USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Newport > Centennial celebration of the Congregational Church in Newport, N.H. : October 28, 1879 > Part 3
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I remain
Yours in Christ,
HENRY CUMMINGS.
On the 16th of July, 185 1, by an ecclesiastical council convened for the purpose, the pastoral relation of Mr. Woods
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with the church was dissolved; and on the same day, and by the same council, Mr. Cummings was ordained as his successor.
In the course of the next year after the settlement of Mr. Cummings, the Spirit descended with power ; and our church, in common with the Baptist and .Methodist churches, expe- rienced a revival greater in extent than the town had seen before. He will allow me, I trust, to quote from his own account of this awakening :
"Near the close of October the first instances of conver- sion came to light. Thenceforward the work advanced with increasing power. But its movements were noiseless. Every day added to the number of believers. In January, fifty-three made profession of their faith in Christ; and before the close of the year the aggregate had swelled to one hundred. About twenty-five were heads of families, and sixty members of the Sabbath-school. All ages were favored, from ten to seventy. Nearly the whole church was revived, and some who had secretly indulged a religious hope for twenty or thirty years found this refreshing as life from the dead, and were able to come out boldly as the disciples of Christ. The work affect- ed the whole community, and made striking exhibition of the sovereignty of Divine grace. About as many were add- ed to each-the Baptist and Methodist churches-as to the Congregational."
It has been a pleasure of no ordinary kind to look over the records of our church during the pastorates of Mr. Woods and Mr. Cummings, and to see scattered through the pages the names of those coming forward in the Chris- tian cause, who have since adorned the faith and proved ornaments to the church. Many are still with us ; and we look back together over the century with united interest, while we trust its examples and its experiences shall guide us to a closer walk with the Saviour. Some beloved ones have gone to their rest, and we see them no more. We
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cherish their memories, and trust yet to be with them in that better world,
" Where congregations ne'er break up, And Sabbaths have no end."
Mr. Cummings having received a call to what he thought to be a wider field of usefulness, tendered his resignation, and was dismissed by a council on the 25th of July, 1866. The whole number added to the church during his pastorate was 170.
In December, after the resignation of Mr. Cummings, the church and society extended a united call to the pastorate to the Rev. M. Bradford Boardman. This call was not accept- ed, and the church remained without a pastor for something over two years, during the first of which the pulpit was sup- plied as preachers could be secured from time to time. Mr. George R. W. Scott, then a student in the Andover Theo- logical Seminary, had during that year preached several Sabbaths much to the acceptance of the church and congre- gation, and early in July, 1867, he was invited to supply the desk for one year with a view to a settlement, should that prove agreeable to both parties at the end of that time. The proposal was accepted, and in July of the following year Mr. Scott received a united call from the church and society to the pastorate. This call was also accepted, and he was or- dained on the 17th of the following September. The church prospered under his ministrations, and he remained its pastor until December 2, 1873, when, having tendered his resigna- tion, he was dismissed by a council convened for the pur- pose.
It was during the year which preceded the ordination of Mr. Scott that the interior of our church edifice underwent those extensive changes by which it has assumed its pres- ent form, and that the old organ was replaced by the much finer one which commemorates as well an act of munificent liberality, as the worth of our deeply lamented sister in
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Christ, Lizzie A. Richards .* It was during Mr. Scott's actual pastorate that the present chapel, which adds so greatly to the convenience and comfort of our social meet- ings and all our social occasions, was erected. The labors of Mr. Scott were blessed by 94 accessions to the church.
Very few are the words that can be further appropriately spoken. All remember the suggestion, by Mr. Scott, of the name of our present esteemed minister, and of his sojourn with us until be finally consented to accept our call, and was, on the 24th of March, 1875, to the unanimous accept- ance of the church and congregation, duly installed as our pastor. His labors thus far have been blessed by sixty-six additions to the membership of the church. The latest steps in our temporal progress have been the erection of the new parsonage which graces the church lot, and which, we hope, renders lighter and more pleasing the labors of him who breaks to us the bread of life ; and the replacing, by the Ladies' Society, of the old windows of the church by the present more modern and more pleasing ones.
