USA > Pennsylvania > Chester County > New Garden > Two hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the Friends meeting at New Garden, Chester County, Pennsylvania > Part 5
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Some time after the Revolutionary war, the government was considering the advisability of appropriating the Tunesassa Indian Reservation of New York and compelling the natives to go elsewhere. The Friends of Philadelphia Yearly Meet- ing desired to prevent this. Joshua Sharpless, (great grand- father of Joshua, Joseph and John Sharpless of this neighbor- hood) and Jacob Lindley had the matter to look after. They had gone on the long journey to central New York by horse- back; on their way they came to a stream of water that was dangerously deep. Joshua was endeavoring persistently to ford the swollen stream while Jacob looked on. Finally Jacob Lind- ley shouted to his companion in stentorian tones, "Joshua, if thee goes and is drowned, I shall preach thy funeral sermon, and I shall say 'As a fool died, so died Joshua.'"
On First-day morning, Sixth Month 12, 1814, Jacob Lind- ley was engaged in the deliverance at this house of a most im- pressive testimony. Near its close he intimated his impression that one person within his hearing "would never see the light of another day," perhaps he added: "It may be myself." Dur- ing the afternoon of the same day, in company with his daugh- ter, the vehicle in which they rode came in contact with the fence by the side of the road, near Kennett Square, and the subject of this sketch fell to the ground and expired almost instantly, and thus ended the mortal life of a most notable minister and self-sacrificing Christian.
A very remarkable coincidence is that on the afternoon of the 12th of 6 mo., 1814 (the day upon which Jacob Lindley passed away), while at home in Burlington, N. J., Sarah Dillyn observed her husband, George Dillyn, sitting with an agonized expression of countenance so as to create in her alarm. In answer to her question as to the cause, he said: "Jacob Lindley is deceased, and my spirit has accompanied his spirit to the gate of the Kingdoni." Burlington is in N. J., more than fifty miles distant from either New Garden or the place where Jacob Lindley died.
During the two hundred years of Friends in New Garden
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have appeared and labored in the service of the Master, many others equally earnest and whose mission may have been just as effective in the restoration of human souls, worthy men and women, the study of whose lives and services would tend to spiritually strengthen and enlighten.
Enock Lewis was a teacher of much renown; he conduct- ed a boarding-school for advanced young men, at what is now the William Wollerton farm, one-half mile east of us. A local history, compiled by Walton & Moore (two of our ex-county superintendents of public instruction) makes reference to this school "in New Garden, 1808 to 1824, as remarkable for the mathematical impetus it gave its pupils, and its influence yet lingers in Chester Co." Some of the forefathers of those of this gathering today no doubt shared the pleasure of the ap- proving smile as well as the fear of the stern frown of this grand old instructor. In Futhey & Cope, we find-Enock ¡Lewis when quite a young man, and a teacher at a boarding- school at West Town, was well acquainted with the law re- lating to the rendition of slaves, and was frequently called upon in behalf of colored persons claimed as fugitives from labor. In each case he exerted himself to the utmost to prevent free persons from being carried off as slaves, and his success on such occasions was valuable in keeping justices who usually favored the claimants to the strict line of their duty. The resi- dence of Enock Lewis at New Garden was long a station in the Underground Railroad during the time of Isaac Jackson, its former owner, and it continued to be so for many years afterward (although Enock did not approve of slaves being given encouragement to leave their masters, and thought no general good would be derived from it), yet if a fugitive sought a temporary asyhim beneath his roof or a helping hand, when fleeing from slavery, his claim to hospitality and charitable aid was never denied. If slaves were closely pursued, a horse and carriage were promptly furnished to convey them to a safe distance.
