USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume II > Part 26
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He studied law with Joshua Atherton of Amherst and John Prentice of Londonderry and was admitted to the bar in 1787, without the usual examination. He had already been a member of the legislature and had demonstrated his knowledge of law. Soon he was acknowledged as one of the foremost in a large company of eminent attorneys and jurists. From the beginning of his public career his interest in political questions was mani- fest, and in the framing of the Constitution of 1792 his contribu- tion was so great that some called it "Plumer's Constitution." At that time he was Speaker of the House, and again in 1797. From 1802 to 1807 he was a member of the United States Senate, filling a vacancy caused by the resignation of Mr. Sheafe. His sympathies and actions were with the Federalist party, but subsequently he modified his political views, as independent thinking demanded. Four times he was elected governor of his State, though the opposing candidates were some of the most eminent men of the times. His public life terminated in 1819. There will be occasion to say more about this.
At one time he projected a history of the United States and collected much material therefor. During his long retirement in advanced years he was always busy with books and writing. His newspaper essays, on a great variety of subjects, numbered one hundred and eighty-six. He wrote and collected one thous- and nine hundred and fifty-two sketches for an American Biography. Only a few of these have been printed, and some of them are rather too critical and communicative of the private faults of men for whom he felt no political sympathy. His manuscripts are in the possession of the New Hampshire His- torical Society, which he helped to organize, in 1823, and of which he was the first president. He was a member of the Academy of Languages and Letters, American Antiquarian So- ciety, Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries of Copenhagen.
He ceased literary work only with the failure of memory, at the age of eighty-five. His death occurred December 22, 1850, at the age of nearly ninety-two. An extended biography was written by his son, William Plumer, Jr., in which the personal appearance of his father is thus described: "In person he was tall and erect, his complexion dark, his face rather long
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and thin, his hair black and his eyes black and sparkling, with a look and a smile, when he was pleased himself, or would please others, expressive of the most winning good will."6
6 Cf. Memoir of William Plumer, by Albert H. Hoyt, in N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register, 1871.
Chapter XII THE CHURCHES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Chapter XII
THE CHURCHES OF THE EIGHTENTH CENTURY.
Importance of Ecclesiastical History-The Meeting House as a Center of Attraction-Rough Benches versus Private Pews-A Learned Ministry, sometimes too Learned-Doctrinal Discussions by the Laity-Occasional Fanaticism-Varied Employments of Early Ministers-Hard Labor and Small Pay-Difficulty of Collecting Ministerial Tax-Good Influence of Congregational Ministers-The Rev. Jeremy Belknap-President Sam- uel Langdon-George Whitefield, the Evangelist-Old Time Revivals- The Rev. Walter Harris of Dunbarton-The Rev. Samuel Hidden of Tamworth-Presbyterianism-The Episcopal Church-Growth of the Baptists-The Freewill Baptists and Benjamin Randall-Incoming of the Methodists.
T HE history of the churches in New Hampshire forms a large and important part of the history of the State. The first care of the proprietors of a township was to provide for the erection of a meeting house, as the place of worship was called, since it served for political, as well as religious assemblies. The next care was to find and call a learned, orthodox minister. We have seen how Governor Benning Wentworth reserved land, in every township be granted, for the establishment of an Episco- pal church. The standing order, however, or the orthodox church, was the Congregational, on account of the early influence of the Pilgrims and Puritans of Massachusetts. The leading exception was the Presbyterian church, that came in with the Scotch-Irish emigration from Londonderry, about 1718.
The law that all persons who were able should go to the place of worship on Sunday was rigidly enforced in the early days, and many were fined at court for neglect of attendance and for visiting the Quaker meetings. Gradually the rigidity of the law was relaxed, till it became almost a dead letter. Previous to the Revolution going to meeting was practically optional, although the majority preferred to go, because this was the easiest way of seeing all the neighbors. The congregations on Sundays were social assemblies, besides being at least nom-
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inally religious. While comparatively few of the audience were members of the church the remainder felt it a privilege and a duty to be there regularly, for they had been taxed to build the meeting: house and support the minister. Most of the children were baptized, if father or mother had owned the covenant. Other children seem to have been consigned to Limbo, the neglectful sins of their parents being visited upon them, notwithstanding that the doctrine of unconditional elec- tion made the future of one class as uncertain as that of the other.
