USA > New Jersey > Middlesex County > Piscataway > History of the First Baptist Church of Piscataway : with an account of its bi-centennial celebration, June 20th, 1889, and sketches of pioneer progenitors of Piscataway planters > Part 8
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Of the noble men and women who founded this Church, and stood by it unfalteringly through manifold trials, and who passed it, a sacred trust, along down from sire to son, from mother to daughter, of these you will hear in the history prepared for this occasion. All honor to them, as appointed by God : " Them that honor me I will honor." Because of His mighty grace in them, and His over-shadowing presence with them, all this ground on which we are gathered is holy ground. From the time they first owned a habitation, they stood and served on the identical spot where we are now assembled. This hill is and ought to be held sacred. The names of these heroes of faith are "as ointment poured forth ;" their "memory blessed." What an in- dulgence it would be to say in their presence what is in our hearts. We shall, by and by. In the meantime, we will not lose the oppor- tunity of having a word with their descendants, and telling them to their face what we think of them. Equal honors to the noble men and women and children who to-day stand as honestly, as whole- heartedly, as self-denyingly as unfalteringly, and as cheerfully for the same great principles, annointed by one and the self same mighty Spirit. To say that we welcome you is not the expression that our hearts seek. We invited you. You have made us glad by your coming, and we feel honored with your company. If it were given to us to make some substantial return, our cup would run over. If our hearts were so in- flamed with Christ's love, that we could not look you in the face, take your hand or speak without ministering grace to you, that return would fittingly follow such a two hundred years of grace. Our prayer has been and is that your coming may be the occasion when the Holy Spirit shall suddenly come upon you and upon us, and so, bring times of refreshing to all the churches here represented.
The best we have, sanctuary, sacred precincts, homes and all, we put into your hands.
ADDRESS BY REV. E. EVERETT+JONES.
Pastor of the Middletown Baptist Church.
The old Middletown Baptist Church sends cordial greetings to the Piscataway Church on this, her festive day and two hundredth birth- day. At the centennial commencement of North Carolina University, held this week, among other interesting exercises, the papers tell us, there were a number of class re-unions, and among them the "Class of 24" was the first to answer to the roll-call ; that, touching beyond
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expression was it to see men with silvery locks and infirm steps-"boys of seventy-five and eighty-five summers"-living their school days over again and telling of playing pranks on professors and freshmen, and growing enthusiastic over their college belles of more than sixty years ago. So, to-day, some of us, as the representatives of the oldest Baptist Church in New Jersey, come to congratulate, and call up the past his- toric lore in mutual stimulus and delight. Sometimes at happy family reunions, some of the brothers or sisters may be unavoidably deprived of the pleasures of the occasion and can only send by dear ones their messages of love. To-day, the elder sister from Middletown cannot be present, and hence sends up her latest addition in pastoral ranks to bear her tributes of heartfelt affection to her younger sister.
The extraordinary occasion -the two hundredth anniversary of the organization of a Baptist Church-which calls us together, awakens interesting thoughts of various kinds.
In the first place, age itself naturally awakens our respect and throws the character of dignity over men and things. A Greek historian tells us how, in the pure and early and most virtuous days of the republic of Greece, if an old man entered the crowded assembly, all ranks rose to give room and place to him. Age also throws a character of dignity over all-even over inanimate objects-so that spectators regard them with a sort of awe and reverence. You will stand before the hoary and ivy-mantled ruins of some castle of a bye-gone age, with deeper feelings of respect than ever touched you in the marbled halls or amid the gilded grandeur of modern palaces. Nor does the proudest tree that ever lifts its head and towering form to the skies, affect you with such strange emotions as some old, withered, wasted trunk of a tree, hollowed by time into a gnarled shell, still showing some green and signs of life.
2. Pride of ancestry is another line of thought which stirs our hearts to-day. As the Grecian maiden, when asked " What fortune she would bring her husband ?" replied : "A heart unspotted and virtue without a stain." The inheritance from parents who both had these, and nothing else to leave-the inheritance of noble ancestry, tried and true, pure and sure, is a priceless boon. Many a parent has only been able to leave his children his good name, and that was very much to them. Like- wise, this old Church may well point with finger of natural and laudable pride to-day to a noble ancestry, and a grand religious ancestry, more particularly.
