USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 2 > Part 9
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The story of the forming of this earliest Baptist organization in Rhode Island, as, also, the first religious body of any kind in the Col- ony, is all the more engaging, beeause it is also the story of the making of the great Baptist Church in America, to-day the largest Protestant organization of the New World.
At first the little company met for worship in a grove, except when wet or chilly weather obliged them to take refuge in some private house.
Mr. Williams remained but a brief period-some say six months,
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others four years-in communion with the body, which he thus had the chief part in creating. It is, indeed, pathetic to find him soon tortured by doubt concerning the authority of Mr. Holliman, himself unbap- tized "in an orderly manner", to administer baptism to others, and so wandering forth, outside the bounds of any organized fold, to be what he himself styled a Seeker for the remainder of his life. While the great-souled man continued and could not help continuing to preach the gospel, which he loved with all his being, on occasion and especially to his beloved Indians, and while he never ceased to cherish a warm friendship for his former church brethren and to be cherished in their hearts in return, it was still his mysterious lot to be always watching for a morning which never fully broke, and finding no rest for his feet until he entered into that Everlasting Rest which is prepared for the people of God. Roger Williams is declared by the historian, Callen- der, to have been one of the most disinterested men that ever lived and a most pious and heavenly-minded soul.
When Mr. Williams thus left the small congregation of which he had been the acknowledged head, it fell into the hands of men of less genius and culture than himself, it is true, and of no more than equal devoutness of spirit, but yet the possessors of greater stability and sobriety of mind. Chad Brown, William Wickenden, Gregory Dexter and Thomas Olney are the honored names of these leaders of the church. It is, however, very difficult to determine their exact terms of service or how far each was recognized distinctively as a pastor. Mr. Brown, the founder of the well-known Providence family of that name, is commonly regarded as the first settled shepherd of the flock.
In 1644, five or six years after the organizing of the first church, in Providence, the next Baptist organization in Rhode Island and one which has enjoyed an uninterrupted existence to the present day was established at Newport. The constituents of this were John Clark, M. D., and his wife, with ten others, of whom are named Mark Luker, Nathan West and wife, William Vaughan, Thomas Clark, John Peck- ham, John Thorndon and William and Samuel Weeden. Dr. Clark, like Roger Williams, a refugee from "the Bay", was among the first in America to recognize the principle of soul-freedom and the entire separation which should exist between the Church and the State.
The Second Baptist Church in Newport, being the third in the Col- ony, originated in 1656, when twenty-one people broke off from the First Church and formed themselves into a separate body, with dis- tinctive principles, to be cited later.
In 1671 still another Baptist church, differing on one point from
REV. JOHN CALLENDER.
AUTHOR OF THE CENTENNIAL DISCOURSE ON RHODE ISLAND HISTORY.
FROM AN OLD PAINTING, IN THE POSSESSION OF THE NEWPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
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the preceding, was constituted in the same town. In 1685 a Baptist church was organized at Tiverton.
How very largely the Baptist Denomination of the United States, as a whole, owes its origin to Rhode Island, is illustrated by the fact that. out of the seven churches of the order existing in the country in the seventeenth century, five belonged to the Colony around Narragansett Bay.
The R. I. Baptists in the Eighteenth Century .- The first seventy years of the eighteenth century witnessed a marked growth in the number of Baptist churches in Rhode Island. From 1706 to 1752 at least ten were founded, respectively in Smithfield, Hopkinton, North Kingstown, Scituate, Warwick, Cumberland, East Greenwich, Exeter, Westerly and Coventry. In 1764 a new church, formed chiefly of members from the First Baptist, Providence, was established in Crans- ton, and another, still so vigorous in the middle of its second century, at Warren, with the distinguished Mr. (later Dr.) Manning as one of its constituents and its earliest pastor. The following year, 1765, gave birth to churches in North Providence and Foster, and 1771 to one in Johnston-a branch of the First Baptist in Providence, with some difference of order, adverted to below. In 1774-5 there occurred a potent revival of religious interest and large numbers were led to confess the power of Christ's spirit and seek membership in the churches of the body. As always happens during seasons of political excitement and civil disturbance, the Revolutionary period immediate- ly following saw, on the contrary, little numerical progress among Rhode Island Baptists. Upon the establishment of peace, however, the work seems quickly to have revived, so that by 1790 there were in the State thirty-eight Baptist churches, thirty-seven ordained ministers and 3,502 members.
