USA > New York > Columbia County > Hudson > Centennial of Christ Church, Hudson, New York : 1802-1902 > Part 3
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For several years Mr. Cookson had been collecting money for this purpose. Miss Elizabeth Peake, always a kind friend of the work, seeing now its needs, enlisted herself heartily in collecting money. Giving largely herself, and gathering from friends far and near, as well as from the friends already interested in the work, she soon had a sum sufficient, with what Mr. Cookson had already collected, to justify them in securing plans and beginning to build. Among those specially interested in the building of the Chapel were Mr. Meigs, of South America, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. I. Peake, of New York, Mr. Cyrus Cur- tiss, the old friend of the Parish, the Stotts, of Stott- ville, and Mrs. Freeborn and daughter, of Hudson. The cost, without furnishings, was $4,800.
The Rev. Curtis T. Woodruff was elected Rector March 7th, 1870. August 15th the same year the
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Rev. William C. Prout was elected assistant during this rectorship.
The former rectory was sold for the sum of $6,500. On August 21st, 1871, contract was made for the building of the present rectory. Mr. Woodruff resigned on the 21st of November the same year.
The Rev. Theodore Babcock, D. D., was elected March 27th, 1872, and continued until July 5th, 1875.
The Rev. Robert E. Terry was Rector of the Parish from January 4th, 1876, until 1879.
On April 29th, 1879, the Rev. John Clough Tebbetts, assistant minister at Grace Church, New York city, accepted a call to this Parish and entered vigorously upon the duties of what proved to be one of the longest rectorships in its history. The need of a room, suitable for the meetings of the various socie- ties, had been long felt, and the Infant Class having outgrown its accommodations in the Sunday School room, the new rector entered heartily into the plan of the ladies to raise funds to build an addition to the Chapel which would answer for both purposes. Although a simple room was all that was first con- templated, plans and needs grew together until they resulted in a guild room, corridor and organ chamber.
That the beauty of the Church might not be marred by these additions, the services of the archi- tect of the Church, Mr. Wm. G. Harrison, were secured and from his plans the extension was built. The organ was brought down from the gallery and by the
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REV. JOHN CLOUGH TEBBETTS.
Hudson, New York
addition of new pipes its efficiency increased. Ac- commodations were provided for the choir at the right of the chancel. These improvements cost nearly $4,000 and much credit is due to the ladies who so successfully carried out the work, but principally are we indebted to Mrs. John C. DuBois, who, always warmly interested in the welfare of the Parish, had this work deeply at heart and was zealous and un- tiring in her labors in its behalf.
The rooms were opened to the congregation on Thanksgiving Day, 1880. The constant and various uses to which the guild room is put, give ample proof of the wisdom of this work.
Mr. Tebbetts was actively interested in mission work and did all in his power to stimulate the mis- sionary spirit of the Parish. Through his efforts the offerings to sustain the missions of the county were increased and much aid given in establishing the very successful work in Philmont, the first service there being held by him.
The Rev. Wm. M. Cook became assistant to the Rector in the fall of 1879, succeeding the Rev. Mr. Fulcher, now Minor Canon of All Saints Cathedral. By his labors the work at All Saints went steadily onward for several years, and much regret was felt at his resignation of this charge. For three years Mr. Tebbetts took entire charge of the work of the Parish. In January, 1887, some change being deemed necessary, several plans were suggested, and after mature consideration, that of setting apart of
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All Saints, as an independent Parish, was adopted, with the cordial consent of the people there, who have well fulfilled their promise to support the new Church, and with the approval of the Bishop of the Diocese. During the summer of this year it was found necessary to make extensive repairs both with- in and without the Church, and the recoloring of the interior seemed advisable. These repairs and im- provements necessitated closing of the Church, for two months. On its re-opening Nov. 6th, a "service of re-consecration" was held for which a special form of prayer had been sent by the Bishop.