Nothing indicates that any one was chosen to the office of DEACON at the organization of the church. It is matter of conjecture with myself that it may have been thought, that, from analogy to the origin of the office in apostolic times, there was no occasion for such an election until the church should be provided with a pastor. At any rate, soon after the ordination of Mr. Remmele, the name of Josiah Stevens appears in the records with the title of Deacon. We have already noticed the election to that office of Jesse Wilcox in 1785, and again in 1791. The others who have held the office were,-Uriah Wilcox, chosen in 1795 ; Moses Noyes and Elnathan Hurd, June, 1819; Sylvester Hurd, Josiah Stevens, and Joseph Wilcox, in June, 1829; Henry Chapin, in June, 1832. The last whom it is necessary to mention
* She died May 25, 1868, aged 20 years ; and the new organ, bearing a tablet inscribed to her memory, was a memorial gift to the church by her father, Dea. Dexter_ Richards.
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was David B. Chapin, chosen deacon in May, 1835. We remember the love he bore the church, and the faithfulness with which he devoted himself to its interests, as well as the consistency of Christian life with which he showed forth the spirit of the Master. He rests from his labors, and his works do follow him.
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Up to about the year 1803, the town, in its character as a body corporate, had exercised the power of providing for the temporal support of the ministry. I find no record upon the subject, but it is fairly to be presumed that such of the citizens as held Baptist and other sentiments not in accordance with those of the Congregational church, seeing themselves composing a large numerical proportion if not an actual majority of the town, would reasonably object to being taxed to support a teaching of views to which they did not subscribe. At any rate, after about that time, no action by the town upon the subject was had ; and in that year a Congregational society, for the support of the gospel in the town, was incorporated by an act of the legislature. This society existed until the year 1828, when, the provisions of the charter proving unsatisfactory, it was abandoned, and the present society was formed to supersede it, under a general law passed by the legislature of the preceding year.
A Hundred Years. While our church has, during that length of time, been engaged in the work of upholding Zion, great events have been going on in the secular world. Taking its rise in the midst of our Revolution, it has seen the enfranchisement of the American States, and their ad- vance from a scarely tenable power, through their succes- sive acquisitions, to one of the greatest and most prosper- ous of the nations. It has witnessed the missionary enter- prise struggling into existence, and finally carrying the gos- pel to the remotest of benighted peoples. It has witnessed, through the revolutions of nations, many peoples rising from beneath the heel of power, to freedom and the enjoy-
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ment of popular rights. From vehicles of the most primi- tive kind it has witnessed a progress from step to step, un- til the steamship vanquishing the ocean, and the locomotive overcoming the mountains, have neutralized space. It has seen the laborious and painful processes carried on by women in lowly dwellings, replaced by machinery appro- priating the powers of the elements. From the revelation of Franklin's kite it has witnessed a progress in electric discovery, until the wings of the wind are but the move- ments of the sloth, and the ends of the earth are become speaking companions. It has seen awakened genius peer- ing into the mysteries of the universe,-with its modern instruments even scaling the heavens,-for the gratification of human curiosity, or the accomplishment of human pur- poses. It has seen man pushing back inquiry into the laws of matter, until some even begin to fancy that the mysteries of first causes are within their grasp.
A hundred years ! We have witnessed their revolutions and their progress. But amidst them all there has been seen no change in the great necessity which lies at the foundation of the Christian church. They have shown man no less an immortal soul ; they have seen him, by all his strides of power and of knowledge, made not less by one iota a sinful being, and not by that less needful of a Saviour to bring him back to God.
Amidst all the changes in institutions, and amidst all the progress of a wonderfully progressive century, the church has seen no change in the importance of its work. It finds men moved by the same impulses, falling before the same allurements, going still to the tomb, encountering as surely the realities of a life to come. There still rests upon the members of the church the same eternal duty of bringing to the maintenance of its purity every Christian virtue, that its candlestick may not he removed out of its place, but that it may continue still to lead the way to that rest which remaineth to the people of God.
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