The two most signal events of the eighteenth century among the Baptists were the erection of the present meeting-house of the First Church in Providence and the establishment of Rhode Island College, now Brown University. It is most singular that during the sixty years after Mr. Williams organized the Providence church, no building seems to have been devoted to its exclusive use. While the members were dwelling in their "houses of cedar", even if not "painted with vermilion", the ark of the Lord was permitted to remain not, indeed, "in curtains", but under the trees or in any private house which might temporarily receive it. Then at length it was due not to any layman, but to the zeal and personal liberality of the pastor of the day, Pardon Tillinghast, that a rude and in truth unsightly meeting-house,
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described as "like a hay-cap, with a fire-place in the middle and an opening in the roof for the escape of smoke", was built in the northern part of the city. A worthier sanctuary was, however, constructed close by in 1726, at the northwest corner of North Main and Smith streets, continuing in use until the erection of the present church in 1774-5.
The growth of the congregation in numbers and wealth and the need of a suitable building in which to hold the Commencements of the new College, then furnished an incitement to a marvelous architectural advance upon anything which had gone before. Nearly the whole of the fine block of land bounded by North Main, Thomas, Benefit and President (now Waterman) streets, since entirely cleared of other buildings and comprising more than an acre, was obtained for the new meeting-house, and Joseph Brown, esq., and Mr. T. Sumner were deputed to draw the plan. It is related that the elegant ancient church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, supplied a basis for their design, especially in the case of the spire. The floor was laid eighty feet square, giving space for one hundred and twenty-six square pews, while broad galleries afforded room for many more. At the west side was reared a steeple one hundred and ninety-six feet in height, fur- nished with a good clock and a bell, both made in London. On the latter, which weighed twenty-five hundred and fifteen pounds, was cast the following motto :
"For freedom of conscience, the town was first planted, Persuasion, not force, was used by the people ; This church is the oldest and has not recanted,
Enjoying and granting bell, temple, and steeple."
This beautiful structure, still after a century and a fourth the pride and admiration of the citizens of Providence, was opened for public worship May 28, 1775, when, it being less than six weeks after the battle of Lexington, the storm-clouds of the Revolution were already breaking. The sound of war was in the land and many prominent families of the town removed for safety into the country. But by the good providence of God stated worship in this House of the Most High was never, as happened in so many cases elsewhere during this dark period, suspended.
The other event-the founding of what is now Brown University --- while more fully treated in another part of this work, demands a brief notice here, because its inception grew out of the religious needs of Baptists, and because its whole history has been so honorably identified with that Denomination.
FIRST BAPTIST MEETING-HOUSE IN PROVIDENCE. ERECTED 1774-5.
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The earlier pastors of the body were almost, if not quite, without exception, men whose lips had been touched with live coals from the Lord's altar and whose earnest ministry had been greatly blessed. But they were not generally men of liberal education. During the first century and a third of the existence of the Baptist church in the Colony there had been, as an old writer quaintly expressed it, "preach- ing after its kind".
As, however, general culture advanced among the members of the congregations, a difficulty was experienced in procuring acceptable pastors for the growing churches. At a meeting of the Baptist Asso- ciation, held in Philadelphia, October 12, 1762, it was decided that it was practicable and expedient to found a college in Rhode Island, which should be under the chief direction of the Baptists and "in which education might be promoted, and superior learning obtained, free from any sectarian test".