One evening his home was visited by a slave who had run away from the far South. This runaway was a preacher and had great faith in God's protecting care. He was carefully hid in a cave in the neighborhood by the side of a running stream of water; the night was far spent and all was quiet, when the old Negro became uneasy and he narrated after- ward, "Somethin' said 'Get up outer heah and run.'" He obeyed the inward feeling, left the cave, traveled up the stream a few paces, and crawled upon the limb of a tree in sight of the little cave. "Just as I got fixed, lyin' straight out on that
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big limb, I saw Massa an' a dozen more on hoss back, an' de dogs yelpin' right up to be cave, whar de spec' to find this old darkey. De dogs howled and de men stamp around and pass right by my tree. De moon purty bright, but de same good spirit what tell me to get away from de cave, wouldn't let 'em see me dar-alyin' on dat limb like a coon."
Thomas Lamborn, a young Friend of the neighborhood, exemplied to some extent the worth of Enock Lewis as a mathematical instructor. Soon after leaving school he, having acquired some knowledge of astronomy, calculated a number of eclipses years ahead, and about 1835 the "Transit of Venus," which occurred Twelfth Month 6, 1882. He lived to see the wonderful planetary movement, which occurred at the very time he had calculated it should, nearly fifty years before.
George W. Taylor, as many of us remember, was a man who carried out to the letter, in his life, the truths he advo- cated; he was, perhaps, the last of Enock Lewis's pupils to be remembered by us personally. He was a man of learning, 'n- tegrity and worth. He was from early life a pronounced advocate of Women's Suffrage both by word and pen. He re- regard with abomination the perpetuation of human slavery ; he was one of the founders of the Free Produce Association of Friends, and was Secretary of the organization during its entire existence, or from 1847 to the emancipation of slaves in the United States. He conducted in Philadelphia for seven- teen years a Free Produce Store, wholly supplied with and carrying only such line of goods as were usually the product of slave labor. George W. Taylor was a poet of no small ability and was a personal friend of John Greenleaf Whittier. His home in early life and for nearly twenty years near its close was at the farm, now the home of Morris Smith --- he died in 1891 in Philadelphia, aged eighty-seven years.
Edra Michener, medical doctor, poet, botanist and scientist, was born near the site of the Borough of West Grove in 1794. He studied medicine and graduated at the University of Penn- sylvania in 1818. Four years later he settled with his wife in New aGrden, where for upwards of forty years he was re- garded as a medical practitioner of great ability and skill. The remaining twenty-five years of his life were devoted entirely to scientific and literary work. It has often been said there was "no better authority on subjects relating to botany" in America than Dr. Michener. When quite a young man he traversed on horseback much of the State of Ohio in quest of rare plant specimens. He was quite a voluminous and versa- tile writer, and investigated a large number of subjects, often
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in a most critical manner. He was throughout his entire ma- ture years an aggressive advocate of "total obstinence;" he died at his comfortable home, which was surrounded by an acre plot of rare trees and shrubbery, one-quarter of a mile north of us, now the home of his grandson, Ezra J. Webster. His death occurred in 1887 in his ninety-third year.
You have probably heard of the old New Garden Lyceum House. Well, that building and surroundings are now in the best of repair. It stands nearly opposite the gateway to the Enock Lewis property; in fact, the one-qquarter acre of ground where it is situated was given by Enock Lewis during the first half of the last century with the view that a public hall should be erected "thereon." The public-spirited men and women of the neighborhood soon had the structure, 30x40 feet in size, completed, and though there was nothing in this to connect this public edifice with the Friends' Meeting at New Garden, yet nearly all those who aided and carried the project forward were members of one or the other of the New Garden Meetings. It was the only place within a radius of many miles, at the time of its inception, where public gatherings could be held, for the discussion ( free and unhampered) of the live topics of the day. For a score or more of years this Lyceum Hall was the scene of spirited debates, lectures, educational gatherings and social functions by those who assembled beneath its roof. The period immediately preceding the Civil War was one of particular activity about this old public centre. It was a veri- table school of "oratory," but the day of rural debating schools is past. The building for the last forty-one years has been de- voted to the holding of elections and other municipal purposes.
On the nineteenth of Second Month, 1884, Sharpless Moore and George Thompson, the last survivors of the original Board of Trustees-or Lyceum Committee, as they were termed- conveyed the property to the township of New Garden ("its heirs and assigns forever"), in fee simple.
