USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 2 > Part 15
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Mr. Bass is said also to have advised his people "to read the Bible themselves and not to take their religion secondhand". Being called before the Consociation and asked, "Don't you believe that some are elected to be damned and cannot be saved"? he sturdily responded, "No. All will be saved, who comply with God's conditions, and all may comply, who will". It would not be surprising if, after his dismissal from a rigid Connecticut church for holding such tenets, he found the atmosphere of Providence much more congenial and experi- enced no opposition in impressing his convictions upon the members of his new flock.
In any case, the First Church in Providence remained in general sympathy with the more liberal Massachusetts churches, its pastors being mostly Harvard men. When the Unitarian controversy arose that church appeared to be favorable soil for the implanting of the new doctrine and proceeded to change its Covenant into correspond- ence with it. From about 1815 it came to be known as a Unitarian church.
During the long pastorate of Mr. Edes, the meeting-house having
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been burned in 1814, the society built, in 1816, on the same site, the spacious and exceedingly tasteful stone edifice, which still remains as an excellent example of church architecture. The cost of it, over fifty thousand dollars, was a large sum to raise and expend in such a way in those days. The structure was designed by the master-builder and architect, John H. Greenc, father of the late well-known judge and poet, Albert G. Greene. Mr. Greene designed also the present St. John's church, in Providence, the graceful Dorr mansion on Benefit street, the Dexter Asylum and a church in Savannah, which was an exact counterpart of the First Congregational edifice in Providence, and which has lately been reproduced, after destruction by fire, largely by reference to the Providence church. The style of this building is that of the Renaissance, as illustrated by the designs of Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren, Greek elements being used in it deco- ratively. The spire, one hundred and ninety feet in height, is particu- larly graceful and has formed a landmark in Providence since beyond the memory of men now living.
In 1832 the Rev. Edward Brooks Hall was installed as pastor and remained until his death in 1866. Of his faithfulness, ability and devoutness too much can scarcely be said. The name of "good Dr. Hall" is still a watchword, not simply in Unitarian circles, but among all the older generation of Providence. It is probable that the parish attained its highest point of prosperity under his efficient and accept- able ministrations.
In 1882 the church still farther modified its Covenant by adopting the simple statement, "In the love of the Truth and in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, we join for the worship of God and the service of man". Many representatives of the best families of Rhode Island have been associated with the First Congregational Church, such as the Burrills, Anthonys, Bridgliams, Lymans, Bowens, Maurans, Nightingales, Bul- locks, Whitakers, Tillinghasts, Lippitts, Owens, Dexters, Metcalfs, Watermans, Earles, Dunnells, William Wilkinson, Sullivan Dorr, Samuel Ames, John Howland and Henry Wheaton. No less than eighty-four young men, feeling the fire of patriotismn burning in their bosoms, with Ambrose E. Burnside at the head, went out from this single church to face the perils of the Civil War of 1861-5. The later pastors have been the Rev. A. M. Knapp, the Rev. C. A. Staples, the Rev. Thomas R. Slicer and the present one, the Rev. Augustus M. Lord. There are about two hundred families belonging to the parishi.
The Westminster Society, Providence .- The centennial of the form- ation of the First Congregational Church in Providence, in 1828, was
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signalized by an entirely pacific colonization of certain members to start a new Unitarian organization on the west side of the river, the Westminster Congregational Society. It consisted at first of eighteen members and built, in 1829, the handsome house of worship of Greek architecture, still standing on Mathewson street. The first pastor was the Rev. Dr. Frederick A. Farley, a man of a lovely and saintly spirit, later long settled over a church in Brooklyn, New York. His successor was the Rev. Augustus Woodbury, who remained many years, not only a faithful and beloved pastor, but also a useful and universally respected citizen. After a period of depression the Westminster Church seems to be entering upon a period of renewed prosperity, so far as is compatible with its situation, at such a distance from the present residential sections of the city.
