USA > New Jersey > Hunterdon County > Flemington > One hundredth anniversary exercises of the Baptist Church, Flemington, N.J. June 17th, 18th and 19th, 1898 > Part 8
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Baptist Church, Flemington, N. J. 141
Dr. Woods, he, for a season, admirably filled the office. There have been about the same number of persons in the offices of Secretary, Treasurer, and Librarian, or possibly a few more in some of these positions. Something over two hundred teachers have been connected with our school, and about eighteen hundred scholars. Nearly three thousand volumes have had a place on the shelves of the library, and over one hundred and twenty thousand papers and periodicals have been distributed. The money raised for all objects, so far as reported, is eleven thousand dollars. Obviously enough, the work done can be but imperfectly reported by. figures. Eternity alone will disclose the results of holy endeavor along any lines, but I mention these statistics simply to show what has been attempted here. The righteous dead who have passed into the clearer light of the beyond, probably discern more perfectly than we can, what pious endeavors issue in, and if they know what transpires on earth, it pretty surely must enhance the blessedness on which they have entered to see what gracious effects have followed the influences which they here put in operation. I know that you will all join me in the desire that the memory of pioneer toilers may abide among us as fragrant as these June flowers, and that all will as fervently pray that the school of 1898, may be characterized by the same devotion
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that marked it in 1830, when with our founders it was emphatically the day of small things.
This day not only celebrates the one hundredth anniversary of our church, and the sixty-eighth of our school, but it completes the twenty-fifth year of my service in this office. You will not think it egotistic in me to make mention of this fact amid all our other recollections. Full well I know that it is your forbearance rather than my personal fitness that has kept me here so long, but I want to express my gratitude to our one Master, and to you my fellow-helpers over this quarter of a century of service. If it has not been specially efficient or successful, it has at least been a period of honest attempt at well- doing. No one can realize more profoundly than I have, how manifold have been official as well as individual failings, but I take the record, where I have had to take many others, to Him who pities and pardons beyond what earthly father ever did, and with the trust that in spite of flaws and failures; He will see in the work a humble aim to please Him, and help others toward Christ and heaven.
Prof. C. B. Stout then spoke in these words, of early days : _
It gives a native of this village the greatest pleasure to meet with the church of his child- hood on an occasion of so much interest as this
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Baptist Church, Flemington, N. J. 143
centennial celebration and present his warmest congratulations, though the fact that I am the last survivor of those who united in forming your first Sunday. School sixty-eight years ago cannot fail to bring many saddening reflections. "Shadows we are indeed, and shadows we pur- sue." At that time and for a long period the Rev. Charles Bartolette, whose honorable name I am proud to bear, was pastor of the church, a genial Christian gentleman, and far more attrac- tive in appearance than any picture of him your speaker has ever seen. The first Superintendent of the Sunday School was Charles George, foun- der of The Hunterdon Gazette, I believe, and for many years its editor and proprietor. He, too, was friendly and popular, and like his pastor,. admirably adapted to the founding and up-build- ing of the School. The meeting house was not only old, but old-fashioned, remarkably plain and bare, without carpet or cushion, and having but one room for all purposes, the Sunday School was. organized in a corner of the gallery. Our little library was contained in a small unpainted closet, and the only other books used were the testament and spelling book, in which children were taught their letters as well as spelling and reading. It was my good fortune to be placed in the class of Miss Jemima Blackwell, a prominent member of a distinguished family, long and influentially identified with this dear old church, and it was
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my privilege to visit her honored grave in yonder cemetery before these impressive exercises be- gan. The high, straight back seats in the old meeting house referred to, were in no wise con- ducive to making either old or young at ease in Zion, while the means for warming and lighting were far from being satisfactory. Evening meet- ings were called at "early candle light," the candles themselves were slender tallow " dips," in plain brass sticks or tin sconces, requiring fre- quent snuffing, and then only making the dark- ness visible. But under all these unfavorable circumstances good work was done, strong and. broad foundations laid, and it was there your speaker found the Friend above all others, as he gratefully records this memorable day.