Since the days of the big navies and public defences, Friends are not supposed to be eager for place in public life, but those at New Garden one hundred years ago on the con- trary occupied seventy-five per cent. of all the municipal offices. Economy must have been observed almost to an alarming ex- tent, as an example-The (approximately speaking) forty miles of ye public highways were maintained by the expenditure of the meagre sum of $449.26-kept in condition good enough to satisfy our ancestors-whose minds were rich in their own contentment.
Friends of today are decidedly oposed to their members taking recourse to law in the settlement of their differences.
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So they were long ago. In fact, the legal gentlemen were not held in great favor then. For said Isaac Jackson to a nephew who was about to engage in the study of law; "I would rather thou was't preparing thyself to be achimney sweep than a lawyer." Seventy-five or one hundred years in the past, a line fence dispute was a very much more common occurrence than at the present time, and when two of the attenders at New Garden Meeting were at variance on account of this very thing, and their neighborly feelings were sorely disturbed, a "committee" appeared one morning at the disputed corner, and the vexed question as to where that fence should stand was soon settled to the apparent satisfaction of all, but Thomas Ellicott, one of the parties at issue, in order to make the agree- ment emphatic, as well as everlasting, was on hand with three pairs of strong oxen, harnessed to an immense timber wagon, beneath which was swung a huge native boulder, and at once that stone was placed right there in position that "That corner should never again go wrong," and that same shaft can be seen from the trolley line near the western border of Avondale, as a monument to the efficacy of common sense when aiding others to settle their differences-"when they arise."
Seventy-five years ago, one day, Jacob Lamborn, a Justice of the Peace, in conversation with Deborah Hoopes, told her he had been turned out of Meeting because he was a "Demo- crat;" she replied, "Now, Jacob, thee needn't tell me that, I know too much about Friends' discipline-Come, come, now, what was thee turned out for, anyway?" "Well," said Jacob, "they turned me out for betting on the election, and that clock there," nodding his head towards a fine old grandfather's clock, which stood in the corner of the sitting-room, "is what I won on that election bet." This wager was concerning the Harrison campaign of 1840, and strange to say, although the Lamborn homestead several times changed ownership-was forty years entirely out of the family and name-and again for the last thirty years has been in the ownership of Josiah Lam- born, a direct descendant of the original family of that name, yet that clock has never changed its position in that same house, and ticks with each second of time, and peals forth a joyous ring as the hours go by, just as clear as it did in the days of "Old Tippecanoe, and Tyler, too."
One object, one relic of centuries gone, still stands before our eyes. Beneath the shade of yonder mighty oak, that old horse-block speaks in language more plain by far than pen or bard of the days of long ago. In that humble old stone struc- ture we read volumes of the past. Here the pride of youthful
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yeomanry was wont to display his gallantry-to be met, as she mounted her steed, by the blushing cheek and love-lit eyes of the maiden blithe and fair. From its height was resumed the joyous march when the nuptialknot was tied, and the turf about its base for two hundred years has been trod by the sad-faced -and mournful-as the form of some dear one has been borne in silence to the tomb.
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FORCES THAT ARE MAKING FOR UNITY IN THE CHURCHES
BY JOHN MASON WELLS, KENNETT SQUARE
T HE presiding officer, in introducing me, kindly put on the "reverend" for my benefit; but when I am among Friends I am a Friend, and am known as Mason Wells.
I count it a great privilege to be numbered with the Friends on their various great occasions. I entered into a little com- petition some weeks ago in writing an article that was asked for. My article was unsigned, like the others, and when the judges came to look them over, they rejected mine, on the ground that it was suitable only for a Quaker gathering. (Laughter). And the judges do not know the joke yet.
