilege to remember,- women who made the atmosphere in which they lived fragrant with their affections, their prayers, and their graceful and gracious deeds. Some have just begun to reveal to us the beautiful promise of what they might be and have passed away, leaving with us only the pleasant vision of a loveliness on which the bloom and freshness of a perpetual youth will linger in our thoughts till we meet them above in all the radiance of their celestial being. Others have gone from us in the mellowness of a ripened old age. Others again, and among them some of the finest specimens of wo- manhood that we have known, went away in the ful- ness of all their powers.
One of these I will mention, because not only she,.
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but every member of her household is gone. She was a child of this town, born to affluence, the child of her father's old age and the favored object of his indul- gence, - early a member of this church - a faithful pains-taking teacher in our Sunday school, and grate- fully remembered as such by pupils whose grateful re- membrance is indeed a benediction - a wife and a mother with everything apparently that this world has to give at her command - giving and receiving the most constant and devoted acts of love and kindness- then watching the failing health of the one dearest to her, with anxious solicitude -" bereft of light"- a widow, following first a child and then a mother to the grave. Yet she lived on, walked abroad amid objects dear to her, but sceing them only in her thoughts. She loved, as few persons have, every thing belonging to this town - its hills, its streams and meadows, its trees and its people - taking a kindly interest in every thing that occurred, her sympathies confined to no one class, glad to do what she might for all. When she died, the light of hope and love shone more dimly in many a home and heart which she had cheered by the gen- tle illumination of her sympathy and kindness. And now not one of all her household lives on earth. At the close of this second century, as we bind our wreaths of loving remembrance and lay them softly on the tombs of those who have been our friends and bene- factors, who have meckly fulfilled the duties of life and passed on where they rest from their labors and their works do follow them, we may bind up this frail memorial of personal respect and gratitude. and lay it on a grave which no descendant of hers shall evervisit.
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Yes, tender and hallowed memories gather round us as we look back through these completed centuries. To you it is one thing; to me who came recently among you it is another. Yet to all of us it is the same. Dear forms, no longer among the living, come thronging back to us. Dear lives, which have vanished wholly from sight, but whose sweetness lin- gers still in our hearts, revive again, and give us anew their holy benison. So may this season of commemora- tion touch all our hearts, draw us on to more holy and faithful living, till we too shall join that silent com- pany of God's elect, and be numbered with them among the saints in glory.
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NOTES.
THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN MILTON.
The Church in Milton was gathered April 24, 1678. The Covenant then entered into was signed by the following names.
ANTHONY NEWTON,
EBENEZER CLAP,
ROBERT TUCKER,
EDWARD BLACKE,
WILLIAM BLACKE,
GEORGE LION,
THOMAS SWIFT,
JAMES TUCKER,
GEORGE SUMNER,
EPHRAIM TUCKER,
THOMAS HOLMAN, MANASSAH TUCKER,
On Sunday, the eighth of May, 1681, Mr. Peter Thacher, who had been in- vited to become the pastor of the church and town, after the exercises of the Sabbath, read to the church and congregation his reply accepting their call, on these conditions :
" 1. So long as you continue one amongst yourselves and for me all due means being used or tendred for hearing in case of differance."
" 2. So long as I may enjoy the liberty of my judgment according to scripture rule."
" 3. So long as you subject yourselves and yours to the ordinances and offi- cers of this church."
"4. So long as I may follow my studdys without distraction ; and provide for myself and family according to the rules of God's word," &c., &c.
Among the first entries of members admitted to the church, in Mr. Thacher's handwriting, are the following :
"4 April, 1681. Peter Thacher by a letter of dismission from the third church in Boston, was admitted."
" June 1, 1681. Peter Thacher, [though unworthy, ] was ordained Pastor of the church of Milton."
"Oct 2, 1681. My dear wife Theodora Thacher was admitted into full com- munion makeing a relation."
Mr. Thacher had removed his family to Milton before making up his mind to settle here. In his letter, or rather address of acceptance, he says ; " I was persuaded so far to comply with all as to remove myself and my family to this place, that so I might the more clearly discern and faithfully follow divine guidance
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and direction in my future settlement amongst you or remove from you, accord- ing as God should unite the harts of the church and congregation unto me and mine and ours unto you, or otherwise dispose." He had hesitated long before accepting the invitation, not only from a sense of his " own deep unworthiness" and " great unfitness " for the work of the ministry, " but especially in this place," he adds, " in respect of those lamentable animosityes and divisions which have been in this place, which hath occasioned your unsettlement until now, which the Lord for his own name sake pardon, and prevent for the future " His prayer seems to have been answered ; for the affairs of the society seein to have been favored with an extraordinary degree of harmony for more than a hundred years from that time.
I copy a few items from the Church Records which may seem a little strange to us in these days.
"Nov. 24, 1695. Samuel, the son of George Sumner was baptized. This George was Left'nt G. S. eldest son, and this day hee did explicitely renew his S covenant with God and y Chli.
" Aug. 10, 1701. Margaret, my Indian maid joyned hers. to the Lord in a per- petuall covenant was taken under the watch and discipline of y Chh. by a Chh. vote and so was baptized."
Feb. 1, 1718-9. Hagar my negro woman made her confession of her sin- ℮ and entered into covenant with God and came under y watch and discipline of this Chh. and so was baptized and her children Sambo and Jimme were bap- tized at the same time."
" June 1727. Content Marah was baptized Hannah she requesting that her name might be changed "
0 e "July 1, 1683. Heury Craine Seni'r rec'd, w was y first time I went abroad after my great sicknesse."