Said that eminent Scotch divine, Dr. Thomas Guthrie: "As far as I can trace my ancestors, I claim to be of the seed of the righteous." A higher honor, surely, than all the boasted noble blood of the world. A great thing it is to be descended from those who "earnestly contended for the faith once delivered to the saints," and even when persecuted for righteousness sake.
Heredity is a subject greatly discussed in recent years, but some great facts in the matter certainly stand out in bold relief, like the peaks in the mountains.
If the Imperial House of Hapsburgh, since the marriage some few centuries ago with the Polish family of Gagellon, has had decidedly
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peculiar features ; if the royal family of England has had peculiar lateral parts of the face from George I. to Victoria ; if the Bruces of Scotland have all the strongly marked features of face, which appear on the coins of that heroic monarch; if the prevalent tallness of the people of Potsdam, descended from the tall guards of Frederick I; if the Spanish features of the people of the county of Galway, where Spanish settle- ments were made centuries ago ; and, if the hereditary beauty of the women of Prague are all well-known facts, and have frequently attracted the attention of chronologists ; yea ! if the Jewish physiognomies on the sepulchral monuments of Egypt are identical with those observed among modern Jews on the streets of any great city, then there must be more in heredity than we have ever yet explored. Why, then, is it not equally plain that the religious tenets of ancestry will generally prevail with their descendants ? And if they be found in strict accord with Scripture, how great an honor to them also. Great influence have parents, and through them their parents and ancestors before them. Their opinions, their spirit, their converse, their manners, their example and their re- ligious views, particularly, all mightily influence. Is it not an honor to be descended from the persecuted Biblemen of former ages-from the Albigenses and Waldenses, or from Baptists generally, "earnestly contending for the faith "? or from the faithful Baptists of Piscataqua- the Dunns, Drakes, Smalleys, Dunhams, Randolphs or Fitz-Randolphs, Stelles, Mannings, Runyons, Blackfords, Walkers, Daytons, and many other old-time Baptist names ?
3. Good name of one's own coining, however, is even far more honorable than any pride of descent from noble ancestry. Hermodius, the descendant of a great ancient family, once spoke disparagingly of Iphrecrates, a famous general of old, because of his humble birth, he having been the son of a shoemaker. But his reply was : "My nobility begins in me, but yours ends in you." Far grander thing is it indeed to have nobility and great good name, in Church or one's own self, along the record made, than merely to don the laurels of noble progenitors. Ah ! that invisible thing called " good name," made up of the breath of great numbers who' speak well of us, is really choicest possession. Whilst eager pursuit of empty applause is vain, and nothing more so ; yet, good name to any one or any cause is the sweet perfume borne along with it and its success and scattered wherever it works, is the very crowning glory of it. It thus becomes a tower of strength, a mighty name, shedding light on darkness, breathing life into cold forms, and like Pharoah's signet ring on Joseph's hand of old, is endued with sovereign influence and power. As for the historic record of this old church for two hundred years, it is good, entirely good and nothing but good.
" Good name is dear to all : Is the immediate jewel of the soul : Whole kingdoms, life, were given for it, and he Who got it, was the winner still."
4. Usefulness, however, is the criterion of glory, according to the New Testament teachings, If any would be chief, let him min- ister unto all.
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In the school of Pythagorus, it was a point of discipline that if any among the probationists grew weary of studying to be useful, they were to be regarded as dead, and funeral obsequies were to be performed for them, and tombs were to be raised for them with inscriptions to warn others of the like mortality. Thus would they quicken them to refine their souls above such a wretched state. But never has the old Piscataway Church seemed to grow weary of studying to be useful. The benevo- lent and missionary contributions of over $1,500 last year, in the State Convention Minutes, alone considered, is an abundant attestation. It evidently is a busy Gospel hive. When Dr. Lyman Beecher was labor- ing most successfully in Boston, he was asked how it was he was able to accomplish so much. Said he : " It is not I, but my Church. I preach as hard as I can on Sabbath, and then I have four hundred members who go out and preach every day of the week." Thus success perched upon their banners, and thus they went forth as an army with banners.