Among the many changes and improvements made during this rectorship we find the introduction of the vested choir, for whose accommodation the floor of the choir was temporarily enlarged and has since been further extended. Three memorial windows were placed in the aisles of the Church, two in memory of Miss Elizabeth Peake, given by her former pupils, and one in memory of Mrs. Susan Van Rensselaer and Miss Lorinda Barnard. Tablets in memory of Hon. Cyrus Curtiss and Mr. John Crissey find place on the walls and many smaller memorials were given. The Kalendar was started in 1884 by the Young Men's Bible class, and passing through several hands came at last to be the Rector's paper, and as such has done efficient work. New guilds were started, old ones revivified and the working forces of the Parish put in excellent shape. Many and heart- felt regrets were expressed when it became known,
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in Sept., 1890, that Mr. Tebbetts had resigned his charge here to become Rector of St. John's Church, North Adams. He had been a kind and faithful friend to his parishioners and their best wishes went with him to his new and larger field of labor.
The Rev. Sheldon M. Griswold became Rector of the Parish November 16th, 1890. During this rector- ship many changes have taken place in the alteration and beautifying of the fabric of the Church. Dr. Wheeler gave in the year 1891 the present marble altar in memory of his wife and son ; the Altar So- ciety placed the mosaic pavement and marble steps, the brass altar railing being added at the same time.
Among the many gifts of individual members of the Church during this time have been the brass lectern with its Bible, new communion vessels and the peal of three bells, alms basin, candle sticks and processional cross.
In 1897 the Altar Society re-decorated the walls of the chancel at a cost of five hundred dollars. Steam heating apparatus was placed in the Church ; rood- screens were erected and given in commemoration of the first hundred years' life of the Church. These screens bear the name of each Rector, Warden and Vestryman who had been members of the Parish during this time.
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On December 10th, 1902, The Rev. Dr. Griswold presented to the Vestry his resignation as Rector of this Parish, to take effect January 1st, 1903, he having been elected to the Bishopric of Salina, Kansas, by the House of Bishops in session at Philadelphia, October, 1902.
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REV. SHELDON MUNSON GRISWOLD, D. D. BISHOP ELECT OF SALINA.
Centennial Celebration
MAY 4th to 11th, 1902
١٠
The Rector, Wardens and Vestry of Christ Church, Hudson, New York, invite you to be present at the services in Commemoration of The Centennial of the Corporation May 4th to IIth, A. D. 1902 R. S.V. P.
Order of Serhires
SUNDAY, MAY 4
Holy Eucharist, 7:30 A. M. Morning Prayer, 9:30 A. M.
Benediction of the Memorial Screens and Pulpit : Te Deum, Holy Eucharist and Sermon, 11:00 A. M. The Bishop of Albany will preach the Sermon. Evensong and Confirmation, 7:30 P. M.
MONDAY, MAY 5
Holy Eucharist, 7:30 A. M. Morning Prayer, 9:30 A. M. Te Deum, Holy Eucharist and Sermon, 11 A. M. The Bishop of Springfield will preach the Sermon. Reception at the Rectory, 8 to 10 P. M.
The Holy Eucharist will be celebrated each morning at 7:30, and Morning Prayer will be said at 9:30.
TUESDAY, MAY 6
Evensong and Sermon, 7:30 P. M. The Rt. Rev. George F. Seymour, D. D., LL. D., Preacher.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7
Evensong and Sermon, 7:30 P. M. Rev. Wm. C. Prout, Preacher.
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THURSDAY, MAY 8-ASCENSION DAY
Holy Eucharist and Sermon, 11:00 A. M.
The Rev. Wm. C. Prout, Rector of Christ Church, Herkimer, N. Y., Preacher.
Evensong and Sermon, 8:00 P. M.
The Rev'd W. E. Johnson, Rector of the Church of the Redeemer, New York, Preacher.
The Lafayette Commandery, Knights Templar, will attend this service in a body.
FRIDAY, MAY 9
Evensong and Sermon, 7:30 P. M. The Rev'd T. B. Fulcher, Precentor of All Saints Cathedral, Albany, N. Y., Preacher.
SUNDAY, MAY 11
Holy Eucharist, 7:30 A. M.
Morning Prayer, Litany and Sermon, 11 A. M. The Rev'd A. S. Lloyd, D. D., Secretary of the General Board of Missions, Preacher. Evening Prayer and Sermon, 7:30.
The Rev. Wm. M. Cook, Rector of S. Augustine's Church, Ilion, N. Y., Preacher.
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RT. REV GEORGE F. SEYMOUR, D. D., LL. D.
Centennial Sermon BY THE RT. REV. GEORGE F. SEYMOUR, D.D., LL. D. BISHOP OF SPRINGFIELD. PREACHED MONDAY, MAY 5th, 1902
The Serman
St. John XVI : 28.
