USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Woodstock > Rededication, June 5, 1890, of the reconstructed Old White Meeting House, Woodstock, Vermont > Part 2
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Congregational Church, Woodstock, Vt.
Then upon Mr. Billings' part, this completed structure stands for his devout and confirmed faith in pure gospel religion, as the stream issuing forth, as in prophetic vision, from under the thresh- old of the sanctuary, and flowing on ever deeper and wider to heal and sweeten the whole ocean of the great world's life. It has fallen to him more than to most men to have active part in the great problems, civil, financial and philanthropic, which have been pressing for solution through the last generation. His wide experience, exceeding even the boundaries of our own vast Republic, has strengthened him in the conviction that human welfare, public and individual, is vitally dependent upon the Biblical truth, the sound Christian teaching, of which this church from the first has been an exponent. By all of the beautiful, by all of the enduring which he has wrought into this structure, he witnesses yet again his confession of that same scriptural faith which nearly fifty years ago he stood here for the first time to confess. It is the faith which he did so much to plant and maintain upon the Pacific coast, as did Puritan and Pilgrim upon these shores of the rougher Atlantic. It is this faith which nerved and inspired him in the gigantic task of bind- ing our country's two shoulders together with ribbons of steel. It is this faith by which he has walked with firm and steady step through financial storms upon waters treacherous as those of Galilec. It is this faith through which solace and strength have come to him amid the redoubled bereavement of recent months. It is this faith by which he is sustained to-day under the weight of infirmity and suffering made so much the heavier by his dis- appointment at not being here. It is this faith that he would signalize, this faith that he would propagate, this faith that he would perpetuate by this munificent gift with which, here and now, he crowns all his other generous remembrances of this be- loved church. Let the presentation of it be in his own words as he spoke to one who stood by his bedside this morning.
" It has been a work of love. I have followed the work in all its details, and now I turn everything over to the society- organ, clock and all. I am thankful to my heavenly Father that my life has been preserved to see the work finished, and I am very sorry that I cannot be present."
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So in Mr. Billings' own words this sanctuary of God which he has so richly beautified is by the token of these keys conveyed to you to be received in trust for hallowed uses, to be appropri- ated forever to the worship of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ his Son, the Saviour of men. It is the "Old White Church " still. But it is the " Old White Church," not repaired, not reconstructed, but fairly transfigured. Resplendent with the glory of the silver and the gold freely expended upon it, he makes over to you this later house. May you be able so to receive it that the whole house shall be perpetually filled with the more excellent glory of God's own gracious presence in it, of Christ's own Holy Spirit upon you.
RESPONSE IN BEHALF OF THE CHURCH AND SOCIETY.
BY FREDERICK C. SOUTHGATE.
W E gratefully accept this gift, so benevolently planned, so generously bestowed. This is indeed a day of joy for this beloved church and society; but as if to remind us that perfect happiness is not for earth, a minor strain mingles with our anthems, for he whom we had hoped to see the central figure here is not among us. Sadly we miss the noble face, the elo- quent voice of him whose pathetic message we have just received. Earnestly we entreat the Great Physician, whose presence unseen is at the sufferer's side, with his divine touch to strengthen and renew the earthly tabernacle of that great soul, " Beseeching him and saying that he is worthy for whom he should do this, for he loveth our people." But in his regretted absence it is most fitting and delightful that this gift comes to us through the hands of one so tenderly associated with it. We realize that with this beautiful sanctuary we accept and assume many and solemn responsibilities. Much is given, much will be required.
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Congregational Church; Woodstock, Vt.