My subject is: "Some Forces that are Making for De- nominational Unity." I am reminded as I attempt to speak on this all-important subject of one of the dramatic pictures in the Book of Ezekiel. In one of his picturesque chapters Eze- kiel describes how the dry bones lying about in a certain varley are transformed into a mighty nation. He pictures, in his realistic way, how he walked out in this valley, and it was filled with dry bones, and he says, "There were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry." Jehovah says to him: "Can these bones live?" With perplexity he looks about and says: "O Lord Jehovah, Thou knowest," and then Jehovah says to him, "Prophesy . and say that these bones shall live; that sinews shall come upon them; that flesh shall cover them; that skin shall bind them together, and that the breath of Jehovah shall enter them and they shall live." The prophet obeys, and while he is prophesying, suddenly there is a mighty earthquake and the bones come together, bone to bone and the sinews hold them, and the flesh covers them, and the skin is about them, and then there is a wind, and the breath of Jehovah enters them, and they live -- a mighty nation.
As I think of the denominational conditions as they exist today, I am reminded of this valley of dry bones. The frag- ments of the Church of Christ are very many; they are scat- tered in divers directions, and sometimes, like the Prophet, I think they are very dry.
Are there any indications that these fragments will ever
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be brought together; that the prayer of our Lord, "that they may be one, even as we are,"-is there any indication that this prayer will ever be answered? As one looks out and takes a . view of the conditions of the denominations today in this great country, the outlook is not very optimistic. You can find church- es of all kinds-the small and the great, the white and the black, the high and the low, the orthodox and the heterodox, the Christian and the pagan, the Catholic and the Protestant, the liberal and the conservative, the Trinitarian and the Uni- tarian-and if there are any others they can be found in this country. (Laughter).
We have great freedom in this land of ours. One can live in any number of fifty states; he can live in them all if he wants to, one at a time. He has the same liberty in matters of re- ligion ; in fact, he has a greater opportunity. He can belong to any one of 130 denominations. He can belong to them all if he wants to belong to them one at a time. If he desires to be a pagan, he can worship in many kinds of temples, all in this great country of ours. If he is a Jew he can be of the orthodox, the heterodox, or the liberal kind. If he is a Chris- tian he can belong to 120 denominations. If he believes in being a Friend he can belong to any one of four kinds of Friends. If he wants to be an Adventist he can be six kinds of an Adventist. He can be seven kinds of a Catholic; twelve kinds of a Presbyterian; thirteen kinds of a Baptist; sixteen kinds of a Lutheran, and seventeen kinds of a Methodist! (Laughter).
We believe in variety, and we have variety when it comes to matters of religion. But, my friends, we are realizing that this variety in matters of religion is a variety that exists to our shame, and we are asked today, Are there any indications of a union of the denominations? and I answer that there are some indications of such a union, and I think the indications are very strong. I have been asked to speak for fifteen min- utes this afternoon. I suppose I shall overrun my time, but I shall try not to overrun it to any great degree. So I want to speak in a suggestive way instead of attempting to be com- prehensive.
I want to say that the practical demands that are being made upon Christianity at this hour are the forces that are tending to unite the Church. We are not being drawn together, it seems to me, on a theoretical basis. The things that are binding us together (and there are many) are practical things -the demands that are being made upon Christianity-the needs that are facing us; the moral needs, the needs of a better
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civilization, the needs of justice-national and international. Christianity in its essential and fundamental character is press- ing upon the churches and is demanding that they unite their forces in order to accomplish the work and perform the tasks that lie before them.
I want to give an illustration this afternoon, because I think it is a very striking illustration of this kind of a uniting force. ' A few years ago the great country of Germany was divided into fragments. It was made up of a number of sepa- rate kingdoms and provinces, each jealous of the others. There were few indications that there ever would be a united Ger- many, until a great statesman was born in Prussia, by the name of Bismark. Bismark became more and more interested in a great German nation which could be formed only by uniting these provinces, together with Prussia. He worked out a meth- od of accomplishing this and his method was successful. He saw that if the various provinces of Germany could face a common foe, that this would compel them to join hands; and so Bismark, because of the reflex benefit which he wanted Germany to derive, created three great wars for his people; first with Denmark, then with Austria, and finally with France. He was successful. The war that faced these various units of Germany caused them to join hands. Bismark used the opportunity, and he cemented these temporarily co-operating parts into a great nation, which at the time of his death, was a world-power.