Time would fail to depict more at length the days that are gone to return no more, or to dwell upon the fruitful history of nearly three-score years and ten embraced in the lifetime of this Sunday School. The reports show the number
.. of branches that have sprung from this vigorous vine, the new schools organized, etc., but the real results of this holy Christian endeavor must await the disclosures of another world. May the time to come bring an increased number of Churches, Sunday Schools, Preachers, Teachers, and more Spiritual power in every direction. The future is full of hope, of promising oppor- tunities and glorious possibilities. May this an-
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niversary furnish a new point of departure, and henceforth our lives have higher aims, larger light, improved facilities and holier consecration. What shall our harvest be for the new century just before us? There are none here now who began this one. Not one of us will be here when the next shall close. But we also are makers of history, and that very rapidly. Let us make it for the Judgment, and labor on till the Master comes. Thus building on ideas and truth we shall indeed build for eternity, and while standing between the living and the dead, as we literally do in this place and at this impres- sive period-dedicate ourselves anew to Christ and His church,
"And departing, leave behind us, Footprints in the sands of time."
Mr. Joseph B. Losey of Somerville, a former superintendent of the school, referred very ten- derly to his connection with it in previous years, and Dr. Vassar called up some incidents of a quarter of a century ago. With singing and benediction the afternoon session closed.
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SUNDAY EVENING,
T HE evening services began with a meeting of the Y. P. S. C. E. in the lecture room. In addition to the usual order of prayer and song and testimony, the following paper was read :
In 1874, the young men of the church began. holding a prayer meeting in the church parlor on Sunday evening an hour before the evening service. About a year later the young ladies were admitted and it was called the "Young People's Prayer Meeting." A treasurer was elected to take charge of the collection which was taken up at every meeting. The money was applied to different objects as calls came from time to time. A new organ, to be used in the prayer meetings of the young people as well as in Sunday School and the weekday prayer meetings, was purchased.
The prayer meetings were kept up although most of the young men that started them either left town or stopped attending and sometimes the attendance was very small, still there were a few faithful ones,
Sometime in the year 1886 the question arose, why not have a regularly organized society? Meetings were held and discussions arose regard- ing the kind of society it was best to have.
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Finally, December 21, 1886, the Young People's Association was organized, with Charlton Reed for President. It is impossible at the present time to give much of its work, as the Secretary's book cannot be found. The prayer meeting and association were united soon after the organiza- tion and an impetus given to the former, which lasted for several years.
Considerable money was raised by the Associ- ation in various ways and a large part of it used here in the church. The parlor was papered and a new carpet purchased for the floor. When the church was re-modeled the Association supplied the furniture for the pulpit; a new piano was bought for the use of the church whenever needed. Other people outside our church were helped as well, by money given when asked for. Phillipsburg was one place where the Association invested some of its funds.
The Association grew until it had one hundred and thirteen members, and raised about eleven hundred dollars in the ten years of its existence.
May 8, 1896, the organization changed again and became a Christian Endeavor Society, with twenty-one active members and three associate. We now have sixty active, eighteen associate and ten honorary, making altogether eighty-eight. Eight of the associate have become active mem- bers ..
The Christian Endeavor Society holds its
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prayer meeting Sunday evening at 6:45. Each member pledges herself or himself to give a stated sum monthly into the treasury of the society. It has also raised some money by means of two concerts and a supper: in all about one hundred and forty dollars. Thus far the money has all been expended upon ourselves, which is rather selfish, for we do think we should remem- . ber that while charity begins at home it should not stay there.
FRANK DILTS, Secretary.
After the meeting of the young people the more public service of the evening was held, beginning at 7 :45. The Presbyterian and Metho- dist churches of the village courteously gave up their own meeting and with their pastors partici- pated in the closing gathering of the three days. This massing together of the three congregations brought together an audience that crowded the house. It had been hoped that Dr. Henry G. Weston, the honored president of Crozer Theo- logical Seminary, might be the preacher for the evening, but as that arrangement could not be effected, ex-pastors Chapell and Vassar consented to occupy the hour.
The Rev. F. L. Chapell made the first address ; and though he had no manuscript and no stenographic report was made, it is believed that the following, recalled from memory, em- bodies the main thoughts presented.
