m m ^ ¦-,. m mmm III— ¦IMHIIIIHIil • iLniBiBAisy • From the Library of SIMEON E. BALDWIN, Y '61 Gift of his children HELEN BALDWIN GILMAN ROGER SHERMAN BALDWIN, Y '90 1927 Newtown Congregational Church 1714 ~ i9J4 THE STORY OF TWO CENTURIES WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE CELEBRATION OF THE BICENTENARY OF THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF NEWTOWN, CONN. October 18, iq and 20, 1014. PRESS OF THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR CO. IQI4 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Preface 4 Foreword 5 Story of the Celebration 7 Historical Address, by Susan J. Scudder 13 Address, by Rev. Williston Walker, D.D., of New Haven 60 Christian Endeavor Rally — a Retrospect and a Prospect — Address by Rev. O. W. Barker 68 The Church that Stands Four-Square, by Rev. Charles R. Brown, D.D., Dean of the Yale School of Religion 80 Address, by Rev. James H. George, D.D., Rector of Trinity Church, Newtown 83 Address, by Rev. L. F. Berry of Stamford 87 Address, by Judge John H. Perry of Southport 90 Address, by Rev. Sherrod Soule of Hartford 95 Letters of Regret 99 The Memorial Tablets 102 Ministers of the Church, 1714-1914 103 PREFACE This book has been prepared not for the present merely or mainly, but for future generations. How often do we regret that the records of the past are so meagre ! What would we not give for a book, similar to this, issued a hundred years ago; and are we not justified in feeling that our children and our children's children will prize this volume as we prize the all-too- rare old books, old clocks and old chairs that have come down to us? It is a book that is of lasting value, not only to the people of the church whose story it contains, but also to all who are in any way interested in Newtown or in Fairfield County. As a book of reference it should find a place in every local library, public or private. The work of preparing it has been a labor of love, thus eliminating all expense except that of publication. Allison P. Smith, Timothy J. Lee, Susan J. Scuddee, Arthur T. Nettleton, Cornelius B. Taylor, Editorial Committee. Rev. Timothy J. Lee Pastor of the Church FOREWORD A record of the Bicentennial celebration of the Newtown Congregational Church would not be complete without a brief word as to the preparatory work leading up to the celebration. At the annual meeting of the church in January, 1912, a com mittee was named with power to arrange for a fitting celebration. On December 16, 1913, the committee met in session at the residence of Miss Susan J. Scudder and effected an organization as follows: Executive Committee Allison P. Smith, Chairman Miss Susan J. Scudder, Secretary Levi Curtis Morris Rev. Timothy J. Lee Arthur Treat Nettleton Cornelius B. Taylor The following sub-committees were named to care for the details of the celebration: Program Committee Rev. Timothy J. Lee, Chairman Executive Committee Committee on Invitations Cornelius B. Taylor, Chairman Arthur T. Nettleton Mrs. Andrew C. Moore Committee on Tablets Arthur T. Nettleton, Chairman Rev. Timothy J. Lee Miss Susan J. Scudder Mrs. Levi C. Morris Committee on Book Allison P. Smith, Chairman Cornelius B. Taylor Rev. Timothy J. Lee Arthur T. Nettleton Susan J. Scudder Committee on Reception and Transportation Arthur J. Smith, Chairman Cornelius B. Taylor Hervey W. Wheeler Edward S. Lovell Philander E. Abbott H. Carlton Hubbell Dr. Frank J. Gale Geo. R. Wilson BICENTENNIAL celebration Committee on Decorations Mrs. Arthur J. Smith, Chairman Mrs. Arthur W. Reynolds Mrs. Levi C. Morris Mrs. Hervey W. Wheeler Mrs. Wm. Homer Hubbell Mrs. William H. Thicket Mrs. Philander E. Abbott Mrs. George B. Beers Mfs- Jesse B. Woodhull Finance Committee Levi C. Morris, Chairman Arthur T. Nettleton Cornelius B. Taylor Wilson M. Reynolds Music Committee Arthur W. Reynolds, Chairman Mrs. William F. Hale H. Carlton Hubbell Mrs. Levi C Morris Committee on Printing Arthur J. Smith, Chairman Gustave W. Carlson Minnie R. Thicket The result of their work found expression in the harmonious and inspiring services of the three days. Previous to the celebration a committee named by the First Ecclesiastical Society, consisting of: Cornelius B. Taylor Arthur J. Smith Arthur Treat Nettleton Levi Curtis Morris Wilson M. Reynolds with painstaking care and fidelity, had wrought great changes in the interior of the old meeting house. The result of their labors included the redecorating of the walls of the church, the installation of an organ, rich in tone and dignified in its outer architectural lines, the purchase of new pulpit furnishings, the laying of new carpets, the placing of new cushions in the pews, and the installation of an electric lighting system, used for the first time in any public building in Newtown at the Sunday evening service of the celebration. Everything in this ancient and loved House of God was in fine order for the coming cele bration, which was to mean so much to the members of the church and congregation. Deacon Allison P. Smith Chairman of the Bicentennial Executive Committee STORY OF THE CELEBRATION The celebration in honor of the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Newtown Congregational Church had a fitting opening in the inspiring commemorative service held at the usual hour of morning worship, Sunday, October 18th. The weather conditions were perfect, the heavy fog of the early morning breaking away into a beautiful autumnal day. The church interior presented a bright appearance ; chrysanthemums and hydrangea blossoms, palms, ferns and other plants were blended in the artistic decorations about the pulpit platform. The Rev. Timothy J. Lee, the Pastor, was assisted in the open ing exercises by the Rev. Sherrod Soule of Hartford, Super intendent of the Connecticut Home Missionary Society. The choir, under the leadership of Mrs. W. F. Hale, finely rendered the anthem, "Through Peace to Light," by C. B. Adams. The duet by Stainer, "Love Divine, All Love Excelling," was ren dered by Mrs. W. F. Hale and Curtis P. Morris. The hymns of the morning were "Come, Thou Almighty King," "O God, Our Help In Ages Past," "Oh God, Beneath Thy Guiding Hand." The sermon of the morning was by the Pastor, Rev. Mr. Lee. The texts were Heb. 10:32, "Call to remembrance the former days," and Isa. 51:1, "Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn." Mr. Lee said in part: — "It has been said that the light which lights a nation to its fame is the light of its sunrise. We have met to call to mind how our church, yea, how our nation started and how our ancestors wrested out of the very jaws of the wilderness the inheritance that is ours to-day; and to pray for grace and the strength to do our part towards the world's advancement; to make strong and efficient our link in the wondrous chain of succession. We are reminded to-day of the fact that even in this age of novelty and the love of it there are some things that are prized even more highly because they are old — the old church and the old town, both of which the founders loved and faithfully served ; 8 bicentennial celebration the old clocks that our grandfathers used to wind; the old chairs in which our grandmothers used to sit with the old Bible on their knees, and the old hymn books at their side with its 'Tell me the old, old story Of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, Of Jesus and His love.' We are patriots and accept that doctrine of the glorious Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal, and therefore, it makes no difference where a man is born, he is entitled to the same equality of privilege and opportunity with every other man ; but somehow, to-day we cannot keep back the feeling that it is just as well for a man, if he can so arrange it, to be born in New England. The cleverest thing I ever did, perhaps the only clever thing that I have done, was to make just that arrangement, and, considering my extreme youth and inex perience at the time, I submit that I ought to be somewhat com mended. But I am not only a born Puritan, I am a born optimist as well, and I believe that I am a born optimist because I am a born Puritan. Contrary to the general impression, those ancestors of ours were, in my opinion, the greatest optimists that ever lived. With faith in God first they had faith in themselves as God sustained. They believed that an Almighty God was at the helm of the universe guiding the stately ship through the ages. With this conception they could sing from the heart 'We trust Thy love, Thou best dost know, The Universal peace, How long the stormy force should flow, And when the flood should cease: And though around our path some form Of mystery ever lies, And life is like the calm and storm That checker earth and skies, Through all life's changing joy and dread Permit us, Holy One, By faith to see the golden thread Of Thy great purpose run.' It seems to be easy for us to mock them, and for a certain kind of so-called culture, such a culture as at this very moment is lifting up its braggart front on the desolated fields of Europe NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH O sneering at the past and boasting of its superiority; it is easy for such a culture to pity their ignorance and to ridicule or cartoon them as solemn and morose. But I would like to put one of those cartoonists on Plymouth Rock as it was in 1620, with his back to three thousand miles of stormy ocean, and his face to the savage wilderness and more savage men and tell him that he is expected to go forward, wade through the snow, cut down the forest, clear a space for a home, and lay the founda tions of a new nation; I would like to see how this modern optimism would compare with that of the old Puritans. A few years ago our neighbor, New Milford, celebrated her Bicentennial. In a brief address which I was invited to deliver on that occasion, I told of a personal incident which I feel is appropriate now. Perhaps our New Milford friends who have honored us with their presence to-day will remember it, though it is just as possible that they will not; we preachers know what is the lot of public speaking. I once met one of our recently adopted sons who called himself a German-American. Just here I want to say by way of parenthesis that the time has come in the history of our country when the people are putting up a strong protest against using the hyphen in describing any of our citizens. We want to hear no more about German-Ameri cans, Anglo-Americans, Franco-Americans or Irish- Americans. If men come here to make this land their home we will welcome them, but we insist that they be willing to call themselves, as we call ourselves, simply Americans ; that they be loyal to no flag but Old Glory, to no ruler but Uncle Sam. Well, this recent importation from the Old World was living in Nebraska and added, 'Do you know that twenty-two Connecticuts could be put into my state and that this country has now reached a point in her growth where she could cut out New England and not feel it?' That was a strange idea, perhaps you will think, but it is not so rare after all, and it is time to stop its spread. Cut New England out of the great life of the nation ! Yes, you may when you can cut out a thread of gold woven in and out in a fabric of glossy richness and manifold colors without destroying the entire piece. Cut New England out! Yes, you may when you can cut out of the loaf the leaven that has made it sweet and light. Cut New England out ! Yes, you may when without disfigurement you can cut out the features of a mother from the face of her child." IO BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION Mr. Lee closed by saying: "I must detain you no longer, for you will have to do a tremendous amount of listening during the next three days. I hope you have inherited enough of that element of endurance which enabled your ancestors to listen to sermons two hours long, to carry you successfully through the ordeal. I want to say in conclusion that I love this old Church and this old Town. Their interests are now my interests and their people my people. God grant that the spirit of the founders shall ever be the spirit of the sons, and that while we sound the praises of a noble ancestry, we do not forget that we are called to do something ourselves for posterity to commemorate." The congregation of the morning completely filled the church and the gallery, visitors being present from Bridgeport, South Britain, Stepney, Monroe, Redding, Bethel and New Milford. SUNDAY AFTERNOON SERVICE The service, Sunday afternoon, at 2 :30 o'clock, to which the neighboring churches of the town had especially been invited, opened with the Doxology, followed by the Invocation by the Rev. Mr. Lee, and the Lord's Prayer by the congregation. The choir numbers for the afternoon included the anthem by Wilson, "Be Thou Exalted." Mrs. W. F. Hale gave an appropriate render ing of Handel's solo, "Come Unto Me." The hymns for the afternoon were "How Firm a Foundation Ye Saints of the Lord," "Oh, Where are Kings and Empires Now," and "Blest Be the Tie that Binds." Rev. Mr. Lee, in his welcome to the visiting friends, said: "It gives me great pleasure to welcome you here to-day, repre sentatives of different churches. We all have our individual tastes in regard to religious worship, but as the Scripture which I have read states, we are, after all, one. One in faith, one in hope of a glorious immortality and one, I believe, in the desire for prosperity, both temporal and spiritual, of our beloved town. I am pleased, not to introduce, for you all know him, but to call upon the Reverend James H. George, Rector of Trinity Church, Newtown. Rev. Mr. George made a very happy and pleasing address of congratulation. The closing address of the afternoon was by Rev. Sherrod Soule of Hartford, beloved by all Congregationalists. NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH II CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR RALLY The interest and enthusiasm in the Bicentennial celebration showed no falling away in the Christian Endeavor rally, Sunday evening, despite the two long and interesting sessions already held. The church was again taxed to its seating capacity. The service opened with the Invocation, Lord's Prayer, Responsive Reading, Reading of the Scripture, and the singing of the hymn, "Sun of my Soul, Thou Saviour Dear." Allison P. Smith spoke briefly as one of the charter members of the society. The main address of the evening was by Rev. Otis Webb Barker, Assistant Pastor of the Fourth Congregational Church of Hartford, and for twelve years pastor of the Newtown Congregational Church. HISTORICAL SERVICE Deep interest centered in the historical service, Monday after noon. The service opened with the Doxology, the Lord's Prayer, and the singing of the Gloria. The historical paper was by Miss Susan J. Scudder, and received the closest attention; the paper occupied about an hour in its delivery, and was one of the great events of the celebration. The historian's able presentation of the historical matter made the time pass only too quickly. At the conclusion of the reading of Miss Scudder's excellent paper, the hymn was sung, "Oh, God of Bethel by Whose Hand Thy People Still Are Led." The closing address of the after noon was by Rev. Williston Walker, D.D., who spoke on the contrast of two centuries of church life. MUSICAL SERVICE The musical service, Monday evening, brought out an attend ance which again crowded the old Meeting House, the largest company that has assembled in the history of the present genera tion. The concert, which was of a sacred nature, reflected high credit on the choir director, Mrs. W. F. Hale, Arthur W. Rey nolds, chairman of the Music Committee, and Joseph W. Crosley, choir director of St. James's Church, Danbury. The boy soloist, Master William Daniels of Danbury, was heard with great pleasure in the solo, "Oh, Divine Redeemer." Curtis P. Morris of Bridgeport, whose fine tenor voice is so often 12 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION heard in the Congregational Church choir, rendered the solo, "I'm a Pilgrim," by Johnson. Arthur W. Reynolds was heard with pleasure in a solo, "O Day of Rest and Gladness." Mrs. W. F. Hale, choir director and soprano soloist, rendered the solo by Gaul, "These are They." The work of the chorus was espe cially pleasing, the chorus numbers including: "Festival Te Deum" in F, by Dudley Buck, "Inflammatus" from "Stabat Mater," by Gounod, and "Hear My Prayer," by Mendelssohn. MEETING OF THE FAIRFIELD ASSOCIATION The celebration came to a fitting close on Tuesday, October 20th, with the meeting of the Fairfield Association with the New town Church. The meeting opened at n o'clock, Rev. L. F. Berry of Stamford, the Moderator, presiding. After a busi ness session the meeting of the Association was adjourned at one o'clock to go to the dinner served by the ladies of the Church to the Ministers, Delegates and Guests of the Association. The Rev. L. F. Berry, Moderator, presided at the afternoon service and gave an exceedingly helpful address. The address of the Rev. Charles Reynolds Brown, D.D., of New Haven, Moderator of the National Council of Congrega tional Churches, was one of the treats of the session, spiritual in tone, eloquent and uplifting. Rev. Gerald H. Beard, D.D., of the Park Street Church, Bridgeport, spoke on the Relation of the Country Church to the City Church. Hon. John H. Perry, a member of the Southport Church, and an active figure in the meetings of the National Council, gave an address of deep interest. Thus closed a series of meetings, helpful and spiritual in tone, the influence of which must long remain with the local church and all whose good fortune it was to be present. Miss Susan J. Scudder Church Historian and Secretary of the Bicentennial Executive Committee HISTORICAL ADDRESS By Susan J. Scudder "Think of all those who erst have been Living where thou art even now, Looking upon life's busy scene With glance as careless and light as thou. All these, like thee, have lived and moved, Have seen what now thou look'st upon, Have feared, hoped, hated, mourned or loved, And now from mortal sight have gone. We do think of them to-day, and, thinking, we are made solemn by the thought that we are but a part of the long pro cession; that we, too, are passing away; that we soon shall be numbered with the generations that are gone and our successors will sometime be asking the 'days that are past' about us. If the days that are past be compared with those that are present what wonderful changes will appear ! Imagine that the Indians, who sold this town to its original proprietors, or those original proprietors themselves, should awake from the sleep of the centuries and survey this goodly land, what would they see which they did not see in 1700 or 1705? In the place of forests and swamps are meadows and cultivated fields; in place of log huts and wigwams are substantial and often costly houses; in place of a few red men or hardy settlers is a population of over four thousand. Where the Pootatuck rolled its silent way to the 'Great River' are large manufactories which supply all parts of the country and the world with articles then unknown, while the railroads and telegraph and our printing presses would call forth exclamations of astonishment and many questions." Thus wrote one of the pastors of this church in an anniversary sermon preached July, 1876, the centenary of our Nation's birth, forty years ago. If the founders of this town and this church would have been astonished at the wonders of those days what would be their feelings could they go through our town to-day! In place of the slow-moving coaches of olden days are the luxuri ous, swiftly moving automobiles, rolling over our well-built state 14 BICENTENNIAL celebration roads, where once were only bridle paths. The telephone, found in almost every home, brings to us the very tones of our loved ones, though they be separated far from us, and our thoughts are flashed over the tractless seas by no visible means of com munication. Our grandmothers carried water from spring and brook for all their household purposes, while we of to-day but turn the faucet and all the waters of "Great Pond" are at our com mand. Days were spent in making the tallow dips, to-day we press the button and our houses are suffused with light by the magic of a power then undreamed of. Where once they sat upon hard benches through a two-hours' sermon, seeking to relieve the chill of the unheated room with their foot-stoves, we sit upon soft cushions and complain if the minister exceeds his half hour. Then they tuned the Psalms, now soft music from organ pipe and choir leads us in the worship of the God who is "the same yesterday, to-day and forever." But the mission of this paper is not to compare the past with the present, but rather to look into the past that we may see all the way our God has led us. It is not necessary for me to go into the history of Newtown, our venerable historian, Mr. E. L. Johnson, has already done that for us in his able and scholarly paper prepared for the Bicentennial of the town in 1905, and I am sure it is still fresh in your minds how Massumpus, Mauquash and Nunnawauk, acting in behalf of the Pootatuck tribe of Indians, sold to William Junos and Samuel Hawley, Jr., of Stratford, and Justus Bush of New York, a tract of land eight miles long and six miles wide, lying on the west side of the Great River, now called Housatonic "for and in consideration of four guns, four broad cloth coats, four blankets, four ruffelly coats, four collars, ten shirts, ten pairs of stockings, forty pounds of lead, ten pounds of powder and forty knives." Thus did the aboriginal owners of this fair town part with their ancestral homes for the pomp and vanity of "ruffelly" coats and collars. But William Junos, Samuel Hawley and Justus Bush placed a far different value upon the land. They saw fields with crops growing when once their sturdy arms had cleared away the primal forests ; mills upon the streams ; communities "where a man's a NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 1 5 man for ay that," and houses of worship where each might wor ship the God of his fathers according to the dictates of his own conscience, and so we see very early in the life of the new settle ment an effort made to settle a minister and build a house of worship. It was the custom in those early days in the colonies for the town to call the minister in the town meeting, and a tax was levied on the taxable property of the freeholders for the minis ter's salary and was considered a part of town expenses. The first move we have any record of toward calling a minister was September 24, 171 1, when a town meeting was held at the house of Peter Hubbell, who was elected town clerk. It was then voted "that Mr. Phineas Fisk be invited to come to this place to preach a sermon amongst us and that we may discuss him about settling amongst us as a minister of the gospel for half a year or some other space of time, as may be agreed upon for a trial, and that Lieutenant William Adams be the person to wait upon him here as soon as can be conveniently attended upon." December 24, 171 1, it was voted "that if Mr. Phineas Fisk will come and settle in Newtown and preach ye ministry to us he shall have a petition right." August 12, 1712, it was voted if Mr. Fisk would settle amongst them they would for his encouragement build him a house and give him his firewood yearly, move his family and goods, and fence and sow his home lot to wheat. Mr. Fisk declined the call and some of the neighboring minis ters were called in to assist the church in keeping a day of humiliation and prayer "that God in his mercy would direct and prosper us with a man to preach the gospel to us." We have no record of when the ministers came to Newtown to keep a "day of humiliation and prayer" with the church, but no further effort was made till the spring of 1713, so far as we know, toward finding a minister. How did they spend those long winter Sabbaths when Sunday began at sundown on Satur day? Did the little handful of settlers gather about the fire place, — stoves there were none, in the rude cabin of some one of their number to pray and tune the Psalms and perhaps listen to the reading of a sermon written by some noted divine of those or earlier days, or did the minister from the mother settlement at Stratford sometimes pay them a visit? 1 6 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION With the opening of spring we find the town making a serious effort to settle a minister among them and at a "lawful town meeting of ye Inhabitants of Newtown, April 29, 1713, Voted and agreed for Ebenezer Smith to go to Weathersfield to treat with Mr. Tousy of Weathersfield & request him to come and give us a visit & Preach a Sabbath or two with us that wee May Have Oportunity to Discorce him in Order to carry on ye work of ye ministry Amongst us. test John Glover Recorder." Mr. Tousey must have come at once and preached "a Sabbath or two," for a month later a committee was appointed "to discorse & treat with Mr. Thomas Towsee of Weathersfield in order to settle Amongst us to carry on ye work of ye Ministry in this Place. This meeting is adjourned until to-morrow night sun half Anour high from ye date Above." Accordingly, the next day, while the "sun was yet half an hour high," and after a day spent, doubtless, in putting in their crops, the good fathers gathered, perhaps at the house of John Glover, to settle upon the terms of payment to Rev. Thomas Tousey, and it was "voted and agreed to give him thirty pounds in money and also to sow all ye minister's home lott with Wheat that is suitable, Mr. Towsee to have ye crop Provided ye sd Mr. Thomas Towsee preach ye Gospel Amongst us a yeare. The Inhabitants aforesaid at sd meeting further voted and agreed and made Choice of Mr. Thomas Towsee for to preach ye gospel Amongst us for ye space of a year upon Probation in order to settlement." John Glover Recorder. The records fail to show whether Mr. Tousey preached here during the summer. He evidently did not decide at once upon accepting the call, for in November of the same year, 1713, a committee was appointed to know "if Mr Tousey is willing to carry on ye work of ye ministry in this place as long as God shall grant him life and health for ye salary that ye town and he shall agree upon." December 14, 1713. "Voted ye inhabitants of Newtown on ye Date above written, Have made and in our place and stead, Put and Empowered our trusty and loving friends Abraham Kimberly, John Glover, Ebenezer Smith, Ebenezer NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 17 Prindle and John Griffin our true and lawful attorneys, agents or trustees for us and in our name to indorse and agree with ye Reverend Mr Tousee respecting his settlement and maintenance so long as he shall continue to carry on ye work of ye ministry in this place or town Afore said. Ratifying, Allowing and Confirming and holding firm and effectual all, and whatsoever our sd Attorneys or Trustees shall Lawfully do in and About ye Premises as we ourselves had Personally indented and Agreed." Entered verbatim as voted. Attest John Glover, Town Clerk. The following May, 1714, the town by a vote at the town meeting accepted the agreement made by the committee with Mr. Tousey as to his settlement and salary. All of which points to Mr. Tousey having preached here some of the time at least dur ing 1 71 3 and a positive agreement was entered into between him and the town to become their minister in 1714. Dexter's "Yale Biographies and Annals" states that he began preaching in the new settlement in Newtown in May, 1713, and terms of settlement were agreed upon in July, 1714. The church itself was not formally organized till May, 1715, when the General Assembly authorized the gathering of a church and Mr. Tousey was ordained a few months later, October 15, 1715. There were about thirty families in the settlement at that time. Soon after Mr. Tousey was settled the town began to take the necessary steps toward building a house for the minister, which was speedily carried to completion. It stood on the ground opposite the Newtown Inn. The name of Tousey is closely associated with the early his tory of the Connecticut Colony. Richard Tousey, the grand father of Newtown's first minister, was one of the pioneer settlers of Wethersfield, and came from the English town of Towsland, Tousley, or Tousey, for these various spellings all appear in the records. Richard Tousey had a son Thomas, from whom the Tousey family in Fairfield County is descended. Thomas Tousey, Jr., was born in Wethersfield in 1688 and graduated from Yale College in 1707. The Hon. R. D. Smith in the College C our ant of October 8, 1868, says he joined the little settlement in Newtown as early as 1709 as teacher and preacher, and it is recorded in the old town records that John Glover bought of Thomas Tousey four acres of land at Half Way River on January 14, 1713/14. 