The large townships made it necessary that some should walk or ride on horseback from five to ten miles each way, in going to meeting. Only sickness or fear of Indian depredations kept them away. When the meeting houses were first erected, soon after the settlement of the towns, there was no distinction between rich and poor, since all sat upon rough benches; later those who could afford it had the privilege by vote of building a private pew in some assigned part of the meeting house, and in some places the assignment was according to social rank. A civil or military title, or the possession of acquired or inherited wealth, secured the best places. Gradually the rough seats gave way to square or oblong pews, with high straight back and doors that could be safely buttoned, to keep out intruders. With lapse of time and increase of wealth only those who had pews or assigned seats were seen regularly at church. The social dis- tinctions were stronger than statute law. It was the private pew that drove the poor away, and they have staid away ever since. They prefer a rude chapel or a hall, where all worshipers are alike in the sight of God and men.
The ministers were the learned men and educators of the people. Most of them were graduates of some college that had been founded for the express purpose of providing an educated clergy. The minister must be preeminently pastor and teacher. In 1764 forty-eight of the fifty-two settled ministers in the Congregational churches of New Hampshire were college grad- uates, and from 1748 to 1800 nine-tenths of all the ministers in the State had come from these higher institutions of learning. Harvard furnished one hundred and two; Yale nineteen; and Dartmouth forty. It was the habit to "read divinity" during the
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senior year and then to pass a novitiate as junior preacher under the instruction and direction of some learned divine, such as Samuel Langdon of Hampton, who had been president of Har- vard College, or Samuel McClintock of Greenland, who had been trained at Nassau Hall. The experience and well selected libraries of such men were worth full as much as the Theological Schools of the present time.
The learned discourses from the pulpit were not understood and appreciated by all. The exhortation delivered by some lay- man, when "the Spirit moved," stirred the hearts of the hearers. Hence the early Quaker preachers attracted many and when itinerant Baptist ministers appeared, or the evangelist, George Whitefield, or anybody with an asserted or apparent thus-saith- the-Lord as his message, the common people heard them gladly, and a break in the orthodox ranks awaited every innovator. Protestantism could not be kept under control of the Puritans. Its right of private judgment nullified all the teachings of the ministers, when individuals and groups were so disposed. There was no law against private assemblies for religious purposes. New churches and denominations could be formed at will. Even a faction in a Congregational church could secede, go across the street and build a rival meeting house. A doctrinal controversy, or a dislike for a settled pastor, was almost sure to create a division. Thus in this century begun the multiplication of Protestant denominations, which has steadily continued down to the present time, when we have them to the number of one hundred and eighty-six in the United States.
The educated ministers, that is, educated in dogmas and theories, often preached over the heads of the drowsy audience, and the tythingman, with the aid of his long pole, had to gently remind some inattentive and weary ones that they were not in a land of dreams. The two sermons, in a meeting house that had neither stove nor chimney, were separated by an hour of intermission, in which the people had a chance to lunch, chat with their neighbors, discuss war and politics, and perhaps warm up at some near-by private house or "ordinary," or replenish the live coals in footstoves.
The long, doctrinal discourses of those days awakened spirited discussion among the thoughtful and better informed.