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ADDRESS,
The Prominence of the Word in the divine ad- ministration of the present time is well worth attention on an occasion like this.
Divine working in the world is mainly through three agencies; namely, the ordinances, the Word and the Spirit; corresponding and appeal- ing, in some sense, to the tripartite nature of man, as he consists of body, mind and spirit. The ordinances touch the body, the Word appeals to the mind, and the Spirit of God inter- penetrates the spirit of man. All three of these are necessary to complete divine working. No one of them can be properly omitted. The ordinances are perhaps the less important, and yet they can never be omitted or impaired with- out loss.
But it is noticeable that some one of these three means of divine working may be more promi- nent at one time than the others. Thus in the earlier years of the Jewish dispensation, when tabernacle and temple and priesthood and the Skekinah were in service, the ordinances were more prominent. At that time there were but few scriptures, and scarcely any means of circu- lating what there were: while the Spirit was chiefly upon a few official persons. In the later years of that dispensation, in and after the captivity, the Word came into prominence. At
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the restoration a collection of the sacred writings was made, the devotional and prophetical books . being added to the law. The synagogue service arose in every place and the scriptures were read every Sabbath day publically, while the order of Scribes was instituted to multiply copies and to interpret them.
On the day of Pentecost the Spirit came into prominence, being no longer confined to official personages, but poured out on all flesh, all classes and condition, both sexes and all ages.
And all through the Christian dispensation the Spirit has been the leading factor in true religion. Whenever apostasy has crept in through undue attention to the ordinances or to the word, causing ritualism or rationalism, the Spirit has come to revive and correct, producing what we have come to call "Revivals of religion." We are all more or less familiar with this phase of divine working. The historical review we have been engaged in has brought to mind the various revivals, which this church has enjoyed.
But a careful and honest survey of the century reveals the fact that our revivals are not now what they once were. In the first half of the century they came without human agency and were of sweeping power. But revivals, as we still call them, have to be planned for and worked for, and are comparatively feeble and superficial in their results. But meantime the word has
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come into a peculiar prominence. Various trans- lations, various styles of printing and binding, many multiplications of helps for Bible study, courses of study in our Sunday Schools, various Bible Institutes, great cheapness in price of Bi- bles, and many such things have combined to make the Word prominent just now. The word is much more used in our so called revival meet- ings. The inquirer after salvation is pointed to a text and told to believe it, rather than expected to go mourning for months until the Spirit gave him peace, as it used to be in olden times.
Now what is the meaning of the present situa- tion? Why is God emphasizing the Word at this time? How are we to meet these peculiar con- ditions?
It seems to me that God means a great deal by this state of things, and that we ought to give very earnest heed to His providential voice. I believe that we are coming into times where only an obedient following of the word will save us from drifting into a world-conforming apos- tasy. Christianity is so different from human schemes of philanthropy and reform that unless . we are well posted in the scriptures we shall drift with the world. We have not yet escaped all the errors of the middle-age's apostasy. We have not yet gotten wholly back to apostolic Christianity. We do not yet see as clearly as we ought the true nature of the church as a called-
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out body. We are yet too much influenced by sentiment rather than by revealed truth. We are, many of us, putting too much of our strength into the things of the world. Thou- sands are being led astray by seductive isms that seem so harmless.
Now the only safety in these times is such an obedient attention to the word as we have not hitherto given. We must know it in breadth and general scope as well as in its particular pre- cepts. There is too much textual preaching, which in fact is not even textual; but a use of a text on which to hang a human thought. We need to know prophecy and the great sweep of God's purposes and what He is requiring of us of to-day. We must take the whole armor of God that we may be able to stand in the evil day. I fear we do not fully understand how evil the present day is. How seductive is the evil of the present time. God means a great deal when He is putting His word into our hands. in a way He never has in all the history of the world before, that a "light shining in a dark place until the day dawns." Will you take proper heed to it as you start out on another cen- tury? A century, which, as I have been led to think, will bring such a consummation and crisis as has never yet dawned on the earth? God's word contains ample directions for these coming days. And He has wonderfully set it before us
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and put it in our hands. Our ordinances are few and simple. The Spirit no longer compels us; but He whispers " Thy word is a lamp," the way is "straight and narrow." " Walk before Me and be thou perfect," for "the law of the Lord is PERFECT."