I suppose that the beneficial results that Bismark was able to get through war for Germany led to the German philosophy that war is a good thing in itself, and I hope the present terrible conflict will show that there is something false in that philoso- phy. But this is the illustration: that a common enemy has united various jealous provinces; and that is what is taking place in the Christian church. We are facing common foes and common needs are binding us together, until we are ceas- ing to emphasize our petty differences, the grounds on which our ancestors separated one from another.
If you look over the history of the church divisions you will realize that the divisions have grown out of a few matters. I started to say "great" matters, but they are not great matters. In the first place, the great division in the Methodist church took place on the matter of church government-should lay- men be admitted into the government of the church, or should the government of the church rest simply with the bishops and the elders. On that controversy the Protestant Episcopal church had its first great division. In fact, this question, based
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on some fanciful distinction between Christian laymen and Christian ministers, has caused many church divisions.
Another thing that has divided the churches is the ques- tion of color. Many of our denominations divided in the great Civil War on the question of slavery-those for slavery, and those against it. Then there have been petty quarrels and mis- understandings that have divided the church. Liberal and con- servative views of theological questions have divided us. These are the main points, as you look over the history of the church, that have caused the separations. No one of these points ought to have caused a division. At the present hour there are liberal and conservative people in the same church, worshipping to- gether with perfect freedom and frankness. The slavery ques- tion was a moral issue, and ought not to have divided any de- nomination. The petty misunderstandings that confront us in .life ought not to have caused divisions. In fact, if we face a great foe and if we are trying to meet a great need, these petty matters will sink into the background and will cease to be walls of separation. This is what is taking place at this very hour; we refuse to be divided into small segments over petty matters. We feel that the great, vast problems of Christianity are so important that we cannot afford to weaken our forces over these insignificant questions.
You look about you and the most obvious thing that is drawing the denominations together in this age is the com- bined evangelistic effort. This is true not only of the great evangelistic efforts led by Billy Sunday, but in meetings where other men have led.
(The Presiding Officer: Take your time; you are just wearing yourself out.
Mr. Wells: Can I have all the time I want?
Presiding Officer: We will give you more time than was allotted to you.
Mr. Wells : Thank you.)
I was saying that the most obvious thing that is uniting the denominations in the present age is the great evangelistic efforts. You see in these evangelistic movements, all the churches joining hands for weeks, sometimes for months. They work together; they give together, and they serve together as one united corps.
This means that we are laying the emphasis upon the in- terpretation of the gospel in its practical utility to mankind and that we are seeking to apply the gospel to the needs of human life; and when we do this we are willing to join hands and forget the minor issues of life.
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Then there is another thing that is uniting the church at the present hour, and that is the need that faces us in such places as New Garden and Kennett Square-the rural oppor- tunities. We are beginning to appreciate our rural field. We are realizing that the great characters, the great personalities that take the leadership in national matters and in social mat- ters are, to a large degree, made in the country, but we cannot make great characters in the country when we have not the force back of us in our Christian work. You know, as I know, that the great thing that puts impetus into the soul of a young man is a mighty ideal. You know that for these great ideals artists have been willing to go on half rations of food. You know that because of some absorbing ideal the great reformers have entirely overcome physical disability. And you realize that it is the great ideal that makes a man count everything else of small importance.
But we are not in a position to charge the souls of our young people with mighty, masterful ideals unless we have certain great personalities with whom they come in contact ; and we cannot build those great personalities when we are divided and are conflicting and struggling over minor matters. The churches in the rural sections have, as you know, sunk in many cases to organizations which are doing nothing except to exist. To maintain their own organization they are almost forced to be selfish. Many of these churches have so small a constituency, and so little money to use that they must all the time be giving peach festivals, or concerts, or something else, not for purposes of social uplift, but to get money enough to eke out an existence and pay the pastor and the running ex- penses. The result is there is no energy left to be used in the service of the community and in the mightier things that ought to take our attention and energy.
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