The generous donor presents this not to his brethren alone, but also to his Father, and we receive it as the House of God in- trusted to our loving care to be kept holy, honorable unto the Lord. £ Its spotless comeliness without, its blending beauties within, its grace, its symmetry, its whole completeness, shall be to us a constant object-lesson ; while the tireless voice of the un- sleeping sentinel in the watch-tower shall warn us to ceaseless vigilance and activity. It shall be our aim that here the beauty of holiness may abide; that its worshippers, harmonious as the place itself, may wear the adornment of a meek and quiet spirit, attracting men to the Master of this house. These keys are given to admit, not to shut out, and with the catholic spirit and hospitable hand, so strong and warm in our benefactor, we will welcome here our brothers of every faith. Reverently and gratefully then do we accept this holy house, this sacred trust. We cannot repay him whose great heart and open hand have wrought for us this boon; but liberality like his asks no return but the love of its objects, and that we bring him in measure large and full as his own bounty ; and better far there rests on him to-day the approving smile of One who says, " Blessed of my Father, thou hast done this unto me." Sabbath after Sab- bath, as we meet around this altar, familiar faces will be fewer; soon we shall all be gathered to the generations who have bowed here in the past. But others will fill our places, kneeling to the same kind God, bending over the same precious Bible, singing the same hallowed hymns, and he will not be forgotten. His name is written all over these enduring walls, and with the mel- low chords of this grand organ his memory will ever softly blend; and long years after he has heard the " Well done, good and faith- ful servant" and received his full-starred crown of life, the name, Frederick Billings, will here be loved and blessed.
SERMON.
BY PRESIDENT M. H. BUCKHAM, D. D.
Gold, and silver, and brass, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. Exodus xxv - xl. passim.
HEN the chosen people went down into Egypt, they were a pastoral clan of seventy souls, as primitive in their mode of life as an Arab sheik of the desert and his followers. When, after two centuries of discipline, they went out from Egypt, they had learned all the arts known to the most ad- vanced nation of mankind. They were skilled in weaving, dye- ing, and working in woods and metals and stones, not merely in their simpler processes, but in the decorative branches of archi- tecture, sculpture, tapestry, and jewelry. All these arts they had been forced as slaves to learn and practise for their Egyptian masters,- but they had learned them. And now, escaped from bondage, masters of their arts and of themselves, entering upon a national life and a civilization of their own, the first use to which they put their emancipated knowledge and skill was in the ser- vice of their religion,-that element of their national life and their civilization which was to be characteristic and distinctive. No sooner had the waves closed over their pursuing foes and they had reached a place of safety, than under divine guidance they set about building a sanctuary, the most costly, elaborate, and beautiful structure within the compass of their art. And not only so, but special architectural and artistic inspiration, beyond what
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human art had yet reached, was bestowed for this special service. For "See," said the Lord to Moses, "I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah : and I have filled him with the spirit of God in wisdom and under- standing, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold and in silver and in brass, and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood to work in all manner of workmanship. And, behold, I have ap- pointed with him Aholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan : and in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom, that they make all that I have commanded them." And so the tabernacle was built, the first building, I think we may say, though by no means the last, in which the worship of Jeho- vah was embodied in the forms of inspired art. And when Moses saw the finished work, he felt something like the satisfac- tion which the Creator felt in view of all the work which God had created and made. " And Moses saw all the work, and behold they had done it: as the Lord had commanded even so had they done it : and Moses blessed them."
The transformation of this house of God from the plain struct- ure it was to what we see it to-day, suggests certain questions which are natural, and pertinent, and entitled to an answer. If a different theme had been chosen, as was my thought, one bear- ing more directly on spiritual edification, still your eyes and your thoughts would have wandered from window to ceiling, from pulpit to organ, from panelled oak to soft-tinted fresco, and ques- tions like these would have thrust themselves into and across every other: "Is God better pleased with the new house than with the old ? Does he take any more delight in gold and silver than in iron and lead, more in blue and purple and scarlet than in russets and grays ? Is he who seeketh such to worship him as worship in spirit and in truth, more likely to find such worship- pers in a costly building than in a humbler one ? Has there ever been purer worship than that which has ascended from bleak mountain solitudes, from catacombs, from dens and caves of the earth, from tabernacles of wattled osiers, from conventicles built with logs, and mud, and snow ? Are not the sacrifices of God a broken heart ? Are not the dearest of all offerings to God the
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prayers of the poor ?" I have put these questions in their utmost severity, as they might have been put by the image-breakers of church history, or by the more rigid of our Puritan ancestors. For however the questions are put, the answers to them ought to be in accord with the most spiritual conceptions of the sanc- tuary, and helpful at once to thought and to worship.
