USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 2 > Part 14
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The Revival of Congregational Churches after the Revolution .- After the Revolutionary War the Congregationalists of Rhode Island lost no time in restoring the churches, which had been wholly suspend- ed, or in infusing new vigor into those which had been depleted and enfeebled.
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Shortly after Newport had been evacuated by the British, in the spring of 1780, three years before the final close of the war, Dr. Hop- kins, the faithful pastor of the First Church, returned to his parish to find a scene of desolation. With many of the former members dead or scattered, the few that remained were almost too poor or too de- spondent to face the exertion necessary for the restoration of the church. But, under the inspiration of their brave minister, the effort was made and it succeeded. With the interior of the meeting- house defaced and dismantled by the soldiery, they set about restoring it, but only in the plainest manner. The pews were rebuilt but left without paint, and the dents on the floor made by the British muskets were not removed. A neighboring parish in Massachusetts bestowed upon the ruinous sanctuary a suitable pulpit. All adornment was left for a later and more prosperous generation. It is reassuring to be certified that the graces of the Spirit, soon bestowed on the church, were in an inverse ratio to the outward embellishments.
The Rev. Dr. Stiles, having become, in 1777, the president of Yale College, never, as has been already noted, came back to the pastorate of the Second Newport Church. It was not until 1786 that its return- ing members sufficiently recovered themselves to secure another shep- herd, the Rev. William Patten, who was ordained to the pastorate in May of that year. Mr. Patten was a son of a clergyman of the same name and a graduate of Dartmouth College. He continued in the office for forty-seven years and it is a vivid illustration of the demor- alizing influence of the Revolutionary struggle and of the prevailing French skepticism at the close of the eighteenth century, that the addi- tions to the church, during the whole period, averaged but one a year. For a long time the Second Church was destitute of a single male member, deacons for the celebration of the Holy Communion having to be introduced from the First Church. Until the death of Dr. Hop- kins, in 1803, there existed the most entire harmony between the two churches. Such affection and esteem bound the old pastor and the young one together that they were accustomed to address each other as son and father. It is pleasant to recall that, thus joined together in their lives, they now slumber ncar one another under the walls of the Spring Street Church. It must have been as one of the fruits of this friendship, as well as a result of other causes, that, in 1833, the two parishes, after a distinct existence of more than a century, were again consolidated under the style of the United Congregational Church of Newport, with a membership of eighty-ninc. In the following year, 1834, there was erected for the united parish a new meeting-house.
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At Bristol, when the secular life began to revive after the termina- tion of the war, an effort was promptly made to restore the vigor of the church also. In 1783 a subscription was started towards a fund for the support of a Congregational minister, and in the following year a charter was granted to the Catholic Congregational Society of Bristol, R. I. So rapid was the recovery of the town that the old meeting-house, built in 1684, after an existence of exactly a century, was demolished and replaced by a fine and spacious one, on Hope street, dedicated January 5, 1785. On the same day was ordained the new pastor, the Rev. Henry Wight, a graduate of Harvard College. Dr. Wight continued sole pastor until 1815, when a colleague was given him. At the beginning of his ministry he found thirty-six mem- bers, but during these thirty years he received into the church two hundred and twenty-eight. For thirteen years more he continued as senior pastor, living in Bristol nine years longer after his retirement. He died in 1837 in the eighty-sixth year of his age, leaving upon the town an indelible trace of his high character and holy influence.
In Providence the depression caused by the war had not been so complete as at Newport and Bristol and the revival was consequently less conspicuously marked. To the First Church, which had been vacant since 1774, the Rev. Enos Hitchcock was called in 1780, not being installed, however, until 1783. His successful ministry was con- tinued until his death in 1803, when he bequeathed to the church a legacy of six thousand dollars.
In the Second Church at Providence, under Mr. Snow, who had continued at his post during the dark days of the Revolution, the ordinances had been entirely preserved, so that the parish emerged from the conflict with unbroken vigor. It was at this period, in 1785, that the organization was chartered as the Beneficent Society, the church soon after taking the name of the Beneficent Church.