1 8 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION Of his work as a minister we know but little, although we find several interesting records pertaining to the terms of his salary. There were some in the church evidently who objected to the first terms of settlement, and the following record shows some thing of the spirit of this first minister of the church: 'Whereas, In the Engagement of the town of Newtown by their com mittee to myself for my encouragement and for them In the work of the ministry bearing date July the 27th, 1714, there is in it an article as this expressed in these words : 'And also if by the Providence of God the Reverend Mr Tousey should be disinabled from his work in the min istry through sickness, infirmity, or age, he is notwithstanding to have his salary of sixty pounds a year yearly during life.' This article being to some distrustful, be it known to all men to whom this present shall come, That I do that is, I the said Tousey do accept the said agreement of the Town as though the above said article had never been mentioned, always reminded that there be never any but confidence on this act of mine as though I did, In such losses as above said cut myself off from the common privileges of ministers of the Gospel, or from reasonable subsidence being administered. In witness whereof I do hereunto set my hand and seal this fifth day of October, Anno Domini 1715." Thomas Tousey. In presence of us, Abraham Kimberley, Samuel Beers. At a town meeting held February 24, 1718, the question of salary came up, when the following vote was passed : "Voted, Whereas it is concluded Between Mr Tousee and ye selectmen of ye Town of Newtown that for ye greater convenience of paying ye sd Mr Tousee his sallary that the year shall begin with Him as to his min- isteriall work on ye 8th day of March next, and so shall continue year by year. It is concluded yt all yt is behind or remaining due of sd Mr Tousee's sallary from ye first of his ministry to ye 8th of March next, which is 43 pounds, 16 shillings, three pence, shall be Payed by sd Day or with all convenient speed and that ever after ye 8th of March Shall be ye time on or by which ye sd Mr Tousee shall be cleared or that shall be promised therefor." Thomas Bennitt, Thomas Toucey, Joseph Peck, Selectmen. Attest, Joseph Peck, Town Clerk. March 7, 1718: "At ye above sd town meeting the inhabitants aforesaid did consent to, and by their vote confirm ye agreement between ye Reverend Mr Tousee NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 1 9 and ye selectmen of ye town of Newtown, February 24, 1718, and ordered sd agreement to be recorded." — Attest, Joseph Peck, Town Clerk. "Whereas, in the articles of agreement between the town of Newtown and myself, particular prices are specified of grain and provisions, I do hereby declare that as to the grain and provisions that I shall receive of the town for the use of my family or for my own necessity or occasion to be improved in this place, that I will receive it at the common and current price that it shall go at in this place of Newtown from man to man and as to what I shall receive over and above what is above mentioned, that I will receive it at the price that it will fetch at the market at the seaside where I shall cause it to be transported. The price of transportation being to be subtracted. That is, that I will give as much here as it shall fetch me at any of the near seaboard towns where I shall carry it, except the charge and expense that I shall be at in con veying of it down and the loss that I may sustain by shrinkage of grain before such sale or rather at the reception of such grain or provision I will allow how as it will fetch at the same time at the next seaport town or towns excepting the common and usual price of transportation from here thither. In witness whereof I do hereunto set my hand this 18th day of Novem ber, A. D. 1718. — Thomas Toucey." Joseph Peck, Town Clerk. In 1721 "for the greater encouragement of ye minister the town voted and agreed by ye Inhabitants aforesaid to get Mr Tousee his fire wood the year 1721 by rate leavied out of ye list of ye estate of ye inhabitants afore sd, at one penny per pound; ye price of a load of wood, walnut wood is to be 2 shillings, 6 pence; a load of oak or other good wood is 2 shillings a load ; ye aforesaid is to be carted or sledded by ye last of January or ye first of February next, and if any man shall neglect to give in his account of his wood into ye Collector of ye Wood Rate, Shall by virtue of this vote be as liable to be strained upon for his wood rate, as he yt has got no wood for ye aforesaid Mr Tousee." "Voted, that Daniel Fort shall be and is appointed collector for to take care of and collect ye above sd wood rate according to vote or as ye law directs for ye gathering of other town rates." Attest, Joseph Peck, Town Clerk. So far as we know harmony prevailed in the little flock. The men were busy from sun-up till sun-down clearing away the for ests, putting in, cultivating, and harvesting their crops, building larger barns and more commodious houses as they were able to do so. The women were equally busy, for in those days there were few articles used in the home that were not made by the women. All the clothing worn by the family, all the carpets, 20 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION curtains and bedding were of home manufacture, and as for any kind of food prepared outside of the home such a thing was not dreamed of for many years to come. But in spite of the strenu ous Ufe they hved in those early days they found time to be earnest students of the Bible and to train their children in its precepts. Hollister, in his "History of Connecticut," pays this tribute to the early settlers : "The Bible was the constant companion of the early inhabitants of Connecticut The emigrant studied it by day and by night He taught it to his children with the same constancy that supplied them with daily food, and the burden of his prayer was that they might understand it in its deepest and most spiritual significance. The Bible was the polar star of the Colony. Its precepts are written in letters of light upon our early records. Its doctrines were discussed in the field when the laborers bent over the ridges of corn, and in the heart of the great forest, while the woodman sat in the still noon leaning against the trunk of the tree he had felled, he pondered its pre cepts in secret It was carried into the battle field by the soldier and with an honest joy, when the victory was won, its promises were read anew. Children were named from its great prophets, poets and heroes." In 1723 we find the first record of the rift that made discord in the harmony of the little flock. At a town meeting held March 12, it was "Voted that Capt Thomas Bennett, Sergt Peter HubbelL Saml Beers and Ephraim Peck be a committee in ye behalf of ye town to discors with ye Reverend Mr. Tousee by reason of uneasiness of ye major part of ye inhabitants of sd town, they being willing to pay himself for ye time he has continued in ye work of ye ministry till this Instant and no farther, provided he will lay down ye work of ye ministry among us." Recorded, Joseph Peck, Clerk. The reason why the early fathers of the church could not "sit easy" under the preaching of Mr. Tousey they failed to record and we can only surmise. The following extract from "Hawks and Perry's Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal Church," quoted by Miss Rebecca Donaldson Beach in her history of the Beach and San- ford families, would seem to throw some light on the probable NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 21 cause of the dissension. In one of Mr. Pigott's letters to the Secretary of the Society, written from New York, October 3, 1722, he says: "I shall before Christmas, according to appoint ment, preach thrice in Fairfield — as often at Newtown — thrice also at Ripton (now Huntington) . . . Nay, Sir, Newtown and Ripton, if not Fairfield, do intend to petition the Honorable Society for Church Ministers." In November he again writes: "The Subscribers of Ripton have been of long standing inclined to the Church — but those of Newtown to a man, have been induced by my means to embrace our profession." In another letter he says of Newtown : "Its inhabitants are about half gone over and Mr. Johnson (Mr. Pigott's successor at Stratford) may expect thirty communicants there." Under date of October 19, 1722, we find the following petition from "Members of the Church of England at Newtown, Con necticut, to the Secretary": "Wc the subscribers, inhabitants of the Town of Newton (Newtown) in the province of Connecticut, being cordially included to embrace the articles and liturgy of the Church of England, and to approach her communion, do humbly and earnestly request your Honorable Society to send us a lawfully ordained minister. We are heads of families and with dependents shall appear the major party here; therefore we intend to set apart for our episcopal teacher, whensoever it shall please God to inspire your Venerable body to appoint us one, at least two hundred acres of glebe for the support of a church minister forever. "And this we are emboldened to hope, because our town is at so great a distance from Stratford as twenty-two miles and also situated in the center of all this country, being surrounded with more than ten other towns at no vast distance. We do likewise return our most hearty thanks for that which Mr. Pigott introduced among us, who has inclined us to declare boldly for the Church, & thereby to be exposed to the resentments of the Independents, to his and our, no small disadvantage and reproach ; indeed we are placed in the midst of an insidious people, but should quietly enjoy our persuasion without the intervention of others, if an Episcopal minister were once settled among us, which we beg of Almighty God to induce the Honorable Society to nominate; and in the meantime we remain your very humble servants and well wishers. "John Glover, Ebeneezer Booth, Stephen Parmelee, Samuel Henry, Moses Knapp, Dan'l Jackson, John Seeley of Chestnut Ridge, Jeremiah Turner, Sam'l Mosher, Eliza Sharp, widow, Thomas Wheeler of Wood bury." Mr. Tousey relinquished his charge in March, 1724, "sore broken in healdi and as it may seem refusing recovery," and 2 2 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION two months later memorialized the General Assembly to secure the receipt of his last year's dues, sixty pounds and firewood. I should fail in my duty as historian if I did not record some thing of the later history of this man who filled so large a place in the early affairs of this town, and whose descendants are among its influential and honored residents at the present time. After Mr. Tousey closed his pastorate over the church it is said he went to England and there received the commission of Captain in the King's army. After his return he took up the practice of medicine in the town and became Newtown's first physician. An account book now in the possession of one of his descend ants, Mr. Theron E. Piatt, shows that he sold drugs and medi cines and attended the sick as early as 1737. He also became a large landholder in the town and his name and the name of his wife, Hannah Clark, daughter of Captain Samuel Clark, of Mil ford, to whom he was married November 12, 1717, appear in many of the early deeds. Dexter's "Yale Biographies and Annals" (1701-1745) states that his wife's father died in 1725, leaving a large landed estate, but no will: and the eldest son, Samuel Clark, Jr., of Milford appealed to the Superior Court for a reversal of the decree of the New Haven Probate Court (dated February 28, 1726-7) dividing the estate, real as well as personal, according to the old law of the Colony (1699) equally among all the children, except ing a double portion to the eldest son. Before this appeal was acted upon, a similar appeal made by another party had been carried to England, and unexpectedly sustained by the King in Council, on the ground that the Connecticut statute was con trary to the law of the realm. The principle involved was important, since the titles to land acquired under the old law would be unsettled if the law was pronounced invalid ; and when Samuel Clark, Jr., having compounded with the other co-heirs was unable to overawe Captain Tousey, all the Colony was interested. Clark carried his appeal to England, and in 1742 the General Assembly voted £500 to Captain Tousey for the defense of his suit and instructed the Colony's Agent in London to retain able counsel to assist and defend him. He did not go to England himself, but in July, 1745, an order was finally passed in Council dismissing Clark's petition. NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 23 In 1727 Rev. Thomas Tousey was commissioned by the Gen eral Assembly as Captain of a train band and from 1728 until his death in 1761, a period of thirty-three years, he was Justice of the Peace. He was also Newtown's first representative to the General Court, being elected with Mr. John Northrop to that office in 1747. He also represented the town in 1748 and again in 1751. Tradition says his home was at or near where Mr. Arthur T. Nettleton now resides, and his son Oliver lived at the head of the street. It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Tousey became a leading and very useful citizen in the town and those who could not "sit easy" under his preaching nevertheless relied upon his judgment in other matters, and indeed in church matters also, for he often acted as moderator and served on the standing committee of the church. In 1743 he was appointed to oppose the formation of a new Ecclesiastical Society in Newberry (now Brookfield) and he was selected to fix the boundaries between New Milford and New town. When his successor, the Rev. John Beach, declared for the Church of England in 1732, Captain Tousey with Peter Hubbell and John Leavenworth was appointed in behalf of the town to write to the "Reverend Ecclesiastical Council of Fairfield County" for their assistance. Mr. Tousey died in 1761. A blue slate slab in what is known as the old part of our village cemetery marks his grave and bears the following inscription. "Here lies interred the Body of Thomas Tousey Esqr who died March 14, 1761 in the 74th Year of his Age. Down to an impartial Grave's devouring shade Sinks Human Honors and the Hoary Head. Protract your years, acquire what mortals can Here see with deep concern the End of Man.' Captain Tousey left a family of seven daughters and four sons, some of whom settled in Newtown. His great-grandson, Isaac Tousey, became Governor of Connecticut in 1846. In 1850 he was elected United States Senator and served five years, resign- 24 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION ing in 1855 to take a place in President Buchanan's Cabinet as Secretary of the Navy. It seems proper at this point to consider the meeting house of the early church. The Rev. J. P. Hoyt states in his historical sermon delivered in 1876 that an effort was made as early as 1710 to build a house of worship, but nothing is found in the records until November 23, 171 3, when at a town meeting it was voted "that John Glover, James Hard and Ebenezer Smith be a committee to hire workman on ye town's account to build a meet ing house to serve God in, 40 ft. long and 32 foot between joynts." No further records are found until December, 1717. Why the work was not begun we have no means of knowing nor where Mr. Tousey preached during the early years of his pastorate except for this record in 1714 : "Voted to give Josiah Burrit 20 shillings in pay or two-thirds money for meeting in his house on ye Lord's Day from ye Daye until next May ensuing." From this it would seem that there was no public place of meet ing for a number of years. It probably was all the early settlers could do to keep the wolf from the door and provide homes for their growing families, and so although they formed the church organization and hired a minister they could not build a house of worship at once. But in the winter of 1717-18 the matter again came up, and in the spring of 1718 the Colonial Court, convened at Hartford, came to the aid of the settlers by laying a tax of one penny an acre to be paid yearly for four years. A few months later Thomas Scidmore came forward with a proposition that led to the calling of a town meeting on Novem ber 18, and the passing of the following vote : "Voted, that whereas Thomas Scidmore hath made offer to this town for ye sum of 45 pounds to get and hew all the timber for a meeting house of dimensions as followeth and to frame it workmanlike viz., In length 30 feet, in breadth 36 feet and between joynts 20 feet and also to cover it, the sides with clabbords, and the ruff with short shingles, the town finding nails, and boards to shingle on, and to do all the carting, and whereas the town doth comply with his motion, it is by this meeting voted Mr. John Glover, Mr. Thomas Bennit and Mr. Joseph Peck shall be a committee and shall have full power to concert all matters necessary with sd Scidmore relating to sd work in behalf of ye town." The location of the meeting house was decided at a town meet ing held January 8, 1719, when it was NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 25 "Voted and agreed that the Cross Lane or that by John Piatt's, or rather when ye lane that runs easterly and westerly intersects ye maine town street or ye street that runs northerly and southerly shall be ye place to set or erect ye meeting house for carrying on ye public worship of God that is already agreed upon to be built." Joseph Peck, Town Clerk. The location must have been near the center of the street where the flagpole now stands. Mr. Scidmore received forty- five pounds for the work, about $225. Later it was voted to make an addition of twenty feet, making the entire length of the building fifty feet. It would be interesting to know when this first rude building was completed and when the first service was held in it. It could have been nothing more than a barn-like structure with lit tle or no inside furnishings save the benches and perhaps a wide open fireplace into which they rolled the huge logs. But the first service in the new meeting house must have been one of great, if sober rejoicing when, at the beat of the drum, they assembled themselves together in the house of the Lord. There were only the four bare walls and the rude benches, but they were brave and true hearts, — those sturdy ancestors of ours — and they builded even better than they knew, for the New England meeting house has always stood and still stands for all that is best in New England life. "How beautiful they stand, Those ancient altars of our native land ! Amid their pasture fields and dark green woods, Amid their mountains' cloudy solitudes, Each in its little plot of holy ground, How beautiful they stand, Those old white churches of our native land." A few more items of interest concerning the meeting house should be recorded before we turn back to the history of the organization and its ministers. At the annual town meeting held December 24, 1733, it was voted: "Whereas the Worshipfull Mr. Thomas Toucey and ye Reverend Mr. Elisha Kent have petitioned for Liberty to build upon their own charge each of them a pew in ye meeting house in Newtown for ye use of them selves and families as they shall have occasion, ye one on ye one side of ye 26 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION Great or South Door, and ye other on ye other side thereof, at ye above said meeting voted in ye Affirmative that their petition Be Granted, and it is hereby Granted. Entered ye date above Per Joseph Peck Town Clerk." In 1735 it was voted at a town meeting "that ye Presbyterian society shall as soon as may be erect and set up six fationable pews, three on either side of ye pulpit, and ye tax to defray ye charge of building ye same, if there be money enough, to be paid by ye town, but if not, then ye sd society to defray ye charges of ye above sd pews." It was also voted "that there is liberty to build two pews more, one on ye west side of Mr. Kent's pew and ye other on ye east side of Mr. Tousee's pew so as not to damnify ye gallery stairs." How had this desire to be "fationable" crept into the little community? Had some of the young folks been on a visit to one of the older settlements and observed their more comfortable and better looking meeting houses and returned home fired with a desire to reform their elders? Or perhaps Madam Bush and her daughters had paid a visit to the old home in New Amster dam and learned there that benches are "quite behind the times," "all the best people have their own pews." We can only specu late; we do know, however, that it was a step forward, leading up to the beautiful edifice of to-day, which memory peoples with the faces and forms of those who long since have joined the "choir invisible." In the early town records we find many references to "Sab bath Day houses," permission to build them in the highway being given by vote of the town. Cothren, in his history of Ancient Woodbury, says, "The Sabbath Day house was a place in which to take refreshments between the two church services, and for social and religious worship as the occupants might be inclined. It was built in two divisions, one for males and the other for females. Some families would have houses of their own for private use. These houses were necessary because the meeting houses were not warmed." Although there were a few families who sat uneasy under the Presbyterian form of worship no move was made apparently on H3SDH3 3H1 JO S\\\HI;\ HOIHaiNJ NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 27 the resignation of Mr. Tousey to establish a Church of England beyond the petition we have already noted, and a town meeting was called for July 27, 1724, to take some action on calling a successor to the Rev. Mr. Tousey. It was voted that "Capt. Thomas Bennett and Mr. Freegrace Adams be appointed mes sengers in behalf of ye town to go to Stratford to engage Mr. John Beach to preach ye gospel for the space of two or three months." Mr. Beach proved an acceptable probationer and "att a lawful Town meeting of ye Inhabitants of Newtown Held Oct. ye 8th 1724 Orderd & Apointd for ye making Choyce of a Gospel Minister in order to Settlement, the Voters were ordered to bring in their votes for ye Man whom they Desired should be their Settled Minister with ye Man's name fairly written on a pece of paper with thr owne names to itt also and Mr. John Beach of Stratford was made Choyce off for to be ye Gospel Minister in Newtown." Joseph Peck, Clerk. Mr. Beach received sixty pounds a year salary for the first two years. After that it was to be increased ten pounds per annum till it reached the sum of one hundred pounds, to be paid in money or provisions as they shall pass from man to man. The town also voted to give him his firewood and to build him a two-story house, Mr. Beach to furnish glass and nails. The town also agreed to give him the improvements of a four- acre home lot during his life and to make over to him one hundred and twenty-three acres of land. All seems to have gone well for the next few years, although there was doubtless more or less of discussion and probably some dissension, since as early as 1722 a few of the inhabitants had petitioned the Church of England for a minister. But great indeed must have been the consternation of the church when their beloved leader announced that he no longer believed in the validity of his ordination and so felt he had no right to administer the sacra ments of the church. We can well believe this was no easy matter for Mr. Beach. In those days men were not "driven about by every wind of doc trine." Decisions were made only after days of fasting and prayer and it was doubtless after long meditation and much con flict of soul that this decision was reached and declared. 