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The Bible and Catechism were the armories, whence weapons were drawn for logical warfare. There were no public libraries, and the few books of the well-to-do were chiefly doctrinal and religious. These were often loaned to the studious. Even school text-books were rare. Neighborhood philosphy was grounded in common sense or reasonableness, and judges held equity to be superior to statute law. When argument touched theology, or the interpretation of religious experience and the ways of God with men, reason had to yield to any detached proof-text found in the Written Word. The doctrine of verbal inspiration and consequent infallibility of the Bible was com- monly accepted, without any need of proof. The ministers had so taught, and there was nobody to dispute with them. It was the bed-rock foundation of all sermons and works of divinity. For a New England Protestant to deny the infallibility of the Bible was as unthinkable and damning as for a Roman Catholic to deny the infallibility of the pope and general councils. Creeds and systems of belief were founded upon it. If reason and science were at variance with the Bible, then almost self- evident truths and patent facts must be denied. God had spoken, and man must be silent and obey. Proof-texts could be inter- preted and twisted to suit any theological notion already held. Calvinism, a cast-iron system of logic founded on erroneous major premises, was the current theology. Every thoughtful man knew the "five points of Calvinism," and by the firesides, in the long evenings of winter, farmers disputed about uncondi- tional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints, reprobation of the non-elect, and eternal damnation of impenitent sinners. Such talk was more fascinating than that of war and politics, for the women could take part as well as the men, and sometimes better. Like Milton's fallen angels they reasoned of
Fixed fate, free will foreknowledge absolute, And found no end in wandering mazes lost.
It is not to be supposed that the stream of Congregational- ism ran on without ripples on its surface and eddies along its shore. Dr. Langdon records that Robert Sandeman came to Portsmouth and established one of his three churches in America. There were but sixteen communicants in 1766. "They
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all discovered a very malevolent spirit and high enthusiasm, very much like the hottest of the New Lights, however frigid Sande- man's notions may seem to his readers. His meeting-house is not much frequented by any but those of his own party, and about thirty persons are his constant hearers, including the church. We let them alone very much; and I am persuaded, if they are not drove firm together by some kind of persecution, they will soon grow lax and disjointed by jealousies and quarrels among themselves." They dwindled to five families in 1777. Their doctrines were called fantastic, and so some of the teachings of Dr. Langdon appear to us, especially concerning Adam in the light of modern evolutionism. Error dies out quickest when it is let alone, and the grain of truth mixed with it gets planted in other soil and company.
A little earlier a fanatic named Woodbury came to Durham and deluded the minister, the Rev. Nicholas Gilman, and some of his flock. Fanciful interpretations of Scripture were current there. A council was called in 1746 to inquire into irregularities. In the midst of a sermon some persons "made all manner of mouths. turning out their lips, drawing their mouths awry, as if convulsed, straining their eye balls and twisting their bodies in all manner of unseemly postures. Some were falling down, others were jumping up, catching hold of one another, extending their arms, clapping their hands, groaning, talking" They shouted and danced about in the church, sang strange songs and made extravagant claims of "adoption, justification, sanctifica- tion, perfection and perseverance." There is nothing new under the sun; the old is ever in process of renewal, with but slight difference. Religious fanatics act about the same in all ages. The difference is in the degree of general enlightment. Abnor- mal manifestations of religious enthusiasm occur wherever shallow minds and dense ignorance abound.
The Congregational ministers often served as school teachers, physicians and lawyers. They did the work of frontier missionaries, where no other educated men were to be found. Some like the Rev. Hugh Adams of Oyster River had an extensive medical practice, that helped to gain a scanty support. Many are the wills and deeds in the handwriting of the parish minister and witnessed by him. If not actually keeping a town
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or district school, the minister usually served on the school committee, and his influence was potent in securing teachers. The spread of liberal education gradually changed all this. College-bred men and women are now found everywhere, and half-educated ministers abound. The clergy are no longer leaders of thought and activity. The press is a more powerful educator than the pulpit. Ministers are not now sought for, as they were then, to act as presidents and professors of colleges. The election sermon, the discourses on Fast Day and Thanks- giving Day have been discontinued, or they attract but few hearers. Once they were powerful in moulding political and patriotic convictions. Every sphere of activity has its specialist. A minister who now practices medicine in his parish is heard of only in Wayback; indeed such practice, were he amply qualified, would awaken criticisms against his ministry. He must not interfere with the work of other men, who want that field exclusively for themselves. Let medical missionaries go to foreign lands, where there are no physicians. A physician can now take the place of a minister by the bed of the sick and dying, but the minister must not take the place of the trained physician. Who now calls a minister to make his will. The astute lawyer has difficulty in making one that can not be broken. Occasionally a minister leaves preaching to practice law and go to Congress, as did William Plumer and Payne Wingate and Abiel Foster, and a lawyer leaves the courts of law for the courts of the sanctuary, but the two professions are now entirely separate. By confinement of his activities to one special vocation the minister may have now less power and influence than he once had. The only way to recover power is to make himself an eminent specialist in the proper and exclusive work of the Christian ministry. He may do this as an author, orator, pastor, or evanelist. As a religious teacher his services were never more needed than now, even if they are not so much in demand.