A few years later there occurred a painful breach in the tranquillity of the parish. Mr. Snow, having reached the age of seventy-four, requested the appointment of a colleague, but the election to that post of the Rev. James Wilson did not prove satisfactory to him, Mr. Wil- son being a disciple of John Wesley and not a Calvinist. The appointment being insisted on, "Father Snow", after a devoted and fruitful ministry of fifty years, felt compelled to withdraw with a number of sympathizers, and to build a separate meeting-house in Richmond street. There he continued until his death in 1803, in the eighty-ninth year of his age. The new enterprise, although claiming to be the original church and retaining the records, remained for many
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years weak and struggling. The Beneficent Church, on the other hand, seemed to have entered on a new career of prosperity.
Mr. Wilson was an Irishman and possessed great power over men, being a very eloqnent preacher. With perfect simplicity of character, unaffected devotion and an earnest love for the souls of his people, he left a profound impression upon his church and upon the community at large. In the Revival of 1804 he was the means of adding to the church nearly one hundred and fifty members, while during his whole ministry of forty-six years about eight hundred made profession of Christ. More than a thousand couples were married by him. It was while he was pastor that, in 1820, the new device of the Sunday School was introduced into the Beneficent Church. Many benevolent socie- ties, also, were established at this period in the parish and great inter- est was aroused in foreign missions. Governor Jones, one of the founders of the American Board, was an earnest attendant upon the worship of this church. The church continued to flourish in perfect union and harmony until the close of Mr. Wilson's life. Between hin and Dr. Hitcheock, the pastor of the First Church, there existed a warm attachment, the latter bequeathing him valuable books from his library. It was under Mr. Wilson's ministry, in 1810, that the present large and impressive house of worship was built and dedicated.
The East Greenwich Church .- During the Revolutionary period an effort was made to establish a Congregational church at East Green- wich. As early as 1772 a number of the inhabitants of the town, eall- ing themselves Presbyterians or Congregationalists, presented a peti- tion to the General Assembly, praying that they might be granted a lottery to raise the sum of fifteen hundred dollars to build a meeting- house. The petition was granted and, in 1774, an act of incorporation was passed and a house of worship built, the lottery having provided the necessary funds. There appears to be no record of regular ser- vices or of the formation of a church until long afterwards. In the year 1815, the Rev. Daniel Waldo labored in East Greenwich for a period and organized the church. Dr. Benedict, in his History of the Baptists, written in 1813, records that there were then in Rhode Island eleven Congregational churches, with not far from a thousand com- municants. The fact that it seems to have been necessary in order to make up this number to eount the East Greenwich society, would indicate that public worship had been for some time maintained in the meeting-house, although there was strictly speaking no church there. With this explanation, however, the above report of Dr. Bene- dict appears to have been a correct statement of the condition of the
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Congregationalists in this State at the opening of the nineteenth century.
Congregationalism in Rhode Island during the Nineteenth Century. -The middle of the nincteenth century was a period of marked growth among Congregationalists in Rhode Island.
At the beginning of the year 1829, after about one and a half cent- uries of the existence of Congregationalism in what became the territory of the State, there were still only eleven churches. By June, 1869, forty years later, these had been increased to twenty-five, sixteen having been added and two having disappeared by consolidation or extinction. The number of members grew from about seventeen hun- , dred and fifty in 1833 (no earlier statistics being available) to four thousand and twenty-five on January 1, 1869, an addition of one hun- dred and thirty per cent. in thirty-six years. In the Revival of 1857-8 the additions, which had been seventy-two during 1856, rose to one hundred and ninety-five during 1857 and three hundred and ninety- eight during 1858.
The Pawtucket Church .- In 1829 the Pawtucket Church was organ- ized with nine members. At that period the east side of the river, where the society worshipcd, belonged to Massachusetts, but the church from the first was included in the Consociation of Rhode Island and, in 1862, upon the annexation of the town of Pawtucket to the latter State, it came to be actually embraced in its territory. The first pastor was the Rev. Asa Hopkins and he was followed by the Rev. Barnabas Phinney. In the summer of 1836 the Rev. Constantine Blodgett became pastor at Pawtucket and remained in that office until 1871, when he resigned on account of the infirmities of age, although he lived until 1879 as retired pastor.