28 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION Let us once more turn to the old records of the town, for they throw more light upon the subject than is to be had from any other source. A town meeting was called for January 12, 1732 "to consult what was proper to be done with ye Rev. John Beach under ye present difficulties of ye town by sd Mr. Beach, who hath declared himself to be in communion with ye church of Eng land." This meeting was adjourned to January 19th and then it was "voted by ye inhabitants above sd to keep a day of solemn fasting and prayer under the present difficult circumstances. Also to call in ye Ecclesiastical Council of ye County of Fairfield to direct and to do what they shall think proper under the present difficult circumstances of ye sd town respecting ye Rev. John Beach and ye inhabitants of Newtown. Also ye first Wednesday of February next is ye day appointed for ye fast. Also voted by ye inhabitants aforesaid that Captain Thomas Tousey, Mr. Peter Hubbell and Mr. John Leavenworth be a committee in ye behalf of ye town to write to ye Reverend Elders of ye above County as above said for their assistance." The good fathers evidently delighted in town meetings, for another one was called for January 31, when it was "voted that Captain Thomas Tousey, Captain Thomas Bennitt and Deacon John Botsford be a committee to lay before ye Ecclesiastical Council this week expected here the present difficulties of ye town for that ye Rev. John Beach declareth himself to be partly reconciled to ye Church of England, that he questions the validity of ye Presbyterian ordination, that he cannot in faith, administer the Sacrament and refuseth to administer them, and declares that though there is a possibility, yet not ye least probability that he shall return to us againe upon his former principles, and to beg that ye said venerable Council would conclude and determine for this place with respect to ye premisis as they shall think most • regular." The Council met and dismissed Mr. Beach and he deeded back to the town all the land given to him at the time of his ordination. Soon after this Mr. Beach sailed for England to receive Orders from the Church of England, and returned in Septem ber of the same year, 1732. He was appointed by the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts" missionary over the towns of Newtown and Redding. Thus we see New town was once considered a Foreign Missionary Field. NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 29 But to go back a few months in the history of this transaction. It was in January Mr. Beach first made known his change in belief and was released from his charge by the Ecclesiastical Council. On February 7th a little company of like faith with Mr. Beach met and signed their names to the following petition : "Newtown, Feb. 7, 1732 : We whose names are hereunto subscribed do herebye declare that we are desirous that Mr. John Beach may be our minister notwithstanding his declaration for the Church of England and we are jointly willing to await until he shall get a regular ordination by which authority he may administer in faith the holy sacraments & further do hereby declare our protest against the settling or maintaining of another minister, and we will pay our rates to him the aforesd Mr. John Beach Salary as he shall continue to be our minister according to the Law entituled An Act providing how the taxes levied on the pro fessors of the Church of England for the support of the people shall be disposed of." So when Mr. Beach returned from England he found a little church of fifteen families awaiting him. Steps were soon taken for providing some kind of a church building. It is said it was raised on a Saturday, the roof boards were put on in the evening and the next day they assembled for worship, sitting on the tim bers and kneeling on the ground. Under Mr. Beach's fostering care the church grew and flourished and in 1746 a more com modious building was erected nearly opposite where the New town Inn now stands. Mr. Beach remained rector of the church till his death in 1782. He was a staunch supporter of the Crown as well as of the Church and in spite of repeated warnings continued to pray for the King and Royal Family during the Revolutionary War, and of all the clergy in the Colony continued his services unin terrupted during the entire Revolutionary period. Trinity Parish has honored his memory by placing upon the walls of its church a tablet commemorating his fifty years of service in the parish, and one of his descendants has further honored his memory in the gift of our beautiful Memorial Library building, surely a fitting monument to his life and work. But to return to the history of this church. Bereft of its min ister, the town appointed May 11, 1732, for "a day of fasting and prayer. To seek of God a right way for us and ye smiles of his 3° BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION countenance upon us and to make application to two or three neighboring elders for assistance in carrying on ye work of sd day." June 30th a town meeting was held and it was "Voted, that the voters shall bring in their votes with their names written to their votes, which was done and brought in, and Mr. Elisha Kent was by a fair and clear vote of ye inhabitants of ye town of New town made choice of for their minister upon ye Presbyterian foundation." Mr. Kent received for his encouragement all the land quit claimed by Mr. Beach and one hundred, ten pounds a year "provided Mr. Kent shall give good security that if he shall see cause to alter his principles from ye foundation on which he be settled to pay into ye Presbyterian party ye sum of 400 pounds lawful money". It is interesting to note that Capt. Thomas Tousey was chosen agent in behalf of the town to take the bond from Mr. Kent. Mr. Kent was ordained September 27, 1732. For the next ten years the records are very meager except for one or two votes concerning an increase of salary, which shows the church must have prospered in spite of the division and the organizing of another church in the town. It is also recorded that in 1742 the "Colonial Court of Connecticut voted thirteen pounds out of the Treasurey of the Colony to Rev. Elisha Kent for the instruction and Christianizing of the Indians at a place called Pohtatuck". In 1742 the church is again plunged into deep distress. Charges of a serious nature are brought against the minister, and early in 1743 he was tried before the Fairfield County East Consociation. The various historians of this church have so far failed to find any very definite charges made against Mr. Kent. If any were made they evidently were not well sustained or were not recorded, for he was dismissed in good and regular standing. After leaving Newtown Mr. Kent went to South East, N. Y., and remained pastor over the church there till the time of his death in 1776. Little is known of his family, save that among his descendants are Chief Justice and Chancellor Kent and Elisha Kent Kane, the arctic explorer. NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 31 With the coming of the next pastor we turn from town to church records. The town continued to fix the tax for the minister's salary as late as 1752, but the administration of church affairs was within the church rather than at the town meeting after or about 1743. March 8, 1743, the Society met at the North school house "So to make choice of a committee in our desolate State to take all proper measures in order for procuring some suitable person upon probation to supply ye pulpit in this place for a season, in order for ye settlement, if to ye good choice of sd society, sd committee so to proceed from time to time as there shall be occasion until sd society shall be satisfactorially supplied even to settlement." The church quickly made choice of a new minister in the Rev. David Judson of Stratford, and a committee was appointed "to send forth letters of request to ye neighboring churches . . . to attend ye solemn affair of ye ordination of ye Worthy Mr. David Judson to ye pastoral office in and over this society and church . . . and that a day of fasting and prayer be sol emnly attended by this society on ye first Wednesday of September next, to implore ye Divine blessing in that great affair, and that ye help of ye Rev. Mr. Graham and Mr. Judd be sought on that occasion." One of the first things accomplished in Mr. Judson's pastorate was the repairing of the meeting house. December 9, 1745, it was "voted that we will proceed so far in ye finishing of our Publick meeting house as to lay ye gallery floor and erect a fore seet and also ye gallery stairs." Two hundred and thirty pounds, old tenure, was subscribed and it was voted that "it shall be laid out in new shingling sd meeting house, in putting in new window frames and windows of sash glass, in well siding sd house, in well securing and rectifying ye underpinning, in rectifying ye gable ends and in putting in good floor boards, and if sd subscription shall be more than sufficient for doing all ye above sd outside work with glass and nails that what remains shall be laid out on ye inside of ye house. All to be under ye direction of sd committee who are instructed to do what further they shall see to be needful to make it fationable". One improvement evidently led to the desire for others and a meeting was named for March 13, 1746, "that we may know 32 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION ye minds of sd society respecting our erecting or building a convenient belfry on ye public meeting house of sd society in order for a bell when sd society is able to purchase one." The church continued to grow in numbers and prosperity and in 1747 it was voted to add thirty pounds, old tenure, to Mr. Judson's salary. Two years later, April 24, 1749, they laid a tax of twelve pence on the pound, old tenure, for the "further finishing of the meeting house . . . as to ye Galleries and plastering overhead and other work as shall be needful." In 1760 it was "voted that there shall be a steeple built on ye east end of ye meeting house if there shall be money enough signed to build ye same." Two years more they waited for the long desired bell and then Capt. Amos Botsford and Mr. Nathaniel Briscoe came forward with the offer that they would "on their own cost and charge procure a good bell of 500 pounds weight fit for to hang in ye steeple of aforesaid society and that it shall be for ye use of sd society so long as there shall be a Presbyterian society to meet in ye above sd meeting house, that is to say if ye above sd society will go on to complete ye sd steeple for ye outside of ye meeting house, culler it and culler ye pulpit." The steeple was completed and the bell hung sometime during the fall, probably, for at a meeting in January, 1763, Capt. Botsford and Nathaniel Briscoe made open declaration that they "freely and frankly gave ye bell which they had procured for ye use of ye society so long as there should be a Presbyterian society to meet in sd house, and ye society gave them hearty thanks." At this same meeting it was "voted that Abiel Botsford shall be a Sexton to Ring ye parish Bell at all appointed times and to sweep ye Meeting house 15 times within twelve months and shall have as a reward for ye same ye sum of fifteen shillings." For some reason the bell did not meet their expectations and it is recorded that sometime in June, 1767, "there was made out by way of signation ye sum of twenty seven pounds, four shillings and seven pence lawful money or provisions . . . and ye committee for ye bell took ye old bell and conveyed it down to Fairfield, got it run and brought up ye new bell and delivered it up and it was hung on ye third day of July, 1767. Always to be understood that ye inhabitants of ye Church of NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 33 England society in Newtown signed of ye above sd moneys and provisions ye sum of five pounds, twelve shillings and seven pence." The old bell still hangs in the belfry of this church and its iron tongue has called the generations of more than a century to wor ship in this house, and tolled their knell as they were carried to their last resting place. It bears this inscription : "The gift of Capt. Amos Botsford and Lt. Nath. Brisco, John Witter, fecit 1768." Right here may be a suitable place to speak of the cock on the weather vane of the steeple. Careful research fails to reveal when it was purchased and placed there. Perhaps I can do no better than to quote from Mr. Johnson's interesting article written some time ago on "Newtown's First Meeting House" : "That it was on the steeple at the time of the Revolutionary war is well known for it bears on its body marks of bullets fired by the soldiers as by order of Gen. Washington they passed through Newtown on their way from Hartford to the Hudson River in 1781." When the old building was torn down to make way for the present structure the weather vane was transferred to it. The Rev. William Mitchel says the scars were made by the bullets of the French troops, fired as a matter of diversion. They undoubtedly were the cause of much grief and indignation at the time. We can well believe the great bird that stands five feet high and measures six feet from tip to tip was the pride of the town and one of its distinguishing features as it is to-day. Quite recently a member of my family received a letter from a gentleman in New York, who in passing through the town observed our weather vane and wished to know about it. We are rather proud of the bullet holes to-day, for they mark the antiquity of the vane and when, a few years ago, a painter took down the vane to regild it and thought to do us a good turn by filling up the holes, the wrath of a certain member of the com mittee descended upon his innocent head and he was ordered to take down the venerable bird and punch out the solder. During Mr. Judson's pastorate there was considerable discus sion at large over the Saybrook Platform. As early as 1760 Deacon Daniel Booth "resigned his office as deacon in the church, also his Relation as a Brother because he could not as himself declared be easy under ye Calvinastic doctrine as Therein 34 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION Taught." Ten years later, in 1770, Mr. Judson "publicly declared that he renounced that part of Saybrook Platform for ye Administration of Church Dicipline as not being in his views in ye main thing therein aimed at agreeable to ye Gospel. And that if ye church choose to take that for their rule of Dicipline and call in a Council in the case impending he would freely resign ye work of ye ministry over them." A meeting was called and the church voted to stand with their pastor. Mr. Judson published a number of articles and sermons relat ing to Church Government and the Platform. Mr. Judson's pastorate was the longest in the history of the church, covering a period of thirty-three years. Our country was passing through the most critical period of its history dur ing a part of that time. The Continental troops passing through the town camped on the plain below the village and it is said used one of the churches at least for their barracks. General Putnam's soldiers were freezing and starving in their winter camp in Redding, and the western skies were aflame with the burning of Danbury. Many of Newtown's citizens were intensely loyal to their "Sovereign and Beloved Lord, King George," but there were also many citizens equally loyal to the Constitution of the new Government, and Newtown sent its full quota to the war. It is interesting to note that in 1776, the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, only three marriages are recorded. Husbands and lovers had marched away to the bat tle fields while wives and sweethearts bravely carried the double burden of the home as they toiled and waited, waited alas! too often in vain, "For the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still." Mr. Judson did not live to see the consummation of peace. He died September 24, 1776, at the age of sixty-one, from a disease contracted, it is said, while visiting the soldiers in camp. He was laid to rest in our cemetery beside the little graves of his children, David and Mary, who died in early childhood. Mr. Judson kept a careful record, now much faded and worn, but one of the priceless relics of this church. He states that NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 35 in 1712 there were about thirty families in the town and in 1770, only a little time before the Revolutionary War began, there were 350 families, about one-half of them belonging to the Church of England. His own congregation numbered over 200 members. From his own records we learn that he officiated at 226 marriages, and 887 baptisms, only eight being adults, which shows how universal was the custom of infant baptism. Thirteen of this number were slave children and there was one Indian ; 378 deaths are recorded. The mortality among the little children makes the heart ache, when one thinks how many fond hopes were so soon hidden in the little graves, and an appalling number of youth under twenty-five died of "a consumption". When we consider the number added to the church member ship, the repairs made on the meeting house, the bell and the new inside furnishings, we can readily see that Mr. Judson's long pastorate must have been one of the most successful in the history of the church, and his published works show him to have been a man of no mean intellectual ability. All through the pastorate of Mr. Judson the name of Caleb Baldwin constantly appears in church and society records, and indeed prior to Mr. Judson's pastorate, for the meeting called for the dismissal of Rev. Mr. Kent is signed by him as clerk. The records show he served as clerk continuously for thirty years. Failing health compelled him to relinquish the office in 1772, and he died soon after, the records say, "with a dropsy aged about seventy years." I was interested to learn something more of this man who served the church so long and so faithfully, and turning to town records I found he was equally active in civic affairs, for he represented the town in the General Court for five terms between 1750 and 1762, and served as selectman frequently between 1735 and 1765. His son, Caleb, built the house now owned and occupied by Mr. Charles Beardsley, in 1819. The pulpit was supplied for a time after the death of Mr. Judson. The finances of the society were at a low ebb as they naturally would be with war raging in the land, and it was two years before they were able to pay the arrears in Mr. Judson's salary to his heirs. But dark indeed must have been the despair of the diminished church that led to the passing of the following vote on October 22, 1778, "Voted that the committee appointed 36 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION heretofore to suply the pulpit suply it no more until further orders from this Society." They were not content, however, that the house of God should remain closed any length of time, and in November a Mr. Camp was hired to preach till the first of April, 1779, and it was voted that "a rate of one penny on the pound in the list of 1777 be Layed in this Society in Silver to be paid by the first of June". It was also voted "that a Rate of six pence on ye pound be Layed also in Continental money to be payed by ye first of May ... to defray the Charges of this Society." This is the first mention of silver or Continental money. The meeting house was sadly in need of repair by this time, and in October, 1781, a meeting was called at the meeting house "to transact ye business (viz) of assertaining ye Number and Strength of ye Society, of making sale of ye parsonage lot belonging to Sd Society of disposing of ye floor of sd meeting house So much as is sufficient for twelve pews of Repairing Sd meeting house & New painting ye outside of ye same of Remov ing some difficulties in Sd Society heretofore existing of appoint ing a Committee to Supply ye Desk for Six months Next Coming of Hiring a master of musick to instruct sd Society in Singing psalms Hims & Spiritual Songs." In September, 1783, a committee was appointed to procure flax seed to exchange for oil to paint the meeting house. A number of meetings were held to consider the advisability of disposing of the parsonage lot and it was finally sold in 1784 to discharge the debts of the society. It was ten years after the death of Mr. Judson before the church was able to settle another minister. Early in 1786 the Rev. Zephaniah H. Smith was installed, but it was an unfortu nate choice, for Mr. Smith went over to the Sandemanian faith and was the cause of much trouble to the church. He excom municated those who did not agree with him and tried to break up the church organization and form a Sandemanian church upon the ruins. After four years he removed to Glastonbury, without a formal dismission it is said, and took up the practice of law, leaving the church almost a wreck. After Mr. Smith left the church had no regular minister for nine years, and only one supply is mentioned, the Rev. Mr. Hill, The Parsoxace NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 37 although they doubtless maintained a more or less regular preaching service. In 1792 the meeting house was removed from the center of the street to its present site. This is the recorded vote relating to it: "May 10, 1792. Voted at sd meeting that to Render it more convenient for the Episcopal Society in Newtown to erect a church or house of publick worship on the ground where the town house now stands we are willing that sd Episcopal Society or any individual of them Remove our meeting house to the west side of the street so that the East End of the Steeple fall in a line drawn from the northeast corner of General John Chandler's dwelling in sd Newtown and the S. E. corner of Josiah Curtisses store provided the same can be done without any Risque, Dam age or expense to this society and that sd meeting house when removed be put in as good Repair in every Respect as the same now is. "Voted, that sd meeting house be estimated and valued at Seven hundred pounds Lawful money and that Sufficient Security be taken by this Society's Committee for the payment of the same." The clerk of the Society failed to record the manner of, or the result of the moving of the meeting house, but fortunately we have resource to other means of information. The moving of so large a building in those days was of more than local interest. In a bound volume of the Connecticut Journal, a weekly news paper published in New Haven and now preserved in the rooms of the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, Mr. Johnson found this interesting item under date of June 6, 1792: "On Wednesday the 13th of June inst, at one o'clock p. m., if the weather is fair, and if the weather is not good, at the same time of day on the first fair day following, an attempt will be made to remove the meeting house, together with the steeple entire, belonging to the Ecclesi astical society in Newtown, about eight rods west of its present site. As it will be the greatest movement ever attempted in this part of the state, the subscribers by whom the business is to be performed have been requested to give this public notice to their friends. Solomon Glover, Andred Beers, Daniel Tomlinson." Under date of June zj, 1792, we are given the result in the following notice: "On the 13th instant the meeting house in Newtown was removed about eight rods; the removal was 38 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION effected in one hour and a half, after previous preparations had been made. The house is between 70 and 80 feet long and about 50 feet wide with a steeple at one end, the whole of which was removed without the least injury to any part." Signed by the same committee. In August, 1799, the church extended a call to the Rev. Jehu Clark. In the record of this meeting we find the first mention of Samuel Curtis Blackman, a man closely associated with this church for the next fifty years, and a faithful friend whose memory we delight to honor, and have perpetuated by placing a tablet upon the walls of this church which owes so much to him, not alone in the influence of his devout life, but in its financial prosperity also, for to the Samuel Curtis Blackman Memorial Fund, founded by Samuel G. Blackman in memory of his father, we owe the recent improvements in our church; the new pipe organ, the redecorated walls, the new pulpit furnishings and the electric lighting, and best of all that release from financial anxiety which leaves the church free for its larger mission of spiritual helpfulness in the community. Mr. Blackman died during the Rev. William H. Moore's pas torate and he pays him a beautiful tribute, which I quote in full. Referring to his death in 1858 he says : "Mr. Blackman was born in Monroe, March 22nd, 1768, and graduated at Yale College in 1793. He settled here as a lawyer about the year 1798, and continued in that profession more than fifty years, and until he was broken down by age. When this Probate District was established he was chosen Judge and held the office for a long course of years and until he was seventy years of age, when the law rendered him no longer eligible. "He was a man of pure morals and irreproachable life and always on the side of good order. "His name first appears on the records of the Ecclesiastical Society in 1799, as one of the committee concerned in the settlement of Rev. Jehu Clarke; and from that time onward — a period of fifty-nine years — he has been a steadfast friend and supporter of the interests of this worshiping congregation. "At the above date he was not a professor of religion, but a young lawyer; and yet, through all the subsequent trials and struggles of this church and society, — in the effort to build the present meeting house, which resulted in a heavy debt, and in the dismission of Mr. Clarke in 1816, with his salary for three years unpaid, — in the nine years following until the settlement of Rev. William Mitchel in 1825, — (during a part of which interval the church had not only no preaching, but no deacons, NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 39 and public worship was conducted with reading and singing, but no pray ing, because no brother felt competent to make a prayer in public. But the good women used to have a prayer meeting in the intermission at noon; for, notwithstanding its low estate, they never despaired of the church any more than the old Romans despaired of the Republic.) — and in all the times that have gone over this Society since the settlement of Mr. Mitchel, Judge Blackman has always been ready to serve the interests with his influence, cooperation and property. "For the term of fifty-two years his name occurs frequently on the records as Moderator, Society's Committee, Committee for the supply of the pulpit, Treasurer, or Clerk. He was Clerk of the Society from 1837 to 1851 without intermission, and in the latter year he experienced a paralytic affection which brought his public life to a close. "He was always a regular attendant upon public worship, and ready to assist in it, as occasion required, in leading the singing or in reading ser mons. Nor did he consider it beneath his character, though possessed of a sensitive self-respect, to open the doors and make the fires in the sanctuary on Sabbath morning. "His office was used on Sabbath noons for a long time for female prayer meetings, and the good women always found the room set in order and made comfortable for them. "His house was also open for the entertainment of ministers, whether as boarders, or as transient guests. Probably no family in the Society has ever opened its doors to more ministers of the Gospel than his, or with a more cheerful hospitality. "He not only attended worship on the Sabbath, but, what is very unusual for a man in his profession, he attended the coming meetings for conference and prayer in the neighborhood; and did this habitually for years before he was a member of the church. "He did not become sufficiently assured of his Christian experience to make a public profession until late in life. He united with this church in 1843 at the age of seventy-five. And though he never had confidence to take part in a social meeting in prayer, or exhortation yet his example was valuable for meekness, steadfastness, charity and a constant and devout attendance upon ordinances. And those who were best acquainted with him knew he was a man of prayer. "He attended worship until the fall of last year, when growing infirmi ties obliged him to remain home. He bore the trials of old age with most exemplary quietness and patience and died Nov. 17, 1858, in the ninety-first year of his age, an old man, full of days, and was gathered unto his people in the prospect of a glorious immortality. "Dec. 31st, 1858." The Rev. Jehu Clark was ordained October 23, 1799. The Rev. William Mitchel, in his carefully written review of the early history of this church, says of this period of its history, "The church was reorganized or formed into a regular church state. 