The Newport Church .- Although Newport was the birthplace and early residence of William Ellery Channing, the eminent divine and scholar and the acknowledged head of the early Unitarian movement in America, it was not until twenty years after he began to advocate the system that an attempt was made to introduce organized Unita- rianism in that town. In 1835 the Unitarian Congregational Society was formed there by the Rev. Charles Briggs, and for many years worshiped in the Mill street house, built, as has been already related, by the Rev. Mr. Clap, the first Congregational minister in Newport, about 1728, and afterwards owned by the Fourth Baptist Society. The Rev. Charles T. Brooks, the well-known writer and graceful translator of Goethe's "Faust", of Salem, Massachusetts, was called as the first pastor and ordained in 1837, the church organization being begun immediately afterwards. Mr. Brooks was able and efficient and was especially beloved on account of his amiable qualities of character. He continued in the pastorate of the parish for thirty- five years.
On April 7, 1880, being the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Dr. Channing, was laid the corner-stone of the Channing Memorial Church, of stone, on Pelham street, Newport.
The Olney Street Church, Providence .- A third Unitarian church was organized in Providence in 1878. It is known as the Olney Street Congregational Church and is an outgrowth of a mission called The Ministry at Large, which had been long maintained by the two older Unitarian parishes, at the corner of Benefit and Halsey streets, when such work among the neglected classes was, by no means, so common as it is now.
The Characteristics of the Unitarians .- Activity in all manner of
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practical Christian benevolence has always been a prime note of the Unitarians of Providence. The supporters of the "Benevolent Church," true to their title, have always been found in the forefront of efforts for the relief of the poor and the alleviation of the sufferings of the diseased and infirm. The Union for Christian Work, main- tained chiefly by them, by means of its Flower Mission has brought brightness and sunshine into many dark rooms of the Hospitals, the "Homes" and the tenements of the city. High, too, have stood the names of Unitarians upon the lists of originators and sustainers of the great general public charities, such as the Children's Friend Society, the Shelter for Colored Children, the Home for Aged Men and the Home for Aged Women.
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH-THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
William Blackstone .- The Church of England, to which the Epis- copal Church in the United States is indebted for its first foundation, in a sense antedated every other Christian body on Rhode Island terri- tory. At least as early as the year 1635, several months before the arrival of Roger Williams at Providence, a regularly ordained English clergyman established himself permanently about six miles farther north, at what is now the village of Lonsdale. This clergyman, the Rev. William Blackstone (or Blaxton), was an exceedingly interesting personage and occupies a unique position in the history of the settle- ment of this Commonwealth.
He took his degree in 1621 at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Eng- land, and soon afterwards was ordained to the ministry of the Estab- lished Church of that country. About 1625 he is found living upon the site of the present city of Boston in Massachusetts, having emi- grated from England, probably with the party of Robert Gorges, in 1623, to escape what he considered the overbearing treatment of the English bishops. His house is supposed to have stood between the site of the present State House in Boston and the banks of the Charles River on the west, his claim extending over most of the land finally occupied by the original town and being recognized, through a pur- chase of his land, by the early settlers.
In 1634 or very early in 1635, Mr. Blackstone appears again upon the move, having found, as he quaintly expressed it, "the Lord Breth- ren of Boston" quite as objectionable as "the Lord Bishops" of his former residence. This time he set up his home, as the first white settler of Rhode Island, upon the eastern bank of the river which
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eventually bore his name, as it does still, in what soon came to be known as the township of Rehoboth but is now Cumberland, and there he remained in great seclusion and tranquillity for forty years.
Mr. Blackstone showed his scholarly taste by the name of "Study Hill", which he bestowed upon his dwelling in the wilderness and by the fact that he transported thither, through the untrodden wilds of Massachusetts, his really excellent library, containing folios in Latin as well as English and some hundreds of quartos and smaller volumes. His more practical enlightenment also was exhibited by his purchasing, with the proceeds of his Boston property, as fine stock as was procur- able for his Rhode Island farm.
He is said, too, to have been the first to introduce the culture of fruit trees into the new territory. One of his amiable traits was an extraor- dinary love for children, and it is related that when from time to time he visited the neighboring town of Providence, he used to come with his pockets full of apples, as an unaccustomed treat for the little friends who flocked around him there. A traveler from England who sought the recluse a few years after he had settled at "Study Hill" and conversed with him in his quiet home, narrates of him: "One Master Blackstone, a minister, went from Boston, having lived there nine or ten years, because he would not join with the church ; he lives near Master Williams, but is far from his opinions".