Dr. Vassar closed the exercises with these re- marks :
Twenty-five years ago to-night I stood on this platform uttering the words that brought to an end the seventy-fifth anniversary of the church. Around me sat Dr. Thomas Swaim, Dr. G. S. Webb, Dr. H. F. Smith, and brethren B. C. Morse, and Charles E. Young. All of them had been participating in the services of that occa- sion, and of that group of honored ministers I alone am left. All the others have been gone from earth from a dozen to twenty years. Natu- rally enough thought is busy with the changes that have been wrought. Changes not in the pulpit only ; changes quite as marked and many in the pews. I can count from memory at least two hundred who were in these seats in 1873 but have one after another dropped out as the seasons like flitting shadows have come and gone. But reminiscences have claimed so much of our atten- tion these days past that the last moments of the service may profitably sweep the other away. On the isthmus of Panama there is said to be a
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rise of ground standing on which in a still night one may distinctly hear the murmur of the two great oceans that wash its upper and lower shores. On the one hand lies the Atlantic, and on the other the Pacific beats, and from the one and toward the other the traveller passes with every step. In the history of the individual, and the church as well, there is such a pass. This church
stands there to-night. We have been listening to the voices of the past. We have caught the echoes of times and seasons gone. Suppose we now face the other way. This then is my exhor- tation to the Flemington flock. Look forward rather than back. Recollection has been having free play through these hours. That was right. Retrospection is occasionally a proper thing. Meditation on God's mercies is not a waste of time. But it is possible for a man or a group of men to sit down too well satisfied with their out- look. The survey of a given period may lead to over much gratulation. Paul saw the peril here, and so he cries, "forgetting the things that are past." That is to say, do not let the successes or failures already met halt you. Never mind what you have achieved. Larger endeavors and triumphs await you. The old song correctly says that the mill will never run with the water that is past. All the good there is in the review of vanished years is the motive they furnish for new undertakings. The Flemington Baptists of
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1798 did their work. The Flemington Baptists of 1898 must face theirs. This is not any time for complacent folding of hands as if the mission of this church had been achieved. This is not the place for flourish of trumpets, and waving of flags. It is rather a bit of holy ground to kneel down on with a new devotion to the Captain and His cause.
Then there is another charge I bring you, be- loved, at this point; look out and not in. Piety sometimes gets diseased through over-much of introspection. It is not best to peer around too frequently or too closely in quest of what is either good or bad in the church. Christ's order to disciples was to lift up their eyes and look on the fields. He has not changed it since. You will never get much impulse to righteous action from an inspection of your own heart or the hearts of comrades in the camp where you belong. You will find it where your Lord did by eyeing the sad case of the multitude scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. See how many there be about you even in this gospel-blest com- munity who are living and dying having no hope. Mark how weary and dissatisfied a face they wear. Behold how swiftly they are speed- ing onward toward the bar of God and its set- tlements and plead with them to turn around and lay hold of the Christ who only can make this or any other life glad and glorious! Gaze
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on your fellow men as Jesus gazed on the thought- less crowds in old Jerusalem, and find in their condition a perpetual incentive to work and pray for their salvation. And finally, brethren, look up and not down. I do firmly believe there are victories for you yet to win that shall surpass anything yet sighted, but I as firmly believe that to gain them you have got to get in the closest touch with all the invincible energies of the Holy Ghost. I doubt whether the years that lie just ahead of us are going to be years in which our Christian faith is going to have what is some- times called "a walk-over." On the other hand I have a conviction that those who are to win souls for the Lord and his church may require the Mighty Spirit in His sevenfold energies. God's toilers will have to look up or give up. Be sure that there will be emergencies of Chris- tian effort when your courage will fail you un- less you lift up your eyes like the psalmist to the hills whence cometh help. You will worry and. wail perhaps over some who will make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience. You will be disheartened over the poor dying rate at which some will creep along toward a lofty Christian experience. You will sigh over dark days in Zion, but beloved nothing can shake the trust or the courage of one who fixes his eye on his Lord and Leader eternally. Lean against God's promises
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as a rock, and keep the vision fixed on God's throne, and nothing can daunt or dishearten.