40 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION The reason of this is that Mr. Smith when he turned Sande manian excommunicated many and pretty much annihilated the visible church." A new covenant was drawn up and signed by the following persons: Deacon Abraham Bennet, Roger Turrel, Abel Bots ford, Elephalet Hull, James Fairchild, Anil Booth, Johnathan Beardsley, Samuel Beardsley, David Peck. The covenant is as follows : "We the above written, being professors of the chris tian religion, and principally members heretofore of the Church of Christ in this place, do now covenant thro' devine grace assist ing to walk with each other in the worship of God, and the observances of the ordinances and institutions of the Gospel and to watch over one another as christian brethren." Mr. Clark also drew up a Confession of Faith and Covenant for the admission of members into the church. It is in striking contrast to the simple creed adopted by the National Council of Congregational Churches in 191 3, and shows how differently we place the emphasis to-day. They vexed their souls over ques tions on the fall of man, the atonement and judgment, while to-day the church is giving herself more and more to the carrying of the Good News of the Fatherhood of God and the Brother hood of Man into the dark places of the earth. During Mr. Clark's pastorate a new meeting house was built. The old house was torn down and a part of the timbers used in the new building. It is rather shocking to us to-day to learn that part of the money for the new meeting house was raised by a lottery. It is recorded that in October, 1803, a memorial was preferred to the General Court praying for a grant for a lottery for $5,000. The Court, however granted one of only $3,000. Rev. Mr. Mitchel says "it availed little or nothing, or rather as it is said, more money went out of the society than came in and they were deeply involved in consequence." In March, 1808, it was voted "that the society go forward the present season to build a meeting house with all convenient speed where the old meeting house now stands, sixty feet in length and forty feet in breadth, with posts of a proportionate length, to have a belfry and cupola or dome thereon, in lieu of a steeple upon the east end." The contract for the work was given to Captain Isaac Scudder, a large contractor and builder NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 41 for those days, and my great-grandfather, for $1,138.48. The Society found great difficulty in raising the necessary funds for the new building and tax after tax was laid, one as high as seven teen cents on the dollar, and the floor space for pews was also auctioned off to raise the money to finish the inside of the meet ing house. The purchaser was to be at the expense of building the pew and the pew ground was to belong to him and his heirs forever, he having the right to sell at any time, but only to members of the church. In spite of these various measures the society was unable to raise the necessary funds to finish the meeting house and partly in consequence of the financial straits Mr. Clark resigned in 1816. Mr. Mitchel says that after Mr. Clark's dismission the church remained in a desolate condition, the pulpit being occasionally supplied till the latter part of the year 1824, when he was invited to preach as a candidate for settlement. The Rev. William Mitchel was born in Chester, Conn., Decem ber 19, 1793. He graduated from Andover Theological Semi nary in 1821 and was ordained in this church June 15, 1825. Mr. Mitchel's pastorate was one of the most important in the history of the church and as such it is interesting to note the spirit in which he undertook the work as manifested in his letter of acceptance. To the, Committee from the church and society at Newtown. Gentlemen : — I have delayed answering the communication made by you longer perhaps than might seem necessary, but I have deferred it to the present time that I might obtain advice from those who have more experience, and especially from the Board of the Domestic Society. The result of the advise which I have received, as well as the result of my own reflections is that I ought to accept of the invitation that has been given. And yet I do this with some reluctance because I distrust my ability to perform the duties of a station which demand so much wisdom and prudence and which must be attended with so much responsibility. But I have for some time been established in the belief that a superintending Providence is our best guide and that the path of duty is the path of happiness. I hope the Great Head of the Church may approve of this hitherto most important transaction of my life. I have only to add that should we enter into the relation of pastor and people — a relation the most endearing and responsible — we may all mutually rely on the protection of Him who walked on the waves and slept in the boat. Yours etc. Wm. Mitchel. 42 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION Mr. Mitchel wrote during his pastorate a very complete history of the church and society and much of the material for this paper has been gathered from his manuscript. He records that his information was culled from tradition, society records, and other sources. He closes by saying, "Once the church was large and flourishing, but through a long and perhaps unparalleled train of misfortune it has dwindled down to a small number. It is interesting and instructive to look back through the lapse of time and to witness the fulfill ment of the Divine promise that the church shall be preserved. In view of the almost unbroken succession of calamitous events this church in its existence to' the present moment resembles the 'fire in the bush' at which Moses marveled that it was not con sumed. The perseverance of the church and society under their accumulated and accumulating discouragements and their reliance on the Divine protection in maintaining the ordinances of the Gospel are worthy of particular commendation and those to whose care the interests of the little flock are now transmitted are encouraged to imitate the example of their fathers and may confidently hope that God has spared this long trampled vine because 'a blessing is in it' " At the opening of Mr. Mitchel's ministry the church consisted of about forty members, six only of them men, and only twenty- five or thirty of them could be counted as active members. In 1827 and 1828 revival services were held in several districts in the town and as a result about thirty were added to the church. Mr. Mitchel must have been a man of great energy and con secration to his work. From his own records we learn "that a Gentlemen's and Ladies' Missionary Society was formed which aided the cause of rightousness by collections in some good degree according to the ability of the numbers." The Sunday School also was revived and flourished beyond expectation. Efforts, too, were made in behalf of the American Temperance Society and at length a large society, considering circumstances, was formed. I copy in part Mr. Mitchel's account of the work done on the church edifice, which was in an unfinished state when he began his pastorate. Henry Fairchild Deacon, 1857-1897 NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 43 September 3, 1825, a new pulpit was completed at a cost of $125. This must have been the high, round pulpit with a seat like those in the box pews, and a door, and with stairs leading to it, which some of our oldest members recall as the pulpit in use during their childhood days. The house was also painted inside and out at a cost of $280. Seats were built in the gallery, and a stove purchased, the first mention made of any means of heating the meeting house. New front doors and inside doors were purchased and hung, and brass buttons put on the pew doors. These with other repairs amounted to $500 or more. In 1826, a new cushion with curtains of silk damask was purchased in New York and cost, including the making, $35. Three chairs, one a gift, were also added to the furnishings. In 1827, a Communion set was purchased at an expense of $84. The christening bowl is still in use, but the otlier pieces were laid aside a few years ago in favor of the more modern individual service. In 1829, the back seats in the gallery were finished at an expense of over $100. These with many other smaller improve ments were made in spite of the loss of about half of the funds of the Society through the failure of the Eagle Bank in New Haven. Mr. Mitchel bore no small part of these expenses, although his salary was only $500 a year, $150 of which was paid by the Home Missionary Society. The two maple trees which stand in the rear of the meeting house were set out during Mr. Mitchel's pastorate. In September, 1830, Mr. Mitchel resigned, feeling his work was done here and a change would be for the best interests of the church. His request was reluctantly granted and he was dismissed in May, 1831. The church was without a settled pas tor for over a year and then they extended a call to Rev. Nathaniel Urmston, who was installed December 5, 1832, on a salary of $450. Great difficulty was experienced, however, in raising even this small amount, and after six years the church decided to give up die struggle, for a time at least, and do with out a regular pastor, and Mr. Urmston was dismissed by the Council convened at Bethel, April 27, 1838. It was during his pastorate that the church was first called 44 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION Congregational, although it had always been Congregational in policy and discipline. Mr. Urmston left but little record of his work. Many pages of the old church records, however, are taken up with the trial and excommunion of various members. A Universalist church had been organized in the town early in the century and some of the Presbyterians had evidently imbibed its doctrines, which was considered sufficient cause for church discipline in those days. A few extracts will show how hard and fast the creeds of those days were, and how much the thought and practice of the church has changed during the last century. Mr. David T. Taylor was summoned to appear before the church to answer to the charges of "violation of the covenant and renouncing the truth as it is contained in the word of God." • Mr. Taylor's reply is worthy of being quoted entire: Newtown, September 7, 1832. "To the Presbyterian Church of God in New Town. "Whereas I have received these accusations from you I now briefly endeavor to make my defence. 1st. I do not believe that a Presbyterian Meeting house is any more the house of God than any other, and I believe the Bible will correspond with my views and as I have frequented other places of worship and having the Constitution of the United States as my guarentee I consider myself innocent of the charge. 2nd. I hold the word of God as the most sacred of all words and as the only rule of salvation. 3rd. I have for the year passed searched the scriptures with more diligence than ever and have received much benefit insomuch that I have found the word of God sharp and quick taking away all my self-rightous- ness and superstitious notions and placing me upon the level with man kind and also at the entire mercy and disposal of my maker. Therefore do I consider that you have laid things to my charge that I know not. "Moreover do I declare unto you that from this day henceforth and forever I do withdraw my name from your church and society and also my approbation of your doctrine believing that it has created more party spirit and self-rightousness than all other things beside, my conscience also bearing me witness — whilst on the other hand the doctrine of universal Salvation brings glad tidings to him that is nigh and to him 'that is afar off.' David T. Taylor." The church considered the charges brought against Mr. Taylor fully sustained and admonished him that excommunication would be the necessary consequence of his sins unless he returned to NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 45 the faith. This is in part the letter sent to Mr. Taylor : " . . . Yes, you must be separated from Christ and be delivered over to Satan according to the authority that Christ has left with his church. . . . Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and do thy first works." After Mr. Urmston's dismissal the society made an effort to get upon a better financial footing. In 1840, Rev. Alexander Leadbetter of Scotland was hired to officiate as pastor. He proved a most acceptable preacher and the church reluctantly parted with him after two years on account of lack of funds. The meeting house was again sadly in need of repair. Fail ing in their efforts to raise the necessary money the Society seri ously considered moving to Sandy Hook, where services had been held one half of every Sabbath for two or three years. These were the darkest days in the history of the church, but it was the darkness that precedes the dawn, for with the coming of Rev. Jason Atwater the church took on new life and hope. He says : "In November of the year 1845 I received an invita tion to spend a few weeks with this people. . . My first Sabbath was the first of December. I found a very small congregation in a cold house. The people had received Home Missionary aid to the amount of $150 per annum. . . .Their place of worship was in a dilapidated condition, its windows and walls broken, its pillars and seats stained from a leaky roof, its paint washed off, its steeple leaning ominously, as if to fall upon the passerby. A subscription had been commenced to defray the expense of repairing the house, but after three years efforts wants some hundreds to compass the object. I labored some six weeks and found, as I thought, growing material suitable of improvement. And yet the question was seriously agitated whether it would not be better to relinquish all further effort to repair the church edi fice or to support the Gospel here and to abandon the church organization to ultimate extinction. At this crisis an informal council of neighboring churches and their ministers visited us to consult and give advice in the cir cumstances. After full inquiry the brethren advised this church to repair their house of worship in its present locality and to rally for the renewed support of the Gospel at this post, pledging sympathy and aid from neighboring churches." 46 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION Mr. Atwater goes on to say: "In May following I was earnestly entreated to return, which I did. . . . and immediately entered upon the work of revising and completing the sub scription for repairing the church edifice and was greatly favored in my solicitations for aid among neighboring churches, several hundreds of dollars being thus contributed. The churches most liberal in their benefactions were those of New Milford, Dan bury, Bethel, Bridgeport, Ridgefield, Redding and Fairfield. Individuals in other places and a goodly number of our Episcopal neighbors in Newtown also rendered substantial and efficient aid in compassing the object. ... In addition to this timely aid it may be added that the ladies of Danbury . . . contributed $80 more for the special purpose of my support for the year, so that with their Home Missionary appropriation they were able to redeem their pledge to me for the year, $500, within $50 which I very cheerfully relinquished to them. Early in the autumn the subscription became so far completed that the Society's com mittee entered upon the contract of repairing the house with Bro. Hiram Parmelee. The foundation wall was repaired, the roof laid anew with new pilasters and cornices, the steeple repaired, the inner walls overlaid with a new white coat of plaster, the seats, etc., altered, and the house thoroughly painted inside and out. The whole expense of these repairs amounted to about $1,200, which was paid within the year or two, and the church was very greatly encouraged. In the month of January 1847 our renewed house of worship was dedicated anew to the service of God in the presence of a crowded auditorium. Mr. Stone of Danbury preached the sermon and Father Haight, then of Bethel, offered the dedicatory prayer, the Bethel choir volun teering to conduct the sacred music of the occasion. It was a proud day for this feeblest of the daughters of Zion. "The congregation continued to grow, averaging nearly two hundred. The Sandy Hook enterprise having fallen through the people gradually came back to this church, and the society was able to relinquish $50 of the long standing Home Missionary appropriation, and they raised by voluntary contributions for benevolent purposes more than half the amount they received as the beneficiaries of this christian charity. "The interest in the Sabbath School was well sustained and evening services were held in various parts of the town and were well attended." NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 47 In 1850, the church was stirred by perhaps the greatest revival in its history, conducted by Rev. Mr. Underwood of Norwalk — a man stern and vigorous in his preaching. The services were held in different districts about the town, as well as in the church. About thirty-five were added to the membership of the church as the result of the revival and the church seemed more pros perous than it had been for half a century and anticipated the day when they could become self-supporting as not far distant. This hope was not realized, however, for some years to come. The church continued to hold special and extra services in the school-room of Deacon Keeler in the Academy. The owners of the building objected to this use of it and demanded extra rent. The church considered this an unreasonable and unwarranted demand. Mr. Atwater says : "Some thought of the persecutions of dissenters of the olden times in our Fatherland, and all wished for a place of our own for these special services." Many places were considered and it was finally decided to make the basement into a lecture room. Mr. Atwater has written so interestingly of this work I cannot forbear to quote largely from him. He says: "By the unexpected liberality of one of our parishioners, not a member of the church, but warmly in sympathy with it (Mr. William Beard, some of the older mem bers tell me, who remember this work), who has felt most deeply the demand upon us for extra rent, we were able to enter upon this plan for improving our place of worship and ... to provide for a lecture room in the basement of the same . . . The contracts were made for this work, the first for raising the floor, reseating the church, etc., with William Beard, Esq., whose con tributions to effect the object could not have been less than $400. The other contract for fitting up the basement was with Bro. Hiram Parmelee. . . . Sabbath, October 17, 1852, we entered again our seemingly new and beautiful House of Worship with this sentiment of the pulpit, T was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the House of the Lord.' It was a bright and promising day for our little Zion. Our audience room was put in altogether better symetery and proportion, the floor raised to make the galleries seem much lower . . . seats altogether new and much more comfortable, a new and beautiful pulpit with sofa provided, a new communion table and chairs, the carpet replaced. Everything seemed inviting to worship there." 48 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION The following March he says: "Met for the first time in our new lecture room which has been fitted up in the basement of the church, walls plastered, and seats with comfortable backs, a good stand for the speaker, all things better than I had dared to hope for. The Lord be praised. The Lord make this an aux iliary to His work of salvation, a birthplace for souls." In spite of the generous help the church had received in accom plishing these improvements they found themselves in debt about $500. This they felt must be liquidated. The people did all they could, but were not able to raise the full amount of the debt. Mr. Atwater says : "My friend Mr. B — first went to his special friends in Bethel and Danbury with marked success, in addition to former favors they were liberal still. We then together went soliciting in Bridgeport. Thus started I went on along the sea board and was surprised to find with what liberality my simple appeal was responded. Several five dollar donations were given me, and one man in Southport after objecting to the idea of our having fallen in debt and of our having some permanent funds gave me $20. . . . The whole amount collected from these solicitations is about $367.45. With this liberal aid we were able to pay off all our arrearages." It is worthy of note that the Ladies' Aid Society pledged $100 toward the blinds on the meeting house and raised the money by taking in work from the shirt factory in Long Hill, and this was before the days of sewing machines. Mr. Atwater says the year 1852 was the culminating point of prosperity which had cost half a century to acquire, while a single year witnessed the commencing of decline. Many of the most valued and efficient families, among them the three Keeler families, removed from the town, and Mr. Atwater pathetically writes, "What we can do without the help of these Keelers no one can tell us. But we must try to trust in God." Early in 1854, Mr. Atwater was laid aside by a long illness and "during the month of April the wife of the pastor was dis tressingly sick and on the Sabbath, the last day of the month, quietly fell asleep in death to find we trust the Heavenly Sabbath of God's people ... a loss to the pastor and to this flock of God . . . not soon to be repaired." In 1855, Mr. Atwater took a long vacation or leave of absence, the pulpit being filled meanwhile by Rev. Hiram Bingham, the famous missionary to the Sandwich Islands. Rev. William H. Mooee Pastor, 1856-1862 NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 49 In 1856, Mr. Atwater severed his connection with the church, (he had never been installed,) and removed to Southbury. The church seems always to have held him in high esteem and affection as the following resolution, passed in 1847, asking him to remain as their pastor for another year, shows: "Resolved: — That we tender to the Rev. Jason Atwater our heartfelt thanks, not only for the ability, fidelity and success with which he has discharged his duties to this feeble flock, but that like the Good Samaritan he came to us in the time of our greatest necessity when days were dark and friends were few and hopes were faint and thereby he exhibited the spirit of his Master, the great Shepherd himself, who gathered the lambs in his arms and carried them in his bosom." This is signed by Samuel C. Blackman and was doubtless written by him. Those of our number who remember Mr. Atwater speak of him in the highest terms as a faithful and beloved minister, and he manifested his affection for this church in a legacy of $150, received in 1861. The next pastor, Rev. William H. Moore, was installed No vember 12, 1856, with a salary of $700, $200 of which was paid by the Home Missionary Society. The church numbered about sixty members. Mr. Moore proved to be one of the most earnest and efficient pastors the church ever had. He kept a very careful summary of the work of each year. At the close of 1857 he says : "The congregation has averaged about one hundred dur ing the year. The old melodeon has been replaced at an expense of $50, and the church has been painted on the outside. The Sabbath School was opened in May and continued through the year with an average attendance of forty-three. "The church contributed $50 to the American Board, Home Missions and other benevolent societies. "There has been preaching one evening a week in Dodgeing- town, Taunton, Tinkerfield and Zoar in rotation and occasionally at other points, and a monthly meeting sustained in the base ment." In 1858, the parish numbered ninety families and the society had a fund of $1,800 from which they received regular dividends. Twenty-six members were added to the church during this year. Mr. Moore says: "This large accession to the church is the fruit of the general and wonderful awakening with which 50 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION a gracious God has visited our land and rendered memorable this year 1858." Revival services were held in a number of districts. The Bethel brethren assisted in Dodgeingtown and Taunton. Mr. Moore recorded that he preached forty-five times in Taunton during the year and made one hundred and twenty-four calls and visits. Mr. Moore kept no horse and must have walked many weary miles in visiting his parish and conducting district preach ing services. The last item recorded in 1858 is of so much interest I quote it entire: "It deserves to be noticed also' that we have this year recovered the church records kept by Rev. David Judson during his ministry from 1743 to 1776. It was carried to Glastonbury by Rev. Zephaniah H. Smith, who was dismissed here in 1790 and has lain among his papers for sixty-eight years. I wrote to his daughter for information concerning his ministry here and in searching for that she found to her surprise this record and returned it." Of the year 1859, Mr. Moore says: "It has been one of health, harmony and temporal and spiritual prosperity to our little flock, for all of which we desire to thank God and take courage." The benevolent contributions for the year amounted to $144. A barrel of clothing sent to the Five Points Mission included a quilt pieced by the little girls of the Sunday School. In i860, a branch Sunday School was opened in Pootatuck Dis trict with W. W. Perkins as superintendent. It had an average attendance of about thirty. In 1861 another branch Sunday School was opened in Huntingtown district with Mr. E. L. Johnson as superintendent. All the teachers came from the home school. This was during the dark days of the Civil War, and of the $235 contributed to missionary objects was a box of clothing and other goods for "sick and suffering soldiers, valued at $60." Mr. Moore was superintendent of the Sunday School and taught a large Bible class. So interesting are his records, I ven ture to quote a few of them : "May 24, 1857. Day fair. Present ten teachers and officers. Sixteen in Bible class, twenty nine children, in all fifty five. Remarked on the privilege of being permitted to attend church and Sabbath School on such a pleasant