In the olden days all ministers had an allotment of land, a good-sized farm, which he and his sons cultivated. This was a part of his stipulated salary. The salary in money, of fluctuating value, was small, ranging from sixty to one hundred pounds annually, that of Dr. Buckminster of Portsmouth, seven hundred dollars, being
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the largest in the State. The smaller the salary, the more dif- ficulty there was in collecting it. Mr. Shepherd of Dublin, on the other hand, begged his people not to increase his salary, as "it plagued him to death to collect what they had already agreed upon." In Durham four ministers in succession com- plained of inability to collect the amounts due to them and one of them resorted to a lawsuit, which some of his brother min- isters thought to be specially naughty. Many still think that a minister ought to be thankful for what is grudgingly given to him and ask for no more. Does he not preach a free Gospel? He must not resort to farming now or any so-called secular employment, to help support and educate his family. He is supposed to be specially called of God to do just what his parish, individually and collectively, want him to do, and to attempt no more, whatever may be his need. That is a present- day theory with some, almost unknown in the eighteenth century. Then ministers did a great variety of work and even traded in Indian scalps to increase their revenues. Conse- quently many of them built spacious houses and became finan- cially independent in old age and educated their children to become leaders in society and business. If there was need, the towns continued to support their aged and worn out ministers, who had spent their entire lives in one settled pastorate.
The reluctance at paying a ministerial tax increased greatly toward the close of the eighteenth century. For some time Quakers had been freed from such taxation, and then the Baptists secured exemption from being taxed to support a minister not of their own choice. Proof that they were con- tributors to the support of a Baptist church released them from town tax to pay the orthodox minister of the parish. Hence some became Baptists in name and for a season. The demand increased for poll parishes, made up of consenting individuals, pledged to a voluntary support of a minister chosen by them- selves. The early practice of getting the chosen minister confirmed by the General Court had long been discontinued. It was found that ministers and churches could be supported on the voluntary plan better than by enforced taxation. The demand was for a larger freedom in matters of religion, in fact for a free Church in a free State, as the Italian statesman,
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Cavour, long afterward expressed the aspirations of the people of Italy. It is very noticeable that parishes that had been large and flourishing had, at the end of the eighteenth century, but few actual church members, even if the congregation was respectably large. Many preferred to receive all the benefits the church could give without assuming its moral and financial obligations. The half way league and covenant tended to such a result. Some populous towns, where once were flourishing Congregational churches, had to be helped by a Missionary Society, in order to maintain religious services. Rival denom- inations had crept in, whose doctrines and methods were more in harmony with the spirt of the times. The standing order was standing still, while progressive minds were moving on.
Yet the Congregational churches of New Hampshire and throughout New England had done a grand work. The very doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God, with its logical de- ductions, had developed a sturdy type of character. Allegiance to God carried with it devotion to freedom, truth and righteous- ness. Such men could not endure tyranny and oppression. The seeds of political revolution were sown in many a sermon. The American Revolution found no more loyal supporters than almost the entire body of Congregational ministers. Some of them hastened to Lexington and Cambridge with their parish- ioners. Calvinism had opposite effects. Those who believed themselves among the elect or had a "comfortable hope" to that effect, strove to make their calling and election sure; while others became careless and indifferent, arguing that if they were among the non-elect, nothing that they could do would change the final issue. Good men will be good in spite of erroneous beliefs, and bad men will be bad in opposition to much truth held only theoretically. It must be admitted that the devout Calvinist had many noble traits of character, while the stickler for doctrine became a persecutor of men better than himself.