And first as to what God himself delights in. This is conclu- sively shown by God's own art. For the universe is God's art, as the imitations of it are man's art. Does God delight in colors, the purple and scarlet in their place, the russets and grays in theirs ? It is he who has made all the colors which we employ, using them for effects which are the despair of all human artists. Put a leaf beside any painted green, put a rose petal beside any of our pinks, and see how tame and dull are man's pigments in comparison with God's colors! Hold up a Titian or a Turner against an evening sky, or against one of your Woodstock forests flaming in the glories of October, and how faded it looks ! Does God delight in beautiful forms ? No delicate curve of arch, or vase, or moulding, no mullioned tracery or flowing arabesque, no intricate loveliness of embracing and mingling lines, but has its prototype in plant and crystal and sea-shell and star. Artists are coming once again to see, what art once knew but had forgot- ten, that the Master-Painter, Sculptor, Designer, Decorator, is God, and in proportion as human art becomes more humble and docile in his great school is it becoming prolific in new crea- tions. And as to the appositeness of art here or there, one no- ticeable element in God's art is its universality. We may say with reverence of God's art what the Psalmist says of God's spirit : " Whither shall we go from its presence ? " Shut a prisoner away from all the world's beauty, and some floating seed will lodge in a crevice of the wall, and will unfold in all the loveliness of a flower of Paradise. Take a roughest fragment of stone or earth and put it under a microscope, and what geometric shapes and pris- matic colors you see ! Lift the stone from the grass and what ex- quisite beauty of form and color has been expended on the curious little creatures that skurry away! The neck of the dove is iri- descent, and so is the back of the frog and the lizard. What was said in extravagance of a writer may be said literally of the great
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Artist-Creator, "He has touched nothing that he has not adorned." But God especially adorns that which is highest in his regard. Inorganic masses are beautiful, but with a hard metallic beauty. No ruby or topaz can vie with a lily of the field, and no lily with the living creature which adds to grace of form the highest grace of motion. But of all earthly beauty, the supreme type is that which adds to form and color and motion, soul, intelligence, affection, goodness. The crowning work of God's art, that on which he has most unmistakably impressed himself, is the human form, and especially the saintly human face, that face of which thought has chiseled and suffering refined the lineaments, and love sweetened the expression, and to which the hope of heaven has added the last touch of grace, justifying Mil- ton's expression, "the human face divine." No human painter, no Raffael, no Fra Angelico even, has ever succeeded in getting this face upon canvas. It is God's special and unique art, his finest but by no means his rarest art. Almost every church has one such face in it, and every such face is a means of grace to the whole church, and to all who are permitted to see in it the grace of God.'
And God, in making man in his own image, has made him like himself in this respect also. God's children delight in color and form, in proportion and harmony, in rhythm and music. And under the same impulse and by the same law, man also decorates most what he most values and loves. His toil he is content to carry on in a dingy shop, but he must have a bower of beauty for his wife and children. His respect for the admin- istration of justice leads him to erect noble buildings in which magistracy may sit in decent state benched and robed. His patriotism he expresses in a domed and many-columned capitol, in which his senators may feel the dignity of the state fittingly embodied. And the converse is also true. The outward form reacts upon the feelings it should express, heightening them or chilling them. The court of justice which sits in a tavern, or a shabby court house, even if the judge is a great light of the law, and the lawyers and the jury are reputable men, discredits the justice it administers. The dreary school-house at the bleak cross-roads belies the true worth and dignity of education, and
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is responsible for much reluctance and many a whining face. Look at the opposite picture. A rustic youth stands for the first time in front of a stately college edifice. With clumsy feet and bated breath, he enters and walks, bewildered and awed, through the spacious library. The spell of the place comes over him, and he conceives a passion for scholarship which no hard- ship shall be able to quench in him.