W HAT a hundred years seem to say, as inter- preted by earth ; and what they really say as interpreted by heaven.
The fifth of May, 1802, and the fifth of May, 1902, a hundred years apart. What do these years say as Man tells the story, what do they say, as God de- livers the message ?
We need not delay long upon the narrative, as it falls from human lips, or is recorded by the hand of the ready writer.
It is a familiar tale set down on newspaper, maga- zine and book, repeated in oration, address and sermon, until the eye and ear have grown familiar with the drama of a century, and we have become almost weary of the pathos summed up in the conclu- sions, "chance and change." The panorama has brought its successive scenes into view from every source of human activity, and the lights and shades of peace and war, of prosperity and adversity, the revolutions in Empires and Kingdoms, the unrest of populations, the chronicles of discoveries and inven- tions, the advance in science, the increase and diffu- sion of knowledge, the march in a word, of human progress, fall upon the canvass of history, and we gaze, and are made serious, if not sad, as we reflect,
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that we are taking our place in the motley group, which crowds the foreground to-day, to point the moral of our successors to-morrow, as they will say of us, what we are now saying of our ancestors of an hundred years ago. Is this not the case my fellow beings? Are we not all chained to the same fate ? Is it not inevitable? Is not the living past as it breathed once and saw and heard and felt and loved and feared and hoped as we breathe, and see and hear and feel and love and fear and hope this mo- ment, is it not dead and gone? I have looked into eyes, which saw this scene in natural features, when there was as yet no city here, before the year 1800, those eyes have long since been closed in death, and so have all, who were consciously alive, when this venerable Parish was organized in 1802. All are gone. The soul of the event, which gives point and meaning to this centennial, the men and women and little children, the human life in all the complexity of its existence of that day has passed from earth, and we have but their dust and ashes beneath the sod, to tell us, that living men were here one hundred years ago, to engage in a transaction which brings us hither to celebrate the centennial of that event to-day. Is it not humiliating, nay distressing, to be con- fronted every time we look back to the distant past with the fact that we seem to be less enduring than the institutions we organize, the states we found, the buildings we erect, the books we write, the works of art we create, the machinery we construct? Is not this humiliating, distressing ? Surely it is,
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Hudson, New York
and this world with its many voices, and its boundless resources gives no relief. We have been, as a nation, celebrating centennials since 1875, when Lexington and Bunker Hill stirred our patriotism with the memories of the initial battles of our Revolutionary War, but the thrilling story of the hardships and stern resolves and sacrifices and hero- ism of our ancestors, and the memorials of the past, and the thronging crowd and the stimulating exer- cises of the present, withdraw attention from the real actors, the living men who dared to do and wrought, and suffered, succeeded, and died and are gone. Our thoughts are fixed upon their achievements, not so much on them but where are they ?
We think of Lexington and Bunker Hill and Paul Revere, and the lantern on the church tower, and the Declaration of Independence, and the signers, and the Constitution, and its framers. Our minds are on the actors in association with their acts and words, and thoughts, and cannot go beyond. It is impossi- ble with earth's centennials, since the earth cannot help us. Her memorials are material, constructed out of matter in brick and stone and wood and paper and ink. Her real treasures, her stock in hand, must be here with us, the records of the past in parchment, chronicle, history, the ancient buildings, monuments, the remains of whatever kind, which survive the wreck and waste of time, are in sight, the eye reads, or sees them, or the ear hears of them. This is the sum total of earth's centennials, the dead past, laid hold of by the living present, and studied and exam-
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ined and commemorated. Earth holds and enjoys the legacy, so far as it is preserved, but where are the testators, who made the bequests ? "Dead and gone," respond the million voices of this world, "dead and gone." No other answer has ever come from this source and never will.
The earth is mighty, but its prowess ends with the epitaph on the tomb-stone, and its centennials are of the past, historic absolutely and exclusively. They separate the bequest from the will ; the legacy from the testator. It is impossible with nature that it should be otherwise. She cannot see beyond the grave, she cannot raise the dead. All that she can do is to hold her festivals in memory of great events, and illustrious men, and sing her dirge, and chant her pæns and cease. This is earth's interpretation of a hundred years, a thousand, the great past. It is the present she celebrates, the building divorced from the architect and the mechanic ; the oration and poem away from the orator and poet ; the invention and discovery without the inventor and discoverer ; the workman of whatever kind separated and apparently forever, from his work.