And so brothers we close these days of glad remembrance and sweet communion. We have been like those priviledged apostles who on the radiant mount witnessed the transfiguration of their Lord. To-morrow the vision will fade away. We shall betake ourselves to the daily round of work and worry, but some of the gra- cious influences ought to step over into the week with us and keep us company. And all these hill-top elevations and outlooks ought to be a preparation for that completer fellowship with the saints in light. Thither we are moving fast. A few more of these quick-returning salutations and we go to "join the blood-besprinkled band on the eternal shore." In Plymouth Church, Brooklyn they used to have, and perhaps still have, a song which they always sung just before the long Summer vacation began, and the classes got broken up and scattered. Some of its strains seem suited to this hour.
"We linger in our parting song We praise Thee as we sever, The Summer days will not be long Ere we shall praise forever. All hail then to the Summer land Whose blossoms never wither,
Though here we part each other's hand We'll keep our journey thither."
1898.
THE BAPTIST CHURCH, AT FLEMINGTON, N. J.
OFFICERS,
Pastor, REV. L. D. TEMPLE. *
Deacons:
Trustees:
ASA SUYDAM.
VANDAVIER HIGGINS.
CHESTER VAN SYCKEL.
WM. E. TREWIN.
JONATHAN HIGGINS.
JESSE MERRELL.
GEORGE C. HIGGINS.
WILLIAM FISHER,
J. WESLEY BRITTON.
WM. J. SUYDAM.
JOSIAH C. BRITTON.
J. SCHENCK HIGGINS.
E. D. KNOWER.
Church Clerk, GEORGE E. BRITTON. Treasurer, HOWARD SUTPIIIN.
* Settled since the Centennial.
P
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MEMBERS,
Explanatory note: B, signifies received by Baptism; L, by Letter; E, by Experience; R, by Restoration. The figures the year when received.
Name.
How and when received.
Abbott, Alice Higgins. B 56
Abel, Horace G. . . B '82
Anderson, Mary Hartpence B '64
Apgar, George '87 B
Bacorn, George. . B
'90
Baird, Sallie Barton. . B '74
Bancroft, Susan Rowe. B
'9 1
Barrass, Martha Ann Blackwell B
, '43
Barrass, Richard. B
Barrass, Mary Gulick. B
'56 '62
Barrass, Mary Smith . B
'73
Barrass, Josie Dilts. B
'79
Barrass, William, Jr. . B
'82
Barrass, Howard . B
'87
Barrass, Alice , B
'90
Barrass, Bessie .. '90 B
Barrass, Stella Rice B
'90
Barrass, Mary . B
'90
Barrass, Rose. B
'92
Barrass, Richard, Jr B
, '92
Bartles, Nettie Hill B
'87
Barton, Willam S.
B
'90
Barton, Bertha Britton B
'86
Barton, Susan Merrell. L '97
Bellis, Emma Higgins B '71
Baptist Church, Flemington, N. J. 16I
Bennett, Benjamin. L
'97
Bennett, Harriet C. Howe '96 B
Biggs, David.
B
Bloomer, Ada M. Green
B
'94
Bond, Mary Hampton . L
'89
Boyd, Martha Britton. B
'71
Brewer, Jane. L
92
Brewer, Elizabeth Carkhuff B
, '44
Brewer, Margaret Brewer '68 . B
Brewer, Hannah. . B
'85
Britton, Martha Higgins B
'35
Britton, John Wesley B
, '56
Britton, Ann Jeroloman. . B '60
Britton, Ellen Ewing
B
'60
Britton, Josiah C B
'64
Britton, Ellen . . B
'64
Britton, Georgiana B
'64
Britton, Henry. B
'64
Britton, Sarah Drake. . B
'68
Britton, Sarah P.
B
'70
Britton, George E. B
'87
Britton, William J '87. . B
Britton, J. Arthur '87 . B
Britton, Julia Salter. . L
'90
Britton, Harry W B
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