day, illustrated by the NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 51 condition of the prisoners whom I visited in Jail in Ohio four years ago to-day. "June 28. Remarked on the goodness of God as seen in the flowers and the season of the year. Spoke of Deacon Somers who was sick. Gave hints to teachers. "January 17, 1859. Cautioned the boys against doing mischief in sport. "January 24. Talked to the children about coming to Christ. "February 6. This day the school presented me through E. L. Johnson with Commentary of New Testament in six volumes. "August 21. Held Teachers' Meeting. H. Clay Trumbull, present. "October 16. Introduced the 'Sabbath School Bell,' a new Sabbath School singing book and spent the hour in singing." In i860, he makes a note to the effect that the "Sabbath School was first organized during the temporary ministry of Rev. Mr. Burritt in the summer of 1821, though Deacon E. W. Keeler of Waterbury, formerly of our congregation, thinks it began in summer of 1820." Mr. Moore says "the classes recited verses without question books, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount." The children were trained to give from an occasional Sab bath to every Sabbath and their benevolent contributions amounted to $131 ; 339 books were added to the library and a new book case purchased. Deacon Rufus Somers died during Mr. Moore's pastorate, "a man beloved by the church and universally respected in the place," also Judge Blackman to whom reference has already been made. Mrs. Moore, the wife of the pastor, died in 1861. Mr. Moore resigned in August, 1862, to become State Missionary of the Missionary Society of Connecticut, an office which he filled for thirty-five years, and he also served the society as secretary for thirty-two years. In 1891 he was a delegate to the first Inter national Congregational Council in London, England, where he delivered an address. Mr. Moore died in Hartford in 1903. In February, 1863, the church extended a call to Rev. William F. Arms, a graduate of Andover Seminary, and he was installed April 15, 1863. Mr. Arms' pastorate was a short one, extending 52 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION over a period of only a year and a half. The church seems to have held its own during that time. The Mission Sunday Schools were kept up, a Christmas festival was held with gifts for the pupils, and the benevolent contributions maintained the usual average. The Rev. Daniel W. Fox of New York was installed August 15, 1865. In October of that year the church celebrated its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. Mr. Fox delivered the his torical discourse and there were addresses by Rev. Mr. Moore, A. S. Frisbie of Danbury, G. L. Foster of Bethel, H. C. Trumbull of Hartford and others. Mr. Fox says, "A very pleasant occa sion." I would he had told us more about it. Mr. Fox's pastorate was .also a short one ; he resigned in Feb ruary, 1867. The present parsonage was bought while Mr. Fox was here, at a cost of $3,000. The church was still receiving Home Missionary aid to the extent of $200 a year. Choice was soon made of another pastor in Rev. Henry Bagg Smith, a native of West Springfield, Mass., a graduate of Amherst College and Andover Theological Seminary, Class of 1846. A Council of the churches met June 5, 1867, to install Mr. Smith. The records say he was examined in the subjects of "personal piety, Didactic Theology, Bible Literature and Eccl. History." Mr. Smith acted as clerk of the church and the records are those of a busy man. Should I read the long list of baptisms, marriages and deaths it would cause many a heart-throb of mingled pain and pleasure to some who sit in this house to-day, as memory turns back the pages to the joys and sorrows of forty years ago. Mr. Smith was a faithful pastor, visiting his people scattered about the town and holding Sunday afternoon or evening services in several of the school houses at stated intervals. He was especially noted for efficient work in the Sunday School. A Christmas or New Year's Festival was one of the special features. Mr. Smith records, December 22, 1868 : "Had our Christmas gathering. A very pleasant evening, a full house and gifts to please and make a Merry Christmas for all the children of the Sunday School." Rev. Henry Bagg Smith Pastor, 1867-1873 NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 53 "January 3, 1871. We had a New Year's tree for the chil dren of the Sabbath School, loaded with gifts for them, together with good speaking and most excellent singing by the members of the school." Many of us in middle life will, I am sure, recall our rapture of delight at the sight of the heavily-laden and glittering Christ mas tree, and our quaking fears as we mounted the platform to speak our little piece, or sing our little song. In passing I should like to pause long enough to pay tribute to Mr. Elisha Booth of Monroe, a warm friend of the pastor and his family. He often assisted in the singing on such occasions and helped drill the children, as well as frequently assisting in the music at the church services ; and I should wholly fail as his torian of this period of our church life did I not pause to lay a laurel wreath at the shrine of the pastor's good wife; a woman possessing rare gifts of heart and mind and a tender sympathy so that all those in trouble turned instinctively to her for conso lation and counsel. Neither would I forget the charming daugh ters, who gave in unstinted measure of their time and gifts to their father's work in the church. The younger one, Sarah, later became the wife of Rev. Dewitt Jencks and went to Japan as a missionary. Both daughters, with their mother, have now joined the father in the Homeland. Five of the sons have at various times returned to this town and church to do valued service as deacons, superintendents in the Sunday School, and in the various other activities of the church. Mr. Smith resigned his charge here in May, 1873, to accept a call to Greenfield Hill. He died August 10, 1882, in South Amherst, Mass. The meeting house by this time was again sadly in need of repair and it was resolved to do the necessary work before seek ing another pastor. The work was commenced the latter part of the summer. The house was painted on the outside, the front of the galleries lowered, the round pillars fluted, the windows recased and pulleys put in the sashes. The old pulpit was replaced by a new one. New carpets, cushions and hymn books were purchased, also a new furnace, all at a cost of about $2,500. The meeting house was reopened for service in December, 1873- In May, 1874, Rev. James Phillips Hoyt, then of Sherman, accepted the call to become stated supply on a salary of $900, on 54 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION condition that the pews be free. The plan exceeded the expecta tions of the society and has continued to be the policy of this church to the present time. Mr. Hoyt, like most of his predecessors, was a graduate of Yale College and Divinity School. Mr. Hoyt's pastorate was one of the longest in the history of the church, covering a period of sixteen years. It was also one of the most prosperous. A man of wide charity and breadth of view, he commanded the respect and esteem of the community as well as of the church. Among the new features introduced was the annual church meeting. Reports were given of the work and finances of the church and society, and the pastor preached an annual sermon, reviewing the year past and setting forth plans for the year to come. These annual meetings have continued to be one of the pleasantest occasions in the life of the church. In later years they have taken on more of a social nature and we gather as one family about the table for the evening meal. Two series of evangelistic meetings were held during Mr. Hoyt's pastorate. One by Rev. Mr. Underwood, who had labored here during Mr. Atwater's pastorate, and the other by Rev. C. E. Upson. There were a number of additions to the church as the result of these meetings. In 1881, a more simple creed and form of admission to the church was adopted. The year 1882 was marked by many improvements. The par sonage and meeting house were painted and new windows replaced the old ones of small panes. But perhaps the greatest improvement was in the lecture room. It had always been a dull and cheerless room till some good friends, summer guests at one of the hotels in the village, resolved they would see what could be done to make the room more attractive. The walls were calcimined, mottoes attractively hung, the floor covered with matting, and new seats provided, while a number of large lamps lent their cheerful glow. An organ, hymn books and map were the gift of the pastor, and we had a neat and attractive room for prayer and conference meetings. When all was finished a dedication service was held in the new lecture room. This marked the close of afternoon services in the church; an informal service being held thereafter in the NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 55 evening in the new lecture room or in some other part of the town. The church was also able to free itself from a small debt at this time. The names of Mrs. C. H. Tomkins and Rev. and Mrs. B. B. Beardsley of Bridgeport will ever be held in grateful remem brance in connection with the lecture room. Later, stairs were built from it leading to the audience room and the outside entrance moved to the north side of the building. Mr. Hoyt gives great honor to Mr. Charles B. Nichols, also, in accomplishing these results. He gave of his time and the labor of his hands in unstinted measure and was most generous financially. Recently the room has been enlarged to twice its former size and a commodious kitchen added with water and gas range, all of which greatly adds to the social side of church work. In 1885, a Ladies' Aid Society was formed, with Mrs. J. P. Hoyt, president; Mrs. A. C. Moore, vice president; Mrs. C. B. Taylor, secretary; Mrs. W. H. Fairchild, treasurer. The sec retary has held the office continuously since the society was organized. Although the women had ever been active in good works, making garments for the poor, and filling boxes and barrels for missions and for the sick soldiers during the war, this was the first formal organization so far as recorded. The church has never lacked in faithful Marthas and Marys, women with large executive ability and who also sat at the Master's feet and learned of the deep things of the Spirit. One name I cannot forbear to mention, the beloved wife of the pastor. A woman of gracious presence and charm of manner, she always made every parishioner a welcome guest in the parsonage. Through days of toil and pain, and mental anguish, and bitter loss, as the four beautiful daughters were one by one laid away, she ever carried with her the same serene and cheerful spirit. The frail body now rests beside the daughters but her unconquerable soul walks the streets of the New Jerusalem. Mr. Hoyt resigned in 1890 and accepted a call to Cheshire in this state. One hundred and fifty new members were received during his pastorate; the benevolences tripled and the fund increased from $2,200 to $5,000, $2,000 being a legacy from Miss Sarah Blackman, a daughter of Samuel Curtis Blackman. 56 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION In 1882, the society was able to relinquish the aid they had been receiving from the Home Missionary Society for over sixty years. This was largely brought about through the gen erosity of one of the townspeople, not a member of the church, but ever a warm friend, Mr. Marcus C. Hawley. One officer of the church died during Mr. Hoyt's pastorate, Deacon Roswell Turney, in 1886, in his eighty-ninth year. He was senior deacon, having filled the office for nearly thirty years. He was ever a generous friend of the church, beloved and esteemed by all who knew him. His genial face with its silvery flowing beard, was never missing from his pew in the middle aisle on Sabbath morning, and is one of the most vivid and pleasant of my childish recollections. The Rev. Samuel W. Delzell came to us in August, 1890. He was a faithful pastor and an earnest preacher, and it was with sincere regret the church parted with him after a three-years pas torate. He left this church and denomination to affiliate himself with the Baptist denomination. Of our next pastor, the Rev. Otis W. Barker, I need say but little. His work is of so recent a date it is still fresh in our memories. A native of Brooklyn, N. Y., and a graduate of Amherst College, after a few years of business life he turned to the work of the ministry, and graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1893. Mr. Barker brought to us the enthusiasm of youth, coupled with great devotion to his work, and painstaking attention to detail, without which no work can be wholly successful. Pos sessing by inheritance unusual intellectual gifts, he was not only an earnest but an eloquent preacher. He was ordained to the work of the ministry in this church, October 24, 1893, and installed October 30, 1894. Among the many improvements made during Mr. Barker's pastorate the chandelier installed the first year at a cost of $90 is worthy of note, also the vocalion organ, costing $700, the entire amount being raised by voluntary subscriptions, and which did good service for twenty years, or until the new pipe organ was installed last year. Many interesting features of church work and life were intro duced, especially along social and missionary lines. Monthly missionary concerts were held and many notable workers from Rev. James P. Hoyt Pastor, 1874-1890 NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 57 various fields all over the world came to tell us of their work. Benevolent contributions of money and provisions were sent to the work of the denomination and to benevolent institutions. Gospel wagons brought in the children from the outside districts to the Sunday School and this church stood high in the ranks of rural churches. A Christian Endeavor Society was organized in 1899 and has been an important factor in the training of the young people for Christian service. In 1903, the church was entirely redecorated and new carpets laid, and the church was never in so flourishing a condition finan cially. It was with a feeling akin to dismay that we learned in 1905 our beloved leader must lay down the work so dear to him and to us, and it seemed well nigh impossible to think of carrying on the work without his guiding hand, for he ever was the leader and the most indefatigable worker in every good enterprise. In October, 1905, Rev. Ralph E. Danforth accepted a call from the church. He remained with us till September, 1907, when he left the work of the ministry for a time to study at a western university. The Rev. Alexander Steele came to us from the Methodist denomination with the understanding he should pursue his theo logical studies at Yale University. He was indeed worthy of his name, a Godly man, and true as steel. His influence and work among the boys and young men, not only of the church, but of the town, also, was ever for good. He organized and led the work of the Boy Scouts. Mr. Steele left us in August, 1912, to return to his own denomination. Of our present pastor, Rev. T. J. Lee, who took up the work of this church and parish in February 1913, I need not speak, for he is known and loved by all as he goes out and in among us, rejoicing with those who rejoice, comforting those who sorrow, and breaking to us the Bread of Life on the Lord's Day. And so I have come to the close of this brief and imperfect history of our church. As our thoughts are busy with the past, memory calls to mind one beloved face after another. Among my earliest recol lections is the sweet and placid face of Mrs. Emily Sanford, 58 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION one of the mothers in Israel, always a warm friend to the pastor's family and a valued leader in all good works. Some of you whose thoughts run farther back along the road of time will recall the two daughters, Grace, and Jeanie, who afterward became the wife of Rev. William H. Moore. I find their names recorded many times among the active workers of the church sixty years ago. Memory also calls to mind Deacon W. W. Perkins, for years a deacon in this church and superintendent of the Sunday School. I can see him now, and his good wife, always in their family pew on the Sabbath, with their sturdy sons beside them. They have long since joined the throng around the Great White Throne. And who of the present generation can ever think of this church apart from those good brothers, Henry and William Fairchild. They were the good friends of the church when days were dark and friends were few. There was no office or work in the church, from sweeping the floors and building the fires to reading sermons in the absence of a minister, that Deacon Henry Fairchild did not perform at some time during his con nection with this church. And what prayer meeting would ever have been complete without him? His earnest prayer was ever that "we at last may hear the well-earned plaudit 'Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.' " Deacon Fairchild entered into the "Joy of his Lord" in August, 1897, and this church is rich in the blessed memory of his saintly life. His brother William entered into rest in 1903. And this past year we have been called to part with another deacon, George Ruffels, a man of retiring nature, but when he prayed he led us to the gates of heaven. And what more shall I say, for time would fail me to tell of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Johnson, Mrs. Hannah Shepard Aldis, Mrs. John B. Wheeler, ever zealous in every good work, Mrs. Emily Couch and Mr. James Jillette, leaders in the choir, Mr. M. S. Otis, the faithful friend and clerk of the church, Mrs. Clifford, Mrs. Julia Fairchild Stahl, Mrs. Robert Tomlinson, Mrs. Sarah Briscoe Hubbell, Mrs. Polly Taylor, my own beloved mother, Miss Elizabeth Leavenworth, Mrs. James Turney and Mrs. Zalmon Peck, who through faith wrought righteousness and obtained promises. And so one by one the workers lay aside the armor of the earthly warfare, but NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 59 the Church of God moves forward. May we of the present generation prove worthy of the charge entrusted to us. May we never falter as we follow the Banner of the Cross, till we also hear the "Well done" of our Master. "I love thy kingdom Lord, The house of thine abode, The church our blest Redeemer saved With his own precious blood. I love thy church, O God, Her walls before thee stand, Dear as the apple of thine eye, And graven on thy hand. Beyond my highest joy I prize her heavenly ways, Her sweet communion, solemn vows, Her hymns of love and praise." ADDRESS By Rev. Williston Walker, D.D., of New Haven The admirable historical paper by Miss Scudder, to which we have just listened, gives me the text of what I shall say this afternoon. The historian has recorded that this church was long called Presbyterian, and that it was not till the pastorate of Rev. Nathaniel Urmston that the title "Congregational" became definitely attached to it. It was, nevertheless, always a Congre gational church, as that term is now understood. Attached, indeed to the consociational system, established by state authority in 1709, its relations to the state and to other churches were unlike, in many respects, to those of the present day, but it was never Presbyterian as Presbyterianism is understood in Scotland or America. Yet popular usage in Connecticut, a century ago, designated our historic Congregational churches as Presbyterian, and the employment of the term in Newtown was but in con formity to general custom. As a Congregational church this body, whose two hundredth anniversary we celebrate, represented that great movement which peopled New England with self- sacrificing, determined men and women, who came not as is often, though incorrectly, said to establish religious liberty, but to organize churches on what they believed to be the pattern authoritatively set forth in the New Testament, in the pages of which they saw mirrored all that a church should rightfully be in membership, officers or government. In our easier time we may believe their interpretation too narrow. We may not see, as they did, any divinely prescribed model to which a church must invariably conform. We may hold that that vital and inward reality, the life of God in the souls of men, will seek vari ous organization, from age to age, that it may the better advance the Kingdom of God. But we honor, none the less, their courage, zeal and devotion, and their fidelity to the will of God, as they understood His Word. That they dared much, and were accounted faithful, has given us the New England that we honor and love. NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 6 1 New England religious history has not been, however, without its many controversies and divisions, and in those discussions this church of Newtown had, at least in its first century of exist ence, a remarkably intimate part. It would seem as if little of ecclesiastical significance can have been stirring in eighteenth century Connecticut without having sent its ripples, and some times it waves, to this Newtown community. At some of these larger movements, already spoken of by Miss Scudder, we will glance. But, before doing so, I desire to say a word, at this late day, in behalf of your first pastor, Rev. Thomas Tousey, whose relinquishment of the Newtown charge, in 1724, was followed by a long secular career of honor as physician, captain of militia and legislative representative. Such an abandonment of what has been often styled a "sacred calling" was undoubtedly exceptional, perhaps more then than at present. To a youthful graduate of our infant college, such as Tousey was, the ministry presented practically the only avenue of schol arly employment; and it is no disparagement of his character if, having tried this path, he found other forms of service to the community more satisfying to his townsmen and more con genial to himself. This change of life occupation had a con spicuous illustration among Tousey's eminent Connecticut contemporaries. Elisha Williams, whom he must often have seen, left his pastorate in Newington in 1726 for the "rectorship" or presidency of Yale, to lay down that post in 1739, becoming a legislative representative of his home town, a judge of the superior court, and a colonel of Connecticut troops, thus com bining as wide a variety of ecclesiastical, educational, legislative, judicial and military experiences as the colonial life permitted. The relinquishment of the pastorate by Rev. Thomas Tousey for the duties and honors of civil life was followed by the settle ment, in 1724, of Rev. John Beach, one of the most remarkable ministerial personalities in eighteenth century Connecticut. With him there was no question of the claims of secular life; but none the less six years after its institution witnessed the dis solution of the pastorate. He had come to doubt the validity of non-Episcopal ordination, and for the next fifty years was to do valiant service in Newtown for the Church and King of Eng land. Time has softened the asperities of the ancient contro versy of which this division in Newtown was an episode. 