It is recorded that this worthy clergyman "used frequently to come to Providence to preach the Gospel".
. He had a regular engagement, too, with Richard Smith, the first settler of Wickford, twenty-five miles away, to officiate at his house once in every month.
It is thus easy to trace to Mr. Blackstone a share in the original influence which led to the planting of two of the colonial parishes of Rhode Island, King's Church, Providence, and St. Paul's, Narragan- sett. There is, however, no evidence extant proving that he ever organized any work at either place justifying for him the claim of a founder of the Episcopal Church.
But no picture of early Rhode Island can be judged complete which does not introduce this gentle scholar walking under the blooming apple trees of his orchard, with one of his russet-bound folios under his arm and little children clinging to his hand, while his own stream, as yet untrammeled by the demands of industry as it is to-day, ripples in the sunshine beneath his feet. Most certainly in any case the ecclesiastical history of the State cannot afford quite to overlook the earnest apostle, who journeyed far over almost unbroken paths to
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administer the Sacraments and preach the Word according to the ritual and the doctrine of the venerable church in which he had been reared. It was not until the year 1675, when Mr. Blackstone had reached the age of about eighty, that he was called to his reward.
Such were his prudence and philanthropy that he had succeeded in dwelling on the most amicable terms with his aboriginal neighbors for two scores of years.
It seems a merciful providence that he fell asleep just in time to be spared the sight of the evil days of the Indian War of 1675.
The fierce passions then let loose in the savage breast leave it doubt- ful whether even his good and tried friends among the Red Men would have been able to protect him from the fury of the mass. In any case it is recorded on the margin of the book containing the inventory of his cattle, household goods and library, "This estate was destroyed and carried away with the Indians". There is a tradition that the house was burned by the savages, with all the owner's dearly loved books and, what would have proved in later times at least, precious manu- scripts, and "Study Hill" after forty years of civilization sank into its primeval wildness.
Trinity Church, Newport .- We have to pass on more than a score of years to find the actual foundation of the Church of England in Rhode Island as an institution, although we may be sure that the devout instructions of William Blackstone did not return to him void. When that brave pioneer died there was not in New England or in the whole of the northern portion of what is now the United States a standpoint of the English Church.
In 1689 the first little wooden King's Chapel was built in Boston. The original movement towards the formation of what grew to be the initial parish in Connecticut, Christ Church, Stratford, was made in 1690. In 1695 Christ Church, Philadelphia, the earliest Church of England edifice in Pennsylvania, was built. The opening meeting for the organization of Trinity Church, New York, occurred in 1696.
It was, then, no mere isolated incident, but a part of a spontaneous and almost impersonal impulse at that period in the ecclesiastical air, when, towards the close of 1698, services according to the English Book of Common Prayer began to be held at the fifth point in the northern colonies within nine years, Newport, Rhode Island.
If, however, we look for a personal influence in the movement, we find it in Sir Francis Nicholson, credited in ancient documents with being "the original founder and first principal patron of Trinity Church". This gentleman, in succession a royal governor or lieuten-
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ant-governor of New York, Virginia and Maryland, is said to have been commissioned by Queen Anne to inquire into the condition of Ameri- can churches.
In the course of his duties he visited what was then the metropolis of the Rhode Island colony and relatively a much more important seaport than it has continued to be, and appears to have been con- cerned to find there no gathering for worship according to the forms of the English Church. He seems, thereupon, to have bestowed both time and money on the establishment of such services.
Citizens were not lacking from the very first to lend a hand to the enterprise, such as Gabriel Bernon, the Huguenot refugee, Pierre Ayrault, a physician, also a French Protestant, William Brinley and Robert Gardner, or Gardiner, naval officer and collector of the port, upon whose gravestone, in Trinity church-yard, may be read, "Here lieth interred the body of Mr. Robert Gardner, Esq., who was one of the first promoters of the Church in this place".