And this brings us to the meaning of church architecture, and to the second of the questions raised, what is the relation of art to worship ? The relation is twofold. First, it is an aid to wor- ship. In primitive times some of the religious emotions find but scanty means of expression. When the Covenanters assembled for worship on the hill-side, when the Pilgrims praised God with the Bay State Psalm Book in one hand and their muskets in the other, no doubt the worship was sincere and vigorous, but it was lacking in some of the elements of completeness. Perhaps all the people praised God, but the whole man did not and could not. They did what they could and no doubt God was well pleased, better pleased than with some of the worship he receives amid more favorable accessories. But we cannot deny that the accesso- ries are more favorable, that praise and prayer and devout med- itation are aided, when architecture, and music, and well ordered speech, lend their best powers to the service. When in obedience to the Saviour's precept one enters into his closet and shuts the door, shuts even his eyes and his ears that he may be absolutely alone with God, then every accesory is a hindrance and an im- pertinence. The monk's cell is rightly bare. But when men " as- semble and meet together" for public worship, the case is different. Eye and ear and voice are now called on to contribute to the complex act of worship. The whole man calls upon his soul and all that is within him to worship God, and all that is without him to aid him in the act. He says to art, " God called thee by name centuries ago to serve the sanctuary. His call is still upon thee. Give me now a sanctuary in which every dimension, and line, and proportion, and color, and decoration, shall be in harmony with the spirit of prayer and praise. Let there be nothing that shall distract the thought from worship or disturb it in worship- no glare that shall irritate me, no gloom that shall chill me, no 4
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poverty or imperfection of structure that shall suggest niggard- liness in man's offering, and no parade of ornament for mere display."
There is such a thing as a profane church, that is, a church the whole expression and influence of which are not merely not religious but are hostile to religion, tending to induce in the minds it encloses, fretful, peevish, rebellious feelings toward God and all good things. There comes to me the remembrance of such a church in which dingy walls, and murky light, and ugly drapery, and a general flavor of mouldiness and neglect, so effectually preached against the preaching, and prayed against the prayers, and I might almost say cursed against the songs, that a devout feeling was almost an impossibility. And there is a secular church -a church, the style and tone of which perpetually thrust upon the mind worldly suggestions, in which it requires a constant effort to keep the thoughts from wandering off to matters of bus- iness, pleasure, politics, to remembrances and anticipations in which religion has no part. Often when the fault of these wan- derings of thought is charged upon the minister, or upon our- selves, while he was saying to us, " sursum corda! " and we were replying in all sincerity, "we will lift up our hearts to God," the environment was dragging our hearts down as with weights of lead. And again there is a church which, neither profane nor secular, is out of harmony with the distinctive form of worship it enshrines. Religion with us, as with the Israelites of old, still has its racial, historic, and local attributes. We all belong to the one Holy Catholic Church, yet one branch of it is unmistakably Italian, another Anglican, and another Puritan, and when any of us set up to be nothing distinctive, only cosmopolitan, only Chris- tians in general, we become liable to the sarcasm involved in the term " the church for vague Christians." Every church which stands for something positive, clings to its history, its traditions, its forms, and, among those forms, its architecture and appoint- ments. A church which by means of its grand symbolic ceremo- nies has awed kings, and subdued barbarians, and brought into its service the glory and honor of the nations, requires an edifice in which music and vestments and processions can have fitting opportunities. While there is room for doubt whether the gor-
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geous and voluptuous architecture of the Renaissance is in sym- pathy with religion pure and undefiled, no one will deny that the earlier and sincerer Gothic is Christian architecture and conse- crated art. And yet Gothic architecture seems to realize itself best in the magnificent cathedral amid civic environments; to harmonize with the great celebrations and solemnities of the church, with its Te Deums and Misereres, with public rejoicings and obsequies ; and to lend itself with less felicity to the ordinary occasions and uses of divine service. When the Puritans have come into possession of these vast Gothic edifices, as in Switzer- land and in Scotland, they have not been able to harmonize them with their forms of worship. A church which has grown out of a somewhat severe conception of Christianity, which has looked with suspicion on great ecclesiastical establishments, and which exalts the ethical above the sacerdotal aspects of religion, finds itself at home amid, I will not say in this presence a humbler, a less costly, but a simpler, more chaste, more spiritual architecture. That which the Puritan church builder has always been aiming at, and which is coming to be better and better attained, is an architecture in which, as in a poem, the spiritual shall predominate over the ma- terial ; in which the main impression will be not of imposing masses of stone mastered by human thought and made religious by human feeling, but rather that of a space filled and made holy by the presence of God.