62 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION Congregationalists and Episcopalians in this commonwealth have long since learned to live and labor side by side in mutual respect and in ever-increasing good-will. But, in the days when John Beach renounced his Congregational ministry, the lines were indeed closely drawn, and the fear was widespread among the representatives of the older colonial religious order, that the introduction of the Church of England would lead to its estab lishment by Parliamentary action, and that the overwhelming might of the mother country would be exerted in such fashion in this matter as the slender colonial resources would find them selves inadequate to resist. Whether this fear was justified or not, it existed, and was not removed till the war of the Revolu tion ended all possibilities of foreign control. Its existence accounts for much of the bitterness of controversy then aroused by the growth of a communion which many of the inhabitants of Newtown preferred to that which this church represents. The brief pastorate of John Beach was terminated for reasons entirely honorable to himself, if highly unsatisfactory to the New town Congregationalists, but the church seemed destined to have trying experiences with its ministers. Beach's successor was the Rev. Elisha Kent, whose work in Newtown began in 1732. In 1740, Connecticut, like New England generally, was stirred as it had never been before by the preaching of that youthful and marvellously eloquent evangelist, the early friend of the Wesleys, Rev. George Whitefield. He did not come to Newtown, but his persuasive voice was heard in Hartford, Middletown, New Haven, Milford, Stratford, Fairfield and Norwalk, and other towns in Connecticut, and the impulse that went out from his fiery evangelism resulted in that religious stirring of New England which lives in history as the "Great Awakening." Doubtless much of the work of the revival was of abiding value. But it had its decided ill effects also. Whitefield's victorious progress raised up many imitators, and Connecticut was divided as to the merits of their work. The churches and ministers fell, in popular classification, into "Old Lights," who disliked this novel evangelism, and "New Lights," who saw in it a special outpouring of the Spirit of God. Elisha Kent was a "New Light." He not merely favored the revival movement, but was forward in its support. His part in the formation of a Separatist, revivalistic, church in New Haven, in 1742, brought him much NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 63 reproach; and it is believed considerable opposition in his own flock. His own conduct was otherwise subject to criticism, as Miss Scudder has indicated, though not sufficiently objectionable to involve any degradation from the ministry. These causes were potent enough to lead to his dismission from the Newtown pastorate in 1743, and the congregation was, for the third time, rendered pastorless by causes involving grave differences of opin ion, and, in two of these cases, questions of widespread con troversy in the colony at large. It must be, I think, an echo of a larger controversy than any affecting Newtown alone that is to be seen in the action and publication of your next pastor, David Judson, who served from 1743, and, unlike his predecessors, died in office in 1776. In 1758, a controversy arose in Wallingford over the settlement there of Rev. James Dana, into the confused course of which it is not necessary for us to enter, but which ultimately involved a general discussion of the whole system of consociation into which the churches of Connecticut had been grouped under the provisions of the famous Platform adopted in Saybrook in 1708. To many, that system seemed tyrannical in its action, and one such opponent was evidently the Newtown pastor, David Judson. In a sermon preached here on August 5, 1770, and afterwards published, the author renounced his allegiance to the disciplinary portions of the Saybrook Platform. This action had the ultimate support of his church, which separated from the Fairfield Con sociation in September, 1773; a course of conduct which was warmly defended by the pastor in a vigorous pamphlet issued in 1774. Doubtless the embers of this ancient debate have long since grown cold; but the spirit here manifested was one of ecclesiastical liberty befitting the days of struggle for political freedom which were dawning when David Judson took his part in an ecclesiastical battle that raged widely in Connecticut. David Judson's relations with this Newtown flock had been harmonious, but the next minister of this church was to involve it in the turmoil af a new controversy, not originating here, or even on this side of the Atlantic, but disastrous in its results to the pastor, Zephaniah Hollister Smith, and to the church alike. Robert Sandeman was a Scottish religious leader, who continued and developed the work of his father-in-law, John Glas, and who believed that he was restoring primitive Chris- 64 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION tianity. Coming to this country in 1764, he ultimately settled in Danbury, where he died in 1771 ; but not till he had won a considerable following in New England, especially in western Connecticut. Theologically, Sandeman represented the extreme Protestant revolt from any doctrine of work-righteousness. To his thinking, faith is "a bare belief in a bare truth"; that is, a man who accepts undoubtingly the facts of the Gospel message as presented in the New Testament, with the same intellectual assent that he receives the truths of mathematics, has a full saving faith. With this conception, Sandeman sought to combine a revival of the practices of the primitive church, instituting in each church a number of elders, holding a common meal weekly, which should reproduce the apostolic "breaking of bread" and be a true Lord's Supper, and practising, in imitation of Christ, the washing of the disciples' feet, and, according to the apostolic precept, the holy kiss. With this attempted revival of the usages of early Christianity, he combined a rigid examination of the membership of the church, and the vigorous exclusion of those deemed unworthy. Though Sandemanianism had become discredited in Connecti cut by reason of the loyalist sympathies of most of its adherents during the revolutionary struggle, the new pastor, Zephaniah H. Smith, began, soon after his settlement in Newtown in 1786, to manifest Sandemanian views. The church was rent by the ensu ing controversy. Those who opposed him the pastor excommu nicated ; and the brief and disastrous relationship closed with his dismission in 1790. It was an unhappy episode for all concerned. When, after a very considerable period of delay, a new pastor was obtained in the person of Rev. Jehu Clarke, in 1799, the ruined church had practically to be reorganized. Surely the religious controversies of this commonwealth during the eighteenth century had borne heavily on the Newtown church. With the beginning of the new pastorate a better day dawned. The nineteenth century saw Newtown involved in no such direct and disastrous fashion in its theological debates as it had been in those of the eighteenth. These controversies were of much general interest and were bitterly fought out, but the present speaker is not aware that the Newtown congregation was directly engaged in any of them. Yet they must have aroused interest here, and because such was undoubtedly the fact, a glance at one or two of them may be desirable. NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 65 By the opening years of the nineteenth century the theological school of Jonathan Edwards was practically dominant in Con necticut. All Congregational thinking in this commonwealth was essentially Edwardean. Yet in the Edwardean ranks there appeared, about the year 1825, a serious cleft. When the present speaker was a student in Amherst college, the honored president of that seat of learning, Julius H. Seelye, a native of your neigh boring town of Bethel, desiring to illustrate the fashion in which contentions, important in their day, become forgotten with the lapse of time, asked the class if any of its members had ever heard of the Taylor and Tyler controversy. Senior student wis dom is not great, and it is not surprising that none had any knowledge of the dissension. President Seelye then remarked that in his Connecticut boyhood little else was discussed in religious circles ; and what was true of Bethel was doubtless also characteristic of Newtown. The problems in dispute relate to the minutiae of technical theology. Nathaniel W. Taylor, the eminent professor of systematic theology of Yale, a son of your neighboring town of New Milford, though standing on the gen eral Edwardean foundation, taught that in a system of divine moral government, God could not, without denying to man real freedom, prevent the possible entrance of sin; but man could prevent it by not sinning. To many of the more conservative Edwardeans in Connecticut, led by Rev. Bennett Tyler, a native of Middlebury, these opinions of Professor Taylor seemed a denial of the full sovereignty of God. If God is the ruler of the universe, then all things, even sin, must be under His absolute control. The controversy, as it appeared to the popular mind, was doubtless well summed up in a description which the speaker once heard from an aged minister: "Dr. Taylor says man is sovereign, Dr. Tyler says God is sovereign." Remote and abstract as these discussions seem to us, they did not so appear to that robuster theologic age. All Connecticut was filled with the din of battle. A new and protesting theological seminary was founded in East Windsor (now long since removed to Hart ford), in 1834, with Dr. Tyler as its president, and Con necticut Congregationalism narrowly escaped division into rival denominations. Probably this threatened division of religious forces in this commonwealth was averted by the rise of a new discussion which 5 66 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION speedily eclipsed the Taylor and Tyler Controversy, and doubt less aroused Newtown as it did Connecticut generally. Horace Bushnell was from your neighboring Litchfield, though his min isterial service was to be in Hartford. Convinced that the revivalistic methods of his time were mistaken, he advocated Christian nurture, rather than a struggling conscious conversion, as the normal method of entrance into the Kingdom of God. Believing that the treatment of theology as primarily a field for logical intellectual demonstration then current, and employed by both Taylor and Tyler, to be erroneous, he based Christian truth largely on the affirmations of the religious feeling. It was a revolution in theologic thinking, the effects of which are not yet spent. It involved Dr. Bushnell in attack and heated contro versy. To the honor of our Connecticut Congregationalism, however, the General Association of the State, gathered in Dan bury in 1852, though far from sympathizing as a whole with his views, declined to abridge Dr. Bushnell's liberty. The result was most happy. Since that day our Congregational churches of Connecticut, though greatly interested in new presentations of Christian truth, and in the problems which modern Biblical criti cism and historical study have raised, have never had a contro versy which has seriously imperilled their fellowship in the common service of the Master's Kingdom, and in this relative peace the church in Newtown has shared. The story which has been related may seem to be one of the quarrels of Christian brethren. If it has appeared so in the telling it is because the experiences of the Newtown church are closely bound up with the religious controversies of this com monwealth, especially during the first century of this church's existence. But we can never forget the significance of the religious life here maintained for two centuries. What a wealth of prayer and consecration, what a story of sacrifice and of earnest Christian living, what a treasure of effort for the advancement of the Kingdom of God, what a service of the Master, the gathered experiences of two hundred years involve. They had their struggles, their keen debates, their sacrificial efforts to maintain the life of this church under discouraging conditions, their very human differences of judgment. But above all they who have here gone before us were faithful to our NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 67 common Lord in their day and generation. Into the fruits of their labors we have entered. Theirs is the heritage which we enjoy. As we think of them to-day with honor, and reverence them for what they were, a question comes to each of us — Are we showing like faithfulness in our generation? Have we the spirit of consecration to the service of Christ which animated them? When the three hundredth anniversary of this church is celebrated will those then present look to us, as we now do to those gone before us, as having in spite of all our human infirmities and shortcomings, yet earned a good report, and transmitted unimpaired the Christian life which they have handed down to us? Shall we, like they, be found faithful? CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR RALLY A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT Address by Rev. O. W. Barker I appear before you to-night as a patriarch. I suppose the only reason why I find a place amid the brilliant galaxy of stars that crowd this programme, is that I am recognized as the founder of the local society. Then I can at once show my credentials for membership in the Honorable Order of Founders, and President Clark and I can shake hands. Who wouldn't be here, though, to-night and who wouldn't give his Puritan conscience a bit of a stretch in making the run by rail from Hartford to Bridgeport on a Sunday afternoon in order to catch the thrill of enthusiasm which goes with the Bicentennial ? The hoarfrost of age has already begun to make its marks of life's winter upon my brow and to indicate to some of you good brothers and sisters, who were in the day of small things with me, that you have started on the down grade. We shall not be here when another hundredth anni versary rolls around, so we better make the most of this. I have come here, like the rest of you, to stand upon a mount and breathe in the good cheer that blows in the upper air. A brother dominie was called upon to attend a sick lady who did not belong to his flock. She was a person of some distinction, so my good friend was rather elated by the honor, but wondered a little at the call. A chance was offered him to investigate the matter, since he was detained for a few moments in the parlor with the little girl of the family. "May I ask," he inquired, "why your mother wished me to call? Is your own pastor out of town?" "No," was the innocent reply. "He's at home; but mother thought it might be something contagious and we didn't want to run any risks." I am willing to run all risks that may come from getting into the heart of a Christian Endeavor host. If I pose as a founder, the way lies open before me to roll up the curtain of the past and take a backward look. Nearly Rev. Otis W. Barker Pastor, 1893-1905 NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 69 a score of years ago we founded the Endeavor Society in the room at the foot of those stairs, though, I confess, that, as I look around upon the present enlargement and equipment, I have to pinch myself to be sure this is not all a dream. Brother Allison Smith had given me a nudge that there was a long gap of silence after Sunday School was out. There was nothing to do then, the rest of the Lord's Day, but to read, doze, and keep quiet. Automobiles did not then sweep in continuous procession up our new state road and Sunday visiting had not come as the order of the day. I have always tried not to be over dull when a plain hint was thrust before me ; and Brother Smith and I vied with each other in getting our names down first. This society has had many an ebb and flow, its enthusiasm swelling like the Solway and falling like its tide; but it still lives. Let me give to it and to all sister societies represented here my God speed to-night. Christian Endeavor has not seen its best days. The black bats of evil prophecy have been fluttering their wings. Pessi mism has been crying its piteous plaint from many a dark corner ; its finest note is a croak, its loftiest psean a dirge. The Church is going to the wall, in country depleted by sweep toward the cities, in cities submerged by the great immigration tide. King George II said of the pastoral symphony which precedes the story of the Nativity in Handel's matchless oratorio of the Mes siah that one could see the stars shining through it. I am glad that there are men who can see stars shining through any dark night. I heard Father Endeavor Clark, the other night, give one of his inspirational addresses. If he had not been a dyed- in-the-wool optimist, we should have gathered around the funeral pyre of Christian Endeavor long ago. He said: "I never was so hopeful for the Church of God ; I never felt that I could so strongly depend upon the young people as to-day." Do you know Mr. F. C. Bidwell, our State President? He is a humble man, who never blew a single note on the trumpet in his own praise. Through his term of four years, he has traveled up and down the Nutmeg State in its highways and byways, holding to the spirit of idealism, like Nehemiah repairing the breaches in the walls of Zion and crying a Forward March. He has suc ceeded in his work. In the international campaign for a Chris tian Endeavor headquarters, Connecticut carries the banner at 70 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION the head of the line for first being able to pay down in cold cash its full apportionment of $5,000. When the last dollar is paid in by the first of June next, to this plain, unobtrusive man, as much as to any other, will be due the impetus that has carried the work to the keystone of the arch. This is President Bidwell's word to us, as he stands ready to throw the honored mantle of his office upon other shoulders: "I greatly rejoice at the way God hath led and hath wrought for the prosperity and advancement of the work. Surely no State President ever had back of him a body of young people more united, more loyal, more ready with words of encouragement, more consecrated to the Master's cause. On the background of these four years of service with you I frame this creed: I believe in Christian Endeavor, its principles, methods, spirit, deeds, and future more thoroughly than ever before. I believe that the best days our cause has yet seen are now here and that there are better ones yet to come." I know President Bidwell well. He is the inspiring genius of the small Christian Endeavor Society in the Bloomfield Congre gational Church, where my ministry now finds vent. President Bidwell is seldom there; but the helpfulness of his spirit and the impulse of his good deeds are ever there. His daughter, Ethelwin Bidwell, a bright High School girl, president of the Bloomfield Society, will be the genius of Connecticut in the fine pageant which is to crown the State Convention in the Elm City the latter part of this week. So, you see, like father, like daughter. My looking backward is not to be content with the day of small things here. My brown study calls me to the fountain-head of the whole movement, the gathering of young people in the pas tor's study of Williston Church, Portland, in February, 1881. President Francis E. Clark builded better than he knew, yes, for he had no idea of laying any foundations at all. As an instance of how little this movement was man-devised, it was upon a hectograph pad that this earnest young preacher, then under thirty years of age, wrote out the first rude draft of a constitu tion. His church had just been blessed with a precious refresh ing from on high ; and this wise pastor was looking to see how these new converts might be given work that would save them from going to sleep too near the place where they got into the Church. The flames of enthusiasm had been fanned by the winds NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 7 I of revival ; but if no fuel of zealous service were added, the fire would soon dwindle into smouldering embers. It is one thing to stuff the bin with hay ; but if the horse be left in the stable and his muscles grow flabby through lack of exercise, there will soon be a dead animal on your hands. Young people had no appropri ate exercise in their soul-life before Christian Endeavor was born. They had been preached to and prayed over; but their spiritual muscles were not hardened by use and all too early they were suffered to pass into invalidism. The story is almost classic of the young man, whose eyes had been opened to the light of the Gospel, who wished to claim a young man's part in con tributing his zeal toward the upbuilding of his Church. He looked to the Church prayer meeting, as the place where he might joyfully speak of his newly found hope and tell of his desire to serve the Friend who was now holding the largest place in his life. He gave out his testimony clear and strong and shook the dry bones in the valley of death. He found the strength that always comes to one who has put forth strength; but he was soon waited upon by the pastor, who cautioned him that testi mony in the Church prayer meeting was reserved for the pillars. Rather, it seemed to the young man that that delightful place of long silences was reserved for the pillows. A venerable dea con, too, made audience with the young man to inform him that when the Church wished him to speak in meeting, it would let him know. This young man had plenty of red blood in his veins and the fire of his zeal was not put out even by the wet blanket thus thrown upon him. Thank God, this day when young people are to be seen in our churches, but never to be heard, when they are looked upon only as statues good for niches, has gone forever by. Never did a movement in the history of the world have more distinctly upon it the impress of God's finger. When Professor Morse had succeeded in getting a wire from Baltimore to Wash ington to flash forth a message, appropriately the message was, "What hath God wrought !" As we look back to-night over the path of conquest which the vanguard of Christian Endeavor has blazed around the globe, this is our thought. Christian Endeavor was no more man-made at the start than the children of Israel were led alone by Moses across the burning sands of the Sinaitic Peninsula. It was a time of spiritual declension. Movements 72 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION were made here and there by pastors to break up the fallow ground; but they were only spasmodic and the Church did not awake from its stupor. This movement came as a new force. Enthusiasm and hopefulness and zeal, which are the inheritance of young souls, set a spark among the dry leaves and kindled the conflagration of devotion to things that are true and of good report. Three things Christian Endeavor has grandly done: it has conserved the native forces of the young people and trained them ; it has maintained their buoyancy and enthusiasm ; it has promoted the unity of the Church and aided in its world exten sion. It has solved the amusement question in the Church. We no longer erect around our young people a palisade of "don'ts" ; we open many conduits in which their abounding energy may run. We believe it is better to hold all the life of the young person within the Church than to give careful training to the soul and then turn it loose upon the world. Christian Endeavor has changed many a pastor's hardest task, the training and nurture of his young people, the directing of their full life into proper channels, into his chief joy. The pastor now knows his young people and loves them; in turn, they know and love him. I once rallied a minister who, in passing along the streets of his parish, met his young people in clumps and knots, boys now playing at ball, girls romping with their hoops. He could enter into their lives no more than to say to each and every one, in monotonous reiteration, "How do you do" ? Under the happy workings of the Christian Endeavor every wise and faith ful pastor ought to hear his young people grow in grace as you can hear the corn grow, on a hot July day, out on the Illinois prairie. Young people were not meant for straight- jackets or pillories. They were meant to grow and develop and expand in girth of chest and in girth of soul. Christian Endeavor has become a vast help in promoting missionary enthusiasm; the dry rot of lethargy toward missions has been scraped off. You cannot get the eye to melt in tears over the recital of the suffer ings of the poorest castes in India until it has melted beside a sufferer's cot in a hospital near home. That which appeals to the eye finds a straight road through the eye-gate to emotions of the heart. You would think it a party, of trained adults in Christian service; they go about it so systematically and they take it as such a serious business, something so well worth the NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 73 while. It is only a party of Endeavorers from Young Peoples' Society in Evanston, Illinois. They planned their work before they started out on Sunday morning. Two are to visit the desti tute district. Two are to spend the day among seven Chinese Sunday Schools. Two, laden with flowers and messages of love, are to go, as Jesus sent out the Seventy, through the villages and towns of Galilee, from house to house seeking the sick and the shut-ins, those for whose souls nobody seems to care. Two are to teach the waifs, swept up from the alleyways into a great mission hall, just as the White Wings sweep the crosswalks and gutters. You make a mistake when you think that all young "peo ple like nothing but fun. They like to give the spikenard of their best heart's love in deeds of gracious helpfulness ; but they like, in doing it, not to be manacled by perfunctory methods. Here they go, practically all the members of the Christian Endeavor Society from the Fourth Congregational Church of Hartford, out to a service in the almshouse on Sunday morning at nine o'clock. "I take Sunday morning for lying in bed." These young people do not. I know most of them. They are the busiest sort of folks you can find ; not one of them is a young person of leisure. The bin is full of hay. The young colt is eating well; he is frisking about, but he is doing a lot of work, too. The Christian Endeavor movement is so grand, so catholic, so comprehensive, so broad, that the amazement is that my short lifetime far more than includes it all. The wonder is that it was not born in Boston, the suburb of Heaven. I have suffered myself to make a mistake. Christian Endeavor was not born in 1881. Perhaps it was born that great day in Israel's history when the host of Philistia in a valley was set over against the host of Israel. All God's people were trembling until a young man, ruddy of cheek, his eyes dancing with the pure sunlight of the open fields, arrived just in the niche of time to save the day. The young shepherd boy, with his sling and five smooth stones gathered from the bed of a brook, brought down the defiant giant in crashing ruin to the earth. Before the advancing lines of Christian Endeavor I see the demon giant of drink already toppling and the great form of political corruption that has thrown its baleful blight over our American cities smitten by the conviction launched by our good citizenship com mittees that our cities must be clean. David, the stripling, came 74 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION to the field of battle not a day too soon and, methinks, the Christian Endeavor movement came in the fullness of time to save the Church of God from being moss-grown with inertia and being shot through and through with mouldering conserva tism. A branch of Christian Endeavor was started down in Babylon. You think a society depends upon numbers to make things go and bring matters to pass. This society had four mem bers upon its roll, Daniel and his three companions. There were just two articles in this society's constitution: first, we will not do that which is not right ; second, we will not bow down. You remember what an influence that society had. Judah was car ried captive into Babylon, dragging the taint of the worship of ¦ Moloch and Astarte with her. She had not gotten over the effect of the harsh reply of Rehoboam to the delegation of young men that came with Jeroboam. Jezebel's foul idolatry was still breeding its spawn. Judah went down from Jerusalem smirched; it came back pure; and that purity in worship of God, started there at the fountain — headed by those four cap tive boys in the Christian Endeavor Society in Babylon, twenty- five hundred years ago, has kept the stream flowing clear ever since. Yes, we can believe it, there is nothing new under the sun. Christian Endeavor fosters growth. I like live things. I would rather have a live snake in a menagerie than a dead coil which cannot thrust out its fang. Did I say that, in Christian Endeavor history, I posed as a patriarch ? Well, there is solace for my declining years, to see how the boys and girls whom, under God's grace, I started in their Christian nurture are grow ing. They are growing sturdy in physical strength. They are enthusiastic for football. When, on Saturday, November twen ty-first, the great game between Yale and Harvard will open the new Yale Bowl and 61,000 spectators, in mighty concourse assembled, will cheer for the sons of old Eli and the crimson as they contend in fierce combat, some of my boys and girls will be there to lend the full volume of their lungs to the deafening roar. I should like to stop to tell you the history of just one— not a Timothy. I well remember how, as a little girl, she stood with me on this platform, under the folds of Old Glory and united with the large congregation, on a beautiful Children's Day in June in singing: NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 75 "Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus going on before !" She used to come down from Hawleyville with her father and mother in our gospel wagon, a part of the church machinery of which we were so proud then. Her father was a cog in the interlacing system of the Consolidated Road. He held a humble position here; but, joining with a relative in the real estate busi ness in Canada, he surely struck "ile." The pretty girl, too, struck "ile" in finding a young man to be her life partner who, though not to the manor born, was clean, honest, and a good standard to which to look up. The last I heard from this child of my training, she was in the far away province of Saskatche wan in the city of Regina, which, like Jonah's gourd, has