Perhaps no one has done more for Congregationalism in Rhode Island than did Mr. Blodgett, and few preachers have imprinted them- selves upon the hearts of their people with such a loving interest. Taking charge of this church in the day of small things, he left it with three hundred and twenty communicants and a Sunday School of two hundred and threc.
The High Street Church, Providence .- The High Street Church in Providence, another notable product of this period, was formed in 1834 with forty-one members, coming mostly from the Richmond Street and Beneficent Churches.
The pastorate of the Rev. Mr. Dennen over this church, from 1865 to 1868, was marked by more than a hundred conversions.
The Elmwood Church .- The Elmwood Church was established in
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1851, with a very tasteful rural house of worship, in what was then a remote new suburb of Providence but has long been continuously con- nected with the compact part of the city.
The Central Church, Providence .- The most influential of all the additions of this growing period was the Central Church of Provi- dence, organized in March, 1852, out of members coming chiefly from the Beneficent Church, the Richmond Street, the High Street and the Fourth. The enterprise started under the most favorable auspices. The situation of its handsome brown stone church on Benefit street near College street, as the only one on the east side of the river, while there were then seven on the west side, attracted to it from the outset a large congregation of citizens of standing and substance. The ‘ church was most fortunate, too, in the choice of its first pastor, the Rev. Leonard Swain, who continued with it from the beginning until shortly before his early death in 1869. Dr. Swain was a man of strong convictions and great gentleness of heart, while his excessive self- depreciation kept, to some degree, his large intellectual powers from the complete recognition they deserved. During his pastorate the number of members was brought to three hundred and sixty-nine and that of the Sunday School to three hundred and eighty-nine. Dr. Swain was, also, a leading spirit in the general Congregational body of the State.
The Peacedale Church .- Note should be taken, too, of the Peacedale Church, in South Kingstown, formed in 1857 with eight members, the first acting pastor being the Rev. S. B. Durfee. In 1872, during the pastorate of the Rev. George W. Fisher, probably the most beautiful granite country church belonging to the Congregationalists, if not to any denomination, in Rhode Island, was erected, it being entirely the design of the late Mr. Rowland Hazard, of Peacedale.
Nor was the growth of this Denomination less marked in some of the old established parishes during this fruitful period.
The Bristol Church .- The Rev. Thomas Shepard, D. D., was pastor of the church at Bristol at this time, from 1835 to 1879, the year of his death, and, while most quiet and unobtrusive in his manner. was possessed of a winning gravity and dignity of bearing. His faith- fulness toward the people of his flock is illustrated, among many other tokens, by the fact that he distributed among them for no less than thirty years, "Pastor's Annuals", carefully prepared upon a large variety of practical subjects. At the date of Dr. Shepard's death there were three hundred and seventy-eight communicants in the church and three hundred and twenty-five members of the Sunday
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School. During his pastorate, in 1855-6, there was built for the parish a large and handsome Gothic church of stone.
The Newport Church .- The United Church at Newport, having begun its career upon the consolidation of the two old parishes in 1833, with eighty-nine members, had by 1869 raised the number to two hun- dred and six, chiefly under the pastorate of the Rev. Thacher Thayer, D. D.
The Beneficent Church, Providence .- The Beneficent Church in Providence during this period, from 1829 to 1869, was growing all the time under Mr. Wilson, nearing the close of his long ministry, Dr. Tucker, Dr. Cleaveland, Dr. Clapp and Dr. Vose. The list of com- municants indeed was being continually depleted by the formation of new churches, especially by that of the High Street Church, in 1834, the Free Church, in 1843, and the Central Church, in 1852. In the cir- cumstances it is remarkable that it was able, in 1869, to report four hundred and ninety members-a number increased before the end of the century to seven hundred or more.
The Richmond Street Church, Providence .- It should be recalled, also, that in 1840 the Richmond Street Church entered upon a period of prosperity hitherto unparalleled in the record of the parish, the Rev. Jonathan Leavitt being then called to the pastorate.