And thus there is such a thing as a devout church, a church which at its very threshold hushes you into reverence, the very atmosphere of which hallows every thought, while its al- most audible solemnity syllables to your ear, " The Lord is in his holy temple : let all the earth keep silence before Him." Let us hope that this church will prove to be such a one. Before long the novelty of it will pass away from your minds; that which is now attractive will become familiar. You will cease to admire curiously this and that detail, and you will submit yourselves to the total effect, and that effect, I trust and believe, will be wor- shipful. You will find yourselves more attracted than formerly to church services ; to be absent will be to miss one of the de- lights of the week; you will when here glide more easily into the spirit of devotion ; you will more readily respond to the invita-
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tion to join in prayer and song; you will come more naturally into that frame of mind out of which worship comes and into which comes the word of God with its persuasive power. Not, of course, that any church building, however devoutly conceived and admirably appointed, can by its own influence turn a scoffer into a worshipper, or convert a soul, or inspire a life, but if it aid ever so little toward this end -as I believe it may, God's spirit so using it - then we can see why God calls into His service the gold, and silver, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and the art which can employ them effectively in this consecrated use, and why the dedication of such a building as this should be an occa- sion of devout thankfulness to God and of hopefulness for the increase of piety in this community.
Thus far of a church edifice as an aid to worship : but it is something beside; we may even say it is worship itself. The building and dedication of a church, if it be in the right spirit, is one of the highest acts of worship. It has been said of a great European Cathedral that it is a hymn in stone. We may say of a church planned with thought and prayer, built in reverence and faith, dedicated in evangelic love, that it is a divine service per- petually offered. We must not suffer ourselves to think of religion solely as a means of spiritual culture the benefits of which are to centre in ourselves. Religion is most of all an offering, a dedication, a giving of ourselves and all ours to God. Our selfish hearts are too ready to take to ourselves all the bene- fits and glories of creation and redemption, as though God ex- isted for our sake, as though the Church of Christ exists solely in order that it may minister heavenly things to you and me. Let us understand that we exist in order that we may glorify God and minister to the Church of Christ. There was significance in the old formula, "Let us sing to the praise and glory of God " the one hundredth Psalm. Whatever we sing or say or think or do in the house of God, and the very house itself, should be ulti- mately to the praise and glory of God. We are about to dedicate this house to God. What does this act mean ? That we set it apart to be used for purposes of soul culture, as we appropriate a school building to mind culture ? Much more than that. That we consecrate it to certain sabbatical uses and exercises, to the
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maintenance and enjoyment of the "stated means of grace ?" Much more than that. It means that human hearts, touched by the divine love in Christ, and eagerly responding to that love in such ways as are permitted to them, humbly ask God to accept this votive offering, as an expression, a perpetual expression, so long as it shall endure, of their gratitude and love and faith. God said of the olden sanctuary that his eyes and his heart should be there perpetually. Those who truly dedicate a sanctuary to him may say that in it they make perpetual dedication of their hearts. There was a time when the material of which this build- ing is composed was so much matter - nothing more- mere stone and wood, oil and lime and sand, mere gold and silver and purple and scarlet. But by a process which is the highest work attainable by man and most like God's, this crude matter has been etherealized and made spiritual. And as we read in the apocalyptic vision that gold has become the streets and gates of the New Jerusalem, and precious stones the pillars of the spiritual temple, and fine linen the righteousness of the saints, so what this building mainly is now is reverence, penitence, memory, grati- tude, love, and immortal hope. This pulpit is no longer mere oak, quartered, panelled, carved, it is the message of Christ's love to sinful men. This organ is not a mere assemblage of pipes and stops and keys, it is a diapason of praise to God. And if you dedicate this church aright it will be your praise to God and your proclamation of the message of life. If you go back to your homes to-day, and leave not here some of the best part of your hearts, to praise God for you in the silence of the night, to preach for you, when you shall be gone from earth, the everlasting gospel of Christ, you will not have dedicated this building. It will be but so much gold and silver and brass, so much stone and lime and sand.
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