The last entry made by Mr. Thacher in the church records is as follows : ℮ " Dec. 10, 1727. George y son of Mr. Georg Badcock was baptized."
" Item. William the son of Mr. William Peirce was baptized, Dec. 10, 1727."
The next entry is the following, apparently in the handwriting of his succes- sor :
" The Rev'd Mr. Peter. Thacher (after above 46 years eminent service in the e Ministerial office in the town of Milton, ) died on y 17th of Dec'r 1727. Bless- t ed are the dead y die in the Lord."
Rev. John Taylor was ordained Nov. 13, 1728. The following entry in his handwriting is found immediately under the original Covenant of the church.
" Dea. Manasseh Tucker (who was the last Survivour of the first set of Ch. Members) died April 9th, 1743.
"And as all that generation were gathered to their fathers, the church passed
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a vote (April 17) that they would renew Covenant with God and one another ; which they did accordingly, April 24th, when the members of the Ch. Male and Female, manifested their consents to their Fathers Covenant by standing up while I read it over with a small variation as the change of circumstances re- quired. J. T."
The last entry made by Mr. Taylor in the church records, is among the bap- tisms, " Dec. 31, [1750,] Hephsibah, Daught. of Enoch Horton," and imme- diately below it is the following :
" The Rev'd Mr. Jolin Taylor, after above 21 Years eminent Service in the e e Ministerial Office in y town of Milton, Died on y 26th Day of January, 1749-50.
e Blessed and forever happy are they wch die in y Lord as well as those wch
die for y Lord." e
Rev. Nathaniel Robbins was ordained Feb. 13, 1751.
He died May 19, 1795. The sermon at his funeral was preached by Rev. Jason Haven of Dedham. The Sunday following, a sermon which was after- wards printed, was preached by Rev. Thomas Thacher.
At a meeting, after divine services, June 19, 1796, the Church voted unani- mously to invite Mr. John Pierce to become their Pastor. But the town did not concur with the Church. Mr. Pierce was afterwards the venerable and be- loved Dr. Pierce of Brookline, where he sustained the relation of Pastor more than fifty years.
By one of the coincidences which Dr. Pierceloved to recognize, it so happened that he preached his last sermons here in the same church which had witnessed with warm approval his earliest labors in the sacred profession A glory pass- ed away from our ministerial gatherings and from the Harvard College Com- miencements when his portly form, his benignant countenance, his white locks, his sonorous voice, and the pleasant contagion of his perpetual cheerfulness, had ceased from among us.
Rev. Joseph McKean was ordained Nov. 1, 1797. "Separated, at his proposal, on account of feeble healthi, and want of support, Oct. 3, 1804."
Rev. Samuel Gile was ordained Feb. 18, 1807. The latest entry in the church records which I find in his hand writing is Aug, 16, 1834, to record the death of Mrs. Abigail Swift, aged 76.
On account of difficulties about exchanges, which grew out of differences of opinion on doctrinal points, Mr. Gile's connection with the society was dissolved Jan. 6, 1834, through an Ex-parte Council called by the society, and composed of the following clergymen, Rev. Peter Whitney of Quincy, Rev. John White of West Dedham, Rev. Alvan Lamson, Dedliam, Rev. James Walker, Charles- town, Rev. Lemuel Capen, South Boston, Rev. Samuel Barret, Boston.
Those of the parish who agreed with Mr. Gile in sentiment or who were drawn to him by a strong personal attachment formed a new society under the name of "The First Evangelical Society." He continued with them in the Ministerial office till the day of his death, Sunday, Oct. 16, 1836. He had
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preached in the morning, and when the congregation came together in the after- noon they heard of his sudden death during the intermission. Mr. Gile was a man of respectable abilities with a remarkable gift in prayer. He was beloved by his people, and at the time of the division in the parish, there was as little ill feeling as there ever is in such a separation, and he lived and died respected even by those who had feit it to be their duty to vote for his dismission. His widow lived till after these sermons were delivered, an object of tender regard . to all who knew her, and looking with almost equal kindness upon all the fam- ilies which had once been under her husband's ministry. She felt towards them all as a mother towards her shildren, and when she died, June 26, 1862, the remembrance of the life which she had led among them for more than fifty years, could awaken in those who had known her no other feeling than one of grateful and affectionate respect.
For nearly thirty years the two societies have held their meetings side by side, the church bells mingling together the sounds which call their respective worshipers to the house of prayer. They have labored, each in its own way and according to its own convictions, to do in this community the work which devolves on Christian societies. And if there have been any difficulties between them, or between their ministers, I have had no knowledge of it. If they have not worked together, they have worked in peace,-on one side, I am sure, and, I believe also, on the other, with sentiments of cordial good will. " Pray for the peace of Jerusalem : they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions sakes, I will now say, peace be within thee."
Rev. Benjamin Huntoon, having been unanimously called, was installed Pas- tor of the First Congregational Church and Society, Oct. 15, 1834.
Introductory Prayer and reading Scriptures by Rev. George Putnam, of Rox- bury. Prayer of Installation by Rev Peter Whitney of Quincy. Sermon by Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, D. D. of Dorchester. Charge by Rev. John Pierpoint of Boston. Right Hand of Fellowship by Rev. Francis Cunningham of Dorchester. Address to the People by Rev. Ilenry Ware, jr. D. D. of Cambridge. Concluding Prayer by Rev. John White of West Dedham.
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