No sketch of the Congregationalists of Rhode Island would be com- . plete without a reference to the labors of this saintly man. More than four hundred persons were added to the communion list during his ministry. Mr. Leavitt was one of the ablest and most devout clergy- men who have ever worked in Providence. His style of preaching was lofty and impressive, being peculiarly calculated to build up the spir- itual life of his hearers. In personal appearance he was a very notice- able man, being tall and grave, with a heavenly expression of counte- nance as if he moved in an atmosphere of holiness. As a pastor and a friend the influence of Jonathan Leavitt will abide in Providence until at least the generation of all who remember him shall have passed away.
The Union Church, Providence .- It was just after the close of the period of emphatic growth in the middle of the nineteenth century, which we have been reviewing, that there occurred the latest radical change in the collocation of Providence churches, through the consol- idation, in 1871, of the Richmond Street and High Street Churches, to form the Union Church, a costly and elegant new house of worship being built on Broad street, just above Stewart street, for the use of the new congregation. The united membership of the two old
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churches gave the Union Church five hundred and eighty-one com- municants at the outset, a number which, at the end of twenty years, had been increased to eight hundred and seventy-two, placing the new parish in the most commanding position of any of the Congregational order in the State.
A farther period of rapid increase of churches happened toward the end of the century, a dozen new parishes springing into being in about as many years, from 1878 to 1892. As the former time of marked growth closed with the formation of the Pilgrim Church, since become one of the largest in Providence, so this latter period opened with the organization of the vigorous Plymouth Church in the same city.
Special allusion should be made, too, among the organizations of this time, to the Park Place Church, formed in 1882 on the western side of the river in Pawtucket.
Beginning with one hundred and thirty-four members, mostly con- ing from theold church on the east side, by 1893 in not much more than ten years the number had increased to five hundred and thirty, while a large and attractive house of worship had been completed and dedi- cated in 1885.
Congregationalism at the Opening of the Twentieth Century .- At the opening of the twentieth century the Congregational church in Rhode Island possesses forty-two houses of worship, with fifty minis- ters, nine thousand three hundred and eighty-five members and eight thousand nine hundred and eighty-six teachers and scholars in the Sunday Schools. The total contributions for the year ending Jan- uary 1, 1900, were $152,524, of which $115,503 were for home ex- penses.
The Services of the Congregationalists to the State .- In estimating the debt which Rhode Island owes to the Congregationalists, that which claims the first place is their example in the early introduction into the State of a fixed and educated ministry. In the first days of the Colony, especially in Providence, as a result, perhaps, of the repul- sion excited by the arbitrary clergy of Boston, there was a tendency to decry what was styled "a hireling ministry". It was sometimes diffi- cult to discriminate between the shepherd and the sheep, the latter being often, no doubt, the losers through the imperfect shepherding. But the border towns of Plymouth Colony, later annexed to Rhode Island, especially Bristol, early set a salutary example of long and settled pastorates, with a liberally educated clergy. In Bristol for a. hundred years every clergyman who was installed in the Congrega-
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tional church was a collegiate graduate, all of them but one being graduates of Harvard College. The first six pastors, too, averaged in their occupancy of the office considerably more than twenty years each. Mr. Clap, the pioneer of Congregationalism in Newport, was a Har- vard graduate. Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Stiles, early clergymen in the same town, were graduates of Yale College. Dr. Joseph Torrey, who inculcated Congregationalismn in South Kingstown for sixty years, was graduated at Harvard College.
So, too, when in the fullness of time this order was introduced witlı so much stately ceremony into Providence, it was a Harvard graduate who was sent to hold up the banner.
There cannot be a question that this persistent illustration of the need of a cultured clergy for planting permanent churches had its effect on the other denominations and helped to stimulate, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the formation of those excellent insti- tutions of learning already described, which have since distinguished the State.
There was, also, another beneficent result of establishing in Rhode Island the Puritan forms of religion, which had been prevailing in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. Previously there had existed in those Colonies and in Connecticut a natural prejudice against Rhode Island on account of her attitude of protest.
Sometimes this antipathy had made itself felt in connection with common action for defense against the savages. There was a danger, too, of the little Narragansett Colony's being divided and absorbed by her more powerful neighbors on either side. But the introduction of Congregationalism created a new and healthful bond of union, which soon became sensible. Rhode Island thus lost to a degree her sturdy, but sometimes perilous, posture of isolation.