The glamour of crowds and processions and ban- ners and music and speeches and banquets shed a radiance of glory upon these pageants, but behind and back of it all is there not the pathos of helpless- ness and despair ?
For upon every one, who thinks and meditates, there is forced the conviction, that thought is greater than the thinker, and the work greater than the work-
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man. Is not this what a hundred years seem to say, as interpreted by earth ?
Now let us turn and ask what do they say as in- terpreted by heaven, by Him, who said "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world, again I leave the world and go to the Father" ? The speaker is our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and this centennial, which draws us together to-day, is an epoch in His life, a living Man among living men departed and on the earth.
This is Christ Church, and Christ lives in three worlds, here on earth through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the heart of the believers. In the place of departed spirits, hades, hell, since He descended thither, and He has "the Keys of death and of hell" and where He once was He always is. And in Heaven, on the throne of God at the right hand of the Father, whither He ascended as we shall be joyfully reminded next Thursday in the Feast of the Ascension. He lives in three worlds : with us here on earth, with the blessed departed in Paradise, and with angels and arch-angels and ultimately with all the redeemed in the highest Heaven, the Palace of the King of Kings, the home of the beatific vision. Yes, we have the fact in possession on the authority of inspiration, "Christ ever liveth to intercede for us," and the proof is given to eye and ear, when at Pente- cost the Holy Ghost descends, "sent" by the Son from the Father, and comes like a mighty rushing wind, which is heard in cloven tongues, like as fire and sits upon the head of each of the one hun-
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dred and twenty, which is seen. "Christ ever liveth," and with Him live all, who belong to Him in all dispensations. "Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept." "He tasted death for every man," He drew out the poison of death, when He bore our sins upon the cross, and left death without its sting. "The sting of death is sin" and when "the full, perfect and sufficient sacri- fice for sin" is made, then the sting of death is gone, the dreadful reality is exhausted of its destructive power both to body and soul and only the shadow remains. Death is changed to sleep, and the sub- stance disappears and leaves but the shadow. David saw this by the help of the spirit and he says, "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff comfort me." Here is the scenery of the crucifixion, and of the resurrection, in this old pastoral Psalm. The rod and the staff are the two sticks crossed on Calvary, and the shadow of death is the umbra of the passage to the life beyond the grave. Let us turn to our Lord, and listen to what falls directly from his lips :- "I came forth from the Father" He says, "and am come into the world, again I leave the world and go to the Father." Here is the path of the living man luminously sketched for us. It is the path of the living, "growing brighter and brighter unto the perfect day." There is no death, when we couple Christ's words on the cross, when He dismissed, as a Master does his servant, His life from His body, and said "Father into Thy hands
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I commend My Spirit" couple them with the ex- pression, "again I leave the world and go to the Father." Our centennial then is explained and inter- preted by our Lord, the living Head of the living Body and of the living Members of that body, "whose life is hid with Christ in God."
He, the Master, has gone before and marked the stages of His progress to the end, the right hand of the eternal Father in Heaven.
Listen, lose not a word, (1) "I came forth from the Father," the annunciation, the conception by the Holy Ghost. (2) "And come into the world" the nativity, "born of the Virgin Mary." (3) "Again, I leave the world," crucifixion, death, "crucified under Pontius Pilate." (4) "And go to the Father," the going to Paradise with the penitent thief. "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." "He descended into hell, (the place of departed spirits)." The journey is only half over, four stages yet remain. The living Christ is on His glorious triumphant progress. (5) "I came forth from the Father." The leaving Paradise and quickening His mortal body with everlasting life, when it was changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye and passed from the natural to the supernatural condition. (6) "And am come into the world." The resurrection, the birth from the tomb, as He was born from the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. "The third day He rose again." (7) "Again I leave the world." The ascension, the going away from the earth with both body and soul, before, on Good Friday, He
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went away from the earth only in his soul and left His body a corpse upon the cross. Now He goes with both body and soul from this world. "He ascended into heaven." (8) "And go to the right hand of the Father on the throne of God." "And sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty.' This is the goal, the haven, the end. This is whither the living Christ will bring His living members, to the right hand of the Majesty on high. Thus the living Christ goes before, marks the way, opens the gates of everlasting life, draws the sting of death, sin, from the bitter cup, "tastes death for every man," shows that death is not a state, but an incident in a continuous flow of life, a shadow which falls upon the stream. Our life, our real spiritual life, "is hid here before birth and the grave," with Christ in God. We fall asleep in Jesus. We live on in Paradise with Christ. We rise with Him in the resurrection of the just, and He, who is our life, will fill us with ever- lasting life on the right hand, His own place, in glory and bliss in Heaven, and our joy will be the fullness of life for evermore, the beatific vision, the Great White Throne, the Lamb in the midst of the throne and the rainbow round about the throne.