As a result of this happy decision, the Rev. James Manning, a recent graduate of Princeton College, twenty-five years of age, of a fine, com- manding appearance, with pleasant manners and a polished address, proceeded, in the spring of 1764, to Warren, R. I., to begin the work. The College being as yet without funds, it was arranged that, as has already been noticed, he should secure support by taking the pastorate of the church then about to be established in the town. In September, 1765, in accordance with the requirements of the charter that the pres- ident of the College shall always be a Baptist, Mr. Manning, being a minister of that order, was elected to the office as well as to the some- what comprehensive professorship of "languages and other branches of learning", and the institution was formally opened with a single student. Four years later the first Commencement was held in the meeting-house, in Warren, September 7, 1769, when seven yonng men were graduated. The next year the College was removed to Provi- dence, the foundations of the earliest building, now known as Univer- sity Hall, being laid May 14, 1770.
In June, 1771, President Manning wrote: "The College, in this place, consists of twenty-three yonths." In 1804 the name of the institution was changed, in honor of a generous benefactor, Nicholas Brown, to Brown University. Over against this humble beginning we have now, at the opening of the twentieth century, to set the large and influential establishment into which the nursling has grown, with from eight hundred to nine hundred students, about eighty professors and instructors, a Women's College Department, a property, real and personal, of $3,025,389.18 in land, buildings and endowment, and a
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long and distinguished roll of alumni and teachers. Right nobly has it fulfilled its original purpose of furnishing liberally educated pastors for Baptist churches. Nor while doing this has it failed to educate ministers, in countless numbers, for almost every other Christian body and to elevate the whole community by graduating hosts of highly cultured lawyers, physicians, merchants and manufacturers. Al- though chiefly under the direction of Baptists, never for a moment has it been open to the charge of swerving from the principle of spiritual freedom on which it was founded, by interfering with the "soul-liberty" of its members. To-day, perhaps more than ever be- fore, its faculty and students represent the whole range of religious belief.
While standing high among the colleges and universities of America in general, it is by far the oldest and best-known of the institutions of learning belonging to the order which founded it, and second among them in present importance and financial resources to only its younger sister, the University of Chicago.
The Baptists of Rhode Island in the Nineteenth Century .- During this century the number of Baptist churches in Rhode Island nearly doubled and that of members more than trebled. In 1805, in the long and able pastorate of the Rev. Stephen Gano, occurred notable coloni- zations from the First Baptist Church in Providence, to form the Second or Pine Street Church, with the Rev. Mr. Cornell as pastor, now know as the Central Church, with its handsome brick building on High street, and the First Church in Pawtucket, of which the Rev. David Benedict soon assumed charge. Previously to that date there had been gathered at the latter place a congregation of persons still members of the old church in Providence, public worship being main- tained by occasional supplies without any formal organization. In 1806 a church was organized at Pawtuxet, and in 1811 one in Bristol, consisting at first of twenty-three members. The later additions to the number of churches are too numerous to admit of individual men- tion. In 1813, when Mr. Benedict published his well-known History of the Baptists, he recorded that there were in Rhode Island thirty-six churches, possessing thirty meeting-houses in good repair and over five thousand members, of whom four hundred and twenty-five belonged to the First Church in Providence. In 1844 there were forty-one churches with seventy-three hundred and eighty-one members. In 1850 there were about fifty-eight ordained ministers and forty-nine churches with seventy-two hundred and seventy-eight members. Dur- ing the next decade, in which time occurred the remarkable revival of
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1858, the membership increased twenty-two per cent., to eighty-eight hundred and forty-nine, in fifty churches. But the Civil War occur- ring in the succeeding decade and naturally distracting attention from religion, the growth in that period was but six per cent. In 1890 there were sixty-nine churches with twelve thousand and thirty-nine members. The national census of 1890 gave the value of the church property of the Baptists in Rhode Island as $1,151,960.
During the nineteenth century there took place the notable events of the incorporation of the Rhode Island Baptist State Convention, October. 1826, and the adoption of the Sunday School, as an auxiliary in the religious work of the churches.