grown up in a night, in a country where vast areas of wheat fields stretch towards the shores of Hudson Bay, where the days are so long that the hens lose all track of time, and, as in the old rhyme, lay two eggs a day and on Sundays lay three. As she wrote, this child of the King was fondly looking upon the sweet est bit of humanity in all the world, folded away on a bed under a snowdrift of feathery down. These boys and girls have been growing in all the years I have known them. They are pace makers as well as peace-makers; thirty, sixty, one hundred fold is the step of their progress. They are members of the best Progressive Party I know. Often in the twilight, as the length ening shadows thickly fall, their forms steal out from the dim corners of the past and speak to me a kindly word of thanks for the small influence for good I have cast upon their lives. They owe their growth largely to what Christian Endeavor did for them. Growth comes in religion from having a healthy experience. Formerly young people were lassoed and corralled within the Church fold by entertainments, pink teas, games, oyster suppers. Young people need something more virile than these. Milk is good for babes; but strong meat makes bone and tissue. A robust Christian experience is not out of elbow touch with healthy boys and girls. I heard Miss Frances E. Willard, in 1888, at the Seventh National Christian Endeavor Convention in Chicago, where she almost apologized for speaking as a woman, to so mighty a throng, narrate her Christian experience. This sweet picture came out of her life when she was a small girl. 76 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION Her family was of good Vermont stock. Her father had much of the iron and granite of his native hills in his makeup. When Frances was still little, the family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, which seems to have the right atmosphere for making noble souls ; and do you know that, after all it is the atmosphere, not the garniture of the room or the frescoing of the walls, that makes a Church? The question is not what is the costliness of the furnishings, but how does the barometer rise and fall that indicates devotion to the Master's cause. When this particular experience came, it was a Sunday morning. Mother had gone to church. This was a thoroughly democratic family; no one had any soft couch of ease set aside, everyone bore his part of the burden; father and mother went to Church by turns. Father, this morning, took down his hymn-book, set little Frances upon his knee and said: "I have a hymn to teach you which you will not understand now ; but you will when you are grown up. "A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify, A never-dying soul to save And fit it for the sky." That is the way we get Christian experience. A child learns to breathe by breathing; we learn to do by doing. We learn to roll away great stones from the mouths of sepulchres by going to the sepulchre's mouth. Miss Willard also beautifully told how she first made confession of Christ. She was reared a Methodist, yet it was not easy for her to speak in public meeting. Her heart beat like a trip-hammer ; but a voice, sweet and holy, whispered: "My child, he that confesseth Me before men, him will I confess before My Father and the holy angels." She wanted to be of that company, so she confessed. Christian Endeavor encourages a young man to confess Christ and every time he speaks that name in consecrated devotion, he lifts him self up toward that great ideal of character and grows. A final thing I have to say in favor of Christian Endeavor ; it is bringing the Churches together. Oh! the sad divisions among us. In this terrible cataclysm of war which is upon us, the confused reports of which trickle their way to us when leak ing out from under the pressure of heavy censorships, what has become of the much-praised brotherhood of mankind? Is it all NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 77 a dream, an old woman's fable, a will-o'-the-wisp, a mirage? There is only one solvent for the world's difficulties, only one poultice for the world's sore: Not less of Christ, but more of Christ. Yes, it is true, the dogs of war are unchained, and gaunt starvation steps, an unwilling guest, into thousands of homes, because Christianity has not been tried. The Hague Conference, we blissfully dreamed, was beginning to try it out; but the big howitzer siege guns have blown the treaties into shreds and pounded back into the dirt the good will that had just begun to lift its noble head. Civilization seems set back one hundred years. The day when the dove shall build her nest in the can non's mouth and the spear shall be ground into the pruning hook seems long postponed. In some good day coming, we may have a real brotherhood, and things which now burden the nations will be looked back upon and thought as archaic as the old one- horse shay. Then a small international army will police the land to keep the world at peace and a small international navy will police the sea. Until that millennial day dawns let the Church of God show the way. Christian Endeavor is a mighty force in this. Through its glad working dissevered Methodism is consolidating and fed erating. The Presbyterians, who once cleaved asunder are now cleaving together. The federation of churches is not something worked out only in committee rooms. In Hartford a moving- picture house was running a burlesque. Its moral tone was bad, at least that was the report. We will see about this, said the federation of churches. No longer does the preacher think he is discharging his full duty to God and man by pounding the sacred desk for one hour one day in the week, while the Devil pounds the soul-life out of the people six days of the week. Christian Endeavor promotes union because both young men and women come together in hearty accord. Mrs. Gen. Logan tells of visit ing an Old Soldiers' Home. She met a veteran broken and worn, hobbling about with greatest difficulty. You would have thought that his mind would be solely bent on the miseries of his own sex. The home was most charmingly situated, so Mrs. Logan said, "You must be very happy here." "No," the poor fellow murmured, "I am not happy because there are not women here." Christian Endeavor joins heart and hand, and then there is the union in the home. If the complaint sometimes 78 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION urged be true that this meeting becomes a mating, let me say I know no better rose-garden where a young man of promise may pick a precious bud. Christian Endeavor promotes union because it is a Christian Endeavor Society. There may be differences of denomination but one spirit runs through all, spirit of devotion to one Master. One flag is above every State and National emblem, the blood stained banner of the cross. A little pickaninny had been con verted. Holding up his New Testament, his eyes snapping with joy, he exclaimed, "It's sweeter than 'lasses.!" He lived in a 'lasses country and that is the way it looked to him. David lived in a honey country and contemplating the delights of God's Word, he wrote, "It is sweeter also than honey and the honey comb." It all depends on what is your point of view, what emphasis you will give to the particular phase of truth for which each denomination stands. You may live in a 'lasses country and I may live in a country where bees sip the nectared sweets. Methodism may seem sweet to you and Congregationalism may seem equally sweet to me ; but, after all, the sweetness that is in both of them comes from the character of Him who is the lily of the valley and the fairest of ten thousand to my soul. Yes, the great thing is not that we cry any denominational shibboleth but that we are thoroughly loyal to our Divine Lord. You have heard of the man who went to the Naturalization Office in New York to be made a citizen. "What is your nationality?" he was asked. "I do not know," he replied, "I wish you would tell me. My father was English, my mother Spanish. I was born at sea on a French ship flying the Dutch flag. I don't care par ticularly what I am, but I want to be an American citizen." I don't care a snap of my finger under what denominational flag I fight so long as mine shall be the honors in the Grand Review. I want to be on the winning side at last and Christian Endeavor is to have a mighty part in bringing the world to Christ. Its constitution and iron-clad pledge have found their way into sixty languages and eighty denominations. From Point Barrow, the most northerly projection of North America, to Invercargill, the most southerly city of Australia, its legions have tramped their victorious way. I trace the course of progress from the first national convention in 1882, when repre sentatives from a score of societies were gathered to Atlantic NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 79 City, with its hosts fifty-thousand strong, as many as were the Sherman's bummers who sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea. Christian Endeavor is a force to be reckoned with to-day. Roughly speaking there are 200,000 places in this country where the laboring man, to-morrow morning on the way to his work, can get a glass of grog. The handwriting is on the wall : these lights must no longer flare up from these pits of Hell, these dens of infamy must go. One billion dollars are invested in this iniquitous traffic. It costs the gigantic sum of one and one-half billion dollars a month to carry on this holocaust of European war, an amount equal to one and one-half times the interest- bearing debt of the United States ; and I know not which is the greater waste. It takes one-fifth of a million men to carry on this business which damns, body and soul. We want these men to sow our wheat and plant our corn. The Christian Endeavor army writes large on its banners now : We vote for the candi dates of no party which does not make battle to the death with the American saloon. Yes, I wish to be on the winning side at last and so with my latest breath, I'll speak the glory of Christian Endeavor's name. There are two memorable pictures in the Dore Gallery, once in London. In one the thorn-crowned Saviour is leaving the Prsetorium on the sorrowful way to the cross. In the other Jupiter, with affrighted countenance, is looking at the broken Olympian crown at his feet. The gods of Egypt, Greece, and Rome are fleeing in wild dismay. The gods of your ancestors and mine are put to rout, pursued by the helmeted Cherubim and sworded Seraphim, and above all, in the everlasting light of Heaven is the once thorn-crowned Saviour directing the celestial combat. And He shall reign forever and ever and to Him shall be brought of the gold of Ophir. All kings shall cast their crowns at His feet. His dominion shall be from sea to sea and from shore to shore. Hallelujah! THE CHURCH THAT STANDS FOUR-SQUARE Rev. Charles R. Brown, D.D., Dean of the Yale School of Religion When John had his vision on the Isle of Patmos he saw an ideal social order descending out of heaven from God. It stood four-square, facing directly on every conceivable human interest and activity. It had three gates on each side, inviting "the kings of the earth," the ruling forces of human society, to "bring their glory and honor unto it." It stood for the consecration and interpretation of all human activities at the hands of the spiritual forces there resident. The Christian church in similar fashion undertakes to stand four-square. It seeks to illumine the entire life of human society so that it will shine like a cluster of jewels. It also faces in every direction, fronting squarely on all the essential interests of the race. How far have our own Pilgrim churches measured up to its comprehensive ideal? When I study their history I find that they have faced these four great interests with splendid effectiveness. I. The interest of Christian education. The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620. Sixteen years later, out of their penury, they founded Harvard College, which abides to this day as the leading University on this continent. Then followed Yale in 1 701, with Amherst and Dartmouth, Williams and Bowdoin, Oberlin and Beloit, Colorado and Whitman, Mt. Holyoke, Wellesley and Smith and more than a score of other colleges founded by the people of our faith and order. The Pilgrim church has borne upon its heart throughout the great interest of Christian education. II. The cause of Christian missions. The first Foreign Mis sionary Society in America was organized by Congregationalists. NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 8 1 The young men in their Hay Stack Prayer meeting at Williams College knelt down saying, "We can do it if we will." They rose up saying, "We can do it and we will." Some of the most eminent names in missionary service on all the fields of earth are the names of men who caught the fire of missionary zeal at our altars; Hiram Bingham and Titus Coan in Hawaii, Hamlin, Riggs and Barton in Turkey, Arthur H. Smith in China and John H. DeForest in Japan, Robert A. Hume in India, and a host of others. These men have written their names in the postscript to the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. They, too, have wrought righteousness and obtained promises. They have subdued kingdoms and turned to flight the armies of aliens. As a result of their eminent service we have seen the Kingdom of God coming in those non-Christian lands with power and great glory. III. The task of social service. The early Puritan fathers dreamed of an industrial and civil order which should be ruled by the spirit of God. It is in the line of a genuine apostolic suc cession that so many of the leaders in modern social service should be men taken from the ranks of our own Congregational membership; Washington Gladden and Graham Taylor, Ray mond Robbins and Fred B. Smith, with a host of pastors and laymen who have furnished competent leadership for the appli cation of Christian principles to modern conditions. IV. The work of evangelism. Here we touch that which is fundamental. The work of Christian education and of Christian missions are expressions of Christian impulse already begotten in the hearts of men and women. If we are to have that glorious thing known as "applied Christianity," we must have an abund ant supply of Christianity to apply. The first great concern of the church is the open enlistment of men and women, young men and maidens, in the active service of Christ. The Pilgrim church has made a splendid showing on that side of this four-square life. The Great Awakening was ushered in by the mighty evangelistic preaching of Jonathan Edwards. The moral fiber and spiritual passion necessary for the freeing of the slaves by the Civil War were begotten in many of our northern states through the great revivals initiated by President Finney of Oberlin. The whole world knows that the greatest evangelist 82 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION of the nineteenth century, Dwight L. Moody, was a sturdy, con secrated Congregational layman. Let these four main interests: Christian education and world wide missions, the great work of social service and the supreme task of Christian evangelism, stand together and work together ! Let each church build its life four-square ! Then the winds may blow, the rains descend and the waves beat upon it — it will stand secure, firmly founded upon the rock of obedience to Christ's own word. Cornelius B. Taylor Chairman of the Society's Committee and Member of Bicentennial Executive Committee ADDRESS By Rev. James H. George Rector of Trinity Church, Newtown I thank your pastor for his very cordial introduction and you for your kind welcome and for the invitation which brought me here. It is always an inspiration to me to be present with, and speak to, and worship with, fellow townsmen and fellow Chris tians. I think that there is nothing that so helps to bring peace in the world, and especially peace in the Church of God; for when we meet each other, and particularly when we meet in our common relation to Our Lord and Master, it brings us nearer together. It is a regret to me that there are no ministers of other Christian bodies as guests with me this afternoon; for whatever their belief may be, I know they ought, and I am sure they would, be deeply interested in this celebration. Two hun dred years of life for any institution in this country is, of course, remarkable. What has survived two hundred years must have in it much of good and will not soon pass away. It is with peculiar appropriateness that I should on such an occasion speak not only for myself and my people, but for all others. While not myself a native of this town, my people in their religious history came from this old stock. It was one race, it was one in the same high ideals of liberty and of the sense of personal responsibility. In a sense my parish is an elder daughter of this church; and I speak for Trinity Church and all people in it when I say it is a matter of rejoicing to them that this institution should be celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of its foundation. The fathers of my parish were in a large measure of the same people as yours. They were not an alien race. They were not a foreign immigration. Socially, intellectually, and morally, they are of the same strain. From the beginning to this day we have been one community. We have had the same ideals in regard to what should be best for the people, the same glorious ideals which brought the ances- 84 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION tors of all of us across the water. Our people have lived side by side, have intermarried ; the strains have crossed and recrossed. They have worked together in business, in the schools, and in our town affairs ; and my people look back to their forefathers in the founders of your church as yours look back to their fore fathers in the founders of mine. Thus they are one in a larger and nearer sense than it is often possible for men of different religious creeds to be. Down through the history of our town there have been certain great essential ideas of religion and of the best interests of the community common to us all. Our fathers fought out the principle of religious liberty one hundred years ago when the old order was disestablished, and all creeds were put upon a common footing in the State, in the same spirit in which they fled from the establishment in the old country a century or two earlier. So we can look back upon those early days and respect the men who stood for what they thought was right, though they were not always as charitable to one another as they might have been. We can respect them, because they did not sacrifice principle for friendship, and yet did not suffer sweet charity and good will to be blotted out by partisanship. There have been and I suppose always will be different ideals in religion as in life. And yet they need not be hostile to each other. Nations are at war with one another because they think some alien race has purposes in view which will be detrimental to the ideals of their own race. Men have not yet learned, as they will in time learn, and as we in this country have to some extent learned, that the best interests of the world are not to be gained by the striking out of the ideals of any race, but by a fusing together of the characteristics of each. It is in this way the great race will be formed which will rule the world. As an illustration of this in our religious life I like to compare the two churches which stand facing each other upon our vil lage street, your white spire with its gilded weathercock and the square stone tower of Trinity. The weathercock sometimes causes a smile on the face of a stranger who has never before seen that interesting relic, but it has a meaning which all should understand. It is an ancient ecclesiastical symbol and is con nected with St. Peter's denial, the cock recalling him to loyalty to his Master. So first it means watchfulness, the cock lifted NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 85 high on his perch crowing for the dawn. So I love to think of your church as St. Peter's Church. Secondly, the vane shows which way the wind blows, and that means, not necessarily trim ming the sails to the popular breeze; it means watching the currents of thought in the world and in the community and being ready to meet them. The stone tower of Trinity Church set four-square to all parts of the horizon represents defense of the ancient truth and testi mony to it, "to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered unto the saints." It means history, as the vane means progress. Both are needed in religion and in the world. This celebration witnesses to the value of an historic past. Truth proved and lived by is the only soil in which new truth can grow. There are permanent elements in religion, in the Christian faith, as in human nature. However much we may learn or invent that is new it must all be consistent with the old truth. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." But men grow, and new circumstances arise which make it necessary to adapt old ideas to modern needs. So the Church of Christ must be alive to all that is going on in the world, be "up to date," as well as solid in its past. Old truth also needs new interpretation as time goes by, a widening of our under standing of its meaning. We do not leave the old behind; we learn more about it. So these two ideals, the one of steadfast ness to the old truth, the other of meeting the needs of the present day, are not contrary to each other. They mutually supplement and complete each other. The effect of these two ideals upon the community is most wholesome. The Episcopal Church, by its standing fast by the old truth and the historic faith, has saved Congregationalism in Connecticut to orthodoxy, and rescued it from the Unitarianism which swept so much of it away in Massachusetts. And Congregationalism has made the Episcopal Church in Connecticut more truly democratic than it generally is elsewhere. And so it is that Christian people are drawn year by year nearer together, not by the suppression of any true ideal of die truth, but by a happy blending and union of each. The day of a complete union of Christian men may be, and probably is, still far ahead of us ; but this is the straight road to it. 86 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION So I thank God for all the good that is done by this congre gation, that you are holding up a high standard of the work of God, that you are doing your best to train your children aright, that you are generous of your means to spread the knowledge of the Word of God here and in foreign lands. Your good works and Christian character help my work. It lifts up the Christian standard in the community. It kindles a fire which not only warms your own home, but sends its genial life-giving influence into the hearts of my own people, and blesses the whole community. Arthur Treat Nettleton Member of Society's Committee and of the Bicentennial Executive Committee ADDRESS By Rev. L. F. Berry of Stamford This is the last of the series of services in which this asso ciation of Congregational churches was invited to participate in recognition of the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of this church. And they were very glad indeed to come as sister churches and pastors of those churches, and friends, and join with you. We extend to you our congratulations that two hundred years of efficient service has been completed, and I think it is fitting that we should have read the formal motion that was adopted here this morning by the council I have had this read because it seems to me it expresses in a more formal and much better way than I could do the spirit of congratulation in which the churches met with you here to-day join. I have been wondering if this church celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of its founding. I ask for this reason : — if there was such a celebration one hundred years ago my great grandfather must have been here at that celebration: for he was at that time the pastor of one of the Litchfield churches and in all probability a church as near as this one was to his a hundred years ago would have been represented at that time. Why is that of interest to me and why is it of passing interest to you? Because these celebrations prevent us from separating ourselves from what has gone before. We owe it not only to the past but to ourselves to keep alive the memory of that work in which they by their devotion gave their strength to this church. It wasn't that the church should keep alive just in their genera tion but that it should keep alive for future generations. We know that the work we are doing now will not die. We know that the spirit of God which has led them in the age that is past is leading us to-day, in a slightly different way, it is true, but the same God and the same spirit commands the workers. The same gospel is taught with slightly different emphases. It is the same spirit that the people feel to-day that was felt one hundred years ago or two hundred years ago, when the people 88 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION in this vicinity got together to form this church to reach the needs of the people of this community. That is why this church was formed, to meet the needs of the people. As I read that tablet on the wall erected to that man who was not only the first minister of Newtown but the first physician and judge and magis trate as well, I think what a man he must have been to teach this knowledge in so many different ways. Now the work of the magistrate and the work of the physician is performed by separate individuals in the community. Our ministers are no longer the magistrates of the communities. Seldom if ever is a minister sent as a delegate to the General Court, but the church has been instrumental in bringing up those men who are fitted to do this work, and the church still is teaching the community on all those points; for the business of the church is to have an oversight of the health of the community. With the pastor and the people the church must be one of those forces which looks to the physical as well as the moral health of the community in which it resides, for above all temporal duties is that fundamental duty of the moral law which the church pro claims, for it is responsible for the moral work in it. In all work we have all of us in the church, pastor and people alike, con ceived the responsibility of all that has to do with our community life,, and the church must still inculcate health and justice in the community, although the minister is no longer a representative of those things. As the centuries pass our work is still the same, and until there is no more work needed in Newtown to make lives cleaner in this community, to make justice more complete, until the last citizen, man or woman (for the next hundred years may see a marked change in that direction), has fulfilled com pletely his several duties, there will still be need of the work of this