5. But beyond all else, constancy seems to have been the great bal- ance-wheel and cardinal virtue through the two centuries of the history of this Church. It has continued two hundred years, active, steadfast, persevering, and stronger than ever. Men of business oft place up in prominent places the date when their business was established, to show how long it has continued and to prove how reliable and successful it has been, and thus claim to be worthy of all confidence.
At Wittenberg, under a gothic canopy upon a pedestal of polished granite, stands a bronze figure of Martin Luther, with his gown and bands, and the Bible in his arms. Upon the base of the monument is the inscription : "If it is God's work, it will stand ; but if it is man's work, it will perish." Since that day, ever-spreading Protestantism is his noblest monument. Likewise of this old church. It has stood two hundred years as a monument to the work of its worthies gone before, and as evidencing its founding and work has been of God. Thus re- markable record has been made, and record, too, of greatest influence. But nothing takes place without leaving traces behind it, and in many cases so distinct as to leave no doubt of their cause. In the material world events testify of themselves to future ages. If we were to visit some unknown region and behold masses of lava covered with soil, with different degrees of thickness, we should certainly have a persua- sion of remote and successive volcanic eruptions, as if we had lived in the ages when they took place. Similarly do the great civil and relig- ious movements and conquests leave equally their impressions on society-leave institutions, manners, and a variety of monuments. So this old Church has been instrumental, under God, of filling up all the surrounding country with Baptists and Baptist churches, and even out in all directions, far and near, as a mother and grandmother of many churches. And now at last, these three old sister churches of New Jersey-Middletown, of 1688 ; Piscataway of 1689, and Cohansey of 1690 -- stand out before us in beauteous attitude, like "three sister islands" in the great river of Time, bathed in the mists of His love, radiant with the beams of His smile, and reflecting a heavenly splendor over all the surrounding Christian world.
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ADDRESS BY
- -
J. R. PARĘS. D.D.
Pastor of the Scotch Plains Baptist Church.
Rev. Dr. J. H. Parks spoke substantially as follows : I am glad to be present on this interesting occasion and to represent the Scotch Plains Baptist Church in extending greetings and congratulations to "Mother Piscataway "-we are proud of our parentage, and grateful to God for the history of the Mother Church. Christian churches are in some respects like lighthouses-they are placed where they are most needed-they are founded upon the rock, and they are built and sus- tained in order that they may let the light shine. How well the old Piscataway Church has fulfilled its mission in this regard, let facts and remembrances to-day determine.
Christian churches are like recruiting offices in the kings army. They are established for the enlisting of soldiers who shall do efficient service, even in the time of hand to hand encounter-and we gladly and gratefully recall in the two centuries past many a veteran of the cross, who has bravely stood up for Jesus, and defended the truth, who was enlisted at the Piscataway recruiting station.
Christian churches are like training schools where men are quali- fied for efficiency, drilled and disciplined for positions to which they are best adapted. And all the churches in this whole vicinity have received members from this training school of our Lord Jesus.
Christian churches are like families who live not only for them- selves, but who rear and send out children, who organize other families and thus multiply the household of faith.
The Scotch Plains Baptist Church is the eldest daughter of the Piscataway Church, organized in 1747, and has been an independent family ever since. The daughter has behaved pretty well during the whole one hundred and forty-two years of her life. Only fifteen years after her organization she reported a membership of 140, and there has not been a year since, when her number has been less than that. She has given birth to four children who, of course, became grand- children of the Piscataway Church. The First Baptist Church of New York city which is noted for its solid substantial record, and its broad influence-the Lyons Farm Church-the Mount Bethel Church, and the new Brooklyn Church ; all of whom are reliable both in doctrine and in practice.
The Scotch Plains Church is in condition just now to thank God and take courage ; and they hope the time may come, in the near future, when they will be enabled to do broader evangelical work than ever they have done hefore.
We have reason as Baptists to-day to praise the Great Head in Zion for the influence of the Piscataway Church upon our denomina- tional history in this commonwealth. May the future be even more successful than the past has been, and conduce in still greater degree to the glory of our Sovereign Master.