The first clergyman to carry out the plans of Sir Francis, probably also having been secured by his efforts, was the Rev. John Lockyer. Whence he came and whither he went are alike unknown. He remained three or four years and was instrumental in arousing such an interest that a church edifice was built before the time of his departure. It stood on the same lot, probably, as the present one, although not on the same spot, and was by the church wardens of the time esteemed "handsome". Mr. Lockyer declares concerning it, "The place where- in we meet to worship is finished on the outside, all but the steeple. The inside is pewed well, although not beautified".
But, faithfully as Mr. Lockyer doubtless labored, his stay was too brief and the field in his day too unprepared to enable him to claim the honor of being the true founder of Trinity Church, Newport. That title belongs of right and, hence, also the title of the real founder of the Episcopal Church in Rhode Island at large, to the Rev. James Hony- man, who was the first missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in this State, the society itself being but three years old at the time of his arrival in Newport in 1704.
Mr. Honyman was a Scotchman and with genuine Scottish tenacity remained at his post until his death in 1750. At the close of his rector- ship of forty-six years there was a list of fifteen hundred and sev- enty-nine persons who had been baptized in the parish, a few of them probably in Mr. Lockyer's day, but almost all the fruit of the old pastor's toil. He was a most prudent and conciliatory man and his tombstone, near the principal door of Trinity Church, describes him as
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"with the arm of charity embracing all sincere followers of Christ". The church grew rapidly under his care and many quiet and sedate Quakers and devout Baptists learned to love it, as it was set forth by the rector with no lack of conviction although in the spirit of love.
After a few years, when a number of parishes of the Church of England had sprung into existence in New England, Mr. Honyman met his reward by being able honestly to report to the Society in Eng- land: "Betwixt New York and Boston there is not a congregation, in the way of the Church of England, that can pretend to compare with mine or equal it in any respect".
The little church building of 1704 began to be too narrow before twenty years of its use had passed. In 1725 the present beautiful and roomy structure was begun, being completed in the following year. It is fortunate that in the march of taste the ancient lofty pulpit with its overhanging sounding-board, the reading-desk and the quaint clerk's desk in front of it, then erected, have not been banished from the places they have occupied for almost two centuries. The plans for the church are believed to have been sent from London and largely copied from ancient St. James's, Picadilly. One of the chief incidents of interest in connection with the edifice in its early days, was the fre- quent preaching in its pulpit of the eminent George Berkley, Dean of Derry and subsequently Bishop of Cloyne, Ireland, who passed two or three years in Newport at that period.
Here worshiped many of the historical families of the old town, the Malbones, the Wantons, the Cranstons, the Brentons, the Coddingtons, the Bulls, the Ellerys and the Vernons. One of the most notable Churchmen of the parish at that day was the excellent and beneficent Nathaniel Kay, Collector of the king's customs. Not only the church in Newport, but those in Narragansett and Bristol as well, were the recipients of his bounty. To Trinity he bequeathed his house and land and a generous sum of money to build a school-house in which to "teach ten poor boys their grammer and the mathematics gratis", and to all the parishes he presented Holy Communion vessels of silver. It is satisfactory to be able to record that the name of this liberal soul is still preserved in the titles, Kay Chapel and Kay Street, in Newport.
Mr. Honyman was succeeded in 1750 by the Rev. James Leaming, a divine so much revered as to be the first choice of the clergy of Con- necticut for their bishop.
The Rev. Thomas Pollen followed in 1754 and the Rev. Marmaduke Brown in 1760, the latter remaining until his death in 1771. At the Christmas service of that year above two hundred persons partook at
TRINITY CHURCH, NEWPORT.
ERECTED 1725.
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the Holy Communion, showing that "Francis Nicholson, soldier", "builded better than he knew" when he procured a missionary to "draw around him a little flock", in the 'flourishing scaport town of two generations before. Then, however, came the gloomy years of the Revolution, when the congregation largely fled from their homes and scarlet eoated soldiers filled the pews, until, at the time of the evaeua- tion, they and the minister, the Rev. George Bisset, a royalist, disap- peared together and for years the church doors were mainly closed.