In its original form, as introduced by Samuel Slater, at Pawtucket, about 1796 or 1797, the Sunday School-the first in New England- was merely a school on Sunday for the benefit of his employes in the newly established cotton mill, with paid teachers and elementary secular studies. Although conceived in a highly philanthropic spirit, the undertaking did not profess to be religious. In 1805 David Bene- dict, then a student of Brown University, and a licensed Baptist preacher, was assigned to the charge of the school. It seems to have been due to his earnest spirit that, at this stage, Bible reading and religious instruction were added to the original curriculum. Event- ually this school was divided between the Baptist Church, of which Mr. Benedict became pastor, and St. Paul's Episcopal Church (organized in 1816), as a part of their regular work.
As early as 1815 this movement extended to Providence, and steps were taken for the organization there of an independent Baptist Sun- day School for colored women and children. The earliest school con- nected with the First Baptist Church in that town and the precursor of the notably excellent and enthusiastic organization of later years under Prof. John L. Lincoln and others, was established in May, 1819, with about forty members. By 1833 there were in Rhode Island thir- teen Baptist Sunday Schools. The Rhode Island Baptist Sabbath School Association, subsequently changed to the Rhode Island Sunday School Convention, was organized in 1840, embracing twenty-four hun- dred teachers and scholars. By 1842 the membership had increased to thirty-four hundred and ninety and by 1852 to forty-one hundred and sixty-three.
The Present Condition (1900) of the Rhode Island Baptists-At the opening of the twentieth century the Baptist Church in Rhode Island, fast approaching the completion of three hundred years of its history, presents itself as a large. vigorous and united body, living up to its
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honorable traditions. It is organized under three Associations-Nar- ragansett, Providence and Warren-containing seventy-seven church- es, eighty-six ordained ministers, and thirteen thousand seven hundred and seventy-two members. The one little Pawtucket Sunday School of the beginning of the nineteenth century has grown to eighty-six schools, with sixteen hundred and fifty-five teachers and officers, and twelve thousand eight hundred and fifty-four scholars. The total annual contributions of the Denomination, last reported, amounted to $147,515.83, of which $118,804.34 went to church expenses. The value of church property is $1,375,300.
The Rhode Island Baptists have not failed to share in the modern awakening of Christians to the importance of the social element in the promotion of religious life and activity, the Rhode Island Baptist Social Union being the pleasant and healthful outcome of the convic- tion.
The wonderful recognition, too, at the end of the century, through- out all churches, of the value of young people's enthusiasm and devo- tion in building up the Kingdom of Christ, has promptly led to the organization, among the Baptists of this State, of branches of the Baptist Young People's Union of America, formed in 1891.
In summing up what the Baptists of Rhode Island have stood for, in their long history, in addition to the cardinal principle of freedom of conscience, always from the first constituting the very warp and woof of their being and already sufficiently dwelt upon, there are to be noted three other points, viz. :
1. An unswerving devotion to what is generally understood by Orthodoxy. While the theological system of Calvin has been held by them with varying degrees of tenacity, yet, as to the fundamental doc- trines of grace, as believed to be found in the Scriptures, they have always been immovable. There has never among Baptists been any falling away, as in some other Christian bodies in New England, from their original belief in the Deity of Jesus Christ.
2. An exceptional interest and zeal in respect to Foreign Missions, from the beginning of their modern prosecution. Although Adoniram Judson, at the time of his graduation at Brown University in 1807, was not a Baptist and did not become one until 1812, yet his fervor and earnestness in missionary work in India soon came to inspire the whole Baptist church in Rhode Island. The interest in this cause of also the Rev. Dr. James N. Granger, the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Providence, in the heart of the nineteenth century, is well known, leading him to take an arduous journey of missionary inspection to the
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East. That church and other Baptist churches in Providence and in the country portion of the State have often been scenes of enthusiastic gatherings in behalf of Burmese Missions, while a number of the city pastors have borne witness to their devotion to the evangelization of the heathen by personal service in distant fields.