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BI-CENTENNIAL HYMN BY - ABRARAM GOLES, IF. L. D.
Prepared by request especially for this occasion.
Praise to Christ, the Everliving, Who, Two Hundred years ago,
Planted here a vine, and made it In a virgin soil to grow ; With His own hands pruned and dressed it, Made it blossom and bear fruit,
Frosts of Winter did not harm it For His life was at the root.
Dear to God, the climbing wonder, Herb of grace and plant of fame !-
Ever bearing purple clusters To the honor of His name ; Glory of the Master's garden,- Its chief ornament and pride !
When much fruit bends down the branches How the Lord is glorified !
Brief on earth is man's existence, Naught continues in one stay- Change on change, the fatal morrow Wrecks the promise of to-day. 'Mid the throes of revolution, Rise of kingdoms and their fall,
This survives, and long shall flourish By thy favor, Lord of All !
ADDRESS BY REV. ADDISON PARKER,
Pastor of the Morristown Baptist Church.
It was a hundred and thirty-seven years ago that your second daughter set up housekeeping for herself. I take it as an indication of the breadth of its early influence that the Piscataway Church in 1752 should have had eleven members, seven men and four women living nearly twenty-five miles away, across three ranges of hills, and beyond the great swamp, whom it could dismiss, to unite with six others to form the church at Morristown.
The representatives of this church greet you to-day. We rejoice to be permitted to pay our tribute of respect to a body so venerable
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in years, so honorable in record, so sterling in virtues, and so benefi- cent in influence.
The Church at Morristown was planted in a region then sparsely settled, but already strongly pre-occupied by another denomination, which for a hundred years following held dominant religious influence.
It is a region where Baptists always have had to labor at a disad- vantage. To whatever else the Baptists of our State have held they do not seem to have been given to ultra montanism. Very few of them comparatively have ever gone beyond the mountains into the heart of Northern New Jersey.
Necessarily the beginning of the Church was small, until recent years its growth was slow. Its constituency was widely scattered over the outlying farms and hamlets of the region. Preaching stations and branches are mentioned at different times at Rockaway, Paruppany, Littleton, New Vernon and Schooley's Mountain; places distant from Morristown from four to ten and fifteen miles. The location of the Church for the first sixteen years was in a small building about two miles to the south of Morristown. Then it moved into town and built a meeting-house upon the village green. This house of worship stood for sixty-six years. It was replaced by another upon the same site, that has twice since been enlarged and reconstructed, and that soon will give place, after nearly half a century of use, to a structure more accordant with the needs of the Church and the demands of the times.
An idea of its early estate may be gotten from the stipends paid to some of its preachers. The first pastor had a salary of two hundred dollars a year. Elder Van Horn, the Pastor at Scotch Plains, preached once a month at Morristown for fifteen years. He was paid a hundred and fifty dollars.
Money went further in those days. In 1786 Esq. John Brookfield boarded the preacher. Evidently he was a man of standing. Note the " Esquire." The Church paid him a dollar a week for the service; who could not live on a hundred and fifty dollars a year, with board at a dollar a week ?
It is evident that a measure of prosperity attended the early history of the Church. A hundred years ago, when it was thirty-six years old, it had eighty-nine members, and ranked numerically the eighth in the list of the twenty-four churches we then had in the State.
Had that rate of advance continued it would long ago have become a strong congregation. Such was not the case. For long periods its condition was stationary, or else on the decline.
The war of the Revolution and the years of confusion and religi- ous declension by which it was followed, bore with peculiar severity upon its fortunes. Its meeting-house was turned into a store-house and hospital for the Continental Army in its winter quarters at Mor- ristown ; its people were scattered and its services broken up.
At a later time, in the early part of this century, the Church suf- fered great depletion from the extreme Calvinism that then left its frost blight upon so many of our churches in tliat northern part of the State.
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Though it remained true, its Pastor, a man greatly loved, withdrew from its fellowship on account of their views, after having led many to his way of thinking. These parties withdrew from their Church obligations through a firm belief that the Church had departed from its true faith in entering on missionary and similar enterprises. They called it " going after the beast."