What does our centennial say as interpreted by Jesus Christ, the perfectly righteous man, as our Head and Leader and Example and our God, "able to save to the uttermost," showing us the path of life in His footsteps as a man and drawing us after Himself with the cords of a man, strengthening as with the forces of Heaven, to enable us to follow Him, and
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standing by one side, as our companion always, everywhere and to the end ? What light does Jesus Christ throw upon our centennial, and the hundred years, which fell between 1802 and 1902? They are full of life. There are really no dead in Christ. All are living. Christ, "the first fruits from the dead," is 1902 years old for us upon the earth. It is His age "Anno Domini." Those, who have fallen asleep in Jesus since one hundred years ago, are living else- where; their graves are with us and are our certifi- cates that they without us cannot be made perfect. They are living outside the Palace. They are in the ante chamber. They are waiting and we with them must presently wait for others, until God wills and the end shall come. The pathway of life, bright with Christ's Presence, stretches back to the 5th of May, 1802, and in it are walking those who as officers organized this Parish, and the flock, young and old, men and women and children, who gathered within the fold ; as the path comes down through a hundred years the travelers are more in number, and then there appear one and another and more who, though hoary with age, still remain with us, and now, to-day we can say with St. Paul "we bow our knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." "The whole family in heaven," the departed, "and in earth" we who remain in the flesh. Our fathers of a hundred years ago, and ninety and eighty and seventy and sixty head the procession, and are mostly gone before. We are following after, and are still in
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sight. The same stream of life carries us forward and sweeps us on. The incident of death separates us from our brethren, who have gone before, to share in other experiences, but are embraced by the same gift of life, which abides in the spirit, and must flow on forever.
Our centennial is a centennial of life, and not of death. The workmen, who wrought, as on this day, one hundred years ago, were working on the lines of life. They were making provision for institutions, which change not, and for the use of a language, which never becomes obsolete and dies. The sacra- ments are arteries, which convey the life of the Head to the members, and the words spoken by the corpo- rate body are the words of the Holy Spirit.
The interpretation, which Heaven gives to our centennial is, that the thinker is greater than his thought, the orator and poet greater than their litera- ture, the mechanic than his mechanism, and the workman than his work.
The organization of a Parish and the building of a Church, and the furnishing it with the font, and the altar, and the pulpit and the prayer desk are among the grandest works which man can do, because they have direct and immediate relation to the life be- yond the grave. Yet even these divine works are in- ferior to the workmen, because the workman will endure forever, when church building and font and altar will disappear.
Let us congratulate ourselves that as regards Christ Church, Hudson, in its parochial organization and
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splendid church building and equipment and rectory, and other possessions, we inherit the legacy which has grown from humble beginnings to the grand pro- portions which we now witness around us, and we also have with us in the same grasp of life those who have bequeathed to us this goodly heritage. We can give account of them, as instructed by Him, "who was dead and is alive again forever more, death hath no more dominion over Him." Think, my brethren, how all else has changed in a hundred years, except three things, man in essential nature and the family, as God makes it, and that of which the family is God's selected symbol and type, His Church. These have not changed, and they hold together in one, as cords which bind and cannot be severed, the 5th of May, 1802, and the 5th of May, 1902. Our bodies, minds and spirits are precisely what our ancestors were, who, as on this day and near this spot, a hundred years ago, organized this Parish. They represented by God's allotment and appointment families, as we do to-day. Around their hearts, as around ours, the divine hand bound the ties of kin- dred, which no man can sever, the relationships of family life, the bonds of parents and children, and of brothers and sisters. And back of both, and beneath both are the everlasting arms of the Fatherhood of God in His Family, the Church. Into this eternal home, as into its type and symbol, the earthly home, we enter by birth. "Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God." "Our Father who art in Heaven." We have not received the spirit of
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