3. A marked and practical conviction of the indispensableness of Education. With peculiar temptations, in its early history, to under- rating book-learning on the part of its teachers and discountenancing what was deprecatingly styled "a hireling ministry", the Baptist church, with singular enlightenment, has ever, for a century and a half, stood up manfully for the propriety of liberal culture for the clergy and the best practical education possible on the part of all. Besides the monumental achievements in this field, the foundation of Brown University already described, the Baptist Education Society. incorporated by the Rhode Island Legislature in 1823 and 1842, has farther attested the interest of the Church in this cause, by aiding a large number of needy students in seeuring such training as might fit them for the sacred ministry. During 1893, for example, the Educa- tion Society aided twenty-six young men.
Among the distinguished Baptist clergy of Rhode Island, gone to their reward, have been James Manning and Jonathan Maxcy, presi- dents of the college and pastors of the First Baptist Church in Provi- dence, Asa Messer, Francis Wayland, Barnas Sears, Alexis Caswell and Ezekiel Gilman Robinson, presidents of Brown University, Stephen Gano, James Nathaniel Granger and Samuel Lunt Caldwell, pastors of the First Baptist Church in Providence, David Benedict, pastor at Pawtucket, and William Gammell and Henry Jackson, pas- tors at Newport.
. THE BRANCHIES OF THE BAPTIST CHURCH.
As might have been anticipated from the untrammeled liberty of thought which was permitted and encouraged in the infant Baptist Church of Rhode Island, there soon grew up divergences of doctrine and order among its members. At first these were entertained within the limits of the original body. But, in several cases, they led to sep- arate organizations, which, while they have continued Baptist in the sense of accepting as valid baptism, that of believers only and that by immersion rather than by afusion, have on other grounds remained. apart to the present day. To three of these attention will now be given.
The Six Principle, Old or General Baptists. - The distinctive tenet
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of this body is the practice of the Laying on of Hands, as a prerequi- site for church membership and admission to the Lord's Supper, in accordance with Hebrews, vi, 1, 2, the other five "principles of the doctrine of Christ", mentioned in the passage being, of course, accept- ed by all Baptists. The name General was adopted by these Baptists by reason of their inclining to the Arminian System of Doctrine, teaching the potential redemption of all men by the death of Christ, in distinction from the particular redemption of the elect, as held by Calvinists.
It appears that, before any separation occurred, many of the mem- bers of the earlier churches, in both Providence and Newport, were inclined to a belief in the necessity of the Laying on of Hands. As early as 1653-4 a controversy upon this subject arose in the Providence church, leading to a division. At this time the party of Thomas Olney, one of the original constituents and himself an elder, being opposed to the Laying on of Hands, withdrew and formed a separate congregation. This organization maintained its existence until about 1718, when, being left without an elder, it ceased and its members sought admission into other churches. This Olney congregation, having thus proved comparatively temporary, has not been reckoned above in the list of earlier Baptist churches, being regarded as practically a part of the First Baptist Church in Providence, to which it largely seems to have returned. In Newport a similar division took place in 1656, although here the original church held to the non-essentiality of the Laying on of Hands. Twenty-one members, one of them William Vaughan, an original constituent of the First Church, withdrew and formed a Six Principle church, holding to general atonement and a free offer of salvation to all and strictly practising Laying on of Hands. The rea- sons given at the time for this separation are as follows: "Said per- sons conceived a prejudice against psalmody and against the restraint that the liberty of prophesying was laid under and also against the doctrine of particular redemption and against the rite of the Laying on of Hands, as a matter of indifference." William Vaughan, Thomas Baker and John Harden were the early pastors of this fold. Later, in 1701, there was ordained to the same office James Clark, a nephew of the Rev. John Clark, the first pastor of the earlier Newport church.
In the first quarter of the eighteenth century, so overshadowing was the importance of those holding "Six Principle" convictions, thirteen out of the seventeen churches in New England being of that way of thinking, that their influence appeared destined to shape Baptist opin- ion throughout the territory.
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By 1731 the "Six Principle" Newport Church had grown to be the largest of any kind in the Colony, numbering one hundred and fifty members. At this period it was supplied for about two years by the well-known Rev. John Comer, a young minister of education, piety and great success in his profession, who had already, for three years, been pastor of the First Church in Newport and whose Diary has lately been published.
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