The members were reduced to thirty-five, only two of them resid- ing in town and only six of them men.
After these days of sore trial there came a gradual but marked improvement, which has gone on now for more than half a century, and especially within the last eight years, in which more than a hundred converts have been baptized and the effective strength of the Church has been more than doubled. So far as contributions are a test of strength, your second child now stands among the first twelve of our churches in the State.
The Morristown Church has been fortunate in its pastors. It counts as one of its choicest honors the fact that it was permitted to ordain as its first pastor one who became the most eloquent and influ- ential Baptist clergyman of his day, John Gano-"shone like a star of the first magnitude." The child is the father of the man ; the young preacher of the matured one. A single incident lingers in tradition about his work in Morristown. A poor colored woman had professed conversion and asked to be baptized, but for some reason was re- peatedly put off by the pastor, until she began to dispair. One day in going out of Church she began to mutter about her hopeless estate, What was the matter," asked the friends ? She said she had had a dream. She thought she had died and gone up to the gate of Heaven. The angel asked where she came from ? "From Morristown." "What Church do you belong to? "I don't belong to any Church, for that little Johnny Gano won't baptize me." Just then Mr. Gano came laong, "Here," said he, "you shall not have it to say I kept you out of Heaven. If you want so much to be baptized I will baptize you."
He was the man who when a chaplain in the army, going one morning to pray with his regiment passed a group of officers, one of whom was swearing most profanely. "Good morning, Doctor," said the swearing Lieutenant. "Good morning, sir," replied the Chaplain. "You pray early this morning ?" "I beg your pardon, sir." "Oh, I cannot pardon you ; bring your case to God."
Rev. Reune Runyon, another of its early pastors whom it ordained to his work, was a licentiate of the mother Church of Piscataway, and went from Morristown after six years of faithful service to assume the pastorate of the Church of his nativity. We remember to day that we have given something to you as well as we have received from you. I said the Church has been fortunate in its ministry. Many humble but devoted souls bave laid themselves upon the alter of its service, whose work God knows better than man. Others have gone out to broader fields. A Church that has given pastors to the First Church, New York, like John Gano; to Piscataway, like Reune Runyon, to to first Newark, like Sym ; to Elizabeth, like Turton ; to Rahway, like
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Tolan ; to Madison Avenue, New York, like Bridgeman ; to Bunker Hill, Boston, like Morse; to Norwalk, like Bentley ; to Harvard street, Boston, like Gunning; to Waltham, like Stratton, may well delight to hold their success with those of many others less conspicuous, but not less worthy, in grateful memory.
The times change-
" The old order faileth, changing to the new," " And God fulfils himself in many ways."
In change let there be progress, From the backward glance let us turn our faces to the brighter sunshine of coming days.
ADDRESS BY J. W. WILLIMARIE, D.D.,
Moderator of the Philadelphia Baptist Association.
MY DEAR BROTHER SARLES AND MY CHRISTIAN FRIENDS :
I consider it a high honor to represent the Philadelphia Associa- tion at the bi-centennial of this ancient Church. Since you left us we have gone on increasing ; new Associations have been formed, and yet to-day we number ninety-one churches and had, last October, 27,083 members. Our Association is indeed too large. I bring you the warm and hearty greetings of the Philadelphia Baptist Association-" the mother of us all"-with our best wishes for your future growth and prosperity. In these fraternal greetings and wishes I believe that every minister and every member of our body would join with one accord.
What a change since, two hundred years ago, this Church was organized ; or since, one hundred and eighty-one years ago, the Phila- delphia Association was formed by five little churches-three in New Jersey, one in Pennsylvania and one in Delaware-Middletown, Piscata- way, Cohansey, Pennepek and Welch Tract! Then these colonies con- sisted only of a few settlements on the fringe of a vast wilderness. The great and opulent cities of to-day were little towns or had no existence, and the colonists were under the sway-often tyrannical-of the mother country. The genial soil and government of New Jersey attracted those from all quarters who desired to make for themselves happy homes, free from oppression and persecution ; yet it was emphatically a new country, and the barbarous Indian lingered among the settlers looking with stupid wonder on a rising civilization which, he had not the mind to comprehend or the will to imitate.
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