While the Congregational church in this State has always borne a large share in all good works along with the other churches, it has been particularly distinguished for its concern for missions, especially foreign missions. No uncertain sound either has its trumpet given, when it has been a question concerning the due observance of the Sabbath.
Prominent Clergymen and Laymen of the Past .- Many honored names of the Congregational clergy have been already mentioned in connection with their particular churches. But one or two others which should not be overlooked may be here recalled.
The Rev. Solomon Townsend, born in Boston in 1716 and educated at Harvard College, was ordained pastor at Barrington in 1743, two or
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three years before its consolidation with Rhode Island, and died in 1796. Being thus minister of the town for over a half century, his name was still precious there up to a time remembered by some now living. His pastorate was marked, too, by the abolition of the plan of supporting the minister by a general tax, he being the first one to rely upon the free contributions of the members of his flock.
The Rev. Daniel Waldo, born in 1762, in Windham, Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale College, was a soldier in the Revolutionary army and later became a most devoted home missionary. He organized, as has been mentioned, the church in East Greenwich in 1815. In the following year he formed another at Slatersville and was later settled for twelve years in Exeter. When ninety-three years of age, in 1855, this aged servant of God officiated as chaplain to Congress, not dying until 1864 at the age of one hundred and two.
No chronicle of Congregationalism in Rhode Island could be com- plete without a reference to the erratic but gifted and devout Rev. Thomas Williams. Born at Pomfret, Connecticut, in 1779, he was graduated at Yale College in 1800. Mr. Williams was a theological student all his days, but his only instructor in theology was the emi- nent Dr. Emmons, of Franklin, Massachusetts, during six weeks of one winter. He began to preach for the "Pacific Church", Provi- dence, without installation, in 1807, remaining in charge until 1816. In 1821 he returned to his Providence church and continued for two years. In 1830 he again removed to Providence, preaching to colored people and others in various parts of Rhode Island until near the close of 1834, when he became for three years acting pastor at Barrington. A list of the places where he subsequently preached, from 1840 to 1868, covers one hundred and ten pages in his own handwriting and records the delivery of twenty-two hundred sermons. After living repeatedly in Providence and for three years in East Greenwich, he died in the former place, without any indication of disease, in 1876, at the age of nearly ninety-seven.
The list of Mr. Williams's publications numbers twenty-four. A sermon which he prepared for the funeral of Dr. Emmons, and read to him a considerable time before his death, evinces the most marked ability. He was the first Scribe of the Evangelical Consociation of Rhode Island and drafted its Articles of Faith.
Among the notable Congregational laymen who have not long passed away may be mentioned Josiah Chapin, Parris Hill, John Kingsbury, William J. King and Amos C. Barstow.
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THE UNITARIAN CONGREGATIONALISTS.
The First Church, Providence .- The rise of Unitarianism in Rhode Island was a part of the general movement towards what is styled a more liberal belief, extending throughout New England and especially over Massachusetts, soon after the opening of the nineteenth century. It was during the pastorate of the Rev. Henry Edes, from 1805 to 1832, that the First Congregational Church in Providence became avowedly Unitarian. It is probable that from almost the first the general cast of theological thought, on the part of the pastors of this church and of its people, had been towards the more moderate type of Calvinism which prevailed in Massachusetts, rather than the severer form more common in Connecticut. The Rev. Dr. Hall, the sixth pastor, remarks that the original Confession of Faith was decidedly Trinitarian and moderately Calvinistic, although not harsh or exclu- sive. The Rev. John Bass, the second pastor, from 1752 to 1758, who came from Connecticut, left on the Church Register of Ashford a record which sounds more Arminian than Calvinistic. "I was dis- missed," he wrote, "from my pastoral relation to the Church and people at Ashford by the Rev. Consociation of the County of Wind- ham, for dissenting from the Calvinistic sense of the Quinquarticular Points, which I ignorantly subscribed to, before my ordination; for which, and all my other mistakes, I beg the pardon of Almighty God".
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