St. Paul's Church, Narragansett .- The second point at which the Church of England was established on Rhode Island soil was the Nar- ragansett Country. Previously to the end of the seventeenth century there had settled in that vieinity a number of families attached to the Church of England, such as the Smiths, at whose house, before 1675, Mr. Blackstone had been accustomed to hold regular services, the Gardiners and, perhaps, the Updikes. As early as 1702, the year after the founding of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London, that body recorded its opinion "that a Missionary should forthwith be sent to the Narragansett Country", and requested the Bishop of London to recommend one for the purpose. But it was not until 1706 that a missionary actually arrived upon the ground, in the person of the Rev. Christopher Bridge, who had been, for several years previously, assistant minister at King's Chapel, Boston. Mr. Bridge remained in Narragansett for about two years and was then trans- ferred to New York. It was during his ministry, in 1707, that St. Paul's Church was built in Kingstown, Narragansett, falling after the division of the town, in 1722-3, into North Kingstown and having been removed in 1800 to the village of Wickford, where it still stands as a venerable relic of a past age. In 1717 the Society appointed the Rev. William Guy, from Charleston, South Carolina, to the charge of the church, he also remaining a couple of years. For some time after the departure of Mr. Guy, Mr. Honyman eame over from New- port, at intervals, to hold divine serviee and administer the Saera- ments.
It was not until 1721 that the new enterprise was placed upon a firm foundation by the arrival of the third missionary of the Society, the Rev. James MacSparran. He proved a devoted and well-learned parish priest, beloved, respected and honored, dwelling among his flock for thirty-six years, until he was ealled hence after what he styled "labors and toils inexpressible".
The Narragansett planters who constituted his cure were "a people exceptionally cultured, well-to-do, hospitable to a proverb, proud of
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NARRAGANSETT CHURCH, WICKFORD, NORTH KINGSTOWN. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ABOUT 1868 BEFORE THE BELFRY WAS DEMOLISHED.
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their pastor, loyal to the Church and secure in the conviction that to be a Narragansett Planter, with large estates and troops of slaves, was a sufficient patent of aristocracy". Dr. MacSparran's parish covered all southern continental Rhode Island, so far as it was settled, a terri- tory some twenty miles broad by twenty-five miles long. "Over those within this tract, acknowledging the authority of the Church of Eng- land-that is the majority of the people of substance and standing- Dr. MacSparran ruled with a firm if gentle hand, striving, with faithful zeal and large ability, to gather the whole body of the sheep into the safe fold". Sometimes he proceeded to Conanicut Island to hold divine service and preach, and at others to Westerly Church, in what is now the town of Charlestown, built upon land presented by the
THE GLEBE, NORTH KINGSTOWN.
The Church of St. Paul's having in 1800 been removed from the site where it formerly stood to Wickford, the Glebe ceased to be convenient as the residence of the rector ; and having become dilapidated and injured by continued tenantry, was sold by the Corporation in 1842.
Indian king, George Augustus Ninigret. More regularly and at least once in each month he officiated at Old Warwick and in the Coeset Church, which was the original edifice of Trinity Church, Newport, it having been set up about 1726 on the Warwick shore, a mile and a half north of East Greenwich, where it remained until about 1764.
At the first celebration of the Holy Communion after young Mr. MacSparran's arrival at Narragansett, there were only seven to par- take. Under his energetic administration matters, however, began
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rapidly to improve. He was very soon able to acquaint the Society with the fact that the congregation, which was so small at first, num- bered about one hundred and sixty. A year later it had grown to two hundred and sixty, while, in the following one, all the Church people, young and old, amounted to three hundred. At the Easter celebra- tion of the Eucharist in 1727, six years after his arrival, the number of communicants present had increased to twenty.
Among the laymen connected with the parish were Gabriel Bernon, already met by us at Newport, George Balfour, an Englishman, Col. Daniel Updike, attorney-general of the Colony, Col. Francis Willet, Dr. Silvester Gardiner, for whom the city of Gardiner, in Maine, was named, Moses Lippet, the progenitor of the well-known Rhode Island
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