Among the leading ministers in New Hampshire during the eighteenth century no one left a more permanent impress than the Rev. Jeremy Belknap. Graduating at Harvard in 1762 he spent a few years in teaching, at Portsmouth and Greenland, and then accepted a call to the church at Dover, where he remained twenty years. Here he begun his classical work, The
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History of New Hampshire. It can never become obsolete. The minuteness of his research among public documents, when they were only in manuscript form, is a marvel of patience and persistence. Few records and events of real importance escaped him. His judgment and literary taste are manifest on every page. While he was an ardent patriot and called to be chaplain of a regiment, his work is free from personal denunciation of opponents and marked by abounding charity. As one of the principal founders of the Massachusetts Historical Society and as a collector of valuable historical papers the great importance of his work must be recognized. He was one of the first to advocate the abolition of the slave trade and was always the friend of the negro. In 1787 he became pastor of the Federal Street Church, in Boston, founded in 1727 by Scotch Presbyter- ians under the leadership of the Rev. John Moorhead. Dr. Belknap died June 20, 1793. His picture of an ideal town, suggested by many towns he had seen in New Hampshire, is a fitting exhibition of his style and spirit :
Were I to form a picture of happy society, it would be a town consisting of a due mixture of hills, valleys, and streams of water. The land well fenced and cultivated ; the roads and bridges in good repair; a decent inn for the refreshment of travelers, and for public entertainments. The inhabi- tants mostly husbandmen; their wives and daughters domestic manufactur- ers; a suitable proportion of handicraft workmen, and two or three traders; a physician and lawyer, each of whom should have a farm for his support. A clergyman, of any denomination which should be agreeable to the majority, a man of good understanding, of candid disposition, and exemplary morals ; not a metaphysical nor a polemical, but a serious and practical, preacher. A schoolmaster, who should understand his business and teach his pupils to govern themselves. A social library, annually increasing, and under good regulation. A club of sensible men, seeking mutual improvement. A de- cent musical society. No intriguing politician, horse-jockey, gambler, or sot ; but all such characters treated with contempt. Such a situation may be considered as the most favorable to social happiness, of any which this world can afford.1
New Hampshire, from one hundred and fifty to one hundred years ago, came as near to this ideal as has ever been reached in any land. Are we living in better and happier times today? Have the modern improvements of a material character increased the happiness of her population? or are we in a state
1 Life of Jeremy Belknap, D.D., by his grand-daughter, p. 135.
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of transition to a still greater and more wide-spread happiness?
Perhaps second in rank to Dr. Belknap was the Rev. Samuel Langdon, born in Boston, January 12, 1723. No rela- tionship between him and the Langdon family of Portsmouth has been discovered. He was graduated at Harvard in 1740 and thereafter taught school at Portsmouth for four years and in 1745 was chaplain of a New Hampshire regiment at Louisburg. For twenty-seven years he was the settled minister of North Church, Portsmouth, acting also as one of the chaplains of the legislative assembly. In 1774 he was called to the presidency of Harvard, where he remained till 1780, resigning partly on account of the opposition of undergraduates, although he does not mention this in his letter of resignation. There were no differences of opinion as to his scholarship and Christian virtues. During his administration the college was removed for a short time to Concord, Massachusetts, and convened in the church. Samuel Langdon was an ardent patriot and in his election sermon at Watertown, May 1775, he justified in advance the independence of the colonies. He was the author of several works of theological character, and his orthodoxy was mistrusted by some at a time when heresy-hunters were searching for prey. From 1780 till his death, in 1797, he was minister of the church at Hampton Falls, where he was long remembered for his noble and Christian spirit. In 1768 he wrote, "The churches are divided and subdivided under various modes and party names, and while they glory in men and word distinctions, they are betrayed into angry contentions and often forget the most essential principles of Christianity, especially that fundamental law of Christ that his disciples must love one another. The spirit of falsehood takes advantage of the times, dresses up religion in new shapes, deludes men with fables and absurdities, and inspires them with wrath and hatred under the cover of zeal for God." In his will, 1797, he declares that he had endeavored to preach the Gospel "in its primative purity and simplicity, without regard to the doctrines and commands of men." Such men are an honor to any State and are the true friends of Christianity.2
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