church here on the hill. That which lies behind you, these two long centuries, is only a fraction of time which the church of Newtown is going to live and going to work, and always to perpetuate all that is good in the past, and we hope our children will perpetuate in the centuries to come, as they try to minister to the people in this community those things which we are trying to minister to them now. Perfection is a long ways off and we sometimes get discouraged; there have been times when it seemed as though this church were lagging in its work, but it is not so, for this church is only beginning to NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 89 fulfill its mission, and it will not be completed until the ideals of religion between man and man in the community are com pletely fulfilled, and that is going to be a long time to come. It takes a long time to fulfill our ideals, but God is patient and we are thankful that he is patient. The ideals in this life have been a long time in their fulfillment, but we have at least the promise of their fulfillment. When in Cologne many years ago, I was surprised to find that the great cathedral there had been almost eight hundred years in building. It is a marvel of the stone maker's art and there it stands completed to-day; but on the walls of one of the chapels in this cathedral is an old time- worn picture, a drawing by the hand of the architect who con ceived that wonderful structure that was to stand for nearly seven hundred years with flat unfinished towers instead of spires. But the picture drawn by the hand of the original architect has the spires on it, all completed, pointing to the God and the Home of God; the God of that people. It was almost eight hundred years before the hope and ideal of the architect of that great cathedral began to be completed. Seven centuries passed with the flat towers instead of spires, but in the eighth century, after man's eyes had grown dull with waiting, after generation after generation had said "It will never be completed," there came a day, and it was in our own day, that the spires were done, and they stand to-day not only a monument to the man who com pleted them but to the man who first conceived the beauty of that cathedral. And so with the work of the church of Christ. It is full of discouragements and it seems at times as though we were not getting anywhere near our ideals. But we must be patient and some day the ideals which God has for his people and the ideals of Jesus Christ will be fulfilled. So we bring you our good cheer and congratulations and our hope that you will accomplish those ideals for which the church and the Kingdom of God have been marked for two hundred years in this community and throughout the world. ADDRESS By Judge John H. Perry, of Southport The whole state, especially your own county, rejoices with the Newtown Church to-day, for it is a glorious thing to have kept a lamp continuously lighted upon a hill top for ten score years. Some of us have come as admiring friends to tell you simply that. Others have come with words of eloquence and cheer and counsel. I have come to be that absolutely essential part of every work of art, the background, against which the real picture stands forth in plain relief. When I was requested to come and talk to you to-day, my instant reply was that of the oft- quoted colored brother who was asked to change a five dollar bill, and answered "I can't possibly do it, Sir, but I certainly thank you for the compliment." Here I am, however, and even a background should not be unmindful of its humble office. I asked for a text, but none was given me. So I will talk to you about one of my pet hobbies, which is that the laymen of a church have other uses than simply, in their connection with the collection plate, to make the dollar famous. On anniversary days we are wont to stop and turn about and look back at the past. If it tends upward all the way we are satisfied and sometimes proud, but whether it tends up or down we must soon face about again and begin our march, for the road continues and our past beckons and time will not wait. So as I stand at that place now, I want to talk to my fellow laymen here before we separate and they go on. I have taken the liberty of committing what I have to say to writing because I have found that the end of the writing in my own case best indicates the end of the address. Observations in widely separated regions of the earth have led me to realize how inexorably environment and atmosphere determine character, influence conscience, and direct the entire life. Where houses are unnecessary, home life is unknown. Where provision does not wait upon effort, effort is forever post poned. Where the need of protection is not imminent, neither is NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 91 a protector believed to be. And so I am satisfied that Christian laymen ought to reflect more seriously upon the fact that after all they constitute the atmosphere of the Church, determine its character, and are responsible for its results. Holding the key to its success fast in our hands, we sparingly dole out in our daily lives the medium through which the labors of its officers can alone bear fruit. Without the help of the pews the pastor's efforts must needs be as barren as are those of a fisherman with a broken net or with no net at all. Preaching is looked upon as the preacher's support, and upright living and white neckties as his specialties, and accordingly, neither of them to the unreligious are especially attractive. But when the ordinary citizen — possibly the life-long neighbor — leads an unvarying life of integrity and helpfulness it is a very dif ferent matter — sufficiently unusual to be worth seeking the reason for, and always influential. When a number of such persons are continually in sight to whom goodness is not an apparent source of revenue, the onlooker begins to be conscious of an inspiring atmosphere and, like Paul, cannot be disobedient to the Heavenly vision. A Church may be fed from the pulpit, but it is warmed from the pews and decorated by the lives of its members, and the warmth diffused by friendly interest and the beauty that shines in consecrated living create an environment congenial to the work of the Holy Spirit and incite an appetite for that spiritual food upon which they are fed. I am not heralding a new discovery. This is merely the confession of one layman that in promoting the mission of the Church he has work to do which is not always done. The doctrine of evolution applies to churches as certainly as to animate nature and from the thunderclad pulpit and two weekly sermons of an hour each has developed the institutional church, the Y. M. C. A., the Christian Endeavor Society, Uni versity settlements, Church brotherhoods and other lay works in endless variety. The demand of the irreligious world for the outstretched hand of the layman has educated their hands and caused them to be stretched forth in ever increasing numbers and thus has immeasurably blessed both helper and helped. So I come again to the thought with which I started — that more and more does it devolve upon the layman to help make religion 92 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION attractive and by his life interpret the sermon to the world, thus alone fulfilling what seems to me his present time peculiar mission. A better verse with which to begin each day cannot be found than "None of us liveth to himself and none dieth to himself." What we can do in connection with the edifice and the organiza tion it is not difficult to state. We can be found in the vestibule with a smile and an outstretched hand both before and after serv ice. That our pew is without a stranger should not be our fault. In Sunday School we can teach a class discovered by our selves. We can attend and take some part in the weekly meeting. We can cheerfully bear the offices of the church and help admin ister its temporalities, giving to them as faithful and intelligent attention as we bestow upon our own. We can represent it in ecclesiastical gatherings and there contribute of our best to the common task. But all of this is the smallest part. It is not in these ways, important as they are, that we can reach those whose need is greatest. The Good Samaritan appears to have been a simple layman doing the kindness which has rendered a nameless one immortal outside of any religious observance, far from any place of wor ship and to the hindrance of his usual business. Who believes that the man who fell among thieves could ever again be indif ferent to that which interested his benefactor or a disbeliever in the worth of that which was the ruling motive in his life ? To have touched a Christlike spirit is closely akin to touching the garment of Him who said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." When busy church members, with the publicly avowed motive that it is Christian so to do, find time to enter into others' labors and lighten them, to seek out the distressed and help them, to visit the fatherless and afflicted and comfort them, to brighten the rayless lives of the submerged, to give purpose to the pur poseless and hope to the despairing, yes, to attend caucuses, to rebuke graft and to enforce law, then is religion made tangible, then are churches filled, then sermons bear fruit and the pews and pulpit become unitedly irresistible. Having expressed my belief that the membership of the church and not the minister regulates its influence and determines the attitude of the world toward it, and produced before you one NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 93 professing Christian layman who confesses that he habitually fails to contribute his share of ozone to the religious atmosphere about him and to be what he should be in the environment, I have brought the merest commonplaces with me and ill repaid your hospitality unless I can suggest something which will make the situation better. My first suggestion is that the laymen must somehow be set in motion. The Samaritans must be persuaded to get upon their beasts and start. An extraneous push of some kind is generally needed and it can best come from a minister who marshals his pews and without* the foolishness of much speaking sets them at work. The average layman pretends not to like this. His inertia is great and his belief in the all-sufficiency of simple faith quite touching, but, believe me, if fairly well done, in his heart he likes it, and if he will only start you need not particularly mind what he says. Sermons are still expected, I suppose, and probably a valid excuse for one can frequently be found, but unless they put Christians in motion they seem to me to fall short of their highest misison. The pastor's door-bell battery will be infre quently exhausted by the visits of the laity in search of tasks to perform, but I honestly believe that they like him best when he works them on worth-while things the hardest, provided he works himself. So I commend the minister who organizes the work, gathers in workers and belongs to the union himself. But it cannot be done with a club and it cannot be done from the rear. We are certainly approaching if we are not already in the age when the pews — viewing society from the standpoint of the church — and lay agencies with their as yet hardly suspected potencies need cultivation and direction of the kindest and wisest sort. Man with man is being found to be the most effective way of working. Andrew found Peter and Philip found Nathaniel and the apostolic College and the Church were thereby immeas urably blessed. As I read the writings of the unconverted and listen to their apologists and watch their ways, it appears to me that the pulpit as such, through no fault whatever of its own, has less and less influence over them. They seem to be almost immune to preach ing except as it is filtered through the pews. The very altruism of the gospel seems to excite suspicion in this selfishly material 94 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION age, and when its claims are advocated by those whose business so to do it is believed to be, their advocacy, for that reason alone, loses its fully deserved weight. In fact, mere advocacy by any one seems to bear little fruit, and foolishness is at times attributable to all preaching except those silent sermons which proceed from cheerful, helpful, self- denying, upright, daily living, and so the surrounding cloud of witnesses, skeptical of everything and demanding that their lot be somehow turned into the bread of greater happiness, impose upon the laymen of the churches a responsibility which is all too inadequately realized. To make us realize it and to prompt and teach us how to bear it I believe to be the choicest mission of the minister and the hope of the church to-day. And so, my brethren and sisters, your lives and mine, I fear, will make this church in the years to come, and every church always, a success or failure. If we wish our friends to see what God is like, we must let them see what he can make us like. Wilson M. Reynolds Member of the Society's Committee ADDRESS By Rev. Sherrod Soule, of Hartford Members of the Church and Congregation of this church of Newtown, and also friends and neighbors present, I bring to you greetings from the State of Connecticut, one hundred miles long and fifty miles wide, with more than a million people in it, and according to the prayer just offered, they are of all sorts and conditions of men. I bring to you the greetings of forty-seven churches who are older than you. There is nothing quite so good after all as a green old age. I also bring to you the envious greetings of two hundred and eighty-four churches, which are not as advanced in this way of living as you are. Of these younger churches I bring the greeting of twenty-two Swedish churches, four Italian churches, two Danish churches, and also German and French churches, and to mention missions we have American, Persian-Assyrian and Bohemian. In the first place I want to congratulate the people on this meeting house, for I will call it a meeting house and think that is the proper term to use in this case. A church is a body of people joined together in the work and worship of God. Here we come to this meeting house, a white church on the hill. I have been in many sanctuaries all over the State and have seen none more beautiful than this sanc tuary here. I congratulate you upon this beautiful place of wor ship. The lines are perfect and the colors harmonious. I have promised to say something to you about the changes in Con necticut in the last two centuries, but already the hour has elapsed and I cannot speak for long. I will not presume upon your patience for already my chariot is at the door, and I have set the hour at half after three. A few years ago I was in California, and one of my friends, boasting of the size of his State and the miles of sea coast, etc., said "We have one county bigger than the whole state of Connecticut. Why Connecticut if put on Cali fornia would be no bigger than the postage stamp on a letter." I said "Yes, but it's the stamp that makes the letter go." Back 96 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION two centuries ago when this church was founded there were no large cities in this State, in fact there were few counties then. There were no Tolland and Middlesex and Litchfield Counties. This Church went through troublesome times. . In those early days men did not have the courage to lift up their voices in pub lic prayer, and it seemed at times as though through financial weakness, the flickering flame would be blown out by the rude blasts of adversity. There were only six places in the State of Connecticut a century or so ago that had over five thousand inhabitants, and where do you suppose the largest of these cities was located? There was Norwalk in your own county, New Haven, Middletown, Hartford, New London, and the largest was Stonington. Bridgeport was not yet on the map and she couldn't keep bragging that she was bigger than Hartford as she does now, and show up the figures to prove it. There was not then that great settled country to the West of us that we have now, nor were the small towns as many as we have now. Wherever you had country you had country and wherever you had city you had but country towns. It meant a certain uniformity among the people, because there was not then that great con centrated wealth and power that we have to-day, and while you found to some extent modest riches it was not necessarily in the cities. There was a homogeneity of the people, a uniformity of church sufficiency, and ministerial quality. Just a few words in closing to say that here after all is your opportunity and here is your accepted time at this two hundredth anniversary. It remains for you to continue in this age that which was left for you by the heroes of the faith that have gone before. One of the great est things for your future is to bring into one grand blend of citi zenship and Christianity those who have come here from far off to make their abode and to live among you. It is a splendid opportunity. I know we belong to that Brahmin caste stock that sort of holds up its skirts and stands aloof and says "They are foreigners." In the old days our ancestors lived on the farms, tilled the soil, and raised large families, one, two, three, four, five or even ten or a dozen children. We have gone away from those farms because we could not make a living on them, and now they are being taken up by foreigners who are bringing up large families just as our fathers did. Among the old stock in Con- NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 97 necticut, the death rate each year is more than one thousand over the increase, and it is left to those who come from across the sea not only to till the soil but to work in the shops and factories. In the City of New Britain, a great manufacturing city of this State, only one out of six is of American born parentage. And it is not only in the cities but over 26% of the farms in Con necticut are owned by men from across the sea. If I only had the time to tell you of the splendid developments of some of those who have come over here. They have not only come to the farms and into the factories but they have gone right into the Church of God, and into the pulpit — in city and country pul pits in Connecticut of the Congregational order, and preaching to native constituencies are ministers classed as German. French, Irish, Swede, Danish, Norwegian, English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Armenian and Bohemian. I have told you of these just to show how these people have come here and entered into everything in our life. I have a daughter, about whom I am just as foolish and just as sensible as other men over their daughters. She is eighteen years old and a Sophomore in Smith College, so she is not imbecile. When she was in high school she stood very well in her Greek, but one day she came home in a little bit of a temper. She had been beaten in her favorite study, and she said, "I wouldn't care if he beat me if his name didn't end with 'sky.' " A Russian Jew, and his name ended in "sky," has bested a scion of Mayflower stock. The time is far spent and I hope I have not trangressed upon your patience, but let me ask you to just get out and meet these people hand to hand and heart to heart. Help them to feel that they are welcomed to everything here that rep resents best life and living. The only way after all is to show ourselves kindly towards them. It is of course harder for the women than it is for the men, because men are naturally more democratic ; they meet them on the street, and give salutations and see them at work and meet them in politics. The women say, "they cannot talk English and it would be very embarrassing for me to go there, and they might return my call." Just try it and you will receive as much as you give in comradeship. Here you have your old church with successive generations of two centuries. You are here to keep the faith, and the greetings I have brought 98 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION to you are the tidings of splendid opportunities and of earnest work, and as the years go on and as the centuries shall pass and others take your places, perhaps we will find rich suggestions of the races from which they were born. And as set forth by my brother here who spoke before me, we will blend ourselves into the one right brotherhood, realizing that righteousness alone exalteth a nation, and under such conditions of peace and pros perity that every instrument of warfare will be turned into imple ments of production, and the nation will enjoy universal and enduring happiness, because its God is the Lord. Levi C. Morris Treasurer of the Society LETTERS OF REGRET. Read at the Bicentennial Celebration. LETTER FROM GOVERNOR SIMEON E. BALDWIN. State of Connecticut Executive Chambers Hartford, October 13, 1914. My dear Sir: Your card of invitation to the Bi-Centennial of the Newtown Congre gational church is received, but absence from the State on the dates named will prevent my attendance. The intimate connection between the ancient church and the ancient town in Connecticut constituted one of the strong influences which have made the State what it is. The rounding out of two centuries by any church of any denomination is an event of real importance in the history of the political community in which it was founded, and I am glad that New town is to celebrate this event in so worthy a manner, and has secured the aid of men of such distinction as those named upon the program. Yours very truly, Simeon E. Baldwin. To Cornelius B. Taylor, chairman, Committee on Invitations, Newtown, Conn. BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION LETTER FROM R. H. SMITH. 229 West College St., Oberlin, Ohio, October 13, 1914. To the Committee on Invitation, Congregational Church, Newtown: I thank you for remembering me in your invitations to the 200th anni versary of the Newtown Congregational church. I came to Newtown, a beardless lad in my 'teens, to teach the school in Taunton district. The schoolhouse still had the old-fashioned desks around three sides of the room, with a backless seat in front of it, and I taught for $1 a day and board, boarding around among the families whose children I taught. My father, Rev. H. B. Smith, was pastor of the Congregational church and men and women then bearing the burden and heat of the day in church life have entered into rest. Some of them I can never forget and, though lost to sight, they are yet to memory dear. The Fairchild brothers, Dea. Henry and William, Mrs. Sanford of Sandy Hook, the Wheeler family, Charles Northrop and his brothers of Sugar Street, Samuel Scudder of Dodgingtown, George Ruffles of the Rackets, Mrs. Zalmon Peck of Mile Hill and so many more — not to forget dear Uncle John Griggs, the faithful, though illiterate sexton. The friendships that one makes in regular attendance on the Lord's Day worship are not the least of the blessings of a baptism into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Now, they are but a memory to some of the younger pillars in the sanctuary of our God, but their influence, as various as the hues that make the rainbow arch so beautiful, will never fail with the scattered remainder whose own hands are already whitening with the snow that never melts. This is a day of memories, as all anni versaries are, and let us remember that we built on the "foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone." Those founding this household of God had no doubt of the Trinity, of the Word of God, of the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, nor of the sinfulness of the human heart, and the necessity of a new birth into spiritual realities, built "for an habitation of God through the Spirit" by private and family prayer, regular use of the means of grace, that they might receive the unsearchable riches of Christ. Let not present glory despise the faith once delivered to the saints : "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen." Reuben Hazen Smith. Arthur J. Smith Treasurer of the Church NEWTOWN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 10 1 LETTER FROM REV. JAMES P. HOYT. St. Petersburg, Fla., Oct. 22, 1914. It now seems probable that I shall not be with you at the 200th anni versary. It is a great disappointment to me, but the necessity of return ing to our Florida home at an earlier date compels me to miss the opportunity of seeing and speaking to many friends of the memories of my sixteen years as pastor and of incidents and events in church, town and academy which might be of interest. So please say for me that in addition to my historical sermons (to which you refer in your letters and which were published in The Bee and in the History of Fairfield County) there is an unwritten history of joy, sorrow and memorable experiences of the sermons, calls, pastoral work, funerals, weddings and church services and of kindness received from the people of sixteen years, which, if written or told, would show that I love Newtown, its churches and people and am closely bound to you all forever. Newtown was long my home and is the place where my loved ones are buried. No other place, people or church can so claim my affection and interest. From your old pastor, J. P. Hoyt. THE MEMORIAL TABLETS At the time the work of renovating the interior of the church was in progress two memorial tablets were placed on the walls of the auditorium for Rev. Thomas Tousey, the first minister of the church, and Samuel Curtis Blackman, a layman of the church in its early days, memory of whose devout Christian character is a rich heritage to the church. The committee hav ing this work in charge gave much time to the carrying out of the commission and are deserving the thanks of all interested in this historic church. The committee consisted of Arthur Treat Nettleton, Mrs. Levi C. Morris, Miss Susan J. Scudder and Rev. Timothy J. Lee. A copy of the inscriptions on the tablets follow : In Memory of Rev. Thomas Tousey. 1688— 1761. Yale 1707. First Minister of this Church. 1714— 1724. Newtown's First Physician, Magistrate, Delegate to the General Court. In Memory of Samuel Curtis Blackman. 1768— 1858. Yale 1793. Newtown's First Judge of Probate, Exemplary Christian and Patron of Education, Faithful Official and Devoted Friend of this Church. MINISTERS OF THE CHURCH 1714-1914 Thomas Tousey 1714 — 1724 Yale John Beach 1724 — 1732 Yale Elisha Kent 1732 — 1742 Yale David Judson 1743 — 1776 Yale Zepheniah H. Smith 1786 — 1790 Yale Jehu Clark 1799 — 1816 Yale William Mitchel 1825 — 1831 Andover Nathaniel M. Urmston 1832 — 1838 Alexander Leadbetter 1840 — 1842 Jason Atwater 1845 — 1856 Yale William H. Moore 1856 — 1862 Yale William F. Arms 1863 — 1864 Daniel W. Fox 1865—1867 Henry B. Smith 1867 — 1873 Amherst James P. Hoyt 1874 — 1890 Yale Samuel W. Delzell 1890 — 1893 Yale Otis W. Barker 1893 — 1905 Amherst Ralph E. Danforth 1905 — 1907 Alexander W. Steele 1908 — 1912 Yale Timothy J. Lee 1913 — Yale YALE UNIVERSITY